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Resilience and Brotherhood: Embracing Transformation, Authenticity, and Real Connections with Tony Endelman

• Tabitha MacDonald • Episode 31

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When the ground beneath Tony Endelman's life gave way after the loss of his father, he didn't crumble; he transformed. In our conversation, Tony, a transformational life coach and author, recounts the emotional odyssey that led him from the unsatisfying world of advertising to the vibrant streets of New Orleans, where he found his calling. His narrative isn't just about change; it's a masterclass in resilience and using the written word as a tool for healing. As we peel back the layers of his personal journey, Tony offers invaluable insights on tackling life's curveballs with determination and grace.

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Tabitha MacDonald is an Intuitive Coach and Healer committed to helping people overcome their pain as fast as possible so that they can have the love, success, freedom and fulfillment they truly desire.

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Speaker 1:

I'm very excited to have a special guest on today. His name is Tony Endelman. He is an author, a popular self-help blogger, a certified transformational life coach and certified happiness trainer. He is also one of Dr Robert Glover's elite certified no More Mr Nice Guy coaches. Tony's recently released book, the Big Stick collected and applied wisdom from the teachings of Dr Robert Glover, encapsulates nearly 40 years of wisdom put forth by Dr Glover. Tony was born and raised in Omaha, nebraska, and now lives in New Orleans. His unconventional brand of self-help has been featured in the Huffington Post, yahoo, lifehack, mindvalley, thought Catalog, thrive Global, tiny Buddha, the Good Men Project and other places. In his coaching business, Tony works with clients both one-on-one and through his group program for men. Welcome, tony, I am so excited to have you on today.

Speaker 2:

How's it going? Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

Great, I would love for you to just kind of introduce yourself and maybe talk a little bit about what you do with men.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, my name is Tony Embleman. You know I started off. As this is a long story, I'll try and condense it. I started off working in advertising. I worked in advertising oh, really, for like 15 years and hated every. Can I curse on this show? Sure, go ahead. I hated every fucking second of it. And yeah, I was kind of stuck in this nine to five world, sitting in an office cubicle having a boss doing things I didn't really care about, always knew that I wanted to do something else, always thought I was meant for more. But I never knew how to get out of that world. I'd just been in it for so long I felt stuck.

Speaker 1:

I love that you brought that up, because I work with a lot of middle-aged men and they come to me and they're like I'm sitting in this cubicle and I hate my life and I should love it because I have everything that I was supposed to want finally come, and I hate it.

Speaker 2:

Well, what we're told we're supposed to want usually doesn't actually work out and make us happy, but so true, but anyway, you, you mentioned Tony Robbins earlier when we were talking and I was so miserable in my life and I'd been to so many different forms of you know I've been to therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, I tried a whole bunch of different medications. Like nothing really worked for me. And as kind of a last, I don't know if I want to say it was the last resort but I scheduled a life call, just an introductory call, with a guy, a life coach, who worked for Tony Robbins. And I have a call with this guy and he just kind of blew my mind and it wasn't. It wasn't what he said. It's not like he said anything super profound, it was how he said it. He, he was kind of a dick and I loved it, like it was. He basically told me to grow some fucking balls and like oh my God, I love it.

Speaker 2:

And he kicked my. He really just he gave me a real kick in the ass and I found it very motivating and inspiring. And circling back to your question, after I got off the phone with that guy, all I could think was I want to do what that guy does.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's amazing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and plus he was probably on, like you know, some beach, somewhere, like talking to me, you know living the dream. And I was. I just thought, man, you know, I've always loved psychology and human behavior and I've always wanted my own business and I've always dreamt of just having freedom and doing my own thing. And I just thought, man, I just want to do what that guy does and so I pursued it. I I got certified from the Tony Rob from the Robbins called the.

Speaker 2:

Robbins okay it's called the Robbins Madonnas Training Center for Strategic Intervention. So again, certainly back to your question. I started off as just a life coach. I had just gotten certified from Tony Robbins. But the thing is, you know, you get certified and then you're like okay, now what? How the hell am I supposed to get clients? You know what do I do next? Yeah, so I thought well, you know, I've got 15 years of marketing experience. I know how to build a website, I know how to write, I know how to optimize a website. So I put up a website and a blog and I started writing very personal essays and those essays started getting published various places and that's how I got my first clients was just through my writing. But then, you know, around that same time, while I was trying to get this coaching business off the ground, I went through a heartbreak.

Speaker 1:

Is this the one in your book?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is the one I talked about in the introduction.

Speaker 1:

In New Orleans Okay.

Speaker 2:

And moving to New Orleans was a big part of like kind of blowing up my life. Now we're kind of getting a little sidetracked here, but I was living in Omaha that's where I'm from and my father died suddenly and unexpectedly and he was the picture of health really, and so if there was anybody I expected to live to be a hundred, it was my dad, and he just kind of dropped dead at the gym one day while he was exercising and that sent me into a real dark depression at first, but ultimately it was a real wake up call for me. It made me realize, like holy shit, like what am I doing? Like I'm just going to sit in this apartment in Omaha and rot if I don't make some big changes. And life is so unpredictable. I had just learned, and so you know I made some. I started making some big, big changes in my life after I lost my father, the first of which was I moved to new Orleans cause I just fallen madly in love with the city. But anyway, back to the story.

Speaker 1:

No, that's actually. That's actually. I mean, I think that, like, we always think of heartbreak as someone who, like, dumps us or rejects us in romantic relationships, but when I'm working with heartbreak, I'm like, no heartbreak's losing a parent or losing a job that you love, like heartbreak is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we can certainly dive deep into heartbreak, but anyway, I'm trying to get my life coaching business off the ground and I had just been dumped very cruelly by this woman and again the woman I described in the book.

Speaker 1:

Can you tell us a little bit about it? For the people who haven't read your book yet and, by the way, I highly recommend that you get the book it's called the Big Stick and I started reading it and at first I thought, oh, I don't think I should read this, I'm a woman. And then I was like I have a son, I should 100% be reading this book. And so a little bit about, because it was Tracy, right, the heartbreak.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, let me weave my way there, this will all come together. So so I'd gotten dumped by this woman. This was right after I'd moved to new Orleans, and again, I was trying to get my life coaching business off the ground at the same time. So, anyway, I'm dealing with this with this heartbreak. And this wasn't the first woman to unremorsefully toss me from her life Like this. Wasn't the first time this has happened to me, but in the past I had always just, even though I was heartbroken and sad, I'd always dismissed the woman oh, she's crazy, she's a bitch, she's a psycho, which we tend to do. That you know, and that's what I had always done at the past in the past. But this time around I just thought, okay, this cannot keep happening to me. So I really started examining my own behavior and what was my role in it. I was like there's no way I've dated seven narcissists in a row. It's like who's the common denominator here, even if they were all crazy narcissists like I attracted to my life. So I started examining my own behavior and I really took a deep dive within myself.

Speaker 2:

And while I was on that journey, I picked up a book called no More, mr Nice Guy, which is, you know, one of the seminal book in men's self-improvement, and the book just blew my mind, it just whacked me upside the head, and so much so that I reached out to the author, dr Robert Glover, and you know I ended up going to one of his in-person workshops in Seattle and I met him and found out that he has certified coaches, and so, you know, I worked very closely with Dr Glover.

Speaker 2:

I ultimately became one of his certified coaches, and I also made a really concerted effort to like cultivate a relationship with Dr Glover, so I kept bugging him and pestering him and eventually he started out he would like I would do little projects for him and but ultimately he became one of my very close friends and the greatest mentor in my life, without question. And that brings us to my book, the Big Stick. In about 2020, dr Glover approached me with this idea of writing a book that encapsulates all the work he's done over his 40-year career, and so that's the book. It was challenging because and Dr glover wanted this too to write it in my voice and weave in my own experiences and anecdotes, but also, you know, dispense all of dr glover's wisdom and yeah, so so that's the book.

Speaker 2:

It's very engaging.

Speaker 1:

I? Um, I wasn't. Yeah, when I started reading it I wasn't sure that I would enjoy it and I was like i't. I didn't want to put it down, especially when you started telling the story about Tracy, because I was. I work with a lot of women who are recovering from narcissistic abuse and I am myself a recovering codependent who no longer dates narcissists. But like I had to sit down and take a look at myself and go why do I keep attracting this type of person and why am I so attracted to them?

Speaker 1:

and so I resonated with your story so much because I could see myself in it, like I was like, not as true, but on the on the other side, yeah, yeah and if you read no More Mr Nice Guy, and how Dr Glover defines the nice guy and nice guy syndrome, nice guy syndrome really is, it's just.

Speaker 2:

It really is codependency, it's just A hundred percent, as you were as I was reading it, I was like I dated.

Speaker 1:

some of the last person I dated was what I thought was a nice guy and I was like I'm going to finally switch my patterns. The manipulation was worse than with the narcissist and I almost felt more. I almost felt more rejected than I ever had because I was like I expected you to be good.

Speaker 2:

And not nice guy is a misnomer, because nice guys aren't actually very nice. They're fundamentally dishonest and manipulative and immature and, um, they actually think they're doing everything right by trying to please everyone and make everyone happy and, you know, meet everyone else's needs, but, um, but they're, but that, just it doesn't work and actually it, it again, it. It ends up coming across as ultimately being, you know, very immature and dishonest and manipulative and there's a lot of, you know, unspoken agreements with strings attached and unspoken expectations, and you know we can go on the hardest thing, because at least when I was dating a narcissist like I knew what to expect.

Speaker 1:

I knew it was coming right. Yeah, about it dating the, the, the nice, the nice guy. It almost was worse because I was like I wasn't expecting it from you, and so the way you describe it because I think that's what's doing it Well, and you know the thing is most nice guys, because now I work in my coaching business, I work primarily with nice guys.

Speaker 2:

Almost every single 99% of my clients are nice guys and they actually are really good guys. They're nice guys, they're nice men. They're nice guy. They're nice men, they're kind, they're generous. But you know they have this cornucopia of problematic behaviors that kind of fall under the nice guy syndrome umbrella. But the thing is like they don't know any better.

Speaker 1:

You know, they just don't know any better and they don't know that what they're doing is unattractive and unappealing and it's true and I'm not speaking down to anyone because I I was the same way, you know oh no, I can't say as a woman, I was like the nice, the nice woman I didn't have. I was like I don't have many needs, I don't have any. As a woman, I was like the nice woman I didn't have. I was like I don't have many needs, I don't have any boundaries, like I mean, I'm the easiest partner, like I don't need anything but to love you. And it wasn't really true. I had a lot of needs, I just wasn't expressing them and also I wasn't giving my partners the opportunity to meet my needs, which I think is like fundamental in a relationship we all know, what our needs are, so that we have we can be successful in meeting them.

Speaker 2:

Yes, correct.

Speaker 1:

Can you walk me through how you help them, Because I'm sure a lot of my listeners are probably curious a little bit about your process, without you know giving away all your secret sauce.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's a hard question to answer because a lot of men most men come to me and say that, right, they say, yeah, what do I need to do and how long is this going to take?

Speaker 2:

Probably take the rest of your life, you know, because these are. If you're a nice guy and you want to overcome your nice guy syndrome and become a more integrated man, you have to shift your entire life paradigm and change some of your core beliefs and change some behaviors that have been so ingrained in you since you were probably a young child. So you know that shit doesn't happen overnight. It's a journey and I also don't know that there's I mean, I've tried the best I can to put together kind of a roadmap, but I don't know that there's some sort of A to Z like step-by-step instruction book for this. But what I generally would tell guys this is a pretty good place to start is here's a couple of things that would be I usually tell guys as a good place to start and things they can start doing immediately. That'll definitely change their lives pretty quickly. Number one is start revealing yourself to safe people. So find a coach, find a therapist, find a men's group, but particularly get with other men in particular.

Speaker 1:

And I love that. I just want to like explain why that's important.

Speaker 2:

Well, number one. We've spent our entire lives trying to gain the affection and approval and attention of women, and that's what's bitten us in the ass in the first place. So when we get with other men, you know there's no sexual agenda there, right, there's no manipulation there. You know there's no unspoken expectations there. There's no manipulation there. There's no unspoken expectations there. You can just start revealing yourself without fear of oh, is she going to be pissed at me, or how is she going to react, or is she going to leave me, or whatever.

Speaker 2:

So you eliminate that whole thing. Also, most guys guys, particularly nice guys are lonely and isolated and do not have a lot of other really good men in their lives.

Speaker 2:

So you know, men need other men yes, they do you know and absolutely men, as dr glover likes to men need to get out of the fucking nursery and go do guy things with guys sharing things about you. You can start to unravel and overcome a lot of that, what we would call toxic shame, which is sort of a core part of the nice guy syndrome, which is basically the belief that you know I am not okay, just as I am Right. You start to overcome that when you start revealing yourself to safe people.

Speaker 1:

Yes, 100%, because it's in that vulnerability right, and I think, like from what I've seen is, men aren't taught that being vulnerable is safe, especially, like you know, when they tried to be vulnerable about who they are and then they were rejected for it, and so it just kind of like reinforces that it's not safe to be vulnerable with others?

Speaker 2:

Yeah for sure. So that's the first thing I would say. Now, usually, by the time they get to me, they've sort of decided to take that step, because they decided to reach out to me and get a coach. But you know, I have a group program as well, so I always try anybody who reaches out to me I try and get them to join my group. So that's, that's the primary. That's about why that's important.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Um, you do group coaching, cause I do group coaching too and I just think that there's so much value in it. Can you talk about, like, why that's so valuable for men specifically, cause I know that I have a lot of my male clients resist the group coaching and, um, I just want to to hear your perspective, why that's so valuable.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, I kind of just touched on that. I mean, we've spent our entire lives, most of us, trying to gain the affection and attention of women. So when you get into a group scenario, particularly with other men number one there's no sexual agenda there. So there's no hidden expectations, there's no manipulation going on and you can just connect and bond with these other men. And number two like I already said, most men, especially in this day and age, are lonely. They're isolated, they don't have good men in their lives. So when you join a men's group, you immediately become part of a tribe and you immediately have this sense of camaraderie and brotherhood. You also get accurate feedback from other men. So you know again, if you come into a group of men and you reveal yourself, particularly, you have something you have shame about. Nobody's going to judge you or mock you or, you know, criticize you. You know.

Speaker 2:

Here's an example, a really simple example that comes to mind that I'm stealing directly from Dr Glover.

Speaker 2:

I've heard him tell this story before but, like, in one of his meds group there was a guy who was, like in his early forties, african-american guy and this dude just carried around. From the time he was 14 years old. He carried around all this shame because when he was 14 years old he stole a car stereo and he thought that he was just since he was 14 years old he carried this around, thinking he was just the biggest loser, piece of shit, horrible person because he stole this car stereo. So finally, in his men's group he told this story about how, when he was 14, he stole a car stereo and all the other guys were like what that's it Like? We all did stupid shit like that when we were kids, you know, and again, it's a silly example in a way, but for this guy, this guy was able to release this burden of like 25 years of worth of shame he'd been carrying around with him I love nobody had ever given him accurate feedback before.

Speaker 2:

Nobody never said to him dude, don't be silly man like we all did dumb shit like that when we were kids it's so true yeah that, because I don't think people realize that like it could be something small that creates toxic shame.

Speaker 1:

It's how you register it in your perspective. It doesn't necessarily have to be like oh, I got in a fight and hurt, like you know it could be something like that.

Speaker 2:

All this guy needed was like a group of other really good, safe men to go. Come on, man, that's crazy. Like we all did dumb shit like that, like you got no reason to feel. Come on, man, that's crazy, like we all did dumb shit like that, like you got no reason to feel. You know. So you get more accurate feedback. And then, circling back to your last question, what I would tell guys, beyond finding safe people and revealing yourself, to say people, start making your needs a priority. So, like, start asking yourself what do I want, what makes me happy, what are my needs, and then act on it. Do it. You know some simple exercises like make a bucket list. Yeah, again, kind of cheesy, but it gets guys thinking oh, what do I want? You know what's important to me, what would make me happy? The other thing I would tell guys is start telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Just practice being honest with everyone in your life. I think that's so important yeah.

Speaker 2:

And then learn to let go of attachment to outcome. If you are going to be honest with somebody, you don't know how they're going to react and you got to be equally okay with however they react. So let go of attachment to outcome and learn to soothe yourself Like nice guy. Syndrome is an anxiety and shame based disorder. So learn how to soothe yourself. Learn how to breathe and get control of your nervous system, and just learn how to soothe yourself. Yeah, I think that. And start setting boundaries, you know. Start telling people no, that's not acceptable. No, I need you to do it this way. No, this doesn't work for me. So that's about five or six things guys can start doing immediately.

Speaker 1:

Oh no, I think that's great. I think that's great for men and women, especially people pleasing women who think you know, tell people what they want to hear. Yeah, it's like you know it's not nice to tell people what you think they want to hear instead of being honest, because it's just lying and like people pleasing is basically just lying and it's not okay to lie to people and like it just doesn't build trust and it certainly doesn't build vulnerability.

Speaker 2:

No, and I mean nice guys are. They're so afraid to start telling the truth. But it's like, yeah, understandable, it can be scary and uncomfortable and you can have some some uncomfortable conversations, but it's better than living a life of lies and deceit, you know.

Speaker 1:

Oh, totally, yeah, no, I totally People actually respect you more.

Speaker 2:

When you tell the truth, they do Come to find out.

Speaker 1:

And then they'll be honest with you. And the thing is, I think, like lying comes from that fear of rejection, but it's like, oh, they're already rejecting you because you're not being who you really are. So you're already setting people up to reject you when you lie to them, because they're not really accepting you.

Speaker 2:

It totally is a fear of rejection. I mean, lying is generally the only reason people lie is to either protect themselves or protect someone else. So you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely I love this. I love how you talk about the masculine and feminine balance, and I was just talking to another female coach who works with single ladies looking to date. We were just talking about how, like, you can't show up in your masculine if you want to attract a masculine man. If you're showing up in your masculine, you're going to get a feminine man who is going to not give you what you really want. Can you talk a little bit more about that, because I really liked that part of the book and how you describe it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're right, and this is what I have found to be a big reason that so many relationships, modern relationships in particular, go right down the shitter is because is because women are constantly in their masculine and men have become so feminized and we're talking about energetic state.

Speaker 1:

I know this is like a hot button issue oh no, I I always mean it in energy systems too, Like you can have a very you can have a same-sex couple who's in their masculine and feminine energy. So yeah, this is energetic.

Speaker 2:

Let me put it in this context, because this seems to be the issue that plagues a lot of men, particularly men that I work with, which is that women today the easiest way to describe, I think, masculine and feminine energy is that the masculine does and the feminine is done to. The masculine penetrates the woman, the masculine penetrates the world and the woman wants to be nurtured and cared for and done to and blessed, right? That's kind of the simplest way to, but today, in a lot of modern relationships, so women are in their masculine energy all day long. Nothing wrong with that, it's great, right? Women are out there kicking ass, they're, they've got jobs, they're running companies, they're getting shit done. That's awesome.

Speaker 2:

But it's still kind of against their biological wiring. And when they get home at night from being in their masculine all day long, most women want to revert to their feminine, revert to their feminine, and they want a masculine presence in the home to consciously lead them into their feminine, because a lot of women aren't very good at making that switch on their own from their masculine to their feminine. The problem is that women are in their masculine all day long and then they get home and they come home to a guy who's basically a people pleasing approval, seeking doormat of a nice guy. You know, a feminine man basically pretty much.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's that describes it and so the woman gets home. She doesn't want to be in her masculine anymore, but she's basically forced to continue to be in her masculine and she's got to continue to set the tone and take the lead and make decisions. And you know, that's that's our, that's the masculine's job. The masculine should be setting the tone and taking the lead in the relationship. This is why you know, it's like that old joke A relationship is just two people arguing about what to eat for dinner until one of them dies. This is why women are like just make a fucking decision, I won't use this sign, because they're masculine all day. They don't want to come home and continue to be in their masculine.

Speaker 2:

They want a masculine presence at home, and they're not getting that.

Speaker 1:

No, they're not. And it's interesting because I also find that they don't let their partner be that because they're afraid of the masculine energy, probably because they've had somebody who was manipulative and narcissistic in their lives, afraid of the masculine energy, probably because they've had somebody who was manipulative and narcissistic in their lives and so they're afraid of how do I submit and be in that space of surrender and not be lied to and taken advantage?

Speaker 2:

their higher feminine, so it's our job to be in our higher masculine.

Speaker 1:

Oh, can you talk about that? Because I liked how you described it in your book and I'm not sure people know what that means.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, let's pull out that polarity chart. Yeah, I mean, when you have a man who's in his higher masculine, so he's masterfully penetrating the world and his woman he's.

Speaker 1:

I know so many women who will be offended by that statement. But I know that women who understand are going to appreciate what you say, like because I get what you're saying energetically about being in that penetration and leaving thing, but, um, it's so he's doing it masterfully and lovingly and consciously.

Speaker 2:

You know he's he's internally validated, he's centered in his own body. He gives to the world, even if the world doesn't give back, right. And then you have a woman who's in her higher feminine. She's welcome and open to this, to being led and penetrated masterfully by a masculine presence. She's open and she reciprocates love, right, she's attracted to this masculine consciousness. When you have a man in his higher masculine and a woman in her higher feminine, that's magical, right. But when you've got a guy in his lower masculine, so he's rigid, he's angry, he's dominating, he's abusive, he's aggressive, he's rageful. That's like what you were describing, kinds of that's like what you were describing. Yeah, this is why women are might be afraid to revert to their feminine, because they've been with men in the past who are in their lower masculine, who are angry and vindictive and abusive and aggressive.

Speaker 1:

I love that description between the two, because I think that that's where we get confused, especially as women, on on the difference between being in the higher masculine and then the lower, lower masculine is what you refer to it. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2:

And then there's lower feminine too, which is like you're feeling needy, you're feeling insecure, you're taking things personally, you withdraw, you know, and a lot of times again and a lot of times again, women can often be in their lower feminine and it's our job as conscious men to help them out of that place into their higher feminine. And also a lot of men nowadays are often in their lower feminine, you know a lot of men a lot of men are needy and insecure and play the victim, and you know.

Speaker 2:

So my point is we want to get to this higher place, you know, and if you have a man that is higher masculine and you have a woman in her higher feminine, that's a really magical relationship.

Speaker 1:

You know very. Can you just talk about the higher feminine, because I'll talk about the lower feminine. I'd love to hear your description of the higher feminine the higher.

Speaker 2:

Well, again, the higher feminine is open to being led and penetrated by a man. It is higher masculine. Someone in a higher feminine is. She reciprocates the love that is received. She's like magnetically attracted to this higher masculine presence. Even when she's hurt or feeling unloved, she stays open. You know, that's kind of the higher feminine. And again, the lower feminine would be needy, insecure, feeling victimized, taking things personally, withdrawing. So again, both of us, men and women, we want to be in that higher place. We want, and if you want, to co-create magic in your relationship, you both should be in that higher place. And also, you know, you can switch those roles around consciously, right, yes, yeah, you know the man could say to the woman hey, why don't you take the wheel, you know. And she, you know, you know, can be okay with that and usually is okay with it as long as she knows she can give the wheel back to him.

Speaker 1:

So true, I think that's the thing that is. I think that's where people really need to have healthy communication. It's like when can I give the wheel back? I'm fine taking it, but I also need to know that I don't have to own it for for life.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, yeah, yeah, um, but I don't know, I understand. It's kind of like esoteric. You know, I have found that, like in my book, there's like this masculine feminine polarity chart where it's like four quadrants and it shows you the characteristics of the higher masculine, the higher feminine, the lower masculine and the lower feminine. And I have found like just having that chart handy is really useful as a guide to keep us conscious you know, particularly us men because we can look at that chart and go, okay, where am I? Am I in my higher masculine right now, or am I in my lower? Am I being an asshole and angry and vindictive? Am I in my lower masculine? Am I being a needy victim? Am I in my lower feminine? You know, it keeps us conscious of where we are and where we should be.

Speaker 1:

I think those kinds of charts are helpful because most of the time we don't know, we're just unaware and then if our like our attachment is being threatened, then we go into the lower state without even realizing it. So having a chart is like super helpful. So I'll put a link, if you have one in the show notes so that people can access it. If you have, you can link to the book I don't know if there's a link right to the chart.

Speaker 2:

But anyway, yeah, I have found all that stuff to be really helpful and I have seen it play out over and over and over and over again in my clients relationships. And when my clients start learning how to harness, learning just how to be in their higher masculine and they start setting the tone and taking the lead and making decisions, but in a really loving and conscious way, the women in their lives light up and their relationships begin to flourish, very true, the reason their relationships are on the brink in the first place is because somewhere along the way turned into these approval-seeking, people-pleasing, passive-aggressive, nice-guy doormats, and the women don't want that.

Speaker 1:

No, they don't. But it's funny because I think we've raised them like that, because we've had so many single moms out there who were so afraid of raising a abusive man that we almost demasculated our sons, and now we're.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't, I don't disagree. Like I I said, a lot of us guys don't know any better. Yeah, yeah, because we were raised that way. I mean basically most of us guys. From the moment we escaped from the birth canal, we were taught how to please women. You know, our mother was our first, the first person to teach us how to please women, and then most of us had female teachers all throughout school. So we learned how to please women in school. On top of that, we watched modern television shows and movies and these cheesy romantic comedies, which I'm a sucker for, but they do not reflect real life so no, they don't.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

They don't, and they're just made for entertainment. They're not a guide to how to live or how to have a romantic life. I was just talking to one of my clients about this. I'm like, oh no, they're just for entertainment. If we can all put them back into the box where they belong, is it's just entertainment, not real? Who?

Speaker 2:

sits us down and nobody sits us down and tells us that, yeah, yeah, we have to learn the hard way. Yeah, that's true, we have to show up on the girlfriend's lawn with the boom box and the flowers and then get the cops called on us to realize, oh, that's not how you win love, and love isn't actually something you win in the first place. You know, I we have to learn. You know that attraction and all this stuff that, uh, is part of, I hate to say, winning over, but creating attraction is not what we see in movies and in tv shows, you know no, it really isn't.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that it's just entertainment and I think we just have to remember that and put that in the box where it belongs and understand that, like. One of the things I work with is attachment styles a lot and I see people go oh, but this is my soulmate. I'm like no, no, no, no, that's your attachment style kicking into full gear right now. That's like feeling like you're going to die without the person.

Speaker 1:

That's not good, but where did they even get that term soulmate from fucking movies and tv oh, if you look on I mean just on, like the whole social media and celebrities and things like that we're told like all over the place, everywhere, that you have, yeah, who's supposed to complete you?

Speaker 2:

well, yeah, and where did that phrase come from? Jerry mcguire, when tom cruise said you complete me to renee zellweger, he fucked everything up that's so true, darn it tom cruise so true, darn it, tom Cruise. I mean, we struggle to look at that objectively, because not only can another person, like nobody can complete you or make you happy or meet your needs, another person cannot do that, only you can do that.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely but also like we forget to also acknowledge that not only can another person not do that, like another person doesn't want to do that, like it is such an enormous burden to place on another person.

Speaker 1:

It is such an enormous burden to put on someone to like well one, to guess what you need and this is what I always tell people I'm like that's not fair to do to your partner is to make them guess what you need Like that's actually really unkind and unloving.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which circles back. To start making your needs a priority, Start telling the truth. You know like a happy, healthy relationship is the sum of two happy, healthy individuals who have their own lives and contribute to each other's happiness.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I love that word contribute because I think that we forget that the relationship is this contribution of two whole humans coming together to build a life together. So I have a question for you. Like so I work with a lot of single women who are looking to meet more conscious men. Do you have a question for you? Like so I work with a lot of single women who are looking to meet more conscious men. Do you have some like dating advice for the woman who's like I like what this guy is teaching and like how do we meet more men?

Speaker 2:

like that I hate to say this because I do work with a lot of guys on their dating skills. I have no dating advice. It is such a shit show out there, dating sucks. I don't know what to tell you, uh why is that?

Speaker 1:

because I hear that from women and men and then everyone wants to get divorced so they can go dating and I'm like, don't it's, it is a shit show, don't do it well, I can see why people want to get divorced too, because I don't know why people get married in the first place.

Speaker 2:

That's just me, though. Yeah, marriage is kind of insane in my opinion, and I'm a hopeless romantic. I love love, I love having a partner, but marriage I don't get all right. Dating advice get off the apps. Yeah, first of all, because the men that you meet on the apps are likely to be men who do not have the confidence or the social skills to get out into the real world and meet people in person oh, I love that they're probably.

Speaker 2:

they are probably the kind of guys unfortunately there are a lot of them but they're probably the kind of guys who don't really have a life and they're just sitting at home, you know, scrolling through their fucking apps. Oh, I love that I would say to both men and women get off the apps, get out of the house, go interact with people in real, in real life.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

I would say to your listeners put the emphasis on going and doing things that you love to do, because then you're putting yourself in a position to meet more like-minded people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's interesting because I did hear on a book I was reading. It was like women keep going to yoga retreats expecting to meet available men, but that's not where they're going to find them. They're like they're someplace else. They're not like at the feminine stuff, if you want. Like I mean not like that they're not there, but like the chance there's going to be like 80 women and 20 guys. So, like the, the odds are not in your favor, but like yeah where do you guys hang out who are conscious?

Speaker 2:

yeah, yeah, I actually skipped my hot yoga class today to do this podcast. Oh, thank you. But, um, you know, the other thing I would say is, like you may go dating and you may meet a guy or several guys who fit the more feminine nice guy profile and what I would say to you is don't write them off, you know, tell them, because, again, most of us guys don't know any better. We think we're doing it right. We think we think you want the nice guy who will, you know, try and do everything to please you and make you happy. And you know, if you meet a guy like that, it doesn't mean he's a bad guy and it doesn't mean he can't change. Like tell him, dude, you need to make some decisions. Like start like, dude, read no more, mr nice guy, like I need you to step it up. Like if you tell us that, if you tell guys that they'll work on it that's it.

Speaker 2:

That's really good, I mean because we're not mind readers, you know right. Um, so I would say, yeah, don't ignore red flags. But also like, don't instantly write off a nice guy, like it doesn't mean he's not a man and it doesn't mean he's not not a good person, it just means maybe he just doesn't know any better and you need to fucking push him in the right direction.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that idea of like being like oh, this is this book that I would really like us off the apps before.

Speaker 2:

That's the first thing I would do Get off the apps.

Speaker 1:

That's what I always tell my clients. I'm like they're like well, I downloaded the apps because my like second cousin twice removed met their soulmate on the apps and I'm like, let's just stay off the apps and go do what you love.

Speaker 2:

And then let's see how long your second cousin twice removed lasts.

Speaker 1:

All right. This has been a great conversation and I'm going to have to wrap it up, but I want to ask you the question I ask all my guests If you were on a deserted island and you could only bring one book with you, what book would it be?

Speaker 2:

Wow, probably, oh geez, deserted island and you could only bring one book with you. What book would it be? Wow, probably, oh geez. That's a really hard question to answer. But probably something by david sedaris, like naked or me talk pretty one day. Or probably probably a david sedaris book okay, I've never read anything by him.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I'll have to look it up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Nice.

Speaker 2:

Great.

Speaker 1:

Well, how do people find you and how did they get in touch with you if they're interested in learning more about what you do?

Speaker 2:

Best place to go would be just my website, tonyendelmancom. You can find everything on there. You can find my book, you can schedule a free call with me, you can read my blog, you can, yeah, everything. You can find everything on there.

Speaker 1:

Great. Well, thank you so much for being on today, Tony. I really enjoyed this conversation and I'll put all your contact information in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

Wonderful Thanks for having me.

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Tabitha MacDonald

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