Order of Man - SATHIYA SAM ｜ How Porn is Destroying Minds, Marriages, and Men

00:00:00.000 pornography addiction isn't just a willpower problem it's a brain problem and understanding

00:00:05.940 the mechanics changes everything about the way that you fight it today we go deep into the

00:00:12.760 neuroscience we talk about what edging actually does to your reward system why desensitization

00:00:19.480 and hyperfrontality reshape how your brain processes stress and pleasure and why getting

00:00:26.980 exactly what you want can leave you more depressed than before you started. We also unpack what the

00:00:33.880 quote-unquote Rat Pack study reveals about addiction and isolation and why the opposite

00:00:38.660 of sobriety isn't necessarily willpower, it's connection. My guest today, Cynthia Sam, and I

00:00:44.920 go beyond the behavior to the coping mechanisms underneath it, what porn is really substituting

00:00:51.700 for and what predicts who struggles with it and why quitting cold turkey really works

00:00:58.020 without addressing the root.

00:01:00.200 You are today going to learn the real skills required to overcome it, why a satisfied heart

00:01:06.500 rarely wanders, and how to build an identity that doesn't need to prove itself through

00:01:12.520 control or even escape.

00:01:15.060 If you've ever wondered what's actually happening in your brain when you engage or how to build

00:01:20.660 something stronger in its place this episode episode excuse me gives you the science and the

00:01:27.180 path forward you're a man of action you live life to the fullest embrace your fears and boldly chart

00:01:33.380 your own path when life knocks you down you get back up one more time every time you are not

00:01:39.240 easily deterred or defeated rugged resilient strong this is your life this is who you are

00:01:46.100 This is who you will become at the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:54.120 Ned, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am your host, Ryan Michler, and also the founder of the Order of Man movement.

00:02:00.540 Thank you for tuning in today.

00:02:02.340 This is an episode that we need to continue to have because the conversation around pornography and what it's doing to us as men

00:02:10.960 and how it's ruining and undermining relationships and businesses and just men in general,

00:02:16.100 is something worthy of having a discussion about.

00:02:19.840 Now, before I get into the conversation today,

00:02:22.320 and it's a very powerful one with a good friend of mine,

00:02:24.820 I just want to mention some supporters of the show,

00:02:27.620 my good friends over at montanifecompany.com.

00:02:31.260 It is August, excuse me, I believe, yes,

00:02:35.400 as of the release of this podcast, it is September 1st.

00:02:38.620 You know what that means?

00:02:39.900 That means it's fall.

00:02:41.540 And what that means is that it's hunting season.

00:02:43.680 And what that means is that you need a good knife to break down the animal, whether it's a pig or a deer or a javelina or a turkey or an elk or a moose or whatever it is you're out there hunting.

00:03:00.260 And I want you to be hunting all of the things.

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00:03:29.240 but if you want to be a man pick up one of their hunting knives so you can break down real meat

00:03:34.880 not just fillet some fish i know that's going to piss people off and you know so be it anyways if

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00:03:54.220 when you do. All right, guys, again, Montana knife company, use the code order of man at

00:03:59.620 checkout. Now, let me introduce you to my guest. His name is Cynthia Sam. He spent 15

00:04:05.440 years trapped, like probably many of us in a pornography addiction that started when

00:04:10.800 he was just 11 years old. And then he spent years cycling through internet filters and

00:04:17.600 accountability partners that never really addressed the root of the problem. And after

00:04:22.540 finally breaking free, he built a program called Deep Clean, which is a research-based, faith-even

00:04:31.280 informed system that has helped, at this point, thousands of men from college students to medical

00:04:37.780 doctors to professional athletes regain control of their lives and rebuild the identity that porn

00:04:45.000 had been quietly eroding his work has been featured on 700 club canada 100 huntley street and

00:04:52.580 consider before consuming among other platforms so he is the author of the last relapse realize

00:04:59.340 your potential reclaim intimacy and resolve the root issues of pornography addiction and he also

00:05:05.640 hosts his own show, The Man Within. He lives in Toronto. We'll forgive him for that with his

00:05:11.660 beautiful wife and two young children. And he continues to coach men around the world through

00:05:17.440 Deep Clean's community and coaching programs. If you want to learn more about what he's doing

00:05:21.840 or connect with him directly, head to sathiasam.com. Now let's get to the conversation.

00:05:30.860 Sathia, what's up, man? So good to see you and glad to have you back on the podcast.

00:05:35.640 It's always a privilege, man. Thanks for having me.

00:05:38.180 Yeah, of course. It's interesting. When I started this movement 11 years ago, yeah, 2015, so 11 years ago, I never would have imagined how relevant the discussions that we were having would become.

00:05:53.180 And as we move into a new era of technology and robotics, I imagine from where you sit, talking with guys about overcoming pornography addictions, it's probably very much the same way for you.

00:06:12.800 Yeah, the messages are getting a little bit different.

00:06:15.920 You find out what guys are getting into.

00:06:18.360 I had a guy probably, this is probably about a month ago now, who was like, dude, he asked girls out if they say no, he just goes and makes AI content with them doing, you know, whatever he pleases kind of thing.

00:06:33.340 So it has been totally changed by AI.

00:06:37.540 I worked with a guy last year who had three affairs.

00:06:42.600 And they were all of the emotional variety.

00:06:45.760 They were all online.

00:06:47.000 and each of them he found out after he got deep enough into the affair

00:06:50.220 that he was talking to a chatbot.

00:06:52.440 Whoa, really?

00:06:54.180 Yeah.

00:06:55.120 And I actually had a former OnlyFans recruiter on my podcast,

00:06:59.900 and she's had a complete change of heart about OnlyFans and everything.

00:07:02.540 She left the industry and is doing a very different work now.

00:07:05.540 But she was explaining that what really makes the most popular

00:07:08.900 OnlyFans models effective is the team that runs the chat.

00:07:13.680 Now, this interview was a little while ago before AI had really exploded,

00:07:16.840 But she was talking about how you have to have a really effective team that understands how to keep people hooked, understands how to talk to them in the chat, and obviously sends them content and transaction, whatever.

00:07:25.660 But AI now has completely replaced all of that, right?

00:07:28.180 So they don't have to hire a team anymore.

00:07:30.100 And AI is going to be better because it has the memory history and all that.

00:07:33.780 And so you're talking about, like, deep systems that are being developed here because of AI in this industry.

00:07:39.980 well and it's also interesting because based on what i've seen you can like this guy you were

00:07:45.560 talking about who if he gets turned down he's like all right well i'll just take her name or

00:07:49.060 image her likeness or whatever her personality maybe even potentially and just build this into

00:07:54.700 an ai chat bot or whatever and now i'm talking with cindy the woman who denied me and she's

00:08:00.640 showing me every aspect of her life physically mentally emotionally etc yeah yeah it's pretty

00:08:06.760 scary the um the big thing now okay when you and i would have been exposed to pornography as kids

00:08:11.980 it would have been i can't even remember what movie it is but you know you watch those kind

00:08:15.320 of trashy movies like american pie and stuff and the joke is like the escalation in your bad

00:08:20.600 sexual behavior is a blow-up doll that was kind of like the the epitome of it right um today so

00:08:27.220 now because of ai there's a bot i think it's called emily and it's it's not a sex bot but it's

00:08:32.980 it's like this is your your like live-in robotic girlfriend that knows everything about you can

00:08:39.460 have conversations with you and obviously is still you know um has like whatever sexual

00:08:44.180 faculty shall we say um and that's but that's what they're offering and that's why i use the um the

00:08:50.420 only fans example earlier to illustrate a lot of people mistake this and just think like oh you

00:08:56.080 know guys are guys are just super horny can't control their sex drive this is all just a sex

00:08:59.800 thing. But the, the deeper, more effective companies, what they actually understand more

00:09:05.580 than anything is they understand how to build an emotional connection with men right through the

00:09:10.200 chat. Um, the only fans recruiter said the, the most effective people in the chat were the ones

00:09:14.920 that could engage men's curiosity. They knew that as long as you could engage their curiosity,

00:09:19.600 they would come back and they would transact again and again and again. And so with the bot,

00:09:23.660 it's the same idea. It's the, the marketing is not, she'll do whatever you want sexually. The

00:09:28.780 marketing is she will be whatever you need emotionally psychologically and physically

00:09:34.400 and that's that's where they're really hooking men these days there's a there's an interesting

00:09:39.140 principle I've heard about and I'm going to butcher this but the concept I hope I can get across but

00:09:44.600 there's this concept that if I know I'm going to go to Vegas let's say for example and I live two

00:09:50.500 hours from Vegas I go down to Vegas anytime I want if I hit the slot machines and I know that

00:09:55.340 every 10th pull on the slots is going to produce a reward that's not actually as powerful and

00:10:01.940 compelling if there's a variable or a variant in whether or not i'm going to get the reward it's

00:10:07.980 it's something about the dopamine that's released with the anticipation and it sounds like what

00:10:13.100 you're saying with emily is very much the same like if i know i'm going to go get laid look

00:10:18.760 of course men are going to be interested in that but if i don't know and there's a possibility

00:10:24.700 depending on how I play my cards it seems like that tends to be more compelling for men

00:10:30.080 I don't know if it's because we like the chase uh or or the the not knowing or the risk of it

00:10:38.240 I'm not quite sure what it is but it seems like the variable return is more compelling than the

00:10:43.800 guaranteed one that's a really good point so that actually illustrates a very common misconception

00:10:49.200 about dopamine, because when people talk about porn addiction and dopamine, they talk about how,

00:10:54.820 you know, we're just chasing these dopamine hits. But the actual, the actual draw, and that is true,

00:10:59.860 like you do get a dopamine hit when you, you know, get your reward, whatever it is. But the,

00:11:04.800 if you talk to any like neuroscientists, the neurobiological basis of all addiction is what's

00:11:09.780 next. So for the gambling addict, like you said, it's going to be the next jackpot.

00:11:14.460 But for the cocaine addict, it's going to be the next line.

00:11:18.000 For the alcoholic, it's going to be the next drink.

00:11:21.120 And it's the anticipation that our brains actually get hooked on.

00:11:25.420 So in neuroscience, you have this thing called edging.

00:11:28.060 And edging is sort of the in-between state.

00:11:31.280 So sobriety is like, I'm not thinking about it.

00:11:33.640 I don't have any temptation.

00:11:35.400 And then on the complete other end of the spectrum is the, we'll call it a level 10 out of 10.

00:11:40.460 I'm watching pornography.

00:11:41.520 I'm doing the thing.

00:11:42.180 edging is everything that happens in between it's thinking about it it's doing a double take with

00:11:48.320 that girl down the street it's going on instagram looking for a model that you know technically is

00:11:54.160 not pornography edging is you kind of just ramp up the brain and you kind of just get it slowly

00:11:59.160 and slowly more interested in until eventually you've gone far enough that pornography is just

00:12:03.880 the next the next natural step and that it's that edging that we actually become incredibly

00:12:10.000 addicted to it's the thrill of the chase more than it is the thrill of the reward yeah that's

00:12:16.540 interesting because when you were talking about when we were kids and you're younger than i am

00:12:19.960 but when i was a kid i mean my my pornography was sears catalogs like literally yeah sears catalogs

00:12:27.720 you know mom would have the sears catalog come in and i'd turn to the lingerie section

00:12:31.840 and i'm not trying to be crude but it's the reality for a bunch of guys like we would

00:12:37.380 get off to the models in lingerie and the sears catalog uh and then it became you know the pamela

00:12:43.400 anderson playboy edition or whatever but it wasn't as readily accessible or as graphic as it is today

00:12:52.180 and and we certainly couldn't cater it to what we want our personal desires and dreams and wishes

00:12:58.880 etc etc yeah well that that's the danger right like i was talking to connor beaton like a mutual

00:13:05.280 friend of ours on, I forget who's, we've been on each other's podcast, but we were talking about

00:13:10.220 how one of the dangers of AI now is that you can get everything you want. And we all, like, you

00:13:15.680 understand how weak of a man you become if you actually, like, nobody actually gets everything

00:13:20.360 they want in life. And if you can get everything you want, that actually starts to create major

00:13:25.880 problems in you, you know, in your character, in your, certainly in the way you're going to show

00:13:31.140 up in a relationship and everything else and i think we were at a huge advantage not just because

00:13:36.780 um there weren't there wasn't the same accessibility that there is now you know porn's the three a's

00:13:41.860 they call it affordable accessible and anonymous but i think additional additional to that is just

00:13:47.340 the fact that when you can get whatever you want actually you become very depressed you know you

00:13:53.040 think of like a michael phelps he achieved everything he wanted in life everything he

00:13:57.140 could have dreamt of as a little boy wanting to become an olympic athlete attained everything he

00:14:01.880 wanted and he was super depressed after because you you you very quickly realize oh my goodness

00:14:06.820 there's nothing in my life that's actually going to compare to that high and pornography is like

00:14:10.520 that as well in fact neuroscientists call pornography a super normal stimulus so the amount

00:14:15.820 of stimulation it provides your brain and body is just unnatural and that when you're getting

00:14:20.400 exactly what you want there's nothing else in life that's really going to match up to that

00:14:24.120 Yeah, but you're also making the contention that men are after more than just getting off, right?

00:14:29.520 Now you're talking about, again, Emily, who's not just getting you off, but she's tapping into the psychological components of your desires.

00:14:39.360 I think there is this misconception that men just want to get laid.

00:14:46.700 And look, don't get me wrong.

00:14:48.440 That's obviously something we're interested in.

00:14:51.060 Yeah, we have a second time for sure.

00:14:52.380 Yeah, but there's something deeper that I think is missing in society and missing in these men's lives. Do you feel like if young men in particular could figure out a way to receive that emotional and mental stimulant from a woman, that it would diminish the use of pornography?

00:15:16.340 like if men could find a way to get that psychological need met properly through

00:15:22.580 a real woman would they pursue pornography less correct 100 yeah and and sometimes more powerful

00:15:31.440 than the sexual drive that we have i think it i think it allows us to make better decisions

00:15:41.980 with our sexual drive. So I'll frame it this way. And what I was going to say in response earlier is

00:15:48.840 it's not even necessarily a woman getting your need met. So this is a very big, this is something

00:15:54.640 that I push back on a lot because a lot of guys are like, well, I just have sex, these sexual

00:15:58.220 needs. And I'm like, well, let's be careful with that language. And again, I'm not, I'm not

00:16:03.480 diminishing the fact that we all have sex drives. And as men, generally, we are quite driven by

00:16:07.660 them. But I mean, water is a need. Oxygen is a need. You know, do you do you need a sexual release

00:16:16.800 and a sexual outlet to survive? I don't think so. Now, obviously, we need to procreate like it's up

00:16:22.080 there, you know, I get it. But I think sometimes what happens is, and this is especially with

00:16:26.800 single guys, which is kind of the context of your question. I think with single guys, they we become

00:16:31.420 so obsessed of like, I have this need, girls are rejecting me, I'm not getting sexual opportunities,

00:16:36.120 I can't get into a serious relationship, you know, you fill in your blank. And so then it's like,

00:16:39.760 well, I'm just going to go get my fill, I'm going to go get my need met, watching pornography,

00:16:43.600 OnlyFans, whatever it is. And I think in that instance, your pursuit of just the sexual release

00:16:51.500 will severely diminish any kind of relational experience you can have. I'm kind of talking

00:16:55.820 about it inverted here. If that guy was to go, and let's say really what he's really after is

00:17:02.380 he's looking for some validation. So he's feeling insecure because he's like, man, I'm, you know,

00:17:06.940 I'm approaching these girls. I'm, I'm feel like I'm getting opportunities, but nothing really

00:17:10.640 materializes. So he's looking for validation. If he gets that need for validation met, however it

00:17:17.700 might be, but let's just call it in a healthy way, you know, it's peer to peer or it's, or yeah,

00:17:23.280 he does eventually get into a romantic relationship where he's feeling that validation.

00:17:27.240 i would say generally he is going to be in a better position to make better decisions with

00:17:32.760 his sex drive now he might still turn to pornography so it's not that it's not like a

00:17:37.740 causational kind of thing but i do think people who get their needs met on a psychological level

00:17:42.900 effectively they are in better control of the decisions they make with their sex drive and

00:17:47.840 really pretty much every other area of their life yeah no i'm glad you said that last part because

00:17:52.080 i was going to throw that in there because if you can control your sexual impulses frankly as a man

00:17:57.220 And I think you can control anything about, about the way that you view the world.

00:18:01.960 Only you, you, you've, you've elicited only fans a couple of times.

00:18:05.560 This is, this is fascinating to me because, um, you could, if you join an only fans account,

00:18:13.760 like let's say there's, there's this woman and you're attracted to her and you want to

00:18:17.460 pay her 50 or 80 or a hundred bucks a month.

00:18:19.960 I don't even know what it is, but you pay her a hundred bucks a month, let's say to

00:18:22.760 get access to or exclusive content. What's interesting to me about this is you could go

00:18:29.780 get that shit for free, man. Like you can go get free pornography. It's readily available.

00:18:37.740 And yet you're choosing to spend, let's say a hundred dollars a month on only fans. Why is that?

00:18:42.660 And I think the reason is you tell me if I'm wrong, but I think the reason is, is it goes

00:18:46.980 beyond the sex drive and it goes to the connection oh this woman she she knows me like she gets me

00:18:56.000 it's exclusive for me she's only giving it to me uh it's it's very similar to the guy who

00:19:03.620 thinks the waitress or the stripper is flirting with him only exclusively because it's not just

00:19:12.540 about sex it's about the connection and i think that's a misconception that a lot of people have

00:19:18.040 yeah you nailed it i don't know if i've talked about rat have i talked about rat park with you

00:19:22.260 before on the rat park did you say rat rat park no i don't know what that is familiar okay all

00:19:28.120 right so um rat park is a is a experiment that was done a long time ago it got popularized by a ted

00:19:33.600 talk probably 10 years ago and so the premise is this you have um you have a cage with two bottles

00:19:39.740 in it one bottle is water the other bottle is water laced with cocaine and so one at a time

00:19:45.300 they put a rat in and surprise surprise the rat every single one of the rats gets addicted to the

00:19:50.720 cocaine laced water that's their test group okay control group is the same cage same two bottles

00:19:57.200 of water and then they also put in toys and you know rat wheels and tunnels and instead of putting

00:20:04.920 one in at a time they actually put in groups of rats so they can play together and they can

00:20:09.480 mate and whatever and not a single one of them gets addicted to the cocaine-laced water because

00:20:14.820 they're all having so much fun engaging with the other activities that are available to them

00:20:19.000 so it in this ted talk the guy basically says that they they actually started applying this

00:20:24.320 to prisons because people start to go why do we why do we have these people that are they they

00:20:29.760 generally grow up without fathers in the home they're super disconnected they don't know how

00:20:33.440 to have real relationships or real friendships so they go and they do these terrible things and

00:20:37.600 then we basically put them in these isolated prison prisons or whatever you want to call it

00:20:42.840 like we put them in these prisons they have no connection they have a little bit of connection

00:20:46.060 with each other but they don't really have much why don't we find a way to integrate them that's

00:20:50.260 still safe to the general public and what they found is that the the results of these guys

00:20:55.120 especially when they integrated because the the likelihood of getting reprisoned again is like i

00:20:59.920 forget it's like 70 or 80 percent right are back in prison within three years of being released

00:21:03.380 so they just found that that rate plummeted and between rat park between what they were witnessing

00:21:09.160 in these prisons they drew this big conclusion that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety

00:21:14.160 it's connection and at a fundamental level i think especially when we're talking about sex

00:21:19.940 addiction porn addiction and even even maybe not addiction people don't always like that word

00:21:24.180 and sometimes they write themselves off from these conversations ryan because they're like

00:21:27.240 i'm not addicted but if you're having let's call it sexual misbehavior fundamentally i think what

00:21:32.480 most guys are after is actually connection. I'm thinking about this because I am somebody who

00:21:41.860 struggles with alcohol abuse. So I'm thinking about it through that lens. Um, you're saying

00:21:48.220 the opposite of sobriety is, is not abstinence, but connection. I'm just opposite of addiction.

00:21:54.800 yeah addiction excuse me yeah sorry addiction um yeah i would i would lean towards that because

00:22:02.240 even for me you know i spent uh a week last week in maine with some good friends and people that

00:22:08.100 i've known for a long time and i spent out spent the week out there training jujitsu

00:22:11.340 and my cravings were significantly diminished like i didn't even have time for it i was engaged i was

00:22:20.660 having conversations I was uh physically tired right because of what we were doing um there was

00:22:29.600 a lot of factors where my craving which is something I have to I have to battle with every

00:22:34.260 day uh was significantly diminished because I was with other men who I like I trust I care about

00:22:43.520 I want to get to know I want to be involved in that community I would agree with that actually

00:22:49.000 from an anecdotal perspective yeah we we have a saying in our community a satisfied heart rarely

00:22:54.580 wanders and you know you can you can decide what satisfied means to you but i think going back to

00:23:00.300 the needs thing and this is something i talked about in in the book as well um the last relapse

00:23:04.420 it's so important as guys that we do understand what we need at a fundamental level and that we

00:23:10.280 have healthy and effective ways to get it met because i think what you're saying there again

00:23:14.480 when i think about you going on that trip it's funny a lot of guys actually when they travel

00:23:19.580 they're craving spike right because you're out of routine you're out of whatever this is especially

00:23:24.880 i would say work trips and that kind of stuff but what's what's really cool about this example is

00:23:29.280 i think you're with other guys the other thing that you kind of touched on there is you guys

00:23:33.460 were there for a specific purpose right you're doing you're training jujitsu together so or

00:23:37.260 you're competing so i think what's really interesting about that is there's actually

00:23:40.840 a lot of data. It's probably one of the biggest studies they ever did on porn usage. And they

00:23:45.380 were trying to see, is there anything that really predicts whether or not somebody will watch

00:23:50.100 pornography, return to pornography, depend on pornography, et cetera. So they're looking at

00:23:54.420 all the obvious factors like trauma, relationship dysfunction, any other mental illness, like

00:23:59.880 anxiety, depression, and whatever. And they do what's called a multivariate analysis. I used to

00:24:05.140 be a university researcher, so I always geek out on this stuff a little bit. So in a multivariate

00:24:08.860 analysis in a way I don't for sure. So yeah. Okay. All right. All right. I won't keep it too

00:24:13.940 nerdy. Don't worry. No, no, no. Keep it. Dive fully in. So basically in a multivariate analysis,

00:24:19.020 they're looking at, I think in this case it was 15 to 20 variables and they're just trying to see,

00:24:23.280 is there a standout or are there some things that people think, okay, this, this is probably an

00:24:27.460 indicator. Someone's going to watch pornography, but maybe it's not. And there were a couple that

00:24:31.280 were obvious like trauma history, relationship, discord, whatever. But the number one indicator

00:24:35.940 that somebody would struggle with pornography was a meaninglessness in life. So when people,

00:24:42.640 and I think about what you do in the iron council, Ryan, like, I think this is why what you're doing

00:24:46.100 is so important because you give, you give guys the community and the connection we talked about.

00:24:50.020 And then I think you help guys find that, that the goals at the very least, but hopefully,

00:24:54.440 you know, bigger case, a purpose. And that purpose is so powerful in not just in the like, okay,

00:25:01.360 I have something I'm moving towards, but I also have a reason to not engage in that thing because

00:25:06.480 engaging in that thing is going to actually take me away from, you know, my God given purpose and

00:25:10.300 the thing that I'm chasing after. I mean, again, anecdotally, I would definitely agree when I'm

00:25:15.900 driven or motivated through a business project or something that my kids have going on. Like I don't

00:25:23.140 even have time to deal with that. I'm so focused on what's going on over here that my temptation

00:25:28.420 becomes less relevant. But, but I do, but I also do get frustrated when I hear, again,

00:25:33.720 I'm talking about it from the lens of, of alcohol addiction, not pornography. I do get frustrated

00:25:38.420 when I hear people say, oh, well, you know, if, if you're, if you're drinking or engaging in

00:25:43.360 pornography or, you know, pick your vice of choice where people are like, oh, it's because you're,

00:25:48.260 you know, you're running from something. Oh, there's like meaninglessness in your life. And

00:25:53.020 I'm like, I just want to get drunk.

00:25:55.380 And I imagine a lot of guys are like, I'm not running from anything.

00:25:58.740 I just want to get off.

00:26:00.620 So there's a bit of a disconnect for me from this like deep seated.

00:26:07.280 Oh, it must mean something psychologically happened to you when you were three years old that you can't remember relative or versus.

00:26:16.880 No, I'm just horny and I want to get off.

00:26:19.440 Yeah.

00:26:19.880 Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think it probably exists all across the spectrum. Like when I think of the clients we've worked with over the years, we definitely had some guys who did have trauma history. And it was pretty obvious that like this started at a young age. This is how you coped. And the pattern is, it's attached. It's attached to the trauma you went through.

00:26:38.560 I think you have some guys who actually just lack skills.

00:26:42.200 And this is one of the biggest things that I tell people is if you're going to work with

00:26:45.640 somebody to quit pornography addiction, you have to make sure that you're not just like

00:26:49.520 doing talk therapy and working through stuff, whatever that means.

00:26:53.380 They need to be helping you build skills because fundamentally, going back to what we were

00:26:57.880 just talking about a few minutes ago with purpose, my goal, even at Deep Clean is I'm

00:27:01.720 not trying to get you to quit pornography.

00:27:03.120 like that's that's such a to me that's such a weak goal and there's lots of ways you can

00:27:07.880 manipulate and modify behavior my goal is for you to become the man that god made you to be

00:27:12.220 and so for that to happen yes you need to quit pornography but you actually need to have skills

00:27:16.900 that last beyond your usage of pornography so this is actually this is where the needs thing

00:27:22.700 is a really great example like if if you have a hard time building meaningful connections with

00:27:27.260 let's say other guys let's say other guys intimidate you you had a bad i don't know you've

00:27:31.620 had bad experiences making friends. You don't know how to make friends. You don't have, I know for

00:27:35.560 me, I, dude, I got thrust into my, thrust into my early thirties. I mean, aging happens the same

00:27:39.580 way for everyone, but all of a sudden I'm like, man, I'm 33. I don't have any friends. I don't

00:27:43.640 know what happened. Like I have friends that I text and I'll see at birthday parties, but

00:27:47.320 I don't have friends that I'm doing stuff with. And that was a total miss on my part. So I had

00:27:52.040 to make a bunch of adjustments. I'm 36 now, um, in a much better shape as far as that goes. But a

00:27:57.700 lot of guys find themselves in these places and i would say yeah there's some skill development

00:28:01.700 there on we gotta we gotta kind of teach you how to how to understand you know how to build

00:28:06.120 friendships um but also like what it looks like to show up in relationships in a meaningful way

00:28:10.300 um needs getting needs met you know like if if you have a i don't know an unmet need for control

00:28:15.820 that might manifest as watching pornography because pornography is the one area where you're like

00:28:20.260 hey i can actually control the situation i can control the outcome right especially if you're

00:28:24.320 talking about AI outcomes and that kind of thing. So, you know, I think there's, there's a lot of

00:28:28.840 a middle ground there where, okay, not every single thing's attached to your childhood,

00:28:32.160 but probably it's, it maybe is at least a layer deeper than I just had an urge and I got to kind

00:28:38.140 of get one off. Usually there's probably a little bit more to the equation if you trace it back far

00:28:43.260 enough. No, that's, that's interesting. Like this need for control, that's, that's, I can see that

00:28:48.320 for sure. And I actually wrote down here in my notes, as you were saying that I said, what is

00:28:54.040 the coping mechanism of pornography addiction like what is it that you're that you're addressing

00:29:01.040 right like so um immediately what comes to mind for me is hey if i'm feeling lonely i can have a

00:29:10.220 companion of sorts right i can even if it's just some blonde bimbo who i have no connection with

00:29:18.020 but i can i can create i can i can i can bridge that gap right i can say okay well she's performing

00:29:23.820 for me. Right. Um, or with AI, she's talking, she I'm using quotations is talking directly to me.

00:29:33.840 So therefore I'm not lonely. Uh, she's paying attention. Um, I'm, I'm somebody worth paying

00:29:40.660 attention to. I'm trying to go through all of these things, but what is it that you think that

00:29:46.100 pornography is addressing? Because if it wasn't, if it wasn't solving a problem, even if it's

00:29:53.520 unhealthy, if it wasn't solving a problem, we just wouldn't engage in it. So it's solving

00:29:58.580 something. What is it solving for? Yeah, I would say I think generally it's offering people one

00:30:07.480 of three things, usually a combination connection, which we've talked about. Control is a big one.

00:30:13.760 And control kind of expounds even into like stress relief, overwhelm. That's a really big

00:30:19.980 one. Like a lot of guys are like, Oh, I'm just bored or I'm overwhelmed. And, um, so what,

00:30:26.440 you know, like there's also people who are bored and overwhelmed that don't watch pornography.

00:30:30.360 So what does pornography offer you journal or whatever else? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So generally,

00:30:36.580 like if, if you know, you feel overwhelmed, control is the thing that gives you an opportunity.

00:30:41.060 I worked with a guy, he's a, he's a starting, he's a starter in the NFL. And I was working

00:30:46.440 with him last year and he said the most common time he watches pornography is right before the

00:30:52.120 game so they do all their stuff in the morning and then you know the game starts in the afternoon

00:30:56.420 or in the evening and he's always got like 45 minutes in the hotel where he doesn't really

00:31:00.440 know what to do he feels super stressed about his performance so like a little bit overwhelmed

00:31:05.140 and then he but he also is just like stuck in a hotel room you know like bored feeling alone

00:31:11.380 you know whatever it might be so it's a really good example of kind of like it's actually so

00:31:17.400 much overwhelm that pornography for him it's not offering connection in that moment i don't think

00:31:22.320 he's necessarily looking for connection even though that maybe could be helpful but what he's

00:31:25.760 actually looking for is something to to like dissipate the anxiety something that like stills

00:31:30.660 everything down so we just worked on like again this is where pornography can be deeply psychological

00:31:35.620 it can also be very practical for him it was just like hey let's maybe let's not get you in your

00:31:40.820 hotel room watching TV, you know, in that 45 minute window, let's figure out what, what else

00:31:45.220 that might look like. And we just altered the protocol. So I think it just depends a little

00:31:50.000 bit. Um, but the control is a big one is, is basically what I'm saying. And if you really

00:31:54.660 want to want to test out what, what you're getting out of pornography, pay attention to your fantasies

00:31:59.860 because I'll tell you for me, when I really struggle with, with pornography, um, I like

00:32:06.500 some of the stuff we were talking about was hard for me to pinpoint. Once I paid attention to what

00:32:10.440 i fantasize about dude i was always about control it was always about me being in a position of

00:32:15.160 control controlling the situation controlling the outcome that gave me a lot of clues and then i

00:32:20.400 would say the third thing that guys often will go to for pornography is validation that's another

00:32:24.500 really big one so connection control validation yeah those three are huge so i wrote a couple

00:32:29.820 things down um yeah the fantasies i imagine and i don't know the statistics you probably do as well

00:32:35.980 um i imagine more and more the fantasies revolve around bdsm like again i don't know the statistic

00:32:46.280 well people never get that well you talked about control right so okay if i can take this female

00:32:53.080 and i can absolutely control and dominate her that makes me feel powerful so i am i imagine

00:32:59.320 the trend is moving more and more to BDSM. Uh, consensual non-consent is a, is a, is a genre.

00:33:08.860 Um, even rape is a genre. I imagine it's moving more and more towards that.

00:33:15.420 They just dress it up differently, but yes. Um, I had a researcher on my podcast,

00:33:20.560 her name's Joe Robertson and, um, her and her team, I guess they were, they were doing this

00:33:25.840 deep dive into violence and kind of the like to see if there's a correlation here and what they

00:33:31.240 found is that 80 of mainstream pornography and this is an old number it's probably higher

00:33:35.720 80 of pornography depicted scenes of violence and or aggression towards the woman this is

00:33:42.840 mainstream right so 80 yeah so this is just kind of the norm now um and maybe like this is a really

00:33:48.480 harrowing story i don't did you ever hear billy eilish's interview with howard stern just probably

00:33:52.480 like five years ago. I may have caught glimpses. I'm not sure I remember though. It, it actually

00:33:57.640 went viral and I think they took it down, but she basically talked about how her early sexual

00:34:03.220 experiences as a young woman. Um, I think she was actually still a girl at the time, to be honest,

00:34:07.640 were all BDSM. And she thought that was normal because of the pornography she watched.

00:34:15.080 And, um, and again, think of like a young girl who's getting into pornography. No one's looking

00:34:20.120 for this like super niche stuff when you start out your brain might get there eventually but for

00:34:25.600 her that was just like she watched what was considered normal standard pornography and it

00:34:30.080 was all violent aggressive bdsm and she did she said like i didn't like it i thought it was kind

00:34:36.980 of strange but i also kind of just thought this is normal and it wasn't until she became more of

00:34:42.140 an adult got into more performative years that she realized actually this is totally messed up

00:34:45.920 and i think it just illustrates how i again i can't believe you guessed that most people don't

00:34:51.140 but that is that is i don't know people have guesses to be honest like either you're watching

00:34:56.340 and you kind of know but i don't think people think right away oh it's getting really violent

00:35:00.780 and really aggressive but mostly again you got that you got that guess because we talked about

00:35:04.980 control right i think that's what connected the dots for you you said and i think a lot of people

00:35:08.720 don't realize that again i think a lot of people reduce this conversation to guys are horny they're

00:35:13.280 just going to do what they do. Everybody watches porn. Um, I think it's, again, it's the layer

00:35:17.660 deeper that you start to get better answers and better explanations for what's really going on.

00:35:22.780 Men real quick, before I get back to the conversation with Cynthia on September 16th,

00:35:27.840 pull out your calendars real quick. If you can on September 16th at 8 PM Eastern, I and my

00:35:34.120 good friend and cohost Kip Sorensen are going to be hosting a live war room session. This is our

00:35:41.000 second war room session on the three roles every man needs to understand and operate in. It's the

00:35:47.580 enforcer, it's the rescuer, and it's the anchor. Most men default into one of these without ever

00:35:55.120 really being conscious or choosing it. And that default is quietly running your marriage and

00:36:01.700 your fatherhood and your leadership, whether or not you're aware of it. And it's not always good.

00:36:07.400 okay the enforcer and the rescuer are not the ways that you need to show up the anchor is we'll talk

00:36:13.520 about that but this session is about identifying which of those that you're leaning on where it's

00:36:19.280 failing you and how to move between all three with intention instead of just your default instinct

00:36:26.040 this is not theory it's it's going to be live it's going to be direct and it's built for men who are

00:36:31.600 done operating on cruise control or autopilot, if you head to orderofman.com slash war room,

00:36:40.200 all one word, orderofman.com slash war room right now, you can get your spot reserved. I think we've

00:36:45.400 got about 60 men signed up for the war room on September 16th at 8 p.m. Eastern. Again, this is

00:36:52.860 free and we're going to share with you the frameworks of the enforcer, the rescuer, and the

00:36:59.640 anchor and why you want to move from the enforcer and the rescuer into the anchor so show up

00:37:05.400 september 16th 8 p.m eastern bring your notepad and let's get to work i'll see you there until

00:37:12.040 then let's get back to it with cthia well i mean incentives are what drive i should say this

00:37:20.300 incentives and consequences are what drive human behavior and i've mocked it a little bit i've said

00:37:25.420 if you understand that concept and you embrace that into your life, then you are basically a PhD

00:37:31.460 in human psychology. Like if that's all you knew about humans really, I mean, look, we can use it

00:37:37.560 in any scenario. Why did you agree to be on this podcast? Because you think that your message is

00:37:44.220 going to be valuable to my audience. And therefore some of my audience will come over and connect

00:37:49.460 with you. And I'm trying to like, there's no maliciousness in that, but that's what's driving

00:37:53.900 you to be on this podcast let's be honest about it and what's driving well i also didn't want you

00:37:58.280 to beat me up there's a there's a consequence too right and i would have i definitely would

00:38:02.620 have i would attract you down and definitely would have physically assaulted you if you didn't

00:38:05.940 um but but again okay so what was my incentive well i think that enough of my guys are dealing

00:38:14.980 with pornography use and addiction and frustration that it's worth having you on because it will add

00:38:20.180 value to these guys' lives and they'll think better about the community. I don't understand

00:38:24.980 why we get so confused about incentives and consequences. And pornography is very much

00:38:30.920 the same way. Like you would not engage in something moral or immoral if you didn't get

00:38:37.220 some sort of perceived benefit or value from. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. But I, and again,

00:38:44.200 I think that's why people stay stuck. I think that's also very powerful for people building

00:38:48.500 a new life without pornography, right? If you understand the right incentives, which is not

00:38:53.700 just, it's, it's not just like, Oh, I want to be, you know, I want to be married one day if you're

00:38:57.880 a single guy or whatever. But if you have purpose, if you have things that are really motivating you,

00:39:02.240 pulling you in the right direction, I'll tell you like the number of guys that have gone through

00:39:05.640 our program, quit pornography and then start a business, get more involved in church, start

00:39:11.080 showing up better at home. We get tons of messages from wives that are like, I don't know what you're

00:39:14.820 doing with my husband, but he's more present. He's more connected. Keep doing it. Like these

00:39:18.860 are very common stories. I know that one thing you emphasize that I really respect in the iron

00:39:23.140 council. And I even saw this when we did the, um, we did the forge. No, I wasn't at the forge this

00:39:27.260 year, but the year prior, um, you guys obviously emphasize taking care of the body. So this is a

00:39:33.060 fascinating thing that I, I don't, I never really set out to do this, but this has just happened.

00:39:37.940 But the number of people in deep clean that have quit pornography and then gone on to run a

00:39:42.600 marathon, like we should start tallying this. It's, it's a shocking amount. Yeah. And most guys

00:39:48.700 say, they say two things. So one is they say, as I quit pornography and I started to like view

00:39:54.860 women differently, I also start to view my own body differently. Like I had a higher value for

00:39:59.980 it and I wanted to take care of it. And I, I mentioned the marathon one cause that those are

00:40:03.680 specific examples that I was surprised by. But if it's not marathons, it's, I started going to the

00:40:08.260 gym. I started lifting weights. I started eating better, you know, whatever it is. But the other

00:40:12.040 thing that's really cool is as they go through the process of quitting pornography especially

00:40:16.100 when it's something like um you know what one of the stronger stories we had out of our community

00:40:20.440 last year was a guy this is actually a wild story he um addicted to porn for 48 years uh this would

00:40:26.860 be a good example where um trauma was part of is that what you said 40 48 okay 48 yeah almost 50

00:40:32.960 years um so he's in like you know his early 60s um was sexually abused as uh as a little boy and

00:40:39.500 then there's this concept in psychology that if, if you have sexual abuse, often you will in your

00:40:44.280 adult years reenact the abuse if you don't heal from it or cope with it or process it. So what

00:40:49.860 that means is portray, put, put that on somebody else or subject yourself to that. Both, both. So

00:40:58.200 it depends on the person in his case. He was, um, so he's a married man, lives in the Midwest,

00:41:03.340 married um two kids and is doing anonymous hookups with other guys through craigslist uh back in the

00:41:12.920 day because this lasted for a long time and then you know over the last 20 years digital means

00:41:17.740 so he's um he's about to uh engage like in another hookup the guy identifies him and blackmails him

00:41:26.720 for 10 K. Like, I'm going to tell everybody, I like, this is your wife's name. This is where

00:41:32.280 you live. I'm going to let them all know if you don't wire me 10 grand. So, um, so this guy,

00:41:38.760 um, amazingly, uh, decides I'm actually, I'm going to come clean. Like I had always knew

00:41:44.020 this moment was going to happen. I'm going to come clean. Good example of carrots and sticks,

00:41:48.560 right? Consequences and incentives, right? Yeah. So now he's got a huge consequence and he's got

00:41:52.680 a good incentive to go and tell the truth. Um, tells the truth. Um, his wife, uh, accepts it

00:41:59.140 like very graciously. They start doing their work. He has an amazing outcome. Um, and has been clean

00:42:04.900 a porn for a year now. Um, is sharing his story in prisons actually, and, um, celebrate recovery

00:42:10.040 groups and that kind of stuff. He and his wife renewed their vows. Like it's a really, really

00:42:13.960 powerful story to come out of the community, but you're talking about, uh, 50 plus years. Oh,

00:42:19.260 sorry, not 50 plus years, almost 50 years. Yeah. Of an addiction that gets turned around. And for

00:42:25.280 him, like he is, he's just viewing the world through a different lens. So to complete my

00:42:31.680 thought here, guys are, guys take better care of themselves because they get confidence. They get

00:42:38.740 their confidence back. This thing weighed on him for 48 years. He finally conquered it. And now he

00:42:44.940 feels like rightfully so that if he could figure out this thing that had grips on his life for 48

00:42:50.260 years, there's probably a lot of things he can do in his life that are going to be a lot easier than

00:42:54.840 that. And so that's why a lot of these guys go on to run, you know, marathons. There's one guy who

00:42:58.680 actually, I think he ran an ultra marathon or he was training for it. Um, and, uh, and that's,

00:43:03.520 that's a really cool part of what we do here is like, we get, we get to see guys like step into

00:43:07.220 this, this God given purpose at a much deeper level. Yeah. Is that just rechanneling energy?

00:43:13.220 you know i imagine so for example when it comes to drinking it's like i could sit here tonight

00:43:18.740 i've got a couple calls this evening but outside of that my kids aren't here i'm alone and so it's

00:43:24.460 like okay well i know like that this is something i'm going to be tempted by and so i just occupy

00:43:29.300 myself right i might go to the gym there's some hot springs here i might just go to the hot springs

00:43:34.740 and just get out of the house because that keeps me from the temptation

00:43:38.840 i guess i guess a couple things is it just filling the gap and then my second question is

00:43:46.520 is that healthy or is it just matt i guess i guess i'm thinking out loud i guess all behavior

00:43:54.880 positive behavior is what we would call a coping mechanism are there are there bad coping mechanisms

00:44:01.740 problems outside of pornography or alcohol abuse, drug abuse, gambling, etc.

00:44:07.400 Yeah, I mean, I think this is where it actually boils down to, it's not always about the

00:44:11.680 behavior.

00:44:12.780 It's also about your relationship to the behavior.

00:44:15.980 So like, let's say you and I are addicted to pornography.

00:44:18.340 And we're both like, you know what, instead of watching pornography, every time we have

00:44:22.180 a craving or a temptation, we're going to go to the gym, maybe not every time, but we're

00:44:25.720 going to go to the gym, like four or five times a week, just to, like you said, get

00:44:28.780 out of the house, we're going to train our bodies, we're going to channel that energy.

00:44:31.740 but let's say you are able to like you go and you work out for 45 minutes.

00:44:37.260 You're like, man, I feel great.

00:44:38.560 I'm going to go to the sauna for a little bit.

00:44:40.160 I'm going to do cold plunge.

00:44:40.940 I'm going to go home.

00:44:42.060 But I, I am like, I can't miss a workout.

00:44:46.320 I got to nail every rep.

00:44:47.620 If I, if I only have 30 minutes, it's like, it doesn't count as a workout.

00:44:50.520 And I have this totally toxic relationship.

00:44:53.220 That's when it's like, oh, actually that's a,

00:44:55.380 that's not just like a healthy outlet for you.

00:44:58.180 That's now become a coping mechanism.

00:45:00.440 So that's where I would make the distinction in the language.

00:45:02.220 I don't think every behavior is a coping mechanism per se.

00:45:05.700 I think there's such a thing as just, you know, I have energy, I have drive, I have emotion, I have an unmet need, I have whatever it is.

00:45:14.180 And I think there's healthy ways to get those things addressed.

00:45:16.440 And I think there's also unhealthy ways.

00:45:18.400 And sometimes what makes it unhealthy is not the behavior itself.

00:45:21.100 It's your relationship to the behavior.

00:45:23.720 It's probably a lot like identity.

00:45:25.860 You know, when people are trying to form new habits or break old ones, the sooner you can relate with the identity of changed behavior, the more likely it is that that behavior will change and or last. Right. So if I, a silly small example, it's not even true by the way, but a silly small example that I embraced and I recognize it as not being universally true.

00:45:48.720 years and years ago i was drinking a ton of monster energy drinks a ton i got this eye twitch

00:45:55.520 and it kind of scared me it freaked me out and i got this eye twitch for days that would not go

00:46:00.760 away and i'm like i think it's the energy drinks and so i stopped drinking the energy drinks and

00:46:05.840 a couple days later the eye twitch went away and that's what it was it was the caffeine or whatever

00:46:10.000 the chemicals in in the monster and in order to stop drinking energy drinks i told myself again

00:46:20.580 this is not universally true but i told myself i said successful men do not drink monster energy

00:46:28.420 drinks that is not universally true i know successful men who drink a ton of monster

00:46:35.320 the video game world would definitely disagree with that yeah say it again i said the video

00:46:40.120 game world would definitely disagree those guys are hopped up on all kinds yeah video games x

00:46:44.040 games all like all that kind of stuff sure it's not universally true but i embraced it as so

00:46:49.220 and what actually helped me stop drinking energy drinks was the identity that i had wrapped out

00:46:55.700 around it like successful people don't drink energy drinks and so i stopped drinking energy

00:47:00.980 drinks because my desire to be successful outweighed my desire to drink a monster yeah

00:47:07.640 yeah and if there's anything uncomfortable that you were like that you would say like

00:47:11.560 but let's say it's like when i say uncomfortable i'm even talking about the stress or overwhelm

00:47:15.820 and maybe you're just like man i'll just pop an energy drink i feel better get my energy back

00:47:19.120 you probably found in in having that drive for you know being a successful person with that new

00:47:24.140 identity yeah you probably just found better ways to channel some of those some of those challenges

00:47:28.960 or some of the stress or the overwhelm or whatever else might be there.

00:47:32.940 Another thing that's really interesting with the energy drink example

00:47:36.040 is it also kind of shows you that you can actually change things relatively quickly.

00:47:43.220 And I think people sometimes get caught up on this,

00:47:45.420 especially with porn addiction, because they think,

00:47:47.160 this is like probably the most common thing I get is like,

00:47:49.060 you don't know what I've done.

00:47:50.400 And I'm like, well, try me.

00:47:51.700 You know, I've worked with over 1,500 guys.

00:47:53.600 I've been helping guys quit pornography for eight years.

00:47:55.780 I probably have heard everything at this point.

00:47:58.140 but I think a lot of guys think that because of I'm thinking of the story I just shared this guy

00:48:02.200 struggled for 48 years and it has he thinking this is going to be years it's going to be years

00:48:06.620 to reverse all this but I think the reason that things can actually change quite quickly is well

00:48:11.540 it's twofold one is it's the identity shift that you just talked about and this is why I'm not a

00:48:16.240 huge fan of some of the 12-step principles like at a whole I'm grateful for 12-step but one thing

00:48:23.840 that 12-step perpetuates is once an addict always an addict I don't know if you ever again I don't

00:48:27.900 know if you did 12 step or kind of what you've gone through. So I'll share a story with you

00:48:31.320 shortly, but yes, I very much am in alignment with you on this. Oh, okay. Okay. Got it. Yeah.

00:48:36.660 So that would be an example of a tenant of 12 step that I'm like, Hey, actually I just can't,

00:48:40.940 I can't buy into that because I do believe at a fundamental level you can change. Um, and even at

00:48:46.120 a, at a faith level, like I, I really believe that you can change and be a completely new person.

00:48:50.660 That's the whole premise of, of Christianity and my belief system. So I think the, the whole

00:48:55.200 identity shifting piece is super super critical and i think the the thing that you know accentuates

00:49:00.820 it or allows an identity shift to take place and to actually take root is having a community

00:49:05.680 because when you say like you know i'm a person who does xyz that's one thing but when you say

00:49:10.700 we like we do this collectively that's really really powerful i was just talking to um he's

00:49:17.160 to this day one of my best friends but he really helped me out when i started deep clean in 2018

00:49:21.120 and I was telling him this story because he was, he pulled up like a picture from back in the day

00:49:25.640 or something and it just triggered a bunch of memories from that season of my life and I was

00:49:31.460 like, I was a wantrepreneur. Like I was, I did not actually know anything about business. I had this

00:49:36.900 idea to help guys but he was very established and we hung out and we actually watched an interview

00:49:43.860 between Grant Cardone and Ed Milet and I forget the name of the guy that interviewed him but he

00:49:48.340 used to have a big channel back in the day he might still be around anyways really really

00:49:51.840 interesting interview I'm I'm pretty green to all this so he's like he really understands the

00:49:56.480 conversation I'm like kind of getting it and um we uh we go out for for some pizza or something

00:50:02.300 afterwards and I was asking what he thought about Dave Ramsey because I could just tell like he

00:50:05.960 wasn't a budget guy and whatever and I was deep into some Dave Ramsey stuff at the time and he

00:50:10.780 was like oh you have to be careful because Dave Dave Ramsey isn't necessarily talking to people

00:50:15.880 like us. And I was like, what do you mean people like us? He's like, well, we're entrepreneurs.

00:50:20.260 And he, he just kind of like, he grouped me in, like I was, I was like him, even though in my

00:50:24.900 world, like he was in a completely different level than I was, but he's like, oh, like we don't,

00:50:29.220 you know, like he's not really talking to business owners generally. Like he's not talking to people

00:50:32.440 like us, dude, that sense of belonging that did something for my identity, um, as a, as like a,

00:50:38.540 an entrepreneur. And I stopped saying that, like, I stopped saying like, I'm trying to get into

00:50:41.520 business and whatever. And I, I just started saying, yeah, I'm an entrepreneur. Like my friend

00:50:45.120 jake just kind of imparted that into me and so i think that's where that brotherhood and that

00:50:48.940 communal element is a really powerful accelerator for guys who need that which every single person

00:50:54.240 struggling with pornography needs that identity shift um yeah those those two things go hand in

00:50:58.600 hand very very effectively yeah no that's powerful i i've been trying to like play around with this

00:51:04.220 idea of identity lately and i i think what a lot of guys wrestle with is that much of the way they've

00:51:10.400 identified themselves can be stripped away at any given point, you know? So for example, if heaven

00:51:16.340 forbid, you know, we're, you and I are both fathers. Well, if one of my children dies, am I still a

00:51:22.140 father? Potentially goes away. If, if, uh, I'm in the military, we see this, right? The, the insane

00:51:30.520 levels of, of suicide and suicidal ideation in the military is, is astronomical, uh, especially

00:51:37.600 when they are separated from service whether they retire out medically disqualify etc etc it's like

00:51:43.100 yeah they're no longer a soldier or a marine or fill in the blank and and I've wrestled with this

00:51:50.360 I'm like okay so if that's not who we are if we're not a soldier or we're not a business owner like

00:51:55.520 you said then who are we and there's only one thing that I've come to the conclusion of I'd

00:51:59.460 like your take on this there's only one thing that I am that is universally true and that's I'm a son

00:52:06.340 of God. All the rest is subject to interpretation. So I even think about fathering. Like I'm careful

00:52:14.400 to say I'm a dad. I am not a dad. I father my children. I don't, I don't, I am not a business

00:52:25.040 owner. I run a business. Like I'm, I'm very hesitant to identify myself as this title instead

00:52:35.000 of what I'm actually doing so I'm fathering my children I'm running this organization I think

00:52:41.460 that's a I don't want to say safer way to do it I think it's a more appropriate way to look at what

00:52:47.360 you do because then if whatever that external source or that external title is goes away I'm

00:52:55.960 not defined by that because I can father or at least be fatherly to other children if this

00:53:02.420 business goes away and crumbles and falls apart for whatever reason, whether it's my own doing or

00:53:06.920 external circumstances, I can still run other businesses and I'm not so bogged down or tied to

00:53:13.660 this title that is at the mercy of external circumstances. Yeah, dude, I think that's really

00:53:21.660 powerful. And I'll tell you why. Because once you complete that I am statement, inherently attached

00:53:29.040 to that statement is your value as a man so if if i am a business owner and that's really my core

00:53:36.240 identity that i embrace then my value is determined by how well my business performs

00:53:42.520 which means when the pnl looks great i feel like a million bucks i got all the confidence in the

00:53:47.080 world and when it doesn't i'm a shell of a man you know or i'm i'm or i'm like working overtime

00:53:53.120 to try to like get everything back in order and there's some merit to that but when it's when

00:53:57.060 you're doing it to prove yourself or to get your value, it becomes a problem. And I actually talked

00:54:01.840 about this in the book because basically the deep clean system is three pillars. It's build

00:54:06.040 emotional awareness or learn how to regulate, heal your heart, and shift your identity. So this

00:54:11.780 identity piece ties perfectly into the third pillar of the deep clean system. And one of the

00:54:16.660 things I talk about in the book is how you have to answer two fundamental questions about your

00:54:21.100 identity. Who are you? And just as importantly is who told you? Who are you and who told you?

00:54:28.840 So, um, so, and the quintessential example, you know, I was a pastor. A lot of what we do is

00:54:32.660 faith-based. So I'll use a Bible example. I hope your audience doesn't mind. Um, when Jesus gets

00:54:37.760 baptized, uh, the story it's documented in Luke three, Jesus gets baptized, um, the heavens rend

00:54:43.260 and there's a voice from heaven that says this, you are my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.

00:54:47.560 This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.

00:54:49.540 So Jesus kind of gets this affirmation from God the Father, like, this is my son, and

00:54:53.680 I'm happy with who he is.

00:54:54.700 I'm proud of him.

00:54:55.660 That would kind of be like our equivalent language today.

00:54:58.380 So if you read the next chapter, Jesus goes into the wilderness.

00:55:01.640 He fasts for 40 days, and after 40 days, he gets tempted by the enemy.

00:55:06.200 And so it says that the enemy tempts him three times, but the first temptation that the devil

00:55:11.220 uses is he says, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become bread.

00:55:16.380 So basically, the temptation is like, use your power.

00:55:19.360 You're hungry, right?

00:55:20.640 You fasted for 40 days.

00:55:22.140 Feed yourself.

00:55:22.860 You know, you're God.

00:55:23.700 You can convert stones into bread.

00:55:24.900 Go and make it happen.

00:55:26.280 And Jesus' reply is, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds

00:55:31.160 from the mouth of God.

00:55:32.720 And what's powerful about that is my personal conviction is that the temptation was not

00:55:37.580 to perform some miracle and turn stones into bread and make a meal.

00:55:41.200 I think the actual temptation was to for Jesus to believe that he had to prove himself

00:55:46.140 because the beginning of that statement was if you are the son of God when previously 40 days ago

00:55:52.900 the father had already told him you are my beloved son and in you I'm well pleased

00:55:57.120 and the enemy's saying well okay then prove it and Jesus is basically saying it's already been

00:56:02.340 proven because it came from the ultimate authority that we have access to in this universe and so I

00:56:08.200 think what's powerful about what you said and kind of like chiseling away at the identity and

00:56:11.740 trying to figure out what actually stands the test of time, you know, what can, what actually

00:56:15.900 endures and lasts beyond any set of circumstances or any season of life, dude, I think you nailed

00:56:22.300 it. It's that at the end of the day, we are children of God. And the reason that can never

00:56:27.860 change is because number one, no external circumstance changes it. But number two, we

00:56:32.200 know that God doesn't change his mind. And I think if you can find your identity there, again, what's

00:56:37.140 powerful about the value equation is now your value as a person also has no waiver. Now, it

00:56:44.040 doesn't mean that some days you might feel better about yourselves than others. That's fine. That's

00:56:48.540 part of the human experience. But it gives you something to fall back on that is actually already

00:56:52.860 established, already determined. You don't need to go and get a better P&L to feel better about

00:56:56.480 yourself. You need to go and lift more weights or put on more muscle to feel like a real man.

00:57:01.240 You can actually find your identity in something that's already established, period. And I think

00:57:05.200 that's really, really powerful. Do you think that, so I would agree with the overwhelming

00:57:11.100 sentiment of that, right? We don't need to prove ourselves to anybody else. We've already been

00:57:15.420 proven by the ultimate. Do you think that there is, I'm asking rhetorically because I believe

00:57:26.400 there is, but I'm curious about your perspective, but isn't there value in proving it to yourself

00:57:32.200 that you are this thing, whether it's a son of God, or you're strong, or you're devoted,

00:57:36.880 or you're loyal, or you're ambitious, or you're dedicated, or fill in the blank with your virtue

00:57:41.460 of choice? Yeah, I think it's necessary. I don't want people to get the wrong message and think

00:57:48.840 this is meant to produce some kind of apathy because, hey, you're proven, and you're good

00:57:52.180 to go, and you can kind of just kick your feet up. I think it's quite the opposite. We have a

00:57:56.160 proverb for this pillar, which is, I would rather be 100% my true self and rejected than 80% my

00:58:02.000 true self and accept it and i think when people when guys really i gotta hold i guess i gotta

00:58:07.960 stop you on this one real quick okay um i take a little bit of issue with i'm not what you're

00:58:13.940 saying no go for it not how you're saying it but what the words you're using so this this concept

00:58:20.320 in modern culture of true self you know we hear this i'm gonna be authentic i'm gonna be genuinely

00:58:28.020 myself and what I what I hear and what I see is an excuse for poor behavior typically like I'm

00:58:36.520 just being authentic you know guys will say like for example I might jump on your social media feed

00:58:42.660 and say you know Sathya you're an idiot because x y and z and you're you're a fool and people do

00:58:47.640 that all the time and I'm like hey I'm just being honest I'm just being true to myself and so I

00:58:55.560 think when people embrace this idea of like, I'm going to be authentically me, I'm going to be

00:59:01.280 transparent. I think what they're doing is they're giving them an excuse to be jerks,

00:59:08.940 to be less than they're capable of, to excuse away poor performance because they're being

00:59:15.840 authentic. Yeah. So I would say what I'm actually talking about is what you just did.

00:59:22.620 so I think one of the things that we observe in a lot of our clientele is a lot of them

00:59:28.020 have a bit of a people pleaser in them that they don't know how to control and so what you just

00:59:33.980 did which is you interrupted me you said actually I kind of see things differently I want to

00:59:37.860 challenge that a little bit to me that would be like the textbook definition of being 100%

00:59:42.260 your true self it's it's just saying hey I actually like I have a say in the matter as well

00:59:48.220 and I'm not going to diminish that, what I believe, what I stand for in the name of being

00:59:54.480 accepted or approved of. And I think that that's a skill. That would be an example of a skill that

01:00:00.200 actually needs to be developed in a lot of guys. Now, not all guys have that issue. But when I

01:00:05.620 talk about being 100% your true self and rejected, basically the real emphasis there is I will be

01:00:13.140 true to myself, even if it means that something I care, that I'll lose something I care about

01:00:18.020 someone's opinion, someone's approval, whatever else it might be. You know, you and I are in the

01:00:22.380 content space where that's something you have to get over at some point, if you're going to grow

01:00:26.100 an audience, right? Like the amount of hate that you must get, like my goodness. Um, and you would

01:00:30.640 be shocked. You'd be shocked at how much, how much hate I get as well. Like feminists come after me

01:00:34.640 and like all kinds of groups. Um, it's really, really weird. Um, that's just part of it. You

01:00:40.420 know, it's just part of it. And for me, when I started, dude, I was going back through some old

01:00:45.000 content. Like I, I would cower, like I would cower. Cause I would, I would share my opinion

01:00:50.360 about something. And then people would be like, I can't believe you think this, this is disgusting,

01:00:53.740 you know, whatever, whatever. And then I would, I would sometimes even issue like apology pieces,

01:00:58.120 like, I'm sorry, that was a little bit insensitive. And after a while I realized,

01:01:01.280 wait a minute, like, actually, no, it wasn't like, I wasn't being like, I think the examples

01:01:06.080 you're using are, are probably a little bit more extreme where someone is a jerk or they are

01:01:09.900 immature, right. You know, guys are going to do that. I wasn't doing that. I was actually,

01:01:13.580 I was actually very nicely saying what I believe and I've had to learn. I'm not going to apologize

01:01:18.100 for that, you know, cause it's something that I fundamentally have a conviction about

01:01:22.300 that I believe to be true and I'm gonna, I'm gonna stand by it. So that's kind of more what

01:01:28.180 I mean by the statement. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I'm glad we talked about it. Like even

01:01:32.880 with apologies, um, I've, I've got a friend, a mutual friend of ours who made a public apology

01:01:37.960 about something he did not need to publicly apologize about i i just made a rule i i apologize

01:01:44.620 privately and one-to-one i do not make group apologies because yeah if if i post something

01:01:52.300 on social even if i was insensitive and and i have a tendency of doing that i get a little

01:01:56.980 hot-headed at times and i'm a pretty black and white thinker and so yeah i tend to like just

01:02:02.240 throw stuff out there. It's not always really coherent or respectful. I don't make public

01:02:10.140 apologies. Like if you decided to be offended about that, even if I was in the wrong, that's

01:02:16.380 for you to decide, not for me. But if I, if I slighted you personally in some way, I will make

01:02:22.240 a personal apology with a private phone call and tell you, Hey, I'm sorry. Um, yeah, it depends on

01:02:28.580 nature of it though right because i would because actually like one thing that really

01:02:32.300 gained you some respect in my books was when you went through your divorce and you did a post about

01:02:37.300 it and you talked about i don't know if it was an apology so maybe maybe it's it's a slightly

01:02:41.140 different context but to me it came across as an apology like hey there's some things in my life

01:02:45.820 that haven't been aligned with the message i've been portraying i'm gonna be better i'm sorry this

01:02:50.120 happened again i don't know i'm putting words in your mouth now but to me i'm like actually that

01:02:54.520 was I think that's that would be another great example of like actually you're just I think

01:02:59.160 you're being honest about about who you are and where you were at um maybe after a season where

01:03:03.740 where you weren't or there were things going on that people didn't know about I think that's

01:03:07.480 pretty healthy but in that case I think you you owed it to your audience because that would be

01:03:11.100 like if I was secretly watching pornography for the last couple years I would I would issue an

01:03:15.360 apology to my audience right um no I don't think I would and I don't and and I don't think I did

01:03:23.220 I explained, and that was a move to get me back in integrity, but I didn't, what I was saying was,

01:03:30.160 okay, so let's take your scenario, for example. So let's hypothetically say you've been watching

01:03:35.340 pornography for the past five years. Was your message wrong? No. So were people served by your

01:03:44.820 message or hindered by it? What would you say? A hundred percent served, right? A hundred percent.

01:03:49.240 So what apology do you owe to them?

01:03:52.380 I guess for me, my whole thing is follow me.

01:03:57.260 Like I was addicted to porn for 15 years as a pastor, university researcher.

01:04:00.740 I've been clean the last 10 years.

01:04:02.500 Here's what's worked for me.

01:04:04.340 Follow it.

01:04:05.700 I don't think that about you though, Cynthia, if I can be really blunt.

01:04:10.100 I don't think your message is follow me.

01:04:11.920 I think your message is follow God.

01:04:13.620 I believe that about you.

01:04:14.840 I believe, I believe, I don't know your, your, your spiritual beliefs other than what you've

01:04:20.820 shared, but your message to me doesn't come across as follow me. It's follow the truth.

01:04:26.480 And the truth is this based on your spiritual beliefs.

01:04:31.280 Oh, you just made my marketing team super happy. They're going to love that. Cause that is,

01:04:34.880 that is the message we're trying to get across. I think, I think I, I, I, for me, I definitely

01:04:38.960 feel a responsibility of, and it, I guess it, it could be semantics here, Ryan, but I would say

01:04:44.680 i would need to issue something because i would be living out of integrity if that makes sense

01:04:50.320 definitely right so maybe yeah is it an apology i yeah i guess that's where i think that's where

01:04:56.700 maybe maybe we're using different language but to me i'm like i would have to communicate something

01:05:01.540 because for me to say you guys shouldn't watch pornography it's terrible for you it's been in

01:05:04.980 my life like there's a misalignment there that needs to get addressed i guess what you're saying

01:05:08.740 specifically though is you don't need to apologize i wouldn't need to apologize for the content that

01:05:13.060 i had created in the past is that what you mean well i mean i didn't i didn't hurt anybody in some

01:05:18.300 measurable way there there was no what when i told people about what i was dealing with

01:05:23.480 there was no look they may have interpreted that as a sense of betrayal absolutely but i did not

01:05:31.720 hurt anybody by my own behavior i well that's not true i hurt my wife and i hurt my children

01:05:39.440 and I've apologized to them individually and personally,

01:05:42.480 but I didn't hurt the public at large.

01:05:46.260 And what I told them when I came clean with what I was doing

01:05:49.260 is I said, hey, this is what's going on.

01:05:53.140 This is how I've behaved.

01:05:54.220 And so now I'm trying to get into alignment,

01:05:56.260 but I'm not apologizing to you.

01:05:59.020 You have not been slighted by my behavior.

01:06:01.880 In fact, you're better off because I shared what I shared,

01:06:06.840 even though I struggled at times.

01:06:09.440 to uphold it in my own personal life yeah yeah that's interesting yeah i i haven't i haven't

01:06:16.020 really gone that deep down this to be honest i mean thankfully it's been a while since i've had

01:06:19.040 to apologize for anything good yeah that's a good thing don't do it don't don't put yourself in a

01:06:22.640 position where you have to like actually debate those things that's the best let me ask you this

01:06:27.900 do you think that i already know the answer but what let me ask it this way what would you say

01:06:33.980 to a man who says that pornography is not immoral. You know, you've got two consenting adults,

01:06:42.220 one consenting to show her body and use that for visual or physical satisfaction. And one guy who

01:06:51.260 agrees to compensate her with time, attention, energy, money, et cetera. Those are two consulting

01:06:57.320 adult consenting adults what would you say to that guy uh well slight correction is three

01:07:04.360 consenting adults because you're watching so that's because what that's a way because what

01:07:09.940 because you're watching there's a consumer right so you're talking about two people on the screen

01:07:14.340 and then the third person who's watching the pornography okay fair fair enough yes fair enough

01:07:17.740 yes fair enough so i mean i think that would be a good starting point because if we're talking

01:07:22.980 about what's moral and immoral um there's nothing you know there's there's nothing generally in a

01:07:28.580 sexual conversation that is moral that involves three parties usually it's all it's always two

01:07:32.960 so that's a good starting point now again you can push back and be like well what if i'm just

01:07:36.460 looking at pictures of a girl then it's me and her and you know whatever whatever exactly right

01:07:39.580 so so i i understand that so i think i think at a deeper level i would say there's a couple things

01:07:45.760 number one the biggest lie that guys believe is that pornography only affects me it only affects

01:07:50.920 me um i would love to go through um the guys that have been in the iron council i can show you all

01:07:56.580 the guys that have come through deep clean over the years that will tell you firsthand pornography

01:08:00.340 affected um their marriage i had affected future spouses i just had somebody reach out to me very

01:08:06.200 recently who's like dude i've been following your stuff was single knew i probably should have got

01:08:11.460 this taken care of didn't i'm married i thought marriage would take care of it it did for the

01:08:16.300 first three months then we got into our big first fight then we had a kid like you can fill in your

01:08:20.680 blank. I hear the story all the time. I'm back to pornography. She found out she's devastated.

01:08:24.540 She wants to leave. Um, I get messages from women who want to leave their husbands over it.

01:08:28.760 So I think, I think we have to understand if you have any interest in having a romantic

01:08:32.180 relationship or you have one, your partner is likely going to be affected if she has any sense

01:08:36.800 of self-worth. I think the, the second thing, and this is to the point earlier about guys who quit

01:08:42.640 pornography, step into their purpose. They take better care of their bodies and their physique

01:08:46.280 and their fitness, there is something inherently destructive about pornography. So probably the

01:08:51.500 most prolific researcher on porn addiction from a neuroscience perspective is a guy named Dr.

01:08:55.700 Gary Wilson. He passed away during COVID, unfortunately. But we're talking about over

01:08:59.780 800 peer-reviewed journal articles about this stuff. Very, very, very knowledgeable. And his

01:09:05.220 conclusion was that there were four main effects that pornography has on the brain. Desensitization.

01:09:12.220 And so that's why, you know, the stuff that you used to watch back in the day doesn't really

01:09:16.080 cut it anymore your brain built some tolerance and now you watch more hardcore content more niche

01:09:21.740 content maybe stuff that you even thought you'd never watch um that happens uh maybe it's why

01:09:27.260 watching stuff online doesn't cut it for you anymore and now you're meeting up with people

01:09:30.840 or whatever it is so desensitization is the escalation and you know what's interesting

01:09:34.820 about that i've talked with women who are adamant and i believe them by the way are adamant that

01:09:40.080 they can tell through sex which of their partners watch porn and which don't oh dude that's not

01:09:49.740 that's not like that's not even a debate for me that's such a no-brainer it's it changes so much

01:09:55.600 how you how you show up and how you engage there yeah even to be honest most women like most women

01:10:03.500 that ask me hey like i think my partner might be watching pornography like what can i do i'm like

01:10:07.880 oh if you think he is he i would almost bet money he is they always like their intuition is just

01:10:13.400 is usually very on point what is it what is it about what is it about the way that a man shows

01:10:18.080 up whether it's in the bedroom or just generally that women pick up on so okay there's layers to

01:10:26.200 this i think the um the physical sexual part of it is that women for women sex is a very emotional

01:10:32.820 experience it is for men as well but it's not necessarily the thing that's at the forefront

01:10:37.180 when they're engaging so for women they they will feel they feel the difference in the emotional

01:10:42.740 connection and when your brain is programmed by pornography that's not a woman that's an object

01:10:48.160 for your pleasure so the way that you show up emotionally is very very different than if that's

01:10:53.700 a woman a daughter of god if we want to use some language from before you're going to engage and

01:10:59.520 treat her very differently even when you're engaging sexually i would say actually especially

01:11:03.500 when you're engaging sexually yeah so that's the first level of um empathy and consideration in

01:11:11.880 the bedroom that may not exist otherwise eye contact where do you go with your hands how

01:11:17.820 considered are you of her what is the conversation is there dialogue going on like all all it's all

01:11:23.840 little things that women may not even be able to articulate but they they're picking up that

01:11:28.260 information they're they're compiling that data and they're saying like yeah something's off or

01:11:32.000 this guy's not as connected interesting okay keep going the other i would say the other layer

01:11:37.060 emotionally for women is um when the conversation starts to get more personal even we're not talking

01:11:43.940 about sexual things anymore but just when it's more intimate women can feel when there's that

01:11:47.600 block there like when they're getting the wall and so if they're getting if they're getting the

01:11:51.980 block or the wall it's not like oh he's watching pornography but they're like oh something feels

01:11:56.440 off there um i had a a buddy reach out to me this is a bit of an unfortunate story but

01:12:01.100 he's been married for about a decade now, probably two years in his, his wife is kind of, can kind

01:12:07.880 of tell like something's like, something's just like not fully adding up. And so she talks to him

01:12:14.580 about it. She tries to talk to him about it a couple of times. She's kind of getting stonewalled

01:12:17.880 and he's like, no, like everything's good. I'm, I'm very happy with the emotional connection.

01:12:22.360 Like we're good. So they get a little bit, they go further down the track and, um, and then he,

01:12:28.300 he comes to me, you know, and, and he's, he wanted to talk through some issues. And I, I asked him

01:12:33.620 like, cause his behavior was very indicative of, of a specific thing that you'll see in a minute.

01:12:38.980 And so I had just asked him like, Hey, like, tell me a little bit about like, you know, what was

01:12:43.340 your upbringing? Like, you know, a super rigid religious home. And I'm like, okay, yeah, some

01:12:47.800 things were kind of adding up, but then, so then I was like, okay, dude, have you experienced any,

01:12:51.680 any sexual abuse before? And he's like, Oh my gosh, you know, he was like a little bit, a little bit

01:12:56.120 caught off guard by the question but he's like yeah i haven't really told told anyone about it

01:12:59.600 and he's like actually my wife has been asking me for the last like year or two if i if i was ever

01:13:03.820 sexually abused because she's just she could just feel i guess that something was was wrong um and

01:13:09.200 so he he came clean about it he did the right thing but she was obviously really upset she was

01:13:12.960 hurt um because she had suspected what a selfish thing like what was she heard about because he

01:13:19.540 lied because she asked him were you sexually abused and he said no okay but like look i get

01:13:25.180 both sides of the equation but what a selfish thing to be hurt that a man is trying to

01:13:32.540 position himself as as a leader or somebody who's capable somebody who's you know bold and assertive

01:13:39.540 and she's upset because he got sexually molested as a child that's crazy to me it's so selfish yeah

01:13:45.340 so i mean again i'm not giving you the full picture there like they they worked through

01:13:49.660 things and they did it well um but she was upset about the dishonesty and honestly ryan i think

01:13:54.940 that goes back to what we were saying earlier. Like he did something that, or he was portraying

01:13:59.100 something that wasn't as it was. So he was, he was correcting it and making it, making it right.

01:14:04.760 Yeah. Again, I don't know the nuance, but like we, we can't like, it's crazy to me that we

01:14:14.520 societally expect men to show up fully and capably and strong and bold and courageous. And, um,

01:14:22.540 and then you know then women in society will ask them to be vulnerable and the minute that we are

01:14:29.220 and we actually share the truth we're looked down upon we're frowned upon we're diminished

01:14:33.840 we're punished for it like you said and then and then we societally say well he lied of course he

01:14:41.360 did because he was trying to position himself to be the man this is a completely off tangent here

01:14:46.960 this one gets me fired up a little obviously no that's all right he's trying to be the man that

01:14:51.940 you wanted him to be yeah i'm not saying she's a horrible woman by any means i'm just saying

01:14:57.820 don't expect your man to come clean knowing that and history showing that the minute he does

01:15:06.340 he you get the ick for lack of better yeah for sure so i i also disagree with those narratives

01:15:14.460 out there that are like men should be vulnerable then they're vulnerable and they're penalized i'm

01:15:18.200 not about it at all right i do think if you're hiding a lie if you're hiding something in your

01:15:23.180 marriage though i think a spouse has a right to be upset about it that would be an upsetting thing

01:15:27.020 that's fair it's fair enough you know yeah like i think that's the core of it now again if that's

01:15:31.680 all it is and she's arms crossed and he has to go and again we see this as well it's very

01:15:35.780 unfortunate and the spouse arms crossed and you got to go figure your stuff out because you're

01:15:39.860 the porn addict you're the person with the problems and they're not you know they're not

01:15:43.420 doing their part. They're not getting help. They're not getting support. They're not coming

01:15:45.740 back with compassion, empathy, understanding. Absolutely. That person's going to be just as

01:15:50.560 much problems as the porn addiction itself. So you and I agree on that front, but I do think

01:15:55.800 if you're hiding something, you'd have to come clean about it. So I agree. And I was going to

01:16:00.660 ask you that question. So I would agree with that. So I think, I think there's some nuance here that

01:16:05.660 we're, we're covering. So that's good. Yeah. And if you want to go a step further, I would say

01:16:11.240 where the woman has the right to be really upset is if she catches him so i think in this story

01:16:18.320 he confessed it right so he's at least coming clean that's like you're saying that's a decision

01:16:22.880 to be vulnerable but if i'm hiding i'm hiding and then you catch me and then you're mad at me i'm

01:16:28.460 like well yeah i did this thing that i know i wasn't supposed to be doing in the relationship

01:16:32.060 i hit it so of course you're going to be mad but the difference the difference in this scenario is

01:16:37.460 he wasn't, now he may have been watching pornography. That's separate from the conversation

01:16:42.040 we're having. Something happened to him. He was victimized. He didn't actively go out and engage

01:16:48.520 in poor behavior. Yes. That's the difference. Yes, absolutely. No, I agree with you 100%.

01:16:54.720 So, uh, to loop it back, I think when women engage sexually, they can often tell there's,

01:17:00.920 there's, there's just tells. And then I think emotionally, if they're not able to like,

01:17:06.700 if there's certain places they can't get into they can't access emotionally they can also feel

01:17:11.420 that and it does again it doesn't mean like you know he's definitely a porn addict it's just where

01:17:15.820 they start to wonder like why is there that lack of intimacy or why do i hit a wall when i question

01:17:20.380 for sure yeah yeah i mean we would do the same thing as men like if our wives wouldn't engage

01:17:26.680 with us for a week or two weeks or a month i'd be like okay where's she getting where's she getting

01:17:31.620 her needs met because it's not here yeah 100 yeah yeah 100 of course yeah um i'll finish off

01:17:39.880 my thought about the the neuroscience real quick if i may so desensitization um hypofrontality this

01:17:46.140 is another big one so you have the prefrontal cortex the front part of your brain um this is

01:17:51.600 where you develop your sense of self identity what we were talking about a few minutes ago

01:17:55.300 um this is also where you learn um they call it executive decision making or functioning so you

01:18:02.220 can see long term you know you save up money you don't just impulse spy everything that all happens

01:18:07.140 here hypo means less of that so you actually get less circulation to that part of your brain

01:18:11.620 and this is why a lot of guys who who actually get engaged in pornography make

01:18:15.540 bad decisions with finances they make bad decisions with food all that kind of like

01:18:20.280 it's all very interconnected because it's actually affecting structures in your brain

01:18:23.800 um sensitization do you think that's correlation or causation right is it you know the way you do

01:18:30.540 one thing is the way you do everything so is that is this hyper front frontality i think you called

01:18:36.080 it is that a byproduct of watching pornography or is pornography a byproduct of the way you're

01:18:41.200 doing it in other aspects of your life because you're always looking for instant gratification

01:18:45.640 well it probably is to be honest it probably is initiated or instigated by pornography because

01:18:52.720 most of us get exposed to pornography at such a young age yeah right like the average 10 or 11

01:18:57.600 years old yeah dude the average age of first exposure now is eight um it's crazy i've got a

01:19:04.500 10 year old i can't even imagine him looking at pornography or even seeing it two years ago it's

01:19:09.120 crazy it's right and but here's the big difference and we we were talking about this a little while

01:19:14.280 ago what you and i got exposed to like a sears catalog or like i had to download videos on kazah

01:19:21.420 or LimeWire that like, so it took, it took hours. I had to, I had to hide it on the device,

01:19:27.620 like the subfolder directory, you know? And the reality is like kids now just have it. They have

01:19:33.620 it right there. And like you said, it's all BDSM. It's violence. It's a great, like it's super

01:19:38.300 intense. And, um, sexual stimulation is processed in your brain 20% faster than any other kind.

01:19:44.900 So the, the programming that comes from like sexual exposure, like pornography is pretty real.

01:19:50.320 So I would make a strong argument that it probably does start there.

01:19:53.620 It's maybe not, it's not all initiated by pornography.

01:19:56.580 Like I'm not that guy that everything bad in the world and in a guy's life is because

01:19:59.820 of porn, but certainly it plays a major role in it.

01:20:03.240 Yeah.

01:20:03.740 Yeah.

01:20:04.160 Cool.

01:20:04.660 Keep going.

01:20:06.120 Sensitization is the third one.

01:20:07.420 So this sounds almost like a contradiction because desensitization was the first one

01:20:11.180 in the list.

01:20:12.820 Sensitization is when non-sexual stimulation triggers porn use.

01:20:18.160 So I'll give you a great example from my own life.

01:20:21.460 If I ever walked into my room, probably 10 o'clock at night or later, and I had left my laptop open, that was like an instant cue for my brain.

01:20:30.460 Like I would just go there right away.

01:20:32.280 Something about seeing the laptop open, that's not true for everybody.

01:20:35.960 In fact, I would say most people can see an open laptop.

01:20:38.000 They don't think anything of it.

01:20:39.080 But when I was really addicted to pornography, that was like my brain had been sensitized to that particular visual because that was such a part of my ritual.

01:20:47.880 I mean, I look, I think that's true. So when I was watching pornography, I knew there was a problem when I would be out in public and I would just see an attractive woman and I would think about her with her clothes off or, hey, she's got nice breasts or like everything.

01:21:06.900 just a woman just like a random woman at the airport or a restaurant and like I wasn't even

01:21:12.720 necessarily attracted to her but it all became sexualized I'm like oh yeah this is a problem

01:21:19.560 like everything is being viewed through the lens of me getting off frankly yeah yep exactly so

01:21:26.880 that's exactly what sensitization is it's cues and cravings and then the fourth effect on the brain

01:21:31.820 is, um, which one did I, did I miss here? Uh, low stress response. So, and this is, and actually I

01:21:39.000 would love for you to speak into this a little bit because this is the low stress response thing

01:21:42.900 is actually from all of these, but this one, especially they've actually first observed in

01:21:48.180 like alcohol addiction or drug addiction, which is much more studied and researched,

01:21:52.320 but it's a common thing that as people get deeper down their addictions, the understanding is

01:21:56.600 their ability to handle their general stresses and responsibilities in life gets reduced because

01:22:00.880 they get so consumed by the substance or the behavior. Would you agree with that? Was that

01:22:05.480 your experience? Uh, the way I'm understanding you're saying that, yeah, I mean, when I was

01:22:10.300 drinking, even just a drink would make me more, more agitated, less patience, more agitated.

01:22:15.920 Did it affect your ability, like to, to manage the, like to manage the business or to handle

01:22:20.080 curve balls in the business, changes in the business or curve balls at home,

01:22:23.200 farts on your kids when i was in the throes of my alcohol abuse i would say

01:22:27.580 i did not think so but yeah when i got sober i realized well i convinced myself i said well

01:22:37.400 you know i'm looser i'm more enjoyable to be around i'm a better podcaster

01:22:42.280 hell cynthia you and you and i i'd have to look at the dates you and i may have done a podcast

01:22:47.080 together where I was drunk. Right. And I convinced myself that I'm a better podcaster. I'm, I'm

01:22:54.520 better at this. I'm better at that. And I was still kind of checking all the boxes. So I convinced

01:22:59.920 myself that I'm better this way. And then, and then I got sober and within a couple of weeks,

01:23:06.680 I was like, Oh my gosh, like I was so ineffective. I can get, I can get all of my work done in three

01:23:14.500 or four hours and it was taking me three or four days to do the same level of work, but I didn't

01:23:19.320 realize it until I was sober. So the answer to your question is yes, for sure. But I did not

01:23:25.160 acknowledge it in the throes of my addiction. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think that, that,

01:23:31.880 that would be like, it's very symptomatic. So a lot of guys, actually, I talked about this at

01:23:35.520 the forge. I got a lot of comments about it. A lot of guys experience a low working memory from

01:23:40.240 porn usage so low working memory is when you know you open your phone because you need to text your

01:23:45.000 buddy and then 10 minutes later you're on a completely different app and you forget why

01:23:49.840 you opened your phone in the first place and you didn't text your buddy so this is like or he

01:23:55.000 responds back to you like i've had this where you text your buddy and he responds back to you

01:24:02.220 and you have a conversation with him and then the next day you're like wait i need to i need to

01:24:07.160 message to thea and you go back you're like oh shit i had an entire conversation with him i

01:24:12.760 completely forgot about that yeah yeah yeah so um yeah well again like there's plenty of data

01:24:20.640 that shows pornography will have this effect on your brain and all of it kind of stems back from

01:24:24.740 that reduced stress response um and some hypofrontality as well the other thing we were

01:24:28.980 talking about man this is so good like we could keep going um i just know this this has not been

01:24:35.980 a big issue for me you know the alcohol stuff has been more so but there's so much correlation

01:24:40.360 here that I just know what it's like to be to be consumed you know I know what it's like to

01:24:46.560 to create the stories that you create it's not that bad everybody's consenting it's not impacting

01:24:52.640 me it's not affecting me I know all of those stories and this is why I think it's so so

01:24:57.100 powerful to talk about because I also believe and I'll say this and I'd be curious what you think

01:25:01.320 about this? When I was deeply involved in my addiction, I also knew at the core there was

01:25:11.860 something wrong. And I was really good at masking it and hiding it and telling myself it wasn't the

01:25:18.620 case. I imagine that's the same with pornography. So what would you tell a guy who maybe is just

01:25:25.120 consumed with usage but is also deceiving himself knowing that deep down inside he knows what's

01:25:33.760 happening he knows what's going on yeah i mean i think if you have to justify it that probably

01:25:39.140 tells you everything you need to know um but i would i would ask a different question i would

01:25:44.260 actually ask like who do you want to be five years from now and do you think you have a better chance

01:25:49.520 of becoming that person with or without pornography in your life and i i have to imagine that will

01:25:55.120 that will clarify the priorities like i have to imagine for you at some point you realize like

01:25:59.060 actually the person that i want to be probably is probably going to be better off without alcohol

01:26:03.280 maybe you didn't realize that right away but at some point and at some point you probably knew

01:26:07.720 like actually the person that i want to be is without alcohol because who i am with alcohol

01:26:12.140 is a problem i think with pornography it has to be the same i remember jordan peterson said this

01:26:16.640 i was uh i paid for like a vip ticket at one of his events um and he somebody had asked him about

01:26:21.940 casual sex dude it was the funniest response i wish it was recorded because he he basically was

01:26:26.340 like he's like casual sex is the stupidest stupidest thing i've ever heard of he's like

01:26:29.940 sex he's like what is casual about sex there's there's nothing casual about it he's like that's

01:26:34.460 the most oxymoronic thing in our society to think that you can have sex casually anyways it was a

01:26:38.480 genius response but one of the things he said he went on a little tangent about addictions

01:26:42.300 and he said the he because he used to be an addiction psychologist before he kind of um

01:26:46.920 brought into his horizons oh i didn't know that and yeah yeah for for years i forget how long but

01:26:51.640 he's very knowledgeable about it and he said the main reason that people quit addiction

01:26:55.840 is because they find something better to do and so what better thing could you be doing in your

01:27:02.900 life if pornography wasn't around like what better husband could you be what better thing

01:27:07.480 might you be doing for your kids? I have, dude, I hope I don't get emotional, but I might. This

01:27:12.820 story always gets me. I was recording a testimonial with a guy that had finished our program. He'd

01:27:17.160 been clean of pornography for, I think it was about nine months at the time. But he had a faith

01:27:21.560 revitalization and a bunch of things in his life turned around. And he said, my kids, my kids don't

01:27:28.140 know that it's been nine months since I've watched pornography, but they do know it's been nine

01:27:33.500 months since I yelled at them. And I'm just like, dude, that like, to me, that's it. Like what,

01:27:40.420 like maybe his kids never need to know about that, but they see the difference in dad. He's

01:27:45.300 showing up differently. He's a different man because, because he's, he figured out, he figured

01:27:49.720 this area of his life out. So, you know, what, what changes in your life, uh, family wise,

01:27:55.520 maybe in your career, um, what changes? Um, a lot of guys quit pornography and then they make more

01:28:01.240 money. Um, I just, just talk to a guy who with all the energy, all the time he got back, he started

01:28:07.900 going to work early. Boss noticed it. He's been clean of pornography three years now since he

01:28:12.780 finished our program. Um, and he's gotten two raises and two promotions in the last year because

01:28:17.320 just with his extra energy, he just started showing up differently. He started being more

01:28:20.840 productive. So, um, it's, it's, I'm not going to try to logic you into this thing if you think

01:28:26.500 pornography is okay to keep around, but I just, the reason I do what I do is because I see what

01:28:31.220 guys can be. And I see pornography hold them back. And I think if, if that's you, you know,

01:28:35.640 and if you know, there's more, there's more that you could experience and you're not experiencing

01:28:38.400 it. I think you have a much better shot at it without pornography. Yeah, I would agree without

01:28:44.320 any addiction. I would definitely agree. Well, Cynthia, I appreciate you, man. I know you've

01:28:48.200 got your inner circle. I know you've got some other programs available. So for anybody who's

01:28:52.420 interested in learning more about what you do and connecting with you, where do they do that?

01:28:56.600 yeah thelastrelapsebook.com is your place to get the book i mentioned that a couple times that's a

01:29:01.980 great place to kind of get get the blueprint understand our framework but look if you're you

01:29:05.940 know we're an hour and 20 minutes into this conversation if you made it this far and you

01:29:09.540 know it's time to do something about this um inner circle is our brotherhood of guys from

01:29:14.080 around the world pursuing freedom from pornography uh all the stories i shared um they they are going

01:29:19.480 through that exact same system right now and um and so we'd love to invite you to be a part of

01:29:24.600 that if uh the inner circle sounds right for you and uh we'll i'll send the link over to your team

01:29:28.820 ryan so they can throw it in there if people want to check it out excellent we'll sync it all up

01:29:32.540 brother i appreciate you keep up the good work men need this and uh i'm glad to know you and uh i know

01:29:37.880 a lot of guys are getting value from what you do so thanks for joining us today thanks ryan thanks

01:29:42.320 for having me gentlemen there you go my conversation with mr satia sam a good friend of mine and

01:29:49.340 obviously such an intelligent and powerful speaker on the subject of overcoming pornography

01:29:56.840 addiction. And it's something that so many men need to address. And I hope it helps you.

01:30:01.320 If you want to connect with him, do so at sathiasam.com or on the gram at sathiasam.

01:30:07.700 Also just take a screenshot. There's a lot of guys that you work with, your friends, your

01:30:11.500 father, your brother, your cousins, colleagues, coworkers who might be struggling with overcoming

01:30:17.640 pornography addiction. And if that's the case, I want you to introduce them to this show. Just

01:30:23.340 take a screenshot, tag me, tag Sathya, and let people know what you're listening to and how it

01:30:28.820 serves you. Guys, other than that, make sure that you check out our war room on the differences

01:30:37.220 between the enforcer, the rescuer, and the anchor. Again, that's going to be held September 16th at

01:30:42.180 8 p.m. Eastern, head to orderofman.com slash war room, orderofman.com slash war room. And then

01:30:49.400 check out a knife from Montana knife company for your upcoming hunt. And if you do have an upcoming

01:30:56.320 hunt, now you know what knife to use. If you do not have an upcoming hunt, now you know what knife

01:31:02.480 you need to get when you get that scheduled. All right, guys, we will be back tomorrow for

01:31:07.780 ask me anything. Until then, go out there, take action, and become the man you are meant to be.

01:31:13.300 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge of your

01:31:17.580 life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - September 01, 2026

SATHIYA SAM ｜ How Porn is Destroying Minds, Marriages, and Men

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