John: I don't know what you want to eat. What do you want to eat? You want to eat, you not heard the hack about that? Guys are getting smarter. They're like, "Honey, what was that place you wanted to eat the other night?" And then she just says something, and they're like, "Oh yeah, we're going there." I would say that's good leadership, right? So, it's like, but the point is that you just make a decision. Don't ask. I'm going to say, "This is where we're going. I'm not going to say, do you want to go to this? Do you want to go to that? I'm saying grab your purse, we're going to go to Olive Garden. Grab your purse because you're paying at Olive Garden tonight." Yeah, the 50/50. Beyond the perfect, we discover through our flaws. We complete each other better than perfect. We stay through every fault. We find a way. Hello and welcome back to the Better Than Perfect podcast, where every week we show you how two imperfect people helping each other be better equals one better than perfect relationship. There we go, you got it.

Nicole: I practiced before this, luckily. I nailed it. Practiced one, I didn't nail it on the first time, but happy 2024.

John: Yeah, it's well, for us, it's newly 2024, but for you, it's been 2024 for some time.

Nicole: Yeah, but I think if they've watched the episodes up until this point, they realize we're a little off, but it'll still be 2024, so exactly.

John: Yeah, for a while. Well, it's your week to pick the topic, so I thought we would do this week on how should a man lead a relationship because we talked about a lot of times about the 50-50 relationships and a lot of the topics we talked about how a man should be leading the relationship, but we never really talked about what that looks like. And I think there's a lot of misconceptions about it, about the Macho man, I'm the boss type of thing, which sort of makes it off-putting to a lot of women.

Nicole: Right. So, I figured we'd break that down and talk about what is the proper way to lead as a man in a relationship.

John: Okay, yeah. I mean, do you want to go ahead and start?

Nicole: I think the thing that I would have said, you already said, is that I feel like the real hesitation women have when they hear like, "Oh, like a man needs to lead or he needs to be in charge," is that they're afraid that he's not going to do it in the correct way, right? That you should, like, in a respectful way. And also, that maybe they don't trust the guy that they're with to lead them, and so that gives them resistance.

John: So, yeah, why don't you describe it because I know that you do a very good job at leading.

Nicole: Okay, how do you want to dive in? Or you can ask me a question if you want me to answer something.

John: Well, I mean, let's lay it out. What does it look like? What am I really talking about here, right? So, what do I believe? So, I believe that a man should be the leader in the relationship, that he should, quote, be in charge. I don't like to use that term because it's unnecessary to really say it that way, but ultimately, what it means is that a woman should follow the man, that she should accept him as an authority, allow him to be authority in the home. And I use the word "allow" because there becomes this dominance and submission type of thing, like a woman should submit to a man, right? His wife or, you know, in a relationship. But the thing I think that most people miss is that it has to be a willing submission, right? I think a lot of people think, "Oh, you can dominate someone," but that's not the case. It's just like if I went to a karate class and signed up for karate class, I would willingly submit to the instructor's authority because I want to be there. He's not making me. I choose to be there. I choose to be in that situation. I choose to follow. You know, he says drop and give me 20 push-ups. I'm not going to be like, "I don't want to give 20 push-ups." I signed up. I'm at the class. I accept his authority in that situation. So, that's what I mean by that is, I am saying what a lot of people would call the traditional kind of roles, relationships, which I think we talked about what, two weeks ago? The traditional, why have a traditional relationship a while ago.

Nicole: Yeah, I think what you just said, though, is so important because a woman, what men need to realize, is a woman is not going to follow your lead if you are acting in this way that we're going to describe that's wrong, right? Like, you have to be somebody that she looks up to and who is doing the right. You wouldn't go to a karate class, and the guy is just yelling at you like, "Do 50 push-ups, and then do 100 crunches," and then, 30 minutes into the class, you only have like 30 more minutes left, you're barely doing any karate, you're just doing what he tells you to do. You wouldn't respect him as much. You'd be like, "Okay, maybe I need to try a different karate class." So, I think it's really important that, which I know we're going to into the difference, but that men realize that there is a difference. There's a difference between this like authoritarian, like, you know, and very aggressive and often like disrespectful and harsh sort of view that guys can sometimes have when it comes to like leading or authority, and then the right way to do it, which is not saying that you do everything. It's you still have to lead, you still have to make the decisions, but it's not this like extreme version.

John: Yeah, and I would say, you know, we could go back to, it's probably worth talking about one more time, the captain of the ship analogy, right? Like, I think that's the best way to describe, and I talked about in a different episode about how a man should have this conversation with a woman when she wants to be in a committed relationship. But basically, the idea is that the man should be the captain of the ship, and he should act as a captain in such a way that he's going down with the ship. He's responsible for the ship and everyone on board of that ship, and that they choose to be on the ship or not. And he makes that clear, that that is, if he's going to be in a relationship, he's going to be the one who is the captain of this ship. And so, you know, what does a good captain do? A good captain, he doesn't just bark orders at people. He doesn't abuse the authority and just use that authority in order to just do what he wants to do. He's looking after where is the ship going, like what is the destination, right? Where are we trying to get to? And he's utilizing his authority in order to help to navigate and to make sure that things go that direction. And then also, how is he treating the people who he's in care of? Well, that's where we say he goes down with the ship, meaning that he puts his life last and puts the crew and the passengers first, which means that if you're leading as a man.

John: In a relationship, in the proper way, you're putting your wife, your children if you have children, first. You're putting the woman above you and caring for her needs and the things she needs in life more so than yourself. That'll help you make better decisions for everybody as well, because if you're putting yourself first, you're probably going to make decisions just based on what benefits you. Whereas if you're putting other people in your family and your life first, you're going to make a better overall decision. I'm not saying that you don't take yourself into consideration at all, either. But you think more about the decisions that you make if they affect everybody, and you know that they affect everybody, and you're taking that responsibility.

Nicole: Yeah, and I think there's this balance, right? Between for guys in this position to be a good leader, where it is accepting that you are the authority and that you do need to have that captain of the ship conversation or be really clear that, look, I'm going to make these decisions. It is going to be my call at the end of the day. I'm going to be the authority, the head of this house. However, at the same time, you also have to be leading mostly by example, right? So that you are setting the standard, and you're caring for the people, you're caring for the woman that you're in a relationship with. She knows that you care about her and her desires and her needs more than your own self. So there's sort of this thing because you can go too far in one or the other direction. Some men will be domineering and controlling, right? And so they'll be a tyrant. They will say things like, "You need to listen to what I'm saying. You need to submit to me," and they'll be pressing that as opposed to servant leadership, and they'll be pushing that part hard. Maybe they'll be making selfish decisions, or you know, you hear this sometimes where guys are like, "Oh well, I'm the man, so we're going to have an open relationship, but it's only one way open." You know, I've never heard that, well besides some people, the craziness that I've heard on the internet, but personally, I've never heard that in real life.

John: No, but I'm saying that the craziness, this idea that you're this big strong angry man and everybody better listen to you, that's not the way to go. But then there's other guys that will go on the other side of this, which is to abdicate all responsibility to say, "Oh no, it's an equal partnership, and we just make all the decisions together." And well, some of those guys just want a mom.

Nicole: Yeah, yeah, so that's again, they'll give up all the responsibility for someone to just do the things for them. But again, that's like the extremes. Those are the extremes. The guy that's very controlling is one extreme, and then the person, the guy who wants like a mom is the other extreme. But I do feel like guys really do struggle with being somebody that a woman would trust to lead them because that's the reality. A woman's not going to let a man lead if she doesn't trust him with her life. Like, she's not, period. So what a guy has to do is be a man worthy of having a woman's life in your hands. And what's that like? What is it that a woman would trust a man and be willing to let him lead?

John: I mean, I think you do have to be, I'm not saying like completely aligned on a lot of life goals and morals and things like that, but I do think it helps. Because if you guys see eye to eye on a lot of things, it's a lot easier to put trust in that person, knowing that they probably are going to handle the situations the exact way or very similar to how you would. And you know, all of us at some point have been on our own. We have certain ways of doing things. So when you feel like someone's going to handle them in a similar way, that helps. Obviously, like being a person with integrity and, you know, respect for other people and little things like that will translate usually to that person having respect for you. A lot of women talk about how if you go on a date with a guy, how he treats the waiter and things like that is a good way to determine how he could potentially treat you. So, and that, I do agree with that. So usually, like if he respects all people in his life that he encounters, he'll have respect for you. He'll treat you kindly and, you know, based on how he acts. So a lot goes into it, like even more than that. I mean, like he has to be trustworthy.

Nicole: And I mean, you and I started off on a beginning that wasn't built a lot on that. So that's not to say that that can't grow into something, but I did still trust you.

John: Yeah, yeah, exactly. To this level, like I felt like I knew who you were, and so I trusted in that because we had spent so much time together. We talked to each other so much. Like, I learned so much about you that I trusted in what I had learned and what I had seen from you.

Nicole: Yeah, because actions speak way louder than words. So that is important too, that guys need to actually act the way that they're saying. They can't just say something and then not follow through on it.

John: Exactly, which is part of being, you know, trustworthy and things like that too. So it's a combination, right? Because I never really felt like I trusted any other guy. I mentioned that in a different episode too, but it's true. I just didn't have all these things aligned that I had just talked to you about. So I didn't even know that it could happen. And I definitely wasn't going to follow the lead of any of the guys that I had met because I felt like I could run the ship better than any of them. So I'm like, I'm not giving this steering wheel over to this guy who doesn't know how to even live his own life.

John: And I think that's a big element of it, right? I was just about to say, if I go on an airline, right, I let the pilot pilot the airplane. I don't because I know he can pilot the airplane better than I can. And so to some degree, a woman has to know, hey, this man's more competent in some ways than I am. Like, he can, I trust him to take care of things better than I could take care of things. So she has to look up to them to a degree. And I know when I say that, some people are like, you know, I can feel the "but." But it is true, right? You know, I don't want to mince words on that. It's like a woman does have to look up to a guy. It doesn't mean that he's quote better than her. It just means that as far as, you know, one of the things that a man needs to be is competent. He needs to be financially competent. He needs to have wisdom. He needs...

John: To have those things where a woman would look up to him and look up to those attributes, well, she has her own set of attributes, the feminine attributes that are different and also valuable. Those masculine attributes of being able to make decisions, of being able to take charge, and being able to navigate the world and move a couple in the right direction. I think those things, she has to feel like he is more equipped to do that than she is, which doesn't totally disregard her input into that too because a good leader, if we went back to the ship example, a captain of the ship that's like, "Don't worry, I got it. We're going a little off course, nah, I can navigate, and I'll do the sails. You don't worry about it," that's not a very good captain. He needs to listen to the crew.

Nicole: And the crew is like, "Okay, well, you know there's a leak," and he's like, "There's no leak, get out of here." He has to actually listen to the crew and say, "Okay, I'm going to take that into consideration to actually take the sea." I think that's key because sometimes, even when you just described it, it can sound like you need to trust a man more than you trust yourself. And you can't really say you need to just trust him and do whatever he says. That's what you said, right? But the way that you said it is like you have to trust him more than yourself, and I know where you are going with that, but you didn't fully explain it.

John: And that is very much the key though, because a woman will not follow a man's lead if she feels like she just has to do whatever the guy says. Even if she trusts him and even if she knows that he'll make the right decision, if she feels like she is no longer necessary to make decisions, she won't want to be there. So, if she feels like her input is not considered, valued, or desired, exactly because you should desire the input from your partner regardless. Even if I'm trusting you to make all the decisions, which is how our relationship goes, right? I do expect you to value the things that I say to you too. Do I expect you to always do the recommendation I give you? No, but I expect you to listen to it and be able to recognize that I said that thing. Does that make sense?

Nicole: Exactly, yeah. So, I think sometimes too, with the people who do it the wrong way, the guys who do it the wrong way, it's like they're not even listening. Like you said, they're like, "Don't even talk to me, I got this." Where no one, nobody wants to be around somebody who acts that way, man or woman. It's not a wise person. A wise person, even when they're in charge, they take wise counsel. And that's also the difference that I think a lot of men, what they do again, going on the other side, is they don't just take wise counsel, they become a yes man and do whatever the woman wants them to do. And they think, "Okay, I'm serving her," and that's not true because as a man, some of the hard decisions you have to make in leading is you have to say, "Okay, this is what she wants, but this is what's best for her and our relationship, and I'm going to make this choice." But I've heard what she wants because if you can't say no to a woman, then you're not really a leader. You're not a leader in any capacity if you can't say no. You have to be able to say no and you have to be able to stand on and ultimately make a decision from your judgment while taking it into consideration of everyone. You should explain your decision as well too. It's not just, "You heard what she said, and this is what's better for her." You need to explain that to her in a way that's not just, "I think this is best for you, so that's what's going to happen." It needs to be, if you're making a decision that affects somebody like that, you owe them an explanation on why you came to this conclusion and not just, "I think it's best." Even though that is the easy way to explain it, they deserve to know where you came to your conclusion because they might agree with you. But they can't agree with you if you just say, "I just decided it because I know that it's the best." That does nothing for somebody, except further push them into that they think they know what's best for them because you're not even explaining to them why your idea is better and why you're going with it.

Nicole: And I think, without going too off topic with that, in going to the woman's side of how should a woman be in a relationship as far as submitting and being led to be someone who is willing to accept that authority, is that the explanation cannot be a justification or an argument in the sense that if it's right, lesson right. And even then, the woman might not agree with the man, but then she should still accept what he's saying. That matters less if she still doesn't agree if you explained it exactly. And it's like I said, it's about the lesson, it's about the wisdom. Like you said, I mean, not everybody's like us and likes to learn things and grow, but I'm coming from that place because I want to know where you're coming from because I will agree with you if you give me a good enough description that I understand, and now I'm on your side. And even if I don't, I want to hear your side so I can understand why you don't agree with me. So, it's all about learning, right, from any experience. So, that's why I mentioned like, and also, a woman's not going to take a man seriously who's just like, "Because I said so." That's like a middle school excuse for why you're doing something.

John: But let me ask you this question, right? So, because this is really the heart of it, and this is really what defines in my mind whether there is actually that leadership, which is suppose that there's a situation where you have a different opinion on it, and then I go a different way after listening to you, and then I explain to you why I'm going this way, and you still disagree with it, and then I still say, "This is what we're going to do." What do you then do?

Nicole: I would do what you recommended. And part of that also is that understanding that I may be wrong because I'm a human being. I have faults. I don't always make the right decisions, but part of leadership and having that authority in the house is that you're still, you still make the decision, and you're still backed up and supported even if it ends up being wrong, and even if you end up making a mistake. Because people are going to make mistakes, but we would have a discussion about that, right? And I know you personally, that you would take that into consideration.

John: Probably not make that choice again if it was the wrong choice and it turned out bad, of course.

Nicole: Yeah, that's the key too because some people let their ego get a hold of them and they make the wrong choice and they almost try to like sweep it under the rug and try to make it look like they didn't make the wrong choice. You have to own up to it because if you're leading, you have full responsibility and you need to own up when you make a mistake and you get it wrong, and you need to do better next time. Because if you don't do those things, then you just... And if you can't even tell somebody, "Hey, you know what, you put your trust in me and I was wrong and I'm sorry," if you can't do that, you're also not a leader. That is what having full responsibility is. That's what being a leader is. Somebody down the completely wrong way and then just act like, "Oh well, it's whatever," you're not going to have people following you anymore.

John: Yeah, you're going to erode the trust. And that's also the other aspect of it too, is responsibility. Because again, the captain of the ship, he's responsible for the ship. He's not just responsible for the ship, but you put it good in one of the other episodes where you said if you go into a restaurant and the waitress is a jerk and just is rude and whatever, the person doesn't write about the waitress, they write the review about the restaurant because the restaurant, the owner of the restaurant is responsible because they hired that waitress, they trained that waitress. And so as a man, if your wife does something, let's say you're married and it's not good, it's your fault. You're the one who's responsible. Like maybe it's not quote "your fault," but you're responsible because you were the one who was in charge. She gave you the authority. Of course, if she rebelled against your authority and that's what happened, then of course she wouldn't be responsible in that case. But if you were the one who made the decision, if you're the one...

Nicole: She's choosing to submit to your authority and then something bad happens, whether she goofed or not, it's still your responsibility. Same thing with your children. When your children mess up, you're the one on the hook. The police come to you because you're the one who's responsible for them. Being the leader and being the man of the house, I would say even if your wife rebelled against what you were going to do, that's still your responsibility. That's a good point. Something else must have happened, like or you chose this woman or you chose to accept this woman who continued to rebel against you and still stay in that relationship. So, I mean, there's a lot of... If you have a bad crew and the crew is doing stuff that they shouldn't be doing and you continue to keep that crew, whose fault is it? It's not the crew's fault at that point.

John: Right.

Nicole: So, yeah, I mean, it is hard from a woman's perspective. I'm not going to go fully into it. Like, I don't feel like it's hard with you and I because it's something that naturally happened and I think that's how it should be. That to me feels like it's a natural thing. It's easy to do. So, I feel like when you're forcing it, it's harder to maintain and it's harder to, I don't know, continue to have happening. But it is still hard at times when you feel like you have the right solution, right? And someone might not choose that solution. So, I think though that's just human nature because you could even say that when you make a choice that maybe isn't what I would choose and it, let's say it ended up being wrong, that's still hard for people to deal with. So just like doing something and failing or like making a mistake is hard. It's hard to put your thought out there or your suggestion out there and have someone go with an opposite thing when you feel so passionately about it. So, it's like, it's a different dynamic.

John: For women, it can be hard at times when you feel like you really know what the proper thing to do is and someone does something different. Like, yes, you want to trust in your husband and you do trust in your husband and that's why it should go the way that we've been talking about. But at the same time, it's like, from a man's perspective, the hard thing is choosing to go against what someone else maybe gave you the suggestion of and then doing something, maybe it's wrong, and maybe that suggestion was actually the right suggestion. Like, that's hard to face too. And that's why with the responsibility, you have to be able to humble yourself and be like, "You know what, you were actually right. So next time this situation happens, we'll do this, or we'll tweak it and we'll do a mixture of both because maybe that's the right way to do it or maybe neither of those are right and you need a whole new perspective."

Nicole: Yeah, so it's, I think that's important because guys get really hung up on the power and the control when someone says a man needs to be the authority and it's way more to it. It's way more intricate. It's not just be the man and boss people around and be aggressive and tell people no and, you know, all these other things that a lot of men think it is. It is like we've been talking about, it's this leadership that involves all these other things. It's cooperation. It's not even though you're the one representing everybody, the family unit, it's cooperation as a family unit.

John: Yeah, you have to have the leader who's making the decision, the man who's ultimately the decision maker. But also, I think I would say though that again, another challenge of leadership as a man is he has to step up and take the leadership because if he doesn't, then a woman will gladly fill that role and women are almost programmed to fill that role. They will test the man, they will try to take control of the ship. So, a man has to not allow that to happen and that is a test. And if he can't pass that test, then he's not going to be a good leader. And then also, he has to, again, it is a challenge when you know that someone wants something or wants a certain way to go. Like, a man always has to make his decisions based on what he believes internally in his heart is the right decision, not how he's influenced, right, but also based on facts. Like, men are logical. It should be based on the knowledge that you have as well too.

Nicole: Yes, ultimately it comes down to how you feel because you will be making the decision. But women put their trust in you knowing that you're going to think of all the scenarios because that's what women do. We ruminate. I've said that on other episodes. We think of all possible scenarios in the 5 seconds that something was said. And so, I feel like that too can be hard for women sometimes to give the complete reins because we've thought of so many different outcomes or solutions and sometimes a man just thinks of...

Nicole: One and then just goes with that, but you have to trust that he does. But I mean, it does ultimately go back to you have to pick a partner, you have to pick a guy as a woman that you do trust because it's very hard to force yourself to trust a man that you deep down don't trust, right? That's why I'm saying it's like it was natural for you and I. I felt like I knew who you were. We were around each other so much that I really got to know the real you, and so I kind of had a feeling of how you would respond in different situations without them happening. And so I trusted in what you would do, and so it wasn't hard. But the thing is that women might not be in that situation where I would say that that would be a problem. Like, you have to fully trust the man. She will never let her masculine side down, she will never fully follow your lead if she doesn't trust you.

John: Yeah, absolutely, deeply. And she might even think she trusts you, right? But if she doesn't trust you to make decisions for her life, even if they might be wrong, then she doesn't trust you because that is the ultimate sign of trust. It is even the most trusting thing to put the outcome of your life into someone else's hands, even if you know that that person's wrong.

Nicole: Right, exactly. And you're going to have to suffer the consequences with this person, right? But it's like knowing that you are in it together and you will suffer the consequences together, and that you pick somebody that will realize they made a mistake and do better the next time because you know, because you have to know that, yeah, sometimes this person's going to be wrong, but a majority of times they're going to make good decisions. And so I'd rather just be in that lot and be with this person who I trust is 90% of the time going to make good decisions, even if it means sometimes 10% of the time I'm going to have to suffer the consequences of their bad decision. Which is a tough thing. It's a but it's also a tough thing to accept as a man because a lot of men don't want to take the role of leader because they don't want the responsibility of it because they don't want to bear that, and they don't want to deal with it. It's so much easier, you hear all the time on sitcoms, they joke and they say, "Let me ask the boss," or you know, "Who wears the pants?" And they joke about the woman being in charge, but it's a joke, but it's also true in many married relationships. The woman is the boss, she's the one in charge, and the reason why is because the guy has abdicated. He's abdicated, and he's basically said, "It's too much work for me to..." You know, it's kind of funny 'cause guys are peacekeepers by default. If you ask a guy who's married, if you ask him, you say, "What do you want most in the world?" And "Happy wife, happy life," he'll say peace, right? And so, "Happy wife, happy life" is true and also false the way that people use it is completely false. When they say "Happy wife, happy life," what they're really saying most people is they're saying, "I'm just going to do whatever she wants, and I'm just going to let her make the decision, let her do whatever she wants so that she's happy," right? And that's a formula for unhappiness because she won't be happy if you do that because she'll think you're a weak pushover, and she'll have to be in her masculine. But the way that "Happy life, happy wife" is true is when you as a man realize that if you are leading and you are making decisions and you are taking all that masculine responsibility off of a woman so that she can be feminine and she can trust in you to be steering this boat and navigating this boat, then she's going to be truly happy, and you are going to have a much happier life, and you're going to have a much happier sex life too.

Nicole: So, on that note, well, no, I was going to say, since a lot of women are in their masculine, they have to be, they're on their own, they're single, right? You know, they have that side ignited in them. What you said is right because a woman, when she's on her own, she's single, she's in her more masculine side. She still has her feminine side, but she's more masculine because there's things that have to happen. Yeah, she is not going to trust you if she feels like she's more masculine than you, for sure. Absolutely. Like, and so not telling her yes to everything. I'm not saying be abrasive or anything like that, but that shows that you are in your masculine. You know, are doing what you need to do, you're respecting yourself, you're respecting other people by how you respond to that. And so that is, it's almost a test, but it's not a test, like it's not a cognizant test.

John: Yeah, it's a subconscious one. It is important because most women these days that are dating have a very masculine side, and they have to be. And they should. I don't know if they should when they're single because also I think there's a way to be that's not like super masculine. You don't have to be abrasive, but she should have her masculine, she has to take care of herself, she has to pay her bills, she has to go, she has to do all these things. And it's good because it, as a woman, it makes men step up to the plate.

Nicole: That's true. I get because if I'm more manly than you, right? No, but you are going to turn off certain men if you come across then I need a manly man. I mean, if you come across too manly, then I think that is a, it's not a very attractive trait. She just needs a manlier man. It's just not going to be an attractive trait to come across. No woman is like intentionally trying to come across. You've been like trenches of the dating world for so long that it's pushing her further and further into this masculine side. But what I'm trying to say though is that I know that I had a masculine side, right?

John: Right.

Nicole: And I know that when I met you, you outdid that. We did a whole episode on this. You outdid that, so it was easier to follow your lead because, okay, I'm like, this man is more of a man than me, okay? And he's got his shit together more than I have my shit together. Like, you were talking about admiring somebody. That's when a woman admires you when you outdo her, but not in a competitive way. Like, you weren't like trying to outdo me. You weren't like, "I got to do this 'cause Nicole's doing this." Like, you just naturally had that. But that is where it's like a dog, right? When a more aggressive dog comes around, what does a dog do? It's dominance. They are submissive. And so it's like, it's not this thing that you choose. It should be this thing that naturally balances out. Like, if you're a

Woman: A woman that wants a manly man, which most women do, right? You need to find a man that is more manly than you. Right now, and I'm not saying go be more manly. Like, don't learn to be more manly as a woman. You're going to make it tougher for yourself. Trust in a man that is more manly than you, has his stuff together, that you look up to, and you know that if you give your life in his hands, he's going to take care of it like he does with everything else in his life.

Man: Yeah, no, I agree. The way you put it, yeah, that makes perfect sense. I agree with that 100%. So, I feel like that, and it's even as simple as, you know, because what you said about the test and out-masculinizing a woman, right? What we talked about before about the two magnets, right? A North and North magnet, you put them together, there will be a magnetic induction where the weaker will flip to the South.

Woman: Right.

Man: And so, that will turn on the feminine switch in a woman when she's... but it has to be... but the man has to step up, right? He almost has to look at her masculine attempts as like, "Oh, that's cute," like, "Oh, you're a test." Because that's usually what... He has to not be phased by it. He has to be like, "Oh, that's cute," you know what I'm saying? He has to be like that, not taking that as a serious competition or threat because he knows that he's the man. And so, whatever attempt she's making at being masculine, he dismisses as, "That's cute." Right? Uh, it's even as simple as this, right? Because if a guy is just meeting a girl, right? And this happens all the time, and he says something like, "Oh, what kind of music do you like?" And she's like, "Oh, I like country music," and he hates country music, and he's like, "Oh yeah, I like country music too," right? It's like, boom, he's already lost, right? Because he should say, "No, I don't like country music."

Woman: Yeah.

Man: But he doesn't say... Well, no, it's not just about honesty. It's just about... I mean, it is, but the thing is, what guys are doing in that case is trying to get a woman to like them. They're being likable. They're being agreeable as opposed to being themselves, as opposed to being masculine. Right? He's afraid. And that, but see, that same attribute, if you can't tell a woman that you don't like country music because you're going afraid she's not going to like you because you don't like the music that she does, then she's not going to trust you to lead her in a relationship. Because every time that she's like, "Oh, do you think we should buy this really expensive car that we can't afford?" And he's going to be like, "Oh yeah, yeah, for you, anything babe." Like, he's going to make a bad financial decision, not... not to say, you know, but have a hard time saying no. Right? He's not... He's just going to do whatever that she wants to do. And who could trust someone, you know, if I... if I walked into the karate class, right? Again, that karate class, and the instructor's like, "So, um, you know, I'm like, okay, so," and he's like, "Um, yeah, what are we going to do today?" Yeah, or like our cooking class we went to, where the lady's just like, "Do you think we should have put the puff pastry in there?" I'm like, "You're the teacher." And then he's like, "Do you think we should kick the bags today?" And I'm like, "Uh, I don't know, you're the... you're the guy. Like, you tell me." Like, "Okay, well, I mean, I guess we can do this then, like, if you want to do that. I just want to make sure you want to kick the bags. Do you want to kick the bags?" Right? It's like, "You want to do some push-ups?" Like, no, that's not going to work. It's not going to be... You have to be confident. Even if you're wrong, you have to be confident in being wrong.

Woman: Right.

Man: Yeah, yeah. Being confident in being wrong is hard.

Woman: Yeah.

Man: Right? You got because you... because you got to take the responsibility that comes with it. It's even harder to be confident in being wrong when you feel like you're right and you have to do the wrong thing.

Woman: Yeah, well, yeah, I'm sure. But... but... but everyone has to face that, even... even men have to face that. Right? Again, no, it's true. You're... you're, as a man also, you're a bad leader if you're not... if you're a bad follower. If you can't submit to someone else's authority, you are not going to be a good leader because... Right, man, I have plenty of people in my life that I have had to submit to their authority because... And I don't be like, "Oh, they're... they think they're better than me," or... or whatever. I'm... I'm like, "All right." But that doesn't take away your authoritative position just because someone else has the authoritative position or was authority over you at some point doesn't take away that your authority in a different situation. I willingly give them that, my submission, right? In the case where I, when I used to work for the man, you know, when I worked in the... ultimately comes from, my boss was my boss. Trust, I mean, in a job scenario, it comes from money a lot of the time, but... but you're willingly, you're choosing to be there. And so, if I'm going to sit in that desk and I'm going to accept the paycheck, whatever that guy tells me, that's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to argue with him. I'm not... I'll give him my opinion, but when he makes a decision, I'm going to support it and back it, whether I like it or not. Which should... even had a job, not job, you know, they take into consideration, some, they should, what their employees think, to try to...

Woman: Yeah, exactly.

Man: They're good lead if they're trying to actually lead in the correct way. They have like group meetings, like, "Let's talk about what's going on. What should we do?" They want to hear from everybody. They're not just like, "Oh, I noticed this, so we're going to do this." Like, sometimes it does for that, but a lot of time, it should be collectively discussing and then making a decision based on everything. Sometimes you will make a decision just based on how you feel about it, and that's going to be part of it as well too. But the key to all of this is really trust, right? Like, it's trust in who you're with, who you married, who you're in a relationship with, because it starts from the very beginning. We wouldn't have made it this far. We wouldn't have gotten married if I didn't trust you. And you really shouldn't get married if the... damn, we talking right now, if... look at your right now as you're watching this, and you're like, "I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him," then you might have made a mistake.

Woman: Right.

Man: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would say, yeah, if a woman is resisting submitting to a man and cringes at the idea of him being an authority, then probably doesn't trust him. Probably there's something, you know what I mean? Again, a lot of people are upset by that language that I just used, but...

John: And the reason why is because they don't have that kind of relationship. They don't understand what it is to trust a person who is a good leader, who is caring for them. There's a real value in that. It's important to fully discuss it because, in today's world, everybody watches a 30-second video and thinks they get the whole picture. That's why we started this too. We also do 30-second videos that are confusing, but we do talk about the full details.

Nicole: Yeah, you can always watch the full episode. I think what really trips a lot of women up and makes them resist is that so many men just make it super aggressive when it comes to being the leader. They make it more of a power thing, more of control, more of some sort of power trip. I've been reading this serial killer book—we won't get fully into that—but I read the serial killer book, and one of the reasons that people kill people is for power and for control. So, if people kill people for that, don't you think that men can get a little tripped up on power trips?

John: Yeah, for sure. Like in their relationship, wanting power and control. That's why it's so important to talk about how to actually do it right, rather than this pseudo trying to seem like you're in control. Because people automatically go to anger and power, like, "Oh, I need to seem like I'm in control, then I need to yell at them, and I need to put them in their place, and I need to do all this aggressive stuff."

Nicole: And women don't want that. Men are scary. Like I said, serial killer book, men are scary. And if you don't have that delicate balance, you can and you will detract women from you by being this scary, power-hungry, control-hungry person because nobody wants to be with that. No woman wants to be with a man that she's afraid of.

John: Well, and the thing about that too is that you can win people's minds without their hearts. Meaning that if you display aggressiveness and dominance, can you get a woman to submit to you and listen to what you say? Yes. Will you have won her heart in that case? Will she do what you're saying if you yell enough and if you posture enough and intimidate? Will anyone? Yeah, potentially, if you're intimidating enough. However, you'll have only won their mind but not their hearts. And so what will happen in that case is that they may do what you say, but they don't support you. They're not backing you.

Nicole: Right, and they may get into a situation where they're in an unhealthy toxic cycle. But my point is, you won't ever have their hearts. Their heart won't be in it.

John: Right. And so the thing about us is, I know that when I make a decision, even if you disagree with it, you're backing me and supporting me because your heart's in it because you trust me, and I can feel that. I don't intimidate. I don't say, "You better do this." It doesn't work like that. I know who you are, and I know that you've thought about this. I know that you have a lot of wisdom. I know the things that you possess, and so it's easier for me, even if I feel like I might have the right answer and you choose to do something different. I know who you are, and I know your intentions with everything you do and all the things that you do already in our life and show me that. I know that the decision you're making is not malicious, it's not just trying to one-up me or, you know, because people do that stuff too. Men do that stuff too. They're like, they'll choose the opposite thing of what their woman wants just to be petty and fight them.

Nicole: And I know you would never do that to me. Or to test their power.

John: Right, exactly. So that is what needs to go away, where guys need to get out of that mindset because it is abusive, like the way the extreme way we're talking about. And people should leave. If someone's yelling at you and trying to scare you into doing what they want you to do, you should leave.

Nicole: Of course.

John: And it's not... You might have authority in that case, but you don't have leadership. Because leadership and authority are not the same thing, even though we've kind of mixed them together for simplification purposes on this podcast. But you don't have to have authority to be a leader.

Nicole: Right.

John: But you do have to be a leader if you're in authority. And that's why we put it that way. But another thing I was going to say too about that, in terms of what a man has to do, is, because we talked about him actually stepping up and being more masculine than the woman, but another common scenario comes up, and this comes up in dating as well, is, "I don't know, what do you want to eat? What do you want to eat?"

Nicole: Do you not heard the hack about that?

John: Well, guys are getting smarter. They're like, "Honey, what was that place you wanted to eat the other night?" And then she just says something, and they're like, "Oh yeah, we're going there."

Nicole: That's a pretty good hack, actually. I thought it was going to be a bad hack, but that's not bad. That's clever, and that I would say that's good leadership. So it's like, but the point is, is that you make the decision. Don't ask. And a smart leader will think about, "Oh, she really likes Italian food. I'm going to say this is where we're going." I'm not going to say, "Do you want to go to this? Do you want to go to that?" Say, "Grab your purse, we're going to go to Olive Garden."

John: Grab your purse because you're paying at Olive Garden tonight.

Nicole: Yeah, the 50/50. Well, that's also... I mean, we won't go too far into that because we did a whole episode on 50/50, but it is really hard to be a man who is the leader, the authority, and a woman submits to you and trusts you when you're a 50/50 man.

John: I'm not saying that...

Nicole: Well, that's because it should be 50/50 authority. If you're doing 50/50 of the things, why wouldn't it be 50/50 authority? Why am I going to give you more authority when I'm pulling the same weight as you, and a lot of times it's more, right? Because who's usually coming home and cooking dinner and taking care of the kids and doing laundry?

John: Right, yeah, that's true, even in 50/50.

Nicole: So, how do you, as a man in a 50/50, expect more authority or to be the leader when I'm pulling my weight, and if not more weight, then I should be the leader?

John: It's hard to argue against that, to be honest.

Nicole: So, that's why, like, you know, we got a lot of hate from some of these episodes, especially the 50-50.

John: Look, guys, I did a video on it. People are upset about that too, but hey, you can't have it both ways. If you're complaining about feminism and women, Western women, and all this stuff, fine. That's fine if you want to complain about it. I mean, you shouldn't complain and be whiny, but that's fine. But then, if I say, "Alright, here's the solution. You want to be the man, the authority, you want a woman to submit to you," well, then be the protector and the provider and pay for all the stuff and take care of it. And they whine about that too. You can't have it both ways, you know what I'm saying? If you're like, "Hey, I want to be 50/50," then share the responsibility. Women are so masculine now, men are so whiny. It has to balance out, I guess.

Nicole: So, I don't want this to turn into just like a hate session, but I'm just saying because I am tired of all men. But I don't have a problem if someone wants to say, "No, we're doing a 50-50 relationship. You guys are fun or whatever, but we're doing a partnership, and we're both in charge, and we're both equal partners, and there's no leader and no follower." If someone wants to do that, I don't think it's the best way, but I don't have a problem with that if you're consistent. But if you're now trying to say, "Oh, I'm the authority," and then you want to be 50/50 on everything else, now it's inconsistent, right? It's like, have your cake and eat it too. You want the benefits of one thing while not pulling your weight in the other part.

John: Right, and you'll see, without getting too far off topic and changing the rating on this podcast, but what you will see a lot is in a lot of relationships today, where women want a 50/50, they want to be just as masculine as the man. They don't call it masculine; they just want to be the same. You will find that, except the bedroom, then they want to dominate. That is there, and it borders on the unhealthy because that's where it becomes almost abusive. How can you shift back and forth? We've had other conversations about this, not to go too far into that, but it's like you have a loving relationship, and then in the bedroom, you want somebody to like punch you in the face. How do you go from one extreme to the other and being like masculine here but submissive here? That's still very much the extreme. It's a psychological rift, and what it comes from, if you want my psychoanalysis on it, is it comes from a woman's natural instinct to want a dominant man and to want to submit to that man and to trust him and to have him be the authority and lead her. But because she believes, whether based on society or whatever it is, or she hasn't found a strong enough man that everybody should be equal and there's no roles and all this stuff, okay, then to make up for it, that need that's still inside her, she lives her normal life as if she's a man and he's a man, almost. You know what I'm saying? Where they're equal, they're the same, whatever. Then in the bedroom, it goes to a perverse extreme where it becomes actually physical because where she wants to be dominated so badly to make up for the need that she has in her life. So that's why that happens. That's my psychoanalysis of that.

Nicole: My psychoanalysis of your psychoanalysis is that when you're explaining it, I think women want to be equal, again, at the end of the day, because they don't trust their man. Because if you're with somebody that you don't fully trust, you have to be at least equal, right, to feel like you're safe. And so I feel like that's really why women stress that, is because they don't feel safe. They don't feel like they can trust their man 100% and put their lives in their hands. Because then she doesn't have to feel like she needs to have the authority level that the man has. Because if she trusts you, she's just going to give it to you, and then not have to deal with it, not have to be in her masculine as much. So that begs the question, maybe we can end this with this, which is, as a man, how do you do this? How do you become this leader, how you become the man that women trust?

John: And what I would say, and you can... I was going to say you need to describe it because I feel like you've also been, right, a yes man, and then now you are a man. So, you take the floor. So, number one is you have to actually step up and take charge because a woman will test you, and every woman will test you. And she will try to take charge; she will try, and she will see if she can get the steering wheel out of your hands. And if she can, you've lost. So, you have to actually step up and be willing to have that battle, if you're going to call it that. But you have to be willing to step up. That means need to be respectful, right, in a respectful way. That's like we said, I think in another example, you open the car door because you're a man, and she says, "I don't need someone to open the car door for me." You don't whine at her and be like, "Oh, what are you, some feminist woman," or something like that, an insult her. You just say, "Hey, I get it, but I'm a man, and this is what I'm going to do because I'm a gentleman, and I'm a man," right? And that's it, in a nice, kind way. And if she still doesn't want to have anything to do with it, then she won't have anything to do with you. But now, you have passed the test. The second thing I would say is you've got to become an actually competent man, which means you can't have all... got to pay your bills on time. This credit card debt is ridiculous, not understanding where your money is, living paycheck to paycheck. If you're living paycheck to paycheck right now, you think a woman's going to trust you? No, it's not going to happen. You have to be smart about your money, smart about your ambitious career, going after... You don't have to have a... I think the confusion for a lot of people in what we said in some of the other episodes was, "Oh, you got to be a rich man." No, no, it's not. We had one clip go viral on TikTok, and all these women were like, "Where can you find a man like that?" And it wasn't about the money because I didn't say anything about how much money I made or anything like that in that.

John: It was about that you're willing to take charge and willing to be financially responsible and willing to take care of her with whatever you have, right? And that's because there's plenty of people who have just a single income family, and it's not a rich person. Like, plenty of traditional people still do that sort of dynamic. So, yeah, it doesn't necessarily matter what's in your bank account. It's how you organize it, the bills pay on time, what you do with the money you do have, and how to preserve it and make it go where you need it to go. And your willingness to give that money to her to help her, you know what I'm saying? To like provide because how are you going to trust a man as a leader if he's like, "That's my money, and that's your money." Doesn't trust you. You can't trust somebody who doesn't trust, like so stingy with his money because it's his money, he worked for it, right? How are you going to trust him? But if you have a guy that's like, "Look, what's mine is yours. I take care of you. Anything you've got, I got you." You trust that guy, right? Because you know he's not selfish. And because you know he's not selfish, you know that he is altruistic. He's looking out for you. A guy that's claiming his own money is like, "This is mine." Well, I would say he doesn't trust her. Yeah, he doesn't trust her, but how she's also not going to trust him because, well, he would put himself before the family, exactly. So, you have to be that. And then I'm trying to think what else. I mean, I think those are the... And then obviously, you have to understand how to lead, which all of this that you do as a man in leadership is all based out of love. If it doesn't come from love, it's not correct. And so, if you're a kind man, not a nice guy, you know, but a kind man, then you're going to treat her like she's the only woman in the world, like the best thing in the world. And you're going to lift her up and make her feel good and make her feel more feminine and special. And when you do that, then a woman is going to trust you more because then she knows, hey, this guy...

Nicole: Well, she knows how much you value her, exactly right. And someone who values, if you value something, are you going to, you know, if I value my car, I'm not one of those guys, but if I, like, if I valued my car, right, and I'm shining and buffing that thing, right, you think you're going to worry about me, you're ever going to have to be like, "Make sure you drive carefully and don't get into an accident," or like, "Don't, you know, ding your car," or what, like no, you know that the person who shows that they really value an object is going to take care of that object, right? Not that women are objects, but you know what I'm saying. But if a man shows that he really values a woman, she knows he's going to take good care of her. If he doesn't show that he really values her, then she's not going to trust him because, hey, you know, I don't care much about cars, but if you see a person that has a car that's just got all kinds of dents in it and everything, or like the taxi in Istanbul, you want to ride in that thing? You already know what kind of driver that person is, right? So, there you go. So, that's it. So, be, you know, well, and women show the man that they're with that they value them by putting their trust in them. But a woman's only going to do that if she really does. But she, if you do right, you need to put your trust in your man 100%.

John: Yeah, yeah. So, if you do those things, a woman will trust you. There we go. All right. I think it's your segment for the week. It's kind of hard. Well, I mean, we had last week off because we were gone, but nothing really happened, honestly, between you and I. We had some... I can't even remember how it came up.

Nicole: Oh, I was reading a serial killer book, and it was causing some intrusive thoughts, and I accidentally offended John.

John: Yeah, and it turned into this long conversation. But it was funny because we watched the episode that came out today, and at the end, the information we gave kind of went along with the conversation that we had. So, yeah, I think it's just important for everybody watching to know that like, we still make mistakes, and we still make the same mistakes sometimes. And we try really hard to learn something and put that into motion and try not to make the same mistakes over again, but we're human, and we do that. And, you know, we're not sitting here trying to act like we're high and mighty because we're not. You know, we do feel like we have a very special relationship, and that's why we're sharing it with people. But we still have hours-long conversations because we end up making some of the same mistakes that we've already come on here and told you about. So, you know, we're human, and it happens even to us. But the key, regardless, and what we do is that we treat each other with respect. We don't yell at each other, you know. We try to keep that love connection, which I really struggled with because I didn't have that growing up, right, presented to me as an option, you know, when you're having a conflict, an argument, or whatever you want to call it. Like this, I wouldn't even call it that, like it was a very civil conversation. Yeah, but I didn't, you know, have that shown to me. But it does make a lot of difference when you're having difficult conversations, which everyone's going to have, right, in any relationship, that you stay connected and rooted in love and kindness and respect for your partner because that's where you actually become productive with the things that you're talking about. And even if you do end up making the same mistakes, it's not as detrimental to your relationship because you still know that the person's trying because they are able to stay connected to you in a hard conversation and kind to you and, you know, say things in a certain way where they're not trying to hurt your feelings. So, yeah.

John: Yeah, yeah. And, for the record, the thing that I messed up was that, that we heard in the podcast episode, was being loving when you're upset. Like, and wasn't like not being, not being, not that I was being mean, but just not showing the love, like being as loving as I am when, you know, when I'm upset. And then, but, but it's funny. But I think one of the things that we do too really well is that we never go to bed angry at each other. And in which I would do, like before, how I operated before, I would just be like, "Good night," and roll over. We'll stay up until 3:00 a.m. talking until like we get it. It's better. It's a lot better, yeah, yeah. Because then it's nothing like still harboring inside of you. You sweep it all out, you clean it all out. It's like nothing's being swept under the rug. A mountain is not growing under the rug. It's like the...

John: The rug is completely clean, and it's refreshing. Then you don't feel like you're holding on to things. And then, if something comes up again, it doesn't feel like this mountain. It just feels like the thing that you're focusing on right now because you cleared out the rest of the thing that happened before. So, when something else comes along, it's not piled up.

Nicole: Yeah, where people have like explosions and things like that. Like, fully resolve the conversation you're having so that you can move on. And then the next time something else pops up, you're not going to explode again because you only have this one thing. It's always one thing on the table, not 20 things on the table.

John: Exactly, yeah, yeah, 100%. All right, well, that's it. I think this is what's nine. So next, I don't know. I feel like you said six in the last one, but I think it was five. So the next was a two-digit. We hit our two-number episode. And just, uh, also, uh, for those of you guys listening, watching, we are on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music. Like, if you want to listen to just the audio version, we do have an Instagram where we post clips and the TikTok where we post clips, and Facebook rules if you're 50 or 60 years old. So, see you next week through every fault we find our way.