From Nice Guy to Integrated Man with Dr. Robert Glover

Eric speaks with Dr. Robert Glover about how to break free from the Nice Guy Syndrome .

Dr. Robert Glover is a therapist, coach, speaker, and educator is a relationship expert with over 40 years of professional experience. The author of the groundbreaking, No More Mr. Nice Guy. Dr. Glover has helped thousands of men world-wide transform their lives and get what they want in relationship, sex, and career.

We chat about:

➡️ Where did the term "Integrated Man" come from
➡️ The 2 survival Mechanisms of a nice guy
➡️ The 3 covert contracts that might be running your life
➡️The 4 step method to get out of the Nice Guy Paradigm for good!

To get to know Dr. Robert, visit his website and subscribe to his YouTube channel.

 

Join the FREE Evolved Men's Collective Facebook Group

Book Your Breakthrough Plan

FREE RESOURCE - The Four Skills to Evolve your Marriage

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Eric MacDougall
Hey, everyone. So I'm really, really excited for you to listen to this episode. I'm so excited that it's finally been released. I speak with Dr. Robert Glover, who is the author of the book No more Mr. Nice Guy. This is an amazing book, not only for men, but also for women around this idea of nice guy syndrome or nice guy tendencies, where we try to project this image of ourselves, because we think it will serve us and get us what we want. And he goes much deeper into that in the book. But today we talk specifically about, you know why people do this and how to get out of that because it's really not living authentically. Instead, it's living behind this kind of nice guy mask, if you will, which we talked about on the episode. So if you guys don't know him, Dr. Robert Glover is a coach, speaker and educator. And he's a relationship expert, with over 40 years of professional experience. He's the author of the groundbreaking November's a nice guy, like I mentioned. So if you haven't checked out his book, please do. It's amazing. He's helped 1000s of men and women worldwide, get what they want when it comes to life, sex, and love. So I hope you enjoy this episode, we talked about some pretty deep stuff around psychology, and really how to get out of these common patterns that nice guy find themselves in. So I hope you love it. Awesome. I'm sure you hear this all the time. But your book completely changed my life, as it changed the lives for a lot of men.

Dr. Robert Glover
I hear that all the time. And believe me, I don't get tired of hearing it. I like knowing that.

Eric MacDougall
Amazing. Yeah, I always recommend it in the work that I do. Yeah, I wanted to focus on this idea of being more integrated. I think, you know, for the most part, you know, when we talk about covert contracts, we're hyper aware of how they show up in our lives. I think as men, especially as recovering nice guys. We're hard on ourselves when these things come up. But I think we lack a bit of direction and follow through as to how to be more integrated, because it takes courage. Right, it takes a boatload of courage to be integrated.

Dr. Robert Glover
Yeah. And you know, I'll kind of give you a little background because I actually was just having a discussion at a workshop here in my house this weekend. And one of the guys in the workshop said why did you Why do you call you know, these men integrated men and no more Mr. Nice Guy. And I said, Well, actually, that was a process of when I was writing no more Mr. Nice Guy. I thought I was about done. I sent the book off to an editor and he read it and wrote me back so we're about halfway done. He said, You know, you got too many too many illustrations to too many examples. You don't have to tell your reader everything, you know, they just have to know what they need to know, to work on this. And he said, and you're telling them what not to be you're telling them not to be a nice guy. So you have to actually tell them what they're going to become and okay and then he said and you need to tell people how to do that how to get there. And I said well I'm a therapist you know I don't I don't tell people what to do that's not even before coaching you know really was making is big seem like it is now where coaches do often help people really figure out what to do so that's where the both the breaking free exercises very free activities and no more Mr. Nice Guy came from his Okay, I gotta I gotta give guys things they can work with to leave this nice guy paradigm behind and integrate a new paradigm and integrate. Okay, integrated man. And like I was telling the guy in the workshop this weekend. I couldn't call it conscious man. authentic man, nowadays embodied man is I'm in a program, you know, for embodied men I got to participate in so, you know, there's no right name, we could call it a lot of different names. For me integration, I think I think what really what I settled on it and it was a process of trying to make that decision is I say in the introduction of no more Mr. Nice Guy, that breaking free from the nice guy syndrome is not a process of becoming a different person, or a better person, but becoming more of everything that you are embracing all that you are. And to me, that's integration. Because nice guys have often, you know, the basic Nice Guy paradigm that typically begins very early in infancy, when when a child has painful or negative experiences, they they believe, okay, there's something about me that causes these painful experiences. And for the nice guy, what they internalize that a very primitive emotional state is, I have to become what I think other people want me to be to get their love. And for them to like me, for me to get my needs met. And that's where covert contracts come in. And the second thing is, I have to hide anything about me that might get a negative reaction from people and we're nice guys, as most often their needs and wants and their sexuality. So becoming integrated means we're bringing all of this together of who are you as a person as a human being, your strengths, your weaknesses, your flaws, your mistakes, your insecurities, your self limiting beliefs, your dark sexual energy, your purpose, your power, your passion, how do we bring all of that and integrate that into one person, to where you can embrace and love and accept all of who you are all of who I am, without judgment, without criticism, without toxic shame without trying to hide anything about ourselves without trying to become what we think other people might want us to be? So to me, that's, that's that process of integration.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, and I absolutely love the way you described it. I actually wanted to kind of go deeper, a little bit into this idea of our identity with being a nice guy, right? You talk about this idea of being a recovering nice guy, you talk about tendencies. But how do you help men through your practice, but also just in general, through the stuff you put out there? To really, I would say, like, let go of this identity of being a nice guy. And instead, kind of separating themselves from some of these behaviors. Yeah,

Dr. Robert Glover
let's back it up a little bit and kind of turn it over to you alluded, my my training and background. My doctorate is in marriage and family therapy. So you know that that involves studying child development, human development. And there's a process every human goes through. As a child were born, we are completely helpless, dependent, needy, vulnerable. And I remember maybe first day in child development one on one, that teacher said that a child's greatest fear is abandonment, because abandonment means that child can't take care of themselves. Humans, I think are the longest maturing mammals on the planet, you know, it used to be about took about 15 or 16 years for a human to develop full maturity. Now it's about 35 years. So if you're a millennial, or Generation X, I might be longer. But we're dependent and needy. So we're very vulnerable. And the human brain doesn't finish getting wired up till late adolescence, early adulthood. So basically, for us men are your mind, prefrontal cortex didn't finish wiring up to about age 25. That's why our car insurance rates tend to go down 25, we could do so much stupid stuff, because we can reason it out better. But the part of the brain that is completely online at birth is the part down on a brainstem called the amygdala, probably most of us have heard of that as part it controls the fight flight freeze mechanism. Therefore, anytime we have an anxiety response that's involved, it also controls survival respiration, heartbeat. The theory is that when a young child could be in utero few weeks old, few months old, two years old, has any kind of uncomfortable experience. they internalize that into that deep primitive part of the brain as emotional memory. Now this uncomfortable experience might be you're hungry and nobody picks you up and feed you you're cold and nobody wraps you up your your diapers dirty and nobody changes you right away, or your parents fight or they maybe get abused. Or maybe you get abandoned in some way. And it can be all the way from what we might think or just mild discomfort to severe discomfort, but for every child, any discomfort is life threatening. So what children do at a very primitive level, you did this, I did this, every one of your listeners did this. We don't remember doing this, but we did it. We developed two survival mechanisms. One One was to try to soothe or medicate the uncomfortable feelings in that moment. Now, for me, I stuck my thumb in my mouth, I stuck my thumb till I was in kindergarten. So I guess maybe I'd had a lot of uncomfortable moments. Maybe my cry like, my baby might not cry at all, a baby might eat, a lot of baby might throw up a lot in some sleep a lot, every little baby. And this isn't logical. This is just an emotional, animal primitive reaction to discomfort, and how can I make that discomfort go away right now. Also, at a very primitive nonverbal level, the baby also tries to do things so they don't experience these uncomfortable feelings again in the future. And so every human being does this. This is why as humans, we are also friggin garden. This is why we say we want relationship we want to be close, which keep everybody like this, but we do it typically, pretty unconsciously. Some of us do it consciously, I'm not gonna let you get close to me, you might find out, I'm this or I'm that, and then you'll leave me or shame me, cheat on me. But I've been a marriage therapist for probably close to 40 years, I've been married three times. So I mean, this is personal as well. And I'm bumbled my way through every relationship because always both people in any relationship are trying to get some degree of closeness and intimacy and get their needs met, while still having all their defensive armor in place to protect themselves from being hurt to protect themselves from vulnerability, and their offensive armor in place. You know, our, our lightsabers, our nuclear weapons or our sword, our handgun, you know, we're doing all of that with the people we're claiming to love and get close to. So everybody does this to some degree. But everybody's two defense mechanisms are unique for that individual. And so the nice guy syndrome is just one kind of broad classification of how those two defense mechanisms can play out. As I said, I'll try to become what I want everybody else to be, I'll be happy all the time, I'll smile, I'll give, I'll avoid conflict, I won't do anything to upset anybody, I'll never be a moment's problem, I won't have needs, I won't be needy I, I won't be bad, I won't do bad things. We know, whatever that may be. That's the roadmap, we all that nice guys develop often in infancy. It got reinforced in adolescence, when we're kinda, you know, coming into our own and developing who are who am I as a person and trying to get the attention of the opposite sex and trying to figure out how to succeed at school in life. So it gets really so solidified adolescence, and then by time we reach young adulthood, it's our roadmap is how we think the world should work. If I want to get love, I want to be liked, but I want to get my needs met, I have to become this to get that to happen. And I have to hide this. And so again, integration is how do do we pull all of that together and say, This is who I am, you know, and know that some people are gonna like me and love me, some people aren't. And you know, I'm fully responsible for getting my needs met. So I'm going to surround myself with people gonna help me get my needs met. This is all part of integration. And as part of me that I've been hiding, a big part of nice guy recovery. And I say this in the book early on, don't try to do this alone, you need to find safe people. And for me, that began in a 12 step group. And then I got a therapist. And then I joined a men's group. And even today, many, you know, 30 years later, after I began that process, I'm in a men's program that I've been in for five years, because I'm still doing that work, of integrating of becoming everything that I am, without shame, without fear, bring everything out of the darkness, being with it, feeling the fear of it, feeling the anxiety of it, and integrating that into the total of my personality. And yeah, I'm 66 years old, almost 67. So I'm still doing that work. So I think it is a life long process of just learning to love self and be self. Let the world see self and, and, you know, be grateful. Yeah, I am exactly who I am. And so that's the process and we'll talk more about what are some of those tools to do it. But it really begins with finding those safe people to practice being you whether it's a coach, a therapist, a 12 step group therapy group, you know, landmark forum, it doesn't matter to go find a place where you can start opening up revealing you releasing toxic shame. Realizing people still accept you. I remember like I said, my first 12 Step group as a 12 step group for sex addicts, because my then wife kept telling me Here's the sex addict. But I quickly realized I wasn't having enough sex to be a sex addict. And some of these guys, man, and they were hardcore, they had some gnarly stuff going on in their life, it was all guys. So I'd go every week and just share everything about me. I've never told anybody before I grew up in a fundamental Christian church, my father was critical to degrees and religion, you know, I'm always trying to do everything right. So I just started revealing everything I always kept hidden. And it felt liberating. And you know, the most severe response ever God is, thank you for sharing Robert. And then you know, I got into therapy, and then I got into a men's group. And like, I could just keep revealing me and nobody ever, nobody ever melted down. Nobody ever had a big reaction, oh, you're terrible. Or you think terrible things, you do terrible things. And then also, you get more accurate feedback from the safe people as to who you really are, you're not a bad person, you're not an evil person, you're not a sin person, you're not a disgusting person, you're a human, and you have human needs and wants and desires and fantasies and imperfections. And if we can get that feedback that that's okay, that makes us who we are, that we can begin to release these these paradigms, whether whether it's a nice guy roadmap, or some other roadmap we've been using to try to navigate love and life and everything else.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah, and a lot of what you're talking about, I mean, you're you're actually sharing stuff at a really high level, which I really appreciate. A lot of things you're talking about are these fundamental belief systems that we continue to carry into our lives. And I remember when I read the book, I've probably read it now about five or six times, and you talk about these three fundamental contracts, you will write that nice guys typically take into their lives, I'd love for you to share exactly what those are, because I think a lot of our listeners can relate to them. And then after we can maybe talk about how to start, you know, moving away from that and being more integrated in, you know, all of who we are, and making choices that are aligned with our deepest self. Right.

Dr. Robert Glover
So yeah, the covert contracts. I know. Probably, like, like you shared with me earlier. I hear I've been hearing for many years now. No more Mr. Nice Guy has been out almost 20 years. I've been hearing for years, you know, men and women saying, Robert, your book changed my life. You How do you know me so well, if you've been spying on me if you've been following me around. And probably the piece that I hear most often more than other things of what got what guys and women will say that they got the most out of the book was the covert contracts. And I really got in touch with this pretty, pretty early on, I mentioned I was in a men's group. And somehow that that term just popped up while I was processing how I was trying to get people to like me and love me and never get mad at me and, and then so I started looking at that. And even since writing no more Mr. Nice Guy, I've gotten even clearer about exactly how those covert contracts play out. And probably these covert contracts are a real key identifier of nice guy syndrome. So if you are a man or a woman, and you do these three things, and we usually do one more than others, but we use the app of some degree of all three, if we're a nice guy, or a nice girl, so if you recognize them, or if you recognize them in somebody, you know, you can probably go oh, that's a nice guy. That's a nice girl. And the motional dynamics are the same for men and women. Again, even though the books written towards men, a lot of women read it and say, I got a lot out of the book, both understanding you know, the man in my life, but understanding my own shame and covert contracts and all those those behaviors. So the three covert contracts. Number one, is it if I am a good person, I will be liked and loved and get my needs met. Now, all of these covert contracts are flawed, that none of them work, but and they're all an if then proposition, you know, if I do this, then this should happen. And they're often an if then proposition with individual people, with groups of people with the world with God. If I do this, then you know, so if I'm a good guy, then I'll be liked and loved and get my needs met. Now, the only problem is, you know, who's the scorekeeper that I'm the good year? I think I'm a good guy do everything right now. I've also found I write about this in no more Mr. Nice Guy. There's what I call the I'm so bad. Nice guy. I'm so good. Nice guys. I'm good. I do everything right. The I'm so bad, nice guy is I'm a fuckup I do everything wrong. It's only a matter of time when people find out but I at least have to try to do every you know, do everything I can be good. So I'll get loved and I can get my needs met. So you know, every every great book ever written whether whether it's the Old Testament, New Testament, Koran, basically saying, nobody's good enough. We're all we're all flawed, well fall short of the glory of God. Right. All of that, that there is there is no person who's ever completely good. And the other fallacy is is that no matter how good you are, people may dislike you. They I mean, if you look at some of the best people who've ever lived, whether you know whether it was Jesus, he got nailed on a cross or whether it was Gandhi, whether it was Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King you look at people you know that that were really bringing something good to the world. And they were disliked that oh, okay, just being good isn't isn't a guarantee to be liked. And, and no matter again, no matter how good you may be, that's not a ticket, they're both gonna like you or love you or want help you meet your needs. Which brings us to covert contract number two. If I meet everybody else's needs without them having to ask, then they will meet my needs without me having to ask. So nice guys tend to be caretakers we tend to be fixers we give to get, we're codependent. That's what basically nice guy syndrome is, is codependency. So it's a borrowed functioning, if I give to you, then you'll get back to me. But the problem is, the covert contracts are covert, meaning they're hidden. You know, nobody else knows we're giving all of this so that they will give back whether we're giving to the world are giving to God or giving to our partner or giving to our children. And then thinking that they will appreciate us for that they will love us for that they will, they will just know what we need, even though we never tell them they'll give to us. And again, the flaws of this is number one, it doesn't work. Giving to get is actually manipulative and not particularly loving. The other person doesn't know there's an actual contract here, they don't know that every time you give to them, you know you're keeping track, you got a scoreboard and they're supposed to be giving back to you in kind, at least appreciate you, and maybe never get mad at you or want to have sex with you so that it's pay off. But another problem with covert contract number two, besides it being hidden, secretive, and nobody knows that exists, but you and often the nice guy doesn't even know it exists. They just know I give all the time and nobody gives back. And how you know you're in a covert contract is you tend to feel resentful, and Rachel, Rachel and victimized and done to when other people don't give back or appreciate you in the ways that you want. That's how you notice a covert contract. The other problem is is nice guys are inherently terrible receivers, we're not good at letting people give to us. Every woman I've ever had in my life has said, Robert, you're difficult to give to. And and I've been hearing that for long enough. Now I think it may be there's some truth to it. So I've had to work and opening and being receptive, whether it's me giving to myself, asking other people to give to me, or embracing the things people just want to give to me without because they because they want to give just like as a nice guy, I get pleasure in giving other people get get pleasure and giving as well. But we have to let them we have to let them know what it is we'd like them to give us and then we have to open and receive it. So these are all the reasons covert contract number two doesn't tend to work out very well. Covert contract number three is if I do everything right, then I will have a smooth problem free world. And again, nobody does everything right. And what is you know, who determines what the right thing is in every situation. But nice guys tend to be kind of Peter Pan ish, where we want the world to be smooth and everything go well, and everybody be happy and smiling. And you know, they're not being the bad people if people don't do bad things to other people. But last I checked, that's not the planet we live on. We are primates and you know, our closest relatives are chimpanzees, and their violent motherfuckers. I mean, they attack just for the fun of it. And we do it. We're also thankfully also very closely related to bonobos, which are very loving and peaceful and caring. So we got some of both of those, I think in our DNA. So this thing that if I do everything right, all the smooth and problem free world just doesn't really fit the world. The cosmos by nature is chaotic. It began with a big bang. I mean, it was chaotic. It still is expanding is always in motion. And things just happen. I mean, here I live here in porta Viar toe Mexico. Two weeks ago, we had a hurricane that blew right over us, luckily just dumped a lot of rain didn't hurt us. By two weeks before that we had a 7.7 earthquake that my house was rockin and rollin in so that's life, right that's life. People die. People get sick. COVID happens. wars happen. Accidents happen. That's That's life. That's the physical world we live in. So thinking if I just do everything right, none of that stuff will ever happen is childlike is Peter panish. I don't want to grow up I want to read I want to stay in the nursery. I want everything to be smooth and easy. I don't I don't want to be criticized. I don't want to be challenged. I don't want to be hurt. And again, these are all pretty much all three, the covert contracts are really pretty immature. They're the holdover of that paradigm, we created the roadmap we created. Again, when we were five days old, five, five months old, five years old. So this is what tends to permeate nice guys lives. And it's one of the reasons I write in the book, nice guys aren't always so nice, because we're resentful. We're frustrated, we then we get passive aggressive, we hurt people in roundabout indirect ways. Maybe even have what my ex wife used to call victim pukes where we blow up and puke all this out. You know, even you know, I, it pains me to even see like, some of these behaviors were like young men, pick up a rifle a bunch of ammunition and go shoot people. And most of them are saying stuff kind of like, you know, you know, it's not fair, I'm being done to, you know, I should have this in my life. And they're coming from that really place of, I think many of them, there's a mental illness, of course, wrapped in there. But I think with that is a covert contract, I do everything right. And I don't get any of the things I want. That's not fair, I'm gonna go shoot people. So that's an extreme version of the not so nice behavior of the covert contracts. And of course, most nice guys aren't going to go to that extreme. But most of us do walk around feeling kind of resentful, kind of victimized kind of done to kind of like we're not getting our share. And as guaranteed, as long as you're living by these unconscious covert contracts, you're guaranteed to feel like you're not getting your share, and you're not getting your needs met, and you're not getting the love you want. So this is really as a really core in the whole nice guy syndrome.

Eric MacDougall
Yeah. And you talked about I love how you explain them all at such a deep level. And you talked about this idea of these if then propositions and a lot of times when I work in my coaching practice with recovering nice guy is trying to be more integrated, I often think about this idea of transactional relationships. And you talked about this idea which I was totally like that as well, where I needed to somehow be the person that was giving more than somebody was giving me so I was always reluctant when I was receiving compliments when my wife wanted to do something for me. I was like, no, no, like, I didn't do enough yet. I'm gonna wait till I do something, then you'll write exactly. And it's very transactional, which, to me when I talk about it, in my practice, it's the death of intimacy. Like there's it's very hard and here's,

Dr. Robert Glover
here's the funny thing because you're right, you're 100% right about that. It when you say transactional is scorekeeping, you know I've got a scoreboard, you know, in my bedroom or in my living room, or wherever I do all this, the opponent isn't doing anything back, it's out of balance is not fair. Now, the paradox is really all all human relationships, especially adult relationships, I would, I would say, not so much with twin parent child, but all relationships really are fundamentally transactional. You know, if you're not getting anything out of a relationship, why would you be in it? Right. So, they are transactional by nature. Now, with that said, when we basically when transaction, it gets turned into scorekeeping and the scorekeeper is biased and the scorekeeper is a terrible receiver and the scorekeeper is a caretaker and a fixer. And the scorekeeper tends to pick people that either need caretaking or fixing or he perceives they do or she does the Yeah, everything is going to be a transaction. I did this I did this and I did this and you didn't do that. You treated me back. You didn't You didn't appreciate me at that. And and what happens is a nice guy just ruminates and spins about the unfairness of all of this and in the victim pukes. My, my ex wife named that term, my second wife, and she used to say, you know, I'd rather be with an asshole because I know an apple is gonna treat me bad all the time. You know, you treat me well, and everything's you're a nice guy. And then when I'm not expecting it, you either like hurt me embarrass me or you do these victim pukes. And remember after some of these victim pukes, he would say how long has that been building up inside of you? I mean, all these things had been rehearsing in my head, they all came out and they weren't nice, right? They weren't nice, because I was so victimized. And how long have you been thinking those things? I don't know. Six months maybe? Did it ever cross your mind to just tell me? No, I knew you'd get mad at me if I told you. So this is better. You let it build up. And then after six months that all come puking out and you say hurtful things to me and you're out of control. And you're mean and then and then you have a shame attack afterwards because you feel like you did such a terrible thing. She goes, maybe you should risk me not being happy with what you tell me. But you know, do it anyway. That's a novel idea. I think I'll write a book about that. Oh, I am writing a book about that. So Yeah, this is my story, this nice guy recovery thing is all my own story. So that is why you don't want to talk about being an integrating male, one of the core aspects of an integrated males, he makes his needs a priority. And I know when I talk, when I said back when I was in private practice, I've seen a lot of men doing five men's groups a week seen a lot of guys, you know, not, I'd say, All right, you have to start making yourself number one, you have to make your needs a priority, putting yourself first and make nice, so this deer in the headlight terrified look like, oh, no, I'll know, you know, I'll be disliked, you know, I'll be rejected, everybody will get called selfish, I'll be told I'm bad. And again, because it ties into that paradigm of childhood, I'm bad for me needs, I'm bad for me once I gotta hide them. And so this is a really challenging dynamics for recovering nice guys to start making their needs a priority, rather than the giving to get and I know, you know, in early in my recovery when I was in this men's group, and I was also in a couples group with my wife with the same therapist. And I realized that I, you know, had these covert contracts I was always trying to give to my wife would love me, so she'd think I was special. So she'd want to have sex with me, so she'd be happy, so she wouldn't get mad. And so I was giving all the time. And so, um, as part of the therapeutic process, I made a decision working with a therapist and my wife knew about it, where for one year, I went on a giving moratorium, I stopped, I quit giving gifts, surprises, cards, back rubs, whatever, for a year, to primarily to my wife, I still, you know, took care of my kids in ways they needed. But every time I had the mental impulse to like, buy something from my wife, or give her a surprise, or plan something or do something nice for her, I had to stop and just notice the impulse because the impulse was a covert contract, like me, love me have sex with me, don't be mad at me. And instead of doing something for her, I had to do something for myself. Wow, that was I was gonna buy some for her. I had to buy something for myself. If I was gonna treat her to something I had to treat myself and I didn't have to be, you know, tit for tat. But I had to spend a year rather than giving to her and caretaking codependent covert contract ways, taking care of me, that process of beginning to give to myself and receive, right like you say, receiving compliments or receiving, you know, things people want to give us. That began the process of letting other people give to me as well. And, and, and there's probably three levels to this, this first time ever really spelled it out exactly like this. So you're getting a first at one level, we have to recognize there's a problem I'm giving to get, I'm not a good receiver, I have to start giving to myself, I gotta go to the dentist, I just did that yesterday. I've got to exercise, I've got to eat healthy, I gotta get enough sleep, I gotta buy appropriate clothes for myself, I gotta, I gotta take care of me. Right, there's one that I gotta give to me. A second level is to surround ourselves with people who want to give to us, and let them know what we would like from them. That's a transactional relationship. I call them cooperative, reciprocal relationships. And it's kind of how we turn covert contracts overt? So like you and I have a cooperative reciprocal relationship. You asked me if I come on your show, I said, Yeah, you get to promote me, he's been on your show, you get to promote my book is transactional. And we're doing it because we both get value out of it. And he's cooperative. I went to the dentist yesterday as transactional, she she, you know, put two temporary crowns on and I'm permanent crowns next week. And I pay for that, you know, she can pay her bills, it gives me a service. And so it is transactional. Those are cooperative, reciprocal relationships. So we have to learn to surround ourselves with people, professionals, practices that all fill our bucket up that all help us. And then the third part of this and I don't know if they're if they're actually if you can distinguish the three things. We have to practice receiving. We have to let ourselves give to ourselves. We have to let other people get to us without getting caught up in neurotic guilt that I'm doing something wrong or the fear or Oh no, no, no. Are you pushing it away? And that's a process and again a pretty scary process I a story I tell that I remember when after my second divorce and got out in the dating world. And you know, I've always been you know, I built my first my first two marriages were built on Oh, I can give to this person. I can fix their life. I can make their lives better. They'll love me they'll want to be with me. So it's so they're very much codependent relationships. But as I started dating, I really started trying to be a lot more conscious about the women I was picking to go out with not falling into those rescuing tendencies. It's called Red Pill Captain save a whole, you know, I'll go fix her make her life better, she'll want to be she'll think I'm great want to be when I paid attention to that. But what I also paid attention to is the women wanting to give to me. And I thought, because I was wanting, you know, they're wanting to give to me, you know, affection, gifts, sacks, and I want to reverse it around. And you know, Oh, I gotta give something back. So I just, I just started just practicing receiving dated one woman who worked in retail fashion sales. So Nordstrom J, crew, stuff like that. We dated for a while. But I remember early on, she came over to my apartment, and I washed my clothes and dried it. And I'd laid them out on the couch to fold later on and wasn't thinking about it when she came over. And she just started folding my clean clothes. I said, No, no, no, stop, you don't have to do that. I don't want you to do that. She goes, I liked doing it. And I said, Okay, and so I'm good at it. Okay, and I want to do it. Okay. And she said, but I won't put, I won't put the stacks of clothes away, you have to do that I go, I'm not going to put them away, I'm going to leave them in nice, nice stacks, right there on the couch. Or I could look at them every day and say I'm loved. You know, and then I to really to start that to keep that practice going. Every time I did my laundry after that, I'd leave it on the couch, she'd come over fold it. Because if I didn't do that she got where I can meet him, Let me fold your laundry, you know, she wanted to be able to give to me, I had to practice letting her. And so I still do that to my my wife, we're at today's our sixth anniversary, for my present wife and I. So

I love to give to her she loves to give to me. And the little things we will joke about having a contest who can help bless the other one who cannot love the other one who cannot give the other one but without without the strings attached or transaction. So like, I'll just be getting up to go do something like, take a bag of garbage out front, you know, it's just a matter of going out to gates and putting it on the street. It's all 30 feet from my front door. And I'll be doing that she goes, Do you need some help? And you know, my reflexive reaction was No, no, no, I got this. I don't I don't need any help to carry the garbage from the kitchen to the street. And she does that frequently. Do you need help? And my my instinctive response is No, I don't, I've got it. I don't really need help to do this. Until I realized I don't need the help. But she wants to be with me. She wants to be involved in this, this behavior with me and as a way of besides giving to me. And so now even if it's the most trivial little thing, I'm getting up to go in the kitchen to get some forks, you know, for sure. Do you need any help? Sometimes I'll be Yeah, come help me carry some forks to the table. Yeah, come help me take the garbage out. And then we just kind of you know, enjoy a good laugh with each other and enjoy that moment. So this is a practice giving to ourselves, surrounding ourselves with people who want to give to us as we are clear with them what we need from them, and then letting them give to us. Maybe that's even for four stages, if you break it down completely, giving to ourselves, surrounding ourselves with people who want to give being clear about what we need and want and letting them give. So yeah, we'll break that for stages right there. You're the first person to get that. Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
I love that. And you can trademark it right here, Dr. Really, really amazing, Robert, because I was gonna ask you to give something actual. But that is such an amazing way to see it. And even as you were talking, you know, I could feel myself come up because it's even something that I do still in my own marriage, right? My wife will come home from work. She had a tough day at work. And they'll be like, hey, I'll make dinner tonight. And in my head. I'm like, I work from home. Like it's all good. I'll take care of dinner. But instead, I you know, it's like, Okay, awesome. Yeah, I'll catch up on some stuff, or I'll go work out. Thank you for that. But instead, immediately my mind is like, no, no, you had a tough day at work. So I will take care of you. And I'm going to take this opportunity for you to care for me totally away from you. And I don't see it that way. But that's actually what's happening is just as you were talking about it, I'm like, Man, I do that in my own life. So like, yeah, it's a constant practice. And just

Dr. Robert Glover
remember, just like it gives you pleasure to give to others to make their life better to make their world good. Other people get pleasure out of giving to you giving to us, and who are we to rob them of that pleasure, just because we're bad receivers, or because we don't need it, or we can do it ourselves or you know, we want to be the good person because we're going to do it for them. So that really as funny as it sounds, it really is a powerful practice to let people give to you. Yeah,

Eric MacDougall
yeah, absolutely that so I definitely want to respect your time. not clever. Thanks so much for being here today. I want everybody pick up your book. So I assume it's available everywhere. It's been out for almost 20 years.

Dr. Robert Glover
Amazon, you know, everything's on Amazon.

Eric MacDougall
But I'd also love to hear what you're putting out. I had a friend who actually took part in one of your trainings recently. Okay, that's really great. So I know you're still putting stuff out there. So what are you currently putting out into the world that people can really connect with?

Dr. Robert Glover
I'm laughing because I guess that I'm 67 in a couple about a little less than a month. And you know, about a year ago, I took a three month sabbatical, I called it to just kind of slow things down a little bit, write more, spend more time just, you know, not having so many demands. And so I didn't see clients didn't do interviews. And I came away from that going, Well, I'm not ready to retire yet. And I still love what I do. So if I retired, I just do what I do. So I thought, and there's some things I want to do. I want to convert all of my online courses that were written courses into video courses. So I've spent the last year doing that I'm still I'm gonna redo a couple of those. And then I, I have like four books in process right now that they're all kind of outlined. And you know, and I've got to work bouncing around, and I need to make a decision and like, complete one and then complete another. So for books, I've two more recent books that came out in the last two to three years. One is dating essentials for men. The second is dating essentials for men frequently asked questions that have like, you know, 100 subjects with close to 300 answers to questions. So fun book, guys are really liking that book. And then, at one of my workshops, about six months ago, one of the guys in my certification program says, Robert, you need to create a membership community. And you need to give people a guided pathway through through the stuff you offer. I started thinking about that. And I thought, I thought I thought I thought he's right, because at some point, I will retire, I'll die, you know, I'll be out of the picture somewhere. And I don't want to just leave all the stuff I've created. Because I have hundreds of hours of, of live Q and A's of interviews and things I've written have classes. And and I thought I don't want to just kind of leave that to die. And so I thought, yeah, I'll create a membership community. And I'm really thinking in terms of being the world's largest community for integrated men, for men that want to do this kind of work. I can see us having hundreds of 1000s of men in it, they all get a one year curated pathway to integration, dating, integration, relationship integration, sexual integration, work and career integration, personal integrate, they can then choose the pathway. And then that 52 weeks of assignments and path and support and calls and forums and to support them. And it's going to be a big deal. I wake up about about every third morning and go, What made me think this was a good idea. Which tells me it probably is a good idea. And it's the direction I need to go. So that's that's so besides trying to get, you know, at least four books that are in process finished, and launching this membership community that will contain everything I've ever created, with, again, with calls and forums and coaches working inside it and curated pathways and gaming, gaming it and badges and you know, it's it's exciting. And I have some really great coaches working with me to put it together. And I it's gonna be big. And it wasn't, I wasn't thinking, you know, a year or two ago, when I took that sabbatical, I was ready to do something big, but I see it as my legacy. And I'm excited about it. And I made a decision about three or four months ago. Fuck retirement, I got 20 More good years and Muay Thai. I'm bringing my A game. Yeah, I'm just getting more. It's time to start the game now. So I'm excited about that. I'm excited about that. Okay,

Eric MacDougall
we're excited about it, too. I'm glad you mentioned it. Because I know a lot of people are hungry to continue this type of work. And I think you're putting out an absolutely amazing message. So I'm glad that you're continuing to build on this legacy. And thanks for that. Well,

Dr. Robert Glover
thank you. And thank you for letting me talk about these things that I enjoy talking about. Amazing.