Masculinity in 2020 and beyond

Kevin Anthony 0:11
Welcome to the love lab podcast a safe place to get real about sex. Whether you’re a man, woman, single or couple, this is the show for you.

Céline Remy 0:20
We are your hosts, Kevin Anthony, and Céline Remy and we are here to guide you to go from good to amazing in the bedroom and beyond.

Kevin Anthony 0:28
Alright, welcome back to the love lab podcast. This is Episode 97. And it’s titled masculinity in 2020. and beyond. This is going to be a fascinating conversation. We have a great guest today. And I think that this is really something that it’s a conversation that needs to happen because there’s so much sort of bad information.

Kevin Anthony 0:52
misinformation, pressure on men today that I think we really, really really, really need to have a good conversation and kinda clear the air on this subject a little bit.

Céline Remy 1:03
So I believe it’s going to be explosive and controversial. So get ready to really find your masculinity.

Kevin Anthony 1:10
Oh, it’s probably gonna piss some people off.

Céline Remy 1:12
Warning, warning.

Céline Remy 1:15
Anyway, before we get started, let’s give a shout out to our sponsor power and mastery. So if you want to join the secret club of men who are great in bed, then check out power and mastery. It is the most complex sexual mastery training for men and you can find more about it at power and mastery.com.

Céline Remy 1:35
So today, we have a very special guest, Mark Edwards, Davis, I’m butchering your name, sorry about this Mark Edward Davis. There we go. I’m super excited. We’ve been on his show a couple of years ago, I Fang and every time we get together, we could talk for hours. So I’m just really excited to be diving into this, but let me tell you more about Mark Edward Davis.

Céline Remy 2:01
Before writing Heartbleed in crisis, forming “Abundance International”,  building two seven-figure companies, being on today’s show, or speaking to groups, Mark experienced many challenges that shaped him. He was bullied for years of his childhood as an adult, he saw a spouse pass away economic collapse in 2008 and experienced depression. Wow. Through those experiences and more, he developed a calm conviction that love is all that matters. How we touch each other’s is our legacy.

Céline Remy 2:36
So today mark is a thought leader in the men’s coaching business. He’s hosted a weekly broadcast on personal development for men since 2011 and founded the ambassadors of hope, a men’s conference in 2006. He formed abundance International Inc. It’s a 501 c three nonprofit corporations bringing life-giving aid to orphans in Ukraine.

Céline Remy 2:59
What Really awesome about Mark is that he lives part of the Year in Las Vegas, in Ukraine and Mexico. So he’s like all over the place. He’s elated in love and a proud father of four. Wow, that’s quite a bio here, Mark. So, welcome to the love lab mark.

Mark Edward Davis 3:18
Hey, thanks. Live large, right?

Céline Remy 3:23
I was when I was reading this. And when I put it into the show notes, I was like, Wow, man, you’ve gone through so many things. And I’m sure that many of our listeners can relate to that. Because even though we are happy in life, we all have gone through hardships.

Céline Remy 3:39
And I think that also for men, it will resonate a lot because I do believe that a lot of the events in our life do shape the men and how they show up. So I think you’ve got so much experience to bring into this conversation today.

Mark Edward Davis 3:55
Thanks. I appreciate it. That’s exciting. Thank you. Thank you. Tell me where you want to go on. Well, I’m excited. Now you got me fired up. Okay?

Kevin Anthony 4:05
We have a lot of questions. And the first one is kind of a big one. And we don’t need to, we don’t need to hang there on it too long. But I kind of just wants to set a baseline. So the first question is, how do you define what it means to be masculine? So let’s kind of just set like a level to start at so people have some idea of what we’re talking about here.

Mark Edward Davis 4:26
Yeah, that’s, you know, fundamental. And to me, it’s, I try to keep things simple. So all the concepts I teach are something anybody can grab, I truly believe the purpose of masculinity is so we can lend our strength to the world around us. So there’s the assumption that you have the strength and so that’s where obviously as men coaches, we, we help guys overcome their pain become strong again.

Mark Edward Davis 4:48
But truly, the purpose of masculinity is just so we can lend our strength to the world around us. How’s that for a simple, quick answer?

Céline Remy 4:55
I love it. I love it. So I want to dive into kind of what had happened, in your opinion? How has masculinity changed over the past decades? Because I know that if we look at movies and things like masculinity, and the definition of it has changed, so how has it changed?

Mark Edward Davis 5:15
Well, let’s go back, let’s go back more than just a few days go back a few centuries. You know, if you were to live in three, four or 500 BC, you know, or ad or whatever, even really up to just 300 years ago, that before cell phones before 911, before any kind of communication.

You had to have a sense of ruggedness about you, for instance, not everybody was in a tight city, you know, some people were, you know, maybe not even shouting distance from a neighbor to be able to come and help them so if somebody in the house robbing you think you’re a little boy, we’re all raised for self-defense.

Mark Edward Davis 5:48
They had to it was a survival mechanism. There was no choice. I don’t care, your personality type, I don’t care. You’re tall, short, muscular, whatever. You had to be able to be raised in a sense to defend yourself. Defend yourself. family. And so there’s a different expectation on the male and says biological creatures as stronger and not only psychologically built for the fight, then we had an expectation on us of being the protector.

Mark Edward Davis 6:18
Also, there is an expectation of being a provider. And again, this is hated today that the fact that there was ever a time when men would be considered to be the providers of the home, but it absolutely was.

Mark Edward Davis 6:30
And because most of the work done back in the day to create income was done by hand. You had Smith’s and tools, men and all kinds of different things, physical work in the fields, that even today are still dominated by men. And it’s not that they’re, it’s not that there’s a bias against women just don’t volunteer to get into those kinds of careers by their own choice, and it’s their own choice. And so there was a sense of pride where a man could look and say, This is my contribution. I did this. I produce this to be able to take care of my family.

Mark Edward Davis 7:03
I’m able to physically provide and protect them if need be. So there is an inherent need for a masculine there’s a need for a man. It wasn’t in question there wasn’t debated, it wasn’t hated. Women didn’t hate men, because they would, they would pull a sword to go defend the family. They’d be, you know, glad they did. And even today, there’s a core in it. You know, I remember the story just two years ago, I think was in Santa Barbara, where a gunman came into this country-western bar and started shooting people.

Mark Edward Davis 7:30
And there’s in one of the other rooms where there’s a pool table. There’s a bunch of the young men who just grabbed the women and put them underneath the pool table and they literally shielded them with their backs ready to take the bullets. And in a moment of distraction the other room they started getting people out I think they freed like 30 people out the side window, and that’s inherent in the man we want to do that we want to rise up when the building’s burning the men run in because that’s in us.

Mark Edward Davis 7:53
And there’s a part of us I’ll talk about later. I call our inner warriors that when we’re called to action, they rise up For a man it’s an exhilarating feeling we feel alive. And today we have to find outlets for that in different ways. But even further than that, we look at what happened during world the world wars, World War One World War Two, the men felt this internal sense of nobility of character we have to fight against wrong, you know, as our founding fathers who says:

Mark Edward Davis 8:26
If evil will prevail, if good men do nothing, and so there’s a presumption that it’s upon the good men to stand up and to go to fight against evil, even if it means risking your own life. And so there’s a part of an expectation that during World War Two, the women’s sacrifice to even if they were, they were home, not necessarily carrying a gun and trying to do all the rest of that. They were having to get jobs to support the family, they would take the kitchenware and boil it down to make metal for the airplane.

Mark Edward Davis 8:53
So they’re trying to do everything they could to help support the work cause there’s there was a unity there was without complaint, There was an effort that says we have an expectation and obligation to defend what’s right in the world. And beginning in the 60s, there became an upheaval and I blamed the parenting in a way, it’s unfortunate we have this and still to this day, we have this mindset that we had hardship and we want to make things easier and our children don’t have to experience hardship.

Mark Edward Davis 9:23
It’s the hardships that give us character. And under challenge and under crisis we develop we find out who we are, and so out of the 50s You know, when all the baby boomers you know what happened in that time all the guy’s soldiers came home from the war and I wasn’t boom, babies were born. They got back with the women Oh, my women, so they had babies, right.

Mark Edward Davis 9:43
And, and so now they got this generation of babies and they were determined these, these couples, these young men and women who saw the Great Depression, they saw World War Two, they want to make sure they didn’t have it for their kids, but the kids became softer in the 60s, the soften kids began to venture Just find rebellious outlets for everything because they could they’re given an easier and easier expectation on the world that it should be about them and cater to them and their world should be softer and, and they saw things they didn’t like.

Mark Edward Davis 10:11
And so they begin to tear down all these all expectations of, of establishment, whether it’s authorities of any kind and religious institutions and, and everything that had any form and structure, they just wanted to be free expressionists. And it opened up, especially the advent of birth control, it opened up free, free love, it’s like let’s just whoever to whatever and absolutely abandonment of anything that we called virtue.

Mark Edward Davis 10:38
We end up with you know, a sort of like drifting codeless anybody can be anything they are whoever they are, whatever they want to be, and it’s not served us it just it has not. Over the time as this rebellious spirit in the culture has continued to fend manifests, it just keeps looking for more things to rebel against, and to take down anything thing that would resemble any kind of structure of any kind, even the barriers of what it is to be male, what it is to be female. And all the rest of it goes along with it.

Kevin Anthony 11:10
We’re gonna get into that in a minute. But there are so many things in what you said. It’s like, do we have enough time? Right. So let me go back to just a couple of the points that you made that yeah.

Kevin Anthony 11:23
So one of the things like I agree with everything that you said, and one of the things that I always look at when it comes to the sort of roles of the man versus the woman, I’ve always seen it as, as you said, we just as men want to do those things, and women just want to do the types of things they do. And so like, Celine and I, the way we’ve always looked at is we’re a team, right? And with our team, we have people do the roles that are they’re best suited for.

Kevin Anthony 11:50
Right So in other words, you know, can she go out and cut down the hedges, you know, like I did over the weekend? Yeah, she could if she wanted to But does she really want to? Does that make her happy? Is that the best use of her talent? No. And so, but for me it is. And so we kind of laugh a lot on the weekends, because it’s like, she’ll be in the kitchen baking, and I’ll be out, like with the chainsaw cutting trees down, you know, we come back in and we laugh at each other. We’re like, God, our roles are so stereotypical.

Kevin Anthony 12:19
But the thing is, all of these things need to be done. And so I actually enjoy going out there with a chainsaw. could she do it? Yeah, but she doesn’t really like to do it. Could I bake? Yeah, that’s really my thing. I slap this together, shove it in the oven, you know.

Mark Edward Davis 12:35
And you don’t want to and you don’t want to poison her so we understand, right.

Kevin Anthony 12:38
So, the point that I’m making here is I feel like one of the reasons why those roles ended up the way they did overtime is because we both tended to gravitate towards our strengths and the things that we were good at best at and enjoyed doing. So that was one point that I wanted to make. Absolutely, yeah.

Mark Edward Davis 13:01
Well in Jordan Peterson makes that case I don’t know if you followed he did the follow the studies in the Nordic countries, you know, where they’re highly socialist, they’re trying to be completely gender-neutral to everything. And yet he found even in those the divisions between men and women, what they naturally chose to want to do for a living was even more diverse. You know, in the engineering fields, it was still 85% men, and in the nursing fields, it was 85% of women by their own choice, and they had the choice to do what they wish to do.

Mark Edward Davis 13:31
And so I think that here’s the thing we’re having to do now, it’s bizarre that we even have to have this conversation. But people almost have to, they almost have to bulk buck against the song culture just to do what they actually naturally want to do. And women are despised if they want to stay home and raise kids today, and that really, that’s a shame because what it does to the kids and what it does to the women who just truly like is why is it wrong? Why should I feel ashamed?

Mark Edward Davis 13:55
Because I want to do these things, I want to nurture my children, I want to be there for them. And I want to help them with their first years, and I, want to cook I want and I want to watch it, you know as my man eats and it makes him happy and makes her glow insights. But we criminalize that because of the perverse nature of this bent culture, which is trying to undermine everything that’s ever existed to the point of ridiculousness.

Kevin Anthony 14:17
Oh yes. And I want to dive into that a little bit more. But there’s one more piece that you talked about earlier that I wanted to get to as well, which is the piece you mentioned about people coming back from the war. Okay. Now, they all get back with the women, there’s this baby boom. And this generation, basically, their intention, I feel was good in the sense that what they really wanted to do was prevent their children from going through all the hardships that they went through.

Kevin Anthony 14:43
But in doing that, you’ve probably seen that meme right that bad times, create strong men strong men create good times, good times, create weak men, weak men create bad times, and the cycle goes around and around, right. Amen. And so I think that’s, that’s pretty much kind of what you were implying is that you know, here was these sort of tough men who went through multiple wars, depressions, famines, all this stuff.

Kevin Anthony 15:14
When that’s all over and settled, then they make kids and then go you know, I don’t want you to ever have to go through all of that. So they raised them in a different way but then they don’t learn the same values

Mark Edward Davis 15:27
Yeah, I heard a great one and again I’ve raised for four kids are all out of the house and they’re happy on their own I got two of them are happily married with babies and one of them got his doctorate in counseling psychology the other one pursued his dream he got a degree in video game design god bless him you know, young kid, but you know, I was not strong enough with them growing up and in a hurt them going into young adulthood.

Mark Edward Davis 15:55
And you know, I had to go through my own curing of my nice guy syndromes, which was plagued me for many, many years, my life probably till I, you know, got into my 40s and really self-evaluated based on where it was at that time in my life. And one quote I heard that I really think is just a hallmark for parenting boys and girls, is that you want to be you want your kids to be able to say, you know, my dad was tough enough on me that the world is easy.

Kevin Anthony 16:21
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And that’s, that’s the goal of any training, right? Do you want to do martial arts? What do you do in the gym? Do you want to be a football player? What do you do in practice? You practice harder in practice than you ever hope you’ll have to do it in the real thing. That way that no matter what comes at you in the real thing, you’re prepared for it? Yeah, yep. Several said.

Céline Remy 16:45
I’m going to chime in as the one woman in this discussion here. I’m a little quiet, please do so. One thing that I wanted to bring up was, you know when you started describing the rugged man there, Mark, suddenly I was feeling really hot. And very turned down through this whole conversation. And I was like, how interesting is that? There is something happening in a lot of women’s nature where we are utterly loving that masculinity, that raw masculine power when we see it in its wild, pure form, not held back, it will fire us up, and it really creates this attraction, this polarity.

Céline Remy 17:28
And a lot of women might say, Hey, I’m not I want a nice guy. Or, you know, I just want somebody who’s nicer. When in reality, we want both. We want a man who can own his masculine power, own his own warrior, but also show up with his emotions as well. So being able to be versed and I think this is kind of where I would like to see where we can go next in terms of what it means to be masculine today because I’m giving you what I like as a woman, which is like, I think the more one of the things that I got from being in a relationship with Kevin, he is really masculine.

Céline Remy 18:14
And he does all these different martial art things and plays with swords and guns and different things like that. And the more I saw that in him, and the more I would feel that he could protect me and he had all of this, the more I relaxed into my feminine and actually, I found this new place within myself, I discovered a whole new way of being in with myself with my own light and like just showing up even better.

Céline Remy 18:42
And so I know from my own perspective, that what I want in a man is both I want a man who can be rugged who can protect me I also want a man who can have an understanding of emotions. I don’t want him to be whiny or be my best friend in this way, but I want him to be versed in that or be the closest down so a guy that doesn’t share any emotion. Yeah, absolutely. So that’s what for me, the masculine is sexy. What about you? What does it mean to be masculine today?

Mark Edward Davis 19:11
All right now I love this question because you know, I do relationship work, you know, and in the last decade, we helped create over 300 marriages with less than 3% divorce, we’re really focused on, on helping make those things work. And so there are guys who really have made a science out of polarity and you guys have 200 really respect that I want to hear more of that from you. I’ve observed it from more of a poetic standpoint.

Mark Edward Davis 19:36
And so, as bizarre as that sounds, what I’d like to do to explain this is actually read a little poem that I wrote to explain the dynamics between men and women, if that’s okay, absolutely. And then we’ll dive into this. I call this the radiance passions, and this is a little bit of Old English kind of writing style, but and it’s mythology and I’ll go into in a second. I treasure The woman I treasure carries a static love in her eyes.

Mark Edward Davis 20:03
She passes this way and every man turns his head in hopes of a stolen glance, the object of her gaze even caught and passing, becomes less this world and more radiant transcending. When the man hears her voice sweet and true, the things of the earth just lose their taste and dim. When she smiles at him even for an instant, there comes this feeling of blissful sensation, granted to men by angels, and often materialize in the laughter of children. But from his chest grows a mysterious passion to serve to find a quest to stand on a Champions podium victorious.

Mark Edward Davis 20:38
That radiant power that grants the voice to smile, they demand a noble quest worthy of the passion within. And so this passion radiating from this court is more than ample for the quest, the wild man in his inner warriors engaged in the fight. The Golden Ball is his rightful price. Now the woman gazing upon this conquering man, she finds yourself overwhelmed by a new, glowing, radiating sense from within her breast.

Mark Edward Davis 21:05
And she approaches that Victor’s podium and chooses this man as the object of her passion, a noble passion of its own a golden ball now with her name inscribed, then the woman with a static love in her eyes passes this way in the arm of her champion.

Mark Edward Davis 21:22
There’s no part of me I get excited is that there’s no logic to this or to explain this miracle. Just splendid, radiant, amazing, mysterious, and new. It just is has been and will be for all times true. And what I love about the purity of this mythology is that you know, there’s a part where the woman captivates and in, gazes the man in but draws him to want to do something for her.

Mark Edward Davis 21:53
And it’s interesting because even after world war two you know the pilots always have a picture of their girl you know, on the dashboard, you know where the guy Those soldier in his pocket, and there’s something he wants to do for her and raises it up.

Mark Edward Davis 22:05
Now what I love about this poem is that even though the man is raised up now to go find something to take on the world because whether it’s, and we’ll talk about various ways, the inner warriors come alive, when you’re an actor, you’re doing something, you have extra resources that come out of your man, that doesn’t happen sitting on a couch, or behind a computer screen, but you’re active.

Mark Edward Davis 22:23
There’s something that draws you out to do something to accomplish to make something happen. You can do it for the woman for a cause for, you know, for a mission, a startup, whatever you’re involved in, but it’s that thing, and now he gets to stand on the podium as the champion, he got it, he got it done. Now, it’s clear, I want to make a point in this because at that point, whether or not the woman picks him or not, doesn’t matter as much because he’s done what his ambition called him to do. And he got up there and he made something happen and the women can inspire.

Mark Edward Davis 22:53
But now it’s up to the women to like, come back and say I want this guy to and so at that point, the two come together with this perfect sense Think of the two energies of the masculine and the feminine. And it’s To me, it’s like what men wouldn’t want that. What woman wouldn’t want that women want to be on the arm of a champion? I quote in the book from john Eldridge who wrote the book Wild at Heart, it’s a really great exposition on the masculine. and in it he says, his three core desires of a woman’s heart is one to be pursued.

Mark Edward Davis 23:23
She wants to be pursued. She wants to know that, that she’s more important. Anything else you set aside time says no, you have all the women in the world I want to get to know you. And she wants to feel that being pursued. The second thing though, is she wants to feel like she becomes an indispensable part of his adventure, in a sense that because of her, he can do more. And without her, he couldn’t have done it. She wants to feel that indispensable in him.

Mark Edward Davis 23:45
Annie Lola says the role of a woman is to be the trampoline for the man’s dreams and she’ll fall in love as much with his dreams as with him. So when he’s down she says no, no, honey, this is your we’re gonna do this together. This your dream, I’m going to help you. And so there’s a part where she wants to be that part to help him accomplish the thing he’s called here on this earth to do. And the last part about it is the woman wants a place where, where her beauty feels valued.

Mark Edward Davis 24:09
She feels comfortable revealing it to him. I teach you guys in dating there’s your purpose is to warm her up so so the fragrance of femininity blooms, but you have to create it with nurturing, you know, the warmth, the nutrients, and the sunshine to give it a place where she wants to warm and open up to you. So the beauty of that, again, I’m not an expert on all the dynamics of the, you know, the male and female and the polarities, and all that kind of stuff.

Mark Edward Davis 24:32
But this picture sticks in my mind is something that I think it just works, you know, and no matter how much women today want to rail against it, it just works. Women want a guy with ambition and they want to come along, they want to be part of it. They want to support him to get it done and the guy wants to I’m telling women, if I was talking to women in this audience, I’d say, women, I’m going to tell you something.

Mark Edward Davis 24:51
You want to get a man who will never leave you to things. Treat it, just tell him. I believe in you. You are my hero. You are my hero, and to be his safe place when he comes home wounded from the war, and that man will never leave you.

Kevin Anthony 25:06
Alright, so Celine. Yes, I agree with everything that Mark just said, but I want to hear what you think as a woman.

Céline Remy 25:13
Yeah, I agree 100% you know, I would have only framed it differently in the free things has to be seen when you were saying appreciated for her beauty. For me, I was like, oh, there’s going to be one it’s going to have to be seen. So I already knew what the things were. What I love about it is okay, so you pursued, but also then once you’ve chosen it’s also that you bring value.

Céline Remy 25:34
So it’s actually being respected as a woman for your intuition and your ability to be connected and to support other people to give birth to something greater and bigger, which is your men in that particular setting. And then, of course, being seen appreciated for the things that are less may be important per se but yet that matters a lot like how we look and what we wearing and all of these things. There’s so so, so important. So yeah, I would say 100 Hundred percent with that. I would agree.

Mark Edward Davis 26:05
You know it but it starts with a woman to honestly, you know, the women’s beauty, you know, draws it draws that out on-demand and, and it’s like we don’t apologize for that, you know in the animal kingdom there’s the peacock and the P hen one is more beautiful to attract the other, you’re the masculine of the male.

Mark Edward Davis 26:21
And in terms of many of the animal kingdom, the male is the one who has the more beautiful the lion has the main, you know, and so to me too, for us to deny the fact that God gave us the female to be the attractive one of the species. We’re no problem arguing that we’re going to surrender that to us. Yes, you know, but that that’s what captivates first our attention.

Mark Edward Davis 26:39
And then for us to want to pursue back and then and then allow that energy to stimulate is to accomplish in this world is a great source for masculine energy and power to then accomplish and achieve. Mm-hmm.

Céline Remy 26:52
And now, I’m going to say that one of the elements you bought into and that’s something that I teach a lot to the woman I work with, in my program irresistible Women too is like my hero, like that blames of giving that for a man. And it’s not about manipulation because a lot of women think, oh I have to, to put on makeup or do this or do that and I’m like now it’s actually about being 100% yourself and just seeing him like this as this hero as this like, spectacular man that he is and he’ll never want to go anywhere else, you know?

Kevin Anthony 27:23
You know, I think I think if I could maybe sum all that up for the listeners, really what it comes down to is that the two of you together, one being feminine, one being masculine, literally help each other rise together, that combination of those two forces are really it co lifts people up together at the same time it’s not one over the other This one only supports true.

Mark Edward Davis 27:49
Now in the poem, I use the term the golden ball that’s a Greek mythology thing for means total fulfillment you found your you found fulfillment you found your thing, and you know, and so both found their place of fulfillment within that role and they’re satisfied deeply.

Kevin Anthony 28:04
Mm-hmm. Let’s jump to the ad. And then I want to get to this question here.

Céline Remy 28:10
All right. All right. So we have an invitation for all of you listening. If you are longing for deeper levels of sexuality, coupled with emotional intimacy, spirituality, and just true connection, then our sexual power and passion VIP program is for you. This next-level intimacy coaching for modern couples is designed to help you bring the passion back between the sheets and beyond.

Céline Remy 28:35
This 90-day program is truly for the couples that do not want to live a life of average and wants to be synched up sexually so that they can thrive with more purpose and passion in life. And you can find more about this at Celine remy.com forward slash passion. And this is everything that we’ve been talking about so far is within that program to the masculinity. femininity and all of this. So Kevin, and we have a very important question now for Mark, go for it.

Kevin Anthony 29:05
They’re all very important.

Céline Remy 29:07
We’ve got more we’ve got.

Kevin Anthony 29:10
Okay, so we’ve covered some ground, we’ve talked about, you know, what it is to be masculine, what it looked like in the past kind of what it looks like now, we’re talking about the interaction with the feminine. What I want to get into now is maybe what’s considered more of the controversial stuff, which is, one of the things that we notice is that there is a lot of pressure on men these days to not be masculine. And so what I wanted to ask you is one whether or not you see the same thing, and what’s your take on that is?

Mark Edward Davis 29:44
Oh, absolutely, and it’s one of the books I think is very interesting is a journalist, named guy Garcia wrote Jesus A while ago, like 10 years ago now wrote a book called The decline of men, and he did it from A statistical standpoint, which is very interesting, he took it from the mad at Madison Avenue stance, he started looking at, you know, who’s controlling the influence in America and he talking about, you know, how the buying power is 65 or more percent, women control all buying influences in the country.

Mark Edward Davis 30:14
And therefore, Madison Avenue spends all of their dollars to try to get more of the women to buy which means often they make men look stupid because underwear builds up women and so there’s no doubt that that has now gone to a whole nother level where and by the way, the end of that book, which I love, he says basically, yeah, it sucks. Yes, you’re going to be put down but just be a man anyway. I mean, you know, who you know, who cares, right? You should just learn to be a man anyway. So suck it up, Buttercup, because it ain’t going to be in your favor.

Mark Edward Davis 30:47
The world’s not going to be your friend. And you still have to be a man anyways, you have no choice on that. But it’s gone to another level where there’s almost a war and especially this last year was So devastating to me to see, really I feel betrayed in many ways that the last holdouts we thought we’d be our friend. You know, Gillette does that incredibly stupid, demeaning belittling ad in support of the #metoo movement and I found out they had a feminist woman directed. It’s like why would they do that?

Mark Edward Davis 31:20
Why would Gillette, try to market to their men by belittling them and hiring a woman who hated men to write a commercial for them, and then they went up to buy their next commercial was a transgender, doing with his with dad doing his first shave. Now as a man instead of a woman. It was like unbelievable the insult that it had to their audience. And then it went beyond that with other things that took place the #metoo movement.

Mark Edward Davis 31:46
And this has been going on for a while though, even before that. You go all the way back to the 90s I guess it was there’s this big push to have men go through a gender sensitivity class to get a degree which basically belittles men blame them for all the ills in the world and say they’re all perverse perpetrators, criminals and violence and they need to repent of it if you want to get a good grade and get your degree, you know and so to me, the entire assault on men is completely insulting and insulting the history and insulting to the character of who we are.

Mark Edward Davis 32:20
There was one woman who wrote this great piece she goes to women who are we today to do this to our men, you know, we have it easy today. So those who went out and blaze the trails, you know, the guys who came in here and, you know, create built our cities, the architects and the ones who built our safe make houses now we get to rail it them, you know because they have given us everything we need. And there’s a dismissive aspect of forgetting who we have been through all of history, in order to create a civilization to be the ones to take the arrows.

Mark Edward Davis 32:52
And truly, there’s more if you understand the nature of men, that we’re almost the disposable half of the species to protect our women. It’s almost like The, you know, the bees feeding and protecting the queen bee were the ones who go to war were the ones that do the labor, we die earlier, there are more suicides that the incredible burden there is on men too, you know Ford societies and do the heavy lifting. And then now we have an age where the women are saying, you know, we resent you.

Mark Edward Davis 33:19
And of course, if you blame this thing about you know, wage inequality, but if you break it down, the women don’t want the jobs that they’re in these different places. So it’s always by choice. And so to me, the whole thing about men is that they feel like they’re not appreciated. So if they’re not gonna be appreciated, nobody’s going to say you’re my hero. In fact, you’re my enemy. Then you get a lot of these Mgtow guys who pop up and he will screw you Well, I don’t need this.

Mark Edward Davis 33:43
I don’t need women, I’m not gay, but I need women. I just don’t need this, I don’t need pressure, I don’t need society. Heck with all of you and the abandon, and I don’t you know, I did a whole thing on the Mgtow movement very kind of them. So look, if that’s your choice, to be single, God bless you, but if you’re doing it out of bitterness, You know, you need to get healed and I absolutely

Mark Edward Davis 34:06
big toe group are very militant, but it hurts me deeply because men today are, have become was Robert Bly said in his book, iron john nearly, what, 25 years ago now. He says, you know, the men have become soft males. And he says ironically says, you know, they’re kind of the earth and not wanting to cause wars, you know, they’re nice people, but they’re generally not happy and there’s certainly nothing robust within them and ironically, they tend to marry strong women, you know.

Mark Edward Davis 34:37
And so today, it’s like, you know, there’s The truth is, you know, we have more than a 50% divorce rate, but those still married most more even happy. So it’s not working, you know, it’s just not working.

Kevin Anthony 34:49
So, so this begs the question, why is this occurring in society? Why is this pressure being put on men to be less masculine is there some sort of agenda behind that. Obviously, I have my own thoughts on that one. But, of course, but But what do you think is happening in society that’s putting this pressure on men?

Mark Edward Davis 35:12
There’s the political correctness, which, you know, I like what Ben Carson described as political correctness. You know, it’s, it’s basically a manipulation, it’s behavior manipulation, and it silences anybody who poses the different opinions. I believe there’s a part of the culture that just wants control of people. And so the men are the strongest part of the culture. And so if you can silence them, and those in power can even have more power.

Mark Edward Davis 35:40
There is an agenda from the Gloria Steinem movement, you know, where, you know, women can do everything men can plus have babies, and so there’s and then it went past that into demonization, criminalization of men as a species, there are an agenda and all of it and always has to do with power and control. Up and down. Yeah, it’s really all about that.

Kevin Anthony 36:00
Well, yeah, that’s basically exactly what I would say it’s about control. It’s about taking out the strongest resistance in a particular culture so that you can manipulate their, their, their behavior. Absolutely.

Céline Remy 36:12
So we’re getting close to the end of our show. I always love to add positive notes here. What are some of the tips that you have for the men listening to developing their masculinity? And like what it means, right? Because the title is masculine, 2020, and beyond. So let’s give them some tools right now, what do men do right

Kevin Anthony 36:35
now? All right.

Mark Edward Davis 36:37
Well, you know, this is really the bulk of the content where my heart is and what I want to share with you guys. First of all, I just published a book about three weeks ago that came out called How to lead in a crisis. It’s about teaching how to be the calm in the storm, how to be the voice of reason, and how to lead into the future. So for men, you have to find something that brings your inner warriors to life.

Mark Edward Davis 36:59
I mean, When I counsel guys, a third of them are coming in just I just want to feel alive again, I want to find my purpose or looking for their purpose because we don’t have to, you know, pull a sword to defend our families, we don’t even have to provide when we can make as much money. And now we’re belittled. So it’s like, why am I here. And so you have to find activities that are going to make you come alive, it has to do with action not being behind a computer screen.

Mark Edward Davis 37:20
So get out. And guys can find that a number of ways. You have to continue to push and try and find ways that are going to happen. In fact, I just talked to my editor tonight, I’ll have my book, a man’s purpose out the middle of next month. So pursue your purpose is critical. You have to, first of all, understand that you’re not going to get it in an idle setting. You have to be uncomfortable, you’re going to have to try new things.

Mark Edward Davis 37:45
They’re going to test you and stretch you and grow you. And in doing so, you’re going to have nervous energy, God bless it. Don’t ever go a day where you’re don’t feel like you’re crawling into something bigger than you are and you’re gonna have to stretch yourself to grow and learn. I remember when I was was, Oh, Jesus was a while ago now, I guess 25 years ago, I’d previously spent my life just a cubicle guy, I’d probably never made more than 45,000 years my life I had a sales job.

Mark Edward Davis 38:12
I married this young attorney, and she started a private practice. Then we became expectant with our first and we’re all excited to say, Oh my god, I got eight months to double my income or we’re screwed, we’re gonna lose the house.

There’s no way based on my experience or knowledge or anything, I could do it. So I’m going crazy. I started studying personal development stuff. Let’s just say, I was listening to everything I could get three and a half hours a day, everywhere I was driving, I was trying to learn about leadership about something and asking people how do I do this, I can never make this my job. I tried business ideas, and my dad hooked me up with a venture capitalist.

Mark Edward Davis 38:43
So he gave me my chance to make a pitch for a business idea. And I failed miserably. But I had done enough research and had enough energy that one of the guys in that meeting said I like you and I want to offer you a job. I’ll start you at 10,000 a month. And you know, it was in that that I realized that one I came alive in the pursuit as much as Scared me to death and I was out of my realm, the growth I did by trying to reach for something beyond me helped me become that next person.

Mark Edward Davis 39:07
I earned the right to make that kind of money because I grew to become that kind of person. And so there’s a part where we have to be stretched. There’s still a way to do it today in this culture today. You’ve got to find ways to try new things. If you haven’t found it, try something else to keep pursuing that, to find that perfect harmony between things you love to do things that match your skill sets.

Mark Edward Davis 39:30
And if you don’t, what your skill sets are as the people around you, what am I good at, they’ll tell you people can see sometimes we’re blind to it, right? So you match what you love to do with your true skill sets and things that are being rewarded, that are benefiting people that like actually are contributing well. And I say that one of the things we’re men we’re called to be as creators. We are made in the image of our Creator we are to create creativity that can come in so many different forms.

Mark Edward Davis 39:52
We have to have something new birthed out of us, you know, whether it’s a book, a new business, music, whatever it is, we’d have to be in a creative have space. So what you have to do is unplug from everything else and focus on the things you can do and trying new things and stretching yourself and get in a better circle. Have some people in your circle of friends who are bigger than you better than you, and stretch you to want to be around them learn how they think.

Mark Edward Davis 40:16
And at the end of the day, I’ll just quote something from Vince Lombardi. He said you know when you’re winning, Nothing hurts. But when you’re losing, everything hurts. And so part of it is when you’re in the momentum of growing and trying something new, you unleash the inner warriors. This is where guys when they do business plans just sitting on the computer doing this, I don’t know, it’s bigger than me, I can’t do it. Well, there’s no use for your inner wars to come alive sitting behind a computer screen.

Mark Edward Davis 40:38
But as soon as you engage the first step, you make the first $500 investment, I gotta go get this thing. I’ve got it. I’ve got to try something and you make the calls. Now all of a sudden, you become nervous in your words, we’re going to do this. And if you haven’t had that happen yet, and because you’ve lowered your warriors to sleep, what I suggest is a very simple practice every morning when you get up. Do these four things I’m going to tell you about real quick One do a gratitude journal because what you’re grateful for you to attract more in your life list three things you’re just thankful for?

Mark Edward Davis 41:06
The second thing is to do three micro visualizations and by that is think about what you can do during your day whether it’s meeting with a friend doing a business presentation or whatever in pre imagine that just take a minute to set yourself there and imagine it going awesome. See it going great, see everybody loving your response. See your friends, welcome. You see the energy good. And you’re more likely to create that experience.

Mark Edward Davis 41:25
And then every day as you do that, your subconscious starts realizing Hey, when I imagined something good happens. So now when you try to envision something big, your subconscious helps you and says, Wow, he’s done everything else he can, he can probably do this. And you’ll start eating yourself and actually believing you can do it and starting to engage in it and just shut everything else out of your life. Kill the TV. I don’t even have one here. I’m in Ukraine. I have an apartment here. I don’t have a TV.

Mark Edward Davis 41:50
You know, I get enough news and little people send me crap on my Facebook Messenger. Hey, did you see this video? You know, Sunday I get the news and I get up to speed but it’s like You have to protect your mind and heart attitude. And realize before the woman before anything else, man is called to have ambition. And the woman is attracted when she smells the smoke of battle on him.

Mark Edward Davis 42:12
And wants you to think that visualization, that man comes over the hill, he’s just been engaged. And you’d like the guy in Black Hawk Down that Ranger who just came back in and he’s going back in again, you know, he’s in it, versus the little guy, the waterboy over there saying you want a cup of water, you know, you can smell the energy of a guy who’s engaged in things in life versus those who are just thinking about it.

Mark Edward Davis 42:35
So whatever it takes for you guys, you can live fully alive fully engaged today. By just going and trying and testing daily little things you do your thank yous, you do your micro visualizations and plug in a YouTube video with one of those. Those motivational videos just type in inspirational videos on YouTube motivational videos, pick ones 510 minutes long, and just every day plugging a little bit into rising you up.

Mark Edward Davis 43:01
And you’re going to find yourself becoming more like those you spend time with. So spend time with those guys. And then plan your day. You know, if you’re stuck at home right now, or whenever you’re watching this and you’re planning your day, only so that you own it not be so other people suck your time. First, you’re not a slave to your schedule. It’s you deciding what you want to have to make it a great day. And so I think those are the ways that guys today can start charging forward and they’re going to feel alive like they’ve never felt before.

Mark Edward Davis 43:27
So get around good people get good information coming into you and try things to stretch you in. You’re going to be a different person a year from now.

Kevin Anthony 43:34
That is fantastic advice. Boy, that’s right there. If they took nothing else away from the show. That’s just amazing.

Céline Remy 43:44
So tell our listeners how they can get more of you. I know you have a report on how to lead in crisis, which is that authentic man.com/lead in a crisis. Of course, the link will be in the description.  How about social media or your website, just tell them wherever they can find you.

Mark Edward Davis 44:00
I really encourage guys to start there because if you get if you go get that free PDF, it’s half of my book for free really. It’s 20 pages condensed is very illustrated it’s really it’s a very cool read I’m proud of it. So that authentic man comm slash lead dash N dash crisis and get that you’ll get on my email list for the authentic man we’re gonna be launching an online magazine authentic man calm coming up very soon

Mark Edward Davis 44:25
It’s gonna be everything for men, you’re going to be able to get we’re going to pull together. You don’t have to go anywhere else. We’re going to pull articles from the news, we’re going to, we’re going to bring podcasts together from many artists, we’re going to many, many contributors and associate publishers into it.

Mark Edward Davis 44:37
It’s going to be something that’s going to be everything for guys. From personal development to cars, cigars. You know, women, dating, and just for your growth, your business, your finances, your fitness. You know, and I’m a guy who totally revolutionized my body. I used to be obese 250 pounds or five foot nine guys in a pretty sight.

Mark Edward Davis 44:56
There are so many things we want to do to help each other to live Live to feel alive and just celebrate being men. Because it’s, it’s awesome if you can learn to love yourself too. It’s awesome being a man.  I hope women feel that way about being a woman but guys, we’re going to celebrate it and enjoy it and just be authentic and be real and be so please go get that PDF. If you want to write to me, you can feel free to write to me anytime Mark at mardedwarddavis dot com.

Mark Edward Davis 45:21
Or just please go get that PDF download and you’ll be on our list. You get to hear about all the cool stuff coming up.

Céline Remy 45:27
Wonderful. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mark. This was a fantastic conversation. I feel like we barely scratched the surface. There’s so much.

Mark Edward Davis 45:36
Yeah, by the way. In closing, I want to support you guys, I love you guys. I love the interview you did before. And I love being part of your lives. I endorse everything you’re doing. You guys are real. You’re just you’re fun. You know, to me, I believe in holding the standard of service. You can see what’s possible.

Mark Edward Davis 45:50
And I think that you guys do that in a really delightful way. I’m glad for all your listeners, you guys. You guys have found a great home in this podcast to get some stuff that’s going to nourish yourself. Soon you’ll have a very happy and abundant life.

Céline Remy 46:03
Thank you so much.

Kevin Anthony 46:06
We might have to have Mark on again, because there’s so so much more we could talk about. But that really is actually more time than we normally a lot to this podcast. But it was well worth it. Thank you, Mark, so much for coming on. You’re very welcome. It was my pleasure entirely. All right, everybody. That’s all the time we have and we will see you next week. We hope you liked this episode of the love lab podcast. If you enjoy this show, subscribe. leave us a review and share it with your friends.

Céline Remy 46:38
And for more free exclusive content. Join us in the passion vault at selling remi.com forward slash vault. That’s CELINEREMY.COM/vault.

Kevin Anthony 46:53
Thanks for listening.

Céline Remy 46:54
And remember, you’re amazing.