Dr Robert Glover Author of No More Mr Nice Guy
Peter King: Welcome to the second installment of the PK experience. The nearly world-wide
famous podcast by yours truly, Mr. Peter King. In this audio, this interview, I am
interviewing Doctor Robert Glover who is the author of a book called No More
Mr. Nice Guy.
So when a lot of people hear that term, No More Mr. Nice Guy, they think,
"What's wrong with being a nice guy? A nice guy sounds pretty nice." But the
way that the author, Doctor Glover uses the term, the nice guy is the guy that is
always placating. He's always seeking the yes. He's always trying to get
validation and approval from others. His wife, his girlfriend, his parents, his
children, his boss and so, these nice guys go around with what they think is a
genuine intention of trying to do nice things.
But what they're not really aware of is the underlying subconscious need for
approval, for significance, for validation and what happens is, it just, it really
destroys marriages, it destroys relationships, it destroys potential and so, these
men are not really living their lives with backbone. Doctor Glover wrote this
book. I came across it. Somebody had referred it to me. I checked it out. I
realized that I had a lot of nice guy tendencies that just weren't really serving
me and quite frankly, it wasn't serving the people in my life either. It was
affecting my then, wife, it was affecting my children and there's a call for real
masculinity to have, yes, have that heart, that nice heart. But also a backbone to
be able to draw boundaries, to be able to step up and achieve and to create and
to live life with purpose and joy.
So this interview is with Doctor Robert Glover and I have to sort of mention that
I did a horrible job of recording the actual audio. It was the first time I was using
a standalone microphone. As I'm having the interview, I didn't realize I didn't ...
It didn't occur to me that as I was moving, sitting back in my chair, I was moving
away from the microphone and so, the audio might be a little bit messed up.
Hopefully not too much because I'm getting some help on that. But anyway,
please enjoy this interview, I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on it. So
without further ado, No More Mr. Nice Guy. Here it is.
I am here with Doctor Robert Glover. He is the author of No More Mr. Nice Guy
and he is also a licensed marriage and family therapist and he's helped
thousands of men worldwide, help them with what he calls the Nice Guy
Syndrome. And I've actually personally read the book and got a lot insight out of
- It revealed a lot of blind spots in my own personal experience, so thank you
very much for that.
But when I go to actually refer the book to other people, to men and sometimes
to women, who have relationships with nice guys. I sometimes get some push
back with the whole idea of a nice guy. It almost sounds like we're advocating
for being a jerk. So, if you're not being a nice guy, what does that actually mean.
So maybe you could just spend a few seconds here describing and defining what
you mean by nice guy.
Robert Glover: All right, Peter. Good to be with you and good to have a chance to talk with you
about No More Mister Nice Guy. I guess the elevator speech of what a nice guy
is, is a man who typically at some unconscious, or a conscious level doesn't
believe he's good enough just the way he is, and he has to have other people's
approval in order to be liked and loved. Typically, he tends to sacrifice his own
wants and needs and typically gives to other people and makes their needs a
higher priority than his own. Often, lets people walk on him or treat him bad or
misuse him and all the while he, kind of waits for people to treat him better and
recognize his needs and like him.
But then, one of the things I say in No More Mr. Nice Guy is that nice guys are
actually fundamentally not very nice for a few reasons. One is that he's not
being his true self, so he's actually not being honest with you. Most nice guys
will say or do whatever they think they have to, to have other people's approval
or to avoid conflict.
But another very significant way is that nice guys often are not nice is that we're
giving to everybody else and using what I call covert contracts and a covert
contract is simply, in my mind, I think, "Well, if I do this for you, then you'll do X,
Y, or Z for me." If I hold the door open for you, then you'll appreciate me and
think I'm a good person and like me.
Well, when we use these covert contracts, we are usually not aware of the
covert contract and nobody else is aware of it at all. They don't know that we
have expectations. Either that they acknowledge what we've done of if they do
something in return for us or they appreciate us or love us or want to have sex
with us. So when we do all this giving to get, and other people don't respond in
the ways we think they should, we tend to start building up resentment. And
that resentment builds overtime, we keep feeding it. Then, eventually, one of
two things happens. We either become passive aggressive. We either kind of
lash out at people in indirect ways that they don't see coming or a typical nice
guy thing is to have what I call a victim puke, where everything has been storing
- All these times, just comes ... Some little thing happens and you just vomit
all over the person and they're going, "What just happened here?" And they
didn't see it coming.
As I said, the problem with nice guys is we're often not nice. But the bigger
problem is, we often don't live up to our full potential. We don't have the kind
of relationships we want. We don't have the kind of great life we want because
we're so busy kind of licking our finger and holding it up in the air and seeing
which way the winds blowing, that we don't get up every day and just say,
"What do I want?" Then, go about living our life in a way that makes us happy.
Peter King: You had mentioned that nice guys have this covert contract and that, they often
may do something with the anticipation of getting something in return and that
other people aren't fully aware of that. Do you find also that there are times
where the quote, unquote, nice guy also is not aware of it? In other words, that
it's happening on a subconscious level?
Robert Glover: That's a good question and I would say, yes, that most often that is the case. In
the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy, I spell out the three basic covert contracts that
most nice guys use. Covert contract number one is that if I'm a good person,
then everybody will like me and love me. Now of course, we're the one that's
defining what a good person is and we can often extend that to our
relationships if you're straight, heterosexual. "Well, if I'm a good person, then
women will like me and love and want to have sex with me." Or if you're gay,
vice-versa for other men.
Covert contract number two, that if I anticipate everybody else's needs, before
they do, then they will anticipate my needs and give to me. Then, covert
contract number three, if I do everything right or at least hide any mistakes that
I make, then I'll have a smooth problem free life.
Now, I would say in general, most nice guys are not aware of their covert
contracts. I wasn't aware of my own until I started going to therapy several
years ago because I couldn't understand why my wife at that time, didn't
respond better to being the nice guy. I treated her well. I was raising her kids,
my step-kids. I tried to do everything to please her when she was in a bad mood.
I'd try to fix it. I avoided everything that might rock the boat, but yet, she was
never happy. I was never good enough. She never wanted to have sex with me.
So it reached the point where I started getting so passive aggressive and having
so many victim pukes, she said, "You go to therapy. I can't live with this
anymore."
So I went to therapy to try to figure out why me being a nice guy didn't make
her treat me better and that's when I begin to find out I had these covert
contracts, these expectations. That if I was just the best man she'd ever been
with in her life, then she would of course, overwhelmingly love me, treat me
well, want to have sex with me and life would be smooth and problem free.
Now when you start realizing you have these covert contracts, you realize a few
things. Number one, they don't work. Number two, they're kind of child like.
Number three, they don't reflect the real world and number four, other people
don't know they're out there. It requires you to start being a better
communicator, taking more responsibility for your own needs and wants, having
better boundaries with people, learning how ... where you have a tendency to
care take and fix to try to make your relationship smooth or make people like
you or get them over their problems, so your world gets back to copasetic. So
yeah, becoming aware of your covert contracts is one of those big "ah-ha's" that
a lot men have when they read the book. All of a sudden they go, "Oh man, I get
it now. I get everything I do is pretty much measured to get something back in
return."
Peter King: Yes. So the other funny look I get sometimes when I tell people about this idea
of No More Mr. Nice Guy, is first obviously, what do you mean ... Again, are you
advocating for being a jerk? No, of course I'm not. So if we're not advocating
being a jerk, really from what I understand in reading your book, you're actually
taking the nice guy part of you and you're carrying it forward. You're just adding
something to it. Would that be accurate?
Robert Glover: Well, actually maybe just the opposite of it.
Peter King: That's what I meant.
Robert Glover: You're taking [crosstalk 00:09:30] Yeah, exactly, that's what you meant. Well, let
me address first of all, the point about even just the title of the premise. There
was a little bit of consciousness that went into this. When I actually started
recognizing other men thought just like I did and were co-creating the same
things I was creating in my relationship.
I'm a marriage and family therapist by training and so couples would be coming
to see me and the guys were saying the same thing I was. I'm a good guy. I treat
her well. I treat her better than her ex. I always do stuff for her. It's never good
enough. She's never happy. She never wants to have sex. She's angry all the
time. When's it gonna be my turn? Blah, blah, blah, blah.
I can finish these guys sentences for them. So I started, this was probably 20
years ago, started my first No More Mr. Nice Guy men's group and we met
every other week. Every other week I started writing chapters or lessons to give
to these guys about what I was finding out about nice guy and it just seemed to
fit. No More Mr. Nice Guy, just seemed to fit.
Kind of the paradoxical part of the title is that everybody's probably at some
point in their life said, "No more Mr. nice guy. I've had enough. I'm standing up
for myself or whatever." But at the same time you could also ask the question,
"Well, why would anybody write a book for any men to be not nice? You must
be training them to be jerks." So the paradox of the title actually, I think is good
because it gets people's attention and ironically ... And to answer your question
a little bit in advance, no, I'm not teaching men to be jerks or assholes.
And ironically, many, many men who write to me email me and say, "I've read
your book, it's great." Many of them were turned on to my book by a woman, a
wife, a girlfriend, a female therapist. I can't tell you how many men have told
me their ex-wife or ex-girlfriend turned them on to the book. So women seem
to love the book and probably the books been out now, came out in '02, '03.
Probably in all that time, I've gotten a totally maybe of three or four hostile
letters, emails of people saying, "You're a jerk. You're this, you're that. You're
teaching ..." And the ones that wrote me the letters, I can tell they didn't read
the book.
Peter King: I was gonna say, I'm sure they didn't read it.
Robert Glover: So yeah, you would think women would be the ones who would be most
offensive about ... Well, why are you teaching men to be not nice? Well, women
love the book because I'm teaching men to be honest, to have integrity, to set
the tone and take the lead in their own life and invite their partner to join them
in that process. To be a, "what you see is what you get kind of guy".
So no, I'm not teaching men, of course, to be jerks. What I try, and help men do
is, number one, be them, be themselves. Ask themselves what do I want? What
makes me happy? Where do I want to go or how do I want to live my life? By
asking that question, you create a state of what's called differentiation or we
could call that integrity because if you never ask yourself, what do you want? Or
if you ask yourself that and then don't do it, you're not differentiated. You're
not living in integrity. Actually, you're being very child like. So I'm teaching men
how to grow up by asking themselves the question, "What do I want? What's
important to me? What would make me happy?"
Then, finding support systems and the courage and whatever else they need to
follow through on those things that are most important to them. So as a result,
they become men of high integrity. They become men of high honesty. They
become a "what you see is what you get" kind of guy, and you either like ... So
Peter, if you're living your life on your terms the way you want, people who
meet you, they're either going to like you or they won't. But it doesn't matter.
The ones who like you want to hang around with you, and the ones who don't,
will probably just pass on by and not even really notice you.
But that attracts people to you that like the "you" that you are and not
everybody's gonna like you, just as you said. But find out who does by being
you. So yeah, I'm teaching men to act on the integrity of being exactly who they
are. Being visible in that way, being verbal in that way and just letting people
know, this is my, this is what I want, this is where I'm going.
Peter King: How are you finding these men? As I've come to better understand this and I'm
in the practice of coaching and this sort of things as well. Men are typically not
as in touch with their feelings or if they are, they're not outwardly expressing
that. They're not necessarily searching for it in my small experience. So how are
you finding those men and if somebody's who's listening to this, how would
they know that they are, quote, unquote a nice guy and where could they
possibly go in addition to, you're No More Mr. Nice Guy book?
Robert Glover: Well, if they're listening to this, they're probably either nodding their head or
going, "Well, that's not me." And I found that most nice guys would actually
listen to your kind of ... most men who would listen to your kind of podcast,
probably already do have some nice guy tendencies.
The one thing about nice guys is we all want to be better guys. I mean, we're
always trying to get better, so that people will like us better. And there's kind of,
a paradox that a lot of times guys start working with me, and they read the book
and find out about covert contracts and after a while they go, "Yeah, I get that
my own covert contracts didn't work. It didn't make people like me. It didn't get
my needs met. It didn't create a smooth, problem free life. So I want to get rid
of all that. I want to break free from nice guy syndrome. So then, people will like
me, and I get my needs met, have a smooth, problem free life."
So when I started trying to market No More Mr. Nice Guy and find an agent, find
a publisher, thank goodness for the role of the internet because I got some good
breaks where I started getting some visibility with what I was doing. I was
beating some bushes, but some of it started coming to me. I got an agent and
he really liked my book and he's a very successful New York agent. But we
started shopping the book to major publishers. The report we got back was,
"Oh, we love your book. It's well written. We like it, but our marketing
department says, men will not buy a self-help book." And especially men will
not by a self-help book that tells them that they're losers.
And I said, "You don't get the men that I work with." We kept plugging away at
it and then, after some more visibility with some major networks, Barnes and
Noble decided to pick it up and publish it and that was like I said, 12, 13 years
ago. My royalty checks keep getting bigger every year. So that means, that more
and more men are finding it and it struck a nerve. So really, thank goodness for
the internet because on my website doctorglover.com where people can find
my online university. They can get other materials, podcast things that I record.
But most people find me either because a friend or a therapist tells them about
the book. A lot of people find it by listening to podcasts like yours or going to
online chat rooms, where guys are either working around issues around
pornography or co-dependency or 12 step recovery. So it's really kind of taken a
grassroots path through the whole big recovery community out there and a lot
of people that are in some kind of recovery or another, do tend to go to the
Internet to find information.
So it comes to me. The books been translated, I don't know, probably to eight or
10 languages now? It's got a real worldwide presence and it seems to just keep
growing every year. So apparently, there's a lot of men across all cultures
because I grew up in America. I actually like in Mexico now, most of the year. I
grew up during this era where a lot of mothers were training their sons to be
different than, their fathers and that's what my mother did. But I've also found
that Asian cultures, Indian cultures, a lot of worldwide cultures are producing a
lot of nice guys. So they're out there and it's worldwide.
Peter King: Wow, that's fascinating. Yeah, I was gonna actually ask you about that globally.
That's very interesting. The last couple years, I've been kind of ... I've been going
to just tons of workshops and seminars across the country and as I've come to
better understand the whole idea behind nice guys, I mean, it's rampant. You
mentioned before that women often refer the book.
I have found that women are desperately screaming for their men to grow up,
for their boys rather to grow up and really the whole nice guy thing is that, yes,
you have a boy that's in charge as opposed to a man. What you just mentioned
about growing up and having a mother be the authority figure perhaps in your
life, I mean, you touch on this in the first part of your book. But I find it very
fascinating to sort of lay the landscape. Can you speak to how we got to this
stage, where on a global level, we have almost this epidemic of nice guy
syndromeness?
Robert Glover: Well, I talk some about that in the book, as you mentioned and that, I finished
writing over 15 years ago and I've continued to observe the process of nice
guys. I think you could ... Probably a lot of factors go into it. I grew up during ... I
was in junior high in high school during the 60s and 70s. So you had women's
liberation. I grew up here and a lot of angry feminist blamed men for all the
problems in the world. My mother trained me to be different from my father.
To not be the self-centered, everything should revolve around me kind of guy.
So a lot of stuff is going on in America in my generation. One example I give is
that I ask, often in groups of nice guys, "How many male teachers did you have
from kindergarten until you started junior high?" And the average is about one,
one and a half, in groups of guys. Some never had a man teacher. So one of the
things for example, I say is that the average third grade male, not is only having
to sit in his seat and listen and be still and a lot of schools now with testing.
They've gotten rid of recess. That's the only reason I went to school, for recess
and P.E. and lunch.
I was the typical boy. So now the typical boy not only has to learn to read and
write and knows arithmetic to get from third grade to fourth grade, but he has
to learn how to please a woman. He's gotta figure, "What do I have to do to
make this women teacher happy, just to move forward?" Often it has very little
to do with how he performs in the classroom is how he negotiates that world of
having women authority around him.
I think you add to that in a lot of cultures now. A lot of boys are being raised by
single mothers and I've had a lot of single moms say, "Help me. I can't be the
father and the mother to my son." And the mothers will tell me, "I get that
because, as a woman, me raising my son, I've taught him to be soft or passive or
afraid and what can I do, what can I do." One of the things actually, I planned to
do is to put together maybe a graphic novel based on No More Mr. Nice Guy
and some of my dating principles for young adult males and teenage men.
Because there is just such an empty place out there for young men to get good
information about what it means to be male, what it means to be a man in our
culture.
I think you add to that, most cultures have lost whatever rituals they had at one
time, where the older men initiating the boys into kind of the dangerous scary
world of the masculine. Most cultures are losing that. And again, often in the
Asian and Indian cultures, there's so much emphasis on being perfect that a lot
of boys are growing up thinking, "I gotta be perfect. I gotta do everything right."
And a lot of times, in these culture, the women are very dominant in the family.
They kind of give lip service to the men being in charge, but the women run the
show and these boys grow up again, trying to figure out how to please women.
And then, one other piece I've seen, like I said I live here in Mexico, where it's
still very much a very macho culture. And where the boys are raised to be
special by their mothers and even their sisters weight on them and they grow
up thinking that all women are there to serve them and please them is very
macho. But I've also found, anytime you have a macho culture, for a boy to be
anything different other than that macho world revolves around me. I can use
women in whatever way I want. They often have to go to 180 degrees to the
other extreme would be the nice guy. Of being that passively pleasing male.
So even here in Mexico, you can see a lot of these young men, just tagging along
like puppies with their girlfriends, trying to be the nice guy and please them. So
even a macho cultural can turn out a lo of nice guys.
Peter King: Yeah, that's interesting. Do you find that there are nice guys that don't go to the
passive side, but they go to more, an aggressive angry side and still don't get
their needs met, but they handle it in, a different way? What different types of
categories of nice guys have you seen pattern wise across all the men you've
worked with?
Robert Glover: Well, I'll just have to say upfront. No two men are alike in how they interpret
the world or how their para dime guides them. But it is spooky to see how so
many men can be, just the way they think and their para dime. It was really a big
insight to me when I realized there were other guys out there just like me. I
thought I was the only one following this para dime and I was actually
consciously thinking, "Well, if I just try to be good to everybody, why does
everybody try to be that way?" And it wasn't just being good. I hid everything, if
I thought anybody would have a negative reaction to ... whether it was a
mistake I made or a thought or a feeling that I had or something I wanted to do.
But in the book, I talk about two types of nice guys. The first is me. I call it the,
"I'm so good nice guy". At first, I thought all nice guys, as I saw it, fit that
category. These are the guys who really do think, we do everything right and
everything we do that's either messed up or a mistake or we don't want people
to know about, we just tuck away in nice little compartments back in the back of
our psyche and we really do think, "Hey I've got this bank account built, where I
do so many good things for so many people. I'm such a good guy and I don't do
terrible things. That everybody should just like me and I should get a credit.
Nobody should ever get mad at me, if I do happen to mess something up."
That's the, "I'm so good" nice guy.
Now, actually, we're really pretty dangerous because we're so oblivious to our
dark side to the things that we even hide from our own consciousness, that it
comes out in really not very nice ways. And it can come out at times in those
anger outbursts, the victim pukes, passive aggressiveness. I was married when I
wrote "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and my ex used to tell me, she said, "I'd rather
be with a jerk. I'd rather be with an asshole because at least a jerk, they're
consistent, even though they're gonna be a jerk to you." But she said, "You'd be
so nice to me all the time and I'd think everything's fine. I don't know anything's
bothering you and then, all of a sudden, out of the blue in public, you do
something that really hurts me or embarrasses me or puts me down." And she
goes, "I don't like all those surprise daggers in my back."
And she was right, nice guys versus, "I'm so good" nice guy, often, again as I said
earlier, not that nice. Now, to answer your question, I rarely, find what I call nice
guys out there, raging a lot because usually, that makes us feel so bad about
ourselves. So we try to repress that and put it back down again because most
nice guys think it's bad to have too much anger.
But then, the second kind of nice guy is what I call the, "I'm so bad" nice guy.
And this is the guy, when I first wrote the book, my perception was, "Well,
maybe he acted out as a teenager, young adult. Maybe went through drugs or
alcohol or rebellious phase and came away thinking, I'm a bad guy. But maybe if
I work really hard to be a good guy, people will see that and like me." But these
guys live in a constant fear that everybody will eventually see how bad they
really are.
Now what I now come to understand about these men is they ... many of them
have what I call a ruminating brain, where their brain is spending 24/7 focusing
on past mistakes or perceived mistakes, missed opportunities, regrets. They're
comparing and measuring themselves against other people. Often finding fault
with themselves. Often looking to the future. Believe that no matter what they
do, it'll probably not work out well and anticipating failure, anticipating the
other shoe falling. So their brain spins with this stuff all the time and they tend
to feel pretty negative about themselves all the time. They assume if they let
anybody get close to them, they'll see those same negative traits.
These men might have more of a mood disturbances up and down, just because
their brain keeps them agitated, so much of the time. But usually, one of the
things you'll first see about nice guys and you'll first start noticing is how passive
they are. That they don't tend to stand up for themselves. They don't tend to
lash out. If they do, do something a little bit harsh, they're apologizing profusely
for it afterwards. So to answer your question, in general, you'll see the
occasional victim puke from the nice guy. But usually, they're not walking
around with a lot of rage and if they are, they're doing their best to keep a lid on
that because it makes them feel like such a bad person.
Peter King: You mentioned a minute ago about a divorce and can you speak a little bit to
some of the costs that these men face, if they don't address meeting their
needs. What are the different costs that you've seen that are destructive in
these men's lives?
Robert Glover: Well, that's a good question. I can speak personally to it because I was ... If you
had looked up nice guy in the dictionary 25 years ago, you would've seen my
picture as the poster child nice guy. I truly was trying to please everybody, make
everybody happy. I thought I was an honest guy, but I never told the whole
truth. I hid things, I left things out. I miss directed information, so people might
not be upset at me.
In a relationship, I was always asking my partner, " Well, what do you want to
do? Where do you want to go? What do you want for dinner?" I would never
make a decision and say, "Let's go do this." Kind of the ironic thing is, yesterday,
or actually about a week or so ago, my ex-wife, who I was married to when I
wrote "No More Mr. Nice Guy", we were married for 14 years. We had all kinds
of difficulties, but also had a lot of good things. But we've been divorced now,
12, 13 years. About a week ago, she contacted me and said, "I'm gonna be in
Puerto Vallarta. Would you like to have coffee?" And I'm thinking, "Okay. We've
talked a totally of three times maybe, since our divorce."
And we had coffee yesterday and both of us are in a really good place. Both
realized, we bumbled our way through the relationship. We both went to a lot
of therapy during that time. As I said, we brought out the worst in each other,
but we also brought out the best in each other.
But as I was talking with her, I had told her, I said, "I would not have wanted to
live with me." I was passive aggressive. I never asked for what I wanted. I gave
to get. I wasn't a good receiver, so when she did try to give to me, I'd usually not
let her. I rarely told the truth, if I thought it was going to upset her. Everything I
did, had an agenda and I wouldn't set the tone or lead. I left all the decisions up
to her and this was especially, early on. I begin to change as I started doing
recovery and working on myself.
But then, after I got out there in the dating world and actually dated some nice
girls, it was like looking in the mirror of how crazy I must've made my previous
two wives. When they couldn't trust with 100% everything I said. I wouldn't
actually ever say what I really wanted and I got with some girls like that who are
nice women. But I realized, I really couldn't trust them because they never told
me what they really thought, what they really felt, what they really wanted.
They would never make a decision.
And I thought, "Oh my goodness, this is what I was like." So in the book, I make
a statement and I'm paraphrasing. I don't remember exactly how I put it. But I
say, when I first started working with nice guys who were in relationship, I gave
them a 50/50 chance of their relationship making it as ... for two reasons. One,
as they started shifting their own patterns, it would rock the boat. Number two,
because often the partners they've been attracted to and involved with, had
their own dysfunctional need to be in a relationship with the nice guy.
So it could change on many levels. But in the book I say, the more I worked with
nice guys, I started saying, "Well, maybe it's more like 60/40." And I said, "By the
time, I finish writing the book, I had it about 70/30." Then, probably about 70
percent of the relationships won't make it, when a guy starts "nice guy"
recovery. And today, I'm probably more about 80/20. That maybe about 20% of
the relationships will respond well to a man becoming more honest, becoming
more integrated, setting the tone, making his needs a priority, being more clear,
being more direct, not having good boundaries, not tolerating bad behavior.
Often, relationships just could not handle that change and both people realize,
"Hey, we got together for a bunch of toxic reasons and now that we're blowing
those toxic reasons out of the way, there's not real attraction anymore." There's
no strong connection. But then, I found that a lot of guys go out and I get emails
all the time. They say, "Doctor Glover, my divorce was hideous. It was terrible. It
wiped me out, stressed me out, took me a while to get over it, but I've been out
dating and I met a great woman. We're a great match. She likes that I set the
tone and lead. She likes my boundaries. She likes the way I live my life and we
click."
So the good news is, even if it rattles a relationship, it'll either make it stronger.
Let it grow in, a healthy way or if it blows it apart and you move on, okay, it
opens the door to have healthier relationships where everybody involved is
getting more of what they need and want.
Peter King: So we've talked a lot about the nice guy landscape. Let's talk about now on what
you refer to as the integrated man, which is ... Let's paint a very vivid picture as
to what that looks like, so that we know what to point to and what to aspire to.
Robert Glover: Okay. Well, let's first talk a little bit about what often creates a nice guy. I think
it's probably three-fold. There may be more to it than that, but just basically,
often most the nice guys I work with already have a fairly peaceful
temperament. They're usually pretty easy-going guys. They can tolerate a lot
and not a lot upsets them, so that's often part of who they are already. It's
genetically how they popped out. But two more things that usually contribute to
the nice guy syndrome and I talk a lot in, "No More Mr. Nice Guy" about the
same. The belief that I'm not okay. I'm not good enough just as I am.
One of the things I say in the book is that pretty much everything nice guys do is
to manage that sense of shame of defectiveness, unlovableness, and not let
people find that out or they may even have to see it in too bright of a light. And
so, I talk a lot in the book about how to start processing shame, to find safe
people, to open up, to reveal yourself too. To find out that people can like you,
even if you're not perfect. That people can like you, warts and all. In fact, they'll
probably like you better if you have some rough edges and you're not this
cookie cutter, Teflon kind of guy.
Now, since I wrote the book, in the last 15 years or so, I've begun to really see a
lot that anxiety also enter in a lot for nice guys. A lot of everything they do is
about managing their anxiety. The anxiety of looking bad, looking foolish, being
rejected, someone being angry at them, them failing, whatever it may be.
So to become an integrated male, I teach men ... It really does begin with, you
have to be able to ask yourself, "What do I want? What's important to me?" You
have to build support systems and practices. Moving in that direction that you
want to move. Because I tell nice guys, "You didn't get to be a nice guy on your
own. You probably won't break free from it on your own." One thing about nice
guys and about men in general, as you mentioned, we tend to want to do it all
ourselves. We want to figure out in our head and then just try to go do it
different.
Peter King: Why do we-
Robert Glover: You know, it may just be part of DNA. It may be part of how we've been
condition by culture to not look back, to not make a mistake. I really do think
the core energy of the masculine is about both freedom and about competence.
It's about going out and doing things well. So for example, if we're in a
relationship and our partner criticizes or nags us, that just cuts to the core of
most men because they're basically saying, "You're not competent. You're not
good enough."
So I think we go out and we try to conquer, whether it's building something,
destroying something, resolving something, slaying the beast, killing the deer for
dinner. So that then, we have the freedom to kick back and enjoy a moment of
happiness and bliss in life. So I think part of the thing because maybe it's wired
into us that we should be competent. That we try to hide it when we feel less in
competent and try to figure it out in our head. But that figuring stuff out in our
head that we men, seem to all do, rarely moves us forward.
'Cause where the truth is, I think we move forward in a couple of ways. One, is
by revealing ourself to save people and building again, that sense that, "Oh, I'm
not as bad as I think I am because these people still love me or maybe I'm not
even bad at all and these people can like me, flaws and all. They could support
me and encourage me and want me to be my best."
So I think that's a real important piece and then I think we also have to have
practices that help keep us on the track we want to be one. Whether it's
learning to set boundaries. Whether it's pursuing our passions. Where we have
to build support systems to keep adding new tools to our tool box, to keep
[inaudible 00:35:09]. I expect we'll do this til the day we die. Why wouldn't we,
til the day we die, keep using our practices and our support systems to keep
evolving as human beings.
So this integrated male is not being about a perfect guy. But it's about being a
guy I think who's enough aware of where his shame pieces lie, where his anxiety
pieces lie. He's learned to sooth himself. He's learned to release his shame. He's
learned to take chances and take risk and be honest and be transparent and
reveal himself and he's learned to ask himself, "What do I want?" And to
continually stay on that track of life of honoring his wants and his needs and his
desires and his passion.
Again, I think that often takes a lot of support to do it. I encourage men ... I
mean, you put out a podcast for that very same thing. It's because, if we try to
do it alone, we're just gonna keep using the same tools that got us exactly
where we are in life right now and we're not happy with exactly where we're at,
let's get some new tools. Let's get some resources to help move us forward.
Peter King: Yeah. I love that and yes, most of the men that I know that are struggling with
this are absolutely in isolation. We're all isolated and struggling with this
together, which is ridiculous because in this day and age of connectedness, we
should be able to connect.
Robert Glover: We should and we can and that's really kind of my life goal. Is to build as many
communities of connection as I can. I did most of my recovery work for my nice
guy issues. I started out in a 12-step group, which was just liberating for me. For
the first time in my life, I just started revealing me. All the stuff I kept secret. I
grew up in a conservative Christian family. I've been a minister. I have two
degrees in religion and I kept everything about me secret. I went to 12-step
groups and just started revealing everything.
It was liberating and then I could just like, start doing that with my wife as well. I
would just tell her stuff that I'd never told her before. Then, later on, I joined a
men's group I was in for several years. It was led by a woman actually, but she
was very supportive of men and men empowering themselves. Then, I've led
countless men's groups.
One time, before I closed my private practice, I was doing five men's groups a
week. One of the most powerful thing about a men's group is that you get in
there and you listen to other men's stories and you go, "I'm normal. Everybody
else thinks like I do. Everybody else struggles like I do or everybody else is afraid
of a woman like I am. Everybody else has these anxieties too." We're all
different, but we can all relate to those same patterns. And to hear other men
talk about it and say, "Well, I don't think he's bad or I don't think he's defective."
And they don't seem to think I am.
It is so liberating to be able to walk out and have all your insecurities and all
your imperfections and all your perceived flaws and still like yourself and still let
people get close to you.
Peter King: Right. This has been an area of focus for me for a long time and something I'm
personally passionate about, to the point where it actually has become my
unique purpose, which is to help men sort of realign to that masculine core.
Very briefly, my father, when I grew up, was just never around. He was a
workaholic, so he wasn't physically there and then, later on in life, he revealed
that he was gay. So there was a piece where he wasn't really even emotionally
available for me and there was a dis connectiveness.
I was, in a lot of ways, a typical young boy. I played sports. I did well in certain
classes, not as well in others, et cetera, et cetera. So one of the things that's
become very, very apparent to me in this whole idea of good little boys growing
up to be nice guys, is that there wasn't that strong male masculine father
influence.
Maybe I missed it. I didn't necessarily read your book cover to cover, but I went
through the whole thing and I didn't see necessarily something about that
father-son relationship. Does that play a big part? I'd be interested in your
feedback on that.
Robert Glover: Yeah, I do talk about that in the book and I recall probably early in my own
process, I remember reading, Iron John by Robert Bly. The books really all about
basically, capturing your power from your mother and joining with the king,
rather than lining with the queen. I remember reading it and thinking, "Yeah,
yeah. Okay, okay." And I didn't think I got a lot out of it.
But then, what was funny is that I went on. Then, years later I was reading other
stuff and doing my work and going to the therapy and writing my own book.
Then, I actually, a few years later, read Iron John again. Maybe even after I had
finished my book and I thought, "Oh man, I get it. This is exactly what I'm talking
about." And I realized that it probably had influenced me more than what I
realized.
One of the things that stands out for me, I haven't read it in years, Iron John. But
one of the things that still stands out in my head is he says, "We've got to really
get to know our dads and reclaim our dads." He said, "None of our dads are
either as bad or evil as we've made them out to be or they're not as good or as
saintly as we've made them."
And until we really can get a clear view of our fathers and just accept them as
flawed imperfect human beings, we probably aren't going to move forward with
our own masculine self. Because I was trying to be different from my father my
entire life. Every way I interrelated with women was, "I'll be different than, the
other men out there." I.E. different than, my asshole father.
And it's interesting that I went through a period, where I didn't have contact
with my dad for many years and then, I reached out to him just to say thank you
because, I love baseball and he taught me to play baseball and came to all my
practices. We spent hours out on the playground practicing and playing. And I
said, "Thank you dad. I appreciate that." It made my life ... It's an important
thing in my life.
He and I started communicating some and I didn't live far from him, but I came
to realize, he's kind of, a reclusive, scared, insecure man and we get together
about every six months or a year and have a cup of coffee and a donut and he'd
kind of tell me the same stories he told me the last time. And I just really came
to realize, this is the flawed human being that he is and then, I also got to know
some relatives, and some cousins of mine. A male cousin whose father was 20
years older than my dad. So my dad and his dad didn't even know each other.
They didn't grow up in the same house. Then, a female cousin whose mother is
my dad's sister.
I spent time getting to know them. I didn't even know them til I was an adult
and they said, "Oh yeah, their parents were extremely physically abusive. That
our grandfather had been extremely physically abusive." All of a sudden it
shifted the light on my father as that, "Yeah, he had some mood disorder
[inaudible 00:42:10] and angry." But in many ways, I think he had risen quite a
bit higher than his own father was.
When he died about six years ago, I spoke at his memorial and I said it was
liberating for me to realize, he had a very flawed father. He was a flawed father,
but perhaps he did it a little bit better than his dad. I was a flawed father, but
maybe I did it better than him. And at that time, I could look at my son, who was
about 25 at the time, with his daughter and he's just an amazing dad. So maybe
by learning to see our dads for who they are and let go whatever our
expectations or resentments or even the ways we idealize them, I guess is the
word. And just come to see them as just flawed human beings that probably
didn't have a lot of help to be a man. A lot of help to be a father or a husband.
I'm not trying to let dads off the hook that were assholes or that were abusive,
but even if they're assholes or abusive, there's something in their brain that it
made sense to them to act in that way. I'm not saying you have to have ... go
have this close type relationship with your dad. But I think you do have to ... Like
Robert Bly says, "Take them off the pedestal or out of the ditch, so that you
don't have to be a reaction to your father." To where you can just be you and be
grateful for whatever gifts that he gave you as a man.
Peter King: Yeah. I had a wise person once tell me that, a father's job for the son is to move
the football down the field, to use a football analogy. Of course, he's trying to
get in into the end zone, but that when you become a father, you pick up where
he left off. I think as you mentioned, there's part of that point, I think in a man's
life where he has some maturity. He has some humility, often right around
when he probably has his own family and he realizes, "Oh, I don't know what
I'm doing either." [crosstalk 00:44:08] and that humility kicks in and you go,
"Gosh, he was just doing the best he could."
I'm very grateful ... When I grew up, I was resentful of my father, but once I
matured and became a father myself and I realized, "Man, where he started
from, he got the football way down the field and I'm so grateful that I was able
to pick it up and push it down and hopefully into the end zone, but as far as I
can for my son." A lot of men have the opportunity to look at it through that
prism and see that, yeah, we're all just ... We're doing the best we can.
Robert Glover: And you know, even if our dad didn't do the best he could because maybe they
didn't. Okay, but we can still, come to just see them as a flawed human being.
'Cause, well, we can let go of that baggage. It frees us up. I know when my
father died, he had a stroke. He died about two weeks after having the stroke,
so I spent every day with him in the hospital. Every day in hospice. He was in a
hospital two blocks from my office. So I was there every day when he was in
hospice. I took time off from work and every day, I just sat there. I'd kiss him on
the cheek. He was comatose and I would say, "Thank you dad. Thank you for all
the gifts that you've given me." And I was really at peace when he died and that
was such a blessing.
Out of four kids in the family, I was the only one of the four kids who was willing
to speak at this memorial. It was a small memorial, but my younger brother and
my two sisters were still so bitter and angry. My father that they ... They knew
that they had very little good to say about him and I didn't praise him or put him
on a pedestal. I just said, "I'm grateful I came to see him as a flawed human
being and I'm at peace with that." And I really was. It was a good feeling to have
peace with that.
I think that's freed me up to walk the planet in my own way as a man, without
having to be a reaction to my dad or a reaction to quote all the bad men that I
heard women complain about and I can just be me. And I can have my dark side
and I can have my imperfections and I can observe them and watch them and
hold them in front of me and say, "Yes, I have this light in me that is great. I can
treat people well. I'll make the world a better place." And as one of my good
friends told me this summer, they said, "Robert, you can be an ass." And he
said, "You aren't an ass, but you can be an ass and you need to be able to hold
that up in front and look at it too and accept that about." Otherwise, it will
come out in really asshole kind of ways.
Peter King: Yeah, there's-
Robert Glover: And so, dealing, I think with our dads, allows us then to look clearly at ourselves
and accept both our dark and our light side.
Peter King: Yeah, there's a saying in the personal development industry. I'm sure you're
aware of it. "What you resist, persists."
Robert Glover: It does.
Peter King: And if you are holding him up on a pedestal and you're attached to that, that
can really knock you off balance. Either you don't feel like you're never gonna be
good enough, strive for perfection, which is obviously unachievable or you're
constantly trying to push away that dark side. We all deal with not being
perfect. So yeah, that's a great point.
I have found this to be central to, as I mentioned before, my purpose and, as I
look through sort of the macro lens and then also in micro at my own personal
experience. But I just feel like, that whole lack of ... I just feel that there is a ... I
believe that there is a lack of clear masculine energy in the world and I think
society is suffering. I think our communities are suffering. I think leadership in
government and in business is suffering.
I feel like, and maybe this is just me looking through this lens, but I feel like this
could be attributed to almost every facet of the world right now, in ways that
are not working. And that it's so desperately needed to have good, strong,
integrated men who have a clear sense of purpose and passion and integrity to
serve the greater good and not do it for greed or for tyrannical reasons. Do you
have any examples that you could think of, either in pop culture or maybe even
in the past that is well-known? That we can look to and say, "Now, here's a man
who has integrated, who lives from his heart, but he has a backbone too."
Robert Glover: Well, two things come to mind, just right off the top. I love the autobiography of
Teddy Roosevelt. He was a man's man. But I love the way he lived with integrity.
The way he challenged himself. I mean, I think if I could go be like anybody out
there, Teddy Roosevelt would be one of my first role models.
But you know what came to mind when you were talking, I remember reading
an article after 9/11. It was an article written by a woman. I think it's an op-ed
piece in the New York Times. It basically said, "I'm sorry and thank you." It was
written by a woman she basically said, "I'm a feminist. I grew up a feminist and I
grew up with this idea that men and women are equal. But even that maybe
men are bad and I don't need a man. I can do everything on my own." She said,
"I remember times I'd be on an airplane and I'd go to lift my carry-on baggage
up above into the storage up above my seat and a man would try to help me
and I'd feel dismissed by him. Like, he's being condescending and I'd tell him, I
can do it myself. And I'd do it myself."
As she was writing she says, "I'm sorry. I've heard a lot of men who were just
trying to be good men." And that does happen a lot. I've had a lot of women tell
- "I know. I've contributed to men being more passive because when they've
tried to be good men, I've hurt them." And she said in this article after 9/11, she
says, "As I watched the rescue workers, the policemen, the firemen risk their
lives. Put themselves at great risk and be vulnerable. To rush into the buildings,
to carry people out, to do this with no concern about their own well-being." I
tear up when I think about it because it moved me.
She said, "Thank you for that." She said, "I'm glad we have strong powerful men
in this world who can make me feel safe." So that really stands out and I really
think maybe in some ways, 9/11 was a turning point. Maybe, unfortunately,
politicians abused it to keep fear in people and keep us in that fearful place and
we keep building up more and more weapons 'cause they keep convincing how
dangerous the world is.
But I think that was a big turn around for a lot of men and women, where
women decided, "You know what? I like the idea of having a strong man and
strong men around me." And men came to realize, "You know, there's a place in
this planet for me to be strong. For me to make a difference. For me to be bold
and for me to take risks and for me to be a hero when called upon."
I think, for me, that stands out, as an American at least, as a transformational
moment. You know what? When I first wrote the book and I do interviews with
media and stuff. They'd ask me, "Well, do you see a men's movement? A men's
liberation movement like there's women's liberation." And I said, "No, not
really." I said, "Number one, is the reason that women's liberation succeeded to
the degree it did is that men enabled it succeed." Male judges, male university
presidents, male legislatures said, "Yeah, this is wrong. We need to change it."
Men changed, that allowed women to get equal pay and not be discriminated
against. So it was men that actually made the women's movement succeed. I
would say, about the only thing I could really see causing a men's movement is
men and women banding together for men's rights after divorce. In terms of
visitation with children and not paying outrageous child support to an ex, who
just spent the money on whatever. 'Cause sometimes women will get involved,
especially with their new husband, when they see the injustices there.
But I said, "I don't think that's ever gonna be big enough for a men's
movement." And quite honestly now, I actually do think there is a very strong in
building men's movement out there. There's not one single thing, but it's
actually just about men seeking ways to feel more empowered in life. A lot of
men come to me now because they want to learn how to date. They're terrified
of women.
Okay. They come to me to learn how to date and I teach them how to me a
more powerful, dynamic man. If that helps them gets dates, great. But if it also
makes the world a better place or helps them have better relationships down
the road or be a better father, great. It doesn't matter why they came to me.
Whether it's because they were going through a divorce or they want to learn
how to date.
If I can teach men to live with integrity, to be differentiated, to be powerful, to
be leaders, hey, we're making the world a better place and it spreads because
the internet can spread ... It can spread a virus in any way. It can spread a virus
like ISIS or it can spread a virus in terms of men finding something that
empowers them in, a healthy way.
Peter King: Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad that you continue to bring up the whole view point of
women because again, the women that I talk to about this are just pleading for
me to rise up and to be the men that they were born to be and to fill that
vacuum and that often, a lot of times, women step into that controlling-
Robert Glover: They do.
Peter King: ... sort of masculine force because there isn't a real man that they can trust.
Robert Glover: Exactly, they have to. I mean, I've said that multiple times and, Peter, when I
talk with women about what I teach men ... I mean, if I'm on an airplane or in a
coffee shop and just happen, you know, to chitchat. Women literally tell me,
"Can I come stand in your parking lot and meet these men when they come out
of your groups or workshops?" I've had women say, "Will you put up a website
that has these men and a picture and a profile that they've been through your
programs 'cause I want to date a man who's practicing what you say you're
teaching men to do."
It is women that are the biggest ally of strong men. My girlfriend now, I've been
dating a Mexican woman for about eight months. She tells me, she only speaks
Spanish, but she basically says, "I don't want my huevos to be higher and larger
than my man's huevos. I've got huevos. I'm a tough chick." Basically, she says.
But she says, "I don't want to have my huevos be so high that I'm bossing my
man around, and he's passive and afraid." She called me Hefe. She says, "I love
it when you tell me no." Because she's had to be in charge. She's a single mom
living in a chauvinistic country, and she's had to take charge of her life.
She just loves the fact that I will set the tone and lead and she can trust that in
me and I do it with love. I don't do it from an egotistical, "I'm gonna get my way
kind of place." And she just thrives on that. I've seen countless women, in fact,
every woman I've dated over the last 10 years has told me basically, "I love
being the icing on your great cake. I love it that you have a direction and you
know where you're going and I love tagging a long with that."
Peter King: Yeah, that's beautiful. That's really beautiful. The example that comes to my
mind when I think of an integrated man, I was trying to think of who best
represents that to me. The guy that came to mind to me was Hugh Grant. Not
Hugh Grant, Hugh Jackman.
Robert Glover: Yeah. Yeah.
Peter King: Wolverine [crosstalk 00:55:36]
Robert Glover: Or where he was getting the blowjob from the hooker in his car in Hollywood or
... Oh okay, Hugh Jackman.
Peter King: Yeah. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, I misplaced that one. Yeah, Hugh Jackman. I mean, you
can be Wolverine on one hand and a tap dancing musician in a musical on the
other end. To me, that is the roundedness of the full potential of the masculine.
Strong enough to be vulnerable, strong enough to be present, strong enough to
be in that moment, but also when push comes to shove, the blades come out of
the hand and you can fuck shit up.
Robert Glover: Yeah. I love that example and I tell people, "I'm a very peaceful guy." I walk the
planet in a very peaceful way. But I tell people, "I'm in a place that if anybody
fucks with anybody I love, they're going down." I mean, I'm not a violent man,
but I will go to the death to protect the people I care about and I didn't use to
be that way. In fact, my ex-wife used to tell me, "Well, how do I know you'll ever
stand up for me, if you can't even stand up to me."
I've learned that with the women in my life, that is what they care about the
most. Is that they feel safe with me. I've got a nine year old granddaughter and
she just loves being with me. I think 'cause I'm a lot like her father and he's an
ex-marine and a very powerful, but yet sensitive man. I know my granddaughter
just feels amazingly safe with her dad, who's the custodial parent and with me.
I've often thought, "Oh man, she's gonna have to have a really strong man. That
if he's ever gonna win her over 'cause she's used to being around really strong,
calm, peaceful, integrated, but very strong fierce men and a strong woman
wants that."
As I've said, a lot of women say, "Where can I find that? I don't even know if that
exists out there." Most women have two choices. The asshole jerk that sleeps
with our best friend or steals their money or won't work. Or the nice guy that
says, "Yes, dear. Yes, dear. What do you want to do tonight dear. Okay, dear.
Sure, dear." And women don't really want either.
Peter King: No. Going back to the feminist movement or at least the aggressive feminist
movement. I think a lot of people think, in terms of balance as the pendulum
has to be swung ... If the pendulum was way to the right, then balance is
swinging the pendulum all the way to the left. But balance is bringing the
pendulum to the middle and I think that you have the asshole man on one side
and then, you have the passive impatent man on the other side. A true balance
is in the middle and having ... You mentioned the group of men in your
granddaughters life and how you begin to reclaim that sense of masculine
balance in that young girl's life because when she grows up, she knows what
that looks like and what it feels like and what it sounds like.
So she'll be able to seek that out and I think that's how we move that pendulum
back to the middle. Not back to our side and it's all about men, but just back to
the middle where we can appreciate both the masculine and the feminine
dynamic.
Robert Glover: Or as you say with every generation, we're gonna move the ball further down
the field in a more conscious way. Really maybe the bottom line of all of this is
consciousness. Becoming more conscious, more aware and conscious of again,
our own dark side and our own light side and making conscious choices of how
were gonna manifest both. Maybe ever generation can keep changing that a
little bit more.
Peter King: Well, you are definitely contributing a lot to that in our world and again, I thank
you for that. If you would please just tell us one more time where any listeners
can find you and find your book.
Robert Glover: Yeah, just go to drgolver.com. It's just D-R-G-L-O-V-E-R.com and you can actually
order my book, either as an ebook or order it online. There's a link there. I talk
about the nice guy syndrome. I have an online university, where we teach selfhelp
courses, dating relationship, work career, ADD, relaxation, a lot of good
online courses. I've recorded probably over 200 podcasts of all kinds of different
self-help topics. So just go to drglover.com and just poke around and see if
anything stands out for you.
Peter King: Fantastic. Well, thank you again Doctor Glover. So appreciate your time, sniffles
and all.
Robert Glover: Yeah, coughing also. Peter, I'm glad we went through with it. I'm glad we did it
and I've had a great time with you and I appreciate the work you're doing. And
yeah, let's jut keep getting up every day and making the world a better place.
The way we walk the planet and let's help other men do the same thing.
Peter King: Agreed. Thanks again.
Robert Glover: You're welcome.