Swiping, Stripping and Setting F%cking Standards with Mark Rosenfeld

[00:00:00] Hello, hello all of my beautiful freaking people. Welcome back to another episode of FML Talk. We have got a fun Girl Talk episode with a male today and it is a good one. Mark Rosenfeld is here. Sit back, grab a cocktail and welcome to FML Talk.

[00:00:20] Oh my God. Wait, how old was the other girl? 19. Can you believe that shit? Hey, this is Gabrielle Stone. Good book. He did what? 48 hours? What a dick. Yeah, but have you seen all the photos on her Instagram? And this is FML Talk. Oh no she didn't.

[00:00:37] Alright y'all, we are diving into a very fun episode today. Mark is a life coach with a very interesting fun past. I can't wait for you guys to hear this little intro. It knocked me off and we just dove ahead first. We are going to cover a bunch of stuff today. We are going to talk about the things men look for in women, which I after hearing them will say things people don't like.

[00:01:07] We are going to talk about what men and women look for in a partner. We are going to talk about how you can have those conversations of exclusivity, of marriage, of kids. And we are really going to get into how to identify and break your patterns with men.

[00:01:24] And I say with men because I am a female and he is a male. This is really like the broad spectrum of relationships no matter how you identify who you are dating. It's how you can identify your patterns with significant others and break them. So without further ado, let's get into it. Here's Mark.

[00:01:42] Mark Rosenfeld, welcome to FML Talk. I am so happy to have a man like yourself, Grace, our stage. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:54] Oh, good day Gabby. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I love the show. Yeah, I'm really excited that you had me on today.

[00:02:01] I love it. Can you give all of my FMLers a little peek behind how you got to what you're doing in your online presence and all the good stuff?

[00:02:09] Oh gosh, sure. So long story cut very short. Struggled a lot with my own shyness, anxiety around the 2009 to 11 period. Had to really coach myself out of it.

[00:02:22] Started coaching men, got a job as a veterinarian, got a job as a stripper, started coaching women and then about the last seven years I've been coaching full time.

[00:02:34] Okay wait, I'm sorry in there I did hear got a job as a stripper correct? That was what we just dropped in there in between the veterinarian and the life coach.

[00:02:42] I'm all about getting out of your comfort zone Gabby. So you know it was social anxiety. I thought where do I what could I do next that would challenge my comfort zone?

[00:02:49] I go you know what I just got to take my pants off more often. Oh my god fucking epic. That would make me uncomfortable and yeah there I was first show was 2012.

[00:02:59] I went out to this pretty hick area at this bachelorette party of a bunch of country ladies. So it was yeah as a bachelor there's probably about 20 of them and I was so flippin nervous because this is probably TMI but my first show was a full Monty show and it was 30 minutes.

[00:03:16] I'm going how on earth do I do this for 30 minutes and not get awkward or weird or you know 5-10 minutes sure that's 30 minutes? What on earth does a stripper do for 30 minutes like oh man it was obvious.

[00:03:33] Okay so then you'll probably appreciate this at my baby shower because I just had a baby four months ago. Congratulations. Thank you thank you. At my baby shower my mom was like what do you want to do?

[00:03:44] Like you know I was like I don't want to play all those stupid like games where you're like pinning you know bottles on the wall and shit and she's like okay I'm just going to like surprise you. I was like okay she hired a stripper.

[00:03:55] Yes she did. What was the outfit? Come on hit me with something that isn't copper firefighter. No no not copper firefighter so he came in a full unicorn onesie which is a joke from my second book and then stripped down fully to an adult diaper with like a large pacifier in his mouth.

[00:04:13] I'm not going to lie I never did that costume and I don't regret it. I just you know I put that one in the maybe bucket and I thought you know after the after the Jon Snow after the cop after the witcher maybe I'll give that one a go and you know I never got around to it.

[00:04:28] No there's still time. There's still time. Yeah I'll put that on the maybe list for like next century sometimes. Sounds great. Oh my god what an epic way to like jump out of your comfort zone on such an extreme fucking level. What do you think just before we get into all like the good stuff of the life coaching bit? What do you think was the biggest lesson you got from taking that leap or taking the clothes off?

[00:04:54] It was just the lesson that when you set your mind to something it can happen. I know that's so cliche but for me to go from where I was which was very inhibited very shy very quiet it was such a polar opposite to where I was six years before.

[00:05:12] Yeah and I had to you know I wasn't in the industry. I didn't know people most people get in that industry because they know people you know they're friends or something that's in it they get opportunities. I had to hustle for that opportunity. I had to harass people. I had to work for it and there was so many parts of me that's like no no you're good just like you've done a lot don't worry about pushing any further. So I think just getting the opportunity I remember I think I earned I actually ended up doing two shows that night there was a 60th as well. Oh my god. That was a bit of an easy little shorter show at least.

[00:05:42] And I remember I think I got paid in cash it was like 500 bucks or something for both the shows or 550 or something. I just had all this cash and I remember I stayed in a hotel because it was so far from home there was no way I was driving home so I stayed in this hotel and had two days and I just had all this cash like 550 dollars cash. I was just looking at this money and I thought this is the hardest earned money I've ever made in my life and every cent here I still like you know how you have those moments where you can picture them in your life because they really meant something to you that was that I was sitting in that hotel after.

[00:06:12] Just thinking about all the years that led up to that and thinking if I can do this damn what like what's really possible.

[00:06:19] I love that. That was huge for me.

[00:06:21] I love that yeah getting out of your comfort zone can be such a life changing experience I always urge people to do it in whatever that way means to you whether that's stripping or going on a solo trip whatever it is like take that leap and like see what happens because it's fucking awesome.

[00:06:38] Yeah and it's never like I think for me sometimes you hear coaches say that and people listening might think oh you know they sounds easy for them like it sucks for us too guys. It really sucks for us.

[00:06:50] We feel as crap as you do when we do it and your comfort zone does get wider of course so after you do it for a while you know what you used to feel crap is now fine but what feels crap is something bigger or something scarier you know the next limit.

[00:07:03] But that sort of was a relative amount of suckiness of the discomfort is still the same for us. It still sucks getting out of my comfort zone to this day.

[00:07:12] Totally can confirm on my end as well. So okay I love when we have what I like to call emotionally intelligent and evolved men on this show because you all do it.

[00:07:23] That's a compliment thank you.

[00:07:24] Thank you.

[00:07:25] You all do exist.

[00:07:26] I appreciate that.

[00:07:27] Yeah you do exist and it's really inspiring I think to see men who have like shown up and done the work so I'm excited to dive into some of these topics you have videos that go viral all the time talking as a man on the internet about some of these so I really respect that and let's start with

[00:07:47] I'm interested to see if our opinions are similar or different on this. What do you feel is the difference between standards and pickiness because us women have been known to write the lists and have the standards and we keep our heels and standards high so what do you think is the difference between standards and pickiness because my opinion of this has changed over the course of my life.

[00:08:08] Oh interesting I'd love to hear it. Look, pickiness at the end of the day is an avoidance tactic and the hard part about avoidance or avoidant attachment style or keeping distance in general is it always looks a lot cooler than being anxious so I just have really high standards you know I'm just like really I'm just really high value.

[00:08:27] I just have all these you know standards and lists and things and it sounds kind of cool when you say it and when you really dive in you can see how that is keeping people away from her. I predominantly work with women so I'll use her mostly when I'm speaking today.

[00:08:40] So I have a couple of metrics that I measure the first is does what you're looking for actually align with the vision that you came to me with through coaching.

[00:08:50] So if someone says my vision Mark I want to work with you because I want to build a healthy relationship I want I want to be seen you know I want to feel heard in the relationship I want us to build together okay well that sounds pretty great but if you then come to me and tell me that it's a deal breaker if a guy is for example your own height because he has to be taller than you.

[00:09:08] I'm calling BS on that because that's not associated with the long term vision and you're making up more things more hurdles for him to jump through every deal breaker and you definitely need to have some deal breakers because I still talk to plenty of women who keep away too many chances quite frankly.

[00:09:25] But every deal breaker shrinks your pool of men.

[00:09:29] And so if you if you're sitting there with a list of 20 and I definitely have clients with a list of 20 but you need to read through every single one of those and literally say to yourself if this dude ticks the other 19 am I really going to break up with him based on that single one is that an absolute deal breaker and sometimes it is if it's like he respects me when we're in conflict.

[00:09:48] You know what that's probably a deal breaker and even if the guy's great in 25 other ways you probably do have to make that one because you don't want to live with that.

[00:09:55] But we're in such a social media society now that we see all these perfect couples and perfect people and we we kind of have this, if I can just upgrade, I can avoid the problems that I have in this person and get someone better.

[00:10:06] And really the relationships healthy relationships when you just look at the science they don't work like that every relationship has problems but their problems they both the couple has chosen to live with.

[00:10:15] So I often challenge clients on look are you really going to you know willing to be single for the rest of your life hang your hat on on that individual deal breaker on that one.

[00:10:23] Sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes the answer is no but I think the biggest thing yeah Gabby does it align with the vision.

[00:10:29] That's a big one doesn't align with the standards that other healthy scientifically proven couples are showing.

[00:10:36] That's a second big one and then I have this little sort of game I play with clients where I'll say to them I asked them these two questions and I say which one makes you feel like a little more warm and fuzzy.

[00:10:48] And often it's based on their attachment style but the two questions are, hey client.

[00:10:53] Where should you raise your standards. Hey client, where should you be more accepting.

[00:10:59] And so I think about it and essentially the questions of word of like one is being essentially raising standards being more selective.

[00:11:05] The other is about accepting certain problems.

[00:11:08] I found this isn't true in every client but I found with a lot of clients, whichever question gives them that immediate like warm fuzzy feeling, not necessarily the logical one, but the warm fuzzy one.

[00:11:18] Yeah, they should listen to the other question.

[00:11:21] Right.

[00:11:22] So, if I say if you if your favorite question is oh yeah where should I be more accepting, you probably need to raise your standards. And if your favorite questions like yeah like I love the way I when I raise my sense you probably need to be more accepting.

[00:11:34] But it's a little test that I've used with some clients.

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[00:14:37] I want to know yours. What's your thoughts on this?

[00:14:39] I think I'm pretty in line with your opinion.

[00:14:42] I think when you're younger, it's like, you know, everyone wants to look at like the vibe and how much money are they making and like what's their job and what's their five year plan and do they want kids?

[00:14:53] And then you get older and you sit down at a table and you're like, have you done your shadow work?

[00:14:57] What traumas have you been through? How's your relationship with your mother?

[00:15:00] But I think I think you're you're absolutely right.

[00:15:04] Like to sit down and write a list of things that you necessarily want in a relationship, that's all fine and dandy.

[00:15:13] But then you kind of have to put the list away and go out and authentically connect with people.

[00:15:18] For me, the list as I got older after like my explosion of my first marriage became much more like core values that were important to me.

[00:15:29] Like truthfulness and like honesty and sense of humor.

[00:15:33] And are we able to have a friendship foundation before the relationship?

[00:15:38] And do I feel safe with this person? Are they honorful for their words?

[00:15:42] Like, you know, do they hold themselves accountable and integrity?

[00:15:45] Like things like that as opposed to like he has to be over six foot and he's got to be like light eyes and like, yes, did I find a husband that had all of the above?

[00:15:56] I did. But, you know, it's like you can't allow those things to be deal breakers in my eyes and especially I think often obviously like initial attraction is important.

[00:16:07] But a lot of my exes throughout like since, you know, my early high school days, I wouldn't say I was initially like, oh, my God, that guy's so hot.

[00:16:18] But the more I got to know them and got to know their spirit and their character, they then became more attractive.

[00:16:26] And I think what's so detrimental to the way people date in today's world, especially with like swiping on people on social media, it's just a does this person like knock my socks attractive wise?

[00:16:38] Like in an aesthetic way. And that's so often like sometimes it takes like two, three dates with someone to be like, oh, I actually kind of feel something in this vibe.

[00:16:49] And I don't think we do that enough in how our dating is today.

[00:16:53] Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think what you alluded to there is, you know, we it's so easy to look at chemistry and even a little bit of compatibility like the money stuff.

[00:17:01] And do we want the same number of kids, religion, all that, all that stuff.

[00:17:04] But what you really alluded to there, what I heard is relationship skills, which is, you know, can this person back their words with actions?

[00:17:10] Can this person handle their trauma or does it get vomited on me? How they show up in conflict?

[00:17:15] It's all the boring questions that you don't want to ask when you're younger that actually and it's not that you don't need compatibility because if you want a different number of kids and someone's really healthy,

[00:17:23] still not compatible. But that's the stuff that clients miss the most.

[00:17:28] And so I love that you pointed that out. And yeah, I couldn't agree more in terms of online the swipe culture.

[00:17:33] And I get it because it's different for men and women, very different problems, but problems nonetheless.

[00:17:40] It's almost like I really feel this will never happen, but I really feel that online dating or online meeting, as I really call it, it should require a license.

[00:17:48] You know, 13 percent of people have a very positive experience.

[00:17:53] I teach my clients exactly what those 13 percent doing, how they're thinking, how they're using it, what their standards are, how they look at it, how they approach it, how their offline dating is to balance it out.

[00:18:04] But 87 percent of people are going on there and just going this sucks, man.

[00:18:08] And I understand it because it's not built for you to have a great experience.

[00:18:11] It's built to keep you on the app and it's built to buzz your dopamine the same way a poker machine does.

[00:18:15] And what happens when you play pokies? You know, it's fun for like the first five slots and then you're depressed gambling addict.

[00:18:22] Yeah, so absolutely the same way.

[00:18:24] And I just wish there was some sort of license for use because when you do it right, they actually work.

[00:18:29] But it's so rarely done right that it upsets me that I think the baby gets thrown out with a bath water with apps because they are good meeting places.

[00:18:37] But you get overwhelmed. You only pick the shiniest object on there.

[00:18:40] There's too many people. Yeah, it doesn't work.

[00:18:43] I totally agree. A license and like background checks, thorough background checks would be great.

[00:18:48] Actually, I got I got pitched an app the other day.

[00:18:51] Let's hear your thoughts on this. The app was very simple concept.

[00:18:54] You matches usually do. And then there's a couple of deal breaking questions that you answer.

[00:18:57] You get like four or five from each other. And then curious to hear your thoughts on this.

[00:19:01] There is no chat function. There's no ability to chat.

[00:19:04] There's no ability to call. The only thing that happens after you match into your deal break is that the man has to organize a date and tell you a time.

[00:19:12] And then the woman, she says yes or no to the date.

[00:19:15] And then her safety is tracked the same way Uber tracks safety. This is this is track.

[00:19:20] So I personally like the chat feature, but I know lots of clients, lots of women hate it.

[00:19:24] I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that one actually. Good idea.

[00:19:27] Well, I love the safety aspect of it. I think that's really great.

[00:19:32] I do think it's a lot of effort to get ready, go on the date, meet someone if you aren't going to vibe.

[00:19:41] And sometimes you can get at least a little initial vibe by talking. Otherwise, it's like really a blind date.

[00:19:47] So I think it would take more effort and some balls to go that route because like texting is so much gets lost.

[00:19:57] You can't get like the real I've texted with people and then met them in person and been like, well, this is wildly different.

[00:20:03] Not you. I knew you from your texting. This isn't you at all.

[00:20:08] Yes, 100 percent. OK, so as a man who approaches women on relationships, what do men like in the general sense want in a woman?

[00:20:21] Yeah, there's a few pieces here. I really like to use the respect model.

[00:20:24] So I wrote about this in my book, R-E-S-P-E-C-T. So I'll go through them quickly, but there's one or two that I really like focusing on.

[00:20:30] R is responsibility. And what I actually mean by that is a woman who does her work as well.

[00:20:35] So if there's trauma that comes up for her, she's taking care of that. Same as you would want a man to do.

[00:20:41] E is equal status. So we're all irracial creatures at our core.

[00:20:45] So there is a level of status that we're looking for, particularly at the beginning when we date.

[00:20:49] S is for standards and boundaries. And this is the magic dust that instead of playing hard to get, you can just be hard to get.

[00:20:56] And if you're good at sticking to those limits, a man's going to respect you because even if you're really great and so easy to get to know, he's still going to feel that he has to work for you.

[00:21:05] P is positive attitudes towards men and this goes both directions, obviously, but I can't tell you how attractive it is when you meet a woman who just thinks men are great and has positive experiences or at least is seeing you with a fresh coat of paint.

[00:21:18] And you could get a positive experience with you as opposed to women who are saying, oh, you know, men suck. Men have no use. I don't want to be around her.

[00:21:25] Like doesn't feel very nice. Same as a man saying that about a woman. What are we at? R-E-S-P-E is energy.

[00:21:32] So particularly around feminine energy and vibrance. That's the really big one.

[00:21:36] C is cultivates her own life, has something separate from him.

[00:21:40] Esther Perel's research talks a lot about when you've got something separate, you can just see apart by that little bit of way.

[00:21:45] They're very attractive. So same applies in dating. And T is trust and appreciation.

[00:21:49] I think there's a real magic that happens when a woman trusts and appreciates a man, he just lights up.

[00:21:53] And that's I think that's one of the things that always scares me about women who become increasingly independent because when you don't need men anymore,

[00:22:02] men start to feel less and less useful in society and men who don't feel useful tend to cause big issues and big problems.

[00:22:10] On the one hand, it could be things like the scary stuff like the suicide rate. But on the other hand, it can be groups and wars and all sorts of nasty things.

[00:22:17] So I think trust and appreciation coming from women always like to man up. And I just see it work with so many clients.

[00:22:23] So they're the big seven. One thing I work with a lot of women who are in business and tech and lawyers, those types of people.

[00:22:29] So I think embodying that feminine energy and it's not a weak energy. It's a courageous open energy.

[00:22:34] That's probably the biggest of the seven that we work on. But we touch on all seven of those in coaching.

[00:22:39] Yeah, that's so interesting. I was like fully prepared to argue with you on what you know, because you hear like what do men want in a woman?

[00:22:47] And it's like, first of all, full like, what do you mean? Like there's no fucking checklist that I need to show up with.

[00:22:52] But those are all very I agree. I think like in a man or a woman, they can be lied to either way.

[00:22:59] Like I would want no matter what gender I was dating, I would want that person to show up with all of those qualities.

[00:23:07] I want to touch back on the one that was playing hard to get versus being hard to get.

[00:23:12] Can you expand on what that looks like a little bit more?

[00:23:15] Yeah, I mean, human beings at our core, we just have this biological knowing that anything that comes too easy is probably not real.

[00:23:22] If you look at a car and a valuable car, one of the biggest things about the car is not just that you feel good in the car.

[00:23:29] Not everyone has the car. I mean, no one cares when you want to afford like it's nice to drive away with a new one.

[00:23:34] But no one cares. But when you're in possession of something that you had to earn, investment makes you invested is really what I'm saying here.

[00:23:42] So for example, you know, you're a mother of a young, believe it was a young son, you said.

[00:23:47] Obviously, you've raised that son with your body. You keep him alive and you've been doing so for many years to come.

[00:23:52] That creates an unbelievable amount of investment.

[00:23:55] A simpler example is me going long distance with Sam for a year during COVID.

[00:24:00] That was a lot of work, but I had to invest in the relationship, which means I'm now invested.

[00:24:04] It's the idea that if you win a car versus if your blood, sweat and tears will work for a car, you're going to value the second car a lot more.

[00:24:11] So with boundaries and standards, there's really two main pieces I work with with clients.

[00:24:15] One is just having good standards through the dating process.

[00:24:17] So you're not falling in love in five seconds because as we were saying earlier, Gabby, relationship skills, that sort of stuff, not at least some of the most important stuff, but you ain't going to see it on a first or second date.

[00:24:28] You don't know if he handles his trauma well on the second date.

[00:24:30] You don't know if he respects you in conflict on the third date.

[00:24:32] You're going to get clues throughout the dating process.

[00:24:35] But what really makes a man healthy and a good partner is a lot of that stuff.

[00:24:38] And that stuff takes time.

[00:24:40] So in terms of dating standards, the magic of allowing time, the magic of saying, Hey, you're 10 out of 10 on the first date and 10 out of 100 overall.

[00:24:46] The magic of saying, look, you're great.

[00:24:48] And I'm still going to wait before I commit because I made that promise to myself.

[00:24:52] That's the magic of, oh, he goes, Oh, you really like me though, but I start to work.

[00:24:57] So that's a big piece.

[00:24:59] And then the boundaries come in with little micro boundaries early on.

[00:25:02] And it could be even like where he takes you on the day, or it could be whether he picks you up or how much he invests.

[00:25:07] If you're training a man in just a few of these little micro boundaries from the very beginning, it's kind of like a puppy that you train when it's very young.

[00:25:13] It doesn't misbehave much when it's older.

[00:25:15] But what I see a lot is women who come into dating, they don't want to be high maintenance.

[00:25:19] They don't want to be needy.

[00:25:20] They don't want to be perceived as controlling.

[00:25:22] And men are behaving very well at that stage to boot because the dopamine is flowing.

[00:25:27] Everyone's putting in lots of effort.

[00:25:29] So a lot of the stuff is done automatically.

[00:25:31] And then 18 months later, the woman realizes, Oh shoot, I have this misbehaving man.

[00:25:36] You know, he hasn't been trained.

[00:25:38] He was behaving well mostly because he was so high on dopamine.

[00:25:41] But now the dopamine's worn off.

[00:25:42] The couple hasn't really established boundary habits from early on.

[00:25:46] So it just creates such a perception of value.

[00:25:48] Not only when you've got the standards to make a man work for real through your honesty, but the boundaries that has these little investments in you consistently.

[00:25:57] And again, when he is investing, he becomes invested.

[00:26:09] I'm curious if you get flack from men online with saying like, what do you mean we need to be trained and like some of the analogies you use?

[00:26:19] Do you get pushback from other men?

[00:26:21] I haven't had a lot, to be honest.

[00:26:23] I think most of the women watch my content.

[00:26:25] I don't know if I've gone on men's podcasts, I get a little bit.

[00:26:27] But it's just a fact of life that men are, I think even a lot of men would agree that men are very responsive to women's feelings.

[00:26:33] We like making women feel good.

[00:26:35] I mean, no one's going to argue how obsessed men get with women's orgasms.

[00:26:38] Why is that?

[00:26:40] It's because it's the emotional sort of peak emotional experience for either sex really.

[00:26:46] So men love when a woman says, Hey, you made me feel good.

[00:26:50] We don't feel good when we care about say, Hey, you made me feel sad or hurt or whatever the feeling is.

[00:26:55] And in fact, many of men's problems and the reason men lie in relationships is actually because we don't like hurting women.

[00:27:02] And so we start treating them like 10 year olds, like children we can't upset.

[00:27:06] And then we end up in this web of lies because we didn't want to upset them.

[00:27:08] And then she feels even more hurt.

[00:27:10] So actually, I haven't copped a lot of flack.

[00:27:12] I'm sure that some will.

[00:27:14] But at the end of the day, you could also reverse it.

[00:27:16] I mean, a man also needs to train a woman what his boundaries are.

[00:27:19] We're all training each other how to treat each other.

[00:27:21] Right.

[00:27:22] If I run a seminar and nine women are polite and one swearing at me, then the one who's swearing at me leaves the room and the other nine have been trained how to what my boundaries are.

[00:27:30] Right.

[00:27:31] So no, I don't think it's too strange.

[00:27:33] Yeah, I'm here for that.

[00:27:35] OK, so let's talk how to broach different subjects with men because I get a lot of DMs from people being like, OK, I'm in a situationship.

[00:27:45] How do I like have the conversation of like, what are we or how do we talk about like when the marriage train is coming or the kids or like I have this like boundary that I want to set.

[00:27:54] But I'm afraid he's going to freak out.

[00:27:55] So how do you talk to men?

[00:27:58] Yeah, there's like it depends on which topic where you are in the spectrum.

[00:28:02] I think with the compatibility stuff like marriage, kids, that type of stuff, it is good to get some vision expressed early.

[00:28:08] For sure.

[00:28:09] And you don't need to sit down the first day and say, OK, explain your life plans to me.

[00:28:12] But talking about where you want to be in five years, talking about what some of your goals are, what's important to him and coming to those conversations with curiosity.

[00:28:19] If you start some of this stuff early and I think this is you know, we get so into just enjoying the dopamine, enjoying the high.

[00:28:25] We don't want to ruin it because it feels so good.

[00:28:27] This is also another reason I really like what you said earlier, which is when your chemistry is just a little bit lower at the beginning, let's call it seven or eight out of 10.

[00:28:35] I call that the Goldilocks zone because it's a sweet zone.

[00:28:38] Well, you're not quite a nine or a ten.

[00:28:40] Something interesting happens, which is you're not quite as nervous about ruining quote unquote the chemistry with some of these conversations.

[00:28:48] So if you've got seven or eight out of 10 chemistry with someone, it means you're still excited to be around them.

[00:28:52] They still give you a buzz, but you can come down a little bit and have like a regular friend based conversation.

[00:28:57] Yeah. What I see a lot is when that chemistry is like nine or 10 out of 10, it's really hard to sit down and go, oh, what if we're incompatible in this idea?

[00:29:07] Because you don't want to ruin it. Right.

[00:29:09] It feels so good.

[00:29:10] Let's talk about that tomorrow.

[00:29:12] How to bring it up. Just a couple of quick notes.

[00:29:14] I mean, with exclusiveness, I think a good way to frame it is, hey, I want to be on the same page because if he's continuing to wanting to see others and that's his truth and you're not, then that needs to change right there because immediately you're going to be at a disadvantage.

[00:29:26] And if he, especially after dating for whatever eight weeks, 12 weeks, if he's still saying, no, you know what?

[00:29:31] I still want to see other women.

[00:29:33] Then in my opinion, you should be damn sure opening up your options because he's clearly not seeing you as super high value.

[00:29:39] Marriage and kids, I think it's important to sit down and say, Hey, like where do you want to be?

[00:29:42] What's your goal?

[00:29:43] What's your vision and get the values out of someone early.

[00:29:45] If you haven't talked about it, the longer you leave it, the harder it gets.

[00:29:49] So don't be afraid to bring that stuff up early.

[00:29:51] What was the other thing you spoke about speaking about needs and boundaries coming from an open hearted place?

[00:29:57] Anger can work, but if you always use anger to get your wants and needs met, the thing about anger as an emotion is it closes you off more than it opens you up.

[00:30:09] And so if you have more of a lot of clients who work in very masculine environments and anger is the only thing that their fellow male employees listen to.

[00:30:18] If in relationships, you only go to anger.

[00:30:20] Unfortunately, what that does is it starts to tell the man that your heart is more close to him.

[00:30:24] So it's not that anger doesn't have his place and by George, you do need to call some men out using a healthy dose of anger, but always going to softer emotions first.

[00:30:32] Especially as the woman you're creating the emotional safety in the way a man creates the physical safety.

[00:30:37] And it's very rare that a man will stray outside of your emotional range in the same way you wouldn't stray outside of a dark alley in a place that he hasn't checked.

[00:30:45] You expect him to go first emotionally.

[00:30:47] He expects you to go first.

[00:30:49] So when you're sharing needs and specifically wants to get those needs met, giving him feedback from an open hearted place.

[00:30:56] So whether it's a happy joyous, you know, sharing some of those positive emotions men love that because it's how we know we've done a good job.

[00:31:02] You know, it's a metaphorical wagging about tails or whether you need to share that.

[00:31:05] Hey, I felt hurt or I felt sad or I felt disappointed or I felt lonely.

[00:31:09] I felt disconnected really getting to the true feeling instead of saying, for example, you should do this or if you cared, you would have known that.

[00:31:18] That just doesn't work.

[00:31:20] And men might do what you want for a little while before they rebel.

[00:31:23] If you come in with an open hearted approach, especially the right man is going to appreciate that.

[00:31:27] Yeah.

[00:31:28] And that's not to say the right men don't mess up and need a good dose of anger sometimes.

[00:31:32] But start with an open hearted approach because if you become reliant on anger, you will shut yourself off to a man and he will shut himself off to you.

[00:31:41] Yeah, I agree with that.

[00:31:42] And I think it goes beyond just a romantic relationship.

[00:31:47] I think that's with any type of relationship dynamic you have in your life.

[00:31:50] If you come to the table saying, look, this is how I feel.

[00:31:54] And when you said this, it really hurt my feelings.

[00:31:56] And now I'm feeling A, B and C.

[00:31:59] That is 99 percent of the time going to carry more weight and affect them more heavily than coming at it with anger and rage and trying to like one up the person.

[00:32:11] My husband and I are both very alpha in every past relationship we've ever had.

[00:32:16] So when we got together, we were like, oh, this is interesting because if you go here and I go here and you go here, then suddenly we're like on top of the fucking roof and nobody's getting what they want.

[00:32:25] And it's so much more powerful even.

[00:32:29] And I've been on the receiving end of it, too.

[00:32:31] When someone sits down and they're like, when you said this, it really hurt my feelings.

[00:32:34] There's nothing that's more or like you really disappointed me.

[00:32:38] Like there's nothing more intense than that.

[00:32:41] It's so much more heartfelt than a yell or any anger response.

[00:32:45] Yeah, it's much more open hearted because you're actually letting someone see how they affected you.

[00:32:51] If you go in with anger, I mean, anger has its place.

[00:32:54] The purpose of anger is an emotion, of course, is to set boundaries.

[00:32:57] If you poke a bear as in you poke its skin, then it will slash you or get angry and try to eat you because you tried to over jump its skin boundary.

[00:33:04] So anger really has its place, especially if there's been an agreement that the other person has gone against.

[00:33:10] Which is, oh, I agree to do this.

[00:33:11] And then now you didn't do that.

[00:33:13] And I'm feeling angry that we made this agreement.

[00:33:14] Totally legit.

[00:33:15] But as you say, there's more open hearted ways to go about a lot of problems, especially ones that haven't actually been confronted by the couple yet.

[00:33:23] Right. Yes. Big time agree with that.

[00:33:26] So when people are dating and going through all of the ins and outs of relationships in their life,

[00:33:33] I know that I have had to identify and break some patterns that I had with men.

[00:33:39] I know people who read my books that they also feel that way.

[00:33:43] So in your expertise, how do you identify and break patterns that you might have developed with men?

[00:33:50] Yeah, I think the first thing is you've got to acknowledge that you're part of it.

[00:33:54] Anything you're seeing, you know, once can be a coincidence, twice is a suspicion.

[00:33:59] I think the same goes, but three, there's always a pattern there.

[00:34:02] And there's always a part you play.

[00:34:04] And that's not a bad thing.

[00:34:05] I think sometimes we carry shame around that.

[00:34:07] And then that's very childlike and that's something we all have to work through.

[00:34:10] But we go, oh, you know, I was part of it.

[00:34:12] That's not a bad thing.

[00:34:13] You know, I've been part of every relationship that's ever ended in my life.

[00:34:16] I've been part of every fight that ever started with.

[00:34:18] We're constantly making mistakes left, right and center, every single one of us.

[00:34:23] And I think the perfectionist in all of us, you know, even in us coaches wants to deny that and go, no, you know, I'm better.

[00:34:29] I am the good one.

[00:34:30] I'm pretty good at this.

[00:34:31] And if you're excelling in other areas of your life, it's even more bitter of a pill to swallow that, OK, I'm making a lot of mistakes in this area.

[00:34:39] But it's OK to make mistakes.

[00:34:41] And frankly, if you're making some mistakes, you want to know about them, you want to learn from them.

[00:34:45] So I always have clients look back at their relationship and say, OK, this is, you know, you chose these relationships.

[00:34:51] You manifested some of these outcomes.

[00:34:53] What part did you play?

[00:34:54] And we're looking for common threads between the men.

[00:34:57] Now, sometimes it's not so obvious you can get a slingshot effect.

[00:35:00] For example, one, you go from someone who very much hurt you and took control and then you slingshot in the next relationship to dating a nice guy where you're in full control so you don't get hurt again.

[00:35:11] So sometimes it can be subtle.

[00:35:13] But especially if your previous relationships haven't been healthy, there's always some boundary issues.

[00:35:19] It's pretty much if you can get boundaries right, if you can let the good things in and keep the bad things out and keep the door swinging open and shut as appropriate.

[00:35:27] You can pretty much nail relationships.

[00:35:29] That's kind of like but that's hard to do.

[00:35:31] You know, trauma shuts down the boundaries.

[00:35:33] Sometimes trauma leaves them too open.

[00:35:35] You can't kick people out.

[00:35:37] But I think that beyond just looking for patterns in yourself, if you can have an honest reflection of whether you either overstepped others boundaries or understepped your own and kind of catalog that through each of your relationships.

[00:35:48] One thing I'll sometimes do is have clients look at the difference between six months into the relationship when generally everyone's behaving pretty well because they're on dopamine up to three years in when that's definitely worn off.

[00:36:00] That's where you see the safety net of the dopamine is now gone.

[00:36:04] So your true relationship skills are going to be the difference between the six month boundaries and the three year boundaries.

[00:36:09] So that's also something I'll use to predict where the sort of mistakes might be being made with boundaries.

[00:36:15] But yeah, I think taking an honest look back, taking responsibility and taking 50% of the responsibility, 50% of the sort of the pattern, but 100% of the responsibility for what you can do to change it.

[00:36:27] Yeah, totally.

[00:36:28] I talk all the time about if there is a pattern in your life or in your relationships that there is something within you that is attracting that and until you take accountability for that and point the finger back at yourself.

[00:36:41] You're never going to learn what it is that's attracting that so like for me, it was attracting men that were going to abandon me whether that was by cheating or dumping me before getting on a vacation.

[00:36:51] I was attracting these people because of my fear of abandonment and it wasn't until I like recognized that and healed that that I was able to then attract different things in the future.

[00:37:00] And so often we want to go into the victim mentality of like, oh but I don't deserve like all these people that are cheating on me or all these people are lying to me.

[00:37:07] It's like no, of course you don't deserve that. But you're attracting it in some way. They're coming into your life. They're not going over to Sally.

[00:37:15] Deserving is a funny concept, isn't it? Because it can go bad in both directions. We say, oh my god, you know I guess I deserve this and you become a victim or you say I deserve better.

[00:37:27] But if you automatically say I deserve better, you kind of become blind to well you did some of the wrong things so you got what you got for a reason.

[00:37:34] And it's not a reflection on you but I think deserving is a bit of a tricky, tricky concept. So I like that you pointed that out because yeah as you say it's really about going, hmm there's not really any deserving here.

[00:37:46] It's just what happened happened thanks to a series of actions. What were the actions and what happened in my head before the actions occurred? That's where the transformation could take place in the future.

[00:37:55] Yeah. And how can I learn from them?

[00:37:57] How can I learn from them? How can I make sure that whatever thoughts, decisions and actions led me down path A, different thoughts, different decisions and ultimately different actions will then lead me down path B.

[00:38:08] That's right. Amen. Mark this has been so wonderful. Thank you for coming on and sharing all your knowledge. Can you tell everybody where they can find you? You have such great fucking content online and if they are interested in coaching, all of the things.

[00:38:21] My pleasure. Yeah, I absolutely love the show. So if you want to find out more about what I do, you can head to MakeHimYours.com. That's M-A-K-E-H-I-M-Y-O-U-R-S.com. There's different coaching stuff there. We've got a free group. We've got this. Got some paid content as well. If you want one on one coaching that's there as well. My book is there so I'd love to see you over at the website and perhaps even chat to you one on one.

[00:38:42] Love it. And what's your social media handle?

[00:38:45] Social media handle is at MakeHimYours on Instagram at MakeHimYours. I put up polls most days, get people voting on things. Actually, let's see. I'm curious about the results of today's poll.

[00:38:56] Oh, tell us what it is. Yes. Last week I asked women, what are you looking for? A modern man or a traditional man with no other options?

[00:39:03] Traditional. Yeah, 60% said traditional. Today's poll, interestingly, was what are men missing most? And there was three options because I figured 60% were traditional.

[00:39:15] So the three options were are men missing traditional protectiveness, traditional providedness or emotional and relational intelligence?

[00:39:24] Interestingly, 55% of women said emotional, rational intelligence. Which is interesting because I dare say a lot of traditional men probably weren't expected to have for that 50 years ago.

[00:39:36] Right, but we want it all, Mark.

[00:39:38] Oh, Mark.

[00:39:39] Hey, gotta have it all. I mean, and it's true. Women now with their own incomes are not as reliant on men, especially for provider protector. Yeah, still you still want, you know, you know, women on the front lines of the army, but provider.

[00:39:54] Women are doing more of that for themselves, which is great. It's gotten so many women out of desperate situations and so many women's daughters to not repeat the generational cycle of bad situations with men.

[00:40:03] But at the same time, I think women's motive for relationships and you tell me if you disagree here has really moved a little more, a little less from providership and a little more towards something that doesn't come naturally to men, biologically, at least which is relational and emotional intelligence.

[00:40:19] Yeah, I 100% agree. But I also think from the men that I know in my life that they're very capable of growing into that emotional space just because it's not necessarily like biologically wired. I mean, you're a prime example of that.

[00:40:37] Yeah, yeah. I mean if women can have kids, you know, go through that process or not and simply master the workforce as well, then there's no reason men can't learn some emotional skills as you point out.

[00:40:49] Yeah, absolutely. Mark, this has been so great. Thank you for sharing all of this wonderful stuff. I really enjoyed this episode. Yeah, I hope people go in, check out all of your stuff. I really enjoy your videos online. They've got a lot of really great value in them.

[00:41:02] Thanks for having me on FML, Gabby. Thanks for having me to all those listening.

[00:41:07] I want to thank Mark so much for coming on the show today. I had such a fun time recording this episode with him. I always love when we get good men on this show. Please go check out his content online. There's some really good videos on there and if you are interested in diving into some private coaching, check out the website. I love you guys. I will see you next week.

[00:41:27] All right, FMLers. If you don't want to miss an episode, make sure to follow on your favorite podcast app and if you're loving the show, drop us a five star rating and leave a review. You can keep up with me on Instagram at Gabrielle Stone or the podcast page at FML Talk Podcast. For all the merch and books signed personally by me, you can shop the FML line on EatPreyFML.com.

[00:41:55] And as always, have a fucking self-love cocktail on me. Cheers.

[00:42:11] Hey, I'm Charlene Joint and you may remember me from season 18 of The Bachelor and this is my husband Andy.

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