Be Playfully Mean

Episode #311

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Episode Transcript

Doug Holt  0:00  

The reason that she fell in love with him was a sense of humor. Because it really what you’re saying here is when you’re joking with a woman, and you’re kind of being playfully mean, say you’re at a barbecue or something, and she dropped something on the floor you look at and go, “Are you always this clumsy geez!”, she starts to giggle and laugh too. You’re showing that you’re confident enough in yourself that you can make that kind of comment. You’re not worried about her reaction, and it’s the true confidence that she’s attracted to. 

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Powerful Man show. I am your host, Doug Holt, with my co-host, Tim, “The Powerful Man” Matthews. What’s going down, brother?

Tim Matthews  0:43  

Lots

Doug Holt  0:44  

Yeah, a lot. A lot is going on in the movement right now. We call it The Powerful Man. All great stuff, though. Movin and shakin’. Lots of great guys coming into the programs…and the feedback! Whoa, did you see Greg’s post in the private community? Was it just awesome?

Tim Matthews  1:07  

Which one in the chat, the actual community? 

Doug Holt  1:10  

The chat, the chat post, I saw it briefly.

Tim Matthews  1:13  

Yeah, I was going back and forth with the guys giving them some shit. And yeah, it was great. I love it. He’s just great to see the guys together worldwide, in different industries, supporting each other, holding each other to a higher standard. As a row, if I wasn’t part of that journey, I just think there’s so much value in The Brotherhood and community, being part of a championship-winning team. It just raises the bar. It does. And yeah, I love it. I do. I’m grateful to all the guys who are in it. It’s, they invite me to be better. They challenge me to be better. And the team as well. So yeah, it’s awesome. 

Doug Holt  2:03  

Yeah, it was an awesome post. And we won’t go into details on here. But Tim, the reason we’re here today for this particular show and episode. Have to be here all today. I want to talk about instigation. 

Tim Matthews  2:20  

What?

Doug Holt  2:21  

Exactly, instigation. Maybe you call it initiation might be another way of saying it, how are you initiating or instigating, really, the sexual chemistry between you and your partner? So for me, my wife and I, I know you and Amelia aren’t technically married, but you guys have been together in a long-term, committed relationship. But how do you instigate like keep that going? How do you keep that chemistry and that spark alive? There’s one particular way that I want to talk about today that I find useful. And I think once we show the guys how to do this, it pays off for them well.

Tim Matthews  3:08  

Okay

Doug Holt  3:10  

So it’s something that you’ve got one of these parts down, pat. Just you’re good at it. It’s called “Just Being Playfully Mean.” Okay. 

Tim Matthews  3:23  

Playfully mean or playfully me?

Doug Holt  3:26  

Playfully mean

Tim Matthews  3:28  

Ah, yeah, is that a compliment?

Doug Holt  3:33  

So I have to give you a little bit of a hard time, right. But no, in all seriousness, this comes naturally to you, I think, as well. It’s something that comes naturally to most guys. And we guys have lost it along the way when over time, it’s not their fault. But over time, they’ve been told to be a good guy, be the nice guy. We’ve talked about that a lot in this show. And a lot of guys resonate with that. What does being playful mean, right? I know people in the dating community might call it cocky. Funny. There are all kinds of terms, but I like playfully mean, right? Playfully joking. And it’s kind of late for you. When you’re going with your wife, I’ll give an example. And then we’ll talk about how guys got out of this. And then we’ll talk at the end of the podcast and talk to guys about how they can get back into this groove and why it works. Being playfully mean is just joking with your wife and kind of teasing her and giving her a hard time. Right in a joking way. Right? In the movie, we all know to watch any movie, except for maybe, you know, some trashy romance movie, but even those, the guy that the woman falls for is kind of the jerk, right? He’s kind of the asshole somehow, but it turns out he’s got a big heart, you know, underneath it all, etc., etc. But that’s the one that she’s going to fall for. 

Tim Matthews  4:53  

Big wallet?

Doug Holt  4:53  

And what’s that? big wallet? and if you go back and you think about When you were younger, right? The guys were teasing the girls, chasing them around the schoolyard, or what have you. Girls were screaming, Get away from me, what have you? Those were the guys that the girls ended up paying the most attention to. Right? This is a biological and chemical reaction. It’s happening within women. Right to react to this. Now, what’s happened? Right? We’re talking about playfully, sarcastically being a little bit mean, teasing her a little bit, or what have you in a joking and gestural way. And what happens for most guys, Tim, is they start a relationship like this, right? The friendly banter, or the kind of the joking back and forth, you know, at the party or the barbecue, lightly making fun of the person, maybe it’s the way they chew their food, or they drop something on the ground. You knee out, “Man, Are you always this clumsy?” right, something along those lines, where you’re kind of joking and smiling at the same time. So you’re not just an asshole. But then, over time, in a relationship, what tends to happen is the guy might push it a little too far. Or he might say one of these things. And the wife is in a very sensitive time, right? They’re not close. She’s questioning the validity of the relationship. She’s questioning the validity of their marriage. There are all kinds of things that can go on. She could be in her menstrual cycle, right? And then she says, “Stop being mean,” “stop being an asshole,” “stop being a jerk.” Right? And maybe he laughs it off, but most likely not. And this happens repeatedly. You know many marriages, and the guys who listen to this have been married for more than a couple of years. So over time, the message that he gets, and especially if she says this in front of anybody else, the message that he gets is “I can’t do this. I mean”, “I’m mean,“”I’m a jerk,” he starts apologizing, and he stops joking with her. He stops jesting, and he stops being playfully mean or cocky, funny or again, whatever you want to call it. And he just says nice things, right? And things he wants to say or joke around about that start to leave. And that part of him starts to die as well. 

Now the ironic thing about this, Tim, is that was part of the reason she fell in love with him in the first place. Right? The reason that she fell in love with him was a sense of humor was that he could be confident, right? Because really what you’re saying here is when you’re joking with a woman, any woman but your wife is an example when you’re joking with a woman. You’re kind of being playfully mean, for example, again, let’s say you’re at a barbecue or something, and she dropped something on the floor, and you look at and go, “Are you always this clumsy, geez,” you know, just something like that, where you’re she starts to giggle and laugh too. You’re showing that you’re confident enough in yourself that you can make that kind of comment, right? You’re not worried about her reaction. And it’s the confidence, the true confidence that she’s attracted to at that moment. Now, if you can be playful with her, she laughs. That’s great, right? Who doesn’t like to laugh? Again, we want to look at this through the lens of the length of time in a relationship and how so many men lose this. They can have it. Now I’m going to give one more example of this. And then I want to go into a dialogue, and then eventually it will show these guys how they can get it back. So I was talking to a guy not too long ago. Maybe it was last week. Yeah, let me time seems to fly, right. Last week. When we talked about why he’s not able to instigate with his wife, he’s been a jerk. You know, when he says that his wife says that all the time. You know, he feels like some part of him is missing as he died as he’s matured was his words. And, at that, wasn’t it at all? And so I mentioned this to him. I got “How often do you flirt with your wife?” he is like, “Don’t flirt with her that much.” 

And I’m like, “do you joke with her a lot? Did you used to?” he’s like, “Oh, Doug, I used to joke with her all the time. Like, we used to have a good laugh together. And that’s just we lost it over time.  I was being told she said I was a jerk and asshole. And here we are”. And I asked him I said, “So when you with your buddies, with your friends. Do you just a lot? Do you talk some smack you talk trash, etc., etc.?” He’s like, “Oh, yeah. when I get a chance to get with a guy talking shit the whole time. Like, that’s what we do. We just trash talk, go back and forth”. I’m like, “Are you laughing?” He’s like, “whoo! yeah!” We started talking about it more and more. Tim. what occurred was, he was missing this element of his life with his wife. He had it initially. He lost it right. She said he was being mean he was a jerk. So we stopped joking with her. And then a part of him dimmed. Because part of his personality. So he turned his whole personality down or off. I’m going to say he deactivated it, his personality. And that only came out when he’s with the guys. According to him, when he was with the guys, it wasn’t as solid as it used to be. But it was still great over time, they’d warm up a few beers, and he gets right into it. And he’d feel just absolutely amazing about the whole situation. Right? They’d be laughing, and it would fill his cup and fill his soul. And what do you feel realized in this conversation? Yes, he liked being with the guys. There’s a good group of guys. But it wasn’t so much the men he was with more than the actual banter going back and forth and how he just absolutely loved that. And with his wife, he completely lost it. He no longer did it. And he slipped into a beta roll, right? She says you don’t say something. He eventually says yes, turns that part of his personality off deactivates the part of his personality. And now their marriage is pretty much sexless. There’s no polarity in there. Have you ever experienced anything like this?

Tim Matthews  11:21  

Nah. Sounds perfect. It’s interesting. Nice to be in a conversation with you a couple of years ago now. And I said, “well, why did you get with me in the first place? what was it?” I was the cocky thinking she was going to say, “Well, I just love how driven you were. And I love the fact that you just went after what you want”. I should have said things around business, to be honest, oh, how I’ve provided we’ve got this lifestyle edge. And she’s not worked for years. But we travel around. Anyone shouldn’t say any of that. I was quite disappointed. You know why one thing that I loved about you and love about you is your sense of humor. And I was like, “ah, how shit! sense of humor”, but you really shouldn’t cause I was like, “Wow, I didn’t expect that.” And it is, for Amelia, whenever I’ve got it on my to do list here for the day, solid and playful. And it’s on my to-do list every day. And to-do list in front of me and I got a workout, cold shower, The Brotherhood training, sales book in Burma, one of them is solid and playful. And the reason why I have it every day is that I’m always working on it every day. And it’s when I am not solid and playful. And I leave the office and go downstairs to be with her and either exhausted or I’m reactive, or she just distanced herself, and she hates it big time. And even, you know, when she likes to give me shit from being playful par on this one. Even when she likes to give me crap for being solid and playful, I just have to keep going. And like you said, you feel that part of your day inside when you stop exerting that side of yourself. Although I do find I have to keep a fine line. Somewhat. Hmm, I’m not going to get fired when turning into a friend. You know, I’ve given a lot of crap. It’s a bit of me, and I almost have to just check myself on that line in the extreme. But yes, you want to hear me talk with a brother. And I had that dynamic and back and forth. And then I think about how I’m playing with it because they talk trash to each other. I’m like, yeah, definitely do not want to have a relationship with a brother’s house. That’s their thing. So I’m always going to, in the conversation with myself with this particular thing. In the area, it is a great point, because it’s so important. And again, it fuels the confidence like last night, I initiated sex and no, no actually laughing and all this and I’m just like, yeah, yeah. And it gives me an excuse. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. I just keep going. And obviously, we had sex, which was just great to keep going in the play with a playful nature. And like a flower, they just open up, so yeah, it’s a really important element of confidence, guys. 

Doug Holt  14:48  

Yeah, no, it is. And you do it naturally. I get the opportunity. You know, a lot of times you can, you and I are in zoom. Amelia walks into the room, and I get a chance to talk to her, and then you guys banter back and forth. But one thing you mentioned, I think, was a lot of things you mentioned. But one thing I want to bring up right now, my wife, at one point, told me because I talk so much trash. And this is news to you, Tim. I love it. I grew up in a house with all guys, very competitive athletes, and played sports. So I’ve always been in that realm where that’s how you bond. And I did it with my wife when we first met, and we laughed, and banter and her whole thing was, you know, the area that she’s from the east coast, everybody’s sarcastic, so no problem. Well, eventually, in our marriage, as we went through some tough times, when I was sarcastic or bantering with her out, she would tell me, I’m mean, and she would tell me, I don’t want you to be my brother, right? I don’t want you to treat me like I’m your sister. I want you to treat me like I’m your lover. And I didn’t get it at first, right. And so I started to tone my sarcasm down and things like that. You talked about that fine line, the right of knowing where that is. And so, one of the couple things I’ve learned over the years is one is don’t dim your light, right, don’t dim your light for anybody, passion. one of the things I think most guys do is they dim it, they become deactivated to their personality and who they are. 

That’s why we have The Activation Method, right to help these guys quickly reactivate themselves. But also, if you do cross that line, so I’ll use you and Amelia as an example. And I know you know this, but you’re joking, you’re bantering with Amelia, and she’s like, hey, that’s too far. You could always say sorry; that was too far. You know, I can be a bit of a jerk sometimes, or I can be a bit of an asshole and kind of smile and wink. Right. You can then play that role; you can bring her back in and that dance, right because she’s pushing away at that moment. It’s like you’re dancing. Like many, The Brotherhood guys right now are doing date dance nights with their partners, which is pretty cool to see I got something with Erin too. But it’s almost like she’s pushing away in the dance. And you’re grabbing her hand back and pulling her in like a twirl. Right, she’s spinning around, and she ends up in your arms. So you can do that. It’s like a dance and a way to do it. And I think one of the keys here, though, for most of the men we talked to is they’ve become so deactivated they don’t even know where to start. Like suddenly, this guy comes home from work or nowadays with COVID works in the bedroom or somewhere else in the house. He comes downstairs, and he doesn’t want to banter and joke with his wife because what will happen? They haven’t done it for years. Their relationship is pretty much dormant right there, roommates, nothing good roommates at this point. So how do you go from not even good roommates, or maybe roommates or dispassionate sex life and marriage to all of a sudden doing this playful banter like you would on a first date, and how do you get back to that point? 

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Tim Matthews  18:43  

Yeah, I think many of the guys don’t know what to start with when they become deactivated if you look at if they were to compare, right? How are they acting now? It’s interesting because tomorrow we start a training series with the men in the brothers to get your needs met without asking for it, you know, asking for sex and things. And one of the initial things I want these guys to lean into is when you first got together, how were you showing up in the relationship out of the relationship. Chances are in the relationship, you weren’t playful, you weren’t cocky, you weren’t confident, you weren’t present, you’re not making an effort in this whole thing a few things that go with it, but I’m being is out of the relationship isn’t spoken about before the chances are you working out, you were dressing well, you were on point, you brought that energy that was that energy that gave you the foundation to then take risks in the relationship because you will feel informed and you will feel informed not because of a relationship and need to have your needs met I’ll get game confidence from a relationship. You’ve given it to yourself, so you could then take that in. As I said, if your cups overflow, it’s easy for it to take a little bit of a spill, right? Because it’s going to spill before, and if it isn’t you going to refill it the next day or even that day yourself because you know-how, whereas the guys, and often when they come to their stop doing all those things for various reasons, excuses have stopped doing them all. And as a result, taking such a risk and reintroducing that cockiness and confidence is hard because it’s so out of sync with how they’re operating their entire day. Whereas on the day off, so in that energy, if you will, and they’ve got to come in and mentum inside of him. It’s just easy for it to become the next logical thing when it happens in the relationship. 

Doug Holt  20:44  

Yeah, I mean, I know for me, when I look at this, what can happen, and I’m not quite as structured. You and I are different in that way. For me, what this all comes down to is the approach, right? So guys, if you haven’t done this, you need to be doing your Alpha Rise & Shine in a long time, to Tim’s point. You need to have the rest of the things dialed in. But it also comes down to confidence and energy exchange. So if you’re not confident in doing this, you need to fake it till you make it right. You need not be worried about the outcome. If you’re already in a dispassionate, sexual, sexless marriage, you got nothing to lose, and you got nothing to lose, you got to go all in. Start with a simple small joke here and there, and then laugh at the end of it. Right? Because I think what happens to him to a lot of guys is they’re so angry at this point, they’re so disconnected, they’re angry at their wife, or themselves, or both in the relationship, the third entity that we call the relationship, that they might try to make a joke. If their wife doesn’t react and laugh because it’s out of character or whatever, they take it personally, then they get angry. And they get angry because they’re attached to the outcome. They’re attached to what she’s going to do, what she’s going to say. Your example with Amelia is a perfect example. You said you try to initiate sex, and she says no. And you just keep joking with her and bantering with her back and forth, and it becomes a joke between the two of you, probably laughing about it. You’re also very confident in your approach. It’s not like you said, “Hey, jeez, can we, you know, can we have some sex tonight?” and she says, “No,” and you just get all angry with her. And that happens to a lot of guys, then they blow up, and they start yelling, or “I never get sex.” Well, you know, “I’m bringing home all the money” and or something along those lines, and they’ve lost it. They’ve lost the frame, they’ve lost the paradigm, she now knows that she can control your emotions. You are beta to her alpha, period. But if you switch that around, guys, as Tim has done, right in his relationship, you switch that around, and maybe you go up to her, and you slap her on the butt and go, “hmm, That’s feeling firm,” right? Just kind of joking. And then you just laugh and walk away. Or she says things like, “Don’t hit me” or “Ouch.” And you just kind of giggle like, “Oh, do you think that hurts, just wait,” you know, or whatever you want to do. And just kind of laugh, like, kind of that joking laugh at the end and smiling and just walk away. And if you are feeling hurt, you can do a lot of work around that. But you need to get your button to The Activation Method. Because you shouldn’t, your feelings shouldn’t get hurt around that kind of stuff. But you know, that is when you own the paradigm, you own the frame, and you are in the alpha seat, you’re not in the beta seat anymore, you’re in the alpha seat, she is going to be forced to either ride along with you or fight you. Right? It’s one of the two things she if she fights, you will not feel good for her. If you truly are confident, you don’t care, right? Because you’re doing it from a place of purity. Right? You’re doing it from a funny place. And if you keep doing this, you keep doing it daily. Maybe you set a goal of two times or three times a day to make a little joke, right with her. It’s kind of not mean but funny. So don’t guys just don’t go over the main part but do the fun part, right? And kind of joke, maybe bring up memory and laugh at it that’s safer. If you’re doing this consistently, she will fall back into her pattern of when you first started dating, you got married, and you’re going to be the cocky funny guy. And she’s going to be the one laughing at your jokes.

Tim Matthews  24:36  

Yeah, for sure. Such a fun game, isn’t it? You can text them, I mean, even you know.

Doug Holt  24:47  

Oh yeah, that always worked, guys. 

Tim Matthews  24:53  

This is why I’d like to get your ass working out. Make sure your cup is full because I’ll always. You’re in control of it because it’s just easier. You can do it without that, for sure. It’s just harder to take the risk because many of the guys feel rejected by this point, right? They come to us that the relationship has slowly started to dwindle, they have to initiate sex have been told no, that’s the feeling unappreciated, when the walking through the door and wife isn’t bothered to see them, instead of getting a hug, to get an argument, go to bed at different times, whatever it is, right. And there’s a lot of feelings of rejection and resentment that start to build for the guys. So you have to shift the energy a little bit as well. One thing that I also like to do, I often jam in the morning. News Feeds into the whole fake it till you make it, like you said, to a degree. I journal in the morning about the vision that I see for myself, not what I want, but what I am living, right. And part of that often is a relationship and how I am in the relationship. It helps. It just helps to put you in the conversation, set the scene, and maybe towards one of the things you start to do there’s tons of podcasts. I’ve covered what it could look like for you. But just even still, if you were to, what if you were to be unafraid, right? What if you were to imagine that rejection, embarrassment weren’t even on your radar? What would you do? How would you act? How would you be in the relationship? What would that look like for you? You know, what, the moment you wake up, you know, when you walk in through the door, even as you go about your daily business, as you lead the team? How would you make decisions? How would you delegate? How would you manage your time? How would you be not a guy who did not lead, comes home and is playful and solid? Because Yeah, it’s a great topic, it’s a great topic, it’s a great thing to play with, and you’re never going to master it; you’re always going to be working on it. But just working at it and having it on your radar is way ahead of where many guys are, which you’re just not even using it.

Doug Holt  27:17  

Yeah, well, I mean, gosh, 99% of men. And this almost kind of to Greg’s point in the group is deactivated, right? We’ll just call it deactivated. And they just don’t know it. when you’re deactivated, you just don’t know that you’re deactivated because you can’t remember what activated was like or how to get there, and you’ve just kind of gone. “This is the way it’s supposed to be,” “I’ve gotten older, my body doesn’t work that way,” you know, all these excuses we hear guys make. And guys, you know, the excuses because we’ve all made them, right? I’m not perfect. These things don’t work for everybody. But guys walk around, and they’ve just accepted that this is what is “my marriage is this way,” and that’s what it is. But I will submit to you based on my experience coaching them, but my personal experience is that we talked about the first domino falling over. For most men, married men that are business leaders, it’s you got to fix your relationship first. Once you have that relationship worked on, then the business becomes easier, your health becomes easier. All of these dominoes and things start to fall into place. But that’s the key movement here. So Tim, let’s wrap up and give these guys 1-3 things they can do right now coming off action, and guys, as we always say, don’t just listen to these episodes right Tim and I get on here, and we chat. But we’ve been coaching at a very high level for a very long time. This is your opportunity to take action. Don’t make this just educational masturbation, right what I mean by that, don’t just listen to this go on to the next one. Go on to the next one. You know or whoever you’re listening to or what you’re doing, take some immediate action steps whether you’re following these three things or something else or maybe even just sharing this with somebody you know another guy you know you can have a conversation with. Anyway, Tim, 1-3, whatever it is, give a couple of these guys a couple of walkaway points.

Tim Matthews  29:14  

Now the first thing I do is a journal, sit with it, and let go of all “how,” and just play with “what if” there is a possibility. What does it look like for you to be playful? Maybe think back to when you first got together? How will you then? Maybe think back to times when you’ve been confident. How did you feel? How did you walk? How do you carry yourself? How do you dress? Paint that picture, journal it out, and then start to journal that every morning is 10 minutes a few minutes on several mornings a week. Not I want to, or I will, but I am and how it feels. The second thing from that is to start taking control of your morning again, working out and going for a walk. Be Just really started to create that energy of confidence and certainty. Some guys do it through how they dress, some cold showers working out in nature, whatever is, just don’t try, and it’s easier to take that into the relationship than just being playful from the start. The third thing is if you do have a to-do list or if you use a Google Calendar awesome thing put it on their notice on my MLS, now write it out, even for the following day. So I just got work things on workout cold shower solid and just put it on, so you’re in it, you’re in the conversation, are you keeping yourself accountable? And maybe even sharing the Facebook community goes over their past in how it questions, do you have any problems with our support you and enjoy, the idea of this is that you enjoy being playful again, right? Because otherwise, it’s a contradiction to being playful. So, laugh at yourself, take risks, go even take all the risks if you can, if you want to book up skydive, go book, The skydiving stops being that energy has been activated because it’ll spill over into everything else.

Doug Holt  31:14  

I do agree. And I’m going to leave you guys with two other points on there. To do it one starts doing it. Just start doing it. You’re going to screw up. It’s okay. Right? You’ll be okay. Their words, you’ll survive jokes around. When we talk about being playfully mean, emphasize the playful part, guys, do not emphasize the playful part. So that’s one, just try it, right? Find something and maybe make a joke about the past, right? That’s easy, not when someone’s cheated or something dangerous, but just joke about like, I remember when we were tossing the Frisbee around, and you missed it and hit you right in the face, man. I hope our kids don’t get those jeans, you know, the joke around with her and slap on the butt and walk away smiling, laughing, and if she says something back to you, like, Oh, you have to be kidding me. My jeans. Remember when you fell? Just start laughing at yourself. Right, that’s the playful part. The second thing guys, as well, on top of what Tim has to say is we’re doing a free training on the gap that’s identifying the gap between where you are and where you want to be beyond that training in the Facebook group, or get the replay because you can apply it here as well. Right? That’s free training we’re going to do to walk you guys through the gap situation, and we got a lot of positive feedback from that podcast episode. If you haven’t heard, it is another thing. Go back and find it in the archives. We keep those episodes up for you guys. So you can reference them whenever you want to. Tim is always a great insight. I’m waiting for Amelia to walk in that door soon behind your left shoulder so I can quiz her on what’s going on and how it happens. But thanks for sharing with everybody here. 

Gentlemen, as always, we appreciate you being here as well. If it’s your first time with us, please go to ThePowerfulMan.com/Bonus That’s ThePowerfulMan.com/Bonus grab that free training. It’s still the Reignite Cheatsheet. And if you’ve been with us for a while, we’d greatly appreciate it if you would just leave a review wherever you’re finding us. It helps us so much because it helps other men like you find this show. And that’s why Tim and I jump on here three times a week just to provide this for you guys. And we’d love the feedback we’re getting. So, guys, I’ll see you in the Facebook group. Have an amazing rest of your day, and see you next time.