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I sit down with relationship expert John Gray to explore the biological and emotional differences between men and women, revealing why modern relationships struggle and sharing practical tools to create deeper connection, intimacy, and lasting partnership.
John Gray is the author of one of the most well-known and trusted relationship books of all time: Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. USA Today listed his book as one of the top 10 most influential books of the last quarter century. It was the #1 bestselling book of the decade. Dr. Gray’s books have been translated into approximately 45 languages in more than 100 countries and continue to be bestsellers. Dr. Gray has written over 20 books, the most recent of which is Men Are from Mars for Women Only: Be Happy With or Without a Man.
Men and women process feelings in different ways, and as partners we need to learn how to leverage these differences.
What I thought I knew about being a good husband turned out to be the thing keeping my wife from feeling close to me. John Gray wrote Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which sold over 50 million copies in 45 languages, and he's been counseling couples for 45 years. So when he talks about why modern relationships keep breaking down, I listen.
This is our fourth conversation, and it's the one where the biology finally clicked for me.
We get into why a woman's stress hormones move in the opposite direction of men, why "happy wife, happy life" is real but "happy husband, happy life" isn't a phrase for a reason, and the 10-minute tool that changed my life. He also explains what's happening when a man hits road rage, why women seem to complain so much, and something critical women often misread about men.
If you've ever felt like you're doing everything right in relationships and it still isn't clicking, start here.
Now through June 30, visit lukestorey.com/marsvenus and use code LUKE to get 10% off Lithium Orotate AD for men or women.
You'll learn:
[0:00] Introduction
[6:13] What brain scans reveal about men, women, and moderate stress
[19:11] Making love surfaces childhood trauma, and the containment practice that keeps men present for it
[28:24] Connection lowers a woman's stress and success lowers a man's
[37:35] The hormone science behind why a woman's vulnerability is a man's greatest motivator
[1:09:33] Mirror neurons, compassion, and why men can only feel love when they don't feel blamed
[1:19:47] The neuroscience behind why she holds on and he lets go
[2:25:33] How Parkinson's led John to lithium orotate, peptides, and the protein shake protocol
[2:34:15] The estradiol vs estrone divide that ends romance after menopause
[2:42:02] The PTSD pattern, taboo behavior, and why danger pushes feelings back down
[2:49:01] Imagining yourself as the plumber when your wife isn't happy
Codependent No More: How To Stop Controlling Others And Start Caring For Yourself by Melody Beattie
[00:00:00] John Gray: Women and men are different. The design of men and women is that women need to talk more. Men can talk more if they're solving a problem. Women need to talk about problems. Men need to talk about solutions. Every mood a woman has that's not positive is not about you. 90% of what you're upset about is not your partner.
[00:00:19] John Gray: It's not what's going on in your life. It's unresolved issues from your past.
[00:00:24] Luke Storey: If I'm stressed about my life's problems and I talk about them while they're still unsolved, it makes me even more stressed.
[00:00:33] John Gray: Yes. Women don't understand that. Men process stress by feeling successful. Women go, "I wanna be successful."
[00:00:40] John Gray: But what lowers a woman's stress is connection. What lowers a man's stress is success
[00:00:56] Luke Storey: All right. I wanna start by just thanking you. Uh, you probably [00:01:00] have no idea what a positive impact you've had on not only my life, but specifically my marriage. I mean, some of the things I've learned from you, I just was thinking about it. We go back 10 years. Yeah. You know, you were on episode 13, which would've been in 2016.
[00:01:18] Luke Storey: It's 2026 now. Some of the things that I learned from you resonated so deeply that I somehow managed to integrate them, and they just became part of my modus operandi. Um, one of the main ones being, you know, in the way that we're able to communicate as men with women, uh, the main one I use all the time, and I don't even think my wife knows that this...
[00:01:44] Luke Storey: I have this trick up my sleeve, but it's just, it's just so simple, and I think so many men miss this, is when a woman needs to move energy and express their feelings and so on, shut your mouth. It's so simple. It's [00:02:00] so simple. Listen with compassion.
[00:02:02] John Gray: Yep.
[00:02:02] Luke Storey: D- don't try to solve it. Don't defend yourself. Don't figure it out.
[00:02:07] Luke Storey: Open your body, breathe, and just be receptive to what they need to share. That one tool, I think, is, like, the linchpin of communication in my relationship, amongst hundreds of other brilliant principles that you've shared with me and other people. But that one is like-
[00:02:25] John Gray: It's so foundation.
[00:02:26] Luke Storey: Why is, why is that so hard for guys to get?
[00:02:30] Luke Storey: 'Cause I tell guys that, and they're like, "Oh, I can't do that." And, you know, it seems to be very difficult for people.
[00:02:36] John Gray: Well- It's interesting. If you can learn that, you have the, the most important thing. But you have to have a lot of information around it to make it make sense. Like, I was talking to one guy, I said, you know, he, he can't sus- he, he can't s- stay in a relationship, and they all don't work out.
[00:02:56] John Gray: And I said, "Well, you have to learn how to listen." And, "Well, [00:03:00] she just goes on and on." And I said, "Well, if you want a relationship to work, you have to learn how to listen." He says, "Well, what if you don't wanna listen?" Well, then you're never gonna have a relationship that works. Now, the reason he doesn't wanna listen, he doesn't realize why it's so important.
[00:03:16] John Gray: See, you have to under- men have to understand the logic.
[00:03:18] Luke Storey: Right. Of
[00:03:19] John Gray: why is it important. So that's a big, big thing. Right. Women and men are different. He doesn't understand that we're really different. And he is very masculine. He doesn't have a lot to say unless he's solving a problem. So women can sometimes wanna solve a problem, but other times they wanna solve another problem, which is they need to talk.
[00:03:42] John Gray: So the design of men and women is that women need to talk more. Men can talk more if they're solving a problem. Otherwise, if they're just handling stress, they need to talk less. If women are handling stress, they need to [00:04:00] talk more.
[00:04:01] Luke Storey: Right.
[00:04:02] John Gray: Okay? We're just... Right. And, and so when
[00:04:05] Luke Storey: she's talking- Oh, man ... and- That's so true
[00:04:06] John Gray: a- and when she ta- and then there's more, too, around it, which is when a woman talks more, it will be about problems. So women need to talk about problems. Men need to talk about solutions.
[00:04:21] Luke Storey: Yes, exactly.
[00:04:22] John Gray: It's just, it's just the bottom line of who we are. So- Right ... for fun, we can start out, which is talking about how, how men and women have been for thousands of years.
[00:04:32] John Gray: So I go down to the Amazon, and I'm staying... I've been around the world many times just looking at how other cultures are that aren't influenced by Western ideas. And what you'll see, I'm, I'm just gonna give one example. I'm in this little village deep into the Amazon. Maybe there's, like, 15 huts. It's a little village.
[00:04:50] John Gray: They get... You get there by f- well, going through the jungle with two guides, two translators for five hours walking. Three hours we went on the canoe. Big journey to [00:05:00] get there. I wanna, you know, go someplace like that. And at night, I'm imagining just being in this, this little hut living, and I'm a woman, 'cause the women were all pregnant or taking care of somebody's babies.
[00:05:11] John Gray: And I'm imagine I'm being a woman out at night with my baby, and I see a tiger in the woods or I hear some noise in the woods. What's the first thing she needs to do? 'Cause she's defenseless. She's got a child. She needs to go tell somebody If she doesn't tell somebody, she now has to fight this animal alone, which is high stress for her.
[00:05:33] John Gray: So she needs to go tell her husband, and her husband's gonna do what he's learned to do, which is to protect his family. That's his main job. So we have to go do something when there's a tiger, and women have to go tell somebody there's a tiger.
[00:05:46] Luke Storey: Ah, yes.
[00:05:47] John Gray: This is deeply ingrained into us, and our biology is a reflection of that.
[00:05:51] John Gray: So the fun thing about my newest book is that I have all this research that backs up every idea I ever [00:06:00] taught, 'cause now it's all available. I use AI, find me the research, find me the research. 'Cause, you know, these are just my ideas, my opinion, basically. But now I have all this amazing research, uh, on the brain and on the hormones and so forth.
[00:06:13] John Gray: And what, what one of the pieces of research I found is they do neural imaging of men under moderate stress. And when a man's under moderate stress, he, his testosterone will shoot up. And let me define moderate stress. That's very clear. Moderate stress is when you're in danger, but you don't feel like you're in danger because you're confident.
[00:06:37] John Gray: So you're driving your car at 80 miles an hour. You could get a ticket, but you're looking in the rear view mirror or you have a radar detector, so you feel rather confident, right? You're not gonna get a ticket. That's adrenaline. That's moderate danger, but you have confidence. When you lose the confidence, now adrenaline turns into cortisol.
[00:06:56] John Gray: That's the fight or flight response. But before fight or [00:07:00] flight, which destroys relationships, you have adrenaline, which is not so bad. We're dealing with moderate stress all the time. Where for women, moderate stress is the same situations, little... Just feeling in danger, but you have to make decisions. You do things, and you're feeling good, and you, you're confident.
[00:07:20] John Gray: You look at the brain when a woman's making adrenaline or a man's making adrenaline. A woman has the blood flow from the logic part of the brain, goes to the emotional part of the brain three times more.
[00:07:33] Luke Storey: Oh,
[00:07:33] John Gray: wow. For the man, blood flow stops to the emotional part of the brain and goes to the prefrontal cortex It's just like, here it is.
[00:07:42] John Gray: And what is, what is it going to the prefrontal cortex to is to go figure out how to slay the dragon. And for the woman, she needs to alert the, the neighbors there's a tiger in the woods, and so she's gonna have emotion behind her. Look, danger, fear. So she has to [00:08:00] communicate those emotions. So the emotions that a woman will feel just under moderate stress are things like frustration, disappointment, worries, concerns, feelings of embarrassment, you know, those kind of feelings.
[00:08:14] John Gray: They're not strong anger-like feelings, but they're just moderate feelings. There's traffic on the bridge. So my wife says to me, "There's traffic on... There was so much traffic on the bridge." My mind goes, "Well, there's always traffic on the bridge. No big deal." That's my reaction to it, not a problem. But she's experiencing an emotional response to it.
[00:08:33] John Gray: Whether she can communicate it or not, her body is feeling so frustrated and so worried that, you know, that she was late for something, and she's sharing her story. So there's a lot of emotion with it. So here's the next step of misinterpretation between men and women. She needs to talk about that emotion.
[00:08:53] John Gray: The only time men experience high levels of emotion are once adrenaline turns [00:09:00] into cortisol. When adrenaline goes to cortisol, that's the fight or flight response. Men will have way more emotion at that point, 'cause you're losing control. Like you're listening to your wife and you feel blamed or criticized, you start getting annoyed and irritated, and now you're getting angry , frustrated, whatever.
[00:09:18] John Gray: You're already in cortisol state. Before that, you're in adrenaline state. And that's what you do. You've learned When you're listening to your wife and you just go, "Just don't talk. Just don't talk." Because as soon as you talk and tell her something, she's not gonna say, "What a great solution." "I'm so grateful that you told me that.
[00:09:37] John Gray: I feel so much better." Yeah. And I remember the first time I realized that. My wife came home talking about the printer wasn't working at the office or something like that, and a few other things, and she was sharing her day. And I said, "Don't worry about it, honey." Uh, actually, I'm gonna go back even further.
[00:09:52] John Gray: When she was complaining about her job, I said, "Honey, don't worry about it. I'm making lots of money. You don't have to work. You can do what you like to do." She looks at me [00:10:00] like, "John, I love my job." Now, in my brain, she's complaining all about her job, how could she love her job? Because she loves her job, but she's just sharing the frustration of what happened that day at her job, and that's what I learned.
[00:10:13] John Gray: You just, just listen to it. Don't tell her, "You don't have to do that job." Don't tell her, "You could fix the... You could call so-and-so and fix it. They could handle it," or, "I can handle it." Don't solve the problem. She needs to actually talk for a while about what she's feeling. She's designed to do it. That's an adrenaline response for her.
[00:10:32] John Gray: But this is the big misinterpretation from men that goes beyond that. So when you're giving solutions to a woman and they don't work, then you start losing your confidence. Like, "Hey, this should be simple. What's wrong with her? What's going on? This is not working." As soon as you feel your best is not working, now you're in a place of confidence going down, and now what happens is you go into fight or flight.
[00:10:56] John Gray: So the more you talk when a woman is [00:11:00] not saying, "What a brilliant idea you have," the more you're gonna go into fight or flight, and that's where you start to get angry or upset or really mad, whatever. Or, like, basically, that's the male response. Now, a woman, when she has strong em- and that's strong emotion, right?
[00:11:17] John Gray: When a woman has strong emotion, it's when she's in adrenaline, and when she moves into cortisol, she has no emotions. That's when women get really quiet, and they pull back, and they won't talk to you. That's a fight or flight response for her. So if a woman's emotional, we're thinking she's having... Uh, what she's upset about is some big problem.
[00:11:40] John Gray: So just think about me when I... If I'm in fight or flight, I'm thinking lions, tigers, and bears. I'm having almost the same intensity of emotion as a woman who's experiencing adrenaline. So then in my mind, I'm thinking she's making a big deal out of everything. But in her world, she's not making a big deal out of it.
[00:11:57] John Gray: She just needs to talk about it.
[00:11:58] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:11:59] John Gray: [00:12:00] So I'm always thinking, when a woman's emotional, "Why are you so emotional? It's not a big deal. There's traffic on the bridge. It's there every day. It's no problem." Or, "Why are you upset with me over forgetting this one little thing?" So we're constantly minimizing her, thinking she's overreacting, but from our- in our world, it would be overreacting.
[00:12:17] John Gray: But in her world, it's just a normal, healthy reaction. And what she... When, when she's really upset, that's underreacting. That's when she won't open her heart. You know, she's closed. And one of the ways you know she's closed is the place when women go into cortisol, is they feel overwhelmed. And women are living in cortisol all the time.
[00:12:38] John Gray: And so when they... Some women, when they read my book and I say, "Women, you need to talk about your feelings to your husband," she goes, "I don't have, I don't have any time to talk about my feelings." She's in overwhelm. She's already pushing down all her emotions. So then now we'll take step two, which is in psychology.
[00:12:56] John Gray: Now, this isn't just Mars/Venus. We'll apply it to the Mars/Venus ideas. [00:13:00] What's known in psychology is that when you suppress feelings of the day, they build up inside, and when you come home, they get displaced on the person you feel safe with. So let's say you have all these emotions during the day. You've got clients, and they're frustrating you, or the kids are frustrating you, and you're disappointed about things.
[00:13:18] John Gray: Put all this effort into something, you didn't get recognition. All these... You know, this is life. Life is a grind. And so you've got these emotions that if you felt safe to talk about them, you would express them, but you can't. You know, maybe you've been working with a client for a while and you're expecting them to buy something, and they don't.
[00:13:37] John Gray: Well, if it's your husband, you wanna say, "Hey, you... I put all this into it. Why aren't you giving me what I want?" Well, in the business world, it's not a two-way street, you know? You're serving them. They don't give you what you want. Darn, there's disappointment, there's frustration. I put all this into this. I get nothing back.
[00:13:52] John Gray: You know, so those feelings are there in the workplace, but you can't express that. It's totally inappropriate. So what your brain will do, [00:14:00] 'cause it... And remember, when women are moderately stressed, that's moderate stress, what I talked about, she has more emotion than men, but it's not appropriate to express that emotion.
[00:14:10] John Gray: So her brain, because it's not appropriate, she doesn't think any of this stuff. Because it's not appropriate, it gets suppressed, 'cause it's not safe to express it. So these are not conscious things. This is just simply not, not appropriate, gets suppressed. At the end of the day, she comes home. Then what happens, it gets displaced onto you.
[00:14:30] John Gray: Her brain- she'll feel a sense of dissatisfaction or worry, vague kind of feeling, and this is when it comes up. When you feel safe, it comes up, and when it comes up, her brain's trying to find a reason why I feel this way. There's no connection to I feel this way because of what happened at work. So her brain's looking for something to be upset about, and you're the target.
[00:14:54] John Gray: So you left your socks on the floor. On one day, you left the socks on the floor, it's no big deal, and she picked them [00:15:00] up and put them away and felt more loving. On another day, how many times have I asked him to put his clothes away? Does he expect me to be his servant all the time? What is-- why can't he do that?
[00:15:09] John Gray: I don't leave my socks on the floor. So all that's going on in her brain, so she's now having irrational reactions to you because that's what displacement is, is suppressed feelings come out. Now, since your audience and you are more advanced, we all know about the shadow side. We know about triggers. So a trigger is when you're totally irrational, okay, you have a very strong emotional rea- It's not just frustration or disappointment.
[00:15:36] John Gray: It's anger. It can be hurt. It can be scared. It can be afraid. These are more the, the very more primitive subconscious, unconscious feelings If you have a loving husband and you're not suppressing from the day, or maybe a little suppressing from the day, but you're in a, a safe relationship where you feel, "I can be myself," [00:16:00] what happens inevitably in every good relationship where you're, where you feel safe to be yourself is childhood feelings will now come up into awareness.
[00:16:09] Luke Storey: Oh, interesting.
[00:16:10] John Gray: You see, this is-
[00:16:11] Luke Storey: Yeah ...
[00:16:11] John Gray: now, I, I had a way I used to explain it, which is it's a delayed reaction. Once, when, as children, we don't feel safe to express certain things, and they become immediately repressed. We don't know anything about it. It just happens, okay? 'Cause there's no conscious brain.
[00:16:25] John Gray: There's no prefrontal cortex even to process negative emotions, so children just, it all just gets repressed. So everything gets repressed, and everything our parents are repressing, we absorb. This is, we're in the theta state for the first seven years, so we absorb everything from our parents, every issue they have.
[00:16:41] John Gray: You know, when kid's randomly crying and crying, it's 'cause Mom's crying inside, but she doesn't know it. Kid's are just picking up the str- every woman knows that when you, when you take your kids to the grocery store and where everybody's looking, that's when your kid throws a big tantrum, okay? That's because she's more stressed.
[00:16:57] John Gray: My child's saying, "I want this. I want this." She's now [00:17:00] becoming stressed. She's embarrassed about things. Now, now she's having to push down her feelings and push, pushes the kid further into out of control. So everybody knows that feeling of trying to put a lid on it. Your kids are acting up. Parents are mad at each other, but they're just sucking it up, pushing it down.
[00:17:15] John Gray: It's particularly the mother because, see, what happens when men are even in the adrenaline state- They're not suppressing emotion. Their brain's not producing emotion. So put a man and a woman in the same adrenaline-producing state, she's suppressing all the emotions. He's not suppressing at all, but he has no emotions.
[00:17:34] John Gray: Like, if you're doing some adventure sport, climbing a mountain, the reason some men really like crazy things, dangerous things, is because it produces adrenaline, and so you don't feel your fears. No fear. You do the fearless thing, which makes me a little crazy sometimes. We do crazy stuff. But, but it's kind of our therapy, which is to, to not be bothered by life's problems, we have a way to dealing with it.
[00:17:56] John Gray: Now, for me, I don't do crazy things, although I used to. As a kid, I'd drive cars [00:18:00] really fast. I, I almost, you know, I became a monk for nine years, and I thought at one point I was becoming a monk just so I wouldn't drive a car, 'cause I have this sort of race car part of me. You know, I've had race cars, love race cars, driving fast.
[00:18:14] John Gray: Almost got killed a few times. So I figured, "I'll be safe if I become a monk and channel that energy another way," which I learned to do. You can channel that kundalini energy through meditation. It's drive, power, you know, a lot of power inside of me, so I bring in through meditation. So I got off the track there, but it was like the difference between a man and a woman in an adrenaline state, he's not suppressing emotions.
[00:18:39] John Gray: He's just not generating them. The brain is designed to disconnect from the emotional part of the brain to the prefrontal cortex. You can see it in scans. So women go the opposite way. So if she doesn't get a chance, what she's designed to do at that time when there's emotions is she's designed to be able to talk about it [00:19:00] and with somebody to feel safe.
[00:19:03] John Gray: Then if you get that down in your relationship, now a woman starts to feel really safe. Or if you just had a great romantic vacation or you b- really made love and it was really wonderful, there's nothing more powerful to bring up your childhood issues than making love. It's when you're most vulnerable.
[00:19:18] Luke Storey: Oh, interesting.
[00:19:19] John Gray: Hmm. So you're so vulnerable. You're naked. I mean, my little granddaughter runs around naked all the time. She, "I want to take off my clothes. Okay, take off your clothes." But see, this is total freedom, total safety, and every trauma that we had in those first seven years, one by one, they will tend to come up into a committed, loving relationship.
[00:19:38] John Gray: That's when it really comes up. So you think, "Gee, y- we love each other so much. Where is this coming from?" It's all part of personal growth and development. We're designed to become more mature, more developed. We're, we're, we're designed to heal whatever's keeping us from experiencing divine love coming through us.
[00:19:54] John Gray: And so all of this repression of divine love, which is what a child has. Any grandparent sees it with your children. [00:20:00] They're just, like, so perfect. Uh, they're just all love. Well, making love gives you a glimpse of feeling totally safe and surrendered So when you feel totally safe and surrendered, or in your relationship you're feeling safe, what will come up one thing at a time is this delayed reaction, is the times when you are not safe, you push feelings down, and then when you are safe, those feelings will come up and you will start experiencing what people today call triggers.
[00:20:28] John Gray: But they've missed it completely. You know, the younger generation are all saying, "You triggered me," and they blame you for doing it, as, as opposed to, if I'm triggered, that's my stuff- Yeah ... and you've given me the opportunity to look at what I'm not willing to look at within myself. And it's, it's, it's not necessarily that it comes up when, when I feel safe.
[00:20:49] John Gray: It also comes up when we hear the truth. 'Cause the truth is safe, but people don't wanna hear the truth. So often when somebody's speaking their truth and we don't wanna hear it, [00:21:00] our trigger comes up because we don't wanna look at our feelings that are coming up around that, but it's actually just hearing the truth.
[00:21:05] John Gray: When you hear truth, people get triggered. Uh, it's so interesting. So... And then they blame the other person instead of realizing, okay, this is an opportunity for me to take those feelings that are coming up, not displace them onto you. And in terms of your childhood feelings, in psychology you call that transfer, not transfer it onto you.
[00:21:25] John Gray: But just, uh, recognize, okay, this is my stuff. And that's why we call it stuff. It's the things that we have stuffed. It's a great phrase. Oh,
[00:21:33] Luke Storey: that's good.
[00:21:34] John Gray: My stuff. You know, these words gradually evolve as we become more conscious, is the evolution of psychology. But we're stuffing it down, it's coming from our past, and when it comes up, it comes up as what I call the 90/10 principle.
[00:21:46] John Gray: 90% of what you're upset about is not your partner. It's not what's going on in your life. It's unresolved issues from your past, and they will come up and magnify the thing that would normally be just a little adrenaline, becomes massive [00:22:00] cortisol. Your life is in danger. 'Cause you know, when kids are screaming, they're in cortisol.
[00:22:05] John Gray: Okay? They're crying and they're screaming. They're in terror, you know? You don't understand what's going on. They have no brain to tell them it's okay. And for the parents out there, I'll just mention the most important thing you can do for your little children when they're crying is don't e- don't ask them what they're feeling.
[00:22:20] John Gray: Uh, don't tell them what they're feeling. Don't tell them they shouldn't be feeling. Don't give them candy and sweets and ice cream to stop feeling. And don't give them what they think they want at that moment to not feel. But they're having a tantrum. You hold them If you just look at them and say nothing, they will reach out to you and you hold them and then you walk out of the room so they're not looking at the same thing that was bothering them and you walk...
[00:22:48] John Gray: If you have a garden, you go out into the garden and look at nature. But you're holding them and you're staying calm. So they're gonna resonate now with your heartbeat, they're gonna resonate with your presence, and they're gonna come back to, "I'm [00:23:00] safe." The essence of all childhood u- uh, upset is, "I'm not safe.
[00:23:05] John Gray: I don't know what just happened. It's confusing to me. Suddenly I was happy, now I'm crying. I don't know what's happening." You're the parent. You don't know what's happening. Now I'm telling you what's happening. They're traumatized in some way. They just need to feel safe, and you hold them in your arms and you walk around, don't speak.
[00:23:22] John Gray: Same thing for women. When they're upset, be the calming energy. Be the calming energy, and you can be the calming energy if you understand why she's so upset Well, what she needs when she's upset is not a solution, not an explanation, not a defense, not ... You, 'cause we think we're helping. We think we're helping
[00:23:44] Luke Storey: Oh, man.
[00:23:45] John Gray: Just close your mouth, and then you practice con- ... There's a good word to add to your practice, which is, which I didn't use in Men Are from Mars. It, it evolved. It's called containment. I'm gonna contain. I'm gonna hold in. 'Cause sometimes you're [00:24:00] listening and you wanna explode, you know, you wanna start getting upset.
[00:24:03] John Gray: And you only get upset when you feel, "I don't know what to do. What I'm doing is not working." Your confidence is dropping. So another word that helps you have confidence is contain. Oh, I know just what to do. I'm containing. And this is, used to be, actually still taught in the Army, kinda taking a teenager and having them grow up real fast to be in a place of danger and do the right thing, is they'll line them up and they'll, they'll torture them, basically.
[00:24:27] John Gray: They, they line them up and they, the drill sergeant will say h- humiliating things, okay? I don't wanna say them, but they'll just do anything to push your button, anything to trigger you, anything to cause you to react, uh, humiliate you, embarrass you, put you down, say bad things about you. And you have to stand at attention.
[00:24:47] John Gray: You say, "Yes, sir. Yes, sir." And you roll your eyes or you give a look that doesn't say, "Yes, sir," then you'll do push-ups, or maybe the whole group will have to do more laps and, and whatever. So you learn containment. [00:25:00] Now-
[00:25:00] Luke Storey: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah ... there, there- In the, in the film, uh, Full Metal Jacket, there's a, there's an iconic scene of that kind of- Well-
[00:25:07] Luke Storey: what appears to be just, uh, mindless abuse-
[00:25:11] John Gray: Yes ... you know, from the outside ... it seems to be abuse. Right, right, right.
[00:25:13] Luke Storey: But there has to be a purpose to it, you know?
[00:25:15] John Gray: And that is the purpose to it, and this is- That's interesting ... the purpose of marriage.
[00:25:20] Luke Storey: I
[00:25:21] John Gray: think as men.
[00:25:22] Luke Storey: The war of marriage. I
[00:25:23] John Gray: know.
[00:25:24] Luke Storey: Well, the, uh, uh, s- I mean, so many, I'm-
[00:25:26] John Gray: I know you have so many things, but I-
[00:25:27] Luke Storey: Well, I'm resisting.
[00:25:28] Luke Storey: You know, there's so many ideas I wanna tease out here, but each new idea is revelatory. But, um, something, one of the things that comes to mind is Yeah. As a man, you know, having that confidence to feel like you're being successful in what you're doing, and when you're listening to a woman and you don't have these kind of principles in your arsenal of relational tools, and you're trying to fix it and solve her problem and cutting her off when she hasn't finished expressing what her [00:26:00] feeling, it, it gets frustrating because you feel like y- you suck at being able to be there for her, the woman that you love, right?
[00:26:08] Luke Storey: Right. And so over the years, practicing so many of the principles I've learned from you, it's like I- I've learned how to feel successful in that I'm... I haven't used the word containment, but the way I look at it is I really just, I use my body a lot. I really am conscious to open my body language and to breathe and to make myself feel more receptive and open in a way that also feels safe for me because I know that the energy that she's moving, even though it might be, um, related to me, it's really not about me.
[00:26:49] Luke Storey: You know what I mean? And
[00:26:50] John Gray: it's- And that's advanced stage, is to know y- I can hear anything from my wife. Yeah.
[00:26:53] Luke Storey: Uh,
[00:26:53] John Gray: I just say, "Tell me." She says, "I'm upset. I have some feelings, but I don't wanna tell you." It could sound like blame. I say, "You can tell [00:27:00] me anything, honey," 'cause I understand this. Right. But I don't recommend that to women and men in the beginning.
[00:27:05] John Gray: You have to really master it and realize that every mood a woman has that's not positive is not about you. Yeah. Every time she's not unhap- if she doesn't happy about anything, it's not about me. Okay. And, and the, one of the ways as a man that helped me to do that, she thinks it's about me, but I know it's not about me 'cause I know it's about her.
[00:27:23] John Gray: It's about her stress, it's about her day, it's about what's going on in it, and I'm only, I'm certainly one part of that, but I know her life is so much better. I remember one woman in a counseling session a- and she basically says, you know, I said, "Why are you not happy? You know, y- your husband, he provides this, you have this, you have this great life, and you have friends and everything."
[00:27:41] John Gray: She says, "Yeah, I have a great life. I have a perfect life. My only problem is my husband." And, and he's not an alcoholic or drug addict. I could understand that, but no, that's it. What was happening is she's like this very proper woman. She's suppressing all the time to look good, to look good, and so all that stuff just comes off [00:28:00] to be, "I'm unhappy with my husband," you know?
[00:28:02] John Gray: And I said, "Well, you know, what are your complaints about your husband?" And then she would rattle off all these complaints that were totally ra- ir- irrational, a- and also because she didn't understand men. Now, that's another key thing. A woman could be actually a very balanced, loving woman- And have all these complaints about a man just 'cause she doesn't understand men, and then that will cause her stress.
[00:28:24] John Gray: You know, and one of the biggest sources of stress for women when they don't understand men is when men are stressed, and we all have stress, men become quiet. They need to go to their cave. Men need to have time for themselves. And then she goes, "Why doesn't wanna be with me all the time?" I don't wanna be with my wife all the time.
[00:28:43] John Gray: You know, I have to work, that's one big thing, and then when I have... If I have stress from work, I have to take time to let go of that stress.
[00:28:50] Luke Storey: Yes.
[00:28:51] John Gray: Then-
[00:28:52] Luke Storey: This is another one of the major tools I, I learned from you, uh, and you can explain why, but the thing that registered [00:29:00] with me that stuck is if I'm stressed about my life's problems-
[00:29:05] John Gray: Yeah
[00:29:05] Luke Storey: and I talk about them while they're still unsolved, it makes me even more stressed.
[00:29:12] John Gray: Yes. Women don't understand that. Absolutely.
[00:29:14] Luke Storey: I just need to go off by myself and ruminate and think about my problems, or not think about, meditate, dis- disassociate from my problems and- That's
[00:29:23] John Gray: right. You have to forget your problem
[00:29:24] Luke Storey: yeah, and go into consciousness, you know, for lack of a better term, right? Of just go into the bigger context of life or how- Of life ...
[00:29:31] John Gray: problems shrink Bigger context instead of hyper-focusing on a problem. See, the reason- Yes ... you're even stressed, it's a problem that at the end of the day you can't solve. So men process stress by feeling successful.
[00:29:41] Luke Storey: Yes.
[00:29:42] John Gray: See, success is everything to a man. So, and we'll put it in balance. Women go, "I wanna be successful," but what lowers a woman's stress is connection. What lowers a man's stress is success. Totally. Is, that, that's just what... There. And so-
[00:29:57] Luke Storey: So true ...
[00:29:58] John Gray: so when, when my wife is talking, I [00:30:00] can be successful 'cause I know I'm totally qualified for her to feel connection.
[00:30:05] John Gray: Yes. Yes. And all I have to do is not talk. Now, this is like- ... uh, we're gonna get into my new book for women only, but, and, uh, what I do is give all these instructions to women. If you say to your husband, "Okay, I just wanna talk for 10 minutes," women go 10 minutes, some men say, "Oh, 10 minutes." She only needs to talk longer because she doesn't get regular 10 minutes.
[00:30:27] John Gray: There's only so much time a man can actually be over in a woman's, over into a woman. You see, a man- When a woman is sharing, you're actually going into her. She's opening up and you're going into her. And when you go into her, you can only stay into her, generally speaking, about 10 minutes. And then your mind is, uh, your, what's gonna happen biologically is your testosterone starts to go down.
[00:30:54] John Gray: Okay? So we'll get into hormones in a minute. But when you're feeling successful, but when you connect with a woman [00:31:00] so deeply, if she shares herself and you're going into her, what happens is your female hormones start getting produced. Estrogen goes up in her, which lowers her stress. Estrogen goes up in a man, which when it goes too high, increases his stress.
[00:31:15] John Gray: Yes. And we'll get into the hormonal difference. Oh, man. But so, so here I am and I, uh, so this is what a woman can say to a man We have code words, just a Venus talk, and we don't even say, "Let's do a Venus talk." We do a hand signal. You know, men are all into hand signals. Okay, so two hands up means I wanna talk 10 minutes.
[00:31:35] John Gray: If a man... W- I could be exhausted and tired. I, I vented... I mean, I saw how powerful this technique is one time, 'cause I was having dinner with my wife. We're at, at... You know, we'd eat at home all the time. And I'm just done a whole day, and I was exhausted, and so I'm eating my food and I'm ready to go to my cave, my time just to be on my own.
[00:31:53] John Gray: And she wanted to talk, and I said, "Look, I just need to do my cave. We can talk later." She says... And [00:32:00] she looks at me with a big smile, and she puts up her 10 fingers, 'cause that's our sign which says she needs to talk 10 minutes. Instantly my energy came back, because I know exactly what's gonna happen. I only have to listen for 10 minutes.
[00:32:13] John Gray: She's gonna be happier. I can be successful at it, and instantly my energy comes back. See, 10 minutes is enough for a man if he has a goal that you can achieve success in 10 minutes. Every man will have energy. If, if it's like, "I gotta go to mow the lawn," it's three hours, I mean, I'll put it off. But 10 minutes, and, you know, it doesn't always have to j- be...
[00:32:34] John Gray: But this is enough to get him fully engaged. Mm-hmm. And, and usually you have to stick to it. If a woman says we, says verbally, "We need to talk," or, "I need to talk to you," instantly a man's stress will go up.
[00:32:44] Luke Storey: Damn straight.
[00:32:45] John Gray: Just, it goes right up. I... But if she does this, there's no tone of voice. This is, it's silent.
[00:32:50] John Gray: There's no stress. All, all there is for me is all... I have a job to do. It takes 10 minutes. It's, and, and it's also not about me. This is called a Venus talk, where [00:33:00] you're going to fulfill your need to lower your stress by talking about things that are bothering you without putting your partner as the cause of it.
[00:33:09] John Gray: He is only the solution, and his solution is not to say anything. This is such a win-win, you know? Every man... What women should know is if you make a man your hero, he'll die for you. If you make a man not your hero, he'll start dying because of you.
[00:33:26] Luke Storey: Wow. That's a good- We got... Jared, make a clip of that. That's...
[00:33:31] Luke Storey: I mean, that's so... That's so true. And it's even
[00:33:34] John Gray: bi- it's even biological, okay?
[00:33:35] Luke Storey: Well, I think that's, that's one of the interesting things about your body of work is, I mean, obviously it's based on your life experience and, you know, uh, having that understanding of psychology. But when you bring in the biology, you know, the hormones, the neurotransmitters, all of this, um, I, I think that's what really locks it in and [00:34:00] grounds it in reality, right?
[00:34:01] Luke Storey: Yeah, it's really great. It's like this isn't-
[00:34:02] John Gray: Well, you know, Men Are from Mars, I didn't have any of this science. We didn't have the science. Right. But the examples I give were so true to everybody's experience, it worked. People said, "Are you following me around? Have you been lying under our beds? Do you know all our conversations?"
[00:34:14] Luke Storey: Totally.
[00:34:15] John Gray: We're so universal- Totally ... as human beings, we don't realize it I speak all over... I've been in 40 different languages. I go to China. And it was actually kind of a spiritual experience people would have. They didn't realize that, but to realize an American couple are having the same issues they're having, yet completely different surface level issues.
[00:34:33] John Gray: But on a, a level of love and connection, same misunderstandings simply because we, we have this lack of understanding of how different we really are and The, the narrative is we're all the same. If we can all be the same, then, um, wouldn't we all get along? We'd be bored to death.
[00:34:54] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[00:34:54] John Gray: W- And, and if we were all the same, it's not true.
[00:34:57] John Gray: Yeah. See, it's just not true, okay? We are so [00:35:00] biologically different, and that affects our emotions, our mindset, our needs. A woman's body is designed, at least until menopause, she's designed to be able to make a baby. We can't make babies. We don't have those hormones. It's a whole different set of hormones.
[00:35:13] John Gray: And I know you're about to say something, but let me say this. Um, 'cause I imagine people listening haven't read Men Are from Mars, are kinda hearing about this for the first time, and I could sound like a total sexist. How can you say that? How can you say that?
[00:35:27] Luke Storey: This is where I was gonna go,
[00:35:28] John Gray: yeah. Yeah. Okay, we're gonna go there.
[00:35:29] John Gray: Just, it sounds- Yeah ... just to jump into some of these advanced ideas, well, you know, some of you are already thinking, "Well, why doesn't he talk? He should talk. Why is he not talking?" You know, he can talk. Ask a man a question and he'll talk. Have a problem and ask him to solve it, he'll have a lot to say, but he's not gonna talk about his feelings.
[00:35:47] John Gray: And then she's gonna go, "Well, why can't he talk about his feelings?" Well, he c- if, he can certainly talk about his positive feelings, and I have exercises to teach men how to express positive feelings, because we, we have no context of expressing [00:36:00] positive feelings. Like, I love my wife. I married her. I adore her.
[00:36:04] John Gray: I make love to her. Why do I need to tell her every day my feelings about her? It doesn't make sense to me at all, unless I understand women. Women need to hear. It's, this is the, the ears are the biggest sex organ in a woman's body, okay? She needs to hear that she, that she is loved, you know? I, I, I- That's very true
[00:36:22] John Gray: I'll jump into one of my favorite exercise I do with my wife. You know, I'm 74 years old. I have sex for hours quite often. You know, I'm 50% higher testosterone than I was a young man. I have the best sex I could ever imagine, and it's all because I understand this stuff. My hormones are the hormones of a young man, and I have all the knowledge of this 75, 74-year-old guy, and the wisdom of being an expert at this.
[00:36:45] John Gray: This, this is, everybody, these tools are not that complicated. And th- here's another one for you and your wife, 'cause I see how much you love each other, how beautiful it is. One of the basic ideas in Men Are from Mars is four hugs a day that a man initiates. So just like, [00:37:00] uh, I get up, I find my wife, give her a hug.
[00:37:02] John Gray: Maybe she's in the kitchen or maybe she gets up later, whatever. As soon as we meet again after w- waking state, I find her. That makes her feel special. Women wanna be chased. They wanna be pursued. You know, I see it with my little granddaughter. She loves to have me chasing her around. I have a female dog.
[00:37:16] John Gray: She loves for me to chase her, whatever. So this is the female side of us. It wants to be seen and desired and so forth. Some men are going, "Well, I want that, too." Yeah, you have a female side, but we have a male side, and there's places where we wanna be desired. The most important thing where a man wants to be wanted is sexually.
[00:37:35] John Gray: See, sexuality is the place where a man can fully engage his female side and be masculine. But most people don't know biologically, if for a man to be sexually attracted to a woman's one of the greatest gifts in his life, and the reason for that is that it's the only time, primarily the only time, is when he has an erection, his testosterone's going up, but also [00:38:00] his estrogen's going up.
[00:38:01] John Gray: He's got his balance between the masculine and the feminine. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's an amazing real- yeah, I didn't know that till I saw the research. I went, "Oh, this is why I like sex so much." 'Cause I'm always talking about we're-
[00:38:11] Luke Storey: You're, you're transcending duality, right,
[00:38:13] John Gray: in a way? That's exactly it. Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:14] John Gray: We're transcend- it's the, it's the ultimate goal. You know, I'm a monk to experience oneness in the universe. I have all that spiritual experience, but to bring it down into the body, literally for a man, when you go into a woman, you're connecting with her. Your female hormones start getting produced. But you're, you're generating that in her.
[00:38:32] John Gray: You're doing something for her, so you're able to maintain your testosterone. Look what I can do for her, 'cause she's happy and she's fulfilled and she's trusting, she's opening. That openness that a woman has is what builds a man's testosterone. And so it's t- it's, it's like if a woman is open to being helped...
[00:38:51] John Gray: Now, here's one, one thing I changed from Men Are from Mars that I'm finding very helpful today, is I talked about a man's life is always about to [00:39:00] protect and serve. And this is the essence of every policeman, soldier, everything. We're all in service, you know? We see a policeman, a, a, a soldier, thank you for your service.
[00:39:11] John Gray: But the word service doesn't have the same meaning it used to have. It's kinda like service means you're a servant, and men don't wanna be the servant. It's kinda like looking down, so I'm gonna be a servant to women. I think part of the edge that men don't like to h- a lot of men don't like to hear that is because women do look down on men quite a bit today, and we have to change that.
[00:39:33] John Gray: So there's a... The most beautiful, beautiful thing about a woman for a man is her vulnerability, and the time that you feel vulnerable is the time when you need help And when you need help and a man can help you, you're the hero. That's the relationship of man and woman in a romantic relationship. If you're gonna have a marriage and then want romance to last, she has to be very conscious [00:40:00] and aware to remain and sustain her vulnerability, which needs help.
[00:40:05] John Gray: Now, I'm gonna step back to what I was just about to say, which is one of my techniques is four hugs a day. It reminds her that a woman needs, needs to feel that connection, 'cause she can get off on her male side solving problems and disconnect with her female side, her vulnerable side that needs help.
[00:40:23] John Gray: You know, here's a sort of a, a, a maybe a spiritual concept for people talk about purpose of life. You know, what is the purpose of life? People, "What is my purpose?" When you're depressed, "What is my purpose?" The bottom line, if you're a man, all men, the purpose of your life is to make a difference, is to put your...
[00:40:41] John Gray: Have a... Be able to have an effect in a positive way, a meaningful way, a significant way to somebody else, and then you are significant. I need to find somebody who needs my help and provide that help, and you just feel so good. That's all what masculine is about, just pure masculine energy is [00:41:00] doing it. I did it.
[00:41:02] John Gray: You wanna feel I did it, and that's a very, very key masculine thing. Look what I can do. Look what I've done. And I explain this to women. You have to understand men. It's not an ego trip. It's masculinity. Look what I can do. He takes you to the movies. If he drove you to the movies and you enjoyed the movie, he'll walk out and say, "How'd you like the movie?"
[00:41:22] John Gray: And you say, "That was an amazing movie. I feel like I wrote the movie."
[00:41:26] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[00:41:27] John Gray: Totally do. And any time a woman is happy- So
[00:41:29] Luke Storey: true ...
[00:41:29] John Gray: a man's gonna think, "I did that." Now, why is that so important? Because that's success, and what that does in terms of success is it raises a man's testosterone levels. So let's get, go into hormones for a moment, and I'll come back to the exercise, the reassurance exercise I was about, talking about for, for lasting romance, one of the many.
[00:41:49] John Gray: So this is where you don't think I'm a sexist, all right? Let me just explain biologically women are designed to make a baby. They're cycling every month. They're going through this cycle of hormones changing, all these [00:42:00] different changes in hormones. And if a woman during that time is experiencing cortisol, that's a big stress hormone.
[00:42:07] John Gray: Okay? Cortisol, it's gonna age you. It's gonna cause wrinkles. It's gonna cause unhappiness. It's gonna cause anxious thoughts. It's gonna cause feelings of overwhelm and stress. So i- it's the hormonal balance that does it. The hormones are out of balance. So life is doing, it triggers her hormones, but how she's relating to life will then produce the positive hormones that she needs in order to feel stress-free.
[00:42:30] John Gray: It's a mind-body, body-mind relationship there. So all I've done is basically anybody can go look it up. This is not that complicated. It's what are the woman's hormones when she's stressed, and what are the man's hormones when he's stressed? Totally opposite. Complete opposite. When a woman is experiencing stress hormones, her estrogen will be too low for half of her cycle.
[00:42:58] John Gray: At the other half of her cycle, [00:43:00] her progesterone will be too low. Okay, so they got two different things. And what I do, which people are waking up to is how you relate to somebody determines what your hormones are. If a woman is in a room all by herself, locked in a room, she can't make estrogen. The only way she can make estrogen is a nun who has a relationship with the non-physical reality of this world, okay?
[00:43:25] John Gray: She call it God or Jesus or whatever. That will produce estradiol. That will make her estrogen levels go up. But it's relationship that allows women to balance their hormones, and it's relationship to men in terms of what do I feel successful about or not. So let's take an example of that for the critics.
[00:43:43] John Gray: If I'm su- they've done tests on this. If I scored high on the test, my testosterone went up. If I scored the best in the room, but they told me it was the worst, my testosterone goes down. Has nothing to do with whether I did it right or wrong, whatever. Has to do with somebody telling me you did the best.
[00:43:59] Luke Storey: [00:44:00] It's, yeah, it's the reflection, the feedback. It's
[00:44:02] John Gray: the feedback. Yeah. Everything's feedback. Yeah. The feedback you get from the world tells you whether you're a success or not. Even though you did this great job and you did better than everybody else, you failed
[00:44:15] Luke Storey: If your meditation practice feels like work instead of peace, listen up. A lot of us sit with the best of intentions. We're trying to quiet the mind, experience inner stillness, maybe even connect with something deeper within. But the fact is that if your body can't let go of background stress, it makes all of that more difficult, sometimes even impossible.
[00:44:34] Luke Storey: And that's why I use the Apollo Neuro. It's a wearable that sends gentle rhythmic pulses through your body, and that signal communicates safety through your sense of touch. And when your nervous system feels safe, everything changes. Your breath slows down, you settle in faster, and you can actually drop into a meditative state without all the struggle.
[00:44:54] Luke Storey: I've noticed when I use the Apollo, I just go deeper and faster, like my body finally [00:45:00] decided to cooperate with my mind. And it doesn't stop there. Apollo comes with an app called Smart Vibes AI that learns your patterns and automatically adjusts the support you need when you need it. Here's where you wanna go to get your nervous system dialed in.
[00:45:14] Luke Storey: It's called apolloneuro.com/luke. And if you use the code Luke, you get $99 off the Apollo wearable and Smart Vibes AI bundle. Apollo takes the friction out of my meditation practice, but the real win is how it helps my system stay calm, present, and way less reactive throughout the day. So you definitely wanna check out apolloneuro.com/luke, and that code is Luke to save $99.
[00:45:42] Luke Storey: This explains why, because Allison and I have, have kind of had this dance where she knows my, um, I guess you could say my love language is, um, affirmations, right? If I sweep the floor, like I feel so good if she's like, "Oh my God, you swept the floor? [00:46:00] That's amazing," you know? And so she knows that I, I, I really am fueled by that reassurance.
[00:46:06] Luke Storey: It gives me so much confidence. I, I wanna feel appreciated and acknowledged for things that I do, whether they're big or small. But at, at different times, she's felt sort of, um, I don't know, annoyed that, that I require so much of that 'cause she-
[00:46:24] John Gray: They think we're on an ego trip because they don't require...
[00:46:26] John Gray: What they require- Yeah ... is not, "Oh, you did a good job." "Tell me how hard that was. Tell me about it. Let me hear you." See, that's their primary need is- Right ... to be heard. Ours is to be seen as successful. She's needs to be seen as lovable and understood and so forth.
[00:46:40] Luke Storey: Right.
[00:46:41] John Gray: So we're, we're on the little journey of, of, of testosterone.
[00:46:44] John Gray: So words of affirmation- Yeah ... is gonna stimulate. Now, what women have to know is just saying the words if you don't feel them doesn't do it. It literally, energetically, we're energetic beings, we sense things whether we're conscious of it or not. She can use [00:47:00] all the right words, but if the feeling doesn't back it up, you won't experience the benefit.
[00:47:06] John Gray: It's just, this is, you, you can't lie to your partner. I mean, I have so many couples who the woman thinks she's the very best person, whatever, and then I say to her, she's in therapy with me, right? And that she hates her husband, he's not good enough, he's not this, he's not that, he doesn't... All these complaints.
[00:47:23] John Gray: And, and I say, "Well, what do you think his complaints are about you?" "I never complain to him. I never argue with him. I never... Except they don't have sex anymore." And then I say, "Well, you don't have sex with him." "Well, I can't have sex with him. He doesn't do anything for me. How could I have sex..." And I, I understand the logic of it, so you've just justified not being a loving wife.
[00:47:44] John Gray: You've got found reasons for it. But then I said, "But let's look at what's going on." She says, "Well-" "What's going on inside? Are you feeling frustrated that he did that?" She says, "Yeah." "Don't you think he's stupid?" "Yeah, he's so stupid. I could do everything." "Don't you think he's lazy?" "Yeah, he's so lazy." "Don't you [00:48:00] think he's not a very loving person?"
[00:48:01] John Gray: "He's not, he's not... I don't even know why I married him." "Do you tell him those things?" "Oh, no." He's feeling it anyway.
[00:48:08] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:09] John Gray: So you can complain out loud, you complain inside, a man's gonna react to it, and the react is, "I'm not good enough." Nobody feels successful when you're not good enough. So what does she do?
[00:48:20] John Gray: She has to clean up those feelings. Now, logically, they could actually all be true, but you have to handle the emotions that get produced in you when those things happen. And when you process negative emotions, you can then come back to positive emotions. If you're suppressing your negative emotions, which is what she's doing, you can't feel positive emotions.
[00:48:44] John Gray: You're suppressing your ability to feel So- Ah, yeah ... so you have to learn how to... And that's what therapy really is for people, is being able to connect with, discover what your negative emotions are and why you're feeling that way. And when those emotions come up and they're seen by your conscious mind, you see they're [00:49:00] all in the back part of the brain and in the body as well, but controlled by the brain.
[00:49:04] John Gray: When you're able to identify them, feel them, identify them, and then communicate them, then what happens is your brain can process it and say there's another way of looking at it.
[00:49:15] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:49:16] John Gray: You're just fixed in one way of looking at it, which is you're in danger. You're not in danger. 'Cause it's-
[00:49:21] Luke Storey: I, I think, uh, you know, you mentioned that these ideas, um, could seem sexist or antiquated or something, right?
[00:49:31] Luke Storey: I, I think , uh, d- and I'm open to your view on this, but, you know, with the kind of f- feminist movement and equal rights, which obviously there was an imbalance of kind of power there and acknowledgement, the masculine and feminine were, were out of balance, right? And so that was a necessary kind of evolution, at least in Western culture.
[00:49:55] Luke Storey: But I think what happened there was that [00:50:00] equality was conflated with sameness, right? A, a lot of the problems I think we have is that w- we think, "Oh, well, we both should have the same rights," means that we're both the same.
[00:50:13] John Gray: Exactly. That was it. Right? It's like- Equality means sameness, and we're just not same, but we can have equal opportunity.
[00:50:19] John Gray: We can have equal- Yeah ... respect. We can have equal rights. And there's, there's no... Even when I'm talking about differences, there were a lot of old things like, "Oh, oh, men are smarter than women." Well, no, we now know women are... Some women are super smart and some men aren't that super smart. So it's not a gender thing, the level of intelligence you have.
[00:50:38] John Gray: What we're talking about is how we relate to life. That's my whole focus. Mm-hmm. You're coupled... And, and my goal, by the way, when I do this is, uh, you know, my parents stayed together, seven children. My mother was very happy. My dad was very happy as far as I could see as a kid. They didn't fight. Nothing happened.
[00:50:55] John Gray: I know they were having sex. We'd listen under the door and hear them having sex. Had seven [00:51:00] children. So, you know, that was the lifestyle then. But my mother had no expectations of my dad other than he would go to work, make enough money to provide a middle-class home in a safe neighborhood, uh And also have some good manners.
[00:51:17] John Gray: My dad did have good manners. And one other thing, which is crucial, is that his good manners is he was taught, and most men used to be unless they were alcoholics or drug addicts and didn't have a good job. See, men just become dysfunctional when they don't get paid for their work. It's all about m- so there's dysfunctional men, and then there's...
[00:51:34] John Gray: My dad wasn't. He was well-paid, and for that time made $7,000 a year and could buy a house.
[00:51:41] Luke Storey: Are you serious?
[00:51:42] John Gray: Yep. $7,000 a year, bought a house in a middle class neighborhood.
[00:51:45] Luke Storey: Holy shit.
[00:51:46] John Gray: You know, gas was 25 cents a gallon. You know- Right ... it was a different world. But most men, if you had... He went to college, so he had education.
[00:51:53] John Gray: You could get a job that would pay you enough to get a house. That's how it used to be. We, we messed it all up.
[00:51:58] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[00:51:59] John Gray: And part of [00:52:00] messing it all up, and for all our feminists that are listening, well, there's so many men who are out of work, and also men don't get paid what they deserve. Well, that's because on one level, uh, women took half the jobs, and women were willing to work for less Because women are willing to work for less, men are not.
[00:52:19] John Gray: Because men will usually feel this sense of I have to pay, I have to not get money for me, but I have to get money for my wife and my children. Every man who's hiring a man knows that. But if you're hiring a woman who has a husband, why do I need to pay her so much? Oh, that's funny. He's also contributing.
[00:52:34] John Gray: So it's this whole-
[00:52:34] Luke Storey: So it's like an unconscious-
[00:52:36] John Gray: It's all unconscious things ... valuation.
[00:52:38] Luke Storey: Yeah. It's all unconscious
[00:52:39] John Gray: valuation. Yeah. So a- and, and that's not to say I don't like the advancements that men and women have. What I'm saying is that's why we have this problem. Now, part of solving the problem is women are in the workplace and so forth.
[00:52:51] John Gray: Great. They do great things, and the world can be become better if men and women are solving problems together. There's no doubt about that. But we have to solve this problem of [00:53:00] men not having jobs. That's a problem for the government and for us to be aware of, not being paid enough for what they do. But regardless, you see, you need to feel successful as a man.
[00:53:12] John Gray: Let's say you make 50... Let's say you make 50,000 and she makes 50,000, and you come home, and you both come home. She doesn't have this huge feeling of appreciation that she didn't have to go to work. See, my dad, my mother had no complaints. When somebody's doing something meaningful to you, you have no complaints.
[00:53:29] John Gray: You could have, "He leaves his socks around, he doesn't do this, he doesn't do that," but they're nothing. You just go, "Yeah, yeah, he has this, this, this, but look, he gives me this life where I can do what I lo- what my dream is." My mother's dream was to have seven children, little white picket fence. You know? A very simple dream, and she got it, you know?
[00:53:49] John Gray: And she was very, very happy, so she had no complaints. If you have no complaints for a man, he can't complain back. Uh, you start to hear as we go through this whole thing, we're just mirrors of women. [00:54:00] Women are not mirrors of us. We are the mirror of women. Now, how this works, she's happy, we're happy.
[00:54:07] John Gray: Everybody knows the idea, right? Happy wife, happy life. You've heard it, right?
[00:54:11] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[00:54:12] John Gray: Everybody listening, happy wife. Have you ever heard happy husband, happy life? No. No, because we're different. We mirror... If a woman is happy, we're m- we mirror it. If I'm happy, it doesn't make my wife happy. If she's already happy and I'm happy, she enjoys my happiness.
[00:54:31] John Gray: I'm a super happy guy, and that created... I'm super suc- I'm successful. And being successful, I, I mean, at my heyday, I would have my own private jet. I don't anymore. I don't make all that money like I used to, but I'd fly to New York in my own jet so I could fly home that night to take my kids to school.
[00:54:49] John Gray: You know, it was all about val- family values are important to me, and I w- I did have a lot of money. And, and so I would go to New York a few days. I ... On the West Coast, go to the East [00:55:00] Coast, and I'd meet movie stars. They'd all read my book. Everybody wanted to have pictures with me . You know, it's like I stayed at the best hotels, I'm invited, paid outrageous fees for giving talks.
[00:55:10] John Gray: It was amazing, you know? It was a flashy life. So I'm just coming home feeling great, you know, and I had a standing ovation. I did the biggest theater in Broadway, at Gershwin. Is it the ... Anyways, one- the biggest. I can't ... It's too long for me to remember. Gershwin Theater, possibly. But for seven days in a row, standing ovations and, and it
[00:55:30] John Gray: I would never do that again. Too much energy to do that. But I would go off and give these big talks and come home so happy. My wife would be, "Oh, you're home," and she's putting on a smiling face, and, "How was your trip?" And I would itemize. "I met so and so, and I went here, and I went to the hotel, and I go to this restaurant.
[00:55:46] John Gray: Oh my God, the sushi was great." And I just watch her mood just start to shrink. It was like a black cloud came into the room. And, and as I'm done, she says, "Yeah." The feeling, the tone of her voice says, "Yeah, you do all the [00:56:00] fun stuff. And you know what happened when I left?" So then after I told her all that, then she says, "Yeah, you had a good time.
[00:56:06] John Gray: Do you know what happened when you were gone? The toilet overflowed, I had to call the plumber. He didn't come for two days. It was a mess. Our babysitter..." She's gonna go into all these details of how terrible that week was So I thought, "This is odd." And then I thought, "Well, men and women are different. Let me try it next time and just, 'Oh, the plane was late, had to talk to so-and-so.
[00:56:26] John Gray: It was a good trip.'" And then she's smiling. I'm suffering like she's suffering. That's connection. Oh, wow. Never be happier than a woman. And it's not like I can't share my happiness. I just wait for a time when she's feeling really happy. My wife will sit next to me, and just as background for me, uh, 'cause I talk about different wives, uh, my wife of, that of all Men Are from Mars was, uh, we were married 32 years and she died of cancer.
[00:56:53] John Gray: And that was eight years ago. So I'm currently married again.
[00:56:56] Luke Storey: I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. So you remarried.
[00:56:58] John Gray: Yeah, I'm remarried and very, very happy.
[00:56:59] Luke Storey: And- I [00:57:00] remember you had started dating someone when we last hung out in London. Oh, okay. It's a
[00:57:04] John Gray: few years ago. So anyway, we got married and- Okay ... and, um, I, I met her.
[00:57:08] John Gray: She's also a relationship teacher and, and, um, really into it, which is really fun for me. Uh, but I watch my videos. I do every week, and I'll just let people know, John Gray Mar- Yeah, John Gray Mars Venus on YouTube. Every week, I have two hours of a talk. It's always different. Uh, it's... I have so much material, 28 books, you know, so I'm putting it all on, on YouTube.
[00:57:32] Luke Storey: You have 28 books at this point?
[00:57:33] John Gray: 28 books and I-
[00:57:34] Luke Storey: Oh my God.
[00:57:34] John Gray: And, and last year I wrote six.
[00:57:37] Luke Storey: In a year?
[00:57:38] John Gray: I just wrote them. Now I'm editing. Okay. Okay? Now editing, you know, is a big process. Okay. Uh,
[00:57:42] Luke Storey: yeah.
[00:57:43] John Gray: But, uh, this one, the, the f- well, from, let me finish that point- Mm-hmm ... which is, uh, whatever that point was. Now I went into six books.
[00:57:51] John Gray: Uh-
[00:57:52] Luke Storey: Uh, your, your now wife-
[00:57:55] John Gray: Oh, yeah. I'm sitting- Also, yeah ... so I'm sitting there watch- I like to watch my videotapes, you know. Every time I watch them, I see, "Oh, [00:58:00] you didn't make that clear. You could make..." It, it becomes clearer to me what I miss- Yeah ... in a talk. Uh, and so I, I'm watching, and she has to go out of the room, and the reason she goes out of the room is she says, "You're so good, it makes me feel I'm not good."
[00:58:16] John Gray: That's a tough thing. And y- you know, you find this with a lot of really high-performance fathers, and their sons have a lot of insecurity. Uh, I'm glad that my dad was not a high performer Hmm So, so I had my own little world to develop myself. But it can cause a lot of insecurity for a child to grow up with a high-performing father, 'cause you're always comparing yourself to that.
[00:58:38] John Gray: You know, in the old days, if you were a, a very wealthy, successful man, often your male offsprings, uh, had a lot of, of drug addiction, became playboys basically. Uh, that was a word back in those days. Mm-hmm. Playboy. Can't make a commit. All you wanna do is have sex with different women. You take drugs, you take alcohol, you do this stuff, and you die.
[00:58:59] John Gray: [00:59:00] Uh, you know, some awful disease will get you. Because, see, they ne- never have to earn it.
[00:59:06] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.
[00:59:06] John Gray: You can't really feel successful if you didn't earn it. You can have the- Ah, yes ... you can have the fake success. Like say you win a lottery, uh, and you just have so much succe- "Oh, I feel great. Look what I won the lottery."
[00:59:17] John Gray: But you didn't really earn it. And so a lot of people win lotteries, particularly men, become extremely dysfunctional as a result and lose
[00:59:24] Luke Storey: it all. I heard that, yeah.
[00:59:25] John Gray: Yeah, very common thing.
[00:59:25] Luke Storey: I, I've looked at that. That, that's an interesting, uh, just phenomenon to me. It seems like If one's consciousness isn't aligned with that level of success, there's, there's a mismatch
[00:59:41] John Gray: There's a certainly a way...
[00:59:41] John Gray: That's one way of fully identifying it.
[00:59:44] Luke Storey: That's kind of
[00:59:44] John Gray: how- No question about it ...
[00:59:45] Luke Storey: I've looked at that, right?
[00:59:46] John Gray: Yeah. But you could also look at it from the point of view your consciousness did win the prize.
[00:59:50] Luke Storey: Yeah yeah. Right? True, true.
[00:59:52] John Gray: You just weren't prepared to deal with that.
[00:59:54] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:59:54] John Gray: And, uh, so you, you ended up drawing it in, and then I can't handle all [01:00:00] that.
[01:00:00] Luke Storey: Yes. '
[01:00:00] John Gray: Cause you're... And I, I had a lot of this that I had to deal with. You know, I suddenly started making a lot more money when I was selling, you know, 10, 20, 30 book- 20, 30 million books in the '90s. You know, now it's beyond 50 million books. Oh my God. Are
[01:00:13] Luke Storey: you serious? Yeah,
[01:00:14] John Gray: yeah, yeah. That's nuts. In 45 different languages.
[01:00:18] John Gray: I was just in Saudi Arabia teaching there, and the bookstore came. They wanted to sell some books. I said, "How are my books doing?" He says, "Since you wrote the book, you're number one, number one or number two best-selling book in our store."
[01:00:28] Luke Storey: Wow.
[01:00:29] John Gray: Just doesn't end.
[01:00:30] Luke Storey: That's, that's really interesting, um, considering, you know, the cultural differences in the Middle East, right?
[01:00:38] Luke Storey: I mean, I'm not, you know- See,
[01:00:40] John Gray: that's the point I'm saying. Every culture. Yeah. 45 different languages a bestseller. China, China, the Chinese government used to print my book. I have, like, seven publishers in China. Only one is mine- Yeah ... 'cause they can rip off your, your thing, so.
[01:00:53] Luke Storey: They bootlegged your books?
[01:00:54] John Gray: Oh, everybody
[01:00:55] Luke Storey: does.
[01:00:55] John Gray: Yeah, yeah.
[01:00:56] Luke Storey: Yeah. That's funny.
[01:00:56] John Gray: It's, um-
[01:00:57] Luke Storey: Well, not funny, but-
[01:00:59] John Gray: It's what it is. [01:01:00] I'm- It is what it is ... I'm, I'm, I'm getting paid enough in English, okay? Sure, sure. So I'm not, I have no complaints. Sure. I want more people to read it. That's all. It's changing the world or- Yeah ... to a certain extent. And, but there's not a person in China that hasn't heard Men Are from Mars.
[01:01:12] Luke Storey: Wow.
[01:01:13] John Gray: You know. Wow. And I, I did one show there, and there were 32 million people watching it. Holy shit. You can imagine a show. 'Cause, you know, everybody's... They only have three channels or something. Right. They're all watching. Uh, so it, it, it gets around. It's got around, and it's just a universal principle that men and women are different.
[01:01:32] John Gray: And ironically, people always knew that in the past, that we're different, but they couldn't articulate the differences. Mm-hmm. The wisdom of culture set a culture up where men were designed to do certain things that make... give you an opportunity for success, and that would make men functional. When a man does not have the opportunity to feel successful, he becomes dysfunctional.
[01:01:54] John Gray: When a woman has the opportunity to have a partner to connect with who [01:02:00] cares about her, who's devoted to her... See, devotion is a very key thing. I heard one of your speakers talking about a woman, what, needs to be devoted to a man. No way. That's codependence. Men, masculinity finds somebody, I'm devoted to her.
[01:02:15] John Gray: That's monogamy. That's commitment. This is the highest level a man can go to is to feel devotion, and it's based upon s- a word you used, which was a good one, compassion.
[01:02:24] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:25] John Gray: Um, and when I went to Tibet and studied there, it was so interesting to me. They have their deities, which are real principles, and- The d- the principle for women is wisdom, and it always has been.
[01:02:36] John Gray: Sophia is wisdom. And the principle of masculinity is compassion.
[01:02:42] Luke Storey: That's so interesting.
[01:02:43] John Gray: And self is what we are. Everything- Yeah ... everything we think today, if you're not happy- Is backwards. Is backwards. Up is down, down is up. It's all backwards.
[01:02:51] Luke Storey: Totally.
[01:02:51] John Gray: So you'll see Dalai Lama wandering around, you know, he's traveling around.
[01:02:54] John Gray: All they do is teach compassion. 'Cause it, it's mainly, he's a man, you know? It was a very, [01:03:00] a male, a male-dominated society where men would teach w- men would learn to be compassionate, and when you're compassionate to your wife, she has wisdom. And when a woman has wisdom, then men become compassionate. Mm. So that's why I wrote this most recent book just to women, just awaken a woman's wisdom, and a man doesn't have to read it.
[01:03:21] John Gray: That's such a, a key factor, which is women have the power to awaken a man's compassion. Now, while I say that, I feel I've got, I've gotten into so many advanced parts of this book, I gotta come back to the basics that we just... so those people who think I'm a sexist can understand.
[01:03:37] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.
[01:03:37] John Gray: So biologically, whenever...
[01:03:39] John Gray: If you look at, uh, us right now, our testosterone levels, well, it'll be much higher because we're feeling successful, but just as a guy walking around on the street, a healthy guy, his testosterone levels in a non-stress state, a man's testosterone levels need to be 10 times higher than a woman's, otherwise he's stressed.
[01:03:59] John Gray: Okay? This is it. [01:04:00] If you don't have testosterone levels 10 times higher than the average woman, you're a very unhappy man. You're probably procrastinating. You're probably obsessed with worrying about yourself, feeling not good enough, maybe you have an addiction or whatever. Always those, all those things I just mentioned, dysfunctional male, is low testosterone.
[01:04:18] John Gray: Always. Now, you have on the other... And again, some women might think, "Oh, no, you know, high testosterone is violence in men." Nope. High... Whenever a man is violent, he's lost confidence and his testosterone's gone down. You can measure it.
[01:04:32] Luke Storey: Yes. This is, this is another thing. I th- I think I learned this from you.
[01:04:36] Luke Storey: Um, and the way I f- I frame it or the way that I kind of, yeah, I guess contextualize it is this idea of toxic masculinity, right? Where-
[01:04:44] John Gray: There's no such thing ...
[01:04:45] Luke Storey: when people generally think, uh, of a man who's, uh, you know, got toxic masculinity, he's rageful and throwing fits and violent. And I think it was you that said, no, when a guy loses his shit, when he loses control of his emotions, [01:05:00] he's actually overwhelmed by estrogen.
[01:05:01] John Gray: That's right. That's what-
[01:05:02] Luke Storey: Did I have that right?
[01:05:03] John Gray: Yes.
[01:05:03] Luke Storey: It's a proven- So it's actually like-
[01:05:04] John Gray: It's a proven fact ...
[01:05:05] Luke Storey: it's like toxic femininity in men. No,
[01:05:08] John Gray: no, no. What, what, what, what, uh-
[01:05:09] Luke Storey: How would, how would you frame that?
[01:05:10] John Gray: That's just a dysfunctional man. Okay. Masculinity is never toxic Femininity is never toxic
[01:05:16] Luke Storey: Okay
[01:05:17] John Gray: It's dysfunctional person
[01:05:19] Luke Storey: Got it.
[01:05:19] Luke Storey: Okay
[01:05:20] John Gray: A dysfunctional male Okay There's no such thing as toxic. That's why I jumped in, I- Yeah, it's
[01:05:24] Luke Storey: okay
[01:05:24] John Gray: So, so when a man is experiencing cortisol, fight or flight, and some reaction, what's happening is testosterone's going down and his female hormones are overwhelming him Estrogen's going up. So but let's come back to the basics of, so testosterone 10 times more.
[01:05:42] John Gray: Now, when you're feeling really successful or particularly when you're aroused to your wife, your testosterone doubled. And that's why my testosterone are doubled all the time. I'm totally hooked into my wife. I feel desired, loved, supported by my wife completely. And I, I, I'm [01:06:00] dependent upon my own success to keep it up to 10, and then to go beyond that, I'm dependent upon making my wife happier to feel I'm successful in love.
[01:06:09] John Gray: That can take men to the highest level. So a woman, just understand the difference. For women, when they're stressed, their estrogen is low or their progesterone is low. It's different times of the month. And if she's feeling romantic feel- so just when she's feeling stress-free and a happy woman going around doing her thing, her estrogen levels will be 10 times higher than a man's estrogen.
[01:06:33] Luke Storey: Hmm.
[01:06:34] John Gray: Okay? We're complete mirrors of each other, okay? Yeah. So 10 times our... And for her to be org- for her to have romantic feelings towards you, her estrogen levels have to double. That's biological. When a woman's estrogen doubles, her brain produces luteinizing hormone. Luteinizing hormone causes her to produce healthy testosterone, which is the desire to be penetrated for a woman.
[01:06:55] John Gray: There's unhealthy testosterone where she's just stressed out and she's solving problems, because when [01:07:00] women are stressed, their estrogen's going down, their testosterone's going up. So when estrogen's down, testosterone going up,
[01:07:08] John Gray: testosterone's about achievement, accomplishment. She's into the mode of achievement, accomplishment, which shows up if her estrogen is not high. If her estrogen is low, it shows up as overwhelm. This is why women, when they're feeling overwhelmed, they're stuck on their male side and they can't get back to their female side.
[01:07:25] John Gray: And everything we're talking about in my books and in this is how men can help women come back to their female side and, you know, where, where it seems like these modern women say, "I don't really need a man." Yeah, you need a man more than ever before. You can support all the things that you used to use a man for, survival, security, and all that.
[01:07:43] John Gray: Now you need a man to help you come back to connect with your female side. It's not gonna happen unless you decide, you know, you can go to f- 10 times... You can go to 10 times more estrogen with a man just by being with other women, and that's one of the big problems for women today is they don't have enough time with [01:08:00] other women in a not work-oriented stressed environment.
[01:08:02] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.
[01:08:04] John Gray: The example of that, when I first realized that, I was down in Bali 20, 30 years ago and staying in a nice hotel, and there's a river down below and a hill going down and I saw about 30 women all going down to the river, and they're all carrying bundles on their head, and they go down there with rocks and they wash their clothes.
[01:08:24] John Gray: And there's about 60 kids, and they're all having fun. You know, parents aren't having to sit and entertain their children. They're all being entertained by each other, and they're all just going down to the river. They're all talking. It was very noisy. And I was kinda like, "What's that noise?" It's women talking.
[01:08:38] John Gray: And that fulfills one of the primary needs that women have is to feel included, uh, to feel other people are like me. That's a form of connection. The higher form of connection is to experience someone who's not like you and to feel connected with them. See, that takes your estrogen to a higher level.
[01:08:59] Luke Storey: Oh, [01:09:00] yeah, yeah.
[01:09:00] John Gray: That, that's what a, a romantic relationship would provide or even a, a therapeutic relationship where the man is the therapist and you're coming up with feelings that she doesn't... that most men don't have, and he can relate to it. So you're a very sensitive guy. You can relate to a woman's feelings, so she's gonna get that extra boost from you 'cause you can go over to the, the female side of you to connect with her.
[01:09:23] John Gray: For most men, that's primarily the only time we can do that is through... is when our mirror neurons open up. That's a whole nother fun subject in my new book. Uh, see, science is, is great. It's, it's proved all my ideas and taken them to another level, is, is mirror neurons allow a man to feel what somebody feels.
[01:09:46] John Gray: Women, uh, their mirror neurons, it's a system in the brain they can measure in, with brain scans. Women's mirror neurons are open all the time. The more she cares about someone, the more open they are, the more they can feel more deeply what that [01:10:00] person's feeling. For a man, our mirror neurons are closed almost all the time, and the only time they open up is when we feel needed and we're not blamed.
[01:10:11] John Gray: Huh. That's the most important concept in my book, uh, the most recent one Uh, which is for women only, is to understand that when you need a man's help and you're not blaming him for not helping you, that's when his mirror neurons can open, and that's when he can connect with you. He can feel what you're feeling.
[01:10:32] John Gray: If you share your feelings in a context where you need his help, and what would your help be? I need you to hear me. Yeah. 'Cause, see, for women to feel heard is connection. Yeah. So that's what women have to understand, is when I'm stressed, I'm on my male side making testosterone and not making enough estrogen to balance it.
[01:10:49] John Gray: So what I need is to feel he's hearing me. I need to connect with this person who, who loves me. Okay? So, see, I love my wife, but my mirror neurons, if I'm in an adrenaline state, [01:11:00] I, I love her, but I can't fully feel the love. Okay? So they just have to realize that men can love their partners but not feel the love, and if you don't feel the love, then she's not gonna feel the connection.
[01:11:11] John Gray: So once again, women are constantly thinking, "He doesn't love me, he doesn't love me, he doesn't love me," and you're kind, "What are you talking about? I love you. I'm solving this problem. I'm doing this. I'm this way." Yeah. You know? What, what's wrong with me? What's wrong
[01:11:22] Luke Storey: with me? Oh my God. Th- this is so key, right?
[01:11:24] Luke Storey: I think as men, especially in a dynamic wherein you're positioned as the provider, as, as I am currently in, in my relationship, I feel like I'm crushing it because I'm doing so much. I'm grinding. I'm working my ass off. I'm enduring so much stress and having to overcome- It makes
[01:11:46] John Gray: you feel like a man, you know?
[01:11:48] John Gray: You're like a soldier.
[01:11:49] Luke Storey: Yeah. I'm
[01:11:49] John Gray: this thing. And so- And I'm not complaining about it.
[01:11:51] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[01:11:52] John Gray: That's the main thing.
[01:11:53] Luke Storey: 100%. And so there have been times where, you know, I feel like I'm just, like, the best husband in the world, [01:12:00] right? And then there is, you know, something expressed where I realize her needs aren't being fulfilled, and I'm like, "How could your needs not being fulfilled?
[01:12:10] Luke Storey: Do you see all I'm doing?" Right. But it's the hugs, you know, throughout the day. It's the capacity to be able to truly be present and listen. It's like the providing part of it is really almost maybe totally secondary to the- No,
[01:12:27] John Gray: it's primary. Okay. Secondary is taking it to the higher level.
[01:12:30] Luke Storey: Okay.
[01:12:31] John Gray: See, you can't just give hugs and listen to your wife if you don't already feel like a king.
[01:12:36] Luke Storey: Okay, okay. Yeah. But I, I guess what I'm getting at is there have been times, and, you know, this thankfully isn't something that's ongoing because, you know, we evolve and grow, but there have been times where it's like, to speak in general terms You're not doing enough. And I'm looking around going, uh, do you see this- This drives men all men- Do you see this house?
[01:12:57] Luke Storey: Do you know what I went through today? Do you know the [01:13:00] battles I've been fighting out in the world and in my mind and on my emails? And, like, this isn't enough? Are you crazy? Now
[01:13:06] John Gray: let's just take a moment here. Okay. What you just said, you would never say to your wife, but you feel it.
[01:13:11] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah.
[01:13:12] John Gray: If you said that to your wife, she's going, "Do you know what I'm going through?
[01:13:15] John Gray: Do you know how much I do? And do you know what I do for you?" Yes, yes. "And do you know what I..." And it has no effect at all except cause her to feel more complaining for you.
[01:13:22] Luke Storey: Right.
[01:13:22] John Gray: So you... So a man can feel these things, but you gotta contain it. Right. And then, and then you have to understand, again, understanding women makes all the difference.
[01:13:32] John Gray: If you're really, really good at all that stuff, then she can't blame you for that. She has to find something else to complain about you for. See, she has to because she's displaced the problems of her day onto you. She's not happy, and the reason she's not happy is for all these other things, she's not dealing with her emotions and feelings.
[01:13:53] John Gray: That causes stress. So what lowers a woman's stress, let's come back to that basic, which is, there's so much in what you just [01:14:00] said, but the... When a woman's estrogen levels go down... Now, what creates estrogen in a woman is when she feels safe and I have what I need, okay? So this is always why women, they fall in love, oh, th- they have this whole fantasy of what she, her life's gonna be now.
[01:14:15] John Gray: I have, I feel more feminine. I have support. I don't have to do this. I have this. In her mind she's imagining, oh, she's gonna get what she needs. She's gonna get that connection that she's looking for and missing. And so what happens, her estrogen levels go up. That's what all of our romantic rituals are about.
[01:14:31] John Gray: It's about planning a date, so now she anticipates an evening for her. It's this thing that I used to re- I used to wonder, women are always saying, "I have no time for me." What man really says, "I have no time for me"? Okay? We are... And then women feel like we're narcissists because of that. No. We're doing the, the...
[01:14:49] John Gray: A healthy man takes the time for himself so that he can make the money, do the things, correct himself, so he has more to give.
[01:14:56] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[01:14:56] John Gray: Yeah, so this is, like, the way we're designed to be. Yeah. And so, [01:15:00] so he's over taking care of himself. She's lost on her taking care of everybody else, which is, a whole book came out from before Men Are from Mars.
[01:15:08] John Gray: It was very popular. I learned a lot about women reading that book, called Co-Dependent No More.
[01:15:13] Luke Storey: Oh, yeah.
[01:15:14] John Gray: Every woman should read that book. Classic. You know, it's a classic book, just like Men Are from Mars. Classic. Doesn't really give you the solutions I give, but boy, it sure helped me understand women. So the understanding there, if I simplify it all in one word, which is co-dependence, 'cause it's kind of a crazy word, means making your partner's needs more important than your own.
[01:15:38] Luke Storey: In my mid-50s here, I've reached a point where I'm not trying to do more for my health. I'm all about doing less, but doing it better. The thing is, stacking supplements and protocols only gets you so far if your body never actually resets. That's why I lean hard into infrared sauna therapy. I've been doing it for, God, almost 30 years now.
[01:15:58] Luke Storey: For me, it's hands [01:16:00] down one of the most reliable ways to downshift my nervous system, improve recovery, and support better sleep and detox. And the sauna I love and use is the Amplify sauna from SunLighten. SunLighten spent over 25 years refining patented infrared technology to deliver the wavelengths your body responds to best.
[01:16:19] Luke Storey: Full spectrum infrared, higher heat, faster sessions. I hop in that bad boy, get a real sweat, and get out without wasting a second of my valuable time. And with consistent use, it supports your body's natural detox pathways, which in today's world is an absolute must. And SunLighten has got a serious hookup for you.
[01:16:39] Luke Storey: Visit lukestory.com/sunlighten and use the code lukestory to save up to 1,600 bucks on your purchase. Plus, get free shipping and additional discounts throughout the year. 'Cause being healthy isn't about doing more. It's about setting the conditions for your body to clear what it never needed in the first place.
[01:16:58] Luke Storey: So again, this life-changing [01:17:00] technology can be found at lukestory.com/sunlighten. And if you know what's good for you, you definitely wanna input that code lukestory to save you up to
[01:17:08] John Gray: $1,600.
[01:17:13] Luke Storey: I was trying to define codependency in writing my book, and it was so difficult to come up with something that wasn't just, I don't know-
[01:17:21] John Gray: It's
[01:17:21] Luke Storey: complicated ... psychobabble. Yeah, psychobabble. You know
[01:17:23] John Gray: what I mean? Right, right. It's
[01:17:24] Luke Storey: like, what is the essence of it? That's really good.
[01:17:26] John Gray: Is the bottom line. Ma- and it's making your partner's needs more important or making the needs of others more important than you are.
[01:17:31] John Gray: There's not a- Yeah ... woman that's unhappy that comes into my office isn't overwhelmed with so much time, with no much time for herself. Okay, so they're not making themselves, finding the balance of what it is I need. And then they, then... But when they, when they look at their feelings, their feelings sound the opposite because they're saying, "I don't get this, I don't get this, I don't get this."
[01:17:52] John Gray: 'Cause they're putting their energy out there, and they're not learning how to bring the energy in. So another paradoxical thing, up is down, [01:18:00] down is up, is giving. Giving is masculine. From a place of compassion, that's where you can give love unconditionally, and from a place of wisdom is where women can give love unconditionally.
[01:18:13] John Gray: Otherwise, there's no such thing as unconditional love, um, except with your children. See, this is why when you can have children or your little pet, you know, you have someone who you see as a part of you, and you give love to them, you're giving it to yourself. It's kinda automatic if they're your own children.
[01:18:31] John Gray: You, you know, that's me over there. That's a part of me over there. My grandchildren, that's half of me over there. So, so I'm giving that child, I'm giving to myself. See, that's the unity consciousness. That's what we all aspire towards, is to feel oneness towards all and gener- generosity and giving. And there are a lot of people walking around with universal love, but they can't make a relationship work.
[01:18:50] John Gray: They gotta ground that. You gotta test it. You gotta bring it. You gotta really heal it by being in an intimate relationship that brings up your stuff. 'Cause if you don't know how to bring [01:19:00] up your stuff and deal with it and come back to love, you can find a million reasons why you shouldn't love somebody until you process your emotions, and then you can come back to universe, this divine love that's inside that sees the good in everybody.
[01:19:11] John Gray: And then if you're with a man and you're experiencing the goodness of him, he will mirror it. Everything about men is mirroring women. It's as simple as I walk around with no complaints with my wife, and then she starts complaining about me, and I... This is before I learned what I'm about to tell you.
[01:19:27] John Gray: She'd complain about me. Every complaint she had about me, I had for her. I said, "But I didn't complain about it. I just let it go," 'cause that's how men process, just let it go. Exactly. It's stupid to hold on to it. Just let it go. You know, we're, how we're designed, we're designed, there's actually a part of the brain which is called hippocampus.
[01:19:44] John Gray: It, in men, m- most women it's twice as big as in men. That's the memory. Because when women are stressed, blood flow goes to that part of the brain to remember all the problems of the past, to imagine what f- future problems could be. So when women are stressed, they need to [01:20:00] remember what's bothering them and are to feel it and express it, and so the brain can process it and be heard.
[01:20:07] John Gray: So while women need to remember in order to express their feelings, men need to forget in order to feel successful. See, I can have all these failures in my past- Wow. Wow ... but I could do, be right now in present time and do something nice and I can forget all that. It's when I'm not doing stuff in present time, then I can start to remember all the things in my past and that would be, uh, makes me more like a woman.
[01:20:29] John Gray: And then I start becoming overrea- part of myself, feeling bad of myself or whatever. It's like men have to learn how to manage emotions and feelings, and we'll get to that eventually. Mm-hmm. How do you process feelings, a man? How do you do it for a woman? But simply put, the, the simplicity of it is women need to remember, men need to forget.
[01:20:48] John Gray: And then after they remember, they will forget, okay? Can let it go. Uh, and so anytime my wife's upset with me, my fear if I don't understand women, is she's gonna hold this against me forever. [01:21:00] Because as you know, as men, they'll bring it up again and again and again in the middle of an argument. It's just terrible how women bring stuff up.
[01:21:06] John Gray: You know?
[01:21:06] Luke Storey: Like- Why, why is that?
[01:21:09] John Gray: Because they're in a stress state, their brain goes into memory. But literally, like, how do they keep track of things from so long ago that I, like I have- They're designed to do it. Designed... See, they live in a world of fear much more than us. Okay. Okay? Now, if you're really on your male side, I have no fears.
[01:21:27] John Gray: Like I've... When your testosterone goes down, you, your estrogen levels start to go up. That's your female side, and then you'll have fears a- and you have anxieties, you have depression. Any negative thing in a man is always too much estrogen, not enough ma- masculinity, not enough testosterone. In that moment.
[01:21:43] John Gray: It can fluctuate. A guy could be walking around with no problem, like I'm with my wife and there's no problem. Now, this is years ago. I've fixed all this stuff. But years ago she'd, like, have these complaints and I didn't fully understand that women only complain when they feel less than you. [01:22:00] Just take that one in.
[01:22:01] John Gray: This is what, it's just, it's like you're walking around feeling like everything's fine, they start to feel inadequate, so I wanna put you down. That's what a complaint is. Let's, but let's push him down. Let's push him down. My old joke for this was men spend their whole lives climbing the ladder. They get married, and her job is to knock it down.
[01:22:20] John Gray: It's connection. If she's not feeling good, she's gonna bring it down. So if she has a complaint, already it's because she's not getting something she needs, and she's a little upset, and he's all feeling so good. He needs to not feel good. Uh, they're not conscious of it, but that's really what's going on.
[01:22:34] John Gray: If I g-
[01:22:35] Luke Storey: So it's like an unconscious, uh, need for coherence.
[01:22:38] John Gray: That's connection.
[01:22:39] Luke Storey: Right? There's, there's-
[01:22:40] John Gray: I can't connect with you when you're feeling so good.
[01:22:42] Luke Storey: Right. So there's a l- there's like a lack of resonance. There, you're out of tune in a sense, and so it's an unconscious effort to bring the- Connection
[01:22:50] Luke Storey: the connection
[01:22:51] John Gray: back into tune. And, and if I complain, I'm... Behind a woman's complaints often is I'm suffering and I'm unhappy.
[01:22:56] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.
[01:22:57] John Gray: You can't be happy.
[01:22:59] Luke Storey: Interesting. [01:23:00]
[01:23:00] John Gray: And it's not like i- it's all unconscious, so. Yeah, yeah. But just from the conscious point of view, if some people may not wanna buy that 'cause they don't understand what goes on inside of them.
[01:23:08] John Gray: But what's also happening whenever complaints are there is their estrogen levels are low. This is very biological thing. Estrogen goes up when you feel, "I have what I need. I feel safe. I have what I need." And then when you add to that, like my wife can be happy on her own, this is the theme of my book for women only, it's your job, women, is to be happy and let him make you happier.
[01:23:30] John Gray: Don't make a man the source of your happiness. He's the source of your higher happiness. It's your job to find your happiness.
[01:23:37] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.
[01:23:37] John Gray: Then man's job is, simply put, is easy. All I have to do is make her happier, and that's what men have to understand, and it's a key thing. I never... My wife's unhappy, what, I don't ever take it personally.
[01:23:50] John Gray: I go, "That's her job." Doesn't mean I don't care or I blame her, whatever, none of that. And I would never say that if she's blaming me for something. I would say, "What? I'm not responsible for [01:24:00] your problems." I'll listen. Just listen. And then her estrogen will go up, and she can't have any blame for me. She'll just let it go.
[01:24:06] John Gray: She comes back to being in love with me.
[01:24:08] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.
[01:24:08] John Gray: This is, this is why it, y- y- we men unknowingly sabotage our relationships by trying to change our wives when they're upset rather than learning these basic skills, and one of the skills is listening. It's a very big one, learning how to do it, and it doesn't mean you listen for more than 10 minutes 'cause it will start building up inside.
[01:24:28] John Gray: Yeah, I mean, one, it could be putting you to sleep, but if you're feeling blamed, then you start feeling a little annoyed and irritated. Yeah. You contain, and you suck it up. And I've told my wife anytime she sees me complaining, 'cause occasionally I'll complain about something, I told her, "What I want you to say to me is suck it up I, I just love that phrase.
[01:24:48] John Gray: It's kinda kinda right. Yes. They, what, what am I doing? I'm going to my female side, you know? Get out of that mode. And suck it up is such a good phrase because literally suck it up means pull your abs in, and that makes huge [01:25:00] testosterone.
[01:25:01] Luke Storey: Oh, wow.
[01:25:01] John Gray: Just suck up your testos- Just suck it in, hold it in
[01:25:06] Luke Storey: So I g- I got a question for you, uh, that I've wanted to ask you- I
[01:25:09] John Gray: would never tell my wife to suck it up, okay?
[01:25:11] John Gray: She doesn't- Yeah,
[01:25:11] Luke Storey: yeah. Yeah ...
[01:25:12] John Gray: produce much testosterone, okay?
[01:25:12] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's, um...
[01:25:14] John Gray: Insult.
[01:25:15] Luke Storey: Don't worry about it is, is not an effective, uh, response.
[01:25:19] John Gray: Never works. Never works. Never works.
[01:25:21] Luke Storey: Why are you worrying about that? That doesn't matter. Yeah. That's not a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Wrong answer. Uh, but the thing I'm curious about, you know, we're talking about e- everything, you know, we're, you're sharing and we're talking about here is we're talking about biology, right?
[01:25:34] Luke Storey: You have a male and you have a female. Yes. What I've always wondered is in same-sex relationships where you have two, two women or two men, for example, how do these dynamics play out? Like, how could your work be applied to that 'cause there's so much sameness, right? We're talking about- Yeah ... how to capitalize on our- Yeah
[01:25:55] Luke Storey: differences and- Yeah ... actually make, make the unit stronger. But when there is [01:26:00] biological sameness, how do you, how do you work with that? You know, 'cause there's- Well, I- ... there's going to be the energetics, obviously- You know, uh ... of polarity there.
[01:26:07] John Gray: I,
[01:26:07] Luke Storey: I don't- But there's still biology ...
[01:26:08] John Gray: I don't like to step out of my lane.
[01:26:10] John Gray: Okay. And, and my lane is based on my life experience- Got it ... and then 45 years of counseling men and women.
[01:26:16] Luke Storey: Okay.
[01:26:16] John Gray: So I don't really know all those dynamics. And- Fair ... I can, I can project a little bit, and I, uh, we just don't have a lot of research to back up what my possible ideas would be, so I wouldn't dare go into those.
[01:26:28] John Gray: But I can give you some research, and that is when you think about divorce, who do you think has the most divorce?
[01:26:36] Luke Storey: Um, I have no idea, but my guess-
[01:26:39] John Gray: Yeah. Gay men, gay
[01:26:40] Luke Storey: women ... would be
[01:26:41] John Gray: lez- les- les mens would be my guess. You're obviously right.
[01:26:43] Luke Storey: That's right.
[01:26:45] John Gray: Yeah. '
[01:26:46] Luke Storey: Cause I know how difficult it can be to get along with women.
[01:26:50] Luke Storey: Imagine two women, oh my God. How do you guys handle each other?
[01:26:53] John Gray: And who do you think has the longest marriages?
[01:26:56] Luke Storey: Uh,
[01:26:59] John Gray: probably gay [01:27:00] men. Yes. Really? Yes.
[01:27:02] Luke Storey: Oh my God.
[01:27:02] John Gray: We don't need to talk about feelings. We don't need to get in arguments. We just wanna make sense with each other. Uh, we- Yeah,
[01:27:08] Luke Storey: we want peace.
[01:27:09] John Gray: Yeah, just want peace.
[01:27:10] John Gray: Just let me be.
[01:27:11] Luke Storey: Yeah, I just want peace.
[01:27:12] John Gray: And so I understand. I'm another guy, just give me, give him peace. Give him peace. My, um... There's a, a sort of a new age thing about men don't wanna be, you know, just these workers, and providers, and do things for women. We want you to love us and let us, uh, love our being, who we are.
[01:27:30] John Gray: And, and while that's a real nice sounding thing, I want my efforts to be appreciated, not my being. But ultimately, there is one place I want my being to be seen, which is let me be. Just let me be. And for women, let her be. Mm. See, this is the essence. But it's just simply that's a non-doing anything. It's just let somebody be.
[01:27:51] John Gray: Don't love my being. I don't need you to love my being. I'm... My being doesn't need your love, but I need you to let me be and love me without- [01:28:00] Trying to change me Yes,
[01:28:01] Luke Storey: yes And
[01:28:02] John Gray: for me as a man-
[01:28:02] Luke Storey: It's like acceptance
[01:28:04] John Gray: Just, it's acceptance Yeah. Yeah, yeah And it, it's a, again, when I go through everything, it's through the filters of 40 years of men and women.
[01:28:10] John Gray: Men just want acceptance. And by the way, acceptance is a major testosterone producer. Women, on the surface, want acceptance, of course, everybody wants acceptance, but on a hormonal level, women want understanding They wanna... Don't just accept me, understand me. Yeah. Understand why I'm this way. Understand how I feel.
[01:28:30] John Gray: It's understand how I feel.
[01:28:31] Luke Storey: Yes, yes. You
[01:28:32] John Gray: know, it's men do, women feel. Those are the key factors- Okay ... big differences.
[01:28:35] Luke Storey: I like
[01:28:35] John Gray: that. So love what I do. It's enough. It's more than enough sometimes. That's good enough. It's just like, let me be, please. Just stay out of my cave if you... And then women go, "Well, he's just gonna...
[01:28:47] John Gray: He can just do what he wants?" Yeah, that's the point of being with somebody you love. They can do what they want, and you can do what you want. Well, then how do I get him out of his cave? 'Cause it is true, you know, the idea of a cave, for those that have read Men Are From Mars, is [01:29:00] men go to work, they run out of testosterone if they're producing a lot of adrenaline.
[01:29:04] John Gray: And I have the research showing that, is that solving problems produces testosterone. But if you're in the adrenaline state, your testosterone goes much higher and you become depleted. That's why successful work, we're pumping high adrenaline here, you know, more... Maybe we're not. I'm not even feeling any adrenaline, but what I'm...
[01:29:21] John Gray: Just dopamine makes testosterone. Dopamine is you're needed and you're challenged. And, but then you can get, uh, like if I have a time deadline or whatever, it's gonna go adrenaline. And adrenaline is higher testosterone, uh, disconnection from emotions completely, and you run out of testosterone, and you need to rebuild testosterone, and you do it by being alone, doing something that challenges you, that has no stressful consequence if you're not successful.
[01:29:51] John Gray: Something you're good at. But, like, let's say I, I mean, for me, it's meditation, you know? I mean, that, that's the ultimate most ancient testosterone [01:30:00] builder on the planet. Every culture has always taught men to meditate. And what is meditation? Forget your problems and be quiet.
[01:30:08] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[01:30:08] John Gray: Just men just men-
[01:30:10] Luke Storey: When I m- when I meet guys that don't meditate, I'm like, how have you not offed yourself?
[01:30:15] Luke Storey: Like, honestly.
[01:30:16] John Gray: Well, what they do, they do other things. Okay. They, they work out in the gym.
[01:30:19] Luke Storey: Right.
[01:30:20] John Gray: Okay, they're using their muscles. Which I
[01:30:21] Luke Storey: don't do.
[01:30:21] John Gray: Okay. You're right, me neither. So you go, you go, you work out in the gym, and what you do in the gym's not gonna cause danger to you later in life. You know, when you go to work, if you don't do your job, you could lose money and life falls apart, so there's always a stress element to that.
[01:30:34] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.
[01:30:34] John Gray: So you're stressing your muscles, but there's no real danger.
[01:30:38] Luke Storey: Got
[01:30:38] John Gray: it. You're challenging yourself. Got it. It, it, it could be some guys have hobbies, you know. They're rebuilding a car, you know. Some guys have train sets. It doesn't even matter. My, my theme for women is anything that a woman thinks is a waste of time is great testosterone booster for a man.
[01:30:53] John Gray: But the problem with that is that often men can go in their cave, and it feels so good, [01:31:00] you just stay in your cave. And so my new book teaches women how to get a man out of the cave. And, and simply put, although I-
[01:31:09] Luke Storey: Take your clothes off?
[01:31:11] John Gray: Yes. Okay. But usually if he's in his cave too long, she doesn't feel like taking her clothes off.
[01:31:16] Luke Storey: Right. So if- There's not... 'Cause the connection is starting
[01:31:18] John Gray: to- The connection's not there ... dissipate. Yeah. See, if she's feeling disconnected, her estrogen's very low. She can't feel romantic feelings. Sex is, to a certain extent for most women, disgusting, and you have to realize, disgusting, if her estrogen levels aren't 10 times higher than yours.
[01:31:35] John Gray: Then she starts getting turned on when they start going higher. So when they double, you know, she's ready to be penetrated, and she wants you 10- I'd say at least double what you want her. Double. That's my wife. I mean- Wow ... she, she loves sex with me, and I just have to say no. Like I just finished a five- I, I, I just finished a five-day fast, and I said, "Look, I can't do it because I, I got, um, [01:32:00] all my body's going to..."
[01:32:01] John Gray: You know, when you're on a fast, you get to cleanse your body, your body's regenerating itself and so forth. I... You know, people go, "How do you have such high testosterone at, in your 70s?" You know, my libido is greater than it's ever been. Uh, that's a- another subject to talk about, but it's all about healthy testosterone.
[01:32:17] John Gray: And we can talk about why it goes down in men and women, but we're still covering just sort of the basics-
[01:32:21] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm ...
[01:32:22] John Gray: of, you know, road rage. You know, this is men being violent or really angry, and this typically happens when men take testosterone. So you think, "How does he have road rage when he takes testosterone?"
[01:32:36] John Gray: What happens is if you take testosterone, you didn't earn it. See, my testosterone, 'cause I feel confident and capable and successful. So if you didn't make your testosterone based on, "I'm confident, capable and successful," then it's easy to lose confidence 'cause you haven't really earned it. So it's not like testosterone makes you confident.
[01:32:57] John Gray: You're confident- Got it ... testosterone goes up. [01:33:00] But you can feel confident 'cause you're making testosterone, but then somebody just cuts you off and makes you feel like they're more powerful than you. You feel triggered. You feel controlled. Don't control me. And what happens in that moment is testosterone aromatases into estrogen, so he gets a peak of estrogen, and that's what causes road rage.
[01:33:21] John Gray: Unearned testosterone converting into estrogen. Now, the same thing could happen. Let's say I come home, I love my family and I need to- Uh, my wife wants me to listen to her and talk, uh, it just exhausts me because I don't have testosterone and now I'm connecting with her, my estrogen's going up. And as my estrogen's going up, it doesn't help testosterone go up.
[01:33:43] John Gray: It's, it's I'm going into her world. So when a man's estrogen goes up, testosterone tends to go down unless you're turned on or unless you're solving a problem for her. When you're solving a problem for her and you're feeling very successful, your testosterone rises and estrogen goes up as well. [01:34:00] The only time you can literally recover and listen to a woman without testosterone going down, if she's very clear that she needs your help and she's not blaming you.
[01:34:12] John Gray: So if I came home and there's a leaky roof and my wife says, "Oh my God, there's a puddle of water in the living room, we gotta do something," instantly my testosterone go up. Urgency, I need to help her and, and do something. But then after that, because it takes adrenaline to kick me, kick it up, I would have to go to my cave again to do something that would rebuild my testosterone.
[01:34:32] John Gray: Now, another thing that can do it is, is for a guy, is watching the news and watching football. See, these are all okay. You know, we have our meditation thing and... But when you watch the news, you're hearing other people's problems, but it's not your problem. Oh, right. So you're not, you, you're forgetting your own problems and looking at their problems.
[01:34:51] John Gray: And you're also, m- many times you listen to stupid things, people do stupid things, you feel smarter than those people. So already, you know, you're analyzing them. [01:35:00] You're solving problems, you know? Oh, it's brilliant. It's like, I like to watch the news. I watch it about this war that's going on. I'm trying to figure out how to solve this thing.
[01:35:07] John Gray: So as long as I'm trying to figure out how to solve it, I'm making testosterone. As long as I'm hearing other people's problems, I'm forgetting my own problems. So this is the idea. You're, you have to literally forget your problems temporarily, and we have a lot of strategies for doing that, which is one of them is there's a problem, and this is during the day, I'm out of my cave, but something's stressing me out.
[01:35:27] John Gray: It says, "Okay, what am I gonna do about this?" Uh, and just coming here, it was interesting. I, I'm, I'm giving a talk at the, um, Dave Asprey this afternoon and, uh, it's really wonderful for me because- You know, I've aged. Not everybody recognizes... It's fun to be recognized sometimes, and, but I just did the Dave Asprey show, and so, and these are all Da- Dave Asprey fans.
[01:35:49] John Gray: So this like 5,000 people all just got this video. It's, it's one guy at the elevator, he says, "You're John Gray. It's, I watched that show three times." You know? Yeah,
[01:35:59] Luke Storey: yeah, yeah.
[01:35:59] John Gray: I've [01:36:00] never watched a Dave Asprey show three times, you know? This is like... But there's so much information. People watch this again and again and again- Yeah
[01:36:06] John Gray: 'cause we're covering huge amounts of life transformational information. Um-
[01:36:11] Luke Storey: I mean, I wasn't exaggerating when you walked in and we started, saying you, I mean, you changed my life and my relationship. I owe so much to the success of my marriage to stuff I've learned from you. I mean, this is our, this is our f- fourth?
[01:36:26] Luke Storey: Yeah. I think fourth time. This is our fourth-
[01:36:27] John Gray: Yeah ...
[01:36:27] Luke Storey: our fourth interview. Yeah. That have all been, you know, long, deep dives like this, and I'm someone who, for whatever reason, I'm just wired, when I, when I hear a principle that really lands with me, I grab it, and I use it, and I apply it, and I try it out.
[01:36:43] John Gray: Well, you see, y-
[01:36:43] Luke Storey: And if it works, it just gets integrated into my character, and it's just what I do now, like the listening thing. Another thing I got from you early on was, you know, listening to your woman, right? But then you think they're done sharing th- what they need to [01:37:00] share, their feelings, moving that energy.
[01:37:01] Luke Storey: There's always more. There's always more. There's always... I mean, this is, the, we've been doing this the whole relationship. She comes home, oh, this girl did this, that, you know, she has something going on socially or whatever that's stressing her out. She tells me about it. I sit down. I make sure that I'm, you know, have cleared myself enough, uh, you know, had a little cave time so I can really be present for that, right?
[01:37:21] Luke Storey: And she'll tell me. I, and I just shut up and listen. I open my heart. I'm just loving on her. And she'll be done. She's like, "Okay, that's it." And I go, "Is there anything else? Is there more?" "No, no, that's it." Well, actually, there's always more. It'll take, you know, two to four rounds of "is there more" before she's like, "Okay, I'm totally done."
[01:37:40] Luke Storey: And then at that point, I'm like, "Would you like any feedback? I might have some ideas to share. Are you open to that?"
[01:37:46] John Gray: Always asking.
[01:37:47] Luke Storey: Oh, yeah. I n- Yeah ... oh, I don't say shit without permission. And, and
[01:37:48] John Gray: ne-
[01:37:48] Luke Storey: never minimizing. Never minimize. Oh, no. Oh, my gosh. Well, that, you know, that's another thing, actually, that I wanted to talk to you about.
[01:37:55] Luke Storey: So you're a longtime meditator, right? I think we, you know, we kind of share [01:38:00] a worldview i- in that way of- 30,
[01:38:04] John Gray: 55 years
[01:38:05] Luke Storey: Okay. Yeah You got 25 on me or so, right? So the idea that, the way I look at it at least, is I'm, I, you know, I'm building that witness perspective- Mm-hmm ... the observer perspective to where there's an aspect of myself that is able to watch the phenomenon of my feelings and my thoughts and whatever is happening with the persona of me, right?
[01:38:29] Luke Storey: So learning how to not take my thoughts as fact or truth, and being able to di- you know, disengage from them and question their validity, right? So I have a thought about something. Right My mind says, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," and there's a me f- that's been meditating for a while going, "Is that really true, or is that just the mind playing a game," right?
[01:38:52] Luke Storey: So if, if my wife is sharing some things going on and I'm coming from that kind of higher [01:39:00] perspective, it's tempting for me to go, "Well, that's just your mind. Don't listen to your mind." You know? Like you said, "Forget about it. That thing that happened today, that's not important." That's right. Your mind's just grabbing onto it.
[01:39:10] Luke Storey: But that doesn't work for her like it works for me. If I had some drama-
[01:39:15] John Gray: Meaning she, she doesn't need to witness herself, right?
[01:39:17] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah. Well,
[01:39:18] John Gray: it- You... See, what happens is she's sharing. Because you're witnessing her, she can witness it. Women can't witness their feelings.
[01:39:25] Luke Storey: Ah, okay.
[01:39:26] John Gray: They, they have to sort of get them out.
[01:39:27] John Gray: That's why they have to talk. Okay. If they talk, they can... Or when they journal. Journaling's a big deal, okay? When you can write out what your feelings, express them on paper, now you can see them better. That's me over the... That's how women see themselves is in that mirror. Okay. So if you're mirroring her, okay, if you're taking in what she says, receiving it, if it lands inside of you-
[01:39:47] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm
[01:39:47] John Gray: she can then see herself through that. If a woman is sharing with a guy and he's not really letting it come in, he's busy thinking, "Well, that's wrong. Well, she should do that. She should do that," what's happening is it's not [01:40:00] landing, so she's not gonna hear herself.
[01:40:02] Luke Storey: Ah,
[01:40:02] John Gray: yeah. A, a simple takeaway with this for couples when they argue, although my books explain why you don't, you never need to argue, okay?
[01:40:08] John Gray: But you can be honest and op- it, it's, I, you can solve all these problems. That's a big one to solve, but the- There's a common thing where couples argue, and men will have the last word. See, it's sort of a dominant thing of masculinity. He'll do the... It's the worst thing you can ever do. Strategy, if a woman has the last word, because all words in an argument are really negative and n- doesn't make you feel good, okay?
[01:40:32] John Gray: So let the woman always have the last word, and then when she walks away, she's gonna be hearing herself. If you're the last word, then all she's gonna be doing is defending herself against your last word.
[01:40:45] Luke Storey: Oh, wow. That's good.
[01:40:46] John Gray: Creating a space for her to hear herself. Yeah. And that's a little example when there's a, uh, a- arguments and whatever.
[01:40:52] John Gray: M- in my work, again, I got fixes for everything, and they're all in the new book, For Women Only. See, men don't have to read it. A woman can [01:41:00] completely bring out your best side, 'cause she just has to be the person... She has to have the feelings that you will automatically mirror. I'll just say this again, I said it earlier.
[01:41:09] John Gray: I just remember my wife used to complain and, and I would just listen to it, and she'd say, "You know, you, you always forget to do this." And I, immediately I go, "Well, you always forget to do that, too." It's like we're gonna bounce back always. We'll always have a complaint. If she has a complaint, we'll have a complaint.
[01:41:25] John Gray: Because we mirror her. If she learns how to not complain, we'll have no complaints. Now, what I've also learned in my life is complaints are destructive to me. At least, I can think them, but what you're getting at here- Mm-hmm ... is I don't believe them.
[01:41:39] Luke Storey: Yes.
[01:41:39] John Gray: Now, let me, let me explain the biology of never believe your thoughts.
[01:41:43] John Gray: It gives you more edge to, to realize that I know this is true, but I'm completely full of it. Okay, now how do I know that? Any time you have a negative feeling associated with a thought, whether this be man or a woman, your thinking is wrong. Your thinking is causing you pain.
[01:41:59] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[01:41:59] John Gray: [01:42:00] Who's causing you pain?
[01:42:01] John Gray: You. Why are you causing your pain? Because you're not connected to truth.
[01:42:05] Luke Storey: Yes.
[01:42:06] John Gray: So your thinking is wrong. And may have-
[01:42:08] Luke Storey: Perception ...
[01:42:08] John Gray: some, some, some parts of it might be true.
[01:42:10] Luke Storey: It's a perceptual problem It, the
[01:42:13] John Gray: w- Or how you're interpreting perception ... Yeah,
[01:42:14] Luke Storey: yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, so like what I was getting at, okay, I go out in the world, uh, you know, this person cut me off in traffic, somebody was rude at the bank, right?
[01:42:23] John Gray: Yeah.
[01:42:24] Luke Storey: And then if I'm on my way home, I'll see, that witness part of me will see that the mind is trying to latch onto that and make meaning out of it. In other words, my perception is starting to create a story around that, but there's a wiser part of me that says, "That story's not true. That's the mind making up a story," and therefore- That's
[01:42:43] John Gray: Luke's story, told you, the folks-
[01:42:45] Luke Storey: Yeah
[01:42:45] Luke Storey: that understand. But therefore, by the time I get home, I've already let it go. Yeah. It's just- And,
[01:42:48] John Gray: and it's important that- '
[01:42:49] Luke Storey: Cause I know it's a phantom. It's not real, and so it's just like, I don't want that. But if I go to my wife, who had the same experience, and she comes home, and I'm like, "That's just your mind.
[01:42:59] Luke Storey: Just forget [01:43:00] about
[01:43:00] John Gray: it." Yeah, you never tell her that,
[01:43:00] Luke Storey: right. It doesn't work.
[01:43:02] John Gray: Doesn't work. No- Yeah ... they have to tell the story out loud.
[01:43:04] Luke Storey: Okay, yeah.
[01:43:05] John Gray: And have somebody
[01:43:05] Luke Storey: not react to it. This is, I mean, this is really important- Yeah ... especially for, you know, people that share this kind of model of like, wow, okay, let's not always...
[01:43:13] Luke Storey: You know, it's like Byron Katie, you know, the mind says something, you say, "Is that true?" You go, "Oh, shit, that's not true. I'm letting it go. It's over. The problem over."
[01:43:20] John Gray: Yeah, the problem with Byron, I know her personal life, and I- I've talked with her, and she says, "Well, I don't need my husband at all." See, what she has done with that- Uh-huh
[01:43:29] John Gray: see, that's a really good concept.
[01:43:31] Luke Storey: Uh-huh.
[01:43:31] John Gray: Concepts can be really good, but if you just go in that one lane, it might be missing a lot of other things.
[01:43:36] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[01:43:36] John Gray: And so if you can process everything, any time you're upset about anything, you can do what Byron says, which is good. You know, what story am I telling myself?
[01:43:45] John Gray: What's another story I would tell myself? I do all that work, too, but, but it's, now you come back to love and you realize that even though I've just let go of all these negative thoughts and feelings, I still need love, and if I don't get love, I'm gonna be unhappy. [01:44:00] Yeah. It's food. You, you, I- Yeah
[01:44:01] John Gray: eventually, I need food. I need oxygen. I need... We need each other, and we can get caught up into so much, I can be happy on my own- Mm-hmm ... that I don't need a man. So the theme of the new book for men and- Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, For Women Only, it's, like, so much more advanced than my other books.
[01:44:20] John Gray: The subtitle is Be Happy, so she'll tell you how to be happy, but the subtitle is Be Happy With a Man or Without a Man. 'Cause if you can't be happy without a man, you have to be first, even though you're in a relationship, you have to be happy without depending on that guy, and then become happier you depend on him, and that whole teaching can push you in the wrong direction- Got it
[01:44:42] John Gray: if you don't have that extra little piece.
[01:44:44] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah. '
[01:44:44] John Gray: Cause so many women today are, "I don't... What do I need a man for?" And you can't feel, you can't feel love unless you can feel, "I need you." And that's, like, counter to so many... It's up and down, down is up, uh- Mm-hmm,
[01:44:58] Luke Storey: mm-hmm ...
[01:44:59] John Gray: it- [01:45:00] it's when you're hungry and somebody feeds you, you'll always truly feel love.
[01:45:05] John Gray: And just for fun, because we have sort of an esoteric audience, I've spent 18 trips to India. I've been all around. I studied the whole thing. Been to China 18 times. I'm Tai Chi master, all that stuff. You know, I've learned all these different things, but the most important thing is loving my family and my children, just to put it in that perspective- Mm-hmm
[01:45:23] John Gray: that those things have helped me. But in India, they have these beggars, these s- spiritual people who don't have any possessions, so they have a little bowl and they, they have to m- they need you for food, and the whole part of that tradition is when you get a very advanced soul, they can't feel what they need.
[01:45:43] John Gray: See, you're so happy within yourself, what do I need? I'm... Once you're one with God, God does everything, right? If you really are the witness, God does everything. You know, you're not doing anything. I never feel I do anything, okay? It's just like I have no idea what I'm gonna say next. I'm listening to myself talk along with you.
[01:45:59] John Gray: Mm-hmm. Which is [01:46:00] gonna be captivating when I give talks, because if you have a, a talk that you've done over and over, it gets kinda boring, you know, to the audience, even if they've never heard it. It's, it's just remembering something rather than being something. But anyway, so you get to a very high meditative state- This is one way they dealt with it.
[01:46:15] John Gray: Their culture is then you become a sadhu. You give up all attachments. You're able then to reconnect with the divine self, 'cause you're not being drawn out, you're being drawn in. So then, because you don't have food, you have your little bowl, and you are hungry, and your body needs food. So you reach out with the little bowl, and if it's a real sadhu, you will be blessed.
[01:46:36] John Gray: That's how you get... It's like a cycle. You're giving me what I need, and then I feel genuine love on the physical plane for you. S- thank you so much. Thank you so much for that little whatever. You are then blessed. So it's a way the spiritual people would bless the not so spiritual people.
[01:46:52] Luke Storey: Oh, that's wild.
[01:46:53] Luke Storey: I didn't
[01:46:54] John Gray: know that. It's a wild th- it's a circulation, and-
[01:46:56] Luke Storey: That's cool ...
[01:46:57] John Gray: you could go around, you could tell who are the real sadhus and who [01:47:00] are just, uh, people being irresponsible and not taking responsibility for their life. Because you give them something, and they want more.
[01:47:07] Luke Storey: Ah.
[01:47:08] John Gray: They want more, more, more.
[01:47:08] John Gray: Right. As opposed to, "Thank you so..." Whatever you give, a penny, "Thank you so much." A banana, "Thank you so much." Some little thing is a big deal to them, 'cause they're in their high spiritual state, but their body needs that food. Their gratitude then blesses you. So the whole thing is going around testing, and I would do this.
[01:47:29] John Gray: I'd go around and test who are the real ones, and the only real ones were usually in the woods. And they're... I mean, I was in one holy place, and they're like these beggars, and I gave it to one, and he attacked me every time. He attacked my wife. They own you once they get money from you. It was just, like, dangerous.
[01:47:44] John Gray: You know, they literally... My wife was really mad at me. "You should have never given money to that guy. He thinks he owns me." You know? So, so it's like, again, 'cause these are just men who didn't earn their money, so they're needy and whatever. It's very different from a real sadhu, a real saint, who's connecting with the divine but needs [01:48:00] food.
[01:48:00] John Gray: And their need brings out the best of people. So this is... As I'm describing that, that's the perfect relationship of a man and woman, is a woman has to feel her need. Then she can feel love. And if she's feeling love without... And you feel love, I need you. You did something for me. Now, I feel gratitude. I feel appreciation.
[01:48:19] John Gray: I feel safe. I feel trust. These are all things men need most. And as she's feeling that, that's food for our soul The reason it works so well is when she needs help and he provides help and there's no blame inside of her, no message of that wasn't enough. So at that point, our mirror neurons turn on and that creates the witness state in us.
[01:48:43] John Gray: Oh, wow. The state you're practicing, that's how you get the witness state. Wow. Your brain is blank.
[01:48:47] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[01:48:48] John Gray: And you can be totally present with a woman. Yes. And when it's, when it's your wife, somebody you love, because you have a connection, you're totally present. Now, what mirror neurons do is they allow you to feel what somebody's [01:49:00] feeling.
[01:49:00] John Gray: If she's feeling love and my mirror neurons open up, now I can feel her love. So a woman could say in her head, "I appreciate him so much," but she can't, "I can't let it in," and nor is she fully feeling it. Because to the extent a woman blames her husband, she can't fully feel her feelings. Okay? She feels victim.
[01:49:18] John Gray: She's gonna, she can have positive feelings, but also negative feelings. And if you, as soon as you have negative feeling towards your partner, his mirror neurons will close down This is why with the ideal Venus talk is th- the basic rules is 10 minutes. It can go longer, but in the beginning, 10 is how most m- men can do so he can feel
[01:49:38] John Gray: Part of that is he knows there's an end to it. See, a lot of guys think that when their wives get talking, it just goes on and on and on, so he doesn't know what the end point is. Testosterone crashes. So it's 10 minutes. What's his job? I just need you to listen, not say anything. Don't fix anything. Don't say anything.
[01:49:56] John Gray: Just hear me and I'll feel better. So the first one is [01:50:00] she's not blaming. She informs him is that he doesn't have to say anything, 'cause even when my daughter's talking to me, grown-up daughter, um, there's like this test that I have to do at the end of everything. She's ... I'm supposed to say something sympathetic and what you know, you're supposed to, "Oh, that really feels bad."
[01:50:18] John Gray: It's really hard to say it really feels bad when you think it's no big deal.
[01:50:22] Luke Storey: So- Like how do you do that authentically?
[01:50:23] John Gray: That's right. You can't do it authentically.
[01:50:24] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah, 'cause like I, wouldn't bother me.
[01:50:26] John Gray: Th- exactly. Exactly. You know, so but, but you care, but you can't like feel, feel, feel bad bec- y- but so the
[01:50:33] John Gray: I worked it out as just to basically say, and this is in my book, women give men an easy way to respond to you. Don't expect some woman who's gonna respond, "I know just how you feel, and I feel this," and da, da, da, da. He doesn't. Don't expect that of him 'cause if you do, he's thinking the whole time, how am I gonna respond to this?
[01:50:51] John Gray: Once he gets over the idea that I don't have to solve anything for her, even still your brain will do a little bit of that, th- the next thing you do is you [01:51:00] get into now how am I gonna respond to this 'cause I can't authentically feel empathy for something that I don't really get upset about that very thing.
[01:51:08] John Gray: So the answer is, and it works once a woman realizes the, the logic of it. She has to understand the logic of it. We're different, guys. We're logical. He's listening to you, but his mirror neurons are open, so therefore he can receive what you're saying, and then he'll feel love back. He'll feel ... And the love he feels is compassion.
[01:51:27] John Gray: Okay? He doesn't necessarily say, "I feel the same way" to women feel the same way. I don't feel the same way, but I feel a compassion, which is a higher level of love than empathy. Empathy is two people saying, "Yeah, we both suffer together." Compassion is I can ... And you can measure the brain with this when a man's hearing a woman is 50% of his limbic system is activated.
[01:51:51] John Gray: For a woman, the full system. 50% will be activated in him, never all, unless he's way on his female side in fight or flight and everything, but, and then it's not really [01:52:00] empathy, but it's emotional. So he will experience about 50% of a woman's empathy, and then blood flow simultaneously goes to his prefrontal cortex to be optimistic.
[01:52:11] John Gray: 'Cause you know, when a woman's upset, you, first thing you have is, "Okay, how can I solve this?" So he'll go up in optimism. And then it will activate another part of his brain which is about motivation and action. So the difference between empathy is we can feel empathy and just share with each other, but doesn't mean I'm gonna go home and devote my life to you.
[01:52:28] John Gray: That's what compassion is. This is what women need so much. They need a man to be compassionate who's devoted to them. Once you get compassion, now you have devotion. And all it takes to kick you out of that is man's testosterone goes down, he cannot feel those emotions. He can love her, he can, quote, "be devoted to her," but he doesn't feel it.
[01:52:49] John Gray: He doesn't have the motivation. Man's motivation goes down, down, down, down like that. It's, and it will naturally do that. That's a law of ther- thermodynamics, is if you don't put order into a system it becomes [01:53:00] disorderly.
[01:53:00] Luke Storey: Mm.
[01:53:00] John Gray: You have to keep generating the same emotions and hormones you felt in the beginning.
[01:53:06] John Gray: And the, and you, you can't do that without knowing how to do that. It doesn't automatically happen. If you leave a house untended, it just disintegrates. It's just bugs come, it, 'cause nothing it's, it's done. You have to do the things you did in the beginning to create the things later. But you can't do the things you did in the beginning.
[01:53:22] John Gray: It's impossible. The things you did in the beginning were motivated by a hormone that you're never gonna be able to produce again, which is dopamine. See, newness in a relationship stimulates high testosterone in men. Newness stimulates dopamine, which stimulates high estrogen in a woman if it's being pr- if she's present, feels connected to a man.
[01:53:43] John Gray: Newness, dopamine doesn't produce high estrogen in a woman if she feels she doesn't have help. But if a woman anticipates help and she has dopamine, estrogen rises, testosterone rises, and that's why for romance often couples will go somewhere new and different. [01:54:00] See, going on a date. And then the next thing on a date is- Ah
[01:54:02] John Gray: somebody's cooking for her. So she don't have to, she doesn't have to do anything. Right. He does everything for her. And he provides other people to do things for her, but he takes credit for it because I'm paying those people. Yeah. And she gives him credit 'cause he's paying. And-
[01:54:17] Luke Storey: That, that would explain why, uh, sometimes you feel more horny when you're somewhere other than your house- Oh,
[01:54:25] John Gray: yeah
[01:54:26] John Gray: in your day-to-day routine. Absolutely. Right? Yeah, yeah. It's new and
[01:54:26] Luke Storey: different. Yeah. New and different. That's interesting. So it- I always wonder that. Yeah. Like, you go on vacation. Okay, you're less stressed, you're not distracted and stuff, but-
[01:54:32] John Gray: No, it's the new and different. It's the new and different stimulation.
[01:54:35] John Gray: That's funny. And for women it's not just new and different. It has to be new and different in service to her or helping her
[01:54:44] Luke Storey: Quick question for you. If you get a cut, burn, or some kind of skin irritation, what's your first move? Is it alcohol that fries your skin? Peroxide that kills good cells too? Or maybe some petroleum-based ointment that seals everything up and literally traps what's in [01:55:00] there? It blows my mind what we've been trained to put on broken skin.
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[01:56:19] John Gray: See, I, I c- I could just, let me be. I can just sit at home and just eat at home all the ti- I don't need to go out for me.
[01:56:25] John Gray: Okay? I don't even have to eat. I just finished a five-hour fast, you know? So whatever. But, uh, but for her, they need to eat, they need to go out, they need different outfits, they need to shop, they need to go out and, you know ... And shopping is a big estrogen stimulator. It's a, it's seeing what she has and what she doesn't have, and the freedom to pick and choose and so forth.
[01:56:46] John Gray: It's a, it's awareness of me. You see? Oh, I like that. Oh, I don't like that. Trying on different outfits. I learned this first, this is a Meta4Mars thing, is taking my wife shopping and she could try on six outfits and not buy anything and walk out happy. [01:57:00] How can that happen? You know, if I go, I feel like I failed my, wasted my time if I didn't buy what my goal is, you know?
[01:57:06] John Gray: Yeah, yeah. I find it, I shoot it, I kill it, I bring it home. She just tried on outfits, and why did that make her feel good? 'Cause she got to feel what she likes, what she doesn't like. It's like looking at herself. Mm,
[01:57:15] Luke Storey: mm-hmm.
[01:57:16] John Gray: This is all for women, is come back to themselves. And we're perfect because we mirror them.
[01:57:21] John Gray: Okay? So if she's happy, I'll be happy she's happy. Now she's happier. It, so this is gift f- the only challenge for women when they read the book, but I help them understand this, is that all the problems in the past are because of you There's no question about it. Now, if you went to a sales meeting and you're not getting clients, whose fault is it?
[01:57:40] John Gray: You. They all accept that, but nobody wants to accept it in relationships 'cause women don't understand how they don't use their superpower, their wisdom, to bring out the best in a man. Nobody's ever taught them. Culture did it for women before. All you had to do is say, "I just want babies and a man who can earn, and I wouldn't give him sex until he could earn [01:58:00] and be capable of raising a child with me, and then I'd have sex with him."
[01:58:04] John Gray: And so she, she had her requirements. Women don't have requirements anymore. No boundaries, you know? Oh, wow. They, they lost their self-respect. They became like men. Men were getting all the respect, so I'm gonna be like a man to get respect. Women are the ones... We always respected every man. Why did you get married?
[01:58:20] John Gray: You got married because there's a woman who turns you on, finally would have sex with you. That's it. Real bottom line, animalistic part of us. Right. That's a big part of it, you know? Yeah. And, and, and she also... A lot of other factors, of course. But there's the chemistry and everything of two people fitting together.
[01:58:36] John Gray: But the bottom line is, as a young guy, when the rules used to be you can't have sex unless a woman... Unless you marry a woman, un- un- till you're committed to a woman. I'm not saying this is the case. I mean, this young guy at the elevator this morning at the conference, he said, "I listened to that video of you three times."
[01:58:54] John Gray: And the woman says, "Yeah, you liked it?" He says, "Yeah. Now I know I'm- I know how to get laid now." Well, it's [01:59:00] a little bit of higher teaching here. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but, but to men, it, it's easy to get laid. You learn my skills, you can get laid right away. But if women learn my skills, you learn how to put off just having sex right away.
[01:59:11] John Gray: It's very, very important for women to not just jump into bed with somebody. It only hurts your soul. And I re- unfortunately, if we had more time to go into it, it hurts a man's soul, too. Eventually, it, uh, weakens his ability to truly appreciate a woman. And-
[01:59:25] Luke Storey: Yeah, I, I can attest to that.
[01:59:26] John Gray: Yeah. Um- I mean, you can heal it, but it...
[01:59:29] John Gray: So we, we went off on all kinds of tangents here. That's
[01:59:30] Luke Storey: all, it's all good. I do have one more question for you- Okay ... uh, w- before we run out of time here, and i- it's around what you were talking about earlier, where if, if I don't... If, if a problem wouldn't bother me like it bothers my, my, uh- Right ... my wife, there, it's a bit more difficult to, you know, find that empathy, right?
[01:59:56] Luke Storey: 'Cause I'm like, "I can't relate." I'm like, "What's the big deal?" You can't relate. So the, the w- the [02:00:00] one that example that I thought of was, um, i- i- in my wife, sh- her, her relationships Outside of, you know, our marriage are really important, and a lot of her feelings of happiness, safety are intrinsically connected to those relationships, whereas I have a little drama with someone, I don't like someone, there's a splinter in a friend group, I don't really care.
[02:00:28] Luke Storey: I just move on. It's like, ah, big deal. I just forget about them, you know? And so I've had to learn, wow, this is... You know, her relationships are her core. You know, relationships are really important to her, and if there's something, uh, out of alignment there, it's much more meaningful to her than it would be for me, and so I've had to kind of- That's a
[02:00:47] John Gray: lot of words to say, yeah, you don't relate to it.
[02:00:49] Luke Storey: Yeah. I've had... Just kind of I have to transpose myself and, well, let me imagine what that would feel like because it doesn't really happen to me that way.
[02:00:56] John Gray: So here's the first step in doing
[02:00:58] Luke Storey: that. I g- I g- the question more is, like, [02:01:00] are, are outside relationships and the, the social cohesion more important to women than they are to men?
[02:01:07] John Gray: Well, that was... I, I made that point earlier. There's a whole chapter in the book on why... what a man can give you and what a woman can give you.
[02:01:13] Luke Storey: Okay.
[02:01:13] John Gray: We cannot give women what women can give each other. Got it. Got it. Yeah, yeah. And y- you can't fully receive a man unless you get your estrogen up without depending on a man 10 times more than a man's.
[02:01:23] John Gray: So that you get from other women, and there's a shortage of women having the time to spend with other women-
[02:01:28] Luke Storey: Got it. O- ... and
[02:01:29] John Gray: sharing with other women, and then they expect... They don't consciously do this, but they then want you to be a- another woman and share your feelings and reflect back and all that. So but the practical solution, when she understands this, then she stop- she has a greater awareness of I can't put everything on him.
[02:01:46] John Gray: And we were, we d- I never finished that point, which is what do you do when she's talking and you can't sincerely go, "Oh, that's terrible. I feel terrible for you. That's awful. I get it," when you don't feel that. So you can't authentically respond. And then they can sense you're not being authentic. You're [02:02:00] just...
[02:02:00] John Gray: You don't care. Okay, what you... So you have a basic thing where you don't talk, 'cause tone of voice reveals all your feelings. So you can't fake a tone of voice, but what you can say is, "I hear you." Keep it short, and let that be enough, women. I... When she's sharing, "I hear you." And if there's something you... a problem you want solved, then that's a Mars talk.
[02:02:19] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.
[02:02:20] John Gray: If you have emotions and you need to be heard, that's a Venus talk. Don't introduce solutions to that. Then when you go to a Mars talk, she's basically knowing you're talking to somebody who's gonna be completely logical, and you learn how to keep a conversation logical, and she has to learn how to keep her emotions out of it.
[02:02:37] John Gray: So, so if emotions come up in trying to solve a problem, are we gonna go here on vacation or here on vacation? We're gonna spend this much money here. What our investment's gonna be. These are charged topics. I wrote these six books. There's a, the top book which is How to Talk So a Man Will Listen covers arguments.
[02:02:53] John Gray: That's a, a big subject. You have to get the fundamentals down of really understanding how we're different. And [02:03:00] so, but for men in stress, it's in your Luke story, I wanna... You talk about the story and if ever you're stressed, there is a story going on inside of you that's the wrong way of telling the story.
[02:03:12] John Gray: There's a better story. There's a better story you need to tell yourself. But you can't change the story until you're aware of the story. So you're an enlightened guy. We're more connected to our female sides, so we're gonna have a bigger story than some guys who can just go to the gym and forget it all.
[02:03:28] John Gray: Okay? So now you're, you're, you're having a disagreement with your spouse. You didn't get what you wanted. She's not getting what she wants, now you're not getting what you want, which is a happy woman. And so you take time. Any time you get to a certain point in an argument, and this is a really good takeaway story for everybody, too, for men and for women.
[02:03:46] John Gray: But when you start to get in an argument with your spouse, and couples argue a lot, a lot of couples will argue when they don't understand the differences, he's gonna start getting angry. Now, when he starts to get angry, women basically go into [02:04:00] this mode of asking questions. Why would you feel that way?
[02:04:03] John Gray: Well, why would you do that? Well, why do you think that's better? Why did you do this then? But w- before you did that, you didn't... Their brain just goes into question mode. Question mode is a way a woman avoids feelings, okay? When a wom- she, "I just don't understand. I don't under-" Yeah, you're pissed off at him.
[02:04:20] John Gray: I'm angry that you didn't do this. But rather than feel the anger, it's not safe for them, they don't know how to feel their deep emotions, they'll just go right into their head and go, "Why would you do this? Why would you do this?" Particularly, some women all the time, but other women, if you're starting to get in an argument, she's gonna wanna push down her feelings, 'cause if you get upset with a man, that can make him more upsetting, so she'll naturally start going into her head against the need to share her feelings.
[02:04:44] John Gray: But it's not safe to share her feelings. He's getting annoyed, irritated, bothered. So they get suppressed. As a woman, what you suppress will go into your partner. You can see this with your kids. On days when you're stressed, you push down your feelings, your kids act out. Same [02:05:00] thing with your husband. When you push down those emotions, he'll start to then know why that I'm getting all irritated around this woman who seems to be acting so positive.
[02:05:09] John Gray: But no, uh, you push down emotions, it affects your environment to various degrees, okay? Now- Now, as a man, I can't blame her for that because if it's coming up in me, it's still me. It just triggered some stuff inside of me. So you can't, like, blame your partner. You're suppressing and that's causing me to feel this way.
[02:05:25] John Gray: It's not that. But it does, does trigger a man. So she is basically upset and whenever a woman's upset, she's not trusting him. 'Cause everything about estrogen is I have the support I need. I can trust you. Everything that a man needs is to feel a woman trusts him. When you trust me, like you're doing this interview with me 'cause you trust my ideas, you read my book, that just raises my testosterone.
[02:05:49] John Gray: Now, if a woman feels I can trust a man, her estrogen goes up. What raises estrogen in women is what you've been talking about, is demonstrating caring, doing [02:06:00] things to say, "I care about you," listening to her, I understand what's going on, I don't judge you, I'm not criticizing you, and I respect you. So I honor you.
[02:06:11] John Gray: Now, respect can... We have a-- You know, if somebody's really good at something, as a man, I really respect them. Okay? I feel like I can trust them. All right? So trust goes along with respect. But if you look at respect as a verb, that's what women need, to respect their sensitivities, to respect their overreactions, to understand that she's living in a stressful world.
[02:06:36] John Gray: She's going through what, you know, this or this or this. She needs help. When somebody needs help and you help them, what are you doing? Respecting them. This is what women need most. Men don't need respect the most. What men need is the precursors to feeling respected, and the reason I say that is because I see the most dysfunctional men always demand more respect.
[02:06:59] John Gray: I [02:07:00] see the most dysfunctional women always demand more appreciation. "You don't appreciate me. You don't appreciate me." And yet, what do men need most? What builds testosterone? Appreciation. Here's this woman, she's unhappy. She's on her male side demanding what a man needs. It's not gonna help her become more feminine.
[02:07:17] John Gray: It's not gonna lower her stress. And I hear a man over there, you know, basically he's demanding, "I want respect." He's on his female side. And when you kinda talk through our history, we got out of balance, men stopped respecting women So when women stop being respected, then men become more and more re- dysfunctional because the only way, the only way you can become a man worthy of respect is to honor the female side, to honor the people who need help.
[02:07:45] John Gray: So a great man helps other people. His life becomes selfless helping other people, and that's by respecting others. And it's very much confused. Uh, in every book on gender differences, women, you have to respect your man. That will just make [02:08:00] you codependent. When you respect someone, you make their needs more important than your own.
[02:08:06] John Gray: You, you serve them like a mother with a child and so forth.
[02:08:09] Luke Storey: Wow.
[02:08:10] John Gray: And that's good when you have a child.
[02:08:12] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[02:08:12] John Gray: And women are designed to do that, so it... But for children, for people who need help, you respect them in that way. And then there's this other word, respect as a noun, is that, you know, well, you're respectable to me because you've done all these things.
[02:08:27] John Gray: But that's, that's not a need that I have. The need that I have when somebody respects me is trust. I trust you. I also accept you. You give me advice, I'll follow it. I accept that or I'm not trying to change you. You know, somebody does something really wonderful for you, uh, you don't tell them, "Hey, you, you left your shoes on the floor."
[02:08:47] John Gray: You know, you don't complain about stuff when you truly accept someone. We talked about... So I, I summarize... This is actually in Men Are from Mars. It's the fundamental ideas that it's expanded, but what are the messages that increase testosterone in [02:09:00] men? He's trusted, he's accepted, and he's appreciated. But it's a little...
[02:09:04] John Gray: If he didn't earn the appreciation, it's fake appreciation. If you're just pretending to accept but you're holding on negative emotions, it's not really acceptance. But you can behave in an accepting way, but you have to realize if I'm having these suppressed feelings, I need to know how to process them.
[02:09:19] John Gray: I need to be able to feel what I feel And let it go. And women have to learn to let go just like men learn to let go, but they do it in a different way. They share their feelings. They go to a coach, they go to a friend, they talk about something, somebody just to listen. You don't have to fix it. Then what...
[02:09:36] John Gray: Then that helps to... Let me give an amazing concept. When you share that I'm upset about something and somebody's not upset, if somebody's not getting all upset, then you feel safe. All you need is to feel safe and your stress goes down. Stress hormones is just, I don't feel safe. So if I can tell you all my problems and you just sit there like, "Yeah, I [02:10:00] understand.
[02:10:00] John Gray: I know. I can see. I know you're gonna get through this," just you have a sense of safety in the presence of all of that, that person will calm down. So when your mirror neurons are open, when she's sharing, you can do that as a man, and you automatically go into that witness state to a more greater... Without all the meditation and spirituality, you've basically, your mind becomes empty.
[02:10:20] John Gray: If she says, "I don't," you need to solve it. You're already successful by doing nothing, and that's zen, the do nothing doing. And this is like a perfect thing, men and women, just a woman being able to share her feelings. And, and now... But let's say she triggers me, and so I get triggered, and that will happen to men.
[02:10:39] John Gray: We all have childhood issues, so they get triggered. We just overreact. W- Most people don't remember their childhood at all. But just know it's your past coming up. So then what I would do at that time, I would... What I have to learn to do and couples have to learn to do, is when a man is starting to get angry, nothing good can happen.
[02:10:56] John Gray: Already, she's gonna go into a stress state because the only time there was [02:11:00] violence is men being angry. Okay, so now she's in danger. It's in the genes. Angry man is not safe. So what a woman will do is all kinds of reactions, but one most common is to ask you questions and get you to talk. Now, why would she want you to talk?
[02:11:14] John Gray: 'Cause sh- for her, talking is a way to calm down, to lower stress. So let me get him to talk. Every word a man says, once he's in a stress state, makes him more stressed. Like you gave a great example. If I start talking about this problem, it... I just feel worse It's just, it's just terrible. Uh, you know, I, I was writing another book.
[02:11:33] John Gray: I was writing ... Cute story. This guy Daryl was putting in the sound system in my new house I bought once Men Are from Mars was successful, so I wanted, like, sound in every room, stupid thing, but but from one central control, which is very complicated and every- So he was setting it up for me, so I really didn't understand the whole setup.
[02:11:52] John Gray: Well, he got sick, and he was delayed. He's taking all this time. I'm getting really, really frustrated with this guy, 'cause he doesn't do what he says, which a lot of women [02:12:00] become frustrated with guys when they don't do what they say. And there's a remedy for that. I got remedies for everything in this book for women.
[02:12:05] John Gray: But so Daryl, I'm really frustrated with him, and I'm mad about it, and I s- you know, I deal with it. It's like, okay, there's nothing I can ... I called him. I said, "Look, I really, I need you to come do this thing. It's been too long." And he says, "Well, I can't come 'cause I have mono." And mono, for people that don't know, it's a real- makes you really tired.
[02:12:23] John Gray: So, uh, well, there's nothing I can do to solve the problem now, so forget it. So that's the way c- men can deal with s- one of the ways we can deal with stress. So for nothing I can do about it, forget it And then that night I'm in bed, uh, with my wife and, you know, all comfortable and, and I'm... And she's being, thinking she's being supportive.
[02:12:43] John Gray: She says, "So what about the sound system?" I said, "Another delay." She says... Or actually, actually what she said is, "So what's happening between you and Daryl?" Instantly, I was falling asleep, now I'm all stressed again, 'cause she [02:13:00] reminded me of the very thing that was upsetting me. And women can say, "Well, you need to talk about that."
[02:13:04] John Gray: No, we don't. We need to just temporarily forget it. That's it. And so now my sleep was ruined for a little while because she went on further to give the killer phrase was, "Well, have you called him?" I say, "I called him." "Did you tell him how you feel?" It's like, I don't need to tell him how I feel. You know, just like, ugh.
[02:13:21] John Gray: You know, so, so it was the op- She's trying to be helpful. It's not what I want. Yeah. This happens so much of the time between men and women. But this one point I wanna get to, which is really, will, I think will be very helpful is, 'cause you're very clear it's the story we tell ourselves, and it's very, very easy when you're upset and you know I'm gonna tell myself this story.
[02:13:39] John Gray: It's very important, this sounds counterproductive, but to realize if you're upset, you're on your female side. You need to come back to your male side. Why do I say that? Because any time you're upset, your estrogen's high, your testosterone's low. So you analyze. Now, analysis is also a testosterone producer.
[02:13:58] John Gray: The, the, anything that makes you detach. To [02:14:00] analyze you have to stand outside of. So I'm gonna analyze why I'm upset, and the re- I'll start with where I am, is where I am whenever you're upset is you're a victim and you're blaming. So silently I will sit there and reflect on my blame of everything my wife just said or did.
[02:14:17] John Gray: Now, I won't use... I could. I mean, the, it might come, like, the B word might come up. She's being a B. That doesn't process anything. That's a stupid thing. But if that came up, I would just ignore it and go to the next thing. Well, what did she say that you don't like? What did she do that you didn't like? Try to really analyze the sentence structure.
[02:14:36] John Gray: This is what I do with men. Just, you know, they're just, "I'm upset with her. She's this, she's this." I said, "That doesn't do anything. What did she say? What did she, what did, what else did she say?" You have to, like, really see the pieces of the story you're telling yourself. And then you change the story, and then you say, "Well, what should she have done?"
[02:14:54] John Gray: So write a new story, and the new story is how it would've looked the way you wanted it to look. Now you're in solving [02:15:00] problem mode. Okay? You're first in problem-solving mode by your, "Okay, I know I have to analyze this story first. I need to flesh it out. You know, what did she say? What did she do?" Then what I do is I look at what, what should have happened that didn't happen, okay?
[02:15:14] John Gray: Now I say, "What she shoulda done is this, she shoulda done is this, shoulda done this. She didn't do this. She coulda done that." Already I'm solving a problem. My testosterone's starting to come back up. Then what I look at, and what could I have done to cause her to be upset? Now I'm analyzing my behavior, okay?
[02:15:32] John Gray: And then I go into what could I do so next time she would do the positive woman rather than the neg... So it's all this big problem-solving session- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm ... with analysis and no feelings. I'm not saying- Right ... what am I angry about, what am I upset about, whatever. Not doing that at all. I'm just silently analyzing what happened, solving the problem, testosterone comes back up, and there's no problem.
[02:15:55] John Gray: Now, if I'm in the middle of an argument with my wife, in the early days we used to have these big arguments, you know. [02:16:00] I analyzed it. If I talk, as soon as I'm feeling stressed, if I talk, it just makes more estrogen. And this is what women have to know is don't ask him questions. If a man's angry, don't talk, 'cause if you talk, he's gonna talk.
[02:16:15] John Gray: He's gonna mirror you. Don't complain. He's gonna mirror you. Everything you say. Or if you ask questions, that's even worse. Why would you do that? How can you love me? You used to love me. You did... They'll start comparing and remembering and what you did. This time you did it again. It, the more... Every word he speaks is gonna take him longer to be in his cave, and that's just the dynamic.
[02:16:36] John Gray: Now, one fun thing. I, I know we go too long. There's so much. Let's talk about the title of the book.
[02:16:46] Luke Storey: We're living in the most advanced time in human history. So why are so many of us exhausted, wired, and barely holding it together? Back when I started this podcast in 2016, I was living under two cell towers in [02:17:00] LA, and it was a nightmare. I had insomnia, migraines, blurred vision, vertigo, nausea. My system was just maxed out.
[02:17:09] Luke Storey: It was absolutely terrible. So when I moved to Texas, I hardwired the internet, shielded our bedrooms, and did all the physical EMF mitigation you can imagine. But here's the unfortunate reality: you can't eliminate every signal unless you live in a cave, and that's what led me to Quantum Upgrade. It harmonizes the field you live in so your body stays coherent inside all that static that you can't control.
[02:17:34] Luke Storey: And this isn't just a feeling. Their research shows improvements in HRV, brainwave balance, and cellular energy. It's pretty simple, really. If your system is under less stress, you're gonna feel it, and I do. What does that look like? Well, I sleep deeper, I think more clearly, and I don't feel wrecked by my environment anymore.
[02:17:52] Luke Storey: So if you wanna upgrade your whole situation right now, here's what you do. Go to lukestory.com/quantumupgrade and use the code [02:18:00] LUKE15 to start your 15-day free trial. If you want your space working for you instead of against you, this is one of the smartest upgrades you can make. Again, that's lukestory.com/quantumupgrade, and that code is LUKE15 to get 15 days totally free.
[02:18:18] Luke Storey: You can
[02:18:18] John Gray: also find those links and codes in the show description
[02:18:23] Luke Storey: Yeah, let's do. And also I wanna let people know, uh, the show notes for today at where we will link all of John's books, but especially the new one for women, which you're about to tell us about, can be found at lukestory.com/jongray4, the number four.
[02:18:38] Luke Storey: So anything we've talked about John's work, uh, and also his, uh, um, other three episodes. And there you'll also find another link in the show notes, lukestory.com/marsvenus, and the, uh, code Luke will get you 10% off lithium orotate, which [02:19:00] is one of my favorite supplements that I learned from you a number of years ago and have been on ever since.
[02:19:05] Luke Storey: So, uh, all things John can be found in the show notes. Uh, tell us about the book.
[02:19:11] John Gray: Where are they getting their lithium orotate? Is that your site?
[02:19:13] Luke Storey: We're getting it from you, dude.
[02:19:14] John Gray: Oh, good.
[02:19:15] Luke Storey: Yeah.
[02:19:15] John Gray: Go to marsvenus.com. It's right... And-
[02:19:17] Luke Storey: That's what that link is to. Oh,
[02:19:18] John Gray: that's
[02:19:18] Luke Storey: so cool. I put that in there 'cause you have, you know, which I think is cool, you have a lot of recommendations and supplements that help support the biology.
[02:19:26] Luke Storey: Right. And that lithium orotate, I'd never heard of it in my life until you told me about it, and it's-
[02:19:31] John Gray: It's so, so, so good ...
[02:19:32] Luke Storey: life-changing. So- And
[02:19:33] John Gray: super
[02:19:33] Luke Storey: cheap ...
[02:19:34] John Gray: it's super cheap, and mine's a little more expensive, and I'm gonna tell you why. And this is why p- I talk about it, but everybody goes and buys the other ones, so I have to talk a little bit more about it.
[02:19:42] John Gray: What lithium... First of all, lithium was given to people who are bipolar, and if you go too high, you go too low, and it stabilizes a balance. But there are all these side effects from it, which is why had to be prescribed. Lithium carbonate is what was given, and lithium carbonate doesn't [02:20:00] deliver it into the brain unless you give close to 100 times the dose.
[02:20:05] John Gray: So you f- fill your body with it. So it's a salt, so imagine taking 100 times the dose of salt. You're gonna have some side effects from it. So they have to measure you don't have too much of it in your body. The Then a German doctor discovered you do not need to give lithium carbonate, you just give lithium orotate.
[02:20:21] John Gray: Orotate's a substance in mother's milk. It binds to the lithium and carries it into the brain. So you just need what you would normally get from your diet, which is a very small amount. That's all you need. But what happens in our modern-day life is that we have so much stress. When you have stress, your brain has to balance two brain chemicals: dopamine, which take action, and serotonin, which is relax.
[02:20:43] John Gray: So we're here, two guys relaxed and taking action, 'cause that's the, that's the brain. That's balanced testosterone, estrogen. Everything balances. So that's why I focus mainly on lithium, because lithium is a balance your brain, balance your hormones. And if you ever experience people who have any ups and [02:21:00] downs will notice the effect.
[02:21:02] John Gray: But even if you don't, let's say you're a more stable person, like a lot of men just don't go up and down some, you will not notice the effect right away, but you have to know the brain research is that it grows brain cells in your brain. And Harvard did a 10-year study showing that lithium orotate and all, all these kinds of lithium.
[02:21:21] John Gray: The one that I sell at my website is the one that they said It, they're recommending as prevention for Alzheimer's, and they're successfully treating Alzheimer's with it. So this is just keeping your brain going. But it's, you know, my kids all take, everybody t- it just helps your brain replenish a mineral, like we need calcium and magnesium, and it replenishes a mineral that gets lost very quickly, and it's not in our food.
[02:21:47] John Gray: Okay? They, the, it's just depleted in our soil. You don't find much. The, where you can find some natural lithium is in beets. This is why if you go to Russia, which is a cold place, the, b- borscht [02:22:00] is a big food there. You know, beets and meat, you know? You get your lithium to balance the protein, balance the serotonin in your brain.
[02:22:07] John Gray: And for fun, if we can look at the, one of the differences between men and women, is at the end of the day, a man basically runs out of dopamine. We literally become run out... Uh, it just, the, the dopamine receptor sites just start closing down. We kinda like have nothing to do. For women, they don't run out of dopamine.
[02:22:28] John Gray: They have plenty of dopamine. And when men end the day, they have low dopamine, and women have, and men have high serotonin. So we're done with our life. We forget it. I'm relaxed, no problem. My wife says, "We gotta get ready for something." We can do it tomorrow. Mañana. Whenever a man says mañana, put it off, it's high serotonin, low dopamine.
[02:22:52] John Gray: Women have the opposite. They come home, their dopamine is, "I have to do this, I have to do this, have to do..." And their serotonin is very low. Why [02:23:00] is their serotonin very low? Because they're having to suppress their emotions all day long. It takes serotonin to push down your emotions, and it also stimulates testosterone when they push down their emotions.
[02:23:12] John Gray: It's just like the stress world is wreaking havoc with women. So she comes home, and she's overwhelmed. So a cute little story I tell is, you know, a man sitting on the couch in his cave doing whatever he's doing, and she's, she wants him to do something. He'll say, "Later. I'll do it later," whatever. He's, like, got, like, magnets on his butt, and she thinks that's 'cause he doesn't love her.
[02:23:32] John Gray: He doesn't have any dopamine. Dopamine's what gets you moving and everything. And he says to her... And then women think something's wrong with us, like unloving. But look at the flip side. My wife's overwhelmed or stressed. I say, "Honey, can't you just forget it? Just come sit down. We can relax and be together."
[02:23:47] John Gray: No, she can't. So way a woman can understand a man is to recognize just as you have a problem being able to relax, he has a problem being motivated And what I teach women is how they [02:24:00] can communicate with a man in a certain way that motivates him, and by him being motivated, she will automatically relax.
[02:24:08] John Gray: See? So her serotonin goes up. Uh, so this is what, what lithium does. It's the biological, it's the nutritional support that allows that function to happen more, more effectively, and it balances your dopamine and serotonin levels. However, what I add to my lithium orotate is, uh, uh, a discovery in Russia, something called Rhodiola rosea.
[02:24:31] John Gray: And these people who live hundreds of... Uh, 100 years old, 100 and healthy. This is, like, common in certain places in Russia. In the mountainous area, they, they drink this tea every day, and the tea is Rhodiola rosea. It's called, um, Arctic tea or something like that. But it... That's the ingredient. And they used to give it to all...
[02:24:48] John Gray: They still do, all the Russian athletes who are outdoing the Americans, because it produces high levels of dopamine and serotonin. So that and other ingredients. There's, um, also, what people should [02:25:00] know if they're taking antidepressants or whatever in that world, just saffron. Saffron is more effective in 28 studies than any antidepressant.
[02:25:11] John Gray: Okay? Saffron's this l- yellow spice that you put in rice. Okay, so I have s- super powerful saffron extracts for that as well. I have a, you know, a whole bunch of other what's called adaptogens, but the most one is the producing dopamine and serotonin. Now you then have the lithium, which then balances the two.
[02:25:30] John Gray: So that's why I have a lot of other stuff in it. So it's a great, great product. People should get that. I recommend to everybody, and I've been doing it, you know, since I was 50. That's how I got into all this biohacking and everything is- Okay ... I, I was, uh, at that time, I had early-stage Parkinson's, and I got into biohacking and- Oh,
[02:25:46] Luke Storey: wow
[02:25:46] John Gray: completely reversed it. Completely reversed
[02:25:48] Luke Storey: it. Amazing.
[02:25:49] John Gray: Yeah. It's a... And I, and I don't give advice to people with Parkinson's. Uh, it takes a lot of... Uh, what... It's... If it's progressed, these people don't even take the pills. They don't even do the thing. But, so you don't get there, [02:26:00] one is lithium orotate. Or maybe you don't get there.
[02:26:02] John Gray: I can't s- make health claims. But what I do, and if people... Is you, you balance... You get your adaptogens to make the dopamine and serotonin. You have the lithium to balance the dopamine and serotonin. You also need to have digested proteins in order to make the actual dopamine and serotonin. The adaptogens stimulate the production of these things, then you have to have the protein.
[02:26:26] John Gray: And if anybody is stressed, if anybody has any illness, you're stressed. And for me, it was Parkinson's is, you know, it was starting because my body wasn't fully digesting proteins. Anybody who's stressed or has mental problems is not digesting. If you have chronic stress in your life, you can't digest your proteins.
[02:26:44] John Gray: So I developed a system of Creating protein peptides. So if you actually des- digest your proteins, uh, then your body converts them into peptides. And right now, at the first stage of my healing my Parkinson's was going down to Mexico and getting [02:27:00] peptide injections. Now it's becoming very, very common. Uh, they're just very, very expensive.
[02:27:05] John Gray: The peptides I was- Yeah ... the treatment I was taking was $10,000 a week. I had to take a whole week and get IV drips of peptides, uh, protein peptides, and, um, ozone therapy. So those are the two things, and my Parkinson's went away. It was fantastic. Three months later, came back. Went back, did the treatment. He told me what was in the injections so then I could...
[02:27:27] John Gray: I wanted to make a natural way to do it. And so, uh, 'cause it, every three months for two times, it would come back. So then I said, "Well, I don't wanna go back and do that. That was a hassle going to Mexico a whole week to do this." And what, what... I was in the room while everybody's getting the IV drips. The reason people were all there, they were all high-end people 'cause it was expensive and they were all alcoholics, drug addicts, Oxycontin addict, sugar addict, smoking addict.
[02:27:54] John Gray: They were all addicts because getting that treatment would free you to go off of any drug [02:28:00] without withdrawal. That's the hard thing about going off of drugs is the huge withdrawal.
[02:28:05] Luke Storey: I'm familiar.
[02:28:06] John Gray: Okay. But nobody in the room... I attest to it. A whole week being with drug addicts, and nobody went through withdrawals.
[02:28:13] John Gray: We just sat around. We're just tired, just relaxing. The body was doing its healing with- from these injections. So the same thing that helped me with, uh, with, uh, uh, Parkinson's is the ultimate cure for addictions. I mean, it was amazing. So, so I just mimicked it, what he was doing, and I got the lithium orotate, and that was to balance the d- he wasn't doing lithium, but I figured that out to add to my program.
[02:28:38] John Gray: I needed to balance the brain chemicals. I needed adaptogens, uh, which stimulate the production of dopamine and serotonin in a balanced way. And then I needed the raw fuel, which was, uh, getting pre-digested proteins, which is what peptides are. And you can spend thousands of dollars on peptides. I mean, it's a big thing, and they're all from the pharmaceutical industry.
[02:28:59] John Gray: People [02:29:00] should know. I mean, a lot of, like, natural people don't wanna take drugs. You're taking drugs, okay? All the peptides are ta- And I'm, I'm one of the, another camp. I'm all natural. Everything. I just feel God's given me this body and everything. But we do need nutrition, you know? It's in food, and they've taken it out of food, so I'm gonna find a way to get it.
[02:29:16] John Gray: So I figured out this system. I took the best protein ever created was from our mothers, which is mother's milk. Now, it didn't have to be mother's milk, but I could create mother's milk from cow's milk. Now, cow's milk is 90% casein and 10% whey. Mother's milk is 50% casein and 50% whey. That's why people have such a difficult time digesting milk.
[02:29:38] John Gray: One of the reasons is it's for cows, not for humans. So I took the casein, I cooked, took the whey protein, and I did it in a high quality. And the thing is, you have to do high quality. It can't be pasteurized. It, it's not legal to make it completely unpasteurized, but they just have to have a short temperature, so it's very short heating up and it's done.
[02:29:59] John Gray: So [02:30:00] now it's, it's called denatured whey protein, denatured casein protein. You get the right balance, and it's all coming from cows that eat grass as opposed to, uh, oats. Okay, you produce a different kind of substance if... depending on what you feed the cow, you get something else. So you want grass-fed. So you get this shake that I put together, and then there's a Nobel Prize of these two enzymes that will digest proteins.
[02:30:25] John Gray: So put those two enzymes in there, and y- you just shake it up with water, and you sit for 45 minutes, and it bubbles up all on its own. The enzymes go to work, and they digest all the protein. And now you have pre-digested protein. And Swiss scientists did studies on this idea, and they found by measuring nitrogen gas in your breath how much of the protein you're actually utilizing.
[02:30:53] John Gray: If you eat a good steak, you'll get 30%. If you eat vegetarian protein, you'll get 10%. [02:31:00] If you get one of the shakes on the market, you'll get like 20%. Ultimately, to get the best protein, it's gonna be a steak. For all you vegetarians, you can still get your protein, just eat a lot. But with this, with the, with the...
[02:31:12] John Gray: They measured it, and based on the nitrogen output, they found that you were assimilating, utilizing, protein utilization was 92%. So you're getting three times the benefit and maybe 10 times the benefit of a vegetarian diet if you can, if you can have the milk at least. So it's profound, and you don't even need to drink as much protein then.
[02:31:30] John Gray: You know, we have these huge needs for protein, but you're getting three times more protein utilization out of going through this procedure. And it's a hassle. I, I did it for a long time. Sometimes I'll just use the shake, and I'm in a hurry, I'll do it. You don't have to do it every day. But what I'll do is most of the time I have my, my incubated shake, and you drink that incubated shake, and tastes totally different.
[02:31:53] John Gray: And in order for it to work, the shake also has to have a little sugar in it, 'cause the sugar activates the metabolism to, to [02:32:00] stimulate the enzymes to break down the proteins. But after 45 minutes, it's literally a sugarless shake. Now, for people that have real sugar issues, that's the one you should use.
[02:32:10] John Gray: But if you don't, you can always put a few dates in it, put a little banana in it, sweeten it up. 'Cause the... It's not sweet, okay? Yeah, yeah. So people want it sweet, so you gotta add something to it. Or you could put some stevia in it, whatever. Um, vanilla stevia sometimes I'll put in mine just to... But anyway, that, that is, uh, something I still do for all these years, along with the lithium orotate.
[02:32:31] John Gray: I look at those as the, the key factors to give my body what it needs, and then it's through my behavior, my work on my own, I have to achieve my successes, and then I have to find... Help, help my family. You know, those two things are- Yeah. Yeah ... and if you don't have a family, you take care of someone. Like right now you're, you're sitting there loving your little dog.
[02:32:51] John Gray: I got lucky
[02:32:52] Luke Storey: today. See? So that- She's sat with me the whole day.
[02:32:54] John Gray: Yeah. She's- So this is... You have to feel somebody who's littler than you, that's another [02:33:00] factor, needs your help. That's... It's really easy. That's why women all want taller men. They want that taller man. Why? Because they immediately feel L- like, like a little bird.
[02:33:12] John Gray: This is kind of what some women say. But literally, he's, he's stronger than me, therefore I can depend on him. And I never related to that at all until I was in Russia one time, and I had this... And I never feel in danger anywhere, but s- so I don't feel fear. But when I, I had this tech- this bodyguard. They wanted me to have this big, big, huge guy, and he's...
[02:33:34] John Gray: I was asking about his car, and I said, "Do you like this Mercedes?" He says, "I could use the bigger one." But, but he was with me, and I started to have this feeling that I'd never felt before. I began to feel, I feel so safe. So it's not like I have fear, but I suddenly began to feel so safe, and that's reali- that's what goes on inside of women, is they w- live in a world of fear, but with a man who's [02:34:00] big.
[02:34:00] John Gray: There's something about big men because for thousands of years it was the big men that could protect you from force, you know? It wasn't... So then I began to go, "Oh, this is what women need," is they, there's so much on their male side. They need a man who has masculine qualities to help her feel safe. 'Cause it's when you feel safe that you make estradiol.
[02:34:20] John Gray: Estradiol is the main hormone of estrogen that women have when they're cycling. Now, this is for all the women over 40 in menopause. You know what I'm talking about. Uh, things dry up down south. You're, you have more anxiety. You can feel stressed. Y- your bones become weaker. You get more wrinkles. That's all from the lack of estradiol.
[02:34:41] John Gray: And your body makes estradiol automatically when you have eggs. But when you run out of eggs, that's menopause. Now, your body makes another form of estrogen, which is called estrone. Estrone is what's called weak estrogen. You don't get any of the benefits of [02:35:00] estradiol 'cause all estradiol is based upon I need help and somebody is here for me and now I feel safe because I was in danger and I've been doing it myself, so now I don't have to do it myself.
[02:35:13] John Gray: I have help. That then produces estradiol. When estrone comes along, you don't automatically make estradiol if you're a woman. What estrone makes in your brain is the feeling of I can do it all myself I can do it myself, so I don't need anybody. So now what you become is this woman with wrinkles, and this woman who gains weight, and this woman who doesn't enjoy sex.
[02:35:38] John Gray: Sometimes it's very painful, not that interested, wants to satisfy her husband. But that's all deficiency of estradiol. And estrone will lead you that way. Estrone says, "I don't need anybody." Estradiol says, "I need you and I have you." Okay, so this is like, this is all revelation, okay? This is why my clients over the years have been beyond menopause.
[02:35:59] John Gray: They continue [02:36:00] having romance. They continue having great sex, you know, in their 80s. You know, how is this happening for my people? It's because they're doing these exercises that I teach that, that put women in a position of being vulnerable. It's when a woman can be vulnerable, but estrone says you're not vulnerable.
[02:36:17] John Gray: It says, "I can do it myself. I don't need anybody." So they become hardened. They become a little tougher. Not all women, but to a great extent, that's their... They stop depending, and that's what I saw in, in, in the woman who teaches how to process your feelings so that you can always feel good 'cause you can always realize you're telling yourself a story.
[02:36:35] John Gray: Byron Katie, was it? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you can tell yourself, "I'm telling a..." That's great. That's the step one, but now you wanna produce estradiol. You have to say, "Okay, now that I have nothing to be upset about, I have something to feel better about, which is I need, I need, I need, I need," and learning how to communicate, learning to ask for help, learning how to process negative emotions.
[02:36:54] John Gray: Instead of logically getting rid of your emotions, you dry up [02:37:00] eventually if you're logically doing it. For men, it's great, but for women, it suppresses emotion. Logic suppresses emotion. So the key is to be able to... You know, I have a whole app for this. It's called Mars Venus Heart Space app. The book explains how to do it yourself.
[02:37:18] John Gray: You need to read the book first how to use the app, but the app actually does it for you until you get so much benefit you're willing to do it for yourself. It mimics a session with me, but the ultimate thing is learning how to process your feelings. And if you look at a mega level of this, whenever you have negative emotions, it's 'cause your brain thinks you're in danger So if you can journal your emotions and not use them to solve the problem, then your brain go, "If I'm not using these to solve the problem, I must be safe."
[02:37:48] John Gray: And the brain then will stop producing them. Whenever you use a negative emotion to solve a problem, like complain about somebody, get mad at somebody, you, you're using your emotions. You're like an animal, [02:38:00] just using your emotions to manipulate. Anger is, "I'm gonna dominate you." Sadness, "I'm gonna invoke support from you."
[02:38:06] John Gray: Fear is that, "I'll get you to help me." Shame and guilt is, "You'll trust me better if I feel bad." Okay? So these are all manipulations. Now, I'm not saying don't feel them. It's part of who we're designed to be. But so, uh, consciousness is you have to be conscious of what these negative emotions are without trying to solve a problem, will actually tell the brain, "I'm safe," so the brain goes, "Well, there's no need to have those emotions."
[02:38:29] John Gray: And meanwhile, you're analyzing, you're feeling the emotions, you're learning from them, and you're coming back from negative. Immediately, you'll go to the positive. If you fully go to the depth of your negative emotions and you become aware of what's underneath all negative emotions is unfulfilled desire.
[02:38:47] John Gray: So you have to feel your unfulfilled desire. You f- become aware, "Okay, behind my anger or my sadness, whatever, I'm gonna feel what I really want." And then behind that is your soul, okay? 'Cause you get back in touch with your soul's [02:39:00] desires, what really guides you at a deep level. Now I'm gonna give an example of this.
[02:39:04] John Gray: My wife died eight years ago. You know, I love her, whatever, but I've, I've healed. I, I'm happy. I'm fulfilled. I wasn't for many years. I was processing, processing. But even right now, I could just, uh, I could think about Bonnie And I could start to feel like I love Bonnie, I miss Bonnie, and I'll always start to tear up a little bit.
[02:39:24] John Gray: And I miss her, I love her, and I feel sad. And sometimes I'll... Even now, I'll just feel sad, and I realize, what am I sad about, is I miss Bonnie. And then I ask... And sadness is pain. All negative emotions are pain. And I just ask myself, "Well, why do I feel sad?" And I feel sad because I miss her. And why do I miss her?
[02:39:47] John Gray: Because I love her so much. And just that one little moment, I feel tingling going through my body. I've just connected to a deeper part of my soul that you can't always fully feel when you're busy on your male side talking about this thing. But right that little shift, [02:40:00] coming back to behind every unfulfilled desire is a need, and why do I love her?
[02:40:07] John Gray: Which is I need her, but why do I l- I miss her? And then why do I miss her? Because I love her. It always brings you back to love. It brings you back to gratitude. Sometimes when people are upset, just start, just start writing out what you want. What you want. First, write your negative emotions, 'cause you can't push them down, 'cause when you have an un- when you're disconnected from what I want, you're gonna be- have negative emotions, okay?
[02:40:28] John Gray: 'Cause... So negative emotions, then writing out what you want, and sometimes you just go right into being aware of what you want became... You, it's kind of you go to a file of what do I want? And when you're going to that file in your brain, you realize you already have so much of what you want. So you see all of this gratitude, rather than being hi- hyper-focused on something you don't want, 'cause the brain will do that when it's stressed.
[02:40:51] John Gray: It's like, I... If there's a tiger, I gotta be looking at a tiger. I can't be thinking about how much I like my garden, you know? It's just , it's y- your brain hyper-focus. You go, "I'm anger, I'm [02:41:00] sad, I'm afraid, and I regret, or I feel bad." These are all these deeper emotions, and when you go through four levels of them, and then what you're wanting and wishing and needing, automatically then ask yourself, "What am I grateful for?
[02:41:13] John Gray: What am I happy about? What am I proud of? And what do I love?" Those are, like, the four levels of positive emotion, real simply put. And whatever, anything that's ever bothering you, we always, when we're stressed, we think we have to... It's the outer world. We have to change the outer world. And what you're talking about is we're changing our story, and what I'm talking about is change your feelings as well that go with the story that you're telling yourself.
[02:41:35] John Gray: And you'll always come back to a fully felt level of love, forgiveness, understanding, and caring, and motivation, and devotion. It's all inside of us. It's that we don't know how to process negative emotions. And as we talked about earlier, the childhood issues would get triggered. If your relationship is good, you're gonna feel safe, things are gonna trigger you.
[02:41:58] John Gray: And, and for people who [02:42:00] didn't really get it, I'm gonna remind us again. The modern word for the word I used to use is delayed reaction. You know, old reaction gets to come out. It's PTSD So people understand this now, a soldier in battle is, you've got to solve the problem so everything gets repressed.
[02:42:15] John Gray: Danger, you know, you, it, it just gets pushed down. You gotta be, can't be thinking about your emotions, otherwise you, you're gonna run, okay? So you have to like push everything down because it's not appropriate to feel them in the war- in the, in a dangerous situation. So you push it down n- because it's dangerous.
[02:42:32] John Gray: You come back into the world of safety, what happens? Is now you start having the feelings you had that you couldn't look at when you were in battle, and that's where, that's where you get this PTS thing where, uh, terrible emotions come up and everything. And then take it a step further What is a guy who has PTSD coming up?
[02:42:54] John Gray: He starts feeling suffering, okay? He's, he's suffering. He's feeling inadequate because you can't save [02:43:00] everybody. You know, your best friend just got killed. You can't... You feel bad you survived, they didn't. All kinds of feelings come up. They're pushed down. They come up. Now, what's the way... 'Cause men don't know how to process those strong negative emotions.
[02:43:13] John Gray: What do they, how do they process them? The way they process it, they get on their motorcycle and they drive really fast. And so by creating danger, what happens in creating danger is those memories all come back, 'cause now you're not safe. So for PTSD, when you're safe, it comes up. So to avoid it coming up, you create danger.
[02:43:32] John Gray: You create adrenaline- Wow ... which pushes them back down. Wow. And most of the deaths from, uh, soldiers is doing dangerous things, or they come back and they do promiscuous sex. That's another thing. Wild, crazy sex. They do drugs. They do promiscuous sex. Weird, aberrated sex life. All that is doing what's taboo.
[02:43:53] John Gray: Taboo feels so good because it pushes down your feelings. And I, I mean, I, I, [02:44:00] I'm just saying, you know, there's a different world where you don't have... Where, where who you are is, you feel like, "I don't have to hide it from anybody," you know? I'm an open book, you know, so I'm not stressed ever at all. But that took years of processing, uh, the deep childhood feelings where I would feel...
[02:44:16] John Gray: As a child, you don't know it, but you feel powerless, you feel inadequate, you feel afraid, you feel the world's against you and everything. You know, our spiritual lineage is, you know, once you, you start living in that life, it's now a cliché, but everything that happens to me is happening for me. And I told you today, even getting here was one mishap after another after another.
[02:44:36] John Gray: And I go, "Oh, this will be the theme of my talk that I give at the conference today." 'Cause they just give me 30 minutes, so for me to condense what I know will change people's lives. So I'll just focus on one thing. So what would that one thing be? I called the driver. First of all, I couldn't get out of the hotel.
[02:44:52] John Gray: I, it was hard to figure... My elevators didn't go all the way to ground floor. They went to the third floor. I'm trying to figure out going down escalators and [02:45:00] trying to find my way out of this hotel. And then I finally get my Uber car, and the Uber car to take me to this interview, you know, I got the best car.
[02:45:07] John Gray: You know, the guy drives up this new Ford big car. It, the windows didn't work, okay? Or he wasn't willing to roll down the windows, and he had one of those green things that fumigates the car, purely toxic and stinks or whatever. Nightmare. And so the car stunk and the windows wouldn't go down. It's a nightmare that happens.
[02:45:26] John Gray: It's quite common for people who drive. Other countries, they don't smell what we smell. I bet they, they only know what they smell, it seems. But they... Anyway, so he wouldn't let me roll down my window, so then I had to go get out, start all over, got through this whole big light. And, and so... And then when I even got here, uh- That he brought me to the wrong house, so we're trying to find the place.
[02:45:49] John Gray: And just remind me, so I'll start out my talk, I was gonna say, "Relationships are so frustrating because you're doing everything right and it doesn't work. And then when it doesn't work, you basically feel [02:46:00] trapped and you can't get out." And this is particularly what men experience in relationships, is when, when they feel that sort of new age guy, I'm supposed to listen.
[02:46:09] John Gray: I read John Gray's books. I'm just saying listen 10 minutes, and if you're uncomfortable, stop at that point, okay? Don't be Superman here until you are, okay? Takes- Yeah. I can listen forever. Yeah. Well, actually I can't, but I'm, I'm, like, bulletproof. I, I under- I have all these techniques, and one technique that you talked about was how can you feel empathy for her about things you wouldn't understand?
[02:46:30] John Gray: This little skill I have inside, which is I'm noticing how I feel while she's talking, and I'm just like, "This is really, really hard. I really don't wanna do this." That's actually the feeling, if you look at the feeling, you know. And I go, "Okay, this is exactly what she must be feeling," and I feel compassion for myself having to go through this journey.
[02:46:51] John Gray: I can feel that compassion for her. See, it's like s- a way I can relate to her suffering. That's a
[02:46:56] Luke Storey: good one.
[02:46:56] John Gray: K- the suffering- That's a good one ... that I feel listening to her is the [02:47:00] suffering she's experiencing right now. Isn't that great?
[02:47:03] Luke Storey: Love it.
[02:47:03] John Gray: I, I, I, I... One, one other, one other real easy one, 'cause you absorb this stuff, so these are like little techniques.
[02:47:08] John Gray: Another one I do is, again, my message is we're not responsible to make a woman happy. That's not my... I, I want to, I try my best, whatever, but really my goal is to help her when she needs help, and then if she's happy, how can I make her happier? That's romance. All right, so you got that. That is a foundation.
[02:47:27] John Gray: So I was in South Africa, and I'm... You know, I promote radio shows back in the day and, and they said, "Oh, you don't wanna..." Biggest guy there. He- "You don't wanna do that show. He's h- totally hates women. He's dysfunctional. He'll tear you to pieces." I said, "Come on," 'cause he's a guy. I'm a guy. I understand men totally and I also understand women, but understood this guy.
[02:47:46] John Gray: I said, "No problem." "No, you don't wanna do him." I said, "I'm gonna do him." He filled up my whole seminar just 'cause of that one guy, and he was talking about women, and he was starting to make some jokes about... I said, "Yeah, you know..." I picked on it right away. I said, "Women, they always expect you to [02:48:00] make you, make 'em happy.
[02:48:01] John Gray: It's not our job to make 'em happy." He went, "What? That's not my job to make her happy?" I said, "No, no. If she's happy, make her happier, but happiness is everybody's responsibility. You can't be a child. Children need to s- but not your wife. She has to be responsible." They should put that on the marriage certificate.
[02:48:17] John Gray: My job is not to make you happy but just to make you happier. He loved it. That became a big theme for me. But how I do that is sometimes, uh, my wife will be having... You know, it's a bummer. You wanna be next to a happy woman, and she's not happy. She's in a bad mood some days and, and it just kinda like brings the energy down a little bit.
[02:48:37] John Gray: And I watch myself, I analyze and I go, "Okay, why am I not feeling good? It's because I feel it's my job to make her happy." If, see, somebody comes into your house and you don't feel it's your job to make 'em happy, doesn't bother you that much. It's when you feel this huge attachment we have to making a woman happy.
[02:48:53] John Gray: There's no doubt about it. If she's happy, I feel I take credit for it. So how do I detach from that when she's not happy? [02:49:00] I imagine myself as the plumber, and I'm a plumber, and I go into a woman's house and she's complaining about the plumbing. I, I'll fix the plumbing. But if she was to say to me, "You know, this paint job is terrible," I go, "Yeah, that's not my job."
[02:49:16] John Gray: I just imagine, you know, if I'm the plumber and she's complaining about the paint, yeah, I can say, "Tell me more. It's really awful. You should find a good plumber, a good painter." See, she's looking to me... See, that just sort of frees me from the idea that we get caught up into being overly attached to her feeling happy for us to feel good.
[02:49:35] John Gray: That's why it's so important that, that a man has something he can... to make himself happy through his actions and efforts in his life, not depending on his partner. And the better I feel about myself, I'm not dependent on feeling happy from my wife's mood. But I do know that I can feel happier for sure, or I feel happy when I'm able to help her.
[02:49:57] John Gray: But I can't help her unless she [02:50:00] wants to be helped, and sometimes a woman just doesn't wanna be helped. And so in those cases, like I could say, "Do you wanna talk about something?" "No, there's nothing I wanna talk about." And I think women secretly will know they're s- they're making you suffer at that time 'cause they can sense it, you know?
[02:50:15] John Gray: It's, it's... 'Cause they also suffer when we're, we're in a bad mood. If I'm in a bad mood, it's really good to be in another room. It's, it's hard for women. Uh, my wife says, "When you're in a, when you're in your cave, you're really in your cave." And 'cause what they do is they feel, "If he doesn't wanna connect with me, he must not love me."
[02:50:32] John Gray: But that's what women have to learn. It's not personal at all. It's what he has to do for himself. Like, I've learned when my wife is upset, it's not about me. It's about her need to talk about what's going on. She's a human being. We're all, you know, suffering in this world together, and how do you cope with it?
[02:50:48] John Gray: Anyway, I just wanted to add those few things.
[02:50:50] Luke Storey: I love it, dude. Well, thank you so much. I knew we were gonna have an incredible deep dive today.
[02:50:56] John Gray: Yeah, yeah,
[02:50:56] Luke Storey: yeah.
[02:50:56] John Gray: It's, oh my goodness.
[02:50:58] Luke Storey: I, I appreciate, yeah, [02:51:00] time, uh- Is
[02:51:00] John Gray: that the time, or is that how long we've
[02:51:01] Luke Storey: been- That's how long we've been going. Yeah. Oh my
[02:51:02] John Gray: God.
[02:51:02] John Gray: Oh my God.
[02:51:03] Luke Storey: And I've enjoyed every minute of it.
[02:51:05] John Gray: Oh, oh my gosh. I, I, a- I'm timeless, you know? This is terrible. I, uh-
[02:51:08] Luke Storey: Hey, man. That's flow state. But, uh, you know, everyone's got the show notes. Uh, I thank you so much for, for taking the time to come out
[02:51:15] John Gray: here. I know another, I know another question people are gonna ask.
[02:51:17] John Gray: We talked all about that protein powder. Yeah. I don't sell it on my website.
[02:51:21] Luke Storey: Oh, okay.
[02:51:21] John Gray: Uh, the reason I don't sell it is because I tend to, like, talk it up, like just now. Yeah. I talk about Parkinson's, I talk about these things, and FDA told me I couldn't do that.
[02:51:30] Luke Storey: Oh, okay.
[02:51:31] John Gray: So if you want to, uh, find out more about that, if you go to marsvenus.com, if you go to contact at the very bottom, you say contact, uh, we will send you a phone number of somebody you could talk to who sells it.
[02:51:45] Luke Storey: Oh, cool.
[02:51:46] John Gray: Okay? So I can't sell it.
[02:51:48] Luke Storey: That's a
[02:51:48] John Gray: workaround. Literally, they called me a, a... They, well, they said I was selling drugs.
[02:51:54] Luke Storey: Ah,
[02:51:54] John Gray: I see. 'Cause if you say there's a benefit to something, uh, like, that's called drugs.
[02:51:58] Luke Storey: Yeah. Yeah.
[02:51:59] John Gray: And everybody [02:52:00] else does it, but somehow for me, I was so famous at the time, you know-
[02:52:03] Luke Storey: Yeah
[02:52:03] John Gray: putting a spotlight on him. So- Well, that's,
[02:52:04] Luke Storey: that's a good workaround.
[02:52:05] John Gray: Yeah, it's a good workaround.
[02:52:06] Luke Storey: All right, dude. Well, thanks for joining me again.
[02:52:08] John Gray: Appreciate it so much. Thank you, Luke Story.
[02:52:10] Luke Storey: Yep.
[02:52:16] Luke Storey: All right, family, thanks for tuning in to The Lifstylist and making me part of your day. Now for a quick reality check. If social media pulled the plug on me tomorrow, how would we stay connected? I've been battling the Chinese Communist Party for years as they keep banning me on TikTok, and you never know how the tide might shift with Instagram or YouTube either.
[02:52:35] Luke Storey: One wrong word and the algorithm can shut you down. That's why I've been proactive. I'm doubling down on email as one of my most reliable long-term channels of communication. But there's one new twist. Instead of me blasting the same content to everyone on my email list, now you get to choose exactly what shows up in your inbox and what doesn't.
[02:52:57] Luke Storey: So whether it's biohacking, truth, wellness, [02:53:00] spirituality, or my uncut take on current events, whatever lights you up the most is what you'll get. So I highly recommend you get to lukestory.com/privatehouse, set your preferences, and enjoy a content stream based on your most important interests. There's no middleman, no algorithm, no censorship, and no spam.
[02:53:19] Luke Storey: It's where I can speak freely and share what I actually think, and no one but you and me decides what gets seen. So again, that's lukestory.com/privatehouse, where you can enjoy a tailored experience with bonus content you won't get anywhere else. And there's no need to even memorize that link or save it for later.
[02:53:37] Luke Storey: You're gonna see it right in this episode description on your podcast app. So hit it before you quit it, and I'll see you all in my private house.
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