25. John Gray: Beyond Mars and Venus (Relationship Skills for Today's Complex World)
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Hey everyone, it's Alex from Alex and Books, and you're listening to The Reader's Journey, the podcast that takes you on a journey to meet amazing authors, discover brilliant books, and learn valuable lessons along the way. Now, let's get started. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of The Reader's Journey podcast. Today we have John Gray, author of Beyond Mars and Venus. John, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's a real pleasure to be with you. Thank you for inviting me.

So, John, it's been 25 years since you wrote the classic best-selling book, "Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus." What has been the biggest change in relationships during that period? Well, quite often when people are in a heterosexual marriage situation, they still relate to "Men Are From Mars" a lot. It's really, really very helpful.

If the woman is making more money than the man, then they won't relate to all the examples. If you're single today and you're a modern person, often men from Mars seems a little old fashioned because there's certain wisdom in the old fashioned ways. But we really need to upgrade our relationship skills today.

And so beyond Mars and Venus, I wrote that 25 years later to help people who were, in a sense, more holistic. What I mean by that, if you're more conscious, more aware, which today we are, that means I have access to both my masculine qualities and my feminine qualities, and likewise for women. And a lot of this started in the 60s where women went into the empowerment groups and kind of, we don't need men anymore, right?

which was devastating blow to men. But we decided to go and demonstrate for peace and love and be happy and fulfilled in their life, which are all good things that goes to our female side. But in doing that, we easily go out of balance. And when I talk about balance, just for those who say, well, how can you say what balance is?

In science, we have the data. And for men, if they're happy, their testosterone levels are 10 to 20 times higher than a woman's. If a woman is happy, her estrogen levels are 10 to 20 times higher than a man's. And then we take one step further. We realize that, yeah, you can take all these hormones. That's not the answer. And it doesn't prove to be the answer. But you can actually do behaviors differently.

And a lot of those behaviors are more traditional things. Like when I am very independent, you know, like in the old days, a father knows best. He'd read the newspaper. OK, now the man just looks at the TV or plays a video game. That's his cave time. Men need cave time to rebuild testosterone. Women need to talk.

And a lot of women who are unhappy today, they don't even know they need to talk because if they do talk, they often feel I don't have time because their mind is on the male side wanting to solve problems as opposed to wanting to share and be happy and fulfilled. And so when she does talk, man, we don't know how to listen. We've never been taught to do that. How to say, hey, help me understand that better. Tell me more. What else? She'll be upset about something. We'll try to help her be reasonable, logical, logical.

And that does not work at all. So anyway, so those are some of the basics of Mars-Venus. They still happen once you start getting in a sexual intimate relationship. But prior to that...

Prior to that, women often think they're more like, "Man, I don't relate to this female stuff." Men have just lost their motivation to a certain extent, the ability to postpone gratification. They've lost a lot of that drive that men used to have. We can measure that. A 20-year-old today has 20% of the testosterone of a man just 20 years ago.

Things have really shifted. And your average man today, when he gets to 50 years old, if he's married with children, he'll have half the testosterone levels of a young man. I'm married with children and grandchildren and have 50% higher testosterone levels because I apply the skills that I teach in these books, how behavior and communication can stimulate more testosterone in men, stimulate more estrogen in women. That's kind of like an overview. And then I'm happy to go wherever you want to take me.

Right. Yeah. I love one key point you made is like talking about balancing. Like, would you say that men today have gone too far into like their female side and some women have gone too far into like their male side? And I was talking about how do like men kind of, like you mentioned, men kind of need that cave time to get back into the masculine side and women need to get to the feminine side. Is that where you're seeing nowadays where kind of people have gone too far and they need to come back to the middle?

Generally speaking, that's happening everywhere and with everyone. Even if you're in the older generation, it was always kind of a natural thing where, like in my parents' generation, they were very harmonious, but the passion went out of the relationship.

And today's generation, we want lasting love. We want lasting passion. We want to feel the electricity where we can be friends. But that's not enough anymore for the younger generation, the new generation. And people want romance. You know, you can have it, but you got to learn how to how to do it. And the old system doesn't do it. And we need a new system that will.

So you just have to measure what are the romantic hormones. Well, men's testosterone levels need to be 20 times higher than the average woman, and a woman's estrogen levels need to be 20 times higher than the average man. And that's the hormonal brew that occurs when a woman wants to have sex with a man and has an orgasm, and a man has an orgasm. So you kind of look at, okay, that's what we want is that energy that will lead to that. Let's look at the body, what hormones are happening. And then we become like an alchemist.

We actually can control those hormones. You know, I was recently a big thing for men these days, Alex, is the ice man getting into ice water. You know, I start every day. I jump into my cold pool and I love it. See, that's masculine energy. Not that a woman can't do it. It's OK. But she has to know other things for her would be nurturing activities, enjoyable activities, fun activities that don't require discipline.

Discipline is our male side. That feeling of, I have to overcome my fears. I have to have courage. I have to follow through. I get things done. Many times we want to postpone. So when a man's more on his female side, he procrastinates a lot. - So one of the things you mentioned earlier, one of the best ways a man can get more to his masculine side is by taking some cave time. And that's the lesson I really took away from your first book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. Can you kind of just explain what that is and how that works?

Yeah, there's a see the male side of us. Anybody who's married to a man or knows a guy, if you're talking about a problem, he's going to jump in there and give a solution. It's like, well, you ought to do this. So you ought to do this. Or why are you upset about that? And if you're trying to give a woman what she needs at that time, unless she's actually wanting you to solve the problem, what she's really looking for is someone who will help her understand, who will understand what she's going through and empathy and more compassionate response rather than a quick fix.

Now, so that's what women are needing and men will solve that problem. So we like to solve problems. What produces testosterone is whenever you're feeling confident or successful in solving problems.

Now, doing that will keep your testosterone up. Like I go to a job, I'm doing my job now, my testosterone kicks into gear. High dopamine levels right now, maybe a little adrenaline, but my testosterone is high, so I have a feeling of well-being. If I felt anxiety, worry, doubt, then my estrogen levels would be rising. Emotions is estrogen.

So if I'm accomplished and I'm very confident, then the only emotions that come up for me is happiness and joy. Then I'm in balance with my estrogen. But still, having produced and used, I'm using testosterone during the day.

I need to rebuild that testosterone at the end of the day. It's a cycle of action and then rest and relaxation. In a sense, it's a cycle of action and actually distraction. Distraction from anything that might cause a stress to me. It should only be what I enjoy doing that's also testosterone producing.

The challenge is I enjoy being with my wife and my children, whatever, but that's not necessarily testosterone producing because I love them so much.

See, love is estrogen producing. So I can love my computer, I can love my car, I can love my exercise, my waist. These are all like going to generate testosterone. If I just sit and watch the news, that's a big testosterone producer for men. They always has been this way. Or we're just in the old days, just staring to the fire and not think about your problems.

Buddha taught in meditation is to forget your problems. Men by instinct will tend to do this. And then psychology is telling us, oh, you know, you need to talk about your problems. No, you don't. You

You need to forget your problems. That's what the cave time is. So if I'm watching the news or a football game or playing a video game, I'm doing that to forget my problems. Now, see, women don't need to forget their problems. This is why they have a problem with us being in our cave is because they feel ignored, neglected, and they feel like you don't love me, you don't want to share yourself with me. Because the instinct in a woman, when she feels safe and loved by a man, she wants to undress.

She wants to share, not just physically undressed. She wants to open her heart. She wants to open her mind. And when you share what's inside of you with somebody else, not trying to change them, but you're just sharing, that produces estrogen. That's why we have an industry which is manufacturing.

massive industry of coaches and counselors and people like that. And 90% of the people that go are women. They're the ones that really value it the most because what they'll do is they'll go and they'll talk about their problems. And just talking about problems can raise estrogen levels, which is what women need most. It's the super estrogen producer is to feel I can be vulnerable. I could cry.

cry, I could share a fear, an insecurity, a doubt, or a selfish jealousy, and somebody's not going to be judgmental of me or talk me out of it. And I have to give a little correction. When I said 90% of the people go to therapists are women, that's true with therapists. Now coaches a little bit differently. Coaches have women and men. Because in coaching, a lot of the emphasis is on, okay, what's your goal? What's getting in the way? And let's be accountable to achieve that goal.

So you'll get more men going for coaching because, you know, football players, basketball players, you know, they all get coached. You know, there's no sort of I really need help. I just need accountability to show up and somebody might tweak what I'm doing, sort of see what I'm doing. So that's a dynamic. But what's...

The big aha was for me was 40 years ago where if I gave solutions to women in counseling, they didn't come back. And when I decided I'm going to do an experiment and not say you ought to do this, you ought to do this, you're misunderstanding. Instead, just asking more questions, the women would come back and they tell their friends. And then I had a waiting list long before I was a famous minute from Mars guy. You know, I was very successful as a therapist because I...

I would postpone giving suggestions and solutions, particularly when a woman is upset. You want to take time

to not just listen to her, but to ask a kind of question that allows her to go deeper into her emotions. For she's angry, you listen to that, and then you kind of go, now, what was your disappointment? What was your expectation? And they talk a little bit about that, and the tone will slow down. And then you say, and what's your concern? What's your fear? And then they start to share fear. The anger's gone. The sadness is gone. You see, there's levels of depth

And a good therapist can take you to those levels of death. And why do you need a good therapist to do that? Because you don't know how to do it unless you read my books, which will teach you how to do it.

And so this is kind of like one of the breakthrough moments I had when I was reading your first book. It's kind of like women, whereas men need a cave time, women have talk therapy. And as a guy, it might be hard to understand that what women want you to do is just kind of listen to their problems, to their feelings. So can you explain why that works for women but doesn't work for men?

I love that, Alex, that you're bringing that point. These are like the golden oldies of men are from Mars. They're still here today. It's just often people don't realize what they need. Like if you have an immune problem, you're deficient in vitamin D for sure. But people don't know that, you know, need to get more sunshine. You need to take it if you don't have it.

So we don't always know exactly what we need. Particularly, you know, we see people overeating. They don't need to eat that much food. We see people eating junk food. They don't need that. That's actually empty calories. But we do it anyway. And ironically, the empty calories are more fun than the healthy stuff until you're in balance. So let's just keep in mind that people don't really know what they need. Now, put that in the context of relationships. What I would say to women who don't think that they need to talk

is they need it even more. When you don't need to talk, you're on your male side, unless you're solving a problem. But on the female side, to get to the female side, sharing emotions, sharing what's inside of you. Let's say she had five disappointments today in her job and three frustrations. You can't share that in the workplace. Sharing your feelings inside, whether they be positive or negative, produces estrogen.

So this is and what do women need today? More estrogen. We know that a woman needs 10 to 20 times more estrogen in order to be happy and fulfilled. Men don't need that. We don't need it. So we don't feel the need to talk. And women go, why do you want to talk? You know, and often women go, if I felt safe.

If I felt safe, I would talk. And so I would feel safe if I knew he loved me. And therefore, why doesn't he want to talk to me? Because in her mind, love means we can share and talk. So what I tell men over and over, talk less, ask more questions, listen longer. So the answer that I didn't have when I wrote Men Are From Mars, I just knew that women need to talk. Men need to be good listeners and make it safe for her to discover that she needs to talk. A lot of women don't even know it.

until they're complaining. You see, then they talk, but nobody wants to listen to complaints. So sharing, and let's just take a moment to use a little discernment, take us to a higher level of intelligence and look at the difference between sharing and complaining.

Because sharing actually produces way more estrogen than complaining. Complaining produces a little, and so you get kind of like an empty calorie release. You're hungry, eat some junk food, you feel better, but you don't really give yourself anything you need. That's that for complaining. Sharing is different. So what's the difference?

If you're in a restaurant and the soup is too cold, I might, we're there, we're two women. And I might say to my girlfriend, I say, you know, my soup is kind of cold. And she'll say, yeah, mine is too. And I'm kind of ridiculous. This restaurant, they charge so much, they can't even serve hot soup. You know, it's terrible. Yeah, I don't even know if I want to come here again. And then you continue having your dinner.

until one of you says, "Well, waiter, I'd like to speak to the manager." And the manager comes over and you say, "The soup is cold. I want you to do something about it." You see that? That's a complaint. Prior to using your unhappy feelings to change somebody, but just share. So sharing is something that actually produces more estrogen. So if a woman's coming to me in counseling, for example,

She's not expecting me to change. She's just sharing how she wants her husband to change. But she gets all this estrogen from that because she's not sharing her negativity in order to change me.

If she was to go to her husband and share those same feelings, she wouldn't get the same benefit. Why? Because she's trying to change him. She's trying to solve her problem. And she's doing something disastrous, which is using negative emotions, using dissatisfaction, discontent, mistrust as a way to get somebody to change. And when you do that, you create a wiring in your brain.

so that you tend to always go towards looking at problems in order to get what you want, rather than looking for optimism what your solutions would be. You see, you're able to see where the support is as opposed to looking for the enemy. You know, it's a little bit like PTSD. If you go to war, it's dangerous, right? So if you're in a war zone, that means your cortisol is being produced.

What does your brain do? You're on hypervigilant to see what's wrong. Let's see, when women's estrogen levels go low, they actually make more cortisol and their brain becomes hypervigilant to see what's wrong.

Then when they express the emotions of what's wrong to get what they want, now they're even changing the wiring in the brain. So if they're feeling a little discontent, I want more, the brain will look at what bad things have to change rather than what good things can I appreciate that I have.

and then you feel better. So we have to retrain our brain. We have a primitive tendency to complain to get what we want rather than to give love and support and express preferences. Preferences is the opposite of a complaint.

Yeah, and you have this towards the end of the book, this great chapter about having a complaint-free relationship, which is kind of almost everyone knows complaining is not the way to get what you want in life, but yet that's the only strategy people use. And you give this great piece of advice, which is to turn complaints into requests or statements. Can you kind of explain how that works and how that will actually get people to change? Sure.

Well, every complaint, every complaint is behind it is a request. I would like you to change. So there's a difference. And I rather than, you know, there's such a thing as a preference and a preference is what I'd like from you is this. I say, honey, where would you like to go to dinner? I'd like to go here. Okay. Well, I'd like to go here. So we find a compromise who we get to win, win. And of course, for romance, you always do what she wants. That's another biological thing is when a man makes a sacrifice for a woman, you

her estrogen will go up. And when her estrogen goes up, she feels appreciation. His testosterone will go up. That's why all romantic gestures is generally speaking, the man does something for the woman and the woman receives and appreciates back. It's a two-way street. You got to do both together. And so it's basically learning to find out what is the need, the wish, the want behind my complaint. Don't utter the complaint. The complaint is you did something wrong.

If you tell somebody they did something wrong and you're in an intimate relationship, it knocks his testosterone down. If it's not an intimate relationship, it's my boss. Yeah, you need to do this. I go, okay, fine. But you basically, when you're in an intimate relationship, you've had sex.

It's like you're dancing really close together. You can step on each other's foot really easily. If you're at a distance, you have sort of barriers up. It's easy not to take things personally. To take it personally is, gee, I was looking to you to feel like I'm successful and now you say I left my shoes on the floor in the living room. So what? Would you say that to a guest in your house and now you treat me that way? So here's an example of how to express a preference rather than a complaint because

It really ruins relationships. And ironically, and this is 50 years of counseling experience,

that the issues that couples really get upset about are lead to big problems like violence and yelling and screaming and cheating. Those are big problems. But long before those big problems happen are a lot of little problems and they build up and build up and build up until people get knocked off of who they really are. And those little problems is like these little complaints that build up. Now, my wife, Bonnie, she has a complaint about me that went on for years, which is

You know, you left the lights on in the living room. And I go, oh, yeah, I forgot. And then as the years pass, you lost you again. You know, you don't listen to me. You see, in the beginning, he left the light on. I'll just turn it off. Maybe 10 times she did that. And she says, honey, you leave the light on. You know, I have to turn it out after you. I say, OK, I'll try to remember. I don't remember.

So that's who I am. It's not a big deal, right? In the beginning, not a big deal. But after a while, it becomes his not turning out the light turns into her interpretation means he doesn't love me. And it's only a small request. And if he can't do a small request, what if I wanted something big? So you feel really isolated over that little thing that doesn't get changed. Now,

She doesn't understand men. That man who will forget to do little things, if the request is big, he's right on it. If there's a tornado, he's holding the trees down. He's protecting the family. The big stuff motivates men. The little stuff, you can't get a lot of testosterone out of testosterone's motivation.

You can't get a lot of testosterone out of low paying jobs. All you need is a well-paying job and you're ready to go to work. If they don't pay you much, it's like, why do I put much into it? You know, not going to be able to, you know, get much out of it. So,

Men don't necessarily respond as quickly as women think they should to these low-paying jobs. Why? Because men know if you don't have a high-paying job, you don't get married. Now, if a woman doesn't have a high-paying job, it doesn't matter. All she has to do is be loving and be beautiful, express her feminine beauty, and a man will want to be married to her. So having a high-paying job is never a requirement for

for a man to love a woman. It's her love, and that's what men need to get. It's her ability to be happy that draws a man to her like bees to the honey. So coming back to an example of how to practically speaking one way, there's lots of examples in my book, but here's a simple one. So the light, you always forget to turn out the light. And then after like 10 years of this, she would just...

And sometimes, of course, I turn out the light, right? But sometimes I don't. And she'd look in the kitchen at me, because you have to walk from the bedroom to the kitchen is half of a football field. That's how long it is. So you have to imagine how many light switches you're having to get. Anyway, going through the living room area, just like turn on the light. I'd forget to turn out the light as I go through. So it's not a big deal. And she said, well, it's the electric bill. And I said, OK, we use solar electricity. So now there's no electric bill. So what's the big deal? Yeah.

Still, she said, we have to be examples for everybody else. I said, nobody's watching whether I like it or not. Anyway, having said that, her mind was trying to find reasons. It's all irrational. There's no reason to be upset anyway. But the mind will turn it into that because she's asked and he didn't do it. And therefore, she asked again, he didn't do it. Now, suddenly, if he doesn't do it, it means he doesn't love me. And so she has this huge fear.

reaction of powerlessness and upset and feeling ignored, feeling neglected. And I give you, I do so many things for you. And the resentment starts to increase. All that can be avoided if she learns how to stop complaining. Because when you complain to a man, you're already not going to get the result you want.

Because you know what men do when you complain about us? We get upset and we forget it. So we forget whatever you asked. So it's guaranteed whatever you're wanting to do, he's going to forget it. So that's how we process stress. That's the cave. You want to forget all your problems temporarily.

Now she's complained about you. Now you want to forget that whole message. It's a negative message. Why do I want to remember a negative message? Then one day she poked her head into the kitchen and she's smiling. Man, always like a smile, right? She said, John, I just want you to know, I've noticed you've been turning out the light lately. And she smiled. I just took that in. She said, and sometimes you still forget. I just remind you, I love it when you turn out the light and then left.

Well, she did that twice. And then the next time I was doing it, the first time I kind of forgot and she did it again. Yeah, she's so nice about this. So I turn out the light. And now every time when I turn out that light, I'm thinking I'm doing something nice for my wife. That's the motivator to do something little as I'm doing something nice for my wife rather than I'm afraid.

My wife will be upset with me. Why do you want your husband to do things out of fear of your irrational rejections? And it isn't a big deal whether you turn the light out. It isn't a big deal that he didn't call and he had to wait 15 minutes or 10 minutes. It's not a big deal. You know, long time ago, people didn't have clocks.

You know, it's not a big deal that he forgot to call you. It's not a big deal that he leaves his socks on the floor. It's not a big deal. These T-shirts are always around the house. You just have to train him. Then the way you train men is like the way you train a dog. It's unless his father did it. If his father did it, he's already trained because he had an example.

But if his father didn't do it, he got to train him and what's wrong with that? You know, it's like learning to create what you want you go to work You got to do stuff to earn a job, you know today's man You want him to do little things for you women little romantic things be a good listener help out around the house You've got to train him and so you you just can't expect him to suddenly be these things that he's not and and the guys that actually are

A lot of guys do housework and they're very, very giving and giving and giving. Actually, women tell me they hate them. They're like needy guys. They're like being with a woman who says, "I give to you, why aren't you giving to me?" They get all pouty and they get needy and they get demanding. This is way on their female side because the female side can attend to lots of little details. The male side of us tends to focus on the biggest prioritize. What's the most important thing? Let me do that.

Now, what we can do is become a blend. I can do the big stuff and I can do the little stuff.

it's a training it's a transformation it's how men and women can support each other so you're doing him a favor and you're doing yourself a favor by learning how to ask for one and get it and some women can say why do i have to do that it's kind of like why do i have to go to work to make money you know why don't they all give it to me and this is what you're seeing people say now it's like why do we have to work if you don't work you don't grow you see transformation happens by putting yourself out there and that's the male side of us and women want to express their male side but

But they have to also balance it with their female side. That's the big challenge for women today is how to be on your female side and for men, how to and be on your male, have both, integrate them both. And the beginning integration will happen if you go from one to the other, one to the other. And eventually it will blend and you'll be a hardworking woman, successful and also be happy and fulfilled and come home, be ready to have sex. OK, that would be great.

Yeah. And that's probably like one main reason I really enjoyed your book is like you have both perspective, the men and the women side. So as a man, I'm reading your book and I'm agreeing with what you're saying as as in when a woman complains about something really small, it's like you get upset as a man because you think, oh, it's just a tiny thing. Why should you get upset? But then you also explain it from the female side, whereas like, oh, if he can't do this really small thing for me, that means he doesn't love me. So it's just really fascinating to see like both perspectives. And I found that really helpful as a reader.

It is good to see that. And we'll take that one step further. And I'm sure you found in both my books, but it started in Men and From Mars. This wonderful chapter on little things make a big difference. Now, that phrase may seem like not that significant. It's hugely significant because men, big things make a big difference.

So a man will think, all right, in the beginning of a relationship, I don't know if I want to marry you, so I'll do a lot of little things. I'm not going to do the big stuff like commit myself to you, share my income with you, be devoted to you. That's the big stuff.

I'll do the little stuff. But it's actually the little stuff that built all the trust in her is that he'll be affectionate. He'll give you compliments. He'll be interested in you. But after you know her for a while, you know, where'd you grow up? What happened with it? Then what do I need to ask those questions again for? How do you be interested? I already know who's there. It's almost even like when you see her naked the first time. Wow, so exciting. You know, 10 years later, I've seen that. But nonetheless.

walks by you go but I haven't seen that one see newness stimulates test it stimulates dopamine in the brain and that for a man will increase his testosterone for a woman newness will increase her estrogen so we all like newness but when you're married you lose the newness so how do you keep the estrogen and the testosterone up relationship skills that boost it in men and boost it in women and

And traditionally, just for harmony in the past, men would be at work and they'd come home and they didn't do all the stuff women are expecting today. They were basically in their cave. I saw it with my dad. My mother was happy if he made it.

He had a good job. Okay, so we lived in a nice neighborhood and she had help. She had hired help to raise her six boys and one girl. So she had a good provider. So she was very happy about that. Two, she could do what she wanted to do. She loved doing. So she was this free woman to do whatever she wanted to do. Mostly in the beginning, she just wanted children until they grew up. Then she had her own bookstore. She followed her passion.

Now, when the boys would misbehave, what did she do? She said, "If you don't listen to me, I'm telling your father." So he was the policeman as well. So we've always been the policeman and the provider. And today, women can be their own policeman and they can be their own provider. So what do they need a man for? And if you don't feel, "I need a man," you can't love them. You can't love them. And to the extent that you feel, "I need you," the more love you have. And we all want more love. The world would be a better place.

Women are the ones who get us in touch with that we are needed as men and that women need us. And now they don't need us for financial security. They don't need us as the policemen. They're quite capable of doing all that themselves. So what do they need you for?

That's why Beyond Mars and Venus is so important. Even though the fundamentals are right there in Men Are From Mars, you need a man to help you get back in touch with your female side. And when I can help my wife get back in touch with her female side, that actually makes me a male. That makes me a man. I'm solving her problem. I'm providing what she needs.

And she's getting the connection she needs to her vulnerable self. And this is something women have to learn is how to be vulnerable. And vulnerable doesn't mean complaining. It can be sharing. See, that's the whole key to this. But the first stage, and I want to be practical for women, the first step is to start revealing to yourself what you feel. Most, if I just say to one, what are you feeling?

They'll tell me something in their head. They'll say, I feel like I'm alone or I feel like he doesn't care about me or I feel like my job's too hard or I feel like I want to make more money. OK, this is all superficial stuff. You have to connect with your body. If you want to enjoy sex, you want to be a real grounded person and love, feel the love in your body. You.

And I don't mean it's just sexual. I just know that when women really feel loved, then they can feel sexual. When men feel sexual, that opens them up to feeling love. This is a complete opposite in that way. And this is why, just for a little levity, I heard a joke the other day. I'll share it. It came from ancient Buddhism time where

One of these teachers was saying, "A man, he needs many women to fulfill one desire, and a woman needs one man to fulfill all her desires."

Of course, that's an extreme version, but that's the lower level of human. The higher level of men, I teach monogamy. Monogamy is so great. The way you keep the passion alive, one of the big aspects is do those little things and for women to feel vulnerable enough to appreciate those little things. When you say vulnerability, most people think that means, oh, I've been hurt, I'm crying, I'm upset. No, it means that's part of it. It means to be affected by your partner.

If you want to have the multi orgasmic woman and every woman would love to have that if she ever could have it is the means I'm gonna let you affect me I'm gonna let you have influence over me That means I'm opening myself to being affected by you and that's what vulnerability is now when you're happy. What are you? You're vulnerable You're so you're excited. You're so vulnerable. You see these young people. I was just I

Over at Berkeley University, I was just seeing these young students starting the year. They're so vulnerable, so anticipating. They're hopeful. They're excited. This is like, I'm going to let this change my life. That's what you feel when you're falling in love, and then you lose that vulnerability because the newness goes away. Because newness will raise your estrogen and testosterone. So naturally, you can feel so happy and appreciative and glad and enthusiastic and excited and hopeful.

That goes away when the newness goes away. You have to have skills in order to bring those hormones back up without depending upon newness. And that means women learning how to be vulnerable. Because once you realize, once you taste, it's like you don't know what's good until you taste it.

A man who can listen to your feelings, but he will not be able to do it till you can do it for yourself. Don't expect the man to save you. That's the old fashioned model. You save yourself and then let him make you happier. Happier. My job isn't to make her happy. My job is to take her happier. Her job isn't to make me happy. Her job is to let me take her happier.

That's a healthy relationship. Old fashioned relationship. We really were dependent on each other. Now we're dependent on ourself for our lower needs. But our higher needs is emotional vulnerability for a woman and and compassion from the man's point of view. And if you look in various traditions, compassion is considered to be the highest virtue. But it's of masculinity, the masculine part of us, which is to be able to feel somebody's pain and not have to solve it.

That feeling sorry for people is feeling somebody's pain and trying to do something about it. Oh, poor you. I should fix you.

Women actually don't want to be fixed. They want a man to hear and empathize what they're going through and trust that she can handle this until she asks for help. If she asks for help, then you help her. That's called empathy and wanting to help her and you love her. But to give these unsolicited advice comes from this whole culture where we kind of thrive on hearing other people's problems and then it makes us feel better we don't have them.

Now, pitying others, oh, poor you, poor you, I'm so much better. But actually, poor you is not compassion. I like this, another discernment. See, there's something called empathy, which is to be present and feel, to the best extent, what somebody else is feeling.

You can't do that if somebody is not feeling. And women think they're feeling, but they're thinking all the time, "I feel like, I feel like." That's not a feeling emotion. It's a feeling thought. To be vulnerable is to feel your emotion, whether it be positive or negative. It means I'm at the effect of you. So first you become aware of your own depth of emotions. Then you learn to share that with girlfriends who more likely understand it better.

Then you can start to share your emotions, vulnerabilities when they come up, when you're not having a good day, not all the time, but we have stress. Anytime there's stress, there's frustration, there's disappointments, there's concerns, there's worries, and there's embarrassment. And when you can share those feelings with your partner, you just open wide and he's going to get erect and want to pop right in there. This is the biggest turn on to man. Once you learn to do this, but people don't, this is like I'm talking about a strange country and nobody's ever been there, but it's called vulnerability.

But the practical part of this, and just starting with ABCs, is to share your emotions of what went on during the day for you. If it was really happy and you're excited and you're grateful, share that if that's what you're feeling. If you're stressed, just know if you're stressed, there's frustration, there's some disappointment, there's some concern, there's some embarrassment. It's always there. You learn to do that journaling. Then you can share some of those feelings with your partner. And you say, I just want to share what happened today. You don't have to say anything about it. You don't have to do anything about it.

I'm going to share it and let it go. If you say to a man, I'm going to share it and let it go, then he doesn't have to interrupt, give you solutions. He doesn't have to minimize. He'll just be empathetic and understanding. Okay, this is the job. I'm like doing the super therapist job right now, which is not going to interrupt you, but question you. And in the beginning stages, questions for men, just they want to start this. A woman's talking, don't talk.

Just ask questions and you say, well, help me understand that better and pause. And there could be silence for a moment. Just wait. And then you say a little bit later, she sort of paused and said, well, tell me more about that. And she talks a little bit more. She said, I don't know. I don't know. Well, what else? What else is going on?

And she may not have ready answers. You see, now my wife has ready answers. She's an expert. She knows to go through whatever. If ever, let me give you an example of this. If ever something is frustrating you and frustration is just stress, people are frustrated all the time. And you say to somebody, you say to a woman who doesn't know her emotions, I say, well, was it, I'll give you an example. I invite a woman up on stage in one of my seminars and I say, okay, you have frustration in your life. She says, oh, only my husband.

I said, no. What's the frustration in your life? She says, no. I said, oh, really? What do you do for a living? I've managed. I own seven restaurants and I manage them all. And you have no frustration. And she says, no. I

I say, "Well, how's the economy right now?" "Not so good." And I say, "Well, isn't that frustrating? You have to fire people?" "That's what you have to do." "Well, that's just the way it is." See, that's the male, the way the man processes stress is like, "Nothing I can do about it, so forget it." "Well, you can't do about that." That's what it is. Why complain about it? It's water under the bridge. What hasn't happened yet? See, these are all mental things we can do to not be upset. Good for testosterone. Anything helps you to detach is testosterone.

For a woman, these women, men, they're over there and then they come home and suddenly all their frustration is on their partner because they think, oh, I can change him. My negativity will change him. I can't change anything in the outer world. I can only change him because he's my husband. It's the opposite of what works.

You can't change your husband. He will become more and more wonderful to you, but you can't change him. But you talk about the things out there in the world that you've been thinking you can't change, but at least you can talk about how it makes you feel. Then you're sharing. You're not doing anything about it. You're sharing. That's the most estrogen stimulator there is.

So you talk about your frustrations about what happened today. Now, and then to analyze. So you're stressed out, you're frustrated. Oh, there was so much traffic. You know, we moved here. There wasn't traffic. I must have heard that 50 times from my wife. It didn't used to be this way. And I kind of said, well, you're the one who wanted to live here. That's not the answer. You say, oh, it's so frustrating. You pause.

And you kind of go, kind of disappointing, isn't it? She goes, yes, I thought that it was always going to be this way. You see, you can't have frustration if you didn't have an unrealistic expectation. So if you can express a little disappointment, the brain starts...

doing something, it starts coming, yeah, yeah, why am I frustrated? It's disappointing. And then you say, so there's so much traffic, what are some of your concerns? Like, it took me 10 hours, it took me 30 minutes to get to the freeway today. I don't know if I can schedule my time right, you never know what it's gonna be. Those are concerns, those are worries.

Always, if you weren't worried or concerned about it, you wouldn't be frustrated. You wouldn't be disappointed. It'd be like, oh, no big deal. It's all no big deal once you process your emotions. I love that book a long time ago. Don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff. And that's the big stuff. If you have any big stuff you still shouldn't talk to your partner about, you should be talking to a therapist and realize that big problems don't happen in your life.

until you see how you contribute to them. They're never going to get solved that you have an expert who helps you see what you don't see because you wouldn't have big problems if you weren't a part of the problem. And you you're not stupid. You just don't have the answer. You need somebody to guide you to see how you are part of the problem. It can be frustrating for people to listen to me talk because when I do coaching online or I do coaching

I'll listen to people a little while and then I'll point out to them, and this is all you're making. We create our problems and we don't know it. So if you don't know how you create the problem, then you always think it's somebody else when you learn how many women miss each other all the time. So if you like, for example, what women will often say when they're unhappy and they have no passion left and they want to leave their partner or they want to complain about their partner, is they always say, I give and give and give and he doesn't give back.

Go stop giving. What? Your giving is all manipulation. You're giving to get. Giving never works unless you're giving because you've already received so much. If you're giving back, it should always be I'm giving back, I'm giving back, I'm giving back. Never give to get. Then you're on your male side. You're trying to solve a problem. Men can give to get. I'm doing this and doing this and doing this and then I'm going to have a happy wife. Then I might get laid tonight. Whatever it is. That's appropriate. That is...

Putting forth the effort required to do a job and accomplishing it so that then you get your reward. That's part of masculinity. Nothing wrong with that. But you could be foolish if you took her out to dinner and say, well, now you should give me sex. That could be taken for

the wrong way. But the reality is doing things for her and then doing some foreplay and then say, let's go make love. Then she's in the mood. You can't expect a woman to want to have sex when she's not in the mood. This is where men don't understand women again when it comes to sex. We could be like on a dime if we've got any testosterone left. It's like we don't have any prerequisites, basically.

women have a lot of prerequisites, which is helps their estrogen levels go higher and higher and higher. For a man, if a woman is open having sex with him,

That will immediately cause his testosterone to go up, particularly a younger man. You know, if an older man, you need to feel that you're who you are, what you've done, what you've accomplished. She has admiration for you. She has tremendous appreciation for you. That will keep his testosterone up. I'm 70 years old. My testosterone is 50 percent, 50 percent higher than it was when I was a young man. And this is not your average. It's the relationship skills that do that.

Your average man who's married, and not single men, but average man who's married at 50 has half the testosterone levels of a young man. It doesn't have to go down. Those are the national averages, but it's not always the case. And then something to understand hormones, you'll see these guys get divorced and they're 50 years old, 55 years old, and they haven't had sex with their wife in six years or something. Their testosterone levels are half.

and then they become single, their testosterone shoots up. They change their wardrobe. They buy a new car. They're out dating women. They're getting erections again. What just happened? He's now independent. See, he's free to be himself, and he has the anticipation that someone will appreciate me for that because there's a newness there. So the newness stimulates the good hormones, and if you don't have

the skills to generate these things, the more testosterone in a man, more estrogen in a woman, if you don't know these skills on both sides, then when newness goes away, blandness sets in, which is comfortable. It's just people today, comfort's not enough. We want to function.

- Yeah, well John, you just covered a lot right there. But one topic I really want to dive more into, which you mentioned like as a man, one thing you could do to like increase a woman's estrogen level and get her more to her feminine side is like listening to her talk about her feelings and problems. What else can a man do to help a woman get more into her feminine? - That's such a great question. I'll just go down the list. Okay, so I wake up in the morning.

i find my wife i go give her a hug non-sexual hug okay a six second hug takes a while for the hormones to be triggered six to eight seconds and four times a hot day i'll do that at a minimum that means i get up i look for her i leave i find her before i go and say bye and give her a hug i come home i give it's the comings and goings and i give her a hug she goes if she goes to bed before me

Sometimes I watch the late news, I notice that she just left the room. I say, "Oh honey, wait, wait, wait." Think of it in terms of little estrogen points. And every one of those little things is one little estrogen point.

And this is where little things make the big difference. See, I work hard, I make a lot of money. That's one point. That's what men don't get. You do bigger, that's for you, like superstar, I just did that. That's one point. But I gave her a hug. That's another point. And another point and another point. Big things are good, but it's really just a few points. The way you do is accumulate the points, doing lots of little things. So I get four hugs. Okay, that's four points. When the kids were young,

They used to come say, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. And Bonnie used to complain. She said, you know, the kids never listen to me. They always listen to you. And I thought, what can I do? And I realized, look in my book, what women need is respect. So I need to start respecting her more, which is when I'm sitting at the computer, she says dinner's ready. I used to say, I'll be in in a few minutes. Kids going to dinner.

Well, the kids were seeing dad not respecting mom. She made this dinner. So then I just shifted. She says, dinner's ready. Everybody now, let's get up and go. Stop what I'm doing. A little thing. Just suddenly, just immediate reaction. Doing little things for women makes them feel respected, makes them feel heard, make them feel valued, makes them feel included. Doing little things instantly when needed or when requested. It was little things, not big stuff. If she says, you know, the garage still hasn't been done, you know, I'll get to that. Yeah.

That's a big job. But something you can do in five minutes or three minutes, oh my gosh, has a big impact on a woman. So here, if you look at estrogen levels, the easy metaphor for little things make a big difference is if a woman has normal estrogen levels, she's relatively happy, right? I bring her one rose, she's going to get a surge of estrogen. She's relatively happy. I bring her 50 rose, same surge in estrogen.

One rose or 50 rose, doesn't matter. It's going to get a little surge of estrogen. If she's very low in estrogen, I bring 50 roses, hardly anything. I bring one rose, you might even get more.

Just because often when men bring 50 roses to an unhappy woman, she was like, oh, you think this is enough to make me happy? Now, romantic is anything a man does for her. Okay, so this is things like when I'm watching TV, we're watching TV, put your feet in my lap and I'll massage your feet. That's 10 points right there. You know, just continuing and taking the other foot, continuing, right?

forgetting about it, then coming back to a little bit, massaging. You're basically doing something for her where she sees you doing for her rather than old-fashioned women. All you have to do is go out in the world and do what I need. But they don't need that as much anymore. For romance, she needs to have lots of little things you do. Another thing couples can do, I invented this technique during the COVID lockdown.

Because that's just terrible. You're not getting your outer stimulation you need to balance your hormones. You can't look to your partner for everything.

So just to give an extra super boost was called a genie in a bottle game. Genie in the bottle is not in my book. So this is a good one. Extra for people is you say, OK, we're just going to do this for 10 minutes and maybe a couple of times a week. Let's play genie in the bottle. And in that time, you're the man is the genie, which is all powerful. And you get three wishes. And so she gets to ask whatever she wants that he can do within a 10 minute window.

has to be within a 10 minute window so she says oh would you clean up uh put all the dishes in the dishwasher he says as you wish right away i'd be happy to do it now as he's doing that she can't say and yes genie i'd like you to always remember to do that that's

It's just in the moment she experiences him doing something for him. So that would look like, oh, would you make me some orange juice? So she sees him cutting the orange, putting the orange juice on, and he brings orange juice to her. That's something her brain would go, he's doing something for me that I asked. And when I asked, there was a positive response, almost an exaggerated, playful response. Yes, as you wish, sir.

You know, one of the most romantic movies for a lot of people is something called The Princess Bride. Did you ever see The Princess Bride? My daughter loved the thing. But anyway, Wesley, who's the character in this and the princess girl, she would she was like he was just a farm boy, but she fell in love with him, even though she's like beautiful and wealthy and all that. And it's because she would go down to the stables and she'd say something. He'd go, as you wish.

You never talked. You never knew what his feeling was. Just as you wish. As you wish. Words are cheap unless it's followed by action. Action is what does it for women. And little things. It doesn't have to be the big stuff. One time I was getting, my wife was a little annoyed with me. I could just feel her

irritated by me i thought i just went over and i just gave her this hug you know i said honey you do so much for so many people i just want to give a hug to you she said okay and i gave her a hug i like a 10 second non-sexual hug sexual hug at that time is not right you see you need to build up the estrogen first and then so giving her this nice non-sexual hug about 10 seconds and i could just feel her tension sort of start to relax and then we finished the hug and she says you know john

I was really annoyed by you before that hug. And about halfway through, I started to think about all the good things you do for me. You went to the store and you bought the eggs when we needed them. And you didn't grumble about it. You know, you were jump up to the little things. See, a man gets in his head. Oh, what do I have to do that little thing for? As opposed to, oh, little things. That's as good as a million dollar check. OK, scoring points. Very easy to do. Quick, fast, fast.

Affection, going into the room and stroking your hair. Are we always going into a room where a woman is, make sure you notice her, make her,

what are you doing over there? Or stroke her hair as you go back. Squeeze her hand when you're on a date several times. Hold her hand for a little while on a date. You know, put your arm around her at times. Compliment her. Oh, you look so beautiful tonight. Oh, you got your hair done. Now, I'm saying stuff that men can do. Now, what women can do on the other side of it is like if you're going to get your hair done on Wednesday, on Tuesday, you say, well, I'm going to get my hair done on Wednesday. I mean, my wife used to do that. I say, why is she telling me that? So I go,

Why are you telling me that? So you can notice without my having to say, how do I look? You're going to tell me how I look. So this is unsolicited compliments are fantastic.

The little thing, these little things that you did in the beginning and you already know how to do it because you won her over in the beginning. You just have to remember, what did I do? And then add a little bit more to that. You know, we go on a vacation and I say, honey, what are your expectations? What do you hope will happen on this vacation? So you kind of know what the job description is, you know, to do some of those things. And remember, keep it to the little stuff and lots of it. And you're constantly every little thing is building that estrogen up, up, up.

up, up, up. So then just normal things you do are like romantic. And I say this, it was a shock to me. And I wrote all these books and I was working on this women only course with my daughter. And she was teaching now women, if you do these certain things, you can get that man out of the cave. 'Cause sometimes men get stuck in the cave and how to get them out of the cave. And so, and she says, and then when you do these things, get out of the cave, then he'll be more romantic. And I said, so every time your husband comes out of the cave, he's more romantic? She goes, oh yes.

And I said, like, what does he do? She said, oh, he'll just empty the trash. And I said, emptying the trash is romantic? She said, of course. You know, kind of like, of course.

Anytime a man does something that a woman doesn't want to do, it's romantic if she already has normal estrogen levels. If she doesn't, if her estrogen levels are low, then she'll come from this place of, well, he should do that. Well, I made dinner for him or his job. My job is this job. There's no, it's just a business arrangement then. But when her estrogen levels are at a normal level, because she's taking care of them herself and also because he's helping her keep them at a normal

Then whatever he does is like bonus points. That's where you create the romance. It's the things he does once she's already in balance. That takes it to a higher level. John, just to recap all the advice that we covered so far because my audience is mostly males, so I think that we'll find this really valuable advice.

Which is like as a guy, you have to take cave time to kind of like de-stress, boost your testosterone. You want to like listen to your woman, talk about her feelings and like problems while looking for a solution. And you also want to do all the little things for her because that's like the little things are just as equivalent as like the big things for her. Are there like one or two other like tips or like common mistakes you see men making that they could like easily improve on?

Yeah. One of the key things is, you know, couples involved, you're not going to be attracted to somebody unless you have differences. OK, it's the differences. And so you're going to have difference of opinion and differences in way of communicating. And so generally you're making some decision together or she has some complaint and she's now going to complain to you. What men will tend to do is like ping pong. We complain back.

Okay, and we're just being reasonable. Well, no, you're saying that about me, but just the other day, you did that very thing. That's one. Another is, well, you're saying that about me, but you don't do this over here. Okay, another one is, well, so what if I did that? That's not a big deal. Why are you getting so upset about it? What do you expect of me? These are all defenses. This is all pointing out that we're right and that we don't deserve to have somebody reject us, which is what it sounds like. We have to realize there's temporarily differences.

crazy if one way of looking at it you can't say that directly to them although if i have women listening i'll say of course they're not rational it's like my wife when i mentioned that she gets upset about me turning out the light the first 10 times it wasn't upsetting

Why is it now a big deal? Well, from a point of view, the actual turning up what she has to turn the light on is not a big deal. But the accumulation suddenly you become a big deal. And because you start reacting like he doesn't love you. So we are all irrational. All negativity is irrational, particularly with somebody who loves you. It's the same thing of like living in America. What do you have to complain about for most of us in America? Go to Afghanistan right now.

Now you see what you got here. Everybody wants to come here and everybody's complaining about how terrible it is here. Are you kidding? This is the place everybody wants to come. Let's have a little trust and appreciation and gratitude. Okay, having said all that, back to what mistakes we make is we want to talk women out of what they feel. And logically, you can always do that. Logic doesn't work to do it. It's like a fire. We want to put out the fire with logic. What we want to do is allow the fire to burn out.

Even blow a little bit on it. Let it burn out faster by asking questions. Now, what we do is that it's hard. OK, this is not easy. It took me a long time to master this. I'm like Kung Fu guy. You can throw arrows at me and I'll just dodge them and deflect them and everything. Come give me a hug. But that takes practice and not taking it personally. So when you take things personally, you're being vulnerable. So you have to be not vulnerable. So it's not about me. Anything she says is not about you.

It's like you're here for her, but you can't do that unless you understand women. So the way you understand her is to realize that she has experienced when she's stressed temporary amnesia.

She's forgotten all the good things you've done, who you are, and all her brain is done. She's focusing on what you didn't do. Now, life is full of problems. And if you just think about problems, it's shitty. But if you have a balance of, well, I got those problems here, but look at all this good stuff. It's like, I'm going to fly, I give a class in China. I make a ton of money when I fly to China to give a class. I pay a lot for Western teachers.

But you've got to be in an airplane for 12 hours. You know, you've got to go through customs and all that. Who wants to do that? Well, I don't care doing that as long as I'm going to get my reward. So I don't complain about it because I understand the situation. It's a give and take. It's a balance. OK, so what women do is they can balance it. But first, when they're stressed, they can't.

They have temporary amnesia. Literally, they've got this hippocampus, which in most cases is twice as big as in a man. It's the memory. And its job is to remember bad stuff that's happened in the past to avoid it in the future. So if a woman has a stress reaction in life, she has eight times more blood flow than a man who's stressed to the hippocampus. And the hippocampus, if you're stressed, it's like a library of everything that's happened that you can remember, right?

There's a ground floor, which is all the good things. On the top floor is all the bad stuff. So when a woman's happy, she's walking around the ground floor. But under stress, she gets in an elevator, goes up to the second floor, and all she sees is her life is miserable.

And you're the target because so so she she can't you have to have pity on her compassion, really. But it's to recognize right now she I don't she doesn't need me to tell her why she's wrong. She'll figure it out. Just as if you've done something and you forgot to do something, you don't need your wife to tell you you forgot one more time.

How many times I have to tell you, you know, she'll use her history to try to make you wrong. You should know better. So we want to say to her, she should know better. No, she has the ability, but she has to bring her estrogen back up to get out of the second floor, back to the first floor where her brain suddenly goes, oh yeah, he does do wonderful things for me. It's understanding. So when a woman's upset, in the moment she doesn't realize she's being so negative, she

She will realize it if you don't point it out to her. This is the innate intelligence. If she can share what she's feeling and you say, well, help me understand that better. What else? Tell me more. Here's what happens. She's upset with you. And now you use logic to tell her she shouldn't be upset. As soon as you use your logic to tell her she shouldn't be upset, she will defend against you. She will bear down and she will magnify more. And now you're caught.

You will mirror back her upset. You've just sucked it in. Now, if she's blaming you, you'll be blaming her. And it's hard to do. So you have to notice once you start getting riled up, it's because you are giving solutions at a time when even if they're good solutions, they're not welcome at this moment. So you made a mistake. If a man recognizes I made the mistake, your stress goes away. That's a mask. That's a testosterone producer is accountability.

But if you don't realize you made a mistake, so you make a mistake, then you cool down. If you realize, oh, I'm giving solutions, I need to stop doing that, I need to listen more. So that takes time to do. Our instinct is to make somebody wrong if they're making us wrong. So what you do is you start feeling out of control is another part of low testosterone. So how to feel in control.

is to be the one who's asking questions. When you ask questions, you're engaging. You're the interviewer. So if she's starting to push you, help me understand that a little bit better. Well, tell me more about that. You're back in the driver's seat because you're asking questions rather than

Just be quiet. I don't want to listen to this anymore. Go. You know, we don't want to push against it, but embrace it and dodge it by remembering. There's a lot remembering that right now is temporary crazy. She's forgotten any good thing you've done right now. You are resisting. It's only going to make it worse. You have the power to ask questions and be in the driver's seat. Another one is to know that if you do this, you'll get a big reward.

I imagine a big golden ball right above her and this ribbon coming down first place. I am like the superstar if I can do this. There's always a guarantee you're the hero if you don't get upset. These are just little mental things to help. The last one, is there a last one? That's the love guarantee. That's the basic one. Oh, here's the last one, which is fear-based. If you get angry, a woman will shut down to you, period.

You want a woman to feel safe, open, orgasmic, to be vulnerable, to be happy to see you. She needs to feel safe that if she opens up, you're not going to kill her. Now, if you're angry on a subconscious level, you're going to kill her. Now, you're never going to kill her, but the subconscious, the primitive brain, when a man is angry, historically, people die. And what is happening when you're angry is...

You're actually the biological alchemy of anger in a man or crying in a man is your estrogen levels are shooting up and your testosterone is very low.

So a woman will see you as weak, a woman will see you as needy, and they say, "I want a real man." Ironically, men think a real man is tough and demanding and gets all riled up. No, a real man is cool, calm, and collected, steady. He doesn't get ruffled so easily. So if you're getting angry, you're just helping your estrogen go up and your testosterone is going down, and that's biologically proven. You're not increasing masculinity.

When you're getting angry, angry is a sign you need to stop talking. The worst thing to do when you're angry is to talk because you're trying to use your words to change the situation. Don't don't talk. You say, I need to take a time out. You go to your cave. Women want to follow you say, look, I really want to hear you. I need to take a time out so I can think about what you said.

And then when you come out of your cave, you don't start talking about whatever it was. You're still raw. She's raw. You just have an understanding. If you take a timeout, maybe the next day you can have that conversation again. In the meantime, you just be nice to each other. And it's like you've been bruised as soon.

That happens. If you get bruised, she's bruised. I mean, you can't be vulnerable at those times. And we are because we have sex with them. We open up. And so that's why sex brings up everything because we become vulnerable and people have a bigger effect on us. Our job as men is cool, calm, and collected. Watch a lot of kung fu movies. Watch how these masters...

Because they're trained. They know, you know, you can have 15 people attack him because he knows all the moves that can be made. So he's already doing it. So once you get women, they're going to push your buttons and you have to like duck and dodge and control. Remember that she can talk for a while. Your solutions don't help. And let's let me hear you more. And she'll sabotage this. She'll say, so what are you going to do about it? So what should we do about it? And if she's upset, do not give a solution because she'll step all over you.

It's just that this is what the monkey does. No, she's just knock you down because she can't open to receive whatever you say. So you won't feel appreciated and you'll be rejected and you'll get plugged in and triggered. So just know you get solutions unless you're

She's asking for them and she's in a place of loving appreciation. Otherwise, what do you do? You say, I need to think about this. I just don't know. I want to think about maybe tell me more about it and tell me some of the things you would like. Tell me why you like that. What else? You know, get her going and exploring. And she realizes as she's talking, she realizes, you know, I'm being a bitch.

I'm being selfish. I'm being demanding. This doesn't seem like very loving of me. And he's being so great about that. He's not making me wrong. He's not attacking me. He still loves me. And something you can say to her, another thing to say, since a bunch of guys I'm talking to, is when women are upset and they're complaining about their day. And what do you do? You listen a little bit. You want to feel like you can do something. Here's something you can do again and again and again.

Take a heavy breath because you actually don't want to hear all that stuff anyway. And then you say something like this. You know, you give so much to so many people. I want to just give you a hug. Another one would be, you know, you do so much there and they just don't give you the appreciation you deserve.

I love you and give her a hug. And, you know, that might sometimes love. If you give a woman love, it brings up a little more of her resistance. And she said, yeah, you don't love me either. Well, help me understand that. And what would you like more of? You know, just ask questions, get them talking. And they start realizing how difficult it is to make them happy. They're responsible for being unhappy. They want to be happy and they want to be loving and they're not being very loving at all. So they have that innate intelligence, but you don't find it until they can hear themselves talk.

And even better, if you want to be Superman here, this takes practice. Read my books about the feeling letter technique and Venus talk are in my books. But it's like when she's talking, to be able to say occasionally, just help me understand that better. And then to say something like, that's so frustrating. That's it, an emotional thing.

that's really disappointing. And then she goes, no, I'm not disappointing. You know, I'm mad about it. Oh, yeah. Tell me more about that. Never sort of try to be right. But you're also giving this emotional language that women run away from, which is self-awareness that there's an emotion that brings them into their body and out of their head, because that's why they can't enjoy sex. And that's why they get stuck in these negativities. They're in their head as opposed to in their body. And that's emotions. Getting them to identify an emotion can be really

But that's a bit of an advanced technique. Yeah. And John, we've been talking for an hour and I feel like we only covered like a fraction of the advice and tips that you share in your book. So for everyone listening, where can they go to learn more about your books, your seminars and just learn more about Mars and Venus?

Well, you know, the books are great. Beyond Mars and Venus, we talked a lot about today, but you wonderfully brought us back to some of the basics of Men Are From Mars. So if you're in a heterosexual relationship, those things are so good. If you're kind of single, whatever, I've got a book on dating. At my website, I talk more about sex. I have a secret, of course, called Secrets of Great Sex.

And that's really, really good to listen to alone or with a partner. So that's a really, really valuable one. I didn't talk a lot about sex. Sometimes people don't want to hear about sex. I want to say something very quick about sex for men. The research shows that if you ejaculate more than once a week, your testosterone levels will never increase. If you ejaculate on Saturday night,

It will go back down to baseline. But if you go for six days without ejaculating on the seventh day, it will double and you'll have great sex. If you have no sex the next day, it's not going to be the same. You go the next day, it's not going to be the same. It takes six days of abstinence for your testosterone levels to go up. Same thing if you eat too much food, food doesn't taste as good. You have to have space between it. And when it comes to sex, biologically, we have too much sex and then we end up having no sex at all.

My testosterone levels are 50% higher because I practiced that my whole life until I got to older where I learned now how to have orgasms without ever ejaculating. And then you can have sex every day and she wants to have sex every day because what increases sex desire in women is that when you make love to her, it becomes an experience that takes her to a much higher level. So the brain remembers that. If it doesn't take her to a higher level because your testosterone doesn't go to a higher level, and they've proven this, it goes 50% higher if you abstain for six days than

If you want to be like a chick magnet, if you're a single guy, every time you masturbate to porn, you're depleting that magnetic force inside of you. You know, you just basically you don't throw it away lusting after some woman that doesn't even love you. You give your juice to somebody who loves you and then it comes back to you. Just some important aspects about sexual energy is so vital for us to understand as men. And if you read the book, Think and Grow Rich.

All of those guys who are like brilliant guys who achieve great things in their lives. They all talked about their sex sublimation, sex sublimation. That means they never masturbated. It means they only had sex with their partners that they loved and they didn't do it that often. That's the power. You know, they take that energy as creative force and they manifested something in their life.

And, you know, I know the foundation of my success has been practicing that sex sublimation, which is it's such a good thing. And there's no shame on masturbation. If you don't have a partner once a week, great. You want to get that release or, you know, but and if you have a partner, then you think, oh, now I can have all this sex. And then you become like every other couple after seven years. And I'm interested in your partner that much. It just becomes routine instead of magnificent.

So this is our possibilities as men. But don't let yourself get drowned in resentment, anger, and all those things. That only means your estrogen is too high. You've forgotten what an amazing person you are. You've got to go out and do something to produce your testosterone. Cave time. Achieve something. Practice a discipline. You know, we talked about Iceman discipline is really, really great for men. It's good for women, too, but really great for men. Cold showers, fasting. These are disciplines that help us

Bring back the caveman inside of us. You know, it's just like you watch Iceman. He's like a caveman, you know. He's really over on his male side. But, you know, you can also be soft and loving and tender if you can fall back to that tough guy inside of you. We need both. Right.

John, I just want to end by saying thank you for writing your books. They had a hugely positive impact on my relationships. And thank you so much for coming on the Read A Journey podcast today. It's been a pleasure talking with you. And just thank you for sharing all the advice, both for men and women. So I really appreciate it. It was really, really nice talking to you. Thanks a lot, Alex. Thank you.

Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Reader's Journey. You can learn more about what's covered in today's podcast in the show notes below. If you enjoyed this podcast, the best way you can support it is by subscribing and leaving a positive review. If you're looking for reading tips or book recommendations, head over to alexandbooks.com. If you want to join my reading journey, you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter by searching for Alex and Books.

That's all for now. Thank you so much for listening, and I hope to see you soon. Read on, everyone.