Introduction:
In this episode Tucker interviews John Durant, author of The Paleo Manifesto. John openly and honestly talks about his failings with women, and goes through the steps he took to become more confident and charismatic, and thus more successful (with the help of paleo principles). John and Tucker also talk about the big problems that hold a lot of guys back, and how to fix them, as well as how to meet women in a big city like New York.
Podcast:
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Video:
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Key takeaways:
With regards to both diet and psychology, we can understand a lot more about ourselves by taking into account our evolution and ancestors.
Being more masculine in bed means doing what you want to do confidently. There are no perfect positions or ways of doing it – just do it confidently.
You can be chivalrous and polite but also assertive and masculine at the same time.
Two things that contribute towards being a man: 1) taking responsibility and being accountable; and 2) physical exertion – sports, working out, MMA etc.
Sometimes relationships don’t work out. That’s OK – but you need to have enough respect for yourself not to think that the girl’s affection for you defines who you are.
A paleo lifestyle will make you healthier and stronger, which gives you more confidence. You’ll also have better posture, clearer skin, higher testosterone levels and more energy – all of which make you more attractive to women.
To drastically reduce or clear acne, eliminate processed foods, sugar, caffeine and dairy.
If you’re asking a girl out, don’t say “Would you like to go out some time?” That elicits a yes or no response. It’s better and more assertive to say “Let’s go out some time.” She can still say no if she doesn’t want to.
Similarly, if you’re picking a restaurant, don’t go back and forth asking what times work for her, what sort of food she likes, etc., just say “Let’s do thursday, 8pm at this place.” Again, she can just say no if that doesn’t work for her, and you appear much more assertive and confident.
There is never an exact right moment to kiss a girl. There are wrong moments, but no one right moment. You create the moment through your own presence and attraction.
Signs a girl is into you: physical contact, laughing at your jokes, offering alternative times and dates if she can’t make your original plans.
You can meet women through pursuing your interests (in Jonh’s case, paleo and barefoot running groups). This means you both have something in common, and she won’t want you to give those things up if you get into a relationship.
Whatever your goals are with women – short-term hookups or long-term relationships – improving yourself is the best way to do it.
Show notes:
1:12 Who is John Durant and how does he know Tucker?
3:30 Where John started as a man, and with women
5:54 John’s shift into evolutionary psychology and paleo
7:01 Becoming needy, emotionally attached and emasculated
7:54 What does being masculine in bed mean?
10:25 John’s breakup and how he reacted to it
12:08 What was John’s father like as a man?
14:47 Alpha and beta males, and the balance between the traits
16:06 Why do guys go too Beta?
17:52 How being too Beta affects your behaviour
20:10 Why video games are so addictive
21:05 More about John’s breakup
23:04 How John moved on and found paleo
24:34 The benefits of paleo from the perspective of your goals as a young guy
27:32 How to cure your acne with paleo
30:18 Paleo – what do I really need to do?
32:19 What did John do to get better with women?
35:10 The difference between being polite and being deferential
37:49 Mistakes that John sees guys making all the time
39:08 How do I know if a girl is into me?
40:55 Evolutionary reasons why girls like guys who make them laugh
43:40 Why John loves dorky girls, and why the world is different for beautiful girls
45:28 Where do you meet women in a big city? // John describes how he meets girls on the subway
50:32 How to get the confidence to go out and approach women
52:30 John’s trick to be confident with Stephen Colbert
55:31 Meeting women through interest groups and classes // staying true to your interests
1:00:43 More about John’s book, The Paleo Manifesto
1:05:30 Why advice has to be meaningful // the brilliance of Crossfit
1:07:19 The only reasons guys do anything
Links from this episode
John’s book, The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health
Paleo f(x) conference in Austin that Tucker and John both presented at earlier this year
Robb Wolf’s book The Paleo Solution provides a great introduction to a paleo diet
John’s Paleo NYC and Barefoot Running NYC meetup groups
The USDA food pyramid – please don’t use this for diet advice
Crossfit
John on the Colbert Report
John Durant’s Bio:
Author of The Paleo Manifesto – fairly detailed overview of the book here.
Founder of Paleo NYC and Barefoot Running NYC meetup groups – supposedly the largest groups of their kind in the world.
Featured on the Colbert Report – 6 min video clip here.
Featured in the NYT in Jan 2010 article (here) that looked at the paleo community in NYC.
Studied Evolutionary Psychology at Harvard.
Advises food and health start-ups, including Exo, who developed a protein bar made from crickets
The Paleo Manifesto
Robb Wolf called his book “likely the most important contribution to the ancestral health story since Boyd Eaton’s original paleolithic prescription”.
Good overview/review of what the book covers here – part one is the historical and evolutionary changes up until now, part two is the introduction to a paleo lifestyle, and part three looks at the ethical and environmental aspects of paleo living.
Covers the usual paleo eating side of stuff (which he does with an analogy of an unhealthy gorilla that the zoo treat by feeding him meat and plants instead of the fibre bars they usually eat).
Contains a chapter called “Moses the Microbiologist” which is a discussion on what the Bible has to say about food and hygeine, eating kosher etc. and how this emerged, and what impact it had on health.
Book goes into a lot of depth on things like exercise and movement, thermoregulation, sleep, sun exposure (this Q&A says that food is only actually about 15% of the book) – what Durant describes as a “habitat-based approach to health”.
Durant describes how NASA takes a paleo-like approach when looking at how to keep astronauts healthy in space: making sure to sleep consistently, exercising regularly.
Advocates self-experimentation, making changes and seeing how the body responds (what he calls “biohacking”)
Talks about hunting his own food as well
Further reading on John Durant:
John’s homepage
John’s twitter
John Durant on Robb Wolf podcast (pdf transcript)
Long, detailed Q&A with John
Another interview on Kettlebell Kitchen
Talk by John at Google entitled ‘Paleo as biohacking’ (59 mins)
Podcast Audio Transcription:
Tucker:
So I’m here with John Durant who wrote “The Paleo Manifesto” and is one of the leaders in the Paleo community, one of the thought leaders I guess you would say right, you like that term or not?
John:
I’m the strongest and best-looking, that’s… Forget my ideas, a thought leader, yes yes, exactly, I’m quite intellectual.
Tucker:
So John, I’ve known you for, how long have we known each other, three or four years now?
John:
Yes, something like that.
Tucker:
Yeah, right. And I got to tell you, for real, we’ll start off this podcast to a little bit of, there’s no other way to call it, but like sort of verbal “dick-sucking.”
John:
Most dick-sucking is.
Tucker:
No, most dick sucking is oral, this one is verbal. So you spend, you know you’re here in town in Austin for Paleo FX, you spent, I guess, 3 or 4 nights in my place right? So you think you’re gonna give me 4 or 5 stars Yelp?
John:
Well, when you didn’t have coffee stocked, it was a big problem. But then when you got it for me on the way back from brunch that was great service.
Tucker:
That was pretty good, so I’m back to 5 stars now?
John:
Great service.
Tucker:
Now I have to say that we spent a lot of time in the past days together, I was super impressed with – I knew you’re a smart guy. But there are a lot of smart guys right, and it’s like to me, the real marker of someone’s intelligence is how much of a thinker are they. Like when someone says something, are they just waiting for their turn to talk or are they actually listening to what they’re saying, evaluating it and then speaking exactly to what they’re saying. You know, and how easily will someone change their mind, you know? New facts come along: do you think about the facts and change your mind or do you just react, right?
John:
Most people filter out facts that don’t fit their current world view.
Tucker:
Exactly.
John:
And you don’t wanna change your mind at the slightest whim but there had been a few issues where I’ve had done a 180 or at least a 120, so…
Tucker:
Right. Yeah, I know I was just saying, that is super impressive. I didn’t realize, I always knew you are smart and I always knew you that you are good at the things you do, I didn’t realize how much of a thinker you are until the last few days. Pretty impressive, I’m feeling excited.
John:
I appreciate that. I didn’t realize that you were a thinker as well.
Tucker:
Well you don’t have to compliment me, I’d do that myself, alright, get out of here. No, I’m kidding. So let’s get to the part that people care about. Our average listeners are probably about 15-25 and it’s a guy, and he’s generally not as successful to women as he wants. And that can be either a dude who’s pathetic and just can’t do anything right with women or a guy who does ok but feels like he’s not doing as well as he could.
John:
Well, that’s me from age 15-25.
Tucker:
Exactly what I was gonna ask you. You have a very interesting story, even independent of the book and what you’re doing now, I think, a very interesting story of how you got to this sort of where you are. So why don’t you talk a little about where you started, what happened to you as a man and your relationship to women and where you are now.
John:
You know middle school and high school were a series of unrequited crushes. Yeah, I was in, you know, I was smart, I was athletic, captain of the lacrosse team, whatever, but I still didn’t quite put the pieces together in relation to girls and you know, so I got in to Harvard and I thought, “oh that increase in status is going to make the girls situation easy”
Tucker:
Of course.
John:
Which was absolutely wrong cause…
Tucker:
Because every dude in Harvard got into Harvard.
John:
That’s right. And then you’re like, you’ll obnoxiously drop the “H” bomb, you know, you don’t know how to do it. And so for a while that really built up a certain level of what amounted to bitterness over a 10-15 year period. When you know I thought, “I’m athletic, I’m intelligent, I sort of got my shit together,” and I’m not getting the type of relationships or girls that I’d like to get.
Tucker:
So to be clear, at that point did you want lots of short term hook-ups or did you want a girlfriend, did you want a sort of…
John:
Either, both… both!
Tucker:
Anything? Whatever.
John:
You know, basically there were a lot of, people when they’re in short-term hook-ups sometimes with girls where it was like “in reality if I was sober on a Tuesday morning I’d probably wouldn’t want to kiss them.”
Tucker:
Right.
John:
You know, and that was a sort of a metric for whether I was actually sexually attracted to someone. Like, Tuesday morning…
Tucker:
Like sober on a weekday.
John:
That’s right.
Tucker:
That’s not bad.
John:
And you know, I was very up and down in college. I would be on top of the world then I’d be sort of like…
Tucker:
With women?
John:
Just overall. And I studied evolutionary psychology and you know, realized that mind-brain behavior – we’re evolved creatures, we’re animals and to understand what could make you happy, what could make you successful with women, or stronger – how to eat or diet, exercise – we should look at our ancestral path, look at our time in Africa as hunter-gatherers and that could start to inform how you understand human nature. And then if you have a problem, how you could go about solving. So, on the diet side that lead me to Paleo and that was a huge improvement for me. Then it also helped me understand issues with women. So there’s a relationship I had in college, I somehow ended up going out with this quite attractive girl on campus. And I didn’t really know how I did it, like the way I didn’t care about it, I wasn’t trying to get her, which I realized in retrospect…
Tucker:
Which of course, is exactly what helped you right now.
John:
Right, exactly I was like I wasn’t even into her at the beginning but then I became so emotionally attached, really fast, I became needy and I realized in retrospect that every time at an important moment in that relationship, where I had a decision, I acted feminine.
Tucker:
So what do you mean, feminine or emasculated or…
John:
Both.
Tucker:
Both? So what do you mean?
John:
First of all, in, during sex, I was explicitly told to be stronger and more forceful.
Tucker:
By her?
John:
By her. She said “fuck me harder.”
Tucker:
Right.
John:
Right. Like I kind of got it, like the rhythm increase at that moment I’m not a complete idiot but I just didn’t get that a lot of women, totally attractive women, liked men to be totally aggressive in bed.
Tucker:
So what it does, what exactly, caused this is like that sort of thing where most people are like ok, they wanted more masculine and they assume like they know what that means. I think a lot of young guys don’t know what that means. Like what exactly do you mean more masculine in bed?
John:
So first of all, whatever you do, do it confidently. Like there’s no like perfect position or perfect order that you have to follow or script that is right or wrong. Like if you’re really into something, do it with confidence and a lot of women like it when a man just like asserts what position is next.
Tucker:
So like, “turn over, get on your hands and knees, I’m gonna fuck you from behind.”
John:
Yeah, turn over. And it almost doesn’t matter what is, it’s how you do it. Something very simple: tugging on a girl’s hair. Like most women, like you know if you’re already to that point, most women like it. And you can just sort of start with that..
Tucker:
And the ones who don’t, are gonna tell you pretty quick “don’t pull my hair.”
John:
Right.
Tucker:
Ok, no big deal.
John:
Right, fine. But if a lot of women, you know, you do a little bit of gentle tug, you’re not like pull on a few strands because you’re gonna like pull out their hair more.
Tucker:
You got to pull in and grab them like reigns on a horse.
John:
That’s right. And most women, like if they’re actually into you, will respond very favorably to that. Smack them on the ass, right.
Tucker:
Sure.
John:
This is, like you sort of have to own it. You can’t be ashamed of your own sexual desire. Like a lot of guys, you don’t want to, you know you meet a girl right up front and if you come across like sexually needy and like “I just wanna get into your pants.” There are situations where it works and situations where it doesn’t but like once you’re already in bed with someone, you should absolutely own your sexuality and be like “yes, I wanna do this.”
Tucker:
Kind of regardless of what it is.
John:
Regardless of what it is.
Tucker:
Your point is that there’s not a masculine position, there’s a masculine way to enter whatever positions it is you want to be in with her.
John:
Right.
Tucker:
Like you can be in the bottom and still do it in a masculine way.
John:
Sure! Yeah, yeah. Reverse cowgirl or whatever, just do it, and own it. Whatever…
Tucker:
Ok, so let’s get back to the girl. So, she asked you explicitly “fuck me harder?”
John:
Yes, but I was, it still didn’t get through. Like every time we would sleep together, it’s like lovey-dovey and gentle…
Tucker:
Light the candles and kiss for twenty minutes…
John:
Yeah, and that’s fine. Some of the times, not all the time. I still didn’t get through. It took years and years until somebody I was going out with…
Tucker:
So she eventually broke up with you?
John:
Oh yeah. She was an angel about it because I, it was really a hard break up for me. And she was very patient with me and I’ve got nothing but good things to say about her.
Tucker:
No, but I actually want to talk about something you said about her that’s super interesting. I hear this from guys all the time. Like they’ll be into a girl, exactly what you’ve described. Beautiful girl, a girl I think in a lot of guys, they sort of subtext is that the girl is too good for me. Or that she’s out of my league or they think that, regardless of whether she is or not. And then as soon as anything happens in the relationship, they become very, I think you’re right, they become very feminine, how they react in front of her.
John:
I cried in front of her. I mean..
Tucker:
So crying by itself is not that bad but like inappropriately a lot or what?
John:
Well, I mean, basically as the break up started like I was, I became emotionally addicted to her.
Tucker:
Right.
John:
And as the breakup was actually going on, rather than being like “you know what, I’m gonna step away a little bit, if we’re not quite feeling it, that’s fine.” That probably would have made her like me more. No doubt.
Tucker:
Of course, no doubt.
John:
Yeah but I got more invested, more clingy, I needed to see her more, I was making more demands and then I would cry in front of her. I would try to talk her in to, I would like logically explain…
Tucker:
Why she has to be attracted.
John:
Right, why it made sense. I mean I was so stupid.
Tucker:
Dude, I’ve done the same thing. (laughing) No, no hold that. I laughed not at you, but laugh remembering the times I have done the exact same pathetic stupid thing. No doubt. Why do you think you were doing that?
John:
I never, I was never taught, I was never given inside tips, I was never taught how to act around women. I’m not gonna go too much into family stuff, but my father is a successful charismatic entrepreneur and a very chivalrous man. I was taught by my grandparents, aunts, uncles, entire family straight up chivalry. What I didn’t see was the fact that my father, my father and mother have a very wonderful relationship. But my father was also a huge risk-taker, extremely confident, charming, charismatic, and so…
Tucker:
Probably pretty masculine?
John:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Tucker:
So like masculine in what ways?
John:
Well, you know a risk-taker, starting enterprises that other CEOs of companies would be like, “I couldn’t believe you pulled this off.”
Tucker:
Very assertive?
John:
Assertive, yeah, you know I would get embarrassed by it and then in retrospect, I would get embarrassed by the fact that we’d be driving to some event that he was speaking at and he would change his pants in the parking lot. Be like take off his pants, put on another pair and I’d be like “oh my god dad, I can’t believe you’re doing this.” Whatever, he was a baller, like he didn’t care. You know he’d go to McDonald’s and he’d ask the person to make his fries extra crispy and I’d be like embarrassed. That’s how he wants his fries, he’s paying for it, he’s allowed.
Tucker:
And he can always say no and he decide not to order them.
John:
That’s right.
Tucker:
He’s asking the world for what he wants.
John:
He was and he was unapologetic about that. It’s not wrong to want you fries to be a bit crispy.
Tucker:
Why do you think you didn’t learn that but you did learn the…he also on the other hand was very chivalrous, so very polite with his assertiveness right?
John:
He could be overbearing, he could actually be overbearing but it was, what I realized, it’s sort of part and parcel of risk-taking and confidence: is that sometimes you do overstep, there are actually people whose toes..
Tucker:
Right, but he taught you to be chivalrous.
John:
He taught me to be chivalrous, but I didn’t… so the words that I got from everyone around me were straight up like 1950’s, pull the chair out for the women, hold the door or always pay. But at the same time, my father was also taking risks, he was good at teasing my mother.
Tucker:
He didn’t really teach that.
John:
He didn’t teach that. I could have seen it.
Tucker:
Right. You listened to what people were telling you instead more of watching what he was doing.
John:
That’s right.
Tucker:
There was a disconnect.
John:
There was a disconnect.
Tucker:
Which by the way, no one has ever accused me of being chivalrous but I almost always pay when I was out with women, I open doors, pull out chairs. It’s funny no one ever accused me of being chivalrous or being like having a lack of assertiveness or dominance. You can do both easily, you can easily be very chivalrous and polite and also be assertive and masculine.
John:
It’s about, you know some people are pretty familiar with the terms alpha and beta these days and the problem that I have with this is that so many, in like the pick-up world, like alpha equals good and beta equals bad. And not everybody says this but it depends on what you want. I mean anything long termed needs a balance these traits. Beta does not equal bad, it’s a you know if you are father, right…
Tucker:
You better care.
John:
Right, yeah you better care. You better be around, and you in many ways have to submit to the needs of the situation.
Tucker:
I mean that’s responsibility. That’s a defining trait of, in my mind, the defining trait of a great sort of man. Are you responsible for the things you take on? Whether it’s a girlfriend, a child, a dog, a business.
John:
A plant. Baby steps.
Tucker:
Are you actually responsible? Are you responsible for this sort of things. I know, totally totally agree.
John:
And a lot of guys in this country are way over on the too Beta side. They need to add Alpha. I mean, you, you’ve got no problem with that.
Tucker:
Right, I go the other way. I’ve got the other problem.
John:
Right. But in both cases it’s finding the right balance.
Tucker:
So you’re a good example of guys who went too far on the Beta side, right? Why do you think guys do that? Why do you think you do that? Is it because you were taught to be chivalrous? What else?
John:
Boy, that’s a good, I mean it’s a…
Tucker:
You talked about this the other day. You thought the educational system you went through emasculated you in a lot of ways. Very subtly, and very sort of…
John:
Yes, the educational system has become feminized. You’re sitting in your desk all day long; physical activity, recess and sports have declined in importance.
Tucker:
Or been pushed out.
John:
That’s right.
Tucker:
Because of you injuries or people being of afraid of competition or whatever.
John:
Boys these days you know they’re given ADHD, 20 percent of boys are diagnosed with ADHD by the time they reached high school and I think about two-thirds or three-quartrts of them are actually put on medication. And it’s basically, this is insane, absolutely insane, and it’s basically for a lot of these guys, boys they don’t wanna sit still. They wanna go wrestle, they wanna go climb trees.
Tucker:
Because they’re children.
John:
Right.
Tucker:
You would never tell a puppy to calm down.
John:
Right.
Tucker:
It’s a fucking puppy. That’s what puppies do.
John:
Right. That’s what it does. So that infuriates me and you know boys these days, they make the shape of a gun with their fingers, they get sent to the office or detention. Things that are absolutely biologically normal interests for human boys are becoming pathologized in our school system. And then in college too. You know, you immediately in our first week of orientation, everybody gets sat down and they get a lecture that basically assumes that every single male is a sexual predator. Guilty until proven innocent.
Tucker:
Right of course. So how did this impact your behaviour? Because we, I think a lot of guys understand, if not consciously then unconsciously, that a lot of things in society are stacked against them or aim to, if not exactly against them, aim to sort of suppress or oppress their natural desires, right? So how did specifically those things, how did they impact your behaviour?
John:
Apologizing for myself. I mean people, you don’t realize how often people say I’m sorry each day. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Getting nervous to say certain things like not asserting myself with women. Lacking confidence on the approach.
Tucker:
Right.
John:
Not being as forceful in bed or not even conceiving that bed is an option and not caring about my health as much. Just not realizing that part of being a man means physical labor, exertion. And in college – I played tons of sports in high school, you know – in college I wasn’t, I played a year of Ultimate Frisbee but then became less active. And after college, sports which had become, which had been a primary interest for most guys, what, fantasy football? Is that the alternative?
Tucker:
I know.
John:
A digital fantasy becomes your masculine outlet.
Tucker:
Dude, I won’t even play fantasy football. I love football, I played football, I watch football but to me fantasy football is like, you know my boy, a lot of my friends talk about, one of my good good best friends is Matt Berry who’s like “the fantasy football king,” right. And I was joking to him about this. I’m like, “you know you’re actually not a GM, right? You’re not really trading players. You better spend your time jacking off into a sock cause at least then you’ve accomplished something. You’ve literally done nothing and you spend all this time and energy.
John:
Well, the reason why I avoided it isn’t because I think it’s unenjoyable, I mean I think it would be extremely enjoyable, like video games. Midway through college, I pulled back on video games not because I don’t like it but because I like it so much.
Tucker:
Too much? Why do you think that was?
John:
I am a hero. It’s being a hero.
Tucker:
You get short-term goals that you can accomplish in ways that makes sense to you. What are the dominant genres of video games: world building and first person shooter.
John:
Right. Building civilizations.
Tucker:
Or attacking enemies, overcoming obstacles.
John:
Sure!
Tucker:
Like these are the two things that are, like these are video games you know. Like dude, I thought about that for long and I really don’t think that the popularity of video games is due to the fact that men especially don’t have other socially acceptable outlets to succeed, to risk and fail, things like that.
John:
Sure.
Tucker:
Let’s get back to the girl though because this is a super interesting conversation. And that you’re way more open about this than most people I think. So she breaks up with you and you cried in front of her because of it?
John:
I cried in front of her, I…
Tucker:
Tried to convince to…
John:
Yeah.
Tucker:
And of course you can, I bet, looking back you can see the disgust on her face.
John:
Oh yeah, she was just becoming by the second was becoming less interested in me. I became very jealous of an ex boyfriend who came to town on and like needed signs of affections. You know at one point, like I very, in a sort of a roundabout way, drop the fact that like I was having suicidal thoughts even though I wasn’t, simply to get an emotional reaction out of her. And it didn’t matter, what killed me was when she didn’t have an emotional reaction, when I got nothing. If she hated me or loved me…
Tucker:
It’s a reaction.
John:
Yes, and I needed to sort of reverse that. I needed to be on an even keel and sort of not care.
Tucker:
I don’t know if “not care” is the right thing because you’re in a relationship though, you care about.
John:
Right.
Tucker:
Or it’s not that you can’t care. I think maybe, well tell me what you think about this. I think it’s more, because I had been in an exact situation like this with girls, right. I think it’s more you have to learn how to respect yourself enough and respect her enough to understand, “alright you know what, sometimes you we don’t like other people or things don’t work. And if she doesn’t like me, that hurts and it sucks but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad about me. It doesn’t mean my world’s gonna collapse, you know and that I’m going to, I have enough respect for myself to not think that her affection for me defines who I am.”
John:
And, I thought I could change her, right. You can’t change other people. You can change yourself but you can’t change other people.
Tucker:
Right.
John:
Or you can’t change other people directly.
Tucker:
So how did you move on? She just basically cut ties and you just had to?
John:
Yeah. So, you know in college we live in close proximity and so it was actually hard to cut ties but she moved one, I eventually moved on. But it took me years to get over that and you know. Then there’s like bitterness and you don’t understand quite what happened, and how to deal with it in the future. But this actually kicked off my health journey in going to Paleo because I realized during the breakup that if I got more than, if I got fewer than 8 hours of sleep and was hungover, eating poorly, it felt like the world was coming to an end. If I got enough sleep, I exercise and hadn’t been drinking, I was sad but I was like, ok.
Tucker:
Right. It sucked but you can handle it.
John:
That’s right. And it just blew my mind that what I had eaten and how much sleep I had gotten fundamentally changed my view on an important relationship. I was like “holy cow,” like my mind, my spirit doesn’t just flow above my body divorced from these mundane concerns. I’m flesh and blood and if I don’t get enough sleep it changes my view on the world. So years later that, a couple of years later, that motivated me to go Paleo. To observe, “ok if my body can bring me down, I can also bring up my mind and attitude by making myself healthy.”
Tucker:
So let’s talk about Paleo a little bit now. I wanna, obviously you’ve talked about this stuff a lot, and you’re a big leader in this space, instead of talking about Paleo from the perspective of Paleo…
John:
Right.
Tucker:
…You know, I’ve been Paleo for almost a decade, I’m totally on board. Let’s talk about it from the other perspective which is what are your goals as a young guy. Do you wanna get girls, that’s your goal? What do you need to do and what are ways you can do it that kind of fit into sort of Paleo, sort of like world view. So you’re talking like health, fitness, diet, these sorts of things so like pretend I’m you know, Franky Fratpants. Like I’m just a fucking idiot 22-year old, I’m you in college, except dumb. Which was me. And so what do you, “I don’t care about Paleo dude but I care about women. I care about getting ass, so what does your book have to do with me?”
John:
Well, the most important thing for a guy isn’t directly the physical stuff. How you look, whether you have six pack abs or not and all that stuff, it’s your confidence. It’s your attitude and your confidence. But the thing is that being physically strong and healthy gives you confidence. You will walk with better posture, you will be stronger, you will be more assertive. It will, being strong and putting yourself in such situations where you’re lifting heavy weights or you’re doing martial arts. That will increase your testosterone and it will make you a different person.
Tucker:
Make you more confident.
John:
It will make you confident.
Tucker:
Make you more assertive. Yeah, exactly.
John:
So being healthy is not about six-pack abs to be a male model whatever, and if you look good. Like looking good is good, it’s better than not but the most important benefit for a lot of guys is it will make you more confident. It will change your behavior.
Tucker:
It will make you more attractive to women.
John:
That’s right, exactly. It will make you more attractive to women.
Tucker:
But all those things are more attractive. Like a woman, all things being equal, a woman is gonna find a guy who, exactly what you said, has positive body language, walks well. Looks like, he doesn’t want to be a body builder, you’re not a fucking body builder but it’s clear that you’re not a weakling either. You’re not some dude who just sits around and reads book and can’t do a push up right. You can do something.
John:
And you should be strong enough so that in the bedroom you can pick up a woman, turn her over. You know like if you’re not strong enough to do that, that’s a problem. But also, clear skin. I mean skin quality is a huge measure of…so many guys go through high school and college and even beyond with terrible acne.
Tucker:
Right. And then they wonder why girls don’t wanna kiss me.
John:
Right. And it impacts their own confidence. I mean that is probably the clearest way of where being physically unhealthy undermines your own confidence.
Tucker:
Yeah.
John:
And I used to think that having acne was a rite of passage that everybody went through it, that it was biologically normal.
Tucker:
Let’s actually talk about acne because tons of dudes have problems with that.
John:
Yeah right.
Tucker:
And I think Paleo has very clear views and prescriptions that I think usually work. So like what do you think about, like if I’m 22 and I’ve got acne, talk to me. What do I need to know?
John:
Well first of all when you look at hunter gatherers and indigenous people around the world, they don’t have acne. You know, why would evolution ever design a process where right when you’re heading sexual maturation, you’re gonna have scarring on your face? Which is the primary way that people…
Tucker:
Evaluate you, I suppose.
John:
Yes, right evaluate you of course. So it makes no evolutionary biological sense. It’s biologically abnormal. So first of all, just like tons of sugar and processed food is implicated in acne, you know it feeds unhealthy types of bacteria in your body and on your face. And then there’s some evidence that suggested dairy, I know that in my like consumption, if I have too much dairy it causes acne.
Tucker:
And caffeine too is a big one.
John:
Caffeine?
Tucker:
Yeah, especially for younger people so like chocolate, coffee, diet coke, that kind of stuff.
John:
Monster…
Tucker:
Yeah, so Monster energy drink pitched to 19-year old guys right, full of sugar, full of caffeine and it..
John:
Yeah, drives me nuts.
Tucker:
The two biggest factors for acne.
John:
I would love to see for more skateboarders, BMX guys, MMA guys ditch those endorsement contracts with Mountain Dew and drink water or something different.
Tucker:
Yeah, yeah anything. Coconut water even.
John:
Yeah, so acne is one of those, you know, you cut out processed foods, you cut out caffeine, you cut out dairy and my skin improved a ton. People would be “oh your skin is glowing.” I had multiple male friends say to me, straight male friends, unprovoked and be like “dude your skin looks great.” And I’m like really “I must look great for you to have…”
Tucker:
That’s when you started eating Paleo right?
John:
Yeah, and I was frustrated because I was 23-years old, I was in a corporate work environment. And when I was stressed out I would get this zit on my nose in the exact same spot every time with such regularity that my boss knew how stressed out I was based on whether this fucking zit was on my nose. How pathetic is that?
Tucker:
Is it a man or a woman?
John:
It’s a man.
Tucker:
Oh, that’s awesome.
John:
My male ancestors are rolling over in their graves and I’m like this Dilbert character who gets a pimple on the same spot on his nose…
Tucker:
Every time you’re stressed.
John:
“I’m stressed out…”
Tucker:
“Oh, we gave John too much work this week, he’s got a fucking zit on his nose.”
John:
Yeah, so…
Tucker:
So you don’t get any acne though obviously…
John:
Yeah, no.
Tucker:
Of course, me neither. So it’s just a matter, so if I’m like a 22-year old dude, like this seems complicated. What do I really need to do? No sugar? There’s little sugar as possible?
John:
Right, so I call them industrial foods. Types of food that didn’t exist before the Industrial Revolution and over the last couple of hundred years so sugar, and Twinkies, and frozen pizza, and Mountain Dew and all that sort of stuffs. What most people call processed food.
Tucker:
Yeah, it is.
John:
So we’ve only been eating those types of food for about 4 or 5 generations, not nearly long enough for humans to adapt to them. The second category are agricultural foods. Primarily grains and dairy which we’ve only been eating for about 10,000 years since the Agricultural Revolution, that’s only about 400 generations, it may sound like a lot but on an evolutionary timescale that’s nothing. And so when most people go Paleo, they get rid of wheat, corn, soy, beans, rice, some white rice a lot of people leave in there. And then on the dairy side of things, they’re not drinking skimmed milk, whatever. They get rid of cheese and you know any type of dairy. Though some people after a period of time will add back in certain types of full fat dairy.
Tucker:
Right, fermented stuffs you know, butter, yogurt, Greek yogurt especially because there’s no sugar added. So stuffs like that and basically just stops drinking normal milk like from the store.
John:
Right. Normal milk is sugar water with some weird proteins in it that a lot of people have digestive problems with. So that’s the gist of it and when people are thinking about doing this, I don’t care whether they used the word Paleo, I don’t care…
Tucker:
It’s about the results.
John:
Yeah. It’s about the results and I don’t care whether you do this for the rest of life. If you have a specific problem, this is a smart method to try and a good place to start. Do it for 30 days, evaluate your results and then change it however you fucking see fit. And then name it whatever you want, don’t give it a name, I don’t care.
Tucker:
So let me ask you if you think this statement’s correct. From what I know about you, it seems like you didn’t actually do a whole lot to learn how to get better with women. I mean, you’re very successful now, but you actually didn’t do a whole lot directly to get women. What you did was you changed your life. You ate better, worked out better, you did all these sort of things that made yourself a better man and as a result, you got better with women. Is that right?
John:
Actually it’s both. You know, there are good things and bad things about like the pick-up world. But I read a bunch of those blogs and there are some, like one tip that I picked up which was very useful to me was in when I would go out. First off when I would ask out a girl, usually I don’t ask anymore. I’ll find a way to say “hey, give me your number,” or “well let’s go out some time.” Not “would you like to go out?” because then they say yes or no. I don’t ask Yes or No questions, I say “why don’t we do this” and then they say “oh that sounds fun.” And that’s what just, you know that’s not manipulative, I’m realizing I’m gonna be a more assertive person.
Tucker:
Right, because women can just say no.
John:
They can just say no, it’s ok no big deal.
Tucker:
Very easy. I’m not into some people, she’s not into me. It happens.
John:
Right. And another thing I changed is I used to have this long, like first time I would go out with someone before, I’d be picking a place, bar, restaurant or whatever. And have this long text exchanges with them where I would be like “what neighbourhood are you in,” or “what day of the week is really good,” “is there a good time” you know “do you like sushi or a type of cuisine?” And I kept on looking to the woman to make the decision. And I thought, I interpreted it in my head as I’m being polite, I’m taking her considerations into account. But what I realized was that a lot of women view that as: this guy is not assertive and like I don’t, when you’re going out with someone, where you go is secondary. You’re going out with someone because you know you’re like sexually or emotionally, whatever, interested…
Tucker:
Attracted to them, you wanna see where it goes. Of course
John:
Right. It’s not because you both have this amazing interest in sushi.
Tucker:
Well, you’re not food critics.
John:
Right. So when I changed my behavior in that instance to where I would suggest something, I would say you know “Thursday, 8:30, this bar. How about that? Does that work?” Women are adults they can say “no, that doesn’t work. How about 7:30 or how about a different location?” I mean in New York, I’ll find out what neighbourhood they live in so I can pick something like roughly…
Tucker:
That is convenient, right.
John:
That’s roughly convenient but that’s about it. And then I’ll just suggest something and if that doesn’t work they can suggest something else.
Tucker:
Here’s actually a super important point I want to make because you just made it but I want to make it explicit coz I think a lot of guys don’t understands this. There is a huge difference; a lot of guys think that being polite or being sort of a nice guy means being totally deferential to women. I actually think that’s disrespectful to women because you’re infantilizing them in a way you’re treating them like they can’t, not that they can’t make their own decisions but there have to be like…every consideration has to be taken into account ahead of time before any decision is made. When you do exactly what you just said, exactly you’re treating them like adults who can make their own decisions and handle their own affairs.
John:
Right and you’re giving them something that they like. You know if somebody wants that sort of deferential consideration and they like that then you’re giving them what they like. If women don’t like that, you are not respectful and polite. You are giving them something that they don’t want and don’t like. Most women like a guy with backbone. There is no woman who is going to say, “Oh I love a guy with a you know”.
Tucker:
Who’s a pussy, right?
John:
Right
Tucker:
I know there aren’t many but there are definitely women who like men that they can control. Here is the thing with that ok fine if that is what she wants then if you’re not like that then you need to send that signal early so you two know not to go out.
John:
Right, but I guarantee you. Nine times out of ten with those women, they lose sexual attraction with those guys. Even though they say that’s what they want, they still want Tom Brady to come in and you know. We’ll see.
Tucker:
See now that discussion is veering into “let me tell you what women want”. As a guy who’s been with a lot of women and dealt with a lot of women, anytime anyone says “Women want X” I’m always like you know it depends. There are certain universals: obviously women want healthy men, women want men they are attracted to then you can start dividing that up. What does attractive mean, there are always factors and as you go further down you are less and less the same as less and less probably apply.
John:
Right.
Tucker:
In general if you pursue or approach women with a mindset that woman like assertive, confident men who will take charge but still consider me and think about me and care about what I think, you’re going to be right 90% of the time.
John:
Right.
Tucker:
What do you think, you leave in New York for quite a while right? You have been pretty successful with women. What mistakes do you see guys making that just you’re like, “What are you doing?” What are some of the really big ones that you see all these guys making that you’re just like so quickly “this is so wrong”.
John:
One thing is guys who think that there has to be the exact right moment to kiss a girl. We were talking about this before, you said “There can be wrong moments but there is never the exact right moment”. You create the moment through your own presence will confidence.
Tucker:
Mutual attraction.
John:
Right. You know I’ve known guys in New York who they’re going out with the third, fourth time with the same woman and are still waiting for the right moment to kiss. That is not common that is more of an extreme example. This is men with jobs. I’ve said you know there’s not going to be, if the right moment hasn’t happen you’re not going like it’s not like the heavens are going to open up, not like a scene from a movie.
Tucker:
Here’s a question I want to ask you about this because we’ll get back to what are the guys doing wrong thing. You actually nailed on something else, a point that a lot of guys ask especially young guys. How do I know if girls are in to me because most of young guys tend to be really stupid in almost always. I know I was a huge idiot right, I can’t tell you how many times as a young guy girls were sending signals to me that they were either very attracted or very unattracted to me and I misread both. What are some things that women do that women think are supper obvious that guys miss that could really help guys?
John:
Any type of physical contact even if it’s minor, if she touches your hand, if you touch her hand and she’s ok with it or whatever, that’s a great indicator. Sometimes – people flake a lot these days, particularly in New York. Everybody has multiple balls in the air and changing plans and things like that. If you have plans with a woman and she changes plans, sometimes it’s hard, it’s like “is she in to me, is she flaking on me or is this the end?” If she suggests in any way at all an alternative time or place, she’s in to you. Sometimes there will be like “ah, it didn’t work” and they won’t suggest anything else. That doesn’t mean you can’t still salvage that or whatever but like if she does suggest…
Tucker:
Her interest level is almost certainly far less than the girl who is like, “We can’t do Sunday what about Tuesday?”
John:
There’s sort of softness, like laughter, if you are making a girl laugh regularly it is really hard for women not to be attracted to someone that is making them laugh.
Tucker:
What are the evolutionary reasons for that actually? I know you know what they are. It’s pretty interesting, what do you think humor; cause humor is unquestionably, that’s always 1, 2 or 3 for almost any woman with a list in attractiveness.
John:
Humor is an indication of intelligence. There are very few stand-up comics who are dumb, you don’t find dumb, it’s almost impossible. I don’t think it’s a surprise that guys like Rogan or Bill Burr have really fascinating podcasts as stand up comedians. You got to be smart to see the humor in those entire situations; it’s an indication that you’re smart.
Tucker:
It also means that there is no mental illness. The first thing to go when you have any sort of mental issue is humor. A good indication of lack of sociopathology or psychology or psychopathology is humor because if you can’t have empathy or if you don’t have empathy, it’s really hard to make jokes. Obviously if you’re smart or funny you’re not just smart, you’re also very socially intelligent. You have to understand, humor really is about transgression; to figure out what’s acceptable what’s not acceptable, where can I transgress in a way that’s appropriate.
John:
Transgressions also show, like there was a study that came out that women were attracted to men who are a little bit politically incorrect. It showed if you are little bit politically incorrect in the right sort of way with women it’s like “oh he is strong enough to think that he can go against the rules in that situation and get away with it.” But with humor is oftenn very transgressive and you’re saying things that other people will be too nervous to say or point out.
Tucker:
I have a friend from Poland in College and when he got to America he thought we wouldn’t have comedy here. I was like “why would you think that?” He’s like “comedy is how you criticize the government, the only way that you can criticize the government that’s allowed” and he is like “you guys have a government in America that works, I didn’t think you’d be criticizing it.” It’s like “No dude, we’re better than the Polish but we’re totally fucked up.” So, clear signs that she is attracted, she is touching you or cool with you touching her, she’s either making plans or suggesting alternates or in to whatever you suggest and if she’s responsive to even stupid jokes. It’s true man, if a girl is in to me I can make really stupid jokes and she will still laugh.
John:
I love finding the sort of like the beautiful woman in the room who’s the biggest dork in the world. As soon as I find that dork…
Tucker:
Those are the easiest girls, the easiest coz they’re so deeply insecure and usually…
John:
I don’t even think it’s insecure, I mean like cute dork.
Tucker:
I was thinking ugly duckling, those girls are so easy to deal with. Usually actually great people because
John:
They develop a personality.
Tucker:
Exactly and then they got hot. Whereas girls who were hot from the beginning a lot of times, they either don’t have a develop personality or they can be very bitchy or very entitled.
John:
Here’s how I think about that actually. Power corrupts, any source of power could be political power, it could be the power of violence, any type of money that can corrupt and beauty is a form of power. If a man is born with a huge trust fund or not even trust fund just an inheritance and has that from a very young age that can completely corrupt that guy. You can be a total douche bag and spoiled and have a bratty attitude. That’s kind of being born completely beautiful; people are deferential to you all the time.
Tucker:
World is different for beautiful girls.
John:
Yes, completely different.
Tucker:
I’ve dated some stunningly beautiful girls and I’ll be with them and I’m like “what the fuck” like there are girl
John:
It’s like a CEO who thinks his jokes are funny, because his employees laugh at whatever he says.
Tucker:
I’ve known beautiful women who like didn’t know how much drinks cost; they’d never paid for them. Like they weren’t like manipulative gold diggers, these were really nice girls and they are like “oh I didn’t know beers cost $5” you know and I’m like “What world do you live in? Oh right you’re stunningly hot.”
John:
Right, every other drink for free.
Tucker:
So you live in New York, you’re doing really well. Another thing I hear from a lot of guys that I think you actually probably would offer a lot of input on; where do you met women? So if you’re dude X, you I know have some sort of like pretty cool thing to do. What’s a good way for a young guy in a big city who doesn’t maybe have a huge group of social network, what do you do?
John:
First of all, I almost never am out at clubs that’s just not my scene. The whole growth, the early days of the pickup stuffs and clubs, like, that’s not my world. I’ve ended up, I have something with public transportation, I’ve dated or gone out with three women that I’ve met on the subway.
Tucker:
It takes a lot of courage to approach a random stranger on a subway and like ask them out, that’s not easy. What do you do?
John:
The first time it happened I saw a girl that I was attracted to, dressed stylishly, like physically she checked all the boxes for me. We both get on the L train, she sits down next to someone else and closes her eyes and goes to sleep. And so I’ve got a couple stops, you know, going to Brooklyn and I’m like “I hope she gets over the same stop so I can ask her out” coz I’m not going to go over and tap her on the shoulder and be like “wake up.”
Tucker:
That wo