SPEAKER_00: 0:03

No form of pretending is ever good. Ever. Because life will have many lessons for you and you will be exposed. So the best advantage you have in life is staying true to who you are and being authentic with yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 0:25

Today we're talking about the performative male crisis. For most of my life, I thought my value came from being the guy that everybody remembered. The shape shifter, the guy who was the loudest in the room, full of loud guys, and the smart guy who was the smartest in the room of smart guys. And the one thing that I always remembered is that I always had something to say at the wrong time. I was the quintessential performative male. OG performative male. But here's what no one tells you about the performative male. It doesn't reek of confidence. You think you're being the cool guy who has something to say, but you're really reeking of the insecure guy. That's what this generation is calling the performative male. And for all my young men out there looking for beautiful women to link with, this is one of the things that most girls say give them the ick. It's the guy who doesn't know who he is, who's trying to be somebody he's not. And he's the guy that other men can see. He yearns for social approval. He's a shape shifter in every room he walks into. And listen, I know this may sound like an issue and it seems like you're just being yourself, but that's what this episode is about. Rich and I are gonna unpack a few things that we think can help you to move from the performative male to a guy that's just being the best version of himself and bringing a lot of people around him that accept him for being him. And you don't have to need to be accepted. You are accepted. You don't have to feel like a fraud in your own skin. Rich, have you ever been in a room with someone who was giving the vibe of someone that was being the performative male, just doing shit for social approval when you can tell they weren't being themselves?

SPEAKER_00: 2:08

Yes, bro. I used to be that guy. You were the guy. I was that guy. I mean, listen, now that I think back on it, it's a pretty funny story. But I remember getting invited to a bachelor party with some of my white friends. You know, I've hung out with like uh a lot of black and Latino growing up. So, you know, having a group of white friends was a little bit out of my element. But needless to say, I got invited to this bachelor party and um I felt the need to like fit in. So I actually wore a Metallica shirt to this bachelor party. And bro, the first thing one of the dudes asked me was, hey, cool shirt, man. What's your favorite song? And I just froze. Like I didn't have a favorite Metallica song. And they kind of knew that I was sort of faking the funk in order to fit in. And man, I just remember that moment feeling like I'm just trying too hard, you know? And it was performative at the end of the day. I was really a hip-hop head. I wasn't like a rock and roll type of guy.

SPEAKER_01: 3:07

But going back to that time, and obviously that's why I love that we're building this platform, is that we forget that we were young once and the pressure that comes with making that decision to wear a Metallica shirt. Like you don't even know anything about that. Can you see clearly as a 37-year-old when you were that young why you made those decisions? What was it that made you do that? And how foolish does it look now?

SPEAKER_00: 3:32

Yeah, extremely foolish. It's like you said, it's shape-shifting, it's the insecurity in myself of not being accepted by a different group of friends. And, you know, this was my poor attempt at trying to fit in. I just assumed that these upstate New York white guys would, you know, accept me better if I had a Metallica shirt on, or if, you know, those guys listen to country music, or if if I shared uh my favorite country music song. And it would, you know, it was a poor attempt at that. And looking back on it now, I realized like, man, I was very insecure about who I was, and I yearned for the acceptance of others so much that I was willing to change something about who I am and my identity or or my likes and interests in order to please others. And that was not the right thing to do at the time.

SPEAKER_01: 4:22

You know what that makes me think of? It's something I noticed a lot when I was younger is people that are not the best at socializing or being in big groups of people where they want to be it's human nature to want to be accepted. So I don't blame any young person for trying different things until they find out who they are. I think that's natural. That happens in life.

SPEAKER_00: 4:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:42

But I think there's something to do with alcohol when young men become teenagers and they drink because it allows them to kind of give them more confidence and be more social. Like, where is the layer of alcohol, lacking confidence, being insecure? How does that all play into this episode of uh being like the performative male or doing things to be accepted?

SPEAKER_00: 5:06

Yeah, I mean, listen, when you drink alcohol, that certainly uh brings down your guard a little bit. You're you're a little bit more looser, you're a little bit more social, more outgoing than you normally are. And I think that sensor that makes you feel embarrassment kind of kind of diminishes when you drink alcohol. That part of your brain that just feels you know, embarrassment just kind of gets smaller and you're willing to be riskier and take chances and speak to someone and approach someone who you normally wouldn't approach had you not been under the influence. And obviously, too much alcohol will just make you look like a damn fool if you're overdoing it.

SPEAKER_01: 5:44

Yeah, there's the genuine confidence, and then there's the insecurity that you start doing other things that are out of character that proves you can't tell, but people could see you're not confident. And I think that's something that in hindsight we can notice, right? We can look at somebody that's not confident as a young man and be like, oh, you could just tell he's insecure, he's trying to fit in. Or the kid that's not athletic or doesn't truly enjoy sports, hanging out with kids that play sports. Or I don't, I mean, there's many versions of it, but I think your story is a good one because you're not only outside of your cultural expertise, but you're also outside of people that have interest and hobbies that you have no idea about. If you could go on a time machine, what would you have done different? Or what advice would you have given young rich in a scenario like that that probably would have netted better for you so you didn't feel like the butt of the joke?

SPEAKER_00: 6:35

Yeah, I mean, listen, we're certainly going to touch on that when we share some actionable advice, but if we're sharing a little bit of it now, a little teaser, I would say to really just embrace who you are and what your interests are. I feel like once you do that and you stay true to who you are, you're likely to be more accepted for that than the pretender, the poser, someone who's, like you mentioned, shape shifting in order to be liked by others. I'll give you another scenario, bro, and this I've been infamous for. And I'm not proud of it, but like the notion of being the smartest guy in the room, bro. I've been the victim of that for so long. And it took me a really long time to understand that people don't always like that smartest guy in the room, right? Sometimes that guy rips the fun out of things. You know, one story that I could share.

SPEAKER_01: 7:31

I feel like this is like uh know-it all anonymous, where you're confessing all your moments.

SPEAKER_00: 7:37

Yeah, we have to be truthful here. Bro, I remember being amongst different groups of friends where they're sharing like cryptocurrency advice and XRP would come up a lot. And they're like, man, I can't wait for XRP to hit 100, 150. We're gonna be rich. We we got in early. And I'm over here, like, bro, do you not understand how market caps work? Like XRP cannot reach$100 per coin, it's just not economically, financially possible.

SPEAKER_01: 8:05

Oh no. And they would look at You were the you were the seven-syllable well actually guy.

SPEAKER_00: 8:10

Yeah, I was the well actually guy, bro. And they they were looking at me like, you know, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I saw 30 TikToks that says otherwise, right? And it took me a long time to realize that, bro, these guys were just having fun. They were being hopeful, they were being dreamers, they were playing the lottery. The idea of placing an investment or placing a bet and being right by and potentially receiving a lot of income was like attractive to them. And here I was trying to be the smartest guy in the room, the party pooper, trying to bring them back to reality. And no one likes that guy in the group of friends that you know we're just trying to have fun and share ideas.

SPEAKER_01: 8:50

But the problem there, and the rich I would bore our audience and show you a video that I once innately recorded myself. I just went out of my way and recorded it on Instagram stories, and I was shitting on the well actually guy. To my surprise, my co-host of Failures Podcast was a well-actually guy, which it doesn't mean that I don't necessarily get along with well actually guys, but I want to put a finer point on your story, Rich, and something that young men could take away while listening to this podcast. There is a time and a place for being the guy that wants to show off his high IQ. There is a time and a place for the guy to be the well actually guy that you're not ruining the story or the energy or the vibe of the room. And I think that's what you're saying. These guys were just trying to bond over some shit that maybe they all knew was not possible. But your only real estate when you're the well-actually the smartest guy in the room is to go and be that guy. So because you want to prove your value. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00: 9:48

Yeah, and like we mentioned earlier, it's performative. At that moment, with those scenarios, I wanted to perform and exude the character of someone who's intelligent, right? And who knows a lot about this particular subject. And I'm mistaken that for me thinking that they would take that information as like me being the smartest, right? It made me feel like insecure. I was insecure, and I'm mistaken that confidence for insecurity, essentially.

SPEAKER_01: 10:18

I I like that you mentioned that. And I did have one last question because I have a story that I wanted to share when I was in Rutgers University for the first year, and very similar to you, uh, I grew up predominantly Spanish and black community, draped in Latin and black culture, music and all that. First time I was around like non-Latin or black people was like Rutgers, and it was predominantly Asian, Indian, and white. And this is like the main campus. This is uh, I mean, you know, when we would go up there to do the radio show. And a lot of the times I will find myself not around my flock of people that had interests that were aligned with the interests that I had. And this is one of two stories that fit perfectly with this episode because it was one a rude awakening that I wasn't in uh Alice, you're not in Kansas anymore. I had a rude awakening that I wasn't in Hudson County, New Jersey no more. And all my interests were no longer the interests of the people that were around, so I didn't know who I was. I was literally lost. And the second story is hilarious, it has to do with a football team, but I'll say the first one. So naturally, when I was in high school, I would always wear a lot of jewelry. That was always my thing in high school. I had a huge$5,000 Jesus piece chain that my stepdad helped me buy with money that I made illegally, and it was this beautiful diamond Jesus piece, white diamonds, it had red on his hands for whether they nailed him to the cross. And I had this huge, probably like similar to this, but like a little thicker. And it was like normal in Hudson County, New Jersey, in West New York, where we grew up at, where we went to high school, for guys to wear jewelry. So that was never like something that I thought as a negative. At some point, I actually never like I stopped noticing it. So I get to Rutgers University, I take uh communications as a major and marketing, and in the biggest lecture hall, there's probably like anywhere between 700 to like a thousand kids in this huge like stadium seating lecture hall. So purposely, because I thought I was still in West New York, I would sit in the front of the classroom just so I could get up with my big ass chain on and a black shirt and walk to the bathroom so everybody in the lecture hall could see me. Like it was like marketing and advertising before marketing and advertising. At least everyone knew I was anyway. I get invited to a party, a fraternity party, and I wind up meeting a girl that I eventually wound up dating for the first time at this party. And our first conversation, Rich, was her coming up to me and asking me, Why are you wearing a Jesus chain that is that big? Is that like some sort of like play that you're in? Is this like uh she was like, is this performance jewelry? Like, I've never seen a human wear jewelry so big. Like, what is the point of it? Yeah, and at that moment my mind broke because I no one had ever asked me why I was wearing jewelry that was so gaudy and massive. And until that moment in my life, everybody I've ever met loved the jewelry, they seen that as a status symbol. Yeah, so I remember putting the chain away for the rest of the day, like tucking it in my shirt, because I was embarrassed that this person didn't recognize why I had it on. Later that month, I kept hanging out with this girl who I was really attracted to. I stopped wearing the chain, and I wound up going to American apparel, and I was like, man, nobody ever reacts in this world to the jewelry and the clothes I'm wearing. Like I was wearing like really cool clothes for where we're from. Yeah. So I I never forget I won, I wound up buying a fedora. It's the first time in my life I wore this shit had like a blue rib. I was in American American apparel, just buying clothes that I've never worn in my life. Yeah, I wore boat shoes. I really wanted to fit in with these people so bad because being my original self was just like swimming against a current. Everybody was asking me questions about why I looked this way, and it made me so uncomfortable. And it was the first time in my life I ever felt uncomfortable for being myself. So I say all that to like really get on the same page with our audience. We understand why you're doing it, but Rich at 37 years old and myself at 39 years old, I can confirm that going down the road of wearing a mask and not being your authentic self is the worst life to live because at some point you're gonna wake up and realize, damn, I don't enjoy playing this character anymore. I just want to be Richard Sanchez from West New York, New Jersey, and I just want to listen to the music I like and I want to have conversations about shit that I enjoy. I don't want to always feel like the cat who painted tiger stripes on myself. And every time there's a tiger fight, I have to perform and act like a tiger when I know deep down inside I'm not that. And I think that doesn't happen until you're in your mid to late 20s. I don't know when it occurred to you, Rich, that you eventually become comfortable with who you are and where you come from.

SPEAKER_00: 15:26

Yeah, for sure. I mean, listen, even taking a step back, like that sort of performative angle, that character that you end up building for yourself, like you have to upkeep that character and keep the keep the funk going if you go down that rabbit hole, right? Because that's what people start to expect of you. And once you go down the rabbit hole of that false character, that false identity of like who you are, bro, you go home and you're exhausted because you know that you're out there in the real world pretending to be someone that you're not for everything.

SPEAKER_01: 16:00

It just happened all day, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:02

Yeah, bro. And then you get home and then you you, you know, like I said, you're you're exhausted. And bro, it's so liberating just when you can go out and meet a group of friends or be with among your own friends and be 100% genuinely unapologetic yourself, and everyone embraces you. Everyone laughs at your jokes, everyone respects your opinions, everyone appreciates your presence, right? Because they know that you're being yourself, and that's what they've subscribed to. You are my friend because you are the funny guy, or you're the strongest guy, or you're the hustler, get money dude, or you know, you just make all of us laugh. We we enjoy your presence, et cetera, et cetera. So naturally, I feel like being yourself is the ultimate way to go, essentially.

SPEAKER_01: 16:54

So the reason why this topic came up, because Rich and I were going back and forth on ideas, and we realized that this generation, more than any generation of young males before this one, suffers from the performative male syndrome because they can see a lot of different identities online that they could try on and then put back on the shelf, and then try another one and put it back on the shelf. And the reason why we started off with relatable stories is because we've been there before, but we're a little older where the internet didn't guide us so much. So I I do want to offer some sympathy and empathy for this generation, Rich, is contradicting what we usually tell them to tell them to be themselves. Because how do you tell a young man to be himself if he doesn't know who he is yet? And we're telling them go outside, make friends, try new things, do new things. Isn't that a bit of the same, like if I if I was gonna play devil's advocate or have a steel man argument, wouldn't it be someone here saying, Yeah, but aren't you the guys that's telling me to try things and do things? Doesn't a bit of performance come with trying and doing new things?

SPEAKER_00: 18:00

Yeah, I mean, listen, I think that's a good point. The the way that I would combat that argument is yes, I would advocate to try new things because that's how you identify who you are as a person, and and different interests will make you gravitate towards different things. However, where you fall into a danger is you have an a friend who's a jock who's 200 pounds and fantastic and very athletic and on the football team, and you're this scrawny dude who wants to be that because you see how many girls he's getting or how popular he is. There's a big difference between you who are not athletic wanting to be the guy who is athletic. So looking at other people and wanting and pretending to be that, I feel like that is a dangerous road to go down in because you're not that person, bro. I feel like you could borrow little bits and pieces, like, oh, this guy's a funny guy. I really like when he tells these jokes, or I see how people gravitate to these jokes. I feel like that's small in nature. You can sort of borrow little pieces and traits from different people, but to completely try to re-identify yourself as something that you are not when you are not the athletic person in the friend group, that is the dangerous road to go down it.

SPEAKER_01: 19:20

I love that. And I I think you nailed it. It's uh try new things, but understand that there's a limit to your truth. And you have to be aware of where your limit is at. If you're in the wrong place, you're amongst people that don't naturally have the same skill set as you, the God-given abilities as you, you have to know your limits and your human potential. But I feel like that's 200 level, 300 level uh knowledge. Yes, go and try new things. It's cool. We're not going to bash you for that. But I think what Rich and I are trying to tackle here is this annoying person in the group that is using the one thing they're good at to disrupt all the other things. And I have three categories. I want to go through Rich because I think between me and you, we can find the similarities of this person. So you had mentioned earlier the know-it-all. I think the smart guy in the know-it-all is the one that you had owned for yourself when you were younger.

SPEAKER_00: 20:13

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 20:14

And maybe even in your 20s. I naturally am the loud guy in the room, the overcompensating Napoleon complex guy, the guy that wants to be the best, but has no merits or no reasons to be called the best. I think we should unpack the mindset of those two guys because I think that is us in our younger years. And the third guy I want to, I guess, gang up on both me and you, Pause, is the guy that is the traditional performative male in 2026. And we we discussed this on our pre-show meeting, Rich. It's the guy wearing pearls, painting their fingernails, holding books that are about feminist propaganda. Just like I'm a feminist and I want other women to see who the fuck reads a real textbook in 2025, let alone is like showing the cover when they're riding the train or they're at a coffee shop. This guy drinks matcha tea, he does um not yoga, what's the other shit that people uh Pilates? Like he's really tapped into the women experience in a way that it literally women repulse him. And it's a problem. Men are leaning so far into the women experience that they're becoming a version of a man that is performing just for women. That's how the name performative male came about. So, Rich, which one of those threes do you want to unpack before we get into actionable advice?

SPEAKER_00: 21:37

Yeah, listen, naturally, the smart guy in the room. That's that's who I used to be. I'm not gonna lie, Jess, sometimes that that guy still might reappear in in different settings. And I have to constantly catch myself and consider the group of friends that I'm with, consider uh, because everything is case-sensitive, like we mentioned. And I just have to remind myself that there's a time and place. Not everybody is in a position to want to be educated at all times. And also I'm at a place in life and and I have the maturity level in in life at 37 years old where I'm not trying to impress anyone. I don't have the insecurities of wanting to feel confident around a group of people. I know who I am and I know what I'm not. So that feeling of needing to say things and words and phrases in order to impress the people that I'm around is just not something I yearn for anymore at this age.

SPEAKER_01: 22:30

Yeah. Well actually is annoying the fuck out of me. And I'm sure being the loudest in the room and trying to overcompensate for height or lack of money, which obviously that's my story. But I did share a story with you off air, Rich, and I do want to share here. In my job, there's a lot of music conversations that come from talking to artists. And if you ever worked with like highly emotional, highly sensitive, very vulnerable artists, you develop empathy for these guys because they're putting their life story into like their art, and then they give it to the world to judge. And you may think that you understand an artist, but if you've never been an artist, you don't know how vulnerable a lot of these guys are when they are sharing their art. It even gives me anxiety to post a picture of myself on the internet without feeling like I'm gonna get judged by some people. Now imagine someone tying a multi-million dollar budget to your song and your video and then letting the fucking evil internet just tee off on you all day. I feel these guys. It's my profession to work with these guys and to help them build their confidence, not only in the marketing plans that I put together for them, but also building their confidence so they don't feel so vulnerable when they share their music with the world. Long story short, I was having a meeting with my whole staff, and part of any company that is tied to dedicating a lot of money to market a product, you're going to have a lot of research in the room. People that do data analysis, and all those guys are there for is to make sure that they are using all the information and available data points. So we're spending our money in a smart way, and our marketing plans are done in a strategic way, which bring us a return on our investment. These guys are usually the highest IQ people in the company because they have no emotional intelligence. They're just all day looking at monitors, reading reports, and they have this God complex that they understand the world through numbers in a way that most other people don't. So if you mix the ability to know the world through numbers, and you also have this complex of, I may not be the most charismatic, I'm not the most creative, but my contribution is hard facts. It's numbers. And Rich, I know that's a part of the world that you come from as well. So me being sympathetic to that guy in the room with the creatives is they start feeling inferior because they're sitting around thinking, it's the guy in the party with his back on the wall holding the cup, and everybody's dancing, and he's like, little do these guys know. I 300X my uh uh Bitcoin last month, so I'm smarter than everybody. You know, do you know this meme where the guys on the wall with the little hat? Yeah. That is the the smart guy in the room. He always feels this insecurity about, yeah, but they don't know what I know. So the minute I get an opportunity to correct somebody, I will do that. And in my job, the data and research guys like to jump in and they always make the room feel uncomfortable because they always put a fucking wet blanket on top of all these very artistic conversations. And I had a situation where I had one of my lead analytics guy just cut the legs under one of the artists that were feeling very insecure about where they stood in their career. And he basically confirmed to the artist, yeah, you're not gonna be as big as you think you are, so it's probably best that we go this route. And like we couldn't have fired him, but I thought that what he did was so egregious and wasn't considerate of our talent that he should have been fired for it. And to me, that is a moment of uh, well, actually, a guy that doesn't read the room and he's just spitting information just because he feels like that's his only contribution. And that shit pissed me off. It puts me in a bad headspace because that's a person that's not good at reading the room and they just want to feel important, or at least I felt at the moment. That's how he was moving.

SPEAKER_00: 26:26

Yeah. Feel important, feel like they need validation from everyone in the room, right? It's that insecurity of feeling like, do I know myself or do I not? Well, let me go test it out on these people, right? And they just fill you with uh a bunch of information to see how people gravitate. And, you know, just I think this is sort of actionable advice. Oftentimes people attach who they are to the reaction of others, right? So if you say something, if you say a joke and you get a laugh, you're like, damn, you know, that landed. You start to tie your identity back to the reaction of others, and then that the reaction of others becomes how you sort of compute your self-worth, is by how others treat you for the things you say or the way you act. And I feel like that's certainly actionable advice number one, is just detaching your identity from the reaction of others, from the feeling like you need to perform for these people, like you're trying to pass a test.

SPEAKER_01: 27:31

Yeah, I think one that I would like to get to immediately for actionable advice is you have to beware of tribal acceptance because sometimes it does lead you down the wrong road. And my heart goes out to a lot of these younger guys because that is what they want. I I know the feeling. I still experience it sometimes now. I'm going to be 40 years old. There are times that being a kid that was born and raised in New York, in New Jersey, in the Northeast, there's a certain type of person that I naturally get along with. There's a certain type of temperament, uh a bravado that I click with when I meet this type of person. Imagine me in my mid-30s at the peak of my career trying to get along with people from LA that have a whole different type of energy to them. They speak different, they they move different. There's majority, the Latinos here are majority South American, Mexican. They're not, there's not a lot of Caribbeans out here. So I instantly feel out of place. So I have to catch myself sometimes over-pandering to the tribe in order to be accepted by the tribe. But every now and then I have to remind myself, I didn't grow up in an area that had a huge car culture. So I don't give a fuck about cars. So when I'm driving my Jeep Grand Cherokee, I'm chilling. Like I don't, I don't feel this urge to want to have the best car because that's an LA culture thing. But every now and then I'll I'll slip into what the tribe likes. And when the tribe says they want to do something, I immediately start thinking, like, man, maybe I should get a different car. So I could be hanging out with my boys that got outis and and Maseratis, and it's not me. So I have to just cut it off immediately and be like, you know what? I really don't give a fuck about what these people are doing. I'm just gonna accept it for what it is and not let the tribe lead me. So I love that actionable advice, Rich, but I do feel like people tie them their identity at a young age to what everybody else around them is doing. But what is the help you can offer for somebody that is young and wants to tie their identity to how people are reacting to them?

SPEAKER_00: 29:32

Yeah, I mean, listen, I I think the guy who who's in a social setting who just is a little bit more quiet and just listens and understands, reads the room, understands who's who, who's the funny guy, who's the more articulate guy, how people are communicating with one another. I think naturally you do tend to mold yourself based on the social setting of where you're at, right? Like you're a great communicator, you're a funny person, but you're not a funny person 24 by seven. You know what there's a time and place, you know what social setting, social circle to be funny at, and when you need to pull back and be a little bit more stern, a little bit more serious. So having that ability to be fluid in your communication style and how you communicate with others by reading the room. So just be a little quiet, bro. Be a little quiet, observe, read the room, and then you can share your opinion or bring value to a conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 30:31

That is perfect for the next piece of actionable advice. I think reading the room is something that's very underrated, Rich. And for our young men between the ages of 15 to 22, whether you know it or not, every single thing you do is tied to one thing and one thing only. You're trying to get the approval of other men so women can like you. Or you're trying to skip the whole getting approval of men part, and that's where the performative male things come from. A lot of guys are trying to skip the getting accepted by the men and go straight to the women, and it's something very subtle, but it's human nature. Women can detect a man that is constantly scanning the room for validation. His body language is just uncomfortable in the clothes that he's wearing. You ever wore a piece of clothing, Rich, where you when you put it on, you're like, this shit just doesn't feel right on me. But you still go out, and the whole day you're adjusting yourself and you're looking at yourself in the mirror, and you can see that that guy wearing that turtleneck is not the guy that you know. You're like, man, we are really playing a fucking character and a play right now. And I'm Peter Pan, fucking making believe that I'm somebody that I'm not. I believe that other women and men pick up on this inauthenticity that comes from all non-verbal things. Your body is telling everybody in the room, this is not you, champ. Why are you trying to play a character that you're not? I'm willing to bet the day you were wearing that Metallica shirt, your whole energy was off that day.

SPEAKER_00: 32:06

Oh yeah. Plus the shirt was extra tight, so I was just move, I was just moving weird the whole the whole day. But listen, bro.

SPEAKER_01: 32:18

I just imagine you wearing a tight ass fucking Metallica shirt.

SPEAKER_00: 32:22

Yeah, that was me faking the funk, bro. You ain't gotta lie. You said this on another episode. You ain't gotta lie to kick it, bro. You ain't gotta lie. The notorious Kendrick said it best. You ain't gotta lie to kick it. Listen, bro, you've said this before, and I'd love to bring it up again. Women are genetically designed to find the poser, the guy who doesn't fit in, the guy who's trying too hard, the guy who's trying to impress every single girl at the bar, buy every every girl at the bar drinks, hopping from conversation to conversation, trying to see if anybody gravitates to their energy or anything that they have to say. And women rule those out immediately, bro. It's just it's like you said, it gives them the ick. It's like this dude has no identity. He's just going from woman to woman, conversation to conversation, seeking validation and acceptance and trying to see if he could fit in uh where he got in.

SPEAKER_01: 33:20

Yeah, you know what I'm thinking about? The guy, I just I was just like like imagining this version of you in a setting where you weren't accepted. But if you would have been yourself, they probably would have accepted you because everything that your aura, your natural energy was radiating somebody that was comfortable with being themselves. And I could imagine someone not being socially accepted with their drink really high, just scanning the room, looking around. And this is the ultimate tell. You're laughing at jokes late. People are laughing, everybody laughs at you, like ha ha, you're like, yo, that's crazy. You're pushing people, like we can tell something is off. You seem like a fucking narc. You seem like a detective being like, yo, where's the weed at? Like it's bad, man. It's bad. And it's hard to give actionable advice when it's so predicated around natural being. And maybe young men haven't found that comfort in themselves, and that's okay. But what we can say is the opposite is more truer than the forcing it. The opposite is you kind of naturally find yourself around people that find you funny when you're not even trying to be funny. You find yourself around people that find you to be helpful and resourceful, and you're adding to the the group conversation without even trying. They're coming back to you, asking to, yo, can you say that story again that you told us? There is a very natural flow when you're swimming with the current. Life can be that way. It's like that with dating, it's like that with jobs, it's like that with friends. Sometimes you know when you're in a place where the current is pushing you back and the wave is not moving in your direction. That is the world speaking the same language that you speak. You always want to go where your advantage is at. And that's a cheat code that I learned early in my life, Rich. I am not the most thoroughest. Sit down and read 40 spreadsheets on a document, read every line in a contract. I would love to be that. But naturally, I am not that. I have to force myself to be that. But naturally, I am someone that likes being around people. I like communicating. I like being the leader of a group. And every time I found myself in a position where I was doing the former and I had to stay seated at a job for a long time, or I had to read through a lot of documents and be very thorough and diligent, I never thrived. I never thrived. I was always fighting hard to even get acknowledged in that type of a role. But whenever I did anything that was complementary of my skill set, whether I did or did not know what my skill set was, it's like the world bended to me. And I find the same as that job analogy is I find it with women. Any woman that finds my bravado and my loudness to be like fun and energetic and exciting to them, that's a woman that's for me because my natural way of being may repulse other girls. But a small group of girls, they like it. And though that's the kind of person I want to be with long term. I don't want to constantly be told be quiet, you're being too loud, or why do you always got to try to be funny at the wrong times? That is swimming against the current, and that is a life of hell, Rich. Yeah. When you're with the wrong partner. And the last one I'll say is the same thing goes with friends, man. I think friends are the early signs for a young man that you haven't found your flock. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Most young men find their flock by flocking. And when I say flocking, I mean going out in the world and trying things, trying new things, but it's pretty easy to see what the people you get along with versus the people you don't get along with.

SPEAKER_00: 37:03

Yeah, that's a great point. And you know what? Just like, you know, wanting to be socially accepted is not a bad thing. You know, I I know we're we're sort of um harping on this guy for sort of shape shifting. It's okay to want to be socially accepted. I think what what we're saying is don't let it get to a point of contention where you're trying to do too much for that acceptance, right? Don't be afraid to say something and potentially be misunderstood. Like that's the fear that these young guys have, is like they're constantly seeking that approval and that acceptance from a lot of different groups of friends. And it paralyzes the fear of not being accepted, paralyzes them so much that they're willing to pretend to be someone or something that they're not for that validation and that acceptance. And that's the disconnect. That's what we're saying is you don't have to pretend to be someone that you're not in order to seek that validation or that acceptance.

SPEAKER_01: 38:10

Yeah, a lot of our actionable advice runs through the filter of does failures eat its own home cooking? Meaning, we wouldn't serve any young man advice that I wouldn't give my 20-year-old nephew and Rich wouldn't give his 13-year-old son. This is advice that I've heard you tell me that you would give your own son. So a lot of our filters come from would I give this advice to my own family? And the answer is yes. I believe that. I believe what you said has been said before in your own household.

SPEAKER_00: 38:44

Yeah, absolutely. And he's at that, he's 13, so he's at that pivotal age where he's consuming a lot of different content, viewing a lot of different identities, uh, a lot of different social circles, right? You have the funny guy, the jocks, the smart guys, and he's just trying to see which one am I? Who can I tie my character, myself, and my identity to? And you know, everyone's sort of looking for their own classification. So 13 is a pivotal age for when young guys start to digest and analyze who they are as a person.

SPEAKER_01: 39:18

Yeah, I mean, I think you nailed it with the actionable advice. It's uh embrace who you are, and there's nothing wrong with that, but you have to find who you are. And I think that's what the a lot of this age is about the search for who I who am I and what am I becoming?

SPEAKER_00: 39:34

Yeah, and listen, bro, we said this. It's okay to try shit. I used to wear 6X white T's in high school. It looked like a dress. We all looked like we were wearing a dress trying to emulate Dipset and Jim Jones and Joel Santana and all these New York rappers, because that was the thing to do at the time. But hindsight is 2020, right? Like we look back on it, bro. I really wanted to wear polos. I didn't I didn't want to be wearing a 6XT, but that's everybody was wearing. But why?

SPEAKER_01: 40:04

But why were you doing that?

SPEAKER_00: 40:06

Try to fit in. Trying to find who I was, trying to fit in with the cool kids. Everybody was doing it. I wanted to do it too. You know, just finding my place in the world. That's why I love the show Boy Meets World. I showed that show to my son a long time ago because that show's premises is about a young guy who's navigating elementary school, high school, goes off to college, and all the sort of trials and tribulations that he goes through to try to find like who he is in this world.

SPEAKER_01: 40:34

Rich, as an adult, can you remember when you realized I don't have to perform no more? I can just be myself. Do you remember a time where like you felt that feeling, whether it was with old friends or your girl or maybe even your parents?

SPEAKER_00: 40:50

Yeah, I think closer to my 30s when I started to have different work friends and be in different settings and have to put on a suit or just be in different social settings that I'm normally not in. Like I've spoken to billionaire CEOs before and had a full-blown conversation. And in those moments, I'm like, all right, I can have a conversation with a very wealthy person, completely be myself and see the reciprocation and energy in that conversation. I don't have to pretend to be just as wealthy as the person who I'm speaking to who's right across from me. I can completely be myself and I could see the glow in their eye as we're conversating that this person is enjoying this conversation. I don't need to pretend to be anyone else. But that took a really long time for me to understand that there's more value in authenticity and staying true to who you are than being that performative male that we're speaking about.

SPEAKER_01: 41:55

I love that. And I I think you summarized it probably better than we both tried to in the beginning of this episode, right there. There is a level of authenticity that comes with other people being around you because they enjoy rich for rich. And sometimes it takes a long time for rich to discover who he is so you can get from the world the people that you want around you. But first, before other people come, you have to be comfortable with who you are. And that takes time. It's like you spend a lot of time seeking, seeking, trying to find, trying to find the right girl for yourself, trying to find the right friend group. But in that seeking comes a self-monitoring and trying to understand, wait, who am I? That's probably why it's not working with a lot of people, because I'm projecting what I think this woman wants me to be or what I think my friends want me to be. But when you're finally comfortable with being your authentic self, we're not saying that's gonna happen quickly. We're saying it takes time before you discover that. And after you discover that, that's when the world kind of bends to you and comes to you versus you looking for it.

SPEAKER_00: 42:59

Yeah, I listen, I think the world tends to reward the person very handsomely when they have the ability to learn who they are early on in life. Like I think about all these like self-made millionaires in their 20s. Like, bro, they they had the fortunate circumstances in life to identify who they were very early on in life. You have some kids who become world champion boxers at 22 years old. This kid probably knew at 16 who he was and was in the gym grinding every day, and then at 22 becomes world champ, right? Or or in a female, right? This uh girl at 12 years old just understands that she wants to do gymnastics for the rest of her life. She she identified who she was in a skill or a hobby, and then goes out to live that through and become an Olympian or et cetera, et cetera. So there's a huge advantage in life from taking the time to understand who you are as a person. And I think in the long run, life tends to reward you handsomely for taking that deliberate action of understanding who you are.

SPEAKER_01: 44:06

I love that, Rich. I I had a conversation recently with a co-worker, and I don't want to say who they are because their fate was them getting laid off, part of a round of layoffs that happened at our company. But one of the last conversations I had with them was they were struggling with how they didn't fit into the culture of the company, of the record label that I work at. And I know this person well enough to tell them you want to go where you're already accepted. You want to go where you're already wanted. There is something that comes out of a person, like from a charisma standpoint, when you know you're not constantly trying to fight for acceptance and validation. Because it kind of puts a ceiling on your potential because you're constantly thinking in the back of your mind, like, damn, was that okay? Did I do the right thing here? I hope that person doesn't hate me because I said what I said. My advice to that person pre-layoffs was hey, if anything happened to you in this company, it might be the best blessing for you. Because I can tell that every day you come to work, you're fighting to be accepted. You're fighting for your skill set to be appreciated by this staff. And that's fucked up because this person is really good at what they do. They were just in the wrong group of people that didn't appreciate them. Push came to shove, they got laid off, they've been out of the company for a few months. And I just caught up with them recently, and they were telling me how much they love the new company they're at. And I asked him about his coworkers, and it almost felt like his co-workers were more like him. And I can tell that he was accepted because he was around people that kind of loved him for the way he was, and he wasn't fighting for acceptance every day. And I think that's just an adult version of what young people go through when they're in high school and in college. They're just looking for someone to appreciate them for being themselves. And to your point, you gotta be mindful about how often you compromise who you actually are for who you think you want to be, because eventually those chains become heavy. Then you got to wear them chains everywhere. And if you say never and I will never, and that's not me enough times, you start putting yourself in chains. And that is a precautionary tale. If I have never heard of one, that is a cautionary tale because a lot of people like to shout something so many times that they don't even know if it's true or not, but they just keep saying it to the point where they're the person that never eats seafood.

SPEAKER_00: 46:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 46:35

You might wake up one day and actually like seafood. Now you become the person that always said it. And that sucks because you put yourself in chains. So I love the advice you just gave, Rich, because there is something about being your authentic self that the world does acknowledge and it does receive, and it frees you of all the performance that you have to go through.

SPEAKER_00: 46:56

Bro, I say this maybe a hundred times a month. Go where you're wanted, not where you're accepted. I say this to all my friends whenever they're making a career life change and they're questioning a new move versus the current job where they've been feeling insecure or feeling like they didn't fit in. And that's my go-to phrase is go where you're wanted, not where you're accepted. When the flock is flocking, flock towards that group of people who accept you for who you are, uh, who accept you for your authentic self and who you are as a person. That is single-handedly, bro, like one of my greatest life cheat codes is I don't try to pretend to be anything that I'm not. And I also take it a step further, but by putting myself in situations and positions and job opportunities to where I know that I'm going to connect with this team better than my current or better than a different organization. Actually, I've usually like when I do job interviews, bro, like I ask very specific questions on the team. That's the that's part of my questioning during job interviews, is like, how's the team? How's the manager? How's the dynamic? Because I want to know what I'm getting myself into. And I want to know that can I click with this group of people? Can I click with this team? Like, are we going to be a good tandem? Can I be my authentic self with these group of people? That to me, bro, when you associate yourself with a group of people who will accept your authentic self is such a huge cheat code. I can't emphasize that enough.

SPEAKER_01: 48:37

Rich, my girlfriend's mother said something to her youngest son, which she said it in Spanish, and I was able to find the quote in English. If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it's stupid. And I think that's what you're saying, because you're saying it with your son in mind. You're saying if you don't find your group of people who accept you, you're always gonna believe you're not enough. You're you're incompetent, you're you're falling short. It's like measuring a really small person based on its ability to play basketball. Basketball's a tall man's sport. You can fight that uphill battle all you want, all your life, but it's the equivalent of the fish who is judged by its ability and its brilliance and its intelligence by its ability to climb a tree. And I think that's an old phrase that probably came from the fucking 1700s in Mexico, but it still is very relevant now. And I think it's relevant what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00: 49:37

Yeah. And listen, the the latter, like, don't take our advice if you don't want to, but then what's gonna happen, Jess? You're gonna fall to social anxiety, right? You're exhausted, you're feeling that burnout of constantly having to perform for different group of friends and shape shifting your personalities, and you're going home and you're exhausted, and then you end up having social anxiety and you don't want to be around different groups of people or different settings because you don't know what's right and what's wrong. You don't know who you are, you don't know how to act, you feel like you're always pretending. And man, you dehabilitate yourself like you become disabled when it comes to having these social interactions with people by pretending to be someone you're not.

SPEAKER_01: 50:24

Rich, I have a question that came from our community. Um, it was a long question, but I think the quote and the question is seeking approval is a sign of weakness. Don't seek approval from other people. I partially agree with that, but I believe if you put that information into the wrong young person's mind, it's bad advice. You get what I'm saying? Like, do you agree with that? Seeking approval is a sign of weakness.

SPEAKER_00: 50:48

I partially agree with that. I think there are certain people who you should be seeking approval for. I think certainly having your parents' approval is very important for morale, right? Usually if your parents agree to the things that you're doing and your life trajectory, that it makes you feel good. It makes you feel like you're making the right decisions. Shit, being in an employee-employer relationship and having a manager, you know, share some advice or or ways you can improve, like that's information that's useful to you on becoming a better productive employee. So, yeah, I think that wanting approval from certain people is a good thing. You should want certain people's approval.

SPEAKER_01: 51:36

I would adjust the phrase because sometimes you ask someone a question, and every question should be unbounded when you give an answer. And I think this is one of those questions because it was proposed like a multiple choice question. So it limits you uh, do I seek approval or do I not seek approval? I don't think it's a seeking approval thing. I think the only person you should be interested in is do I personally feel like I'm moving in the right direction that feels natural to me and something that feels gratifying to me. So it's it's an internal scorecard, it's less about the external approval. Once you know who you are and what you want out of your own potential and what is exciting, then you can seek approval because it's going back to you as a person. It's not something that you're looking around and other people seeking approval. Because I think that could be bad advice if you ask and you frame it the wrong way.

SPEAKER_00: 52:32

Yeah, I I love that. Listen, bro, it's it's an identity crisis at the end of the day. Like everything boils down to understanding who you are as a person. And bro, the we're we're sharing all the steps necessary for you to identify that. Because going down the other rabbit hole of pretending being opposer, feeling like you need to be socially accepted by everyone, that's the pitfall that we're telling you not to fall into. That's the part that's going to leave you burnt out, exhausted with social anxiety. And we don't want you to be that guy, man. Bring it back home. Find the things that you identify with the most and lean into that. I think you said this just on an earlier episode. Lean into your funny laugh, lean into the your interests that intrigue you, but nobody else. Lean into all the things that feel true to you.

SPEAKER_01: 53:27

Rich, we discussed the performative male, the know-it-all, the smart guy. We discussed the loud, obnoxious uh alpha or like guy trying to pretend he's the alpha in the room. There's one group that we haven't discussed, and I feel like we would be doing ourselves a disservice because this is a huge category, and the king of this phrase, the performative male comes from a man who is intentionally trying to go out of his way to show other women, hey, I get you. I don't need the approval of other men. I see you, I recognize you, and I'm here for you. I do want to go through the checklist that women online that have described and labeled this guy as a performative male that gives them the ick. And I want to unpack this one a little bit, Rich, because it's really outside of our window. It's a guy who literally reads physical textbooks outside that have feminist literature, feminist pandering literature. And one of the authors is Sally Rooney. It's progressive, it's books that women read about women's strife and struggle. These guys read these books out loud at coffee shops, they have them in the in the in the train, they drink matcha teas, they have tote bags with lalubos on them. They love film and photography. They paint their nails, they are in tune with their inner feminine. Why are you shaking your head? What is it about this guy that you think he's not getting it right? And what how does that fall into our episode today?

SPEAKER_00: 55:02

Let me guess, this guy's emotionally available for all women.

SPEAKER_01: 55:06

Yeah. He's not just saying that, he's living it. He's living emotional availability.

SPEAKER_00: 55:11

You know what that reminds me of? That reminds me of like the guy who's like a really good singer and just sings to all the girls. Cause you know what I mean. That's his like shortcut to uh all romantic relationships. Oh, he sings to me. He's such a good singer. Um, bro, listen, that's no different. That you're faking the funk for the sake of attracting women. I get you. If you think that's a competitive advantage, go ahead, try it. But I feel like the latter is true, bro. I feel like women have a genetically designed radar that says this dude is not being his genuine self. Proceed with caution. That's what I feel like women see when these guys come around and they love poetry and maybe we should get our nails done together sometime. It's like, bro, women identify that immediately.

SPEAKER_01: 56:07

Yeah, the performative male, in my opinion, is someone that tried to hack the girl brain by going on the internet and watching videos and absorbing content on green flags for men that I would date, and they they did the end around. They went to the exit and found out all the things that women say on the internet that they like, and they reversed it and then they became it. But there's one thing these women are not telling you is that they like men who are men. That is what they're looking for. All the ancillary extra shit that you are doing, the matcha tea, the plug-in headphones, the performative uh feminist textbooks, the lulu, whatever the fuck them things are called, that is all things that they like on men that they already find attractive. It's extra, it's not the main course. You're still a bitch at the end of the day, and most of these girls can smell it on you. That's why their response to this flock and wave of men that are trying to like trick women into liking them, they've labeled you the performative male. I couldn't think of anything more offensive than someone telling me, oh, you're performing to get me to like you.

SPEAKER_00: 57:26

Do you know what happens to those dudes who end up doing that? They end up becoming, oh, he's my best friend. He's so relatable. He likes all the same things I like. Bro, you are you trying to fuck or are you trying to be her friend? Because you're you will get guaranteed you will get bucketed in that friend pile if you continue with this performative character.

SPEAKER_01: 57:47

Yeah, because I mean, think about it. The women labeled these guys performative males. Rich and I were just speaking to younger men who were having trouble making friends in their teenage years and their early 20s, and we discovered, oh shit, there is a category dedicated to this. And when we did our research, it's the most evolved Pokemon of this guy at 15, 16, 17 that doesn't course correct his life and doesn't gravitate to what makes him him, and what he truly loves about being a guy and being himself. The gateway drug to sipping matcha teas and fucking reading feminist books on the train just to get women to love you, the gateway drug is laughing at jokes that ain't funny and wearing Metallica shirts when you know damn well you don't know no fucking Metallica songs. If you don't fix that, Rich, you had you had this happen to you and you fixed it immediately because you could tell it wasn't you. A younger Justin was wearing turtleneck with boat shoes, and I put my jewelry away because I wanted to be accepted by the kids in college that didn't understand urban culture. So I tried to adjust myself and conform. I did it for like three months, four months tops because I was so conflicted and uncomfortable. If I would have stood on that road, I would have been fucking hashtag matcha tea guy doing yoga classes just so I could get in tune with my female spirit, knowing damn well I just want to be a guy that is attracting beautiful women and I want to do it in a way that's comfortable to me and feels natural to me. Shout out to the women that caught these guys trying to trick them into fucking them, and they created the fucking label the performative male. Now they label these guys. So they got to figure out a new hack because the girls caught on to it.

SPEAKER_00: 59:32

There you go, bro. The performative male.

SPEAKER_01: 59:37

Off top, I genuinely want to ask if your if your son brought a young guy around you that was like a few years older than him, that was sipping a matcha tea, had his nails painted, had a little boo boo on his tote bag, what would be your initial reaction to that and what would be your advice to your son?

SPEAKER_00: 59:55

Yeah, I would just remind him, man, like, listen, you don't gotta pretend to kick it, man. You don't gotta pretend. Um, like that, that guy's doing all the things he thinks girls want, and really, like we said, they're genetically designed to identify the poser and keep them as far away from them as possible. Listen, I I think simply put, just no form of pretending is ever good. Ever. Because life will have many lessons for you and you will be exposed. So the best advantage you have in life is staying true to who you are and being authentic with yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:36

Damn. Couldn't have said it better myself. I think we're good, Rich. I think we addressed the performative male issue going on for young men. And I mean, it seems like grown-ass men are also doing this.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:49

So yeah, I got nothing left to say. I was well said. Listen, keep that matcha drinking nail-painted guy away from me, bro. Like, and away from my son, too.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:02

Failures podcast. Rich, we got anything we want to say before we get out of here?

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:05

Yeah, man. Subscribe to the YouTube at Failures Media. Hit us up, man. We're all eyes and ears and willing to talk to any listener or fan. So hit us up at Failures Media. Peace.