The Biggest Skill Men Need In Today's World

hey y'all today we're going to talk about core EQ or emotional quotient skills that men need to improve their life so men are struggling a lot right now the suicide rates are at an all-time high we've got a loneliness epidemic we have a large number of men that for the first time in history are neats not in employment education or training so men are really struggling and when people talk about this problem they'll talk about societal kinds of things like we need to raise awareness there are papers about things like the loss of third spaces

right so these are P places that we used to hang out and get to know each other but as these things are disappearing we're still left with a fundamental problem which is like yeah like this stuff is a problem but who's going to fix it who is taking the responsibility for actually improving the lives of men and that's right because as men it's up to us right we are independent we're self-sufficient women and children get access to the lifeboats but we as men need to solve problems on our own and this is something that we

see a lot even on the internet the men's lonelyness epidemic is not going to be solved by women so this is a post that interestingly enough I don't even disagree with right so right now one of the biggest problems that men struggle with is that their primary source of emotional support is usually their female romantic Partners in heteronormative relationships and there's even research about this so let's kind of take a quick look at a paper so I tried to call up my ex-wife now day after discharge which she wouldn't answer the phone I sent her

a message saying can you please call me because we need to talk about things that can't be said in a text message so she called me and I told her about what had happened the night before about how I'd been to the hospital and she said I'm going to hang up now and I said no no no I have to tell you what happened and she said I'm going to hang up now I'm going to get you somebody who can help you this is from a paper called masculinity and mental illness in and after men's

intimate partner relationships so this paper very well highlights a huge problem that men have which is that we rely on women for emotional support and even after they break up with us or we break up with them or after they're our exes these are the only places that we know how to go and I think understandably women are fed up with it so today we're going to talk about core skills that you can use and if you got pissed off by this that's okay we're going to address that too core skills and things that you

can do to actually improve your relationships and skills that you can develop to better handle the problems that you face as a man hey y' I want to take a second to talk about star Forge PCS so I am in love with these gaming machines because I love gaming the problem is that I started building PCS when I was 12 and I just don't have the time for it anymore and if you really think about it like sure you can keep up with all the trends and stuff but but chances are especially if you're a

healthy gamer you may have better things to do with your time so if you're like a college student I love that they have the horizon line which is like more economical really solid gaming PC and instead of like spending 15 hours following trends like you know study your for your final and like get a better grade and then get a better GPA then get a better job and then go live your life so if you're like me and you're like a professional and you want to really solid gaming PC because you're a gamer but you

also don't want to waste the time to figure out what's good and what's not I highly recommend star Forge all of their PCS are built in Austin by Gamers who really know what they're doing and if you're like me like you build a PC once every 3 years and you screw up the gel on the heat sink if you know what I'm talking about you know what I'm talking about all this kind of crap you don't have to worry about they're going to do everything for you it'll be a solid PC it'll run your games

and this is the crazy thing every single one of their PCS I've ever used also run Zoom at top specs so check out star Forge I absolutely love them so the first thing that we need to talk about is compartmentalization so men tend to compartmentalize our relationships so we tend to have this group of buddies that I game with these are my outdoor friends this is my family those aren't my friends these are different kinds of people so as men we tend to compartmentalize very very heavily and one of the compartments that we make is

that women are the people that are our primary source of emotional support and they're also the people that we want to get romantically involved with we tend to tie the two things things together now this creates all kinds of problems when we compartmentalized relationships like this we get stuck into these dynamics of girlfriend Zone and friend zone so we as men are socialized to express only emot emotional vulnerability with usually the women in our lives so these are usually people like mothers sisters or girlfriends and when we express this emotional vulnerability with other men we

tend to get made fun of or they don't know how to deal with it let's look at some more research so this is from a different paper which we'll talk about but I needed to get lots of Courage together to tell a friend of mine and I kind of said uh I think I'm depressed and he's like Ah that's a shame laughs and it didn't really go anywhere you know it felt like I invested put myself out there on a limb and built up and had to sort of build myself up to a struggle to

get the words out even to say the actual words it was a struggle to say the actual words and it came out real sort of land and it probably didn't sound like much but it didn't go really go anywhere I guess because Beyond just saying I'm depressed you kind of need to talk about it more than that right right so if you're a dude listening to this you know exactly what this person is going through let's take a look at another example I could tell because we know each other so well that he was passing

a sort of judgment on me and it was a passive thing for him but it was just like that's how it is man and then he was sort of like yeah yeah he sort of understood like you could just see that it was difficult for him to be like okay and how does that work and I'd be like I don't know so in that sense I haven't confided in many other people this is from a paper called masculinity social connectedness and men's and mental health men's diverse patterns of practice if we look at this situation

what do we see we see that we as men do not know how to engage with other men and this creates huge problems this creates all kinds of problems for women because women are left with the burden of our emotional support outside of romance and this is why if you look at men who go through a breakup there is a fourfold increase in suicidal risk post breakup why is that that's because when we lose a girlfriend or wife we also lose our best friend who emotionally supports us so it's kind of like everything falls apart

all at once because we do not have social connection ESS systems outside of the women that we date and we absolutely need to build those and I'm going to teach you how to do that here and now so the first thing to understand is we need to learn a different kind of language so as we saw in these examples we as men don't know and this isn't our fault we don't know how to communicate our emotional needs to other people so as men we also know that when you go to a dude with a problem

the dude will go into caveman problem solving mode right so if you go to a friend and you say hey bro I'm depressed your friend will say like ah me no depressed go to gym build confidence get sexier this will help or men have beer so when we go to other men to discuss our problems what ends up happening is that they offer something called instrumental support So when men try to support other men we don't just talk about our problems because there's no point in that right we offer Solutions so what we're going to

teach you is how to use the language of instrumental support but to gain emotional support and not need to rely on the women or girlfriends in our life okay so I'll give youall a couple of sample things that you can say so the first is hey man I need help thinking through some stuff hey man I need help sorting through my emotions hey man I need help clearing my head and so when a man hears this this is when they will understand and provide the support that you need ah man know sometimes head have lots

of thoughts sometimes in head is confusing can help to get things out of head empty head is good head so in these moments what you are actually doing is asking for instrumental support hey bro help me sort through these emotions I'm not looking to go to the gym I'm not looking to get introduced to your girlfriend's BFF I'm not looking for any of that stuff I need help with what is on the inside in the best way to do do that is to say hey I need help with dot dot dot and then some kind

of emotional statement because if you say something like I'm depressed you're going to get this kind of answer because men don't know how to respond to that and so this is the second thing that we're going to teach you is how to deal with that awkwardness it's not just that we need to say these kinds of things to get the right kind of support it's that we also need to learn how to deal with the awkwardness we don't know what to say we don't know what to do so this is where we're like hey bro

I'm depressed and someone else is like yeah man it do be like that sometimes and then y'all both shrug yall fist bump and then you ceue up for the next game so we need a way to deal with that awkwardness and actually feel safer in it and dive in so the next time that you feel awkward and this is going to be the compass don't pay attention to what people are saying or anything like that doesn't matter what they say thing to pay attention to is do you feel awkward do you not know what to

say in this conversation because that's something that you can absolutely in ah man confused man not know what to do friend is depressed here man have beer beer will help let us go play video game do you want to play with my dog men play with dog men feel better so when you don't know what to do we're going to teach you a couple of things to say it's going to be so easy number one help me understand that anytime a man comes to you and says something that makes you feel awkward or you think

they're trying to say something you can just say help me understand that second thing you can say is can you tell me more that's it that's all we need to do it's actually not that hard it's hard until you know how to do it and we're not taught these things it doesn't make us stupid and it's frustrating for women because we're not taught this stuff right so we just know one place to go for emotional support that's not their fault they're getting overwhelmed by it so we need to learn how to do this ourselves because

we are men and we have to solve our own problems right we can't rely on other people for help so if you're feeling awkward just ask people hey can you tell me a little bit more about that can you help me understand can you tell me more say more bro preach brother you know you can do some of that stuff but I don't know if that's going to move in the right direction so this is the first important thing that we need to learn as men stop compartmentalizing our relationships now the second thing that we

need to learn is how to turn anger into accountability so a lot of what holds Ben back is that when we have problems in life we get pissed about it and if you look at toxic masculine spaces on the internet which I don't agree that they're entirely toxic what I mean is the space is that other people label as toxic what you will see is a lot of anger now anger can be good in a lot of ways it's not our fault that we actually feel very angry because we as men are socialized to experience

only one emotion there's only one thing we're allowed to do which is be angry right and this is where people say no no no it's like it's okay to cry like people will say that but then if you actually cry in front of other people you will get punished and let's not forget all of the other emotions because now we have a couple of movies out there where they're really manly men who are crying right but they're such Heroes that it makes it so beautiful oh my God he's crying oh my God I love him

so much but what about anxiety oh I don't know what to do you're a bundle of nerves you're having a panic attack you're worried about your future do people tolerate that not at all and what about shame oh yeah I'm a piece of I'm pathetic I'm this I'm that like I don't know if I'm ever going to amount to anything in life do people be like oh my God that must be so hard for you and like you like no they're usually like no man can do go gym have beer this will fix problem men

know this is difficult right so it's not just women it's we don't know how to deal with this stuff and the number one problem with anger is that it absolves us of accountability see anytime you look at Angry Men there is usually not any accountability that goes with it once again let us look at the scientific literature I was angry like I was devastated that I lost her the partner but it's because she broke up the family unit like a lot of guys get angry obviously and I was angry just because she broke up the

family unit you know I couldn't get to see my daughter as much as I wanted to so this is a very common experience for men where we will sort of get really upset at the women in our lives or other people for doing us wrong right how dare she take her daughter away from me or my daughter away from me oh my God we get so angry and then if you go to an online form people will say yeah like oh man like all women are and they'll say things like that right and and I

think it's understandable to be angry but there are a couple of problems with this in this case so here in Mick downplayed the loss of his partner in assigning her blame for his changed Family Access mi's lack of introspection for his culpability in the shift hinted at male entitlement and patriarchy where in grievances for losing control of his family Drew anger rather than accountability now this is where I don't want to get triggered by the whole patriarchy thing but one thing that I will say from a science perspective generally speaking when we get angry at

things we do not take accountability so this is forget about the patriarchy triggering words let's just understand this right when someone gets angry at you for something do they accept the blame that they had now let's think very dispassionately generally speaking when some when two people break up is it usually one person's fault usually it takes two to tango it takes two to break up the problem with anger from a neuroscience perspective is that anger makes our thinking black and white right so anytime we feel angry what literally happens is all of our physical peripheral

vision collapses down to 30° and the same thing happens to us cognitively we can only see this one thing and if you look at the real world very few things in the real world are black or white very few things are 100% this person's fault the challenge is it's not that the woman in some way is not to blame because it takes two to make a relationship the problem is that when you are angry it is very difficult for you to take accountability for your actions so literally when pissed off men come into my office

to do Psychotherapy we will start by decompressing the anger once we decompress the anger then we can appropriately assign blame we can say this is what she did wrong what did you do wrong and this is the beautiful thing about doing that see if we blame the other person 100% of the for the problem then we can't actually control things right because this isn't in our hands there's nothing that I did wrong what this means is that I am a victim to whatever person I have a relationship with they have all the power because they're

fully accountable and so literally what I've seen in patterns of men is that the more angry they get the less accountability they take the less accountability they take the less they change the less they change the more they repeat the pattern if you play a video game and you blame your teammates and you say oh my God all my teammates suck you will literally stay stuck at that MMR because you're not actually improving at life and anger disables our ability to improve so take a step back don't let anger absolve you of accountability do you

have a a right to be angry absolutely did your partner do something wrong 100% but if you assume that they did everything wrong and you did everything right there is a 0% chance of improvement for you so you need to take more accountability and it will be easier to do that once you decompress Ang anger we have a lot of other videos on the channel we have different kinds of meditation techniques and stuff like that through Dr K's guide where we talk about anger and meditation there's all kinds of stuff you can do to decompress

your anger but recognize that as long as you're seeing black and white and it's 100% the other person's fault your life will never improve unless you get lucky Now we move on to the third thing which is that we need to stop transforming and start accepting so if you look at the way that men deal with problems we all have this dream to transform into a different Man For Whom the problems are easier right so if I get bullied in the classroom I'm going to Get Swole and then I can beat them up so I

need to change into someone else to make this work better if I feel ashamed of myself because I'm not making enough money I need to transform right this is like Voltron or whatever where it's like Power Rangers or whatever transform Pokémon crap you want to pick anime whatever it's why we all love that stuff right it's all these different Transformations from Bruce Wayne into Batman all speak to the subconscious dream of the man which is that I can magically turn into whatever the world needs for me in my day life I am a mild mannered

Clark Kent but when the world needs me I will transform into the Superman and all these superheroes have alter egos that are like completely normal people this is what we all want and the world wants this of us too and this absolutely Ely needs to stop because when someone creates a problem for you if you have to transform in order to fix that problem who is it that controls what you become you lose all control over your life because once this problem arises I need to turn into this and once this problem arises I need

to turn into this and once this problem arises oh now my girlfriend is unhappy that I don't make enough money now I need to work extra shift oh this person I feel this person makes fun of me when I go to the beach this means that I can't go to the beach anymore until I work out and I get a six-pack which means that you're denying yourself the beach for the rest of your life right cuz you don't have a six-pack yet you think you're just going to get one now because this person made fun

of you doesn't work like that so one of the craziest things this is such a hard skill to learn from men is stop trying to transform and start accepting now this may seem very very contrary to what you want to do because the whole point is that oh but I I want to have a six-pack doctor okay like okay fine I get that but as long as you letting other people dictate the person that you want to become you will never find the sustained motivation to actually do it unless you have a a ton of

resentment in which case you can sometimes do it but generally speaking it's not very good instead what we really want to do is learn to accept right this person is an so be it am I going to let this person dictate my life am I going to stop going to the beach this person is just going to make fun of me that's going to happen sometimes it do be like that sometimes right so the moment that you accept and that's why that phrase is so powerful now these external circumstances stop controlling you and even though

you may not be able to transform and I know it it feels really bad because we want to become all those beautiful things right we want to be Superman we want to be Batman we want to be Voltron we want all that crap but in wanting to be all that crap how much have you actually moved forward because the stupid thing is that the neuroscience and psychology of it is that wanting to be something else out of a dream does not create sustained motivation it is strength it is confidence it is groundedness these are the

things that lead to positive change over time it is discipline and that starts with not letting other people dictate your actions so be it if this person wants to bully me so be it I'm still going to go to the gym and I'm going to work on myself when you start taking control of your life instead of letting your life take control of you that is what will actually get you to the gym right I'm going to go to the beach I'm not going to let this person control now I'm in control and when I'm

in control I'm I say I'm going to go to the gym which means I'm going to go to the gym so if you look at it from a evidence-based perspective we know that there's a new kind of therapy called acceptance and commitment therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy is all based around the idea that we can't change the world outside of us all we can do is accept it and this is a evidence-based therapy that helps people do things like overcome addictions because when you accept right and we see this in in Alcoholics Anonymous hi

my name is all and I'm an alcoholic there is an immense psychological and Neuroscience ific value to accepting instead of transforming and the beautiful thing is when we give up transformation at least in the short term we stop letting our circumstances dictate who we become so I know it sounds crazy men are getting screwed and as usual we are responsible because ain't no one going to help us with this crap so we are going to come together and we are going to help each other right you're not in this alone I'm here the HG Community

is here there's a lot of other people who are here to help you thankfully there are also a lot of women out there who are there to help us we have those women in our community and at the same time there are a couple of things that we are never taught how to do we end up compartmentalizing relationships we don't know how to form connections we end up channeling anger instead of accountability which keeps us stuck in the same cycle over and over and over again and we all have these dreams to transform into the

perfect man and those dreams are triggered by our circumstances and when we fall Vic victim to them we open ourselves up to other people dictating who we become we lose control over our lives so start accepting start taking accountability and start talking to other men [Music]