SPEAKER_01 0:03

I remember meeting with my swimming instructor. The first thing we did when we got there, he was like, come over to the cold side of the pool because there was a heated pool. I want you to jump into the 10 feet area and I want your feet to touch the ground and I want you to come back up. And I instantly I was like, I'm not doing that. Why would I do that? Like, I don't know how to swim. And he was like, Listen, it has to be manageable discomfort. You can't do what you've always done because if I put you in the short end of the pool in warm water, that's where you live. And when you go to the beach, I'm only going up to my waist anyway. We need to start introducing discomfort so you can know how to practice in an environment that is uncontrolled. But we're not gonna go into the ocean yet. We're gonna start with manageable discomfort. Today we're talking about toxic comfort and stalled starters. The stalled starter is the young man, it's you. It's the guy in his late 20s, early 30s, still living at his mom's house. And they ain't nothing wrong with that. I get it, the economy's fucked up. But listen, if you've ever asked yourself, wow, I wonder how my laundry gets done, I wonder how the rent gets paid. I wonder who shovels the sidewalks when it snows. I wonder how fresh food magically appears on the stove every day, or who stocks our refrigerators? I have minimal life friction. Then we're talking about you. You're living life on easy mode. Why would you ever leave your mom's house if everything is done for you perfectly? That is the stalled starter part. You're in your late 20s, early 30s, and you haven't really jumped off the porch and have been met with some life friction. Now, here's the flip side the toxic comfort part is a unique type of toxic comfort. Why is it toxic? Because it's silent and it's deadly. It's the kind of toxic comfort that comes from someone who loves you, loves you with pure intentions. Unfortunately, that toxic comfort usually comes from your mother. Now, listen, this show is not about bashing mothers. Rich has a mother, I do too. This is not what this is about. The problem is the stalled starter, the young man who hasn't left home, his greatest drug dealer, his enabler, is the woman who provides toxic comfort. And that usually comes from mom. I know your mom loves you, we get it, and that's not what this episode is about. But this episode is more for you to gain your own clarity. This episode is for the young guy who's probably noticed more recently damn, is this comfort life enabling me? Am I someone who has made my mom my best friend? Is my mom stunting my progress? If those thoughts resonate with you, stick around. Rich and I are gonna unpack. But Rich, I have a question for you off top. Have you ever looked back at your upbringing or when I did that intro? Did anyone come to mind? Not in a bad way, but just someone that was so enabled by their mother that they became someone that was basically an untested man?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yeah, man. Listen, I've definitely seen that with more of like my college friends. You could tell the difference between a lot of different friends as to which ones were enabled by their parents the most and sort of like coddled in a way. But I struggle with this topic, bro, because I have a 14-year-old son, right? And I've found myself trying to figure out what the balance is between giving my child everything I feel like he deserves, everything that uh I didn't grow up with as a child, and also like not spoiling him at the same time and not giving him that toxic comfort of feeling that life has no friction and you know there's not going to be challenges in his life. There's this weird like middle ground that you need to find when you're parenting a child so that you don't have this entitled little brat that just always expect that things are going to be very comfortable for them.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Rich, you are speaking from experience. I don't have kids. I have younger relatives, a nephew that I help, right? But never one-to-one, where if you grew up humble, and I know you did, you had immigrant parents, your parents didn't have everything for you. Isn't there a little bit of guilt that comes over you when you do have some means, more means that your family had? And that's why we don't want to blame the mothers in this episode because they're just doing something that we know comes natural to them. What mother doesn't love their kid? You know, that that's not really the discussion here. The discussion is, like you said, becoming an untested man, living a friction-free life. And the third part I'd add to that is living that way into your late 20s, early 30s. That's when it started affecting your adulthood. So again, let's stay on the subject with your son. How do you tow that line? Because it is a love that's trapped inside of this trapdoor.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah, I mean, listen, I think naturally you don't want your child to struggle. I think that's where the basis of this feeling of giving them things is you don't want them to struggle the way you might have had to struggle in your past. At the same time, you also want to teach them that life has challenges. You want to teach them morals, values, like very basic fundamental things that they're going to need as they grow up and become an adult and you know, ultimately become a man and have to hold down a household. And I feel like if you do provide that cushy life for them for too long, especially going into your 20s and into your 30s, they never really develop those skills that they need as a man to operate in today's society. So it's this weird balance between you not wanting them to struggle, but you also wanting to not spoil them to the point where they can't do anything for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, I love that we keep using this word friction and struggle and life, because as we say often on the show, life be life in. And the best analogy I could give, Rich, when I was putting the show script together, I kept thinking, you know, when you put your leg in a cast because it's broken, that cast is on your leg for a reason. You might get a wheelchair, they might give you crutches. That's done for a reason because the leg is not strong enough to stand on its own. And I think when a mother has a child or a father is raising his child, they're doing it from infancy, from a small little tater tot, a little baby that can't really send for itself. You have a younger baby, Rich. And as they get older, you have to loosen up the constraints of the crutch or the wheelchair because inevitably they have to get strong enough to start walking on that leg. And you hope by 14, 15, 16, 17, they've been exposed to enough of life's realities, not all of them, but enough that they can understand how to lean on that leg and make it stronger so they could eventually walk, run, and sprint on their own. Now I know that's a very simple ABC analogy, but I do find a lot of the truth in today's episode in it. If you keep a crutch on or keep somebody in a wheelchair until their late 20s, it's really not your mother's fault that you haven't put any pressure on it and taught yourself how to walk. And what happens is, and this to me is the biggest glaring red flag for most women in the dating market, is that they'll be meeting you at 29 years old, 31 years old, and thinking, man, this fucking guy needs to call his mother for everything. This guy can't make a decision. He's giving me options and asking me questions for where we're gonna eat tonight or where we're gonna order from or what movie we should watch, or what shirt do I look cuter in. News flash. Most women, grown women, pretty women, attractive women, want to be led. These women don't want to pick what the fuck you're gonna wear to work every day because it turns you from a man into a man, baby. And that word, it triggers me every time I hear it because I can feel the insult in the phrasing. But if you really think about it, it starts at those early years, 16, 17, 18. You have to start developing that muscle on your own, and you can't blame anybody else because you chose comfort over friction.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Yeah, listen, at the end of the day, adversity builds character. And when you go through hard shit, you learn, oh, let me not go down that road or that path because you know, there's a roadblock there, or I might get uh injured, or you know, I mean, like there's a lot of different things about life and the decisions that you make that'll teach you whether something is right for you or wrong for you, right? Um, but you only know by going through that adversity, and that adversity ultimately builds character. This topic is tricky, right? Because in one end, you enjoy the comfort that your mom or your parents have set up for you, right? They're doing your laundry, they're buying you food, they're paying your college tuition, they're making things very easy, they're paying your car insurance, they're making life really cushy. And I think naturally, as humans, bro, whenever we get life given to us in easy mode, nine times out of ten, we're always going to take it. Yeah, we're always going to take the path of least resistance, the path of comfort, the path of less friction over the more difficult path of having to pay our own bills and having to do things for ourselves. So it's a tricky two-way street.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Rich, you personally have challenged me based on the information and research and the data we're getting back on our episodes. Sometimes we're a little too surfacey. We should zoom into something that's a little bit more nuanced, but is a big problem in our community. And this was one of them. And it forced me and you to kind of look at this from a different angle because I could easily see somebody like hitting play on this episode and checking out in the first 10 minutes and being like, What's the problem? I can't love my mom, my mom can't love me. Like, I could see that because I kind of felt that way when I first started researching this topic. I don't know if you get that point.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah, certainly there's guys that get defensive whenever you're calling them out, right? Especially for calling them man babies or man childs, is like, wait, well, why why are you labeling me that? Just like, bro, you've been given everything as a child, and now you're in your 20s, uh, early 30s, and you're still receiving the same support, which is nothing wrong with receiving support. But when you get everything from your parents, when everything is given to you, even monetarily, they're paying your car insurance, they're paying your car note, they're paying your student loans, like you have no manly responsibilities, bro. It sort of handicaps you. And you know, if if the ultimate goal is to have your own place, find a woman, get married, have some children, and maintain a household, you're not gonna know how to do all these things if you've been handicapped from dealing with life's challenges and learning as you go along.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

I mean, think about it. We are living human animals. We are a certain species, a superior species. When you think of every other living and breathing thing, if we're to use animals as an analogy, I don't know any animal that gets incubated for 18 years. And even at year 18, the bald eagle mother is like, okay, baby, I hope you're good to go fly with the other eagles now. I don't know the exact date that an eagle is taken out of his nest and is taught to fly on its own, but I can assure you that it's not 18 years. And there was a quote in our community that really resonated with that point that I just made. And it was someone, it was an older man who was pushing back in a Reddit chat, and he said to a guy that was defending his position at living at home at 34 years old, and this older guy said, Look, you can take this how you want to take it, but it's hard to call it love when that love is preventing you from preparing yourself for adulthood. Because inevitably you're going to have to fly. Inevitably, that eagle has to go and find food on its own, fly with its own pack of eagles in one direction. Well, eagles don't fly together, but you get what I'm saying? Eventually learn how to navigate the world on its own, eventually learn how to find food and fend for itself on its own. And I think that older guy nailed it. It's hard to call it love when it's not preparing you for becoming an adult.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yeah, that's a great point. And, you know, as a young man, at what point do you identify that your family is doing too much? And you do want to become a little bit more independent because you understand that you're looking at your friends and they have their own apartment. They're sharing an apartment with a roommate, they're living on their own, they're a lot less dependent on their parents. They don't rely on them as much. Like, at what point do you say, hey, mom, dad, like, I'm okay. I can pay my own car insurance, you know, or I could buy my own food. Just the insurance. Just not the payment, the insurance, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yes. Yeah. But listen, I think it starts simple, bro. Like, if your parents are still doing your laundry for you, bro, it's like, come on, dog. Like, you gotta be doing, at least start with the small stuff. Clean your own room. Like, if you're living at home with your parents, clean your own room, do your own laundry, start to do things that help you gain your independence. And then you can evolve and start to do more things for yourself. Because the the weird dynamic just is that I think parents end up being enablers and don't even realize it, right? Sometimes you don't want the help, but like mom is persistent on like making you food and you gotta eat this home cooked meal that I made you. Like, don't go out to eat or spend money, right? Or, you know, don't worry about your student loans. I'm gonna pay for it, or I'm gonna pay, you know, whatever bills you have. And how do you tell your mom no? Like, that's what makes it a toxic comfort, is like they want to be helpful, they want to make things easy for you, but at the same time, they're delaying your process to adulthood. So, how do you tell your parents no? That's sort of a challenge, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Yeah, I mean, we had uh an original show title, which I still love, and it was the man your mom raised versus the man you need to become. And that resonated. I think we both agreed that that was an incredible title because it's really a friction. I I could say I'm 39 years old. I live in Los Angeles, I've lived here for five years now, but nothing brings me greater joy than hopping on a flight and texting my mom, hey, I'm on my way home. And when I touch down, I know that when I get home, she's gonna have a pollo guisado for me, a chicken stew with white rice, some sweet plantains. I'm getting happy saying that right now, hugging my mom, being around my mom. My mom raised me my whole life. My mom and pop separated when I was 13, 14 years old. So some would say that I have an incredible relationship with my mom. And for certain things, she is someone I go to for everything. So I don't want our viewer to be confused by the the strong, more masculine male approach that Rich and I have on this subject. Shit, there's nothing better than getting a good hug from your mom, a good meal, a good conversation with her about where you're at with your girlfriend, with life. She's your fucking mother. It's maternal. You're going to have those feelings towards her, and she will have towards you. We're not talking about that. What we're talking about is this man your mom raised, which is the first half, versus the man you need to become. Now, when we talk about the man you need to become, Rich, it sounds like an empty request, right? Oh, the man you need to become. But we were discussing in the pre-show prep is how not having any of those responsibilities as a young man or a grown-ass man in your 30s, the minute you meet the woman of your dreams, the laundry doesn't fold itself. The bills don't pay themselves. The peanut butter and jelly, the crusts on them don't magically go away. Somebody has to uncrust these fucking peanut butter and jellies. And what happens is it's a weird transfer that goes from the woman who birthed you to a grown woman who wants nothing to do with being your mom. She wants you to be her rock. She's not trying to fucking pay the bills and uncrust your uncrustables. This is where the problem happens. So the second half is the man you need to become because if you're not prepared for reality and life, bullies and women, some women are bullies, you're gonna get rode on for the rest of your life. And what happens is you're gonna keep ducking back to the little nest that's friendly and warm. You're gonna go back into your bedroom and complain to your mom. That is a life of pain. And I think that's what this episode is about. We're trying to prevent you from living that post-28-year-old life of pain where you don't have any stability to live off of.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Yeah, I listen, I think you used a great word in the beginning of the intro, which was stall, right? Like this is what this toxic comfort does to you. It stalls your growth. And when your growth is stalled, you operate the world with no sense of urgency. Like there's nothing urgent about you, like going to college, getting your degree, getting a good job, bringing in income to have to offend for yourself. Like there's no urgency behind anything. So you know what? You resort back to the comfort of your parents' home, living in the room that you've been living in since you were a kid, and you have no motivation to move out and start to live life as an adult, right? So that's the number one thing that happens when you are living in this toxic comfort of your parents, is it stalls your growth, right? And there's no sense of urgency as to you doing anything to motivate yourself to get out of that loop.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

Yeah, and I seen a few people attack these guys in the comment section, and they were calling them lazy and you know, these fucked up terms. But the way I see it, Rich, is you're not lazy, you're untested. Life hasn't given you enough challenges for you to even know if you're capable of getting over these challenges. And these are the simple ones like paying a light bill, paying a gas bill, going half on rent, get some roommates, learn how to go half on rent. Life throws many challenges at you that are unexpected. So you're not lazy, you're not incompetent, you're just untested. And that's fine. The way you become tested is by accepting a little friction in your life. And that's where the core of this episode comes from. Toxic comfort is your mom just smothering you with so much love that you don't even know that your wings were given to you to fly. You have to move them in this direction in order to fly. But if you're in the nest all day, if you're in a cage all day, if you're in the comfort of perfect weather every day, your body doesn't become resilient. So, this idea of you know freeing them of this, you know, hurdle of feeling like, damn, I'm just lazy. No, no, you're not lazy. You're untested.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

I love that, Jess. And you know what this makes me think of, and this is a big one because we like to touch on identity issues a lot on this show. But one of the things that happens when you're living in this toxic comfort is you're known by others as so-and-so's son, right? Yep. Your identity becomes, oh, that's so-and-so's son. You're always somebody's son, not oh, that's so-and-so. He's the man. You know what I'm saying? Like your own man, right? Like you've gone through enough challenges in life and have figured things out on your own and have had battle scars to really derive at who you are as a person and your identity. And that ultimately shapes the man you become. You only derive at that by going through shit. And if you've been coddled your entire life, bro, you're not going to learn life lessons that life will teach you when you do go through adversity. So I think the identity issue is a big one because if you're going into your 30s, bro, and you're so-and-so's son and you're not your own man, it's gonna be real difficult to gain that in your late 30s, early 40s.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah, there is a price that comes with avoiding independence. And, you know, not to just harp on this young man who hit. And listen, if you click play on this episode, that means you are seeking a solution to a problem. Or no one's ever flagged this to you, but you're 0 for 10 in the last 10 dates you went on, and you just can't figure out why this is not working for you. Why are women not texting you back? I I kind of have an idea of why they're not hitting you back. It's because when you go on date number one, you didn't pick the date location, you didn't show any uh form of leadership or dominance, uh, you didn't have any like true, true masculine strengths. And though a woman in the modern day might say, I don't like a guy like that, there is something innate about a guy moving with diction and moving with clarity and focus and confidence that it's it's nuanced. Women pick up on it. And the kibosh to the whole thing is when the date is over, assuming it went well, you take her on a little walk on the around the park, you take her to a bar after, y'all get drinks after the date, whatever it is. When she says, Hey, what are you doing after this? That's code for I'm trying to go back. To your house and make sure we make this happen tonight. And if you tell her, like, oh yeah, let's let's go to my mom's house. I live in the room, but we got to be quiet because my mom usually sleep at this time. I know it sounds ridiculous and funny, but if you're a young man laying at bed at 11 o'clock at night on a Saturday and you're not getting the text back or DMs back from girls that you've been talking to for a while and you went on dates with, this is probably a core of your problem. No woman wants to go back to the home of a 32-year-old man while he's staying with his mother. Now there's nothing wrong with that. Life be life. And so people end up in this situation. But we're just giving you the clarity of what are the early signs to someone that is not stable, someone that can't hold down a household. It's usually a guy that's still at home at 32 years old.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah, listen, I think women detect this immediately. And, you know, on that date, they're evaluating your character, your morals, right, your decision making. I'm not saying you have to be the alpha male of all alpha males and lift weights seven days a week and like walk with this demeanor of someone that every girl would desire. That's not what we're saying. We're saying that women have a radar and they can detect a man baby. Bro, they're designed, they're designed for it. Literally designed for it. Yeah, bro. They could detect this a mile away. And if you're divulging things like, yeah, I live at home with my parents, yeah, I'm working a part-time job. Yeah, I don't really have a savings, right? Yeah, I don't have a car, right? Like I take public transportation. Like, she's putting pieces to the puzzle together and she's like, uh, feels like we I might struggle with this guy a little bit. Like there's a lot of catching up to do that he has to do for her. She might have her shit together. She might have her own place or at least have a place with roommates. And a girl doesn't want to feel that a guy needs to level up to her level, right? And she doesn't want to have to put that effort in to make a guy level up. You have to sort of meet them in the same place, and it's a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

I I'm worried about how I'm gonna say this story because I don't want to say the artist that I work with or the girl that was involved, because obviously we are in loving relationships, but I feel that I have to say this story because it hits the nail dead on the head with what you just said, Rich. I was out of state with an artist, and they were on tour, and we set up an activation where they're they were gonna meet with their fans. And I was working with an independent publicist, a beautiful young lady, who her and I hung out for the two days that I was out there, got drinks. Mind you, this when I was single, but there was a crisis. The location that we had originally planned to do this event had bailed on us last second and said something about we didn't process the right paperwork and they can't have security there. And I remember we were getting dinner that night, and when I got the email, I remember telling this beautiful young lady, man, this just happened, and she was freaking out. And I remember just eating my dinner, and I was freaking out too, but I was thinking of all right, how are we gonna figure this out? Because we already have the artist in town, they have their show tomorrow, and then we have to have this activation. Long story short, we figured it out. The activation went well, we moved to a different location, but while I was still in communication with this girl when I was single, I had asked her, we had linked up another time to hang out, and I asked her, like, oh, what was the point that you knew that like I was somebody that you would fuck with? And she was like, I'll be honest with you, it was the night that we got dinner together and XYZ artist plans fell through, and you said to me, I I said this to her, man, I done had crazy life shit thrown at me and I've figured it out. Hell, I got this far and figured my life out. This doesn't seem that challenging, even though we have no idea how we're gonna figure it out, but I trust myself to know that I can figure it out. And I'm rephrasing it in a very poetic way for the person listening to this, but just think about that. Until that moment, that girl did not know she was attracted to me. Maybe she visibly liked what she saw, but she wasn't truly innately attracted to me. And it was the confidence to stay calm in that storm and basically said, well, which is my truth. It's funny because Rich and I did a whole pre-show meeting about our business plan and how we want to move forward. And I think the summary of it was Rich, we've done this so many times before, we're gonna figure it out. I trust us. And that was it. That's all we needed to move forward. What is it about that that makes women confident that they can be with this guy versus the man who has to call his mother or woman in his life to ask her options for everything? You're incessantly asking, hey, should we do A or B? Do you like blue or yellow? Do you want to go here or there? This hotel has serves mangoes. I know you don't like mangoes. What is it about that guy that gives women the ick and makes them repulse a guy that's not keen to make his own decisions?

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yeah, listen, before anything else, a woman wants to feel protected, right? Protected in a crisis, protected from danger or or any sort of like negative external forces, right? And if you look at a guy who doesn't know how to deal with discomfort, discomfort feels like danger to them. They're like, oh, I I don't I don't want to go, I don't want to disappoint her.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

I don't want to be mad. I don't want to fail. I don't want this to go wrong.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Yeah, yeah. And you live this constant angst and this like danger-fearing approach to complex issues. And she detects that. And if she sees you uneasy in complex, hard, challenging moments, she's naturally going to feel like, I don't think this is the guy to get me out of a crisis. Right? Like, if I'm drowning and he's drowning, we're both drowning. Like this, this guy's not going to save me. That's a great visual. Please rephrase what you just said with that visual. It's good. No, just women think if I'm drowning and he's drowning, we're gonna drown together because he's not going to save me. He's not, you said this on a different episode, like he's not going to save me from the zombie apocalypse. Like, he's not built like that. Every time discomfort enters the room, he pulls back and he feels danger and fear. And bro, that is the cautionary tale that we're trying to share with these young men in our community. Is like this life of comfort that your parents have built for yourself is hindering your growth, so much so that when you get into the dating scene and women have to evaluate you and your manhood, they're going to quickly realize that you are not the guy for them because you have not gone through anything challenging in your life or adversity, or like you said earlier, you haven't been tested enough for them to feel like they are dating a real man.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Yeah, the word discomfort keeps coming up. And I was thinking about learning how to swim. When I moved to LA, I moved out here four or five years ago. So that was 35, 36. And I'm talking about I'm popping out with my friends, uh, coworkers, artists. We're going to different places in LA that have beaches, pools, and I don't know how to swim. I've never knew how to swim. In New York, in New Jersey, there's not a lot of reasons to know how to swim. There's not a lot of, at least where we're from. When I got out here, I promised myself, I'm gonna learn Spanish, I'm gonna learn how to swim, because that is something that I have to do in order to thrive out here. Anyway, the discomfort thing that you just said made me think about it. I remember meeting with my swimming instructor. It was this older man who looked very frail, but he was very decorated as a swimming professional. He's a swim coach, won many competitions. The first thing we did when we got there, he was like, do me a favor, come over to the cold side of the pool, because there was a heated pool and it was indoor, and he said, I want you to jump into the 10 feet area and I want your feet to touch the ground and I want you to come back up. And I instantly I was like, I'm not doing that. Why would I do that? Like, I don't know how to swim. And he was like, Listen, it has to be manageable discomfort. You can't do what you've always done because if I put you in the short end of the pool in warm water, that's where you live. And when you go to the beach, I'm only going up to my waist anyway. We need to start introducing discomfort so you can know how to practice in an environment that is uncontrolled. But we're not gonna go into the ocean yet. We're gonna start with manageable discomfort. And I know we will get into actionable advice, but I wanted to start there, Rich, because you kept mentioning discomfort. It's not about, you know, moving out tomorrow. You listen to this podcast, fuck it. I'm gonna take the$2,000 I got saved, I'm moving out. That's not what we're saying. We're saying your mother loves you, she's uniquely designed to take care of you, and she's the only woman that should take care of you to the point where she can heal you all the way from sick to healthy. Anyone else is just someone in your life. You should be capable of turning yourself from sick to healthy, poor to not poor, not poor to rich, rich to wealthy. You have to do that on your own. No one's gonna just automatically dump money into your account. And anybody that does do that is enabling you, they're not allowing you to have manageable discomfort. You have to invite some friction into your life and get out of that situation where you're constantly looking for dependence. You have to go and find some friction. So if you're in this position, try and find some friction, do small things, just like that swimming instructor. Took me from not learning how to swim to being like, yo, just jump into the 10-foot, touch the floor, come back up, I'll grab you, or you can grab the side of the wall. Yeah, I'll start teaching you from there.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Yeah, listen, I think that's a great story. And to me, step one of finding that friction is just starting to create boundaries with your parents, bro, with your mom, right? When she goes to your laundry, just stop and say, Mom, I got it. Like, I could do my own laundry. Like, have her re-educate or like reteach her that, hey, I'm a grown man, I'm an independent man, and I could do these things for my own. I appreciate your help. I appreciate that you've always done this thing for me, but I got it from here. And I know that's something small and nuanced, but that will compound over time and eventually let your mom know that, oh, okay, like he's a man now. He can handle these things on his own. He can handle certain chores on his own, he can handle certain bills on his own. But I think you need to have the ability to create that boundary and that self-awareness that you do need to do these things for yourself, bro. Like it might feel hard in the beginning to set that boundary, but it's for your own benefit. You are entering adulthood, you want to do these things for yourself, not even for the benefit of like a potential woman or partner you're with, but for yourself. Even if you like you're a single man that's eventually gonna live on his own, like you need to be able to do these things for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah, Rich, I was going through the comments and I I read some shit that was hilarious from a woman that she said it's a common phrase amongst older single women, women in their late 30s, early 40s that are looking to get into a relationship, and they have deemed a category of men that need adult consultants. So basically, they need consultants for for adulting. Like the things that come with becoming a grown-up, these men have consultants. And who are the consultants? They always call their mother to figure out how to get themselves out of a situation. And this pocket of women who've coined this term, man, baby, and you need an adult consultant, it's so fucked up, but it's honest, it's true. If you, you've said this in a previous episode, if you need to call back home to change a light bulb, or if you need to do research in order to learn how to fix car, do it in order to learn it. Don't do it so someone else can do it for you, because this is what makes people repulse you, and this is what makes you feel incompetent. And I think the third thing is people don't do this explicitly, but it's what makes people lack respect for you because they know you're not someone that requires and demands respect. And I know that feels a little fucked up, but the idea of women saying that men have adult consultants and the adult consultants are their mothers, it's funny, but it's true and it's sad.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Bro, you said a word that I want to unpack, and it's disrespect. The disrespect that comes from a man who can't handle conflict and adversity and challenges is overwhelming. And bro, that that can affect your ego, that can affect your confidence, that can build a lot of negative things for you and put you in a negative headspace to the point where you feel like you're paralyzed, right? And you know, this all goes back to feeling the comfort that your parents have built for you. And it's just, it's hard, bro. Like when you're operating from a place of like everything's been done for you, like you don't have to fend for yourself. You're walking around the world with blinders on, right? Life is going to challenge you no matter how comforting home may feel, right? And you need to be able to deal with those challenges. Like, bro, forget about a woman for a second. Like, you need to deal with these challenges for you. Like, you will encounter a bully at some point in life. At work, at work, you will encounter someone trying to take advantage of you, you will encounter a scammer calling your phone trying to steal money from you. Like you said, at work, you will deal with adversity at work. There's so many different scenes in life that as a man, you will have to navigate. And if you don't know how to handle this adversity and these challenges accordingly, bro, you're just going to keep continue stalling that uh that ass whooping that life may have for you.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Rich, I know you're not a scientist, but that felt very scientific, what you just said, because all you're doing is prolonging the ass whooping that life will inevitably catch you with as you get older. So you might as well start toughening up, start figuring it out now when you are in the comfort of your home. Just again, give yourself a little bit of tests before you hop off the porch.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Yeah. And, you know, just thinking further down the road, too, like think about if you never course correct these things and you go into adulthood and you do find a woman that still finds you attractive and still loves you, and you have a child with this person, right? What are you passing down to that child, bro? Now she's raising two kids. Now she's raising two kids, and like you're not teaching him that life is challenging and things get hard. Rich, as a father, how how do you balance that?

SPEAKER_01 37:44

How do you balance that? Because it's like a little sweet and sour, it's a little strength and uh emotional.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Yeah, I mean, I think it's all like a milestone thing for me. So my son's 14 and he does his own laundry, he cleans his own room. I'm teaching him how to cook small meals for himself when um I might not be around. So there's little things that I'm having him do that in the long run would compound. And when he does enter adulthood, he's not gonna feel so damn clueless, right? I got him a debit card, showed him how to use an ATM. Like all these little things that, hey, when you enter adulthood, you're going to need all of these skills.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Is there a communication style that you're teaching him whenever he does meet friction that he can't handle? It's like, you know, sometimes you give him challenges that you know he can do, but he's just being lazy or he just like is not applying himself. And then there's certain things I'm sure that he's genuinely coming back to you, like, I don't know how to do this. I know you told me to, like, what is your system for that? What is your teaching for that?

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Yeah, I mean, listen, for sure. Like, once uh when I have him do his own laundry and he gives me lip, like, oh dad, I don't I don't want to do it right now, or he's lazy. I'm like, you know, you're gonna have to do your laundry when you go off to college or when you get your own apartment.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Uh you hit him with a little reality of like why this is needed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Yeah, exactly. And that's probably something that other parents may lack, where because they're building that comfort around them and the household, they're not teaching them the necessary skills that they might need for the long run, right? It's it's a weird balance, right? Because going back to what we said earlier in the episode, I don't think that parents mean any malice by providing this comfort. They love their child, bro. They just want to do everything possible to make things as comfortable and cushy as possible. But as a man, you have to have the ability to identify that everything's been done for you, that things just feel too comfortable. And you have to, like you said earlier, introduce some friction in your life, bro. Do something, do one hard thing a week. You know what I mean? And I promise you, over time, when life does throw something very challenging your way, it's not going to feel so hard because you've made the conscious decision to try one hard thing a week going forward.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

And moms are not the curse, moms are not the issue. All we're saying is you have to fire your enabler. You have to fire your drug dealer. This person is there to make you feel good. That person is not in the wrong. You have to just reconstruct the relationship you have with your mother. You have to fire your enabler. She's enabling you in a way that she doesn't see as wrong because she's designed to love you. Rich, I do want to get into the research that I've seen here that is literally spot on for anyone that's listening this far into the episode thinking, man, fuck these guys. These guys are telling me things that I already know and they're making me feel bad about my situation, insert excuse, and that's fine. We're not here to attack you. I just want to put a little actual research on the table so you can see that we're not making this up. According to the APA, American Psychology Association, and the Pew Research Center, trends on young adult independence. Men who leave home later in life at 30, 31, 32 years old, often report higher anxiety when facing independent financial decisions and relationship pressure, like paying rent or moving to a new location, or getting fired, or getting reallocated for work. The other takeaway from the research is helicopter parenting. They're at practice, they drive them to school, pick them up, drop them off, cook for them. Helicopter parents create adults with lower self-efficiency than any time in history and a heavy reliance on external validation. These guys need to be validated for everything they do because their helicopter mothers were always around to make sure that they felt good about any decision they made. If they made a piece of shit drawing, their mother wasn't gonna say, Oh, that's terrible, honey. Try again. They're gonna hang it up on the fridge. That's not how life works. And more specifically, Rich, that's not how beautiful women work in their 20s and their 30s. They don't hang up piece of shit art on the fridge. You better make sure you're coming correct. Your helicopter mom is your drug dealer, she's your enabler. You have to wean off of that and step into society as an adult.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

Yes, and I'm gonna rip the band-aid off of this and say this problem is creating weak men. As harsh as that sounds to hear, bro, that is what this problem is creating. A bunch of weak men that do not know how to fend for themselves, right? And bro, my circumstances in life just were the complete opposite for this. I've had to fend for myself since I was, you know, five, six years old, helping my mom bring up the groceries in an apartment building, on WIC, on Medicaid, on all the possible financial government assistance you can possibly have. And I came out the womb with friction, bro. That's why when I operate, I'm 10 toes down on every decision I make, you know, every decision, financial, physical, like, you know, whatever decision I decide to make, like I'm confident that I'm choosing a decision based on previous history of things that I've been through. So I know not to touch the stove because I'm going to get burnt. You know what I mean? Like, I know all the basic fundamentals of someone who's been through a difficult upbringing and knows that life is not that cookie cutter. Life is not this cushy comfort world where everything is sunshine and roses and nothing bad is ever going to happen, and people don't die, and you're never gonna lose all your money. And you're never going to be fired from a job. Like shit in life happens, bro. And if you don't have the dynamic ability to adjust with life's turmoil, you're going to have a hard time managing life. So that's my two cents, bro.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

My rebuttal to that is one of the steel man arguments that I'm reading here. And I think it's perfectly aligned with what you just said when you were saying life is getting tough or life is tough. The person that is enjoying the luxuries and the benefits of living at home until their mid to late 30s, which is fine. If the house is big enough and you're not an inconvenience and you pay rent, I don't see nothing wrong with that. But we're talking about someone that has had a moment of truth, an honest moment with themselves, and admitted something is wrong in my life. I'm not getting the fruits of that come with adulthood because of the helicopter mother that I have, the toxic love and the toxic comfort that comes from my mother. Something is off. Unless you have that honest moment, we can't really point you in the direction of the last 40 minutes of this episode. All we can do is say, cool, if you're happy, we're happy. Asaloo, live your life. But if you do feel that discomfort and if you are having an honest moment with yourself, then this advice is for you. This feedback is for you. You have to start where you stand. And this is the truth of your situation. Because the average young man that doesn't see a problem, Rich, is saying this exactly. I'm reading verbeta. I work from home, I stay out of my mom and dad's way. The house is big enough. And if I don't have to go and drive to work because I work from home, I don't have to pay a car note. So I have been afforded with the luxuries of not have to deal with friction, rejection, and life is pretty convenient for me. Why would I want to go out into the world and create all this debt, friction, and responsibilities if I'm already managing my life as is.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

Yeah, I think this person has it misconstrued, right? Like we're not saying obviously, if you're a person of great circumstances, you want to take advantage of those circumstances, right? But, bro, it doesn't matter how good something about your life feels, like, right? Like if you feel like you're living the perfect life and everything is just balanced and you know, money's not really a factor, and you went off to college and you graduate and you have all this cushion and clarity about life, I promise you, bro, it doesn't matter. At some point in life, you're going to have to deal with a challenge. At some point, what we're saying is when you derive at that challenge, if things have been so cushy to the point where you don't know how to solve for that challenge, that is the problem. You're going to become paralyzed when that challenge arises because you've never dealt with the friction of life. So there is a balance, right? Like you can take advantage of certain things that your parents have done for you as far as making things feel comfortable for you. But what we're saying is if you don't have the ability to self-reflect on and acknowledge that, hey, things have been pretty easy for me in life, right? Like, let me go and take a challenge. Let me go do something a little bit out of the ordinary, right? Or let me move to another state for a year and see how that works out. Like, just add some really tough friction in your life so that when life's challenges does arise, you know how to solve for those challenges.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

Rich, I'm gonna give our listeners a little preview into the next episode I wanted to pitch you, but I'm gonna pitch you in real time here. Because Rich and I usually consult on what we want to talk about. The crisis of purpose. And the reason why I love that subject is because this crisis of purpose is only going to get worse with the automation of AI, agentic, robots, and even desktop agents. Less and less people are doing the job that makes them feel like a person that is helping the greater village solve a problem. And that's what I do. I'm the guy who catches the meat of the day. I'm the person that cooks the meat of the day. I'm the person that protects the family. With a lot of automation and agentic platforms, we're seeing a reduction in purpose. People, men and women, feeling less and less purpose in their life. So what you just said, Rich, made me think of this topic that we're gonna cover in a future episode that's more about losing your job and government assistance. This is about purpose. But this is the version of it that exists right now. If you live in a fully comfortable home with everything for you, you're not gonna notice it in your late 20s or even in your early 20s because you're thinking, fuck, this is the way it should be. I'm a young man, my mom's helping me until I get to my next stage. Cool. I'm not mad at that. Like you said, Rich. If you feel good about it, fuck it. We're not really talking to you. But if you're somebody that's starting to get that idea, like, man, every time I meet a girl, I take on a few dates, we hit it off, and she's not hitting me back. My friends are doing things that I see on social media that I haven't really done before, and I'm starting to feel like a way about it because I've never been met with that challenge. That's purpose. You don't want you lack purpose. You don't have a reason to live. And it's correlated to a lot of these issues. One thing we talk about here, Rich, is a lot of these episodes are gateways to young men that find more extreme actions to solve their problems later. So these are the early entry points that we try to address so you can unpack them before they grow mold and they start decaying you from the inside.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

Yeah, I think that's a great point. Exactly what you just said, Jess. Like even when you do become a little bit more independent and you do deal with life's friction, what ends up happening if you don't know how to solve for that friction? Loneliness, depression, anxiety, fear, right? Like all these pillars that we've always tied back to one of our show pillars, which is like male loneliness. It's like you feel lonely because you don't know how to solve for life's friction because your parents have made things so cushy for you.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

Let's reinsert the mother and the father into this situation. But for the sake of this episode, let's reassert the mother in this situation. You're 32 years old. You live with your family, you live with your mother. Your mother is your best friend, you're someone that you talk to her about everything. You're constantly telling her that your dating life is not going the way you want it to go. You meet girls, but nothing happens. So your mother has deep empathy. She raised you. You're her favorite boy. She serves you two extra scoops of rice because she loves you so much. But she's never going to tell you the truth. You get ghosted on a date you were supposed to go on for a Saturday night. Meanwhile, your mom and your dad have Mark Anthony tickets to go to the Mark Anthony concert and they're in their 60s and they want to enjoy their Saturday night. Guess who's the plus one on their date? Because mom is fighting with dad, because Gary is in a bad place. We need to help him out. He's sad. He feels lonely. Bro, you don't even realize how you're not addressing what's priority number one in your life is affecting everything else. It's a domino effect. I know you were finishing a thought, Rich, but I did want to make that clear.

SPEAKER_00 51:24

No, like you know what? That made me think of like there's a bias there. I know we said that we don't want to villainize the mom, but think about how many moms say, Oh, I don't want Jeffrey to leave the house. So I'm gonna make things as comfortable as possible for him. I'm not ready for my boy to go out into the real world. I don't think he's ready to be on his own. So if that's your main source of truth for information, then you become you ever seen the movie Bubble Boy in the 90s, where like the dude just lived in a bubble his entire life, bro? Or like the water boy, right? Like my mama said, my mama said, like it was it was always like there's this bias that comes from your mother in the way of information. And in her defense, it's her shielding you from the world, it's her protecting her baby boy. Yeah, mothers are protectors. That's the perspective that she has, right? But I think you also, if you're 32 or somewhere around that age, you have to have the self-realization that you're being coddled. At some point, you're going to have to fend for yourself. God forbid your parents pass away. What are you going to do, my boy?

SPEAKER_01 52:38

Yo, I'm sorry to laugh. I didn't I don't know you're gonna go with death, but uh, I know this is extreme. I know it's extreme. I kept thinking about Game of Thrones. I don't know if you've ever seen Game of Thrones where the seven-year-old kid is still being breastfed and he's walking around with the mother.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

That's like, yo, how long can you be coddled for?

SPEAKER_00 52:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

It's true. Like, this is an option, but it shouldn't be your option. You can walk, you have to get off the tit. You can't be living on that type of time. And like you said, Rich, it's actually a good way to frame it. As fucked up as it is, hey, what are you gonna do when your mother's gone? But before you get there, bro, that is like if you're traveling from New York to California, that is the first two miles from New York to California. The real concern and the one that you should simulate is what am I gonna do when I meet a girl that I gotta live with and I gotta lead the household? That's stage one. Don't worry about, I mean, it's a sad thought. I I got a little sad thinking about my mom passing away, but I'm sure somewhere she is proud that her work led me to being someone that's accountable, that she now can come back to me and depend on me for things because she strengthened me up to lead the next generation of people with my last name. But Rich, before we go, I I did want to mention one thing that you have brought up for other episodes that is more of a technical feedback, something that you've given as uh uh actionable advice for like a resume episode or unemployment episodes. Learning how to learn, I think, is a really good point to bring here. And I'll edit one of your staples with treating independence as a learnable skill. Treating independence as a learnable skill, meaning you have to learn how to become independent because you've lived a life of dependency. You have to break the pattern of awkward conversations and maybe settling for a little less or not having the world designed in the exact way that keeps you comfortable. So independence is a learnable skill. You have to just be proactive about it.

SPEAKER_00 54:44

Yeah. And listen, that's a net benefit that trickles down to every aspect of your life. You know, I think about when I used to work for a startup and I was 100% remote, and there was uh the trust in me that I could work independently, that I wasn't around my peers, I wasn't in an in-office setting, I was working from home, but there's a trust there that, hey, this person can work independently. He has the independence to lead projects, and we don't have to constantly check on him, you know, over and over again to see if he's doing the job uh correctly. Or when you're off to college, bro, like you're not being coddled in college, bro. What happens? But I remember when I got to college, quick story, I got to college and I showed up late. And in my mind, I thought, I'm like, oh shit, like I'm gonna get a write-up or I'm gonna get something. And they're just like, we don't care. Couple days after me showing up late, and I missed like a whole lesson or whatever. I didn't do so great on the test that week, and it was because of the the lesson that I missed. And I told the teacher something along the lines of like, hey, do you think I could do extra credit and make this up? Bro, she, you know what she told me? She was like, This is college. There's no makeups here. Like you showed, like you showed up late, aka this is life. There are no makeups here. Yeah, you showed up late, you missed part of the lesson, and that's why you failed. Welcome to life. Be on time next time. They didn't care. By the way, they they don't care whether you show up or you don't show up. The college, the university still gets paid regardless. It's on you to have the independence and the discipline to show up because you're not being baby in this world.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

Yeah, Rich, before we go, there's one last thing I wanted to mention. Assuming that our guy is a few weeks in and he's starting to, you know, add a little friction to his life. He had his honest moment where he's addressing it. You know, he's a few weeks in, a few months in. He's starting to pivot away from his mom a little bit. He's starting to do his own thing. Kind of, I like the direction that you gave that was based on your experience with your actual son. So we're just not making shit up. This is real life stuff that you're doing in your life with your family to create accountability. One thing that just hit me, and I don't want to end the episode without discussing it, is um, you know, I feel like a lot of people in our community they operate in extremes. So they're they were going extreme in one direction, they they were suffering from toxic comfort, and now they've made this decision to be fully independent. What is your advice to the young man that you could be like, hey, why haven't you spoken to your mom in the last four months? Why have you cut your mom off? Because I do think there's an extreme. It's like, no, no, we're not telling you to destroy the relationship with your mother by cutting her off. We're saying that there's a healthy balance between what you're accountable for as a grown fucking 27-year-old versus constantly going to your mom to solve your problems. And I think there's a balance there.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

Yeah, absolutely. Do not do that. We're not telling you to hop off the porch and completely disconnect from your family and you know, severties with your mom or that comfort that you've grown up to have over the years. But you do need to find that balance. That's why I said to start small, right? Start with creating boundaries. You're probably in a situation where you can't move out, right? But you could do your own laundry, you could clean your own room, right? You can pay a small bill, you can go grocery shopping. Why does your mom constantly need to fill the fridge up with groceries, right? So start small, and these small wins will compound over time. And honestly, just and I'd love to end the show on this note there is fulfillment in what you said and independence and you being able to fend for yourself. There is this feeling of accomplishment when you do chores and you live in this world where you're like, man, I feel like an adult. I feel like a man. I did that. And I feel I'm confident that if I go into the world and deal with life's challenges, I can overcome any obstacle life throws my way.

SPEAKER_01 58:48

Yeah, and they're called growing pains for a reason. They're the pain that comes with growing up. Well, actually, I'm gonna start our own phrase here at failures, Rich. We're gonna end it on this. These are called growing up pains. This is the pain that comes with every human growing up, so it's okay, it's not gonna destroy you, trust me. You're literally acting like a crazy person that's only in four feet of water, and your whole fucking chest, if you stood up, could be above water. Don't freak out, you're gonna be fine. Your failure to launch as an adult should not be the reason why you don't become an adult. But like you said, Rich, which I thought was very fair to the young man that is trapped in this moment in his life of toxic comfort. Gradually, gradually walk your way to the deeper side of the pool. And eventually your body will naturally start figuring it out. You're not gonna drown, trust me. Rich is 37, turning 38 soon, and I'm 39. We're gracefully going into our 40s and we don't have everything solved, but we've definitely been there before. We've definitely been at the point where maybe you're too much comfort in life is not a good thing, is the best way to say it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Yeah, well said, there you have it, man. Failures podcast. Do us a favor, man. Subscribe to the YouTube at Failures Media. You know, like we always say, we're not selling you anything, we're not selling you any ebooks, merch, or anything. We're just trying to build up this platform to help young men out. Share it with your friend if you find this valuable and hit us up, man. We always like to hear from our community.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:23

Yeah, and don't listen to your mom. That's the advice we're we're joking. Mom, I love you. We're joking.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

Love you, mom. Peace.