Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
Charles and Dan are just two guys talking about relationships, masculinity, and authenticity. Join them as they discuss books and media, as well as their (sometimes messy) personal stories, to encourage men to join the fight for their mental, physical, and emotional health--because a world of healthy, resilient men is a thriving and more secure world for everyone.
Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
The Power of Abundance in Attraction
In this episode, Charles and Dan break down Chapter 4 of Dating Essentials for Men by Dr. Robert Glover: Discover the Secrets of Abundance that Naturally Attract Women. They explore how adopting an abundance mindset can transform not just dating, but all aspects of life, from relationships to career and personal growth.
Key Takeaways
- Scarcity vs. Abundance Mindset
A scarcity mindset leads to neediness, overanalyzing, and inauthentic behavior, whereas an abundance mindset fosters confidence, self-sufficiency, and genuine connection. - How Abundance Attracts
When you believe there are plenty of opportunities (dating, friendships, career growth), you naturally become more attractive by reducing desperation and fear of rejection. - The Role of Gratitude
Recognizing and appreciating the people and experiences in your life reinforces abundance, making you more resilient and fulfilled. - Empathy, Leadership & Masculinity
A tangent discussion on Elon Musk’s controversial take on empathy, questioning whether a lack of empathy stems from a scarcity-driven survival mentality. The guys explore why empathy is actually a strength and key to meaningful relationships. - Authenticity Over Performance
Acting a certain way to impress others only leads to short-term connections. True confidence comes from embracing your authentic self, improving who you are, and letting go of external validation.
Self-Assessment: Are You Stuck in a Scarcity Mindset?
Ask yourself these questions to gauge whether scarcity thinking is affecting your relationships, career, and personal well-being:
- Am I holding onto toxic relationships because I fear I won't find better ones?
- Do I believe there's a limited number of good partners, friends, or mentors available to me?
- Did I avoid asking for help or support because I felt like I had to do it all myself?
- Am I playing small or avoiding risks because I'm afraid of failing?
- Do I believe that success is a zero-sum game where someone else's win means my loss?
- Did I hesitate to share an idea or speak up today because I thought others might take my opportunity from me?
- Did I view someone else's success with envy rather than inspiration?
- Am I focusing more on what I lack instead of what I already have?
- Do I believe I have control over my circumstances, or do I feel like I'm at the mercy of external forces?
Practical Application:
- Develop a daily gratitude practice to reinforce abundance.
- Reflect on past relationships (romantic or not) to recognize the gifts they provided.
- Notice when you're "performing" for approval rather than being your authentic self.
- Use the self-assessment questions regularly to shift away from scarcity-driven habits.
Next Episode:
Overcoming Anxiety with Women (Chapter 5) – a deep dive into handling social and romantic anxiety with confidence.
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I've noticed this in my own life too. Whenever you're interacting with, whether it's an interviewer or a girl you'd like to go out with, as soon as your brain starts getting to the place of if I say this, then they'll think this. That's when you know that you're operating from a place of deprivation and scarcity, Because, yeah, you're trying to craft what you say and do to this expectation, which may or may not be correct, but either way, it's still you trying to put it on an act, because, deep down, you think what I really am is not good enough. So I've got to put on this performance so they'll think that I'm good enough, for a while at least, so that I get the job, so that I get the date, so that I get the relationship. Welcome back to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast.
Charles:This is Charles. In this week's episode, Dan and I will continue our discussion of dating essentials for men by Dr Robert Glover. Topics covered include the abundance mindset versus scarcity thinking, empathy, stress and leadership, authenticity in relationships and social dynamics, lessons from past experiences, the role of therapy, coaching and support systems, success, fame and the trade-offs of wealth, critiques of self-help language and quote, miracle thinking and other topics. Please check out our website mindfullymasculinecom, for any news worth reporting, as well as audio episodes and full video episodes.
Dan:Thanks and enjoy morning charles, how you doing I'm well, dan.
Charles:Thank you very much. This is chapter four, version two. We recorded this several weeks ago and it was to be released. We're recording this on thursday, march 13th. We're supposed to release it on monday, the 10th. But there was a audio problem that I could not fix with my various ai audio processing tools. Why welcome? Yeah, after I was trying audio problem that I could not fix with my various ai audio processing tools. Why welcome? Yeah, after I was trying for a while, I was like I fail, I'm giving up, we will just. No, it's my fault for not, uh, doing a test before we started recording yeah, I like that I answer better yeah, I do too.
Charles:Yeah, the more things that are my fault, the means more control the universe I have. So everything's my fault, which puts me in control of everything that's all working out for you.
Charles:It's great personal relationships. Really, really, oh, it's the best. Yeah, everything's my fault. Everything that goes wrong is my fault. Everything that goes right is just good luck and, as a result, I am I am to blame for everything bad that happens. Yeah, this one's about abundance. It's quite a way to live. Yes, so we are.
Charles:The last episode that our listeners would have heard from us would have been chapter three. I don't remember what it was titled, but let's see if I have it open. Actually, chapter three was eliminate your fear of rejection forever. So that's the last episode that we successfully edited and released. This one is discover the secrets of abundance that naturally attract women. And there was an interesting thing I saw this week that I posted to my personal instagram, which was a quote, not a. It was something elon musk said in the last week about how empathy is like the worst thing and the fall of civil of Western civilization the idea that empathy is a bad thing. And the person that was posting it responded to it with a quote from Margaret Mead and that's a name I recognize, but I don't know what she's famous for.
Charles:Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, author and speaker, and what she said was the easiest way to tell when we essentially made the change from a bunch of random hominid hunter-gatherers to a civilization. When you look back in the archaeological record, it's the first time that you encounter a mended femur bone, because that is the time that, as a species, we decided it's worth me giving up on some of my time, effort and my own survivability to nurse this other person back to health so that we could all move forward together. And that really does fly in the face of empathy being a problem, I would say and I'm on her side empathy. Empathy is a civilization builder, not a civilization crutcher.
Charles:But the problem is when you're living a life where you essentially feel like your own personal survival is precarious, where you could be killed at any moment, you could die at any moment, you could be ostracized by your tribe at any moment. Then how could you take time to empathize for what other people are going through You're too worried about? I'm in danger, I have to stay alive, and empathy is a luxury you can't afford. So I thought how sad for literally the richest and arguably most powerful man on the planet to say empathy. Empathy is too dangerous for me. I can't take time to empathize for other people.
Dan:Yeah, just um that's the thing too, is just, I think there's shades of empathy right and you can take it to an extreme right. Anything else, I think. And maybe what does that look like In his position? It's going to look different than somebody who has no resources or a lot less resources. So maybe his definition of empathy are maybe some of the asks he's been asking and maybe that's what triggered, I don't know.
Charles:He's a smart guy and it's possible he doesn't know what the word empathy means. But what?
Dan:what is the thing it's like for him? Maybe he's defining empathy about all the big asks. He's probably getting all the time for things.
Charles:I don't know what you think. He's conflating empathy and charity. Maybe, yeah, maybe, but who knows? But thankfully Elon doesn't run my life at this point just yet thankfully, Elon doesn't run my life at this point, just yet, but I, yeah, I think I took him at face value, which is to say to take time to put myself in somebody else's shoes, to understand what they're experiencing. That's a dangerous thing for us to do. We shouldn't do that.
Dan:It makes no sense as a leader. He obviously he runs a couple of companies, right. How can you be an effective leader if you don't understand the people that you're leading?
Charles:And to me, that's a solid question. Another thing I've heard about him recently is that for people that have experienced working for one of his companies, you hear one of two things either that was the worst experience of my life I'm never going to do it again, or working for him was amazing I'm never going to do it again. There's not a lot of people yeah, usually the people that do have an experience with him. It's a profound, changing experience, life-changing experience for them, but it's usually one that says either it really affected me in amazingly positive ways, but I don't want to do it again, or it affected me in very negative ways, but I don't want to do it again.
Dan:I'm going to challenge that, because how can you run any company if you've got turnover? Most of the people are saying that I would think most of the people there'd be high turnover.
Charles:Is there.
Dan:I don't know. I don't know either. I'm just thinking how can you run a successful company with so much chump? I don't know. So I'm sure there's people out there that are like that, and I'm sure people said that also with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and a lot of these other Probably yeah, a lot of people who are used to getting their way every single time.
Charles:Yeah, but that's the thing. One of the ways you can offset the harm of high turnover is if you have the companies with the coolest reputations that everybody you pay enough and you draw the companies with the coolest reputations that everybody, you pay enough and you draw the highest talent, then it's yeah Once. Once somebody gets burnt out and says I'm done with this, you got 10 other people that want to be able to add SpaceX or Tesla or whatever to their resume. It just really struck me that I consider a lack of empathy very closely tied to a scarcity or deprivation mindset. And it's man. If the richest guy in the world can have a scarcity or deprivation mindset, then we're all at risk. Right, he literally has more stuff than, or the potential to acquire more stuff than, anybody else, but he's still, but he's a human being. Yeah, that thing. I don't know how much metals in his brain.
Dan:It's built into our biology to protect ourselves.
Charles:And it's also a question to ask ourselves too. For people who are driven to achieve at that high level, it's okay. What is it that happened to you, that you're we're all either running away from something or running towards something.
Dan:And both of those are stressful situations.
Dan:Yeah, from something or running towards something, and both of those are stressful situations. Yeah, I really believe that's where we revert back into a scarcity and a non-empathetic type of mindset is when we're feeling that high level of stress and when you are wanting companies at that level. Is there any day where you're not feeling stressed about something? I think that's really the toughest thing is finding that time and being able to find that balance where you are taking your foot off the gas a little bit, being able to to relax it. I'm not saying that it can't happen, but I think you're fighting your own biology. If you are in this fight or flight, absolutely you're in and now you're asking something. Okay, uh, you need to stop protecting yourself and do something for somebody else and you almost need to like down all the the feelings you have about yourself and thinking about yourself and what you need and what you want to do in order to, I think, truly be empathetic and to really be a a good listener and and be there yes, not.
Charles:Not only that, he also does what I guess he considers to be bragging about the fact that he's never been to therapy and so where I don't know anybody who has homegrown the tools inside their own brain for being able to deal with high stress, whether that's in personal relationships or in their job. You get those tools from other humans. It's very because if, without those tools, all you're doing is reverting back to okay, what kept me alive when I was a kid, going through trauma or going through not having my needs met, and in just about every case, those tools that work for you when you were a scared six year old are not going to work for you. They may keep you alive as an adult, but they're not going to keep you happy, they're not going to keep you fulfilled, they're not going to keep you fulfilled, they're not going to keep you content. And so if you've not gotten those tools in your adulthood, then yeah, you're just going to rely on your old programming.
Charles:And I don't know I can't speak to how happy for fulfilled of a guy he is. I can say just from what I've seen of him and how he relates to people online and how he talks about his relationships and interviews. If you gave me the option tomorrow to wake up with his money and his mindset, many people won't believe me. That'll be an honest way. I said I would pass. I would rather stay me with my problems and my blessings than taking on his.
Dan:Right, look, there are going to be. It doesn't matter how much money you have, you're going to have problems. It's if they're just going to be different problems and we don't have money, and so that's the question is do you want to trade your problems for his problems?
Charles:yeah it's hard for me to think of. It's hard for me to think of anybody who I can look at and say I would rather trade bank account balances with them and trade problems with them, where I would not want to be, as being as rich as him sounds pretty nice, but being as famous as him definitely not being stuck in the daily political controversies that he's involved in no, I don't want that many people to know my face, know my name, know how I behave in all these different circumstances.
Dan:I just love languages.
Charles:We have a lot of different languages. I definitely don't speak Afrikaans or whatever he grew up learning, but yeah, I don't know it. Just I did feel some pity for him when I read his quote about empathy and I was like man, somebody else, with his circumstances. It would be very believable to hear them say, okay, I got where I am. It would be very believable to hear them say, okay, I got where I am. And now my only job is to work on empathy and make the world a better place by understanding people, caring about people, contributing to people, and it seems like that is the opposite of feeling like empathy is the enemy no-transcript.
Dan:I just don't understand how you can be so successful and not have or not display empathy right, and maybe it's just in a way that he's not recognizing.
Charles:Let's say that he is an empathetic person, and he's just scared of owning the fact that he's an empathetic person, which is a whole other set of like. I'm going to say this in a public forum to a reporter so that it gets repeated, because I feel like the people who like and respect me this is what they need to hear me say. So I'm going to say it. That's almost worse.
Dan:Right. That goes back to hold this whole. No more, mr Nice guy, right. Dating essential for men type of thing. It's doing things based on what you think other people are expecting of you or other people, instead of owning it yourself.
Charles:Yeah, and owning yourself Glover talks about I think it might be in chapter 10. If being a stereotypical nice guy is not the way to get girls, then the opposite of that is being an asshole. So I'll be an asshole to get girls. No, the opposite of it is just being emotionally regulated and strong man who's kind to everyone and doesn't give to get and doesn't act nice to get people to like you. And yeah, it's just, I don't know. There's certainly there's a crisis affecting men and it's. The result is a lot of people acting the way they think they're supposed to act instead of being who they really are.
Dan:It's a scary thing, right? Because in either case, in whole black and white you're just talking about we'll get into the chapter 10, but it's, yeah, you're either nice to everyone, which is a little bit of an act, because you're not addressing your own needs, or if you're an asshole to everybody, that's also an act. Right, you're still not really addressing who you are. Right, and both ways is easier putting up this front, pretending to be something that you're not, because you've got now this barrier between you and the real world, and so you don't have to be vulnerable, you don't have to really open yourself up, because if somebody pulls you on something now, it hits because you have no barrier in front of you, you have no act that you're holding on yeah, when you're getting rejected, and everybody who puts on an act does get rejected, you've got this internal, probably unconscious thing that says, okay, it's all right, because they were rejected, the act they weren't rejecting me.
Dan:That's not exactly what I think.
Charles:Exactly rejecting me. That's not exactly what I think. Exactly that's not exactly they were reacting. They were rejecting the version of me that I decided to pretend to be.
Dan:The irony of it is that you can get rejected a lot less if you're actually being yourself, I think because people will recognize that and it will affect you less too.
Charles:Where which is very counterintuitive you think, okay, yeah, if I'm the real me and people reject me, that'll hurt so bad. No, if you're the real you and people reject you, then you're like okay, good, I found out that that person and me we don't vibe, we're not each other's kind of people, and so I don't need to obsess over them, I don't need to be caught up with the what ifs. I can just say, okay, I was the real me. Where the other? The opposite is true.
Charles:It's if you act or you put on that front and you act like somebody you're not, and then it doesn't work out, and I've had this experience myself. It doesn't work out. Then you're constantly thinking what if I had either? What if I chose a different act? Or what if I actually did? Let them see the real me? Maybe this relationship wouldn't have failed. And then you've got to carry that regret around with you, which is also no fun. But, yeah, if you can just be like, okay, I'm just going to be me, I'm going to work at making that me the best version of myself that it can be, I'm going to, I'm going to do the work to my mind, my body, my spirit, all that stuff to say okay, I want to be the best version of Charles that Charles can be. And then somebody is like okay, I see you, but it's not for me. You're like okay, if I'm not for you, then you're not for me either, and we can move on.
Dan:And I think the part that's really important is to know that's okay, you will be okay, the other person will be okay, you can handle it. It's not going to be a problem if that one person you don't get along with. I think it's naive to think that going with expectation which a lot of us do is that everybody is going to like us and everybody shouldn't like us.
Charles:Yeah, they should for sure.
Dan:And that's the thing is again. To go back to control issues like we can't control other people. We can't control their upbringing and what they think and what they're bringing to the table, as much as we'd like to.
Charles:Yeah, it's so bringing this back into the abundance mindset is it's so important to understand that there is a world full of people maybe not full, but there's a lot of people in the world, certainly enough people in the world that will be into who you are. And if you don't believe that to be true, then, yeah, you're always going to be trying to try and stay one step ahead of other people's expectations of what do I need to be, what do I need to do in this situation to get them to like me, how do I need to act, what performance do I need to put on so that and that. Really, I've noticed this in my own life too, when, whenever you're interacting with it, whether it's an interviewer or a girl you'd like to go out with, as soon as your brain starts getting to the place of, if I say this, then they'll think this. That's when you know that you're operating from a place of deprivation and scarcity, because, yeah, you're trying to craft what you say and do to this expectation, which may or may not be correct, but either way, it's still you trying to put it on an act, because, deep down, you think what I really am is not good enough, so I've got to put on this performance. So they'll think that I'm good enough, for a while at least, so that I get the job, so that I get the date, so that I get the relationship.
Charles:And then you will either your performance at some point will falter and they'll be like, wait a second, this isn't who. This is who you told me you were. You're not acting like the guy that you acted like before I went out with you or before I hired you for this job, or whatever, and then it falls apart, or you'll just get tired of acting and you'll get resentful of having to be on stage so often, and then you'll just have these random blowups that also will destroy the job relationship or the personal relationship or whatever.
Dan:And I think a lot of the reason we do that is because we put so much weight and stock into that relationship.
Charles:Yeah.
Dan:And I think that happens when we don't actually practice some of the things that he's talking about here the appreciation for the people we already have in our lives and that we've had in our lives. A lot of times we take it for granted or forget about all the things that the people in our lives have brought us in terms of happiness and health and mental health and everything else, and so he talks about in the book he talked about in this chapter, specifically thanking and figuring out what each person in his life has brought him, and he started to appreciate them more and he felt better about himself as well. And I think, if you can develop a practice where you are thinking about not just the things that you have to appreciate but the people that you have in your life, right, well, just one gift that each of them gave you, whether you are in touch with them at this point or not.
Dan:those gifts then can make you realize, hey, there are a lot of people out there who like me for me, and I don't need to put on this act because now I'm less dependent on this relationship for my own happiness. Yeah, the evidence and hope that you can find somebody else if this isn't working out.
Charles:And the difficult part of that, which is a level that I have not yet gotten to myself, is the part where you can look at a relationship you had and maybe the only thing you got out of it in the end was resilience and being able to actually have that's a great way of thinking about it To actually have legitimate gratitude and appreciation for that. Okay, all all this person really taught me was how to survive when really rough stuff happens. That's, I believe people are capable of it. I believe I might be capable of it, but I it's hard for me to look at those difficult relationships, or it's hard for me to look back at it now and say I'm legitimately grateful that I went through whatever negative experience that relationship subjected me to and say that I'm thankful for the person I was able to become through surviving whatever happened. I think that's an important step, but it's not for the novice.
Dan:Here's the thing is, it's not a black or white and either or. For me, when I look at past, if I had a really heated argument with a neighbor that I really don't like, I really can't get to the point of where oh, I'm grateful for that and I would absolutely do that again I don't think I get, I can't get there. What helps me deal with that is going. That wasn't an enjoyable experience, but at least I'm grateful that I got through it and I know in the future how I would do things a little bit differently. And, yeah, I'm a little bit more resilient.
Dan:But I'm not replacing that or trying to fool myself into thinking that was a great experience and I'm grateful that I would choose to have that again, to learn that lesson. Because that's when I start to go oh, this whole grateful, and that's bad, because then I start to spiral, Whereas I'm like oh, this whole like appreciation, gratefulness, stuff is, eh, is there really a lot of legitimacy to this whole thing? And I start questioning more than I should. And so I'm trying to balance, not ignoring my reality and the feelings I had at the time and not try to change those in my current thinking. But go, okay, I had that experience, but what else did I have in addition to that? And that's helped me feel that this is a believable situation and then that I'm making the best of what had happened.
Charles:Yeah, it's tough finding a balance there where it's like how can I? When you look back on past experiences, I think your mind has a tendency and I guess it could be what he calls a paradigm effect where we tend to whitewash past experiences as either that was 100% good or that was 100% bad, when really any experience is rarely 100% anything. But it does seem when you think of that job, that vacation, that relationship that I've seen a lot of. I posted something yesterday, the day before that COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic five years ago this week, which in some ways it's five years ago. Man, in some ways that feels like it was decades ago and in other ways it feels like that was like last year.
Charles:And, yeah, I and I also get a lot of memories that pop up on my phone because I use the, whether using the Apple app or the Google pictures app it'll post and say here's what you were doing two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, whatever. And it's yeah that that pandemic experience was certainly a very it was a mixed bag. There were a lot of fun times and there were a lot of stressful times and there were a lot of ups and downs.
Dan:There's a lot of change Exactly.
Charles:Yeah, it was a very volatile time and it's interesting to see yourself trying to categorize oh, was that a good time or was it a bad time? All times are a mix of good times and bad times because, unless you're in a constant state of severe depression where I could say okay, you might be able to look back at a certain time of your life and it felt like it was all bad. But yeah, it's interesting the tricks that our brains try to do on us to just make things simple, to make things easy. Like, just look back at people, places, times in our life and try to just put it in a very tidy little box that says this relationship was good, but this one was bad. This job was bad, but this job was good. And I get why we have the impulse to do that because life is complex and taking the time to analyze and understand everything that we go through to takes a lot of energy.
Dan:Yeah, You're fighting biology also, right.
Charles:Yeah, cause your body, including your mind, is always in a. Okay, but what if I? What if, five minutes from now, I'm starving to death? What if the thing I ate last was the last thing I ever get to eat? I've got to hold on to all that energy as long as I possibly can.
Dan:I'm going to streamline everything, and good Matt. All right done, let's move on to the next.
Charles:Yeah, and I don't. The people that seem fair enough, but, whether it's micro or macro, the people that seem to be the happiest and the most fulfilled and the most successful as they define success are the people that do the hard work to ask these questions and try to figure them out, and usually they're doing that with help with a coach, a group, a therapist, whatever. It seems to me that you have to have people in your life that are willing to go through those hard questions and answers with you, because otherwise, yeah, we're just going to default to shortcuts and to the easy stuff you just got to believe that it's going to pay off, that delayed gratification of putting the time, effort and asking those hard questions to figure things out.
Dan:You really need to believe and understand that you will feel better by doing that, rather than the instant gratification of going all right, good, bad. Let's move on, because there is a little bit of instant gratification with that. It's just, oh, I don't, you know, I understand the world, I understand the world, that sense of completion, it's just, I don't need to, yeah, and I don't need to deal with anything that might be uncomfortable coming up. So, avoiding that pain, that's another way of just getting that instant gratification. Yeah, it's. It is a weird form of delayed gratification.
Charles:Yeah, and some of the hardest, most difficult experiences of my life have been the ones where, especially with personal relationships, like I thought I, I thought that I had this person, I thought I had our relationship, I thought I had the world around me figured out, I thought I knew how everything worked, and then something happens that blows that narrative completely out of the water and you're like okay, what else am I wrong about? What else do I know for sure and I am a hundred percent incorrect about? And that is I think I take that harder than most other people do, or maybe that's just me wanting to think I'm special, I don't know, but it is one of the things that will definitely shake me to the core, because I'm a bit of a control freak. I want to be.
Dan:Yeah, well, you're also really smart and a lot of different areas, and I can see that being a detriment, because then you get like this assumption that yeah, I'm really good at doing this one, or if you're really good at doing this one thing, or you're really smart in this one area, and not bring that level of expectation of performance, of acknowledgement, awareness and knowledge to another area that you really don't have that expertise in and it's so hard to let that go. I've been there, so, yeah, I can see why it's very difficult for a lot of us to be able to have that open mindset and go, okay, I don't have this figured out, but it'll be okay, I will figure it out.
Charles:It's just going to not be on a timeline that I'm used to at this point, right, yeah, I think in my case, not to turn it all back around me, but let's do that anyway. Yeah, in my personal case, I had caregivers that were very chaotic and, as a result, I had to at least I felt like I had to anticipate what their expectations were going to be from me moment to moment in order to get what I need. And so I built this pattern of okay, charles, you get by on your wits and about figuring out what motivates people and what people are after, so that you can give it to them and then they'll meet your needs. And then and then, when those time periods come up in your life where you're like, okay, I thought I had this person figured out, and they went and did the opposite of what they were expecting is okay. Now I'm not only doubting them, I'm doubting my ability to understand what it was that made them tick. And now it's okay.
Charles:This essentially this multi-tool that I kept in my pocket that always got me through life turns out this tool is broken, and I didn't even know it was broken. And so now what do I do? And I did one one thing I want to talk about. He's got some tips on how to develop an abundance mindset. And then I also looked up some questions what can you ask yourself on a daily, weekly basis to see if you're suffering from a scarcity mindset? And I want to share those questions. So, first, how to develop an abundant mindset, a daily gratitude practice. I'm going to see if maybe there's got to be an app for that, where the how we feel app, where you then set up friends with it. So when you say here's what I'm feeling, it'll send out a message to somebody else who has your code. I'm going to see if there's like a buddied up gratitude act. So we'll I'll do some research on that. If I find one, I'll share it with everybody. So here are some of these questions that you can ask yourself to see how that deprivation mindset may be affecting you.
Charles:Am I holding onto toxic relationships because I fear I won't find better ones? Do I believe there's a limited number of good partners, friends or mentors available to me? Did I avoid asking for help or support because I felt like I had to do it all myself? Am I playing small or avoiding risks because I'm afraid of failing? Do I believe that success is a zero-sum game where someone else's win means my loss? Did I hesitate to share an idea or speak up today because I thought others might take my opportunity from me? Did I view someone else's success with envy rather than inspiration? Am I focusing more on what I lack instead of what I already have? Do I believe I have control over my circumstances or do I feel like I'm at the mercy of external forces?
Charles:So I will save these and drop them in the notes for this, for this episode, so that we can share it with others and see if maybe asking these questions on a daily basis can lead to some positive change. I am copying and pasting them into my notes app right now. Okay, he gets into the importance of expecting and creating miracles, which is one of the things in this chapter that annoys me. Pleasant surprises and miracles are not the same thing. I hate the self-help thing that has happened to the word miracle, where it's like every good thing that happens in my life that I didn't expect to happen is all of a sudden a miracle, and, being a former churchy boy and somebody who attended Bible college, it's no miracle has a pretty specific definition.
Charles:It's when it's when the supernatural makes a direct intervention in the physical world and someone who was dead for multiple days comes back to life, or someone who whose arm was amputated in war, it grows back and they instantly have both arms again. Yeah, um, those things don't happen. Even the miracle of childbirth is really something that happens a billion times a year is a miracle. Not the way I define it. Yeah, yeah, and as far as I'm concerned, miracles do not happen, so don't sit around waiting for them. But you can optimize your life so that pleasant surprises happen more often, and that's that should feel good enough. It doesn't have to be a miracle, for oh, that was unexpected. I had a really nice conversation with a stranger on the subway today. Yeah, like that. You shouldn't have to view it as so rare that it must've required supernatural intervention for it to happen. If anything.
Dan:Yeah, you're building up the the tension there before you actually go out and be in the world, right?
Charles:If the creator of the universe has to personally get involved for something nice to happen to you, that is a scarcity mindset more than anything else. That is really that flies in the face of an abundance mindset. You can't try to convince people that good things happen every day and there are nice people that want to get to know you and there are beautiful women who might find you attractive and want to get to know you better. That's a direct opposition to the idea that if something good happens to you it's a miracle, Right?
Dan:miracle. Right to me, it's when you use that word. It almost is so unbelievable that it's almost like doing the disservice. It's actually doing the opposite of what he's advocating for here. I feel like, oh, if you're gonna go out there expecting miracles, yeah, guess what, you go out there and you don't have a miracle, in a couple of days you may not not start, you may not be coming out anymore, because you're like I didn't have any miracles today. I had a couple of pleasant surprises but didn't have any miracles. Yeah, I just okay Again. This is probably just his way of attracting attention to the book and the and making an impact here.
Charles:Let's see how old he is Trying to get people to. I'm Googling how old the guy is Trying to get people to get excited about his techniques here, or not techniques his philosophies.
Charles:Let's see, dr Glover was born in 1952. So in this, yeah, he's a smart guy, he's got a lot of good ideas. I don't want to say, just because I don't like the way he says something we should now throw the baby out with the bathwater, right, right, but you know, that is there. She Exactly A worse one, I dare I say. When did Gen X start? Let's see it better, not be Gen X. What generation? I know that's what I'm saying. Is someone born in Boomer? No, what year was In? 52? He's got to be. Yeah, that's definitely Boomer. Yeah, okay, good, he's a Boomer. This is like the 60s, though, right, 65 is when Gen X started. Seems awful. Okay, I believe 65 to 80 is what most people Is it always 25 years?
Charles:That's 15 years.
Dan:65 to 80 is 15 years oh my God, yeah, seems like 25 to me.
Charles:Yeah, what you're? 74?, 74. 74. Not 74 years old. You were born in 1974.
Dan:Just to clarify that you don't laugh like a 74-year-old, do you?
Charles:Yeah, you were born in 1974. I was born in 1977 and I think somebody, somebody was saying that 77 wasn't gen x, but I think most, yeah, someone. According to google, the top result is somebody born in 77 is a millennial no that's what it says. If millennials were 81, this one says millennials were 77 to 95.
Dan:So I'm like the first year, millennials, notials, not even to the millennial, the end of the century.
Charles:It's because they came of age at the millennia, not they were born at the millennia. Generation X, according to this, is 65 to 76. They also there's a term I've heard before I think I even joined a Facebook group for Xennials X-E-N-I-A-L-S, a micro generation, also known as the Oregon Trail generation, born between 1977 and 1985, straddling the cusp between Gen X and millennial. Why is that the Oregon Trail generation? I believe because we it's people who are of an age where they played Oregon Trail, probably on an Apple II computer when they were a kid. All right.
Dan:I played. It wasn't an Apple II, it was an older version of that in the library. But I remember Ori on Trail. That was great.
Charles:Yeah, yeah, so according to this I'm a millennial, which I don't know. If that's true, I feel like I like musically and stuff. I identify more with Gen X, but but the women I date are millennials. Yeah, so I think we can stop our chapter four at that point and move on. Our next episode that our listeners will hear will be chapter five, which is titled overcome anxiety with women, and that's already in the can, ready to be released. But the next episode you and I will be recording is our final episode for this book, chapter 10 activating women's basic biological urges Cringe. I hate some of the titles he picks for these things Basic biological urges, among other issues that I will have with chapter 10, which we will discuss. Good man, thanks, dan. Talk to you soon. Thank you so much for listening to the entire episode. We certainly appreciate it. Again, check out our website, mindfullymasculine.
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