Oct. 24, 2025
#91 Mature Masculinity: Overcome Avoidant Attachment & Lead with Safety with Adam Lane Smith
In this powerful episode, Greg Denning sits down with attachment specialist Adam Lane Smith to reveal what every avoidant attachment husband needs to know to build emotional safety in marriage. They uncover why so many high-performing men feel distant from their wives and children—and how to rewire the nervous system for connection instead of survival. You’ll learn the neuroscience behind attachment styles, the four levels of safety every husband must provide, and the simple daily habits that transform stress, anger, and disconnection into calm leadership and secure love. This conversation is a roadmap for any man ready to heal his avoidant patterns, strengthen his marriage, and create lasting emotional safety at home.
If you can crush it at work but feel lost at home, this episode is your blueprint to restore emotional safety in marriage—fast.
Attachment specialist Adam Lane Smith joins host Greg Denning to decode why so many driven men struggle with intimacy, connection, and calm at home. You’ll learn how early attachment patterns wire your nervous system for constant cortisol and how to retrain it so your wife and kids finally feel safe with you. Adam lays out the four levels of safety every husband must provide (physical, resource, emotional, bonding) and the four levels of peace a wife can return (calm, gentle speech, loyal partnership, executive co-leadership). You’ll discover practical, science-backed tools—co-regulation, oxytocin/vasopressin bonding, and negotiation frameworks—that turn conflict into teamwork and stress into stability.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur or a busy professional, you’ll walk away with step-by-step tactics to regulate your nervous system, communicate like a CEO/COO team with your spouse, and build a legacy your kids will carry for generations. If “being present,” “bonding,” and “feeling close” have felt vague or unreachable, this conversation makes them actionable.
Key Takeaways
✅ Attachment styles significantly influence how we connect with others.
✅ Men often struggle with emotional safety due to their upbringing.
✅ Emotional safety is crucial for maintaining healthy relationships.
✅ Men must provide four levels of safety for their partners.
✅ Women need to feel safe to express their emotions and concerns.
✅ Building a legacy starts with creating a secure family environment.
✅ Personal sovereignty is essential for mature masculinity.
✅ Nervous system regulation is key to emotional health.
✅ Healthy relationships require effort and intentionality from both partners.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Attachment Theory
02:24 Understanding Attachment Styles
06:02 The Importance of Emotional Connection
09:15 Actionable Steps for Men
10:52 Four Levels of Safety for Relationships
21:48 The Role of Women in Emotional Safety
29:42 Navigating Chaos Together
30:12 The Power of Physical Connection
32:16 The Four Levels of Peace in Relationships
35:40 The Role of Fathers in Building Trust
37:20 Executive Partnership in Marriage
39:54 The Legacy of Family Dynamics
42:39 The Importance of Healthy Family Structures
44:33 The Reality of Big Families
48:49 The Path to Personal Sovereignty
58:09 Mature Masculinity and Legacy Building
Resources for Adam:
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Coaching:
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https://adamlanesmith.com/group-coaching/?utm%20source=betheman&utm%20_%20_%20medium=affiliate
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0:00
We're living in an endless fear based system where we are inventing things to be afraid.
Of we've got to come to this awareness of what's going on in our own heads.
So your brain has just always reconfirmed it over and over and over and over.
When there's this storm and the winds and the waves, like just just be solid.
0:15
The number one complaints wives have about husbands is he's not managing his emotions.
If we don't have an understanding and a skill set around that emotional attachment, those most important relationships just wither up and die.
Gentlemen, welcome to the Formidable Family Man podcast.
0:31
I'm your host, Greg Denning, super crazy excited today to talk to Adam.
He is the attachment specialist with all kinds of great stuff to share around marriage, parenting and business, which is right up our alley here, here.
And Adam, why don't you introduce yourself to us like who you are about yourself and your family and then how you got into being the attachment specialist.
0:52
Will do.
I'm Adam Lane Smith, the attachment specialist.
I was a licensed marriage and family therapist for many, many years.
I worked in clinics.
I worked with trust fund families, but also blue collar families, everybody.
I also have a family of my own, been married 17 years.
I have 5 kids with baby number six on the way.
1:10
I ended my marriage and family therapy license voluntarily so that I could coach around the world and work with men who are great in business and have no idea how to talk to their wife about emotional safety, intimacy, connection, anything.
Guys who are crushing it at work and lead great teams and can barely talk to their kids at home feel that disconnect and don't know what to do.
1:30
So why step in?
I help.
Why does that happen?
Because it's common.
It's common with with guys I work with, guys I meet and we travel the world.
Like why is that even a thing?
How deep back do you want to go?
Just give it, give us, give us a rundown.
It's like where, where does that fit in and and why is that happening?
1:48
Is it's like you think like marriage is the most important relationship.
Why is it we have a hard time connecting with with our wives?
We have something in US called attachment, the the way we connect to other human beings to give, receive love, to feel safe, get our needs met.
And as we grow up in the first three years of our life and then throughout the rest of our childhood, teens, etcetera, our brain is constantly molding to the relationship experiences we have.
2:12
It's trying to figure out, do I live in a thriving network where everyone is peaceful and generous and kind, and I live in this nice safe tribe where we all care for each other, openly discussing things, solving problems?
Or do I live in a tribe that is suffering, that is barely scraping by?
2:30
This is just enduring.
Everyone's stressed, everyone's scared.
Maybe they don't have time for me.
Maybe they actually are angry at me.
Maybe I have to be distant from them to stay safe.
Or maybe I have to please everybody to stay safe so they don't abandoned me and I don't die, right?
So we have anxious attachment style when it comes out primarily for women, but a lot of men have this one where you are trying to please others because you feel like you're never good enough.
2:55
You're always about to be abandoned, and you are only as good as what you do for other people.
OK, anxious attachment style is what creates Nice Guys.
That's that syndrome, right?
My, my mentor, Doctor Robert Glover, is the expert on Nice Guys.
He has been for 40 years.
The thing you and I are talking about here today, though, is the opposite of that.
3:13
It's men who grow up with no one who's going to step in and take care of them.
Guys who use phrases like no one's coming to help you, right?
It's all just on you.
You have to be aware of everyone around you because people could turn on you in a moment's notice.
This is called avoidant attachment style.
3:28
They learned that other people are not to be trusted.
There's a spectrum of this.
You could be the ethical avoidance subtype that I've pulled out, but this is I can never trust anyone.
I can't get close to them.
I can't share my emotions with them.
I can't share needs with them.
I've got to manage other people lovingly, but manage them the way I would manage A-Team.
3:47
I can't step in and be intimate.
A whole bunch of brain chemistry.
We can talk about nervous system reprogramming.
Your brain forms different.
What do you want to know?
You ask me questions.
Here, well, I guess I want to emphasize that that formation happened when we were really young, right?
4:03
Maybe even still subconscious, like really little past memory.
And and so the frameworks kind of it's, it's in there working and we have to come.
What I hear you saying is like, we've got to come to this awareness of what's going on in our own heads.
4:21
It's so extreme, I was just looking at some of the data.
Did you know that someone with an insecure attachment style, anxious, avoidant, whatever it is, their amygdala, the fear center of their brain, is 340% more likely to send a a fear signal up or a danger signal.
4:37
If someone else just has a neutral expression on their face, 340% more likely, right?
So we're living in an an endless fear based system where we are inventing things to be afraid of and then rapidly trying to build plans to resolve it.
And meanwhile that person has no idea what's going on.
4:54
So an avoidant man, he's crushing it at work.
He has low sentimental connection to others, doesn't allow drama or distractions.
His prefrontal cortex, the judgement center over develops to squash his emotions, his own pain, his own fear, his own stress, his own doubt, his own depression.
5:10
It crushes it so he doesn't feel.
It also diminishes his ability to feel positive things by the way, we'll talk about that.
But it he dissociates from his own body and mind experience so that he can work 12, 16 hours a day and crush it at work and never see his family and then be genuinely confused when his wife says we don't even have a marriage anymore.
5:30
I haven't seen you in three years.
Where are we?
Right?
These guys are hyper developed to survive and frankly to take care of other people too, but not have the emotional connection and so they lose it.
Oh, and, and why let's let's touch on that and kind of maybe dive into that.
5:45
Why does that matter so much?
And because some of these guys may not understand it, and they may not understand their wives.
But I think that last part just nails it.
If we don't have an understanding and a skill set around that emotional attachment, those most important relationships just wither up and die.
6:02
Absolutely and and it matters at home if you want to maintain your family and grow legacy with your kids.
It also matters at work.
We know from Harvard Business studies that you have a 50% productivity increase with trust based leadership instead of more classical just money based leadership or or hierarchical right.
6:18
So the trust and the emotional safety matters.
But most men with avoid an attachment style have never felt safe in their life.
So when someone says I don't feel safe, they have no idea what that means.
Their wife says I want to feel emotionally close to you.
They don't know what that means.
Their brain actually resists the bonding hormone oxytocin, which actually makes you feel belonging, safe, warmth, intimacy, closeness.
6:39
Their receptors are blocked because of the high level cortisol they have and it has been blocked most of them lifelong, so they've never felt it right.
So the.
Only experience of it.
Like I understood the connection piece, but I didn't know their brain resists that.
When your brain, when your nervous system goes into sympathetic nervous system mode and and you're stressed out, which they're in 24/7 and you're flooded with cortisol, your oxytocin receptors block.
7:04
But here's what's really bad is then your GABA is some is just rock bottom.
Your GABA suppresses cortisol.
So now because you can't emotionally bond with your tribe, your network, your family, your friends, you have unregulated cortisol 24/7.
It's just a nuclear reactor burning all the time.
7:21
It can make you hyperproductive, but it leads to cancer, heart attack, stroke, low human growth hormone, testosterone flattening out about 35 to 40 or earlier, drive and libido issues.
A lot of these guys have to take testosterone replacement thinking that it's their system.
7:39
It's actually your attachment and your relationship structures.
Human growth hormone goes down harder to build or maintain muscle.
You're more likely to have all 10 causes of death and earlier in life.
So you're likely to lose 10 to 15 years off the end of your life and have lower quality of life through the entire rest of your life, all because you can't emotionally bond to others.
7:59
Now I want to highlight right now for guys feeling hopeless, this is all.
It's fixable.
It's fixable.
Your brain has neuroplasticity and can remap, so you can avoid these things if you're feeling it right now.
But you've got to get on it because this is the missing piece.
It's the missing vertical.
8:14
Most guys have no idea was even.
Brother, that was like drinking from a fire hose of of awesome.
It's so relevant and and so true, so powerful.
And I connected a lot of those pieces, but not like you just described it.
That was amazing.
So let's just dive right into it.
8:29
What, what can we start doing?
What can men start doing to be?
I think there's a misunderstanding.
It's like just be more emotional, be more vulnerable.
But what are the what are the real actionable steps that you know men can start doing to to get in a better spot?
8:47
It's easy with this there are four key things a man must do in his relationship to make his family feel safe and connected so they can be thriving.
And then there are four key things his wife must return to him so that he can feel the same depth of thriving and growth and peace and and intimacy.
9:06
It has to be that way. 4:00 and 4:00, but I'm going to say the I'm going to say this for the guys at home.
Guys, if you're not convinced yet, if this is you, let me ask you this.
Do you have to go to the gym 2 hours a day, five days a week to scrape the bottom of the barrel for serotonin so you can just feel a little bit balanced, OK?
9:23
Are you thriving on cortisol and stress constantly but can never come out of it?
So that when you're sitting with your wife, you're grinding your teeth thinking about work and projects that you could or should be doing that when you're trying, right?
When you're trying to play with your kids and you're laying on the floor having a tea party with your daughter or you're throwing a football with your son, Do you feel like there's a wall between you that you don't know what to say?
9:44
You don't know how to connect.
You don't know how to how to open those conversations with them.
And they're not really barely talking back with you either.
It's just a lot of silence.
OK.
Do you find yourself lashing out at your family sometimes in irritation when they try to connect with you and then feeling grief and pain?
10:00
Like, what have I done?
I want to connect with these people.
Why am I not helping?
Do you feel endlessly frustrated when your wife is begging you to open up?
Talk more Cher and you know she's trying to get something but you have no idea what it is and at the same time you feel like she doesn't acknowledge what you are doing for her.
10:18
Is any of this resonating?
Then you're probably a high performing man with avoid an attachment style.
You don't know what to do for your wife because you never knew it growing up and you don't actually know what she can offer you, which is why you're slapping her hand away and why she may eventually leave you.
I have a book up here on my shelf.
10:34
Exhausted wives, people, their husbands.
It's the most common dynamic for divorce.
That's why we see a lot of divorces from this process, not because you're a bad person, but because you're not being the right kind of husband to signal safety to your family.
That's the thing that's missing.
10:50
Does that make sense?
You want to hit the four and the four now.
Just nail them, yeah.
I've got your attention now, huh?
That's the guys at home are sweating bullets.
And especially like a few of those I hear daily couple of ones you mentioned there, it's like Yep, Yep, Yep.
So if you're high achieving, you're you're ambitious, you're driven, those things are quite common.
11:10
Yes, the way out of it is this, you have to build a securely attached relationship even if you're not securely attached yet yourself.
OK, yes, become securely attached.
My team with programs to help with that.
But building a secure relationship is what matters 1st and there's two components to this.
11:26
One then that that's the the real masculine feminine dynamic and then the other is a negotiation based discussion framework so that you can solve problems with your partner.
OK, interrupt me at any point man, I got a again fire hose effect here. 4 things a man must provide for his wife, all safety based.
11:43
Four types of safety.
Number one is physical safety.
The hunter gatherers, we needed this.
The tiger could out of the come out of the bushes and eat her, right?
You protect her rival tribes, you protect her today.
Still important.
Something goes bump in the night.
Do you get up and investigate?
11:59
Do you lock up the house at night?
Are you taking care of business there?
When you walk on the street, do you walk on the outside with her on the inside?
Little subtle clues, right?
Is she physically safe?
Very important.
Most avoidant men massively successful.
This They're aware of risk, hyper aware of risk, endlessly tracking for threats, so they make others feel safe, which is good #2 resource safety.
12:22
This isn't even just paying her bills.
If something goes wrong, would you be the man to get up and go do something about it?
Would you rescue everybody from the problem?
If the world ends, would you go out and get cans of food?
If money goes down, are you going out and getting another job to earn more?
12:37
Are you taking care of resources?
Right.
The man builds A structured perimeter of safety.
Then he goes out of the perimeter, gathers resources, brings them back in to the women and children.
This is a basic, basic feature of masculinity.
Most avoidant men right now.
You're you're got, you feel, you feel smug because you're crushing the 1st 2:00.
12:56
I got this.
I'm doing everything.
My responsibilities are at an end.
What more could a human ask for, right?
Well, inside that perimeter, can I?
Can I pause right there and emphasize what you just said?
If if we stop at that point thing, I'm crushing it like I'm I'm a protector, I'm a provider, I'm showing up as a husband and father.
13:19
What else do you want from me?
If we stop there, that's where there's a lot of problems.
We come up short.
That's it.
We have to be providing the next two levels of safety or we are not mature masculine, we are juvenile masculine.
Juvenile masculine men can provide the 1st 2 levels.
13:36
Mature masculine men only they can provide levels three and four.
And this is what most women are flagging for because you build a perimeter and then go out of the perimeter, kill something, bring it back for resources.
But what happens inside the perimeter?
Is she actually safe inside the perimeter?
13:51
And how does she know your perimeter isn't going to evaporate?
How does she know the children are safe inside and will not be abandoned, especially if she was in childhood?
How does she know she's safe?
Flagging things to you and being your your executive partner.
We'll talk about that. 4 levels of peace she must return to you that she aches to return to you.
14:08
Level 3 safety.
This is what wives are asking for a lot.
Emotional safety.
It has two components.
Is she safe bringing her emotions to you respectfully, but bringing concerns, bringing fears, bringing sadness, bringing hurt, bringing arousal, bringing anything to you that has emotional content, knowing you will listen, you will download it as data, you'll ask clarifying questions, you'll work on it with her and then you'll come to a solution.
14:35
Are you going to resolve concerns with her?
Number one, this is we call it containment.
We also call it Co regulation of the nervous system.
If someone goes into their CEO knocks on the door goes oh man, we got a problem.
The CEO supposed to go, hey, sit down, it's okay, we're going to get this work done.
14:50
You give me some information, tell me what's going on, okay?
I don't know your department the way you do.
Tell me a little bit more, talk to me a little bit more about what's going on.
Why is that a problem?
Okay, I hear it.
I got it.
Now here's a solution I think could work.
What do you tell you?
Tell me.
Does that work?
Yes.
Excellent.
Go ahead and implement it.
15:06
I'll do this from my side.
Let's connect again in one week.
That's masculine leadership that the wife is needing at home.
But most men stop doing that at the front door and they react emotionally.
They they act like she's threatening them.
She's he's upset when she brings problems.
She does.
15:21
Complain, right?
She just.
Wants to complain?
No, she's flagging the information to you 100%.
That's emotional safety Part 1.
Part 2 is your emotions.
Are you disciplined in them if you're just turning them off and dissociating from them?
Greg, I want you to play a game with me.
15:37
OK, Let's pretend your buddy pulls up in a car.
He's coming to pick you up.
You're going out to lunch.
You get in the car, you sit in the seat and you look over and his dashboard is all the heads up is blocked out with duct tape.
So he's there's no visible meters, nothing is visible.
15:54
And you go, buddy, what's going on there?
And he goes, oh man, I got, I'm tired of all the lights and the warnings flashing at me.
I've just blocked them out so I don't have to think about them while I'm driving.
How fast are you getting out of this car?
Exactly like bro I'm driving.
Right, right.
Like that's right.
16:09
Like correct.
This is a woman watching you dissociate.
That's that's it.
Emotions are just data.
That's all they are now.
They come with a lot of pre packet stuff.
They hit the right side brain, which drains your logical functioning.
You get agitated and upset your linguist, your linguistic skills goes down, your language goes down.
16:28
You can't articulate very well.
You need someone else to guide you out of that.
This is the Co regulation.
But if your nervous system is freaked out, she sees you stressed all the time, you're not emotionally engaging, you're just blocking out.
You're blowing up and reacting.
You're pissed off every day.
16:44
You you respond badly to your kids.
You yell at your kid because he wants a cookie.
You yell at your daughter because she wants a pony ride like you're you're blowing up.
You are not emotionally disciplined.
You are not safe.
At any time, something bad could happen inside the perimeter and the kids are going to grow up feeling unsettled with attachment issues, with their amygdala overdeveloped the fear center.
17:03
They're squashing their emotions, not knowing how to integrate with people, not knowing how to communicate.
She sees the damage coming.
She's flagging it to you.
Emotional safety is part three.
OK?
You have to have secure attachment and emotional discipline to manage this which leads to level.
Can I, can I jump in right there?
17:19
Go do you in in your work?
Are more men explosive or kind of going numb, quiet escaping, or is it kind of an even balance would you say?
It really depends, because that's a flight, a flight response in your limbic system, or a fight response.
17:39
Most men are desperately trying not to fight because they don't want to hurt their family.
So they try to pull away, try to pull away, try to pull away.
But when there's no more space for them to go, when their wife is chasing them down, when you can't leave your family, when you just want to rest and you're very tired, that's where the fight starts to come out with your ability, the lashing out.
17:58
Maybe they're exploding and yelling.
Maybe it's just snapping, maybe it's passive of aggressive, maybe it's sarcasm, but the fight comes out because you feel like no one cares about you and you don't know what they want so you put them in their place to try to keep the system going.
It's a survival based thing.
It's not an.
Intimacy, that's what I was just going to say.
18:14
Both of those are subconscious survival reactions.
Like you're not even thinking, you're not present, you're not there.
So I like what you're saying.
It's this emotional discipline to be present, to direct your emotions, to know what's going on versus I'm either flight or fight, and neither of which will help at all to give her the emotional safety she needs.
18:38
Right, which is why when a couple with people, couples or individuals come to me or my team, nervous system regulation first before anything else, because the guy has never regulated the nervous system.
Most guys with avoidance, they're a nuclear reactor getting ready to explode from just unregulated cortisol.
They throw dopamine at it to try to cool it down because it's all they have.
18:56
So they dopamine binge and in 50 different ways, and that's the only mechanism they have.
Otherwise they got to run away and just cool off alone somewhere or alcohol or whatever it is to numb their system.
And that's the only other thing.
Your system's not meant to run that way.
That is a survival system that's not meant to be on 24/7.
19:14
It kills you.
This is why guys perform and thrive to the 45, get cancer and spend every dollar they've ever made on cancer treatments and then die at 50 and check out right as their kids are just getting to an age where they can really grow and talk.
19:29
And now your kids grow up without that father figure in their life, their kids.
Your kids watched you binge on stress and then die.
And now they have to go forward with the same system you did.
And they'll do the same things you did.
And, and these guys are just surviving on substances.
I mean, there's pounding caffeine and then alcohol, maybe porn.
19:48
This is all these these coping mechanisms because we're not getting to the core of the issue.
Yes, and some of them are running $100 million businesses.
Some of them are raising kids in the suburbs.
Some of them are working in factories that they're thriving and growing as best as they know how, but they're just surviving, really.
20:06
And their brain always says it's never enough.
Something's coming around the corner.
Don't, don't calm down.
Don't relax.
Don't stop.
Keep grinding, Keep grinding.
Keep grinding right up until you die, because it's a.
Fear, it's fear based.
Just a curiosity, when you, when you have people start doing notional regulation, they do it alone or they do it together.
20:23
Typically you do nervous system regulation on your own first so that you don't don't cause problems with the other people.
And then you come into the communication approach and you start Co regulating after that so that you have anything to give to your family.
You have to be stable first.
20:38
Your family is going to take on whatever you're giving them.
They have they have kids have mirroring neurons in their brain, adults, hundreds.
They feel your stress in their system and they don't know what to do.
So they just freak out.
Tantrums, meltdowns, perfectionism, all kinds of things spark because they're afraid of the all the time while you're afraid all the time.
20:56
Regulating your nervous system is crucial.
This is why the number one complaints wives have about husbands is he's not managing his emotions.
She's asking if you have them, she's asking what you're doing about them.
She's asking you to share with her so she knows what you're feeling.
She's trying to optimize with you, but she's also trying to track your status.
21:13
Worst thing you can do is tell her to shut up and go sit in the corner, which is what most men do.
Wow.
OK, so good.
All right #4.
Bonding safety, bonding safety.
She needs to know that she is not just a warm body filling a seat.
She couldn't be swapped out for a 19 year old bimbo in a bikini somewhere who walked by.
21:31
She is a real thriving partner in your life and that she has a role to play that is irreplaceable.
You need to value her for the connection you share, the wisdom she has, the experience she has.
This does not put her above you.
It makes her a trusted counselor and advisor in your life.
21:48
To do that, she has to have a few factors.
We'll talk about that.
But there's a bonding hormone that men have more receptors for than women do, called vasopressin.
Vasopressin is only released when we solve problems together, overcome challenges together, learn skills together, achieve goals together.
22:04
We have to be hitting targets as a couple.
So our brain tags and says you're my ally.
And this is the monogamy hormone.
If we give it to rodents who are cheating, rodents stop cheating and become protective of their bonded partner.
22:20
If we take it away and block the receptors, faithful rodents start cheating overwhelmingly actually.
So this is crucial.
And men have more of these receptors naturally than women do.
Women have it, but men have more and let's grab this avoidantly attached men whose receptors of for oxytocin have been blocked their whole life shift to receive vasopressin instead.
22:42
So you are hyper attuned to this bonding hormone.
Your brain is looking for someone you can trust but you never let anyone in to build the trust.
So level 4 bonding safety is sharing concerns with her and challenges not to cry on the floor but to then solve them to help implement things together.
23:01
You want to be the CEO in the family leading Her job is to be the COO, Chief Operations Officer in the family.
Her job is to flag concerns to you.
Her job is to maintain the system and homeostasis.
Her job is to bring challenges and issues to be resolved for the strength and protection of the company that you're Co founding together.
23:21
If you want to be ACEO though, you have to be emotionally disciplined.
Don't be the CEO who's sitting his desk angry whipping beer bottles at people who come in and knock on his door, or ducking out because you can't bother speaking to anyone or screaming at them when they open your door or just checking out.
Refusing to engage with people who bring you problems or even worse punishing your Co executive who is bringing you challenges hoping to fix them and you punish them every single time for 20 years and refused to solve problems.
23:50
This is divorce process right here.
This is how people get divorced. 4 levels of safety a man must provide.
I love that.
And my wife and I, I, we just, we wanted to do everything together.
24:06
So we, we brought our businesses home as soon as we could.
We started traveling together, we work together.
We, we have, you know, we have 7 kids and we, we travel the world together, right?
And, and so like I didn't know about this hormone you're talking about.
I'm like, we just, we live for that stuff because we have built our life like for the last, I would say 15 years, we've had three meals a day together and we just built our whole life together.
24:33
So we're thriving on that thing and we love it.
That's awesome.
Vasopressin, vasopressin.
And that opens the doorway for the desire for oxytocin, which is warmth, intimacy, sharing, nurturing, bonding.
It's the relaxing in someone's presence and, and that stimulation of the vagus nerve in your chest.
24:50
It feels warm and opened up and, and let go and really, really relaxed into the person that you are because you're bonded with the, the, the partner, the ally that you have at your side.
So men bond, men bond best through this with each other, with other men and with with the wife that we are there with.
25:07
So it's a first step for men is is just getting that nervous system regulation. 4 levels of safety, regulate your nervous system so you can give them and then learn how to open up and bond with her on the vasopressin level so that she can see where you're at and work as ACEO and let her be your COO.
25:24
Now to do that, a woman has to have a few features as well, 'cause I can hear the guys out there already like, well, what if she's not doing her job?
What if she's not doing?
What if she's mean to me all the time?
I I hear that a lot.
So let's let's go to her side.
Yeah, let's go to that side.
25:39
When a man provides 4 levels of safety, what happens is a woman enters her parasympathetic nervous system state, comes out of sympathetic stress mode, rests in the perimeter, knows it's safe.
She knows the perimeter's safe.
She knows resources will be brought into the perimeter.
She knows that the perimeter inside is extra safe emotionally, and she knows the perimeter is not going to disappear because the man has bonded to her appropriately.
26:02
So this is ultimate safety.
It is predictable.
OK, now she has a safe place to operate from and she can flip purely into her parasympathetic rest and digest and nurture and grow state.
High serotonin, oxytocin receptors wide open, high levels of intimacy, high levels of of growth and affection and care.
26:24
This is where she enters what we call the feminine state.
Not to get through energy wise thinking.
Like this is where the feminine blossoms.
Like right?
If if you're not providing the four levels of safety, she cannot enter this state.
So This is why they say I'm in my masculine because of you.
26:41
They can't enter the state until all four levels are locked in.
So the fullness of the feminine self is 4 levels of peace.
OK, first is calm.
When you come back into your perimeter into your home, there needs to be a calm or a just suffusing it because her nervous system is regulated.
26:59
She's regulating herself and when appropriate, coming to you to get help regulating.
But she is staying calm and settled.
She is peaceful and calm with her kids, with you, everyone around her.
It's that that almost regal aura of just calm that suffuses everything.
27:14
So when you come home, you don't walk over and go, man, I wonder what her mood is today.
I wonder how she's feeling.
She's just calm.
She's just ready, just peaceful.
Right #1 level 2 gentle.
She is gentle in her speech.
Including respectful does not mean silent.
27:30
She is gentle when she brings concerns.
She asks questions.
It's her knocking on the CEOCEOS door going hey, excuse me if you have 5 minutes, OK?
We have a challenge going on over here.
I'd love for us to dress it together.
Can I get 5 minutes of your time to solve it?
Gentleness, direct but gentle in her speech.
27:47
Not passive aggressive, not rolling her eyes, not barking, not whining, not manipulating, nothing.
None of that gentle, OK, Level 3 loyalty.
So we, we got to stop because I, I know with all the couples, I get to work with the couples you get to work with the chaos of kids and life and the chaos that's happening.
28:12
Unfortunately, social media and politics and stirring things up it very often not calm it, it, it's chaotic mayhem and, and not gentle.
There's there's some big emotions the ocean like the women are like the ocean and the storms and the tides and the winds and the waves.
28:32
So are are you saying that what, what are you saying about the calm and the gentle that, that this is where if, if all of her safety is being met, she'll be there more often.
Here's.
Yes, I love this question.
28:47
This is a good Let's dive in here.
When a man is providing safety to a woman, he is providing biochemical resilience against stress.
As her oxytocin levels arise through the roof, flooded with them, she almost gets drunk on them.
29:03
Her GABA gamma amino butyric acid GABA goes way up.
This suppresses the release of cortisol in her system.
It's almost like an anti anxiety pill.
She takes every day a massive dose.
It suppresses the release of cortisol.
If it does release, how long it releases, how severe it is, it shuts down a lot of her ability to even feel that stress because her system comes back to yours and is constantly biochemically attuned to you.
29:28
Her serotonin levels skyrocket.
She's resilient against depression, anxiety, fear, all of that goes up and she knows that you're handling it.
So this is a true COO on the inside of a company, knowing that the CEO has it and that they don't have to be afraid of the company going bankrupt at a moment's notice.
29:46
So all the chaos of the outside world, Yes, and all the chaos, even with the kids, it can become playful, it can become gentle, it can become something you work on together.
It's not perfection every day it is peaceful and and going back and forth over and over and over to it.
30:04
It's the woman disciplining herself and if she feels it's too much, going to the man, checking in, respectfully, getting her, her dose, her connection.
There's a physical gesture that I teach men of holding your wife for two minutes, flooding with oxytocin, realigning her nervousness.
30:19
That's.
Literally what I envisioned when you were talking through this.
I'm like, man, just grab her, just hold her and she'll just get that whole biochemical change.
Best way to do it is hand the back of her neck, not Vulcan death grip but hand at the back of her neck gently and then other hand at her lower back.
30:36
Pull her in.
Her head rests here and you hold her and squeeze just a bit, a little bit of gentle pressure for about two minutes and you just let her sit there.
You can rock back and forth a little bit if you want to.
This is such an explosive nervous system realignment for her it's overwhelming you.
30:53
She will wobble when you when she gets up after 2 minutes because she's so drunk on it and her nervous service system is fully realigned and calm now she's a better mom for the rest of the day.
This is your job as CEO is making sure your Co executive is able to do her job.
You are giving her budget, if you want to think of it, biochemical budget to get through the rest of the day.
31:13
Yes.
She also needs to discipline herself to be gentle and kind to you.
She needs to learn the ways to do that.
She needs to be handling it, but the man does so much.
Absolutely spot on.
And and like the, the framework I love to teach is that that men will have a privilege and I say a responsibility to be the lighthouse, right?
31:34
It's, it's kind of this like when there's the storm and the winds and the waves, like just just be solid.
Like you're there, you're you can handle it, you're not going anywhere and just let her feel what she needs to feel and then do the the regulating and oh man, wow, then she's right there.
31:51
Yes, and men who are avoidant when they hear that, they think I have to dissociate from my feelings and sit there grinding my teeth holding her for two minutes and feel stressed out.
No, your stress is seeping out through your pores and that's not going to work.
32:07
This only works when your nervous system is actually regulated.
Yep, 100%.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
There's there's really no way other way around this.
OK, 3 and 4.
Three and four, Level 3 of peace that a woman must offer is loyalty.
Yes, absolutely sexual loyalty.
32:23
We can get that out of the way.
It's their absolute priority.
Task based loyalty.
When there's a problem, does she come to you and say there's an issue and you're going to solve it?
Or does she come in and say, hey, there's a challenge here that we need to tackle together, right?
32:38
Is it we US teamwork language?
Is she the executive that walks in and goes, hey, there's something going on, let's hit it together and we can knock it out and be thriving together tomorrow, right?
Or is she barking at you?
Is she angry at you?
Is she blaming you?
Does she pull away and make it your job?
32:55
Is she angry and upset?
Is she resentful?
Or is she always blaming herself, endlessly blaming herself and pulling away from you and causing disruptions to you at the moments when you can least afford it?
Is she not loyal in those ways?
Or is she locked in with you and ready to go?
33:11
A calm, regulated nervous system allows her to lock in with you, and she has to be securely attached as well so that she can see that you can even cooperate.
It has to be there.
Beautiful.
Well, because that's also very common.
This one's really common where she's going to want to just offload her burdens and just you take care of it, you take care of it, you take.
33:30
Care of it and there's there's room for that in a Co executive relationship right?
The COO could say hey, there's a problem here.
I don't know what to do can you take it for me?
And he goes absolutely right.
That's the CE OS job is handling fires all day long.
That's his job.
But her saying this is on you.
33:48
You go figure it out and dumping it on you and saying you did this so you fix it.
That's not loyalty.
That is actually sabotaging the rest of the relationship.
She cannot be doing that.
What's what's happening there most often in her mind in biochemistry?
34:03
Like what is she hurting?
She afraid, she feeling insecure.
Yeah, so all the years that I've been doing this, working with couples, one thing I've seen again and again is 2 main patterns emerge.
One either she started off trying to do that and you've slapped her hand away so many times, you've treated her like your assistant instead of your Co executive.
34:21
She's knocked on the door so many times and you shut it in her face.
You don't want to have the conversation.
So now she starts getting angry and resentful because you actually are the problem.
And so she starts putting everything on you.
Even if you're not the problem in this thing, you're probably are because you're the problem everywhere else, right?
That that resentment, the anger, the exhaustion on her place very hard to turn that possible, but very hard.
34:43
The other thing though I see is this culture we've raised women in for the last four or five generations of men will fail you.
Men will abandoned you.
Men will die.
They will check out.
They don't care.
Get your career 1st and then always be on edge.
Those kids are your kids.
Make sure that you always have a backup plan.
35:00
Never ever, ever, ever trust a man with your life and your protection, right?
We have that.
So when they get in the relationship, they're fearful of men, they're afraid of connecting, they're afraid of trusting.
So even if he is trying to provide safety, she's rejecting it and refusing to provide peace because that feels like weakness and exploitation to her.
35:19
She's been told that that's not OK for her to offer.
She must offer those things or the relationship is doomed.
And that message is still being taught, man, Crazy.
Yeah.
Thanks for for sharing that one.
So relevant and important.
And and it is being taught.
35:35
And man, we got to.
We have to teach our daughters differently.
Percent.
Now we're on the four men.
At home, yeah, that.
But that starts with US men at home, right?
This is why the high performing dads out there have to be stepping in with their daughters and giving them connection, intimacy, warmth.
35:51
Otherwise you're sending a message that you're not interested and she has to go through this world on her own, or you're sending a message that she's not good enough and now she's going to go out there desperately trying to get approval from somebody and that's not going to be a pretty picture.
So you stepping in, connecting with your daughter, calm nervous system, secure attachment, good communication, talking with your daughter and really intimately bonding with her makes her biochemically resilient against a manipulators, abusers, all the things out that world, but also helps her grow a healthy marriage in the future.
36:23
Right.
And we like we have to like non negotiable here.
We have to be that example of manliness and, like, trustworthiness, Like, she knows, like, I can trust my dad.
He says he's going to do something.
36:39
He doesn't, you know, he's here.
And so then she realizes, OK, men can be trusted.
Look at my dad.
Avoidant men love to say there's no one coming to rescue you.
I will say this, there's no one coming to raise your daughter.
You are the one person who's doing that.
You are the model of masculinity for her.
36:57
She can either be afraid of men, disappointed by men, or desperate to please men, or she can be loving, trusting, but with boundaries, with expectations.
She can be that woman who walks into the relationship who is calm, she's gentle, she's loyal, and she's level 4 that we're going to talk about in a moment.
37:16
It's it's the father that determines so much of that.
So good, OK #4.
You're excited.
OK.
Level 4 is executive partnership.
A woman must offer a man executive partnership.
She can't be a shrinking little Violet who never speaks up.
37:31
She can't be emotionally unstable or insecure and blowing up all the time.
She has to be emotionally disciplined, even if that means she knows when she's out of her depth and she needs Co regulation and connection.
She has to be all of the other things we talked about, but continuously flagging concerns.
37:47
She can't let him drive off a Cliff.
She can't let him make those mistakes because he will.
She needs to be his eyes inside the organization, the family structure, the business that they're building.
She needs to be his eyes in the legacy.
She probably is going to outlive him by an average of eight to 10 years.
38:02
So she's going to carry his legacy forward to his children when they when he's dead and gone and the kids say, man, I just wish dad was here to tell me what to do.
And she goes, I'll tell you what, your father, I would tell you.
And she can pass that on for 10 years of transitioning that knowledge and that skill set over the kids for 10 more years.
38:20
That's legacy.
She is the executive partner, but only when she's regulating her nervous system and being disciplined and gentle and she's being provided those levels of safety.
That's executive partnership.
Men always ask, what do women bring to the table?
These 4 levels of peace is what women are supposed to be bringing to the table.
38:38
They're supposed to bring them.
We're supposed to make it possible for them to bring it through safety and we're supposed to receive it.
All of those three pieces are out of.
Man, I, I, I love that so much.
And, and just again want to emphasize here, I think he just nailed it.
38:54
So she'll bring it, but we have a responsibility to to facilitate her bringing it and then receive it and keep going.
It's like that this cycle.
And I love that idea.
And I think that responsibility should squarely rest on on shoulders of men, the whole to say, hey, look like my wife.
39:15
If she's going to blossom and flourish as a true woman, it's because I'm giving her the walled garden to do it.
Yeah.
Spot on, brother.
I love this.
That is our job.
That's the job of the masculine.
The job of the feminine is to create life and nurturing within the perimeter.
39:32
And the job of the masculine is to create and hold that perimeter so that everybody's safe.
And then we grow and we grow and grow.
And by doing this, you set up such an explosion of health and culture.
The guys here on your show, I know they love legacy, right?
39:48
You guys talk legacy all the time.
All the time.
Right, let's do some simple math for the guys out there.
OK, let's talk legacy.
Very basic math.
I do this.
I have been years ago, I used to work with kids.
I worked with 12 year old boys.
We would do this math.
Their eyes would light up at life purpose.
I do it with guys who are in their 70s.
40:04
Their eyes still light up with purpose.
Basic math.
Let's pretend everybody out there, you're going to have three children.
Cool.
Most guys stop there.
They go, well, my legacy is 3 kids.
All right, cool.
No, let's do some math.
You have three children, OK?
Inside the perimeter you establish and your wife nurtures.
40:22
You have three children.
They go out and build their own perimeters, nurturing and growing healthy, OK.
Each of them has three kids, That's 9 grandkids.
They go out and and grow and nurture their own perimeters, OK?
27 great grandkids.
They go out and have their own, their thriving networks and and structures.
40:39
OK, 81 great great grandkids.
When you put it all together, it's 120 biological children and descendants over the next roughly 100 years from 333.
Now I've got 5 coming up on 6.
You got 7.
40:55
You got a lot, right?
It's good.
That's a lot.
But that's look at the explosive math that begins to grow the exponential increases.
If you just take it out another 50 years or another 100 years at 200 years, 10s of thousands of people that you're, they're looking at biochemically and biologically your children.
41:12
Now they are all influenced by that original core perimeter that you established and that your wife grew and nurtured inside of.
They're establishing, they're they're building from this.
You can either be the one that begins, begins that and creates health through the ripples, or you can do such a job that they go out desperately craving it and create broken systems and broken systems and broken systems.
41:34
You're looking at 120.
Either way.
It does, it does.
But they're either thriving and healthy and growing and, and, and, and, and being protected against predatory systems and other people and governments and collapses, or they're they're resilient from that because they're together or they're fractured and broken.
41:52
They're falling into all kinds of addictions, into damaging epidemic and behaviors.
I don't even name some of the bad behaviors people are doing right now, but but all of the destructive cycles keeping people ripped apart and alone.
We, we are only vulnerable today for the bad things that are happening because our ancestors didn't know how to build these thriving structures.
42:17
They had imprinted good structures that were handed down to them.
They got broken 100 years ago.
We have to be intentional about rebuilding them.
If we want a better system in the future that people are not exploited and destroyed and and harvested, we have to build a better system.
42:33
So, men out there, what do you want for your descendants?
Because it starts with you. 100% And, and I would say we'd have to do it desperately have to do it because everything is so dysfunctional and there's so much darkness and evil right now.
42:49
Who knows, maybe a couple generations ago they could have been more casual about it, though, at least from my perspective, we, we don't, we can't be casual about this.
We can't afford to, you know, take a maybe or, you know, I'll get to it like we've we have to, we have to do this right and and build this family dynamic so that it it keeps our immediate family safe, but then build out those legacies.
43:10
I love that brother.
That's we we have to be doing this.
This is for the people who are relying on us.
It is literally life and death.
We've all seen the statistics.
We know, we know that this is life and death.
We know that there's even living death that your descendants could be going through and suffering through daily, right?
43:27
They are technically alive, but they're not really here.
They're not really thriving.
They're not doing anything but barely scraping on living in A1 room studio apartment for the rest of their life.
Can't even afford a pet cat, right?
They'd work a job they hate and they they drink themselves to sleep every night and they just wait for it to end.
43:45
That.
Can be your descendants, but I don't want it to be.
OK, so that's, that's actually a good lead in to, to kids and big families.
I want to hear your thoughts on this because big families are rare.
I I think, I think it's amazing.
We, we have 6-7 children.
We adopted our first, had six more, packed them in there, went and travelled the world.
44:06
It was chaotic, it was crazy.
It was awesome and we love it.
Just found out that we are having our first grandson.
Congratulations in a few months.
So it's that new phase of life.
It's like, yes, I love this.
44:22
I love, love, love family life.
And as we travel over the world and talk to people, there's like, you know, they're either you watch them counting, you know, in, in shock how many kids we have or, or but let's let's talk about families.
Absolutely.
Big families, I will say, are not always better if you are not fixing your nervous system and fixing your attachment because all that means is more damage that you're leveraging.
44:43
Not you, not you, Greg, you're good.
But everybody out there, you dream of a big family, Sure, but what are you going to do with that, right?
I got 5 kids.
I work a lot.
I'm I'm building the attachment institute globally to try to teach every I want to build 1 billion securely attached people over the course of my lifetime.
44:59
I got a lot of work to do.
My wife's a stay at home mom.
She works harder than I do right at that structure.
She homeschools.
It's a lot of work with five kids.
We got 6 coming when you're either.
Be is 9 right?
9 every two.
Years.
Every two years a lot of small kids at home man 9 being the oldest. 9 is now my youngest.
45:21
I was in that bro.
Like your wife is busy and there's chaos at home.
There is, there is.
You have little boys.
It's what's that?
You have little boys.
How many boys you.
Have two boys, 3 girls and the new one.
We're not sure yet.
We'll find out.
45:36
So yeah, my boys are, they play competitions to see who can put holes in the drywall faster, So I know.
That's why I was mentioning boys, Lee.
Oh, little boys are a trip, man.
I love it.
They're just, they're basically just like pet gorillas you keep in your home that slowly learn to talk is basically what it is.
45:53
It's wonderful, but, but it can either be heaven or it can be hell with your family.
If your nervous system is dysregulated, you're detached, your oxytocin receptors are blocked, you're not getting warmth and intimacy.
You're just vibrating and grinding your teeth and you see these kids and, and you, you love them, but it's hard to feel warmth or closeness to them.
46:15
So you try to raise the mechanically as you try to understand what's good for them biomechanically, but all you end up doing is hurting them and distancing them more and more and more criticizing them.
And then you're your wife is angry and stressed out at you and says, why are you hurting our kids?
You go, what do you mean?
46:31
I'm taking care of them.
Look, I, I pulled in five mil last year.
We got three houses.
We got a yacht, we got all these cars.
I bought that one a pony because the last pony I gave her wasn't pretty enough, right?
Like I'm a great father.
If you're not regulating your nervous system, having five kids is hell, even having one kid is hard at that point because you have nothing to give him.
46:51
Not really.
You're literally perpetuating attachment issues.
You are, yes, you are technically doing your reproductive duty of producing a child so that the your genetics go on in a dark, painful environment.
47:06
It is you.
Your tribe is dead.
You find a woman in the forest, you technically reproduced.
You raise the kids 18 and say now it's all on you.
And then you keel over dead from a heart attack.
That that's that structure.
That's not good enough 'cause that yes, the kid is alive, but then what does he launch into?
47:25
Not a world that he's going to thrive in, by the way.
He has to become even more hardened and predatory to basically to survive on his own or he has to knuckle under and please everybody else just to try to scrape out a living.
Either way, man, that's that's not what you want for your kids.
47:40
So whether you have one or five, get your nervous system under control, fix your attachment, fix your brain, brain structures, remap every 58 to 63 days if you are pushing and new experiences.
I know this from Doctor Caroline Leaf.
She's an incredible neurobiologist.
47:56
If you have new experiences with your wife, you're sharing more openly.
You're talking about problems differently.
You're bonding with her differently.
Your brain after two months begins to remap those pathways and it feels natural and healthy.
Your oxytocin receptors begin to open up.
You begin receiving warmth.
48:13
Then when you hold your kid, oh man, it feels incredible.
And your, your, your system gets better because you release GABA, which suppresses cortisol.
And now suddenly you can actually sit there with your kid and listen to them talk about their stories they're doing in their games and, and the toys.
And you can listen to them and, and enjoy it.
48:30
And then you can give back to them, ask them more questions.
And now they feel like they're worthy of your attention.
And now you're not grinding your teeth on your one day off of the week.
You're sitting there immersed with your family, joyful, having a great family dinner, talking to them, growing with them.
And they're growing up chemically resilient against stress, fear, intrusion, manipulation.
48:51
It all starts with you.
So whether you have one kid or or 10, nervous system, secure attachment, communication, building the four levels of safety and the four levels of peace, thriving together as CEO and COO, and working in your home as efficiently as you do at your job, that's going to be the move going forward.
49:11
This is your greatest job.
Yep.
So what I hear you saying is that, well, quite literally the best thing we can do for our families is to get ourselves to a really healthy spot mentally, emotionally, physically, get our, our nervous system regulated.
49:33
Because I hear what I hear you saying is like, it's not this, oh, do this with your kids, Do this with your kids, Do this with your kids.
It's, it's like, get, get yourself good.
Then you'll show up there and and be able to do the things in a way that they should be done.
And I'll add one more piece.
49:49
Every guy always says mentally, physically, right?
We say all these pieces, we never say relationally, get yourself right relationally, have the right relationships that nurture your biochemistry the way you're a hunter gatherer ancestors did, the way your system is designed for.
50:07
You're not you're not meant to be a lone guy in a forest with a sharp stick surrounded by predators circling you all the time trying to keep a family alive that you're barely really emotionally invested in.
That's not what you're meant to be living as.
You're meant to be thriving with your family emotionally invested, but in a larger tribal structure.
50:25
So you're safe, you can rest.
You can't rest because your system isn't supposed to when you're alone, you can't stop grinding your teeth because you're supposed to be on edge when you're always alone.
It doesn't work that way.
You're not going to be able to just click out of it.
But biochemically you need your wife, you need your kids, you need other men.
50:44
You need your tribe, you need your, your bigger super tribe, as we call it here in in my process.
You need all of that growth and integration so that you can biochemically, relationally be operating in a high level.
Otherwise you will crash out and burn no matter what level you reach.
50:59
So much and it all starts with was just doing that inner work to to get your own attachment stuff figured out because and I'm sure you hear those all the time too.
And I do as well working, you know, high achieving men, entrepreneurs, business owners, executives, I, I guess the common way they would describe themselves.
51:21
Well, I'm just not like that.
Or that's just not who I am.
I, I've never been good at emotions.
I'm not good at connection, you know, you know, I'm not the, the emotional type.
I'm not the, you know, the lovey soft kind of guy.
I'm just this.
And, and what it is after you're describing all this is just, it was something that probably happened when they were really young and they've just evolved into that and they can work their way out of it.
51:44
You adapted, you survived, you grew.
You have an algorithm in your head that tells you how to relate.
You have never had other experiences that have remapped your brain because you always seek out the same experiences.
You have the same little skill set that keeps getting you the same experiences.
So your brain has just always reconfirmed it over and over and over and over.
52:03
You need new skills, new experiences to remap your brain, calm your nervous system, build better relationships, build better brain chemistry and and hormone chemistry.
And then give that to your wife and children and your friends and your, your people who work under you at your business, right?
52:19
Doing this at your business again, 50% productivity increase based on the longest business study ever done under Harvard.
We know that this is true.
We know that this system works in business and family.
We know that this is the only way to build a successful, healthy, thriving family and legacy.
52:37
We know this.
It's all there.
The data's there.
So guys that say I'm just not that way, well, you didn't come out of the womb with all of your financial business skills inside of you.
You learned them and you practiced them and you had experiences that then grew that in your brain.
Same thing with relationship skills.
52:54
And, and I would say the, the key here is to lean into the, the discomfort or awkwardness of it because it's going to feel a little off.
Well, just like it did when you're learning business skills, you made mistakes or whatever.
Just lean into that and just sit with it and keep working in it because we always suck before we succeed.
53:13
Wherever you're, it's uncomfortable, it feels off.
You're like, I'm just not like that.
It's just not me.
That's not who I am.
Lean into that until you regulate your nervous system and, and rewire and recreate.
I love that the was 60 days right to remap the brain. 60 days to remap a pathway in your brain, and however many pathways you've got, you can keep doing it for the rest of your life.
53:40
I love it.
OK, brother, that let's let's wrap up right there.
Tell us where where people can get in contact with you or then get your resources.
What are you offering?
I know you have a huge beautiful vision.
Actually hold on.
Before we do that, I have to ask a question because you said you're so busy and you have this massive vision outside of your family.
54:01
How do you make sure your family doesn't get neglected while building a big vision outside of your family?
Good question.
I work with some excellent cofounders who are mindful of my family and those needs.
So we balance it.
We balance each others families.
My wife flags to me if there's ever time where we're feeling distant or disconnected or if the children are, she flags it to me.
54:20
We have dedicated family times and family days that do not get missed every single week with very specific bonding activities that we do.
We are always right there.
There's dinner conversations, there's lunch conversations.
Checking in as often as possible, making them understand that they are deeply, truly loved and they can always bring things to me.
54:41
And I give every spare moment I have that I'm not working over into my children.
And that's the system.
Beautiful.
So it's it's I heard somebody describe it one time is is fully engaged or strategically disengaged.
So I hear what I hear you say at the end there is like I'm I'm in business or I'm with my family and has to be having non negotiable systems and schedule set up to get honored.
55:04
Yes, and your your wife allows you the nervous system shift to integrate with her calm nervous system, because men's nervous systems aren't You are supposed to integrate with a woman's and she pulls you into your rest mode so that you're even able to come out of war mode, into peace mode and rest with your family.
55:24
That's the biochemical return that you get when she's peaceful, immerses your nervous system in it.
Finally, you can stop grinding your teeth and you can rest and be present.
The woman is crucial for that a man.
It is and, and a lot of guys are like, man, I'm at, I'm at war at work and then I come home and go to war at home and it's just I, I deal with problems all day and then I come home and deal with more problems and things are off and and so understandably, man, it feels like a grind and and it feels so hard sometimes impossible.
55:55
But I'm, I'm with you and I, I think what you're sharing your spot on.
We start making these adjustments and everything in our lives starts improving.
It's a cascade effect.
And at work and at home that leadership starts to work and, and improve and, and change.
56:16
Things get easier and better as we do that.
You get higher quality of life, you're probably going to live longer, better legacy, better growth for your wife and kids and and everybody who comes after you.
You're 120 biological descendants of.
Plus everything gets better.
It just takes some energy to start and then you start getting the rewards.
56:35
Yeah.
Worth it.
OK, worth it.
How can people work with you, brother?
Absolutely.
I'm Adam Lane Smith, the attachment specialist.
You'll find me on adamlanesmith.com.
You'll find me and my entire team there.
We have the attachment repair program that you can go through to fix your attachment with us in a dedicated lock step system that we can show you exactly what to do, calm your nervous system and build better relationships.
56:57
I have courses for self pacing.
I have books, I have a free attachment styles guide on there.
Go on there, take the assessment that's there.
I have a free attachment newsletter so you can begin learning.
I have so many things on the website.
Get in, get your free stuff, start into the system, learn and then decide how you want to work with us because this is something you've got to get covered for your next 100 years of your family.
57:19
Love it brother, So so good.
Thanks and sincerely thanks for thanks for caring about families, about marriage and, and parenting children like I'm, I'm with you.
I don't think there's any more important work in the world than that.
And to providing resources and, and tools for people to realize what's going on and, and how to make that change.
57:39
Is, is so powerful.
That's, that's my wife and I live for that.
And we're, we're in the process.
We want to build the the best parenting course that has ever been created and just same thing, just strengthen families and get them this place where they're they're thriving.
57:56
That's so awesome.
OK, one last thing, just something that's on your mind, maybe one of the most important things you could share with men.
What would it be?
Just one big take away they can maybe start working on right away.
Yep.
You got it.
So most men today are stuck in a juvenile state of masculinity, not because you yourself are not good, but because you've never learned how to grow into the mature man that you've always wanted to be.
58:22
Understand that mature masculinity comes in two steps.
One is personal sovereignty.
Real personal sovereignty.
And that means over your emotions, over your fears, over your reactions, over your attachment, over your nervous system.
Because only from that can come the second piece, service to others, building your family.
58:39
It must come from full mastery and sovereignty of self.
You don't collapse into that service, but you grow your legacy.
And you will destroy your legacy if you don't have sovereignty over self because your nervous system is not predictable.
Fix your nervous system, become fully mature, masculine, and then step forward into the man you are supposed to be.
58:59
I love it.
Spot on, brother.
OK Adam.
Thanks man.
Everyone listening, go go check him out, connect with him, check out his resources.
Thanks brother for being here.
Really appreciate you.
Thank you.
Appreciate you.
Adam Lane Smith
Adam is on a mission to help 1 billion people build
secure attachment and transform the way they love,
lead, and live. With over 15 years of experience as a
licensed marriage and family therapist, Adam realized
he could help even more people by starting a digital
coaching practice. He now leads a growing team of
certified specialists, offers hundreds of hours of free
online educational content, and hosts a top
relationship podcast, I Wish You Knew.
Adam has been a frequent guest expert on renowned
shows, authored multiple bestselling books, and built
a community of 850,000+ followers who trust his
solution-focused methods. His content produces
4 million monthly views across platforms!
What drives Adam is making secure attachment
accessible to everyone, creating real, lasting change
through programs that enable his students to balance
individuality, romance, and family.
His methods have helped over 1,600 clients with a
99.8% success rate to transform their relationships,
often achieving in weeks what traditional therapy
takes years to accomplish.
