Episode #962
When’s the last time your wife gave you that look—the one that says, “I want you”?
If it’s been a minute, you’re not alone. A lot of married guys find themselves in that same spot… and yeah, it probably means your Sexual Market Value (SMV) isn’t where it used to be.
In this episode, Coach Chris and I unpack what SMV actually means for men in long-term relationships. And no, it’s not just about being in shape or dressing sharp. It’s about the way you carry yourself, how much self-respect you have, and whether you’re still showing up like the man she was once drawn to.
We also get into the difference between real confidence and just going through the motions. A lot of men don’t even realize how far they’ve drifted until they either catch a glimpse in the mirror—or hear some hard truth from another man. If you’ve been thinking, “I’m doing everything I should… so why does she seem checked out?”—this conversation might hit close to home.
You’ll hear how to start rebuilding that quiet, steady confidence that naturally draws people in—especially your wife. We’re not talking gimmicks or trying to be someone you’re not. Just simple, real-world actions that help you feel solid in your own skin again. And it all starts with self-respect—not chasing approval.
So if you’ve been feeling kind of invisible at home, and you’re ready to start leading with presence and purpose again—yeah, this one’s for you.
Click play. Watch the free training.
See if it hits home. No pressure—just clarity: thepowerfulman.com/scales
Sometimes all it takes is one perspective shift to change everything.
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Transcription
Doug Holt 0:00
But you can also have a group of guys that you know—not blowing smoke up your ass—but hey, where do I need to improve? And if you’re around men who are trying to better themselves, just be like, “Just be honest with me,” and they’re gonna tell you. They’re gonna go, “Dude, you gotta cut the hair, cut the beard, drop five pounds, put on some muscle,” whatever it may be. And when you’re with guys like that, that don’t have skin in the game other than your own self, your own betterment, right? You’re in a great place.
Hey, what’s up, guys? Have you ever wondered what you would trade on the open market? What is your sexual market value? And what I’m saying is, what is your level of basically buying power or purchasing power on the marketplace, if you were to go out there—if you were to leave your wife—what is your SMV? Well, on today’s episode, Coach Chris and I are going to talk about just that. What is sexual market value? What does SMV, as we call it, actually mean? Why is it important to you, even if you’re a married guy, and what can you do about it? Chris, thanks for being here, man.
Christopher Hansen 1:25
Yeah, thanks, Doug. So it was interesting. We were talking about this off-air, as the conversations tend to go, and we were talking about SMV. What does SMV mean to you?
Doug Holt 1:34
Really, self-confidence and showing up for myself. That’s the big part. And just when you can look in the mirror and you really appreciate who you see in that.
Christopher Hansen 1:34
Yeah, and that’s such an interesting thing, because I remember thinking about this one time: a confident person could show up in a T-shirt and shorts and flip-flops to any place, and people would notice them. They would be accepted, if you will. And that’s the way a lot of people get by with it, rather than trying to buy the fancy clothes or the brand new car or anything to show off. The root of all of this is confidence and grounded masculinity.
Christopher Hansen 2:04
Yeah, and I see so many times with guys—and I fall into the same problem—is that you get comfortable, you get busy in life, you forget about these small things to do for yourself, right? And there’s so many things we need to do, and because of that, you kind of lose that. The wife doesn’t quite look at you the same way, right? You don’t have that attraction that you used to have, and you’re so focused on everything else around you. And we need that confidence—for ourselves, for our loved ones. I mean, it’s so important to have.
Doug Holt 2:37
Yeah, I remember saying to myself that I was proud I was wearing the same sweats I had since high school, with holes and everything. Like, nah—not sexy. Now there’s a time and place to be comfy and do those things, but if you’re wearing the same tattered clothes, disheveled beard—as we were talking about earlier—you know, you’re not taking care of your hair, your hygiene, trimming your nails, these things that you did when you were first dating, right? You were out in the market. Then really, you’re providing your wife, your partner, with this lesser man, almost. And the irony behind this is, you’re saying, “Hey babe, here’s the deal. You can’t sleep with another man the rest of your life—but I’m gonna let myself go.” It’s not the way that conversation goes.
Christopher Hansen 3:23
Yeah, and if you’re like me—especially with clothing, for example—if I find a pair of jeans that are comfortable, I like how they look, I like how they feel, I’m gonna wear those things out. And then I look, and I don’t even recognize how bad they look after a while. And so it’s the small things—like just remembering to kind of change it up, kind of bring that into—
I actually got a clothes service thing where they send you a box every couple months.
Doug Holt
Which one did you go with?
Christopher Hansen
Think it was Stitch Fix. Is that—what? Stitch Fix?
Doug Holt
A lot of guys are using that.
Christopher Hansen
No, great. They send me a box, I look through it, I find something I like, and then at least I’ve got a nice clean shirt or something. Because I don’t like to go shop, right? And so there’s a lot of ways to kind of work around this stuff that we need to do—like the hair, like your hair and your beard. It’s so easy just to be like, “Oh, I’ll just book that appointment when I need it,” right? But it’s a pain, right? And so just make sure it’s on the schedule.
Like now, I go every two weeks, because it’s important to me. That feeling we get when we put that new pair of pants on, that feeling we get when our beard’s done—that confidence that comes with us—it’s those little, small wins that help us build that confidence up every day.
Doug Holt 4:31
I am totally the guy that will buy a pair of pants or a shirt, go shopping without trying it on, take it home, it doesn’t fit, and go, “Crap,” and just put it in a drawer. Like, you know, I like what’s comfortable. I used to wear workout gear 24/7—hiking, whatever I was doing.
“Hey, let’s go out to dinner.”
“Cool.”
Throw on a T-shirt and, you know, jeans are a newer thing. I grew up in Southern California, now living in Oregon, and I had the story, Chris—probably literally up until maybe my late 30s or so—that I don’t need to care about clothes because I have so much value in me, right? Which is great to have that much… like, I really did have that much confidence and self-love, if you will, at that stage in my life.
And it wasn’t until I started buying nicer clothes just to try them on and realized that every time I put on a cool shirt that I really liked—like a button-up shirt or something that looked stylish, if you will—how much better I felt. It’s like, “Oh wow. This gives me a little bump. I actually enjoy this.” That I started noticing and paying more attention.
Christopher Hansen 5:37
It’s really about how we feel. What can we do—these small things—to make us feel better? And so appearance is a big part of that, but it’s also more than that, right? Challenging ourselves. That feeling after you go to the gym. That self-care, right? It’s about the feel.
Doug Holt 5:52
It is about the feel. So let’s take it to that level, and then we’ll talk about some super—I call them superficial—but things that aren’t as internal. So again, any woman I talk to, the most attractive thing that they see in a man is confidence.
Christopher Hansen
Yep. 100%. Confidence.
Doug Holt
And if a man can be confident in that, they just seem to attract women like magnets. And so you have to find that confidence. And getting that confidence—I think a fundamental part of that is self-love, which sounds kind of woo-woo-ish or fluffy. I can imagine an older version of me thinking that, but really what you’re saying is: I approve of myself. I know myself. I accept my faults. I like the things that I’m working on, or I’m working on improving those faults.
And I like me. I like spending time with me. I would buy me a beer.
Christopher Hansen 6:47
Yeah. You’re willing to invest time and money into me.
Doug Holt 6:51
Yes. 100%. And so many men aren’t willing to invest money in themselves, time into themselves, or any of those things—and yet they expect other people to invest time into them, or potentially even money into them.
So we’ve got that layer of… Let’s say a man’s working on getting that layer of self-confidence.
Well, first of all, how did we get there?
“Chris, I have no confidence. Life’s beat me down. I have a sexless marriage. I’m struggling. Here I am in my 40s. I was sold this dream that if I put my head down, worked my ass off, that everything would turn out okay.
And I don’t have a lot of friends. I’ve let myself go completely. I stopped. Don’t go to the gym.
Where do I even start?”
Christopher Hansen 7:34
You know, I love the program that we teach—the ARS, the Alpha Rise and Shine—is where we start. We have to. Because we have had these same habits that have been dragging us down for so long, we have to switch that mentality. We have to put those in.
And I love that—the Alpha Rise and Shine—because it puts these small things in place every single day to help us build a little bit more confidence.
And every guy that I talk to that we start on this track—and they do it, even if they’re not perfect—I say, “How do you feel after you do it?” And they say, “I feel a lot better.”
And what they’re really saying to me is: I feel more confident.
Doug Holt 8:07
Yes. And they start to respect themselves more, right? And you can’t ask someone to respect you until you respect yourself.
Christopher Hansen
I was gonna say the same thing.
Doug Holt
Starts with routines. The Alpha Rise and Shine.
After that, the Alpha Decompression is a huge one that I think a lot of people miss—coming in there. And by doing just those things, right? I’ve seen men change their marriage from divorce to lots of intimacy in the bedroom just with that.
Christopher Hansen
Yep.
Doug Holt
And that would be great and all—but we want more, right? We’re not here for just average, as we say. So what else? So I’m doing my Alpha Rise and Shine. I’m doing my Alpha Decompression—so which is basically your end-of-day, work-day routine. What’s my next step?
Christopher Hansen 8:51
I always love the challenge in yourself, because as men, as we fall into these routines for years of showing up for everybody else, we kind of forget to challenge. And we’ll do it in business—like, we’ll take that job, promotion, stuff like that—and that helps, right? But what’s a challenge for you deep down in your soul?
And I gave this example to the guys the other day: I was in Hawaii with the family. I hadn’t been riding. I was definitely off, off season—you know, drinking some beer and having a good time. And in Maui, there’s this volcano there, and there’s a ride I’ve always wanted to do. And from the bottom to the top, it’s 10,000 vertical feet. So it’s a big one.
And I was like, “You know what? I’m gonna go rent a bike. I’m gonna ride up that thing.”
And I knew that I was in no condition to do this thing—right? At all. But I was like, “I’ll go.” And I went for it. And I got to about 7,000–8,000 feet, and the body said, “You’re all done.”
But it was a challenge, and I didn’t shame myself because I didn’t make the top. I was so proud and confident because I just went out there and tried it, man.
And that feeling—that challenge—it doesn’t matter if you’re signing up for a 5k run or a Spartan. It doesn’t have to be necessarily physical, right? It doesn’t have to be a physical challenge. It could be something like: finish this book you started, or you want to learn something new, and you’re like, “Life,” and just go after that, you know?
And even if you don’t finish it, there’s still some confidence that’s gained during it.
Doug Holt 10:05
Yeah, that’s why so many guys take up martial arts that go through the program—Jiu Jitsu. I remember when I was doing Jiu Jitsu, just getting my ass handed to me—I mean by guys a quarter of my size—and just getting ruined, but feeling so good at the end. Because you’re putting it all out there, right? You’re doing something that’s challenging you, you’re not good at, and you’re exerting your best effort.
I think that’s what it is for me.
And kind of like your bike ride—what came up—when I played soccer competitively (or my version of competitively, anyway), I remember the best games I had, we lost, because I left everything on the field. And the worst games—even if we destroyed the other team—in fact, when we just trounced other teams, they weren’t fun, right? Because you’re just kind of cruising. It’s not really exerting yourself. There’s no challenge, to your point.
So you leave it all on the—you take something off the field. That whole analogy of “leave it all on the field” or “nothing left behind.”
Christopher Hansen 11:01
The real part is our SMV. Our wives, women, want to see that as men, we’re challenging ourselves.
Doug Holt
Yes.
Christopher Hansen
Like, it’s really, really attractive to them to know that we’re going to our limits, we’re pushing our boundaries to the next step. There’s a sense of safety that they have at that.
Doug Holt 11:17
David Deida’s got a book, Way of the Superior Man. I read it 15 years ago or so. I’ve read it a couple times, but I haven’t read it in a very long time. But one of the things he talks about in there—which I agree with—is: your woman does not come first.
If you put your woman first, right, she’s not gonna respect you.
You need to put your passion and your purpose first.
And that has to be above her, because she needs to know that you’re going for something.
Christopher Hansen 11:48
That’s funny—that was on my list yesterday. That was one of them, is: you’re following your passion and your purpose, right?
Different than the challenge—it’s deeper than that.
That one’s big. And that one’s hard, because a lot of guys don’t know what that is yet.
And so that takes some time to really kind of go.
And they have to take a step in some direction, right?
Doug Holt 12:07
100%. Best way to figure it out.
It’s like Thomas Edison’s quote, right? You know, he didn’t fail 1,000 times—he found 1,000 ways the light bulb didn’t work, right?
You find 1,000 things you’re not passionate about, and eventually you’ll land on that thing for you.
Christopher Hansen 12:21
Yeah. We did—this is another podcast—but I don’t believe in failure. Just lessons.
I don’t even use the word “failure” anymore. It’s only lessons.
Doug Holt 12:29
Yeah, because it’s true, right?
It’s so funny—like, things that become cliché like that, they’re cliché, but they’re true.
Christopher Hansen
So true. Yeah.
Doug Holt
So going back to SMV—one of the things I like guys to think about when I’m talking about this is, how did you dress? How did you act when you were trying to attract your wife? Because SMV is about attraction, right? It’s really what we’re saying—it’s your Sexual Market Value. You’re in the marketplace. What’s your value sexually, right? And it’s not sexually like “having sex”—intimacy—but like, how does the opposite sex value you as a human being, basically, or as a man. And usually, when I talk to a guy, I’m like, “Hey, how did you dress? The same way you dress now?” “Well, no.” “Did you get ready for date nights?” “Oh, I definitely did.” “Make sure you had no stains on your shirt?”
You know, made sure my clothes were clean—even if I was, you know, grew up in SoCal like I did. You had good—you had decent sandals on, or at least your toenails were trimmed or something, right? You had mystery, intrigue in your life to bring to the table.
Christopher Hansen 13:37
Yeah. It’s one thing I love about the program is the fact that as they go through the program, their SMV is rising just with what we’re teaching—emotional intelligence, learning The Hidden Motives Technique—all this stuff. But it’s like, this is the icing on the cake, these next, these other steps, right?
Doug Holt 13:55
It is. And there was a guy in the Navigate program recently that we were talking about. It was funny, because I saw him, and you could just see the smile on his face from the post. And that’s the thing with iron sharpens iron, right? In his post, if I recall—let me know if I’m missing this—but he got on a call, you guys were talking about SMV, and the other men that were on the call with him, his brothers as we call them, they gave him crap and said, “Hey, this is what you need to do.”
Christopher Hansen 14:22
Yeah, I think there were some eye openers. There were a couple guys doing a pretty good job. Other guys were like, “Wow, when was the last time I did that?” And he literally went that afternoon, got himself a haircut, had his beard trimmed up, he had a chain on, he had a nice shirt.
Doug Holt 14:35
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Christopher Hansen 15:27
Now, his hair was like—and he took a picture—and it was like, confidence. And everyone was like, “Richard, I didn’t even recognize you!”
And those things—the confidence that was coming through in that picture—it wasn’t just the physical changes, it was an energy that you could feel from it.
Doug Holt 15:42
Yeah. Well, as you know, I’m running around, even between these podcast episodes, putting out fires. As we were joking around, I stopped on that picture when I was looking in the community. I was like, “That guy, that guy’s got something,” right?
That confidence, that feel—it just comes shining through, and it allows you to shine brighter.
And the interesting thing, when you think about it, is when you feel better about yourself, you know, you stand up a little taller, you smile more.
And guys like Richard are going to be going out there to the coffee shop to get coffee, and they’re going to notice that other people are noticing them.
And you know who else notices other people noticing you? Your wife.
She’s very well aware.
Christopher Hansen 16:26
Yeah. One of the things I had on the list was being unapologetically confident.
Doug Holt 16:31
Yeah, I like that. Because there’s a difference between confident and being cocky or being an asshole.
Christopher Hansen
Absolutely.
Doug Holt
There’s a distinct difference. Confident is—you just know yourself. Really, that’s all. To me, that’s a big portion of it. Knowing yourself so well that you don’t get caught up in somebody else’s opinion of you. You’re not worried about what other people think. And you have that gusto. And that gives a woman safety, right? Provides her a lot of safety. And when a woman feels safe, she can let go. She can let go sexually. She can let go emotionally. And most women have never had that in a really good way.
Christopher Hansen 17:11
Yeah. We see that quite often, don’t we?
Doug Holt 17:14
We do. And some other basics—like, you break down SMV to some real basic things that guys could do aesthetically, right? I remember I wrote this a long time ago, but I just went through a list for guys, and it was like: Do you trim your nails? Do you clean your nails? Do you shave? Do you shave your beard? Do you shave your… whatever? Do you shave or trim your nether regions? Do you trim your balls? Like, this is one I had to tell a guy—like, are you making sure you’re wiping your butt? Like, make sure it’s clean, right? My wife said I don’t wipe well enough. I’m like, “Well, dude, fix that. Let’s start there.”
Do you smell okay? Are you putting off a bad odor? And if you are, you know, maybe you have some deodorant issues—go see somebody. What about other skin conditions? There are some things that people can’t affect, and that’s not a worry at all. Some of the people that I know who are the most confident men have typical abnormalities that would stop the average guy—but they don’t, because they’re so confident in themselves. They’re too small, too fat, too tall, whatever. Everybody’s got something that they notice when they look in the mirror, right? But if you accept yourself with that, you’ll be okay.
Do your clothes have stains on them? Holes in your socks? You know, all of those kinds of little things. And when I talked to a woman about this, who was in this space, she said, “Doug, what this really is—do you have self-respect? Do you respect yourself enough?” And that’s what really—when you look at the appearance portion—because I was arguing with this particular woman—not arguing, but discussing—I said, “Look, I don’t need to do all that stuff. Like, I’m a great guy. I’m smart.” I was just going through all the work I’ve done. And she was like, “I don’t disagree. But when someone’s looking from the first appearance—and we know first impressions are big, or perception is reality—what I’m looking for is: do you respect yourself?” I was like, “Ooh. That hit.” Like, that’s a good one.
Christopher Hansen 19:15
Self-love and self-respect, right? It all goes back to those—like, filling your cup.
Doug Holt 19:19
It does. So one of the things, Chris, I would like the guys to think about is: on a scale of 1 to 10, right? 10 could be a guy who’s got tons of confidence, physically fit, just looks good—let’s just say aesthetically good—dresses well. Where are they on that market value?
1 would be a guy who’s downtrodden, maybe even a homeless person, so to speak. Where are you, the guy, on that chart? And be honest with yourself, right? This is the time to be real and raw. If you were to go to the marketplace right now and try to get bought—like, you’re trying to have someone purchase you, the women of the world—where do you fall?
And then once you get real with yourself, don’t put yourself down and shame yourself. But maybe you’re like, “You know, shit, I’m a 5.” 5 is about 50%, so I’m in the average range. Okay, I’m a 5. What’s one thing I could do today—listening to these two guys, Chris and Doug—that could get me from a 5 to a 6? What is that?
And then start taking action. Get the Alpha Rise and Shine. If you’re like, “I don’t know what that is,” email into VIP@thepowerfulman.com. Guys, that’s VIP@thepowerfulman.com. Tell them you want some info on the Alpha Rise and Shine. They’ll get it to you.
Start working out—just exercising, doing something. And for some of you guys, that just means strapping on your shoes and going for a walk. And that’s cool.
Christopher Hansen 20:43
Yeah, I actually put a little fitness challenge up yesterday for the guys. And I told the guys, “This is not gonna be crazy,” right? The guys that are working out and are in great shape—good—use this as a warm-up. The guys that haven’t been, it’s just about doing something. How many times can you do 20 push-ups, 20 sit-ups, and 20 air squats? You do feel better, right?
It’s just a little bit of a compass. Maybe that took you from a 5 to a 6. But also be realistic. Because I also see the other side of that. Some of the guys that don’t have that self-esteem yet, and that confidence—sometimes we men look in the mirror and we see it a little better than it actually is. Really—most guys do. We need to be really truthful about what we’re actually looking at.
Doug Holt 21:21
Yeah. So what I used to tell guys is: take your number and take 2 to 3 off, right? Because there’s these funny cartoons that you’ve seen before, I’m sure—a fit woman looks in the mirror and sees a fat woman. A fat guy looks in the mirror and sees a fit man, right? I’ve certainly been guilty of that—like, if you look just from here to here, that’s friggin’ on point. You guys listening—I pointed to my neck—but it’s just those things we think about ourselves. We don’t look at our blind spots. So that’s a great place to start.
Christopher Hansen 21:53
Just be truthful with yourself.
Doug Holt 21:56
And join a community of men, right? And you can ask them, like, “Hey guys, what do you think?”
There’s another guy in The Brotherhood right now, and he’s doing one of those—he got a designer, or he might be doing the same box clothing—and he’s putting on his outfits every day to show, like, “Hey, here’s this new look I have.” And he’s done three or four of them, and it’s cool, man. The guys are commenting on them and saying, “Hey, this is awesome.” They’re giving him direct feedback.
But you can also have a group of guys that you know—who aren’t blowing smoke up your ass—but just, “Hey, where do I need to improve?” And if you’re around men who are trying to better themselves, just be like, “Just be honest with me,” and they’re gonna tell you.
“Dude, you gotta cut the hair, cut the beard, drop five pounds, put on some muscle,” whatever it may be. And when you’re with guys like that that don’t have skin in the game other than your own self, your own betterment—right?—you’re in a great place.
Christopher Hansen 22:55
You know, one thing I loved when I saw that picture of him that was on the feed—the comments were amazing. So positive. The guys were just like, “You did it, man! Great job!” And they’re just lifting him.
And I think for us men too—we don’t compliment men very often. Every once in a while, I’ll say something like, “Hey, nice shoes,” or like, “You drank that beer really fast”—something that isn’t really relevant. But it’s amazing when you have that support, and you feel that support from other men, right? Because we don’t do that enough for each other.
Doug Holt 23:24
I agree. I can also tell you that I’ve asked many men in the group, like, “Hey, what do you think I need to improve? Just be honest with me,” and they’ll give me honest feedback. Now it’s upon me to take that or discard it if I don’t agree with it—but now I’m getting third-party optics on myself.
And how often do we actually get that, right? Like, I could think the way I dress is absolutely amazing. And you might be like, “Doug, you wear a TPM shirt every time I see you. Might want to switch that up, bro. Is your wife tired of seeing the wolf logo?” And she’s not—because she got my daughter one.
But the same point is—I want, at least—I don’t know about you—but I want feedback. I don’t want people to blow smoke up my ass or tell me, “Hey, you look great in those jeans,” and the next thing I know, there’s a hole in the crotch I didn’t know about or something.
That’s awesome. SMV is a fascinating topic. I think it’s not talked about enough with the guys, and something I think we can bring back to the table. Love it.
Awesome. Gentlemen, as we say: in the moment of insight, take massive action.
What is your SMV?
And Chris and I were saying: take that number, maybe take off 3. Let’s just be real, guys—we think we’re better than we are. Every once in a while, I call myself out on that. And every once in a while, I’ll ask for reflection: “Where am I at, guys?” “Hey, what do you think about this?” And take that in.
And then once you’ve got that, what’s one thing you can do? One thing you can do today, in this moment, to increase your SMV?
Maybe right now, you need to drop to the ground and do five push-ups. Or maybe you haven’t done five push-ups in ten years. I get it. But what is one thing you can do?
And maybe for some of you guys, it’s just reading a book or listening to a podcast like this. But whatever it is—take action.
We’ll see you next time on The Powerful Man Show.
