Don't Be Nice, Be Respected feat. Danny M Goldberg

00:00 My lesson is don't be nice, be kind. Earn respect. Because if you're not able to have those difficult conversations, people will take advantage of you all the time. For the next 24 hours, stop apologizing for taking up space. Stop saying sorry when you haven't done anything wrong. Stop softening every opinion. Just for one day, be a little more direct and see what happens. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen Show. Welcome back to the Johnny Jensen Show. It's great to have you here. Of course, I say that always and I genuinely mean it. I am the head coach and the founder at the High Value Man Project. And this podcast is for dads, predominantly business-owning dads, but really any men who are committed to creating success at both home and work.

00:45 And today's episode is going to be a strong worded look at how men have lost their voice or what does it take for men to speak up. And this is a strong theme inside of the high value man system for living. It links into true identity. There's an aspect of emasculation in there. And, you know, at a basic level, there's some attraction stuff goes on in there. Our kids need our role models, but also our wives, our partners, they want to see us as the man they fell in love with. And that's not going to happen if we haven't got a voice. Our guest today has spent 30 years in the trenches helping top tier leaders drop the pleasantries and step into raw, unapologetic effectiveness.

01:26 He is a speaker, a trainer, a widely published author. And the man behind the brilliantly blunt book, a little bit of asshole, is here to help you stop overexplaining, reclaim your boundaries and get your balls back so you can run a powerhouse business and still be a fiercely present father at home. Danny M. Goldberg, bloody good to have you on the show. How's it going? Johnny, thank you, man. It's great to be here. Good stuff. There is a Danny Goldberg as well, who is not you, correct? That's why I put the M in there, actually. There's like three or four semi-famous Danny Goldberg. So I got to distinguish myself. I know. That's what I realized when I was doing when the email came through and we got chatting and I was doing a bit of research.

02:08 I'm like, I'm sure he's bald, obviously, fellow, fellow baldy here, right? So, but yeah, definitely wasn't the first, the first guy I found. Tell us for the benefit of the listeners, right? Let's get a little bit of an insight into who's on the show with me today. Sure, Johnny. So I've been working now for my own company now for 17 years. I was in corporate America. I shifted into my own organization because quite frankly, I saw an opportunity and I didn't think I could reach my full potential in corporate America. So once I started to control my narrative and I started to control my destiny, I started to reach that.

02:46 So over the last 17 years, we've been training Fortune 500 government agencies, anybody and everybody on a wide array of topics. We have 310 full day courses on anything and everything. And this book was kind of the impetus of, quite frankly, many years of being a people pleaser myself. I got divorced five years ago and the dating world today is very different than it was when I got married. I'll leave it at that. How old are you? How old are you? I'm turning 51 next month. Okay, so you and me, we both know those moments, walking up to someone at the bar and just flipping. The dating apps, I mean, it's a train wreck. And that's some of our new ventures are based on this too.

03:27 But what I found is I'm a nice person, but nice people tend to get taken advantage of because they want to please others, but they don't worry as much about pleasing themselves. So they kind of lose their own identity. And that's what was happening to me, specifically with my girlfriend. And so I had to start learning how to say no, had to learn how to set boundaries. And quite frankly, she respects me a lot more and looks at me more of a man now than a pushover. And I think a lot of men, a lot of women struggle with that is they want to make people happy, but they instead, they don't make themselves happy. And that's kind of the empetus of the book is focusing on setting boundaries, using your voice, having difficult conversations and learning how to say no.

04:12 Yeah. And that true identity part, like when we, it's like I call it a death by a thousand compromises. But when we're trying to fit in and when we're trying to appease everybody, thinking that if we can just be nice enough, we might, I don't know, get the promotion or make her happy enough to get a shag at the weekend. Like it's, it's very much, have you ever read Dr. Robert Glover's No One Miss the Nice Guy book? I have not. Oh, Danny, that's an absolute essential reading for all men in the world today. It's called No One Miss the Nice Guy. And it's not about being a dick either. It's about what happens when we keep being too nice and all the attraction just drains out of the relationship.

04:54 And then we start chasing thinking, oh no, what's happening? Like I'm being nice and she doesn't appreciate it. Oh, maybe I'm not. I should be more nice or do more things. And then the competition anxiety drains away. And ultimately, there is some polarity between masculine and feminine and where the attraction, where the desire, where the animal instinct comes into play. Absolutely vital. What just on the sort of on just tapping into a little bit of you a bit more, what was you? I need to tell me the ins and outs of the divorce, but was it tough? Was it, you know, how did you come out the other side? You know, it's, you know, when people say, you know, I'm sorry I got divorced, I always tell people, no, no, no, it wasn't sorry.

05:35 You should say, congratulations. Because, you know, my ex-wife, we love each other, but it wasn't a good fit long term. And we started to see that really during COVID. Was it a struggle? Because both of the kids, I told my ex-wife, I'm keeping the kids, I'm keeping the house, and I'm keeping my dog. So how much is it going to cost me? Because I was not going to leave any of that. And so we worked something out. So the kids, I was a full, basically a full-time single parent for the last six years. Now, again, my kids are older now. So it's a little, well, I was going to say it's easier, but my son's 19 and it's not easier, quite frankly, but that's a whole different conversation. But yeah, it was, it was difficult for those first couple of years, especially with in the kind of the heat of COVID still. But I knew it was, you know, when I found out my wife wanted to leave me,

06:19 you know, I asked her to stay, Johnny. And then in the morning, I was walking my dogs and I'm like, oh my God, I've got a lease on life. You know, my life is going to change significantly. And it was, it wasn't a bad feeling. It was a good feeling. Like I could see a future that I hadn't seen before. So it was extremely healthy for me. And I think I've grown. Actually, my ex-wife tells me all the time, she's like, you're not the same person that you were when we were married. And she's 100% right. I've changed dramatically. Really, I would say back to who I really am. Yeah, beautiful. That's a very important revelation, realization, and something for all men to hear. Speaking for myself, and I'm sure you'll relate to this, I'll ask you, right? But I was in love when we got married and it was a great thing.

07:04 When we got divorced, we definitely weren't, you know what I mean? So like as a chapter, it was the next chapter needed to come along. And the sad thing was, was how deep and dirty and sort of an upsetting it all got for us to realize that actually we weren't that compatible and the next chapter was the right thing. Does any of that resonate with you? I think it does. You're just explaining it. 100% it does. How long have you been divorced? 10 years now. October the 5th, 2015, we separated. So 2016, we ended up divorced. But yeah, that's the. Yeah, we were, we were, when we were in love, we were a partnership.

07:45 And then we kind of just grew apart completely. And you're right. The compatibility we kind of ignored because quite frankly, I wanted to have Jewish kids. I'm Jewish. And, you know, I was going to marry a Jewish woman and have Jewish kids. After that, it's like the compatibility started to fall apart as the kids got older. So, and again, I'm not blaming the divorce on her completely. I definitely was at fault, but we both learned. And again, she just got remarried a month ago. I was at the wedding. She's very happy and I'm happy too. So it worked out, but it takes a lot to see that it's going to be better divorced than it is married. Yeah. And one of the, one of the kind of the memes or the classic lines is getting divorced is awful.

09:50 And I'm like, because it didn't feel, you know, I didn't want to. Johnny, as I make. makes sense. You know, there was things, you know, going on vacations together, you know, going out to fancy restaurants. I didn't want to do that with her. And I feel bad saying that, but that's the truth. With my girlfriend, I want to take her out. I want to show her the world. I want to give her everything. And I think that's the biggest difference. Yeah, I lost my voice to an extent, but by the end, it was so confrontational. You know, we couldn't even have a conversation because, and this is the importance in any relationship. I lost trust in her completely. I didn't trust her at all because there were some actions that she did that eroded the trust.

10:29 And to rebuild trust is very difficult. Oh, yeah. It takes a huge commitment and patience, like a willingness to rebuild from the ground up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, look, look, this, this, by the way, let's, let's just drop this in here at the start of this, right? Because we're going to, I'm going to purposely, I want to, as people who listen to the podcast, know, I love getting into people's stories, but also I want to keep this, you know, shaped around the topic of the book and people and men having their voice and a little bit of us. You know, it's funny in America, it's asshole, isn't it? Right. Yeah. And you guys. Over here, it's asshole.

11:08 I was watching a movie and there was a British guy talking and an American, and the spelling on the captions was different because of that. It was arsehole versus asshole. Okay, brilliant. I love it. I love it. Just for people who are getting an idea of what we're talking about already, where can they find you? Where can they get your book? Well, you can get the book on Amazon. It's a little bit asshole. You can also look at the website littlebitahole.com. That's from me. And we're trying to ship just in North America just from a shipping standpoint. It's expensive. You can also find me on LinkedIn under Danny M. Goldberg and Twitter as well. I'm pretty easy to find in that regard. So definitely opportunities to purchase the book and a couple other new things that we're doing that I think your audience might be interested in.

11:52 Okay, brilliant, brilliant. So getting back into it, but that there's also chapters, right? Who you are now with your girlfriend, you're an older guy. Your kids aren't little. The stresses and strains of trying to grow a business and juggle the finance is a different chapter. How much of that do you think was at play inside of the relationship and you not being the greatest? You know, my ex-wife was extremely supportive when I started my business. She was great. I would say that the stresses and strains now are completely different because, as I mentioned, we're trying to get two new businesses off the ground right now. The fact that I have 20 years of experience doing that makes it a lot easier. You know, the kids' strain is different now because my son is in love and he's going to get married soon.

12:36 And I don't want to even get into that because he's only 19. And then my daughter is starting to, you know, take more of an interest in boys and everything. So it's just a completely different chapter in our life. And I would say, and my kids tell me that I'm a lot nicer and calmer today, but I still, I still, I'm an emotional, you know, humans are emotional beings. And so I still get upset at times. I would say that I'm not very, and again, I wouldn't even call myself angry, you know, but again, my kids describe me as that. I would say I'm pretty relaxed. And, you know, 10, 15 years ago, Johnny, if my business was struggling, you could see it in my everyday life. Now, it's not a big deal because I know everything's going to work out. You figure things out. So you try.

13:18 And the recurring theme that I always think about is you can't worry about what you can't control. And that's tough because there's so many worries in your life. But I've tried to focus on what I can control and what I can't control. And there's no need to focus on the rest. Yeah. Well, a lot of guys send themselves, you know, not necessarily crazy, but the impact on their mental health, the impact on their emotions is out of trying to change things or control things that are outside of their control. Literally, as my experience was like the life I created running through my fingers like sand.

13:56 That was a metaphor that I really was present to and describing. But in hindsight, I was trying to hold things that weren't mine to hold. And a lot of guys, we seem to get that wrong because we are the provider. We're the leader of the family. Two things which I advocate and encourage, but not like, I've got to make sure everything else is fine before I'm okay. I'm a strong alpha personality and being an entrepreneur. I mean, I don't really delegate much. I've gotten much better at that over the last five years, but it's a control thing more than anything else. And it's a trust thing. And you just got to learn that you've got to let go at times.

14:37 And a buddy of mine's always telling me, he said, be like a feather and float because he knows I worry about everything. I think about everything. He's like, you can't worry about it. And it kills you mentally. and emotionally, and it's unhealthy. So I've gotten better at that, but it's still an everyday struggle. Do you think there's a little bit of the Jewish skies in there? Is it a Jewish thing to worry about? You know, what's it called? Woody Allen, Woody Allen, you know, the neurotic kind of Jewish New York guy. I don't know if it is or not, but that's a pretty good, that's a pretty good comparison because I would say that I'm, you know, again, I, I, I worry about things that aren't happening. You know, I worry, and part of it is because I'm a CPA, I'm in risk management, I'm an internal audit, I worry about, well, what's the risk?

15:22 What's the potential outcome? But I try to apply that to my personal life and it gets me in trouble with my girlfriend all the time. All the time. So I've learned it to kind of take a step back and say, you know what? Be like a feather. Float. Yeah. Tolly Burkhan. He's like the Western father of firewalking. His book and one of his key sayings is, let it be easy. Love it. Love it. It sounds like your new girlfriend has got a little bit of asshole in her. She's more happy to hold you to account. Are you happier to let her hold you to account? What's going on? She is an asshole, man. There's no doubt about it. And when she doesn't get her way, she's dumb. And I've told her, and she told me the same thing. She said, you are the most difficult person I've ever dated.

16:05 Same thing too. But I told her, I said, my life is much better with you than without you because you challenged me. You've shown me a different world. You've actually motivated me to do more in life to provide more. And so in that regard, it's been very healthy. But she, yeah, she is a strong woman. I'll leave it at that. Yeah. Yeah. But do you feel at the age that, you know, I'm 52 and you said you're 50. Did you say, yeah, you're 51? Yeah, yeah. So do you think that the age we're at, that clarity about who we are and what we're up to means we can be more assured, means we can have a voice without worrying about what people are going to think.

16:45 And then if we go out into the dating world or even business and we're trying to, you know, partner up or we're selling, people sense that like we, you know, like we are a likes attract, you know? So do you feel like you're you have more power in attracting those connections and those relationships and those business partnerships now because of your assuredness, because of your willingness to have a voice in these things? 100%. And I, but I, but I'm also attracting the kind of relationships that I want now. Right. You know, I'm, I'm really focused on just being me and being happy with myself. And that's a buddy of mine, my trainer, he's just got recently separated. Now he's getting divorced.

17:30 And he told me, he said, I miss the partnership. I miss the camaraderie. I miss her being there, but I don't miss her. And I told her, I told him, I said, then you got divorced for the right reasons because that's not healthy. That was kind of where the same thing with my wife is, she was my best friend, but there was no romance. There was no sexuality. There was nothing else there at that point. So it's like, you know, do I want to stay married to my best friend, which is healthy at times, or do I want more? And so I've learned to control my voice, control my narrative a little bit more. And, you know, this is something I've told people for years. And I need to actually take this advice is stop giving a shit what people think.

18:08 That's the best thing in the world. And the problem with today, Johnny, is we're in social media times where everybody's looking for that validation. Hell, look at the AI tools that are being used. Like if you use Chat GPT, it's an echo chamber most of the time. Yeah. Tell you what you want to hear. And just like social media does. And so it's having an authentic voice and being able to say what you want and say what you think without offending anybody is extremely healthy. But I also think it's very rare in the world. And you need those people in your life that are willing to tell you, don't do that. That's stupid. And most people don't have that one or two people that are willing to say no. But I think you have to have those people to guide you a little bit because we all do stupid things,

18:50 but we might go down a path that's unnecessary. But if we are in that echo chamber, if we are in that validation of social media, people are like, oh, that's a great idea. Instead of giving you the real truth. Yeah. Well, people are scared to have an opinion now. And in one respect, some people are scared to have an opinion. Other people, and I was in the WhatsApp group today with loads of business owning men. And in certain scenarios, it's not worth having an opinion because the amount of shit that's going to come back the other direction, you're like, like it was important to me, but it's not that important.

19:25 I got other things like I'm, so there's no, there's no like currency. There's no, there's no pleasure in having a healthy debate because it's either too risky or you're going to have to justify it like your life depends on it, which takes the whole fun of the, of the banter and the debate out of it, like the healthy exchange between humans so that we've. evolve ideas. And that's why we've got now such polarized, like nonsense where people just believe what they're hearing because the guy's appearing in their feed more than anyone else. But actually, he's probably got the least to lose. That's why he's so loud. You know, we teach this in conflict management all the time. I always tell people the reason why we can't have good dialogue on topics is people don't respect the other person and they get emotional.

20:09 If you take the emotion out of it and show a little bit of respect to the other person, you can literally talk about anything, but you're right. I don't post on social media anything that's controversial because I don't care what people think. It doesn't matter to me. If you're not in my life, I don't care if you appreciate my opinion or not. My girlfriend, hopefully, we're going to get married eventually. And I even told her because she'll post some stuff that I'm like, dude, what are you doing? You know, what's the point? You know, and it just to exacerbate people more than anything else and piss 50% of people off. And I told her, I said, hey, if we get married, you got to stop this. You know, you can have your opinion, but just don't post it online. I don't have to deal with this in my career when someone comes up to me and says, hey, your wife posted this. It's like, I don't want to do that. So I 100% agree with you that pick your battles and win the war.

20:53 And it's interesting we're talking about women and men here. Obviously, you've written a book. It wasn't a book written for men. Why do you see this happening? Why are people, why are both men and women losing the ability to have, you know, okay, I'm going to lean into the title of the book, A Little Bit of Asshole. What does that mean? And why are people losing it? So what I learned, and my parents were immigrants. My dad grew up in Poland. My mom was born in Egypt, grew up in Paris. And when we got here, you know, both of my parents are like, be nice. If you're nice, if you're sweet, if you're a good person, people are going to respect you. You'll go far in life.

21:33 And that started to, you know, I started to see cracks in that opinion. Heck, in elementary school, you know, I was a good kid. I always got along with everybody. But then the bullies picked on me all the time because I was an easy target because I wasn't going to fight back. And so once I got into high school and college, I started to learn to have my own voice. But I think we're taught at a young age, be nice. And my lesson is don't be nice, be kind, earn respect. Because if you, and if you're not able to have those difficult conversations, people will take advantage of you all the time. So I think it's just natural teaching when we're young is we're told to be nice and we take that to an extreme and become a people pleaser.

22:13 To your point, though, why are people pleasers the way they are? Well, they don't want to say no. So they don't want to have that conflict that you were just talking about. Right. So I think that has a lot to do with it. Like with my girlfriend, sometimes I'm just like, I give into her because I'm like, why even bother? You know, because it's going to cause more strife arguing with her than not. So I'll just buy her that, you know, I just get her hair done, whatever. It doesn't matter to me. So it's, you got to look at the investment. And that's kind of what the book kind of teaches us too, is people always ask me, it's like, when do you turn on the asshole? And it's like, you'll know, you know, you know, like if you're making a decision and you have that gut feeling that you don't feel good about it, you think someone's taking advantage of you, you're going to feel guilty after this.

22:54 Then it's time to say no or set some boundaries. And I think that's going to be different for everybody because everybody's going to have very different boundaries. Yeah. But is there a risk in waiting too long? Because then like you've been pushed to the limit and you're like, I've had enough of this, you know, and then like, whoa, whoa, whoa, where did that come from? I'm like, this has been fine for the last six days or the last six months or the last six years. And now you're angry about it. It's like, I can't take it anymore. That's what we call level four is, you know, like the, what did I call it? The nuclear asshole. It's you just basically have a blow up. And so you go from level zero to level four quickly.

23:33 And you're right. You've got to start easing into those boundaries a lot. A couple months ago, me and my girlfriend had a huge fight and it was all about boundaries. She wanted me to buy her something and I said, no, I'm not going to do that. And we had a big fight. However, after that, she learned that, hey, this is something I don't want to ask for anymore because he's going to say no. So the boundary had to be set, but I was too nice. So it made it a much bigger blow up than it should have been. I'll give you one more example on that regard. My son is a sophomore at the University of Houston. So for our non-American people, what does that mean? He's second year, second year at the University of Houston. I live in Dallas. So he's about three to four hours away from us all in most cases. And

24:15 when I got divorced, I kind of let my kids spend money freely. Business was great. I didn't really care, you know? And my son didn't adjust from high school to college because I told him, I said, you're a college student now. You've got to live on a budget. You've got to learn good spending habits. And he's very free with my money with his girlfriend. And I told him, I said, buddy, you can't be a gentleman if you don't have any money, period. we, him and I have had some struggles over the past year, but I think we're at a good place now because he learned that this is the boundary. Here's how much money I can spend on a monthly basis. A couple, a couple of months ago, he said, Hey, can I get the monthly allotment early?

24:55 I said, no, you figure it out. You know, you spent all your money. You need to figure it out. And he did. And again, I think it's been healthy for both of us to set those boundaries because to your point, I was too nice for the last four or five years. And so when I started setting boundaries, he didn't like it and thought it was an overreaction and didn't respect the boundaries. And so it took a while for him to start respecting them. And so, therefore, what's your guidance? What have you, whether it's in the book or what you've learned about navigating that? Is there a level of taking responsibility for the situation? Or is it almost like an apologetic, like, I realize I've now gone, I've realized I've now had to be quite tough about this.

25:38 Perhaps I could have been more real, but more open with my thoughts in the past, but I'm now putting it to you that I'd like things to be this way. I mean, that's, I feel like I'm being quite nice there. Yeah, it's to me, and we talk about this in our training all the time when you're a staff or a senior or a manager. It's all about setting expectations. You can apply that to any relationship in life. Is I've tried to set with my son, here's the expectation moving forward. He's working for me right now on my other businesses. And 19-year-olds tend to do things on their own timeline. And I told him, I said, this is not reality. When I tell you to do something, I give you a deadline. It needs to be done, period.

26:18 So now every day we've started to go through his to-do list. What do I have to focus on today? And I tell him the three or four things, get these things done, we move on. But it's setting those expectations up front. I didn't like with my girlfriend, I did not do a good job of setting expectations up front. And so we've had to change that dynamic. And again, it led to some confrontation and some strife, but it's been healthy. But to me, it's all about setting expectations up front with any relationship you have, whether it's a friendship, a husband or wife, or a coworker or a client. You've got to set those expectations. And I think people will respect you because you know what you want and are willing to put it out there to get it. Where do people go to find out in themselves, what's my expectation of this?

27:01 And is that an acceptable expectation? Yeah, that's a tough one because I would say in general, I have very high expectations of people. And I've learned not to because, you know, honestly, because you'll be disappointed, quite frankly. So I think to me, it's, I keep thinking about like with my girlfriend, here's the relationship I want. Here's the relationship I have. Can I get to the relationship I want? And we talk about this. She doesn't like having these conversations. I love them because I think it's healthy dialogue, but she thinks, you know, I'm always bringing stuff up like this, but it's, here's what I want in a relationship. I've told her, if you stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about us, you're going to get everything you want out of a relationship.

27:43 It's going to be the best relationship you ever have. And that's why I keep telling my son, too, because the new businesses we have, Johnny, I strongly and firmly believe that they're about to take off and it's going to be very successful. And I told my son, he's like, well, you owe me this for these hours. I said, that's fine, buddy. Look at the big picture. It's like, I'm giving you a chance. If this thing takes off, you're going to be chief marketing officer and you're going to make a lot of money at 20 years old. But again, I've tried to set that expectation. Is he or she willing to accept that expectation? But Johnny, instead of wasting six months dating somebody, if you have that conversation within the first, once you start really liking each other and you realize you're mismatched, then you can go your separate ways instead of spending six months, a year, two years trying to mold and change somebody.

28:29 That isn't going to change. And to your point on the AIDS thing, you get to a point in life where I'm very happy and content being alone. And so sometimes when I was dating, I would think, do I really want to go spend money and time on this person when I'm not that excited about it? I'm happy. You know, when I was younger in my 20s, I never wanted to stay home on a Friday or Saturday night. I wanted to be out no matter what. Now, please, I'm happy to sit home on Saturday night, watch a movie and go to bed early. I have no issues with that. And I think that's one of the issues with dating is: do I really want to change my life? I want someone to add value to my life. If they're going to add a lot of strife, then it's probably not a good fit.

29:09 It's definitely not a good fit. Oh my gosh, for sure, for sure. And when men go out dating, particularly if they've been in a marriage and now the marriage has ended and now they're back out on the dating scene, there's a reason why so many second marriages end up in divorce is because they take the same mistakes. There's two things happen. They take the same mistakes from the first marriage into the second marriage. Well, that's just mental. Yes. And then the second second part. part is that they're actively searching for the relationship. And so they're happy to make compromises because it's kind of like, well, if it's not this one, then I might not get another one. And so, and then when you're desperate to get, you know, not be sat on your own and quite like a shag at the weekend, like you're like, okay, it'll be all right.

29:53 I can put up with that. No, there's literally millions that whole kind of there's plenty of fishing. The sea is hard to hear that when you when you haven't got a girlfriend, but it's better to be still fishing than putting up with something that is that is not compatible. And I see I see it too often in men. And those guys, particularly when they enter a relationship in a semi-broken, semi-desperate state, they'll generally go and find a woman who's not purposely, not necessarily consciously, but they're looking, they're happy to have a guy like that so they can kind of mold them and control them

31:53 And someone asked me once, you know, what does love mean to you? And I, and I said, it means that I'm willing to put up with a lot of shit that I wouldn't because I love them and I want them to be happy. Now, again, everybody has boundaries. There's no doubt about it. But I, you know, I put up with a lot because, you know, I want her to be happy, but I can't lose my own identity. And that's where I think over the past couple of years, I've regained my identity, my aura, and who I really am. Yeah. I'm not willing to put up with much shit. I've got to be honest. I'm not trying to get into a ding-dong with you about this, right? But I don't, I think because one of the things I kind of joke about is about having been to two of my dad's weddings, right?

32:38 Which means there was a third, like my mum's. And then basically my dad's been married four times. So sadly, my mum passed away. But, you know, but when you've been to two of your dad's weddings, you know, and you kind of seen them go through stuff. And then I found myself going through my marriage. And I was like, oh, that was, I mean, we were amazing when we fell in love and got married. That was not really any regrets about that. But, but in hindsight, I realized I'd picked the person who wasn't very compatible with me. And the stress and strain that we went through for such a long period of time. And now I didn't date anyone for a long time after that relationship. So when I was willing to go out and consider dating again and meet someone, it was going to be a fit.

33:22 You know, one of the things I decided was not really any compromise. And not like no compromise because I'm an asshole. I'm like, no compromise because that's the person looks like this. That's what I'm going to go out and find. And I'd read about manifestation and quantum mechanics. Like I've really dug into this. I've not just like read the secret and now I'm like, oh, everything's going to come my way, but to truly start believing in who I am and what I'm up to. So that when I'm that clear on who I am and what I'm up to, I can be that clear about what I'm offering, what I'm making available to someone. So then when I go out and find someone who looks like they could be that fit, I'm able to say to her, you're incredible.

34:06 I would like, this is what I've got on offer. Like, would you like to have a piece of this? Would you like to be part of it with me? And so it's a very transparent type thing at the front end. And I don't, in my experience of guys and relationships, whether it be my own personal thing or seeing what other people go through, I don't see enough men having that clarity about it. about it. So then certain things like I'm not, we're not doing huffing, we're not doing rolling eyes, we're not doing like no talking to each other for three weeks or anything like that, quite alien and almost a bit weird for her, I think,

34:46 when we started. But now I believe that she holds me to account. She doesn't, you know, now that she's like, oh, that's how it goes, is it? So, oh, oh, I can do the same back to you. So it means that there's no like residual crap. There's no, oh, two weeks ago you did this or six months ago, I'm going to, I'm still going to have the hump about that. So everything's very clean and fresh. And what I like about it in that respect is that, and this is some training around this about being willing to hear what the other person has to say, not take it on as a complaint or as a, as a, as a, as a, you've done something wrong.

35:26 Just being willing to hear, oh, do you know, like when you turned up late the other day that like it was that that didn't really work work for me? Oh yeah. Like I want to say tough shit, love. There was traffic and there was this and all that. So I was like, but if I can go, oh yeah, actually, me being late really didn't didn't work for her. Okay, I got that. Okay. I can take that on board. And out of that, I guess what I'm really waffling on about is that there's, I just don't want the residual crap to be there. I want to make sure that she's got the freedom to say whatever she wants to me. And I've found someone who I know is really aligned with me. So the things that she says to me, I'm pretty sure they're going to be good stuff. Like even if I'm even if it's tough to hear, I'm pretty sure it's going to be the right thing for her and I.

36:11 And one of my messages inside High Value Man, and maybe I'd love to hear your views back on it really, is for people to be that clear, is for people to set the bar that high, not to be an asshole, but to say, would you like to come up to this bar with me? Would you like to live at this level? Would you like to have a relationship that works like that? Yeah. Because I see is I see my kids thriving. I see her thriving. I would like to be the business to be more successful and more money flowing in. But in other terms, everything else is thriving. That's what I want to see in the world.

36:46 No, I think we're actually pretty aligned. And let me explain the whole compromise thing a little bit. And what I meant by that is I like being alone, you know, so in order to have a relationship, I have to compromise some things because I'd be perfectly content alone for a long, long period. So what I'm willing to put up with versus what I'm willing not to, to your point, is it's making sure that we are at least aligned long term on what we want and what we need out of a relationship. So no, we are 100% on board, man. I agree with everything you said. I wish people would have more transparent conversations at the beginning of relationships so you know that you're aligned and the people don't. Absolutely. Yeah. It's like booking a holiday. Imagine landing and it's snow and it's cold.

37:30 You're like, I thought we were going on holiday, like vacation. I thought we're, well, you are on vacation. Yeah, but it's supposed to be sunny. Well, you didn't ask for a sunny holiday. You just said you wanted to go on vacation. Well, you know, with my son, I've had to do that because like I said, I'll tell him, hey, I need it done this week. He'll wait till Sunday at 10 o'clock at night to do it. And I told him, I said, that's not what he meant. Well, that's what you said, Dad. I'm like, okay, you're misinterpreting or you're interpreting the way you want to interpret it versus the way I'm telling you. So now we've gotten a little more clarity there where I'll tell him, hey, I need this done today. And so he needs almost micro task lists, you know, so on a daily basis. So we're kind of applying agile mentality to our relationship that's helped a lot.

38:14 Yeah. Well, plus he's 19. So everyone with a 19-year-old kid, especially boys, but same with Gail's Bird, they don't have a, is it prefrontal cortex isn't properly formed, basically. So they can't really rationalize stuff. So everything is in the moment. What do you mean? Like when they say, what do you mean? They're not being a dick. They actually think, like, what does he mean? Like, why is he going off on me about this? Like, what, you know, because they're just, it's just not, doesn't occur as an issue to them at all. 100%. So you've written a book about this. What, what drove you to write a book about it? Every time I talked to anybody about this, dealing with my girlfriend, I kept thinking to myself, man, I can't be the only person like this.

38:54 And what I found is there's millions of us out there that are that have lost their voice, have lost their, quite frankly, aura and just and also their self-confidence because they've lost their own identity. And it's really important to get that back so you can live a more fulfilling life, quite frankly. And so that's kind of the reason why we did this over the past 18 months, you know, researching, talking to people is, is I think the first book I wrote years ago, our second book was on communication skills for financial professionals. professionals. Why did I write it? Because there was a need for it. This book I wrote because I felt like there was a need for it in society.

39:32 Oh, there definitely is. And is there a, you know, is there any lessons or practical steps that people can take? You know, of course, go out and buy the book, right? But is there anything you can share that from inside of that? Is there like a methodology you got around this? Or we have the asshole spectrum on what we said earlier, where, you know, it's important to start setting those boundaries and telling people no ahead of time versus having that big blow up. But we've got a couple of calls to action, I think, that are pretty easy to apply for most people. So, you know, option one is just the 24-hour challenge. For the next 24 hours, stop apologizing for taking up space.

40:12 Stop saying sorry when you haven't done anything wrong. And I think that's a big one that people do. Stop softening every opinion. Just for one day, be a little more direct and see what happens. And I think that that's one of the main lessons that we're trying to teach in the book. And I have a few more that we can discuss too. But a lot of people, and this is the whole thing on saying no as well, is people feel like they have to say no, but they have to rationalize why they said no. Sometimes it's okay to say, no, I can't do that, but thank you. There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you need to explain. But most people are caught explaining their no's without even being asked to explain them because they feel like they have to rationalize their behavior. Yeah. And just in those couple of pointers, such a loss of power

40:57 in each of those ways that we're suggesting people do the alternative to. And then when we operate like that day by day by day in multiple scenarios with lots of different people, lots of little bits of power leaking out. It's no wonder we people are walking around feeling so weak and voiceless and I don't know, just flat. There's too many, particularly for guys, there's too many men walking around with the experience of just feeling flat. Yep. Agree. And, you know, the whole point of a little bit of asshole, it's not to be an asshole, but people have to know that you have the capability of being one because they will not take advantage of you and they won't screw with you as much.

41:40 And I'm even talking about just when I meet people, people need to see that I command respect. You know, I'm not trying to talk down to people, but I want to command respect and I want to build a good relationship with a new client, with a new friend, et cetera. And losing that voice, people don't respect you, quite frankly. And people don't want to be around people that have no voice and no opinion on anything unless they want an echo chamber, which is the world we're in right now. Yeah, which is weak and fraught with conflict as well, because people then are happy to be outraged without

42:21 engaging in the conversation. And Johnny, that's the concerning thing to me is, you know, my son likes conspiracy theories and I keep on telling him, I said, okay, great, show me the proof. And there is no proof. It's just something he saw on TikTok. And my girlfriend's done that to me too, on social issues, on political issues, et cetera. And to me, and again, going back to my audit background, it's trust but verify. You know, I've got to have some type of proof. But again, to your point, people want to argue. And a lot of times you just give up on it because you don't care. Going back to what we talked about earlier, you just stop giving your opinion, but you start applying that to all facets of your life, which is unhealthy and you look weak and meek. And how we are in one area of life will naturally bleed into another area of life.

43:06 So when guys are wondering, like, why do I feel like why is things going wrong? And why everything's going wrong everywhere? Or, you know, it's, it is toxic, basically. And the whole, and we can, you know, you make me dovetail right into the whole term of toxic masculinity, which I am not a big proponent of that term. I think it's something that someone made up that wanted to demasculize men, quite frankly. Can men be toxic 100%, but being masculine is not toxic at all. That's what, I mean, I'm going to speak for all women here, but I think that's what I've been told on many occasions. That's what all women want. You know, they don't want someone that's weak. They want someone that is a strong protector and opinionated man.

43:48 Yeah. Danny, we hadn't even mentioned that before we kicked off. Okay. But I'm so on the same page with that. It's a, it's a, it's a horrible phrase. Toxic people are toxic people. To say that there is a gender application to that, there are many, many shit women who are who are horrifically toxic. Yes. You know? Toxic when they're going through divorce and stuff. People, because the system allows women to steer it in the direction they. they they take it you know actually so the so the system's toxic okay or then and then are divorced are all divorced women toxic like you can't you you can't attach a word like that to a big broad group of or worse than that something that is innately part of men

44:38 and i think that for younger men in particular it leaves them uncomfortable about the word masculinity it leaves them nervous about exploring or or owning their own masculinity and where i've come up against people a few times i'm really keen to press upon this point that masculinity is about every man owning his own masculinity we don't have to go around and pick up a stick and and say that we're masculine or shout at someone to be masculine no if you're a flipping someone who needs to wave a stick around or someone who needs to shout that could be your sign of masculinity but you could be a soft softly spoken creative guy and being you know and and own that as like a real essence of of his masculinity gay or straight i think it's it's an important part of of men as a whole that

45:32 we really own um our masculine energy and that what i see about society right now is that we're under threat because a few men are really owning their masculinity whether they're using it right or not is another is another matter but what we need is all men to rise up using their masculinity for good in their family in their business in their community it's it's it's so powerful and so important and i think weirdly conspiracy theories aside there is this squash it's this pressing down on men not showing up

46:11 i think it's eased up a little bit you know the the height of the uh and i'm gonna i'm gonna connect it to the me too movement because i i think that went uh too extreme you know obviously there were some issues that needed to be addressed but i think it's it's curling back to normalcy where a man can be a man in today's society not everywhere but i i think we're we're more men are not being are not scared to show their masculinity and and show their power and i think that's to your point that's critical we went through a period where if you were in any ways masculine you were looked down upon that was viewed as a negative and again men have uh men and women have built this uh country

46:51 built the world it's something that we need and that masculinity is a big part of it yeah oh i like i always say oh yeah women are much better than blacks if you're talking about like getting things like sorted like getting everything handled making sure everyone's in the right place and all that sort of stuff like let's look get a woman to sort it out but then if you want to actually go and make it happen like flip and deliver on it yeah and get the guys to go and do it that's not about that you can't have a woman in the you know doing part of that bit or a guy kind of but it's just like there is bits of things that we are just naturally geared towards towards doing to doing well and again people have said for years well now well no you know men can do women can do anything it's like okay that's fine

47:31 but can a man do it better and you know in our religion honestly johnny um we hold uh the highest regard for women but we distinguish between men and women because women do certain things that men can't do men do certain things that women can't do why discount that or should we accentuate those values and that's what uh what really jewish religion really focuses on yeah oh i'd love to get more into that for sure i mean that's another whole topic in it in itself no i mean like to religion in itself is a delicate subject to tiptoe through but judaism and and flipping what's going on in the world and and people not really understanding you know jewish people and and and their faith versus geo-global politics like clearly to a sane person

48:21 they're two very different things right but people want to wrap them all up into people want to wrap them up into into one topic yes and that's that's becoming a major issue because quite frankly you're seeing more anti-semitism that we've seen in the last 60 70 years um because of politics versus religion if that makes sense and actually here's my i'll share this for anyone who's listen to the podcast a lot they're probably bored of me saying this but i have this idea right that when you die right and they get to the pearly gates right they're all there together jesus allah lipping the buddha genghisky like like yoda like they're all there right there in a barbecue and when you get to the gate they

49:01 go okay next up yeah danny m goldberg yeah okay cool danny did you have fun and you're like you're like what no no no did you have fun oh yeah no i helped some people and i raised some money and i was good to my wife and all no, no, it's just one question. Like, because if you had fun, you're in. If you didn't, you it up and you got to go back and start again. I love it. And theoretically, what you just said is actually somewhat aligned with Judaism because we believe there's a pathway for everybody to find that sanctuary, regardless of you believe in Jesus or Allah or whatever. And we're the only religion, if I'm not mistaken, that is like that, where we believe there's many different paths to that sanity.

49:45 And that's just the magic of it. Get a room full of people with different faiths and all be really interested in each other's faith. That would be a beautiful conversation that more people need to have. By way of wrap up, okay, what's at stake for the world if people don't harness this? Like if we don't, because it is, I quite the title of the book is funny, right? It's fun and it is a bit real because, okay, okay, I can, I can be tough. Can I be stern? I can say what I mean. I can, you know, what's at stake if people don't start taking this on and having a little bit more forthrightness and clarity and when they need to be a bit more of an asshole that they can be.

50:25 I think people will tend to see more and more people getting taken advantage of. You know, you've got that boss that asks you to do too much and you're not willing to say no. Well, you're probably not going to move up in that organization because they're not going to take care of you, but you're just going to work more and more and have the same salary. So I think just from a societal standpoint, it's important for men, it's important for women to own their strength, have their own opinion, and not be scared to state it and set boundaries and be willing to say no. But again, if we continue down this path, Johnny, I think you're going to continue to see the demasculization of society. And we could do another podcast just on that topic because where it's going is not good, quite frankly.

51:09 Yeah, it's worrying. Definitely worry. Awesome. Hey, Johnny, do you mind if I introduce one of my products real quick to you to your audience? Because I think it's okay. Yeah, go for it. Of course, you can. Yeah. So you're following challenges, just like I am. And with my girlfriend, I was out to a nice restaurant last year and I always have like a little washcloth with me to wipe my forehead because it's 110 degrees out here. And she's like, don't pull that out in a nice restaurant. You look ridiculous. That's nasty. And I agreed with her. You know, it's like, I never thought about it. So I tried pocket squares, silk pocket squares, but they don't absorb anything. So we came up with a product that's got a patent on it. And it is a pocket square, but it's a microfiber towel on the other side. So it's a functional pocket square.

51:48 So you can take it with you everywhere, use it for many different purposes because, quite frankly, the pocket square as it is isn't very functional. So it's called crown cloth, crowned with an E, and we should have them on the market here over the next by the end of the summer. Okay. Because for people that aren't watching, right? Because it's going to go out as an audio podcast as well. And I'm sorry that if we'd have, if you'd have touched on this before we hit the go button, we could have talked about this sooner. But yeah, so Danny's bald. You're like, you're, I'm, I'm, my head's patchy, so I shave it right dead short. Like number one, you look like you're actually bald on top. Is that is that your 100%, yes. 100%.

52:26 Okay. Good. So Danny's got this cloth, this sort of like actually a very attractive looking cloth that you have multiple times during this podcast wiped your brow with. And that's exactly what we're talking about here. But it's, but it's actually been designed to be absorbent and attractive at the same time, right? That's exactly right. Nice. So we're excited. There's nothing out there on the market like this. So we're excited to introduce it to the market and see where this goes. When someone has an idea like that, because loads of people have ideas and just sit on them, what's it take to have an idea and actually have the bollocks to go and do something with it? So I'll introduce you to one other product that we've got coming out. It's called the app, it's called Like Me, and it's very much focused on what we talked about earlier: people are so focused on physicality and dating now, on Tinder, on Bumble, on Hinge.

53:14 It's all about how they look versus who they are. And so we've taken away that. We require pictures on the Like Me app, but you're in control of who sees the pictures. At first, there's no pictures at all, and it's only commonalities and likenesses. So we've got 20, 30 different categories: food, sports, religion, kids or not, et cetera. And based on that, we come up with a compatibility factor where you can connect with somebody. How did that come up? Johnny, I've seen it just like with Crown Cloth. I saw a hole in the market. I saw an opportunity. And I pitched it to a few people. People like the idea. I've gotten great feedback on both of them.

53:51 And that's why we're moving forward. Now, I will tell you, when I do something like this, I don't extend myself to a point where if it doesn't work, I'm going to go bankrupt. You know, I kind of put my toe in the water, start the product up. And if we, when we get, if we get 100,000 orders for crown cloth, then I'll go out and get some investors. But the thing for me was. I didn't want to lose control of the of my vision. And so to me, it's, and this is how I started my first, my main company, my training company, Gold SRD, is I was speaking a little bit on the side working for corporate America. And then I shifted after a couple of years after I got some name recognition into speaking full-time. I really strongly believe in just kind of putting your toe in the water, have multiple income paths in your life.

54:34 And then hopefully one of them turns into a main income. My tax guy has been an internal auditor for 20 years. He's been doing taxes on the side. Last year, he shifted into full-time taxes because, well, he's doing really well, but he was doing multiple things at once. And I think that's, to me, the clearest, most conservative path to starting your own business. Yeah. And getting good people around you, going and finding people to partner up with. I guess I'm hearing that in what you just shared as well. Yeah. So yeah, that's what we're working on is looking for those partnerships. But, you know, it's kind of like my speaking business. I've only got four other speakers with me. Why? Because they fit what I view as a great trainer, as a great speaker.

55:15 I've had trainers come on that were just not good, quite frankly. And, you know, I got rid of them pretty quick. And I'm not willing to sacrifice my brand for the wrong people or the wrong relationships. So I'm very selective in that regard in all my organizations. Yeah, beautiful. Which comes back to identity, knowing who you are and what you want to put around you. This is, it's not that difficult. Men flounder and wander around wondering, how can I make it happen? How can I make it? What am I going to do? How am I going to, how can I feel good about myself? Identity. Get clear on what you want. Put like-minded people around you. Raise the bar and speak your voice. Danny, absolute pleasure to have you on the show. I wish you all the success with all your upcoming products.

56:00 Happy weddings and whatever's going on with your families. Hopefully your daughter's not going to bring home too many boyfriends. That's what I'm hoping as well. Although I think I'm going to have to warn them about my daughter rather than not because she's an animal, not because she's an animal, but just because she's very specific about how things have to be. She knows what she wants. I'm going to have to say to guys that you do know she's going to flip in big and cooler shots here, don't you? That's great. That's good. That's good. Right. Again, I wish you all the best and I look forward to catching you soon. Thanks for having me, man. It was fun. You're welcome.