[00:00:00] Intro: We’re saying goodbye to the rigid numbers and strict budgets, and putting relationships back at the heart of personal finance. This is more than a podcast, it’s an invitation to reimagine your money story and journey with us through a landscape of intuitive strategies and abundance. Join a community that nurtures transformative financial mindsets.

[00:00:25] Welcome to Intuitive Finance. I’m your host, Dylan Bain.

[00:00:36] Dylan Bain: Hello, and welcome to Intuitive Finance. I’m your host, Dylan Bain, and today we’re coming at you with an interview with Mr. Traver Boehm. Traver is an author of two books, Today I Rise and Man UNcivilized. He’s a two time TEDx speaker, men’s coach, and founder of the UNcivilized Men’s Movement. He’s helped men all over the world become uncivilized as they wake up to the power of their hearts, the brilliance of their bodies, the wisdom of their souls, so that they can blaze their own path by uniquely blending both the primal and divine with him. He is dedicated to doing his part to helping end the suffering in men and the suffering caused by men by guiding them through their journey into an actualized version of masculinity.

[00:01:15] Traver’s work is unbelievable in terms of its depth. And I will tell you, when I first found Traver’s work, I was kind of shocked that there were men in this world who talked this way. A lot of his work is around the idea of Nice Guys, which is a technical term, and I start off the interview kind of with a gotcha question about Nice Guys and his course, all about how men can say goodbye to the Nice Guy and be able to step more fully into their power and in this world.

[00:01:42] This interview is a banger. I am really excited for you guys to be able to listen to it, glean a lot of value from it. So without further ado, Mr. Traver Boehm.

[00:01:51] Welcome to the show, Traver. Thank you so much for being on.

[00:01:54] Traver Boehm: My pleasure, brother. I’m looking forward to jamming with you.

[00:01:56] Dylan Bain: Fantastic. Well, you know, as we’re going through our rebranding, really focusing on the relational side of our finances, you were one of the people who like, immediately came to my head of like, oh, this is a guy who works with men in a really unique and unusual way.

[00:02:11] In particular, what are called Nice Guys. And I really would like to just kind of start there. What are Nice Guys? And why do you think they need to die?

[00:02:20] Traver Boehm: This is so I’m using a particular term here, like think of capital N, capital G, as opposed to like, oh, just a nice guy. And this is a pattern that prior, I used to say — prior to working with Duey, who you — I know you’ve had on the show, I’d say this is very codependent men, but he changed that definition for me. And it’s really men who are enmeshed with a female partner, with a boss. It’s men who, usually through childhood trauma or some kind of incident or a lack of self-worth or a lack of self-esteem, look to the outside world to source their okayness rather than feeling okay in their own skin, in their own bodies, with what they want to do with their lives, and then presenting that to the outside world.

[00:03:07] So this is a guy who most often didn’t have a strong male figure in his home or had an abusive male figure in his home. And so he learned early on, oh, men are bad, masculinity is bad, or the only way to make life safe and okay is by appeasing the feminine. Like a strong mother figure, an abusive mother figure, is often common too.

[00:03:33] I grew up in a house with a very vehement and often violent feminist mother and two very vehement and very violent because we’re all kids — older sisters. And a dad who, God bless him, worked his ass off but wasn’t home a lot. And when he was home, he was checked out. He drank a lot. So my imprinting, my early patterning was I’m okay when the women around me are feel okay. When they’re not angry, when they’re happy, I’m okay.

[00:04:05] And so that carried into dating and carried into relationships of, oh, if I just make sure that everybody around me is happy, especially women, then I’m going to be okay. And because I think I was youngest, I was the only male, like my needs weren’t really considered. There are two older sisters versus me. So if we if we did a vote, who wanted to go to dinner? Where I got asked out, what are we going to do today? It doesn’t matter what I want to do. And I know that’s an oversimplification, but that was the patterning and the imprinting. So I also got in a relationship and it would have my ex-wife would ask like, well, what do you need? And be like, nothing, I need to take care of you. I need to make sure everybody’s okay. I need to put everybody else’s needs ahead of my own.

[00:04:48] So if you think about that, Dylan, like that’s an easy set of patterns to describe, but it also shows up then with me not going out in the world and saying, hey, boom! Here’s what I want to do. Here’s this bold stake I’m going to put in the ground, which is going to upset people, because any bold stake be put in the ground upsets people. I’m not going to be willing to have people upset because I’m only okay if they’re okay. So you find guys who are very collapsed or very contracted, guys who don’t think they have whatever it takes to go out and be bold, to be brave, to do the thing that they actually want to do with their lives.

[00:05:27] Then they get trapped in these cycles of like, I didn’t want to be an engineer, but my dad was an engineer. I didn’t want to be a doctor, but my mom wanted me a doctor. I don’t want to be in this relationship or I want to have a different role in this relationship, but I don’t feel like if I speak up or share my needs or create any kind of rift in the relationship that I will be okay on the other side of it. Which in itself — it did my marriage — like it kills relationships. A lot of women are often attracted to, “Nice Guys” in the beginning, because it feels like safety. And so many women have come out of traumatic or abusive relationships, and then what’s the first thing they look to? How do I get the opposite of that? Oh, this guy agrees with me all the time, I do whatever I want. I can kind of walk all over him. I know he’s never going to get — we’re not going to have conflict. This is great. This feels like safety.

[00:06:24] But eventually the facade wears off and she realizes one, I’m not really attracted to a man who’s not showing up with any kind of firmness, with any kind of backbone, with any kind of structure. And two, if I can walk all over his ass, what’s going to happen if there’s an actual issue? I’m actually not safe. I don’t feel attracted to him. This is when you get the guys that are, they hear, I love you, but I’m not in love with you as she’s walking out the door, right? And these are then the same guys who will call me — I know I’ve heard it too — and go, I don’t know how this happened. I gave her everything! I made her my whole life.

[00:07:03] And I hear that sentence and I’m like, bro, have a seat. Here, I’m about to take your entire world and fuck it upside down because you’ve had the right intention, but you’ve gone about it in the wrong way. That’s the set. And that’s — and I love these guys. And you know, you asked like, why do you think they need to die? I have a course and a chapter of my book called Kill The Nice Guy. I don’t think these guys need to die. I think the part of them inside that looks to the outside world for validation and to feel okay and to feel safe, that part needs to die. And the part that needs to be born is I’m going to be safe because I can take care of myself. I can take care of my own needs. I have a vision. I have a mission. I have a purpose. I know why I get up every damn day. I’m doing something.

[00:07:48] And if everybody in the world, especially women — and I don’t want this to happen — but I’ve asked like so many Nice Guys, what would you do tomorrow if suddenly there weren’t any more women in the world? And there’s going to be like three out of a hundred or like, bro, why don’t you want women in the world? And I’m like, jackass, this is just an exercise. I don’t want that right at all.

[00:08:07] Dylan Bain: Try with the idea here.

[00:08:10] Traver Boehm: Just play along. What would you do with yourself? And for most Nice Guys, Dylan, the conversation stops there. Because they’ve never exercised the muscle that’s like, oh, actually, I enjoy jiu-jitsu. I like to surf. I like to write. I like to study psychology and human development. Like, none of these things are female dependent. If God forbid, whatever this imaginary thing happens and there’s no women tomorrow morning, I’m still going to jiu-jitsu. I’m still going to fly to Costa Rica this winter and surf my ass off. I’m still going to write. I’m still going to take care of myself. I’m still going to eat steak. Like, my life will be very different and I don’t want that to happen. And those are the things that I do. So I hope that all makes sense.

[00:08:51] Dylan Bain: Well, and what a powerful framing. You know, you have men who grew up having to have a safety blanket of I’m okay when the women in my life are okay and this becomes like a survival strategy where they don’t want to give that up because they then, they suddenly feel exposed and for a smaller kid, that’s a fatal experience,

[00:09:10] Traver Boehm: 100%.

[00:09:11] Dylan Bain: You know, and you brought up jiu-jitsu. It’s funny because a lot of the other listeners know that I’ve been really working on my weight, applying the same principles I use in finance to my health, and jiu-jitsu has become a part of the journey for me. But every time I go, I have to convince myself it’s okay. Because in my household growing up, my mother was not okay with that. Jiu-jitsu was something that children did and as a when I was a teenager, you’re an adult man. And now if you have time to screw around with jiu-jitsu, you should be working, whether it’s cleaning the house, doing this other thing.

[00:09:43] And so like, I’ve had to have those conversations with my wife of saying, honey, this feeds me and I’m going to be better when I’m true to myself. But that’s an amazing framework, and I think like there’s so many guys out there who think, but I’m the nicest guy you ever seen, right? Like I give you everything you want. How, when are you gonna be happy? I guess I want to ask you, when will they be happy?

[00:10:03] Traver Boehm: We’re not responsible for anybody else’s happiness. So I think that’s just a big thing to take into account. Now, I’m in a relationship, and so that doesn’t mean that I don’t do things specifically to facilitate and bring happiness, joy, connection, love, enjoyment to my partner. However, I’m not responsible for her core level of happiness. Like, if we think of a glass of water, and it’s happiness inside, I want to have 80% of my own happiness self-sourced. Meaning, when Katie comes home and she wants to give me a backrub, she gives me a kiss. She loves on me. She makes me dinner. It’s like, oh, thank you so much for doing that. You just filled the top 20%. Now my cup’s overflowing, this was amazing. Thank you.

[00:10:50] In my marriage, the glass was empty. And every day, I ask my partner, fill this for me, fill this for me, fill this for me, fill this for me, in a million overt and covert ways. That’s a problem because the person across from you then feels that like vampiric sucking need as opposed to, wow, this is a bonus on top of my amazing life, right? That’s what I’m trying to get these guys to realize is that yes, your partner will bring you some joy. Your partner will bring you happiness. It’s amazing. Do that. Live a great, amazing life first though, right? For a number of reasons. One, that will make you more attractive. One that will make someone have ease with you, right? If you’re — if we talk money, imagine hanging out with someone who 24, 48 times a day is like, hey, can I borrow 50 cents? Hey, can I borrow 50 cents? Hey, can I borrow 50 cents? And you’re like, bro, go get a job. I don’t care if it’s at McDonald’s. I don’t care if it’s at 7-Eleven.

[00:11:52] But like go get your basic needs taken care of on your own and then if we’re out to dinner and you’re 20 bucks short, I’ll happily lend you 20 bucks. But if you’re constantly poking me and be like, hey, can I borrow 50 cents? By the way, if you don’t lend me the 50 cents, I can’t pay my rent this month. Oh, I can’t also fill my car with gas. Oh, I can’t get groceries. Intuitively you go, you look at that person and say, one, you need to grow up. Two, you gotta start taking care of yourself. Like, this isn’t my job. Now imagine that person was your romantic partner. You’d be like, this sounds — this just doesn’t feel good. Like, we’re supposed to be coming together to create something unique and wonderful together. That requires that both of us are relatively full first, right? Not like, you’re full, I’m empty, so please try to fill me.

[00:12:45] It sounds cliche, Dylan, but I — you know, one of the things I had these guys do, this class is running now, and we had our first call last night. And I was like, hey, what are three things that you do that make you feel good? And usually, they can be tied to some value that you have, right? Like one of my values is hard work. I love going to the gym. I just love it. I love going to the gym. I love going to jiu-jitsu. If I know those make me feel good and they ping off of that value of like, cool, my hard work value is lit up because I know I worked my ass off today. If I do that three or four times a week, consciously, intentionally, I’m going to be a happier person. If I was single and I had three or four of those things in my life that I knew brought me joy, brought me community, brought me good, just good feelings. And I did that for a week. And I went out on a date Friday night. I think my perspective date would be like, wow, you’re fun to be around. I enjoy you. You’re really, you seem healthy and happy.

[00:13:48] Now, if I sat on my couch all day and just watch social media, and just like binge watch dating videos and waited for everybody else in my life to bring me stuff as opposed to taking my ass to the gym. And then I go to my date Friday night, I have a funny feeling she’s going to feel that. I’m sitting there, like trying to get like hey, tell me I’m a good person. Tell me I’m a good guy. Tell me I’m attractive. Do you like me? Do you want to go out again? Like, that’s the insidious need that comes across from Nice Guys.

[00:14:21] Just to give you one more example, which I think your audience will get ’cause this is a finance podcast, or you talk about finance. I would say, all right, think of these two scenarios, guys. Imagine you’re in a sales position and it’s the third week of the month and you have gone all the way through your quota and you’ve added an extra 50% in sales. Like you have — your best month. Now, you’re about to get on three calls in the next week. Think of how you’re going to show up to those calls. You’re going to be like, hey, I don’t even need this money, but tell me about you, right? Like, what can I do? How can I just like, let’s just start a conversation. Now that’s scenario A.

[00:15:03] Scenario B, it’s the third week of the month. Your boss is telling you, if you don’t close this sale today, you’re fired. If you get fired, you get kicked out of your apartment. You get kicked out of your apartment, you’re living in your car. Now you pick up the phone. Very different energy, very different feel. I’ve been in that scenario. You’re throwing every trick you have in the book, please just buy the fucking thing. Whether you need it or not, buy it. I need you to buy this to be okay. Does that make sense? So that, those two scenarios are how I explain it a lot to Nice Guys.

[00:15:41] Dylan Bain: Well, and I think that the sales point is really like, salient, right? Because on the one hand, if you’re coming at it from a standpoint of desperation, where I’ve got scarcity, I’m scared that other person’s going to feel like you’re trying to extract.

[00:15:54] Traver Boehm: 100%.

[00:15:55] Dylan Bain: They’re the gazelle and you are the stressed out lion who hasn’t eaten in a while, right? No one wants to be in that position. But on the other hand, the best sales tactics in the world that I’ve ever seen — and I’ve worked in sales — is always when there’s just like, I don’t need anything, but I have really cool stuff. You can be part of it, but I don’t need that.

[00:16:11] Traver Boehm: Exactly. You say that sentence, like, that’s it. Now imagine that relationally. I got really cool stuff that I want to share with you. Do you want to be a part of this? So different than like, please buy my shit, please buy my shit, please buy my shit. Right? I think you just nailed it in one sentence, Dylan.

[00:16:29] Dylan Bain: Oh, amazing. Well, and I think about when I’m working with couples and they come in and they’ve never talked about money — 90% of the couples that come into my practice, they’ve never talked about money. One of them I’ve had one that’s been married for 45 years, never even knew where each other banked.

[00:16:44] And so like, you’re now having this conversation, and watching them like, okay, we’re going to have a business meeting. We’re going to sit down. And he goes, what do you want to spend this month? And she’s like, what are your expenses? He’s like, well, let’s make sure yours are taken care of first. It’s like watching stressed out monkeys play chess. It’s just, they’re so scared to make a mistake. And I tell him like, no, like one of the things we have to do — budgets are not statements restrictions. Budget is a conversation. We’re going to — we’re going to uncover things. We’re going to go through an emotional excavation. This is where things will come up. And I always tell them like, you have to come to the table with your non-negotiables. Because if you don’t, now you’re asking them to navigate in a blind situation where they’re going to hit a wall. And then you’re not going to see it. And you knew it was there.

[00:17:31] And so like a lot of times I’m watching these couples. Some of them are having marital problems because he’s been disappointed and it has exploded on her. And now she doesn’t want to say anything cause she doesn’t know where the button was. And he doesn’t want to explode on her cause he’s afraid she’s going to leave. So now, we’re in this situation where no one’s actually understanding the other person.

[00:17:53] So the framing makes a lot of sense to me and I can see this so much in my own life. My mom and dad are still married, and my father was very present, but he wasn’t very present in the here’s how you deal with women. He was very present in the here’s how you provide. Here’s how you make money. Here’s how you plant your flag in the world. But with women, it’s just like, just make them — happy wife. Happy life. And then watching my relationships disintegrate.

[00:18:19] Where do you see men get stuck in this? You know, where they look at it and they say, oh yeah, that’s me. But now what?

[00:18:25] Traver Boehm: The biggest place they get stuck, Dylan, is not having their own drive. So we say happy wife, happy life, and I go — I’ve said this publicly, that sentence has ruined more marriages than Facebook and Eat Pray Love combined. It’s just a nightmare.

[00:18:49] Wow. It’s bold. Yeah, I believe it. It’s just the opposite way to be. As opposed to happy life, happy wife, right? Or happy life for you, happy life for her. Somewhere in the middle is where you’re meeting. So I have these guys start to do things for themselves. Like step one, hey, it’s okay. A lot of the challenge Dylan, is I’ll say, hey, I need you to go spend Saturday hiking by yourself. He’d be like, well, I can’t leave my wife. And this is someone, obviously, we’ll just say for this example, doesn’t have kids. So we’re not like, cool, dump the five kids on the wife and go hiking. But your relationship needs to have space and time for you to be with yourself, to do things that you love without your partner.

[00:19:35] I look at relationships as three different buckets. The his bucket, if we speak heteronormatively, her bucket, and then the relationship bucket. If your bucket’s empty — your personal bucket’s empty, you have nothing to pour into the relationship bucket. Same with her. If she doesn’t have hobbies, friends, stuff to do, things that light her up, things that fill her up, she can’t pour into the relationship bucket either.

[00:20:00] Now the beauty is when you both pour into the relationship bucket, it overflows and pours back into your individual buckets. But a lot of these guys are stuck in, I actually have to fill her bucket, as opposed to the relationship bucket. And so they walk around empty.

[00:20:18] Dylan Bain: And so they’re basically emptying themselves to try to fill hers.

[00:20:21] Traver Boehm: Exactly.

[00:20:22] Dylan Bain: And you can never have enough of what you don’t need.

[00:20:24] Traver Boehm: Exactly.

[00:20:24] Dylan Bain: And she doesn’t need that from you.

[00:20:26] Traver Boehm: She doesn’t need it from you. On a very real level, she doesn’t want it from you. Now, if she has her own shit that’s making her — she’s getting validation from this, if it’s unconscious, or if it’s not a really, like a high level relationship, for a while she’ll want that, right?

[00:20:44] Like, I used to work in Hollywood as a private security, and would see these directors, like very — I remember seeing, actually, I know he’s a piece of shit, but seeing Harvey Weinstein walk through a talent agency, where I had a client — where I was sitting with my client. He had this team of like, five people around him. He was in sweats and like a filthy T-shirt and he had like, all these yes people around him. And I was like, that’s terrible. I do not want to live a life where all of my employees or my crew is just like, oh my God, you’re a genius. Yes. Like, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m making a mistake here. Tell me there’s a better way to do it. Let me also fall on my face sometimes.

[00:21:26] So to get back to your specific question, the focus of these guys is so outward. And it’s so terrifying to come inward. The first assignment Dylan, I gave this group of a hundred guys was before you come to this call, I want you to take out your phone, go to the voice note section, hit record and say, hey, I’ve got your back for the next six weeks. I’m proud of you for joining this course. I know it’s going to be hard. I know it’s going to be confronting. This is a really brave thing you’re doing. Congratulations. End record.

[00:22:04] Now, we have a Telegram group for everybody. After that assignment went out, there were a number of posts in the telegram group. This is confronting as hell, I don’t want to do this, I fucking hate this exercise, this made me feel stupid, I feel fake. Like man, I asked you to spend 60 seconds talking positively to yourself. And this is the reaction that it got. That, I’m not shaming them. I’m not putting them down. I’m saying, that is a gaping hole in your arsenal, and your self-esteem, and your self-worth. Just the willingness to talk to yourself for 60 seconds.

[00:22:45] Now, I bet I could take this same group and say, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to sit your partner down. I want you to sit a buddy down. I want you to tell them how awesome they are, how amazing they are, how incredible they are, how they light up your life. And every single one of those guys would have done it without a heartbeat — without a skip in the heartbeat. But to turn it on themselves, turned into chaos. It was confronting as shit for them.

[00:23:09] Dylan Bain: I think about how I would want that if I had one of — and I — there are several Nice Guys in my life who will say things like, Dylan, you got this. Oh, you’re so cool. And it’s like, but you don’t value yourself. So by what measure are you measuring this? This is not a valuable statement. I can’t even imagine what it’s like for a woman on that side when the other guy comes to her and says, oh honey, it’s okay. We’re going to take care of this. I was like, but you can’t take care of yourself.

[00:23:33] Traver Boehm: Yeah, so a lot of them get stuck in this idea, and maybe this will help even on the monetary front. I ended the call last night saying, guys, here’s a revolutionary sentence for you. The greatest gift you can give to your woman or your man — don’t care who — to your kids, to your employee, to your boss, to your neighbors, to your friends, to the world, is a fully resourced you.

[00:24:01] When I first heard that, when a coach said that to me a couple years ago, it was like the record scratched. I was like, wait a minute. I have been raised for 40 — it was like two years ago — 45 years, to believe that as long as I was exhausted, as long as my output was super duper high, it didn’t matter what the personal consequences were to me biologically, spiritually, emotionally, physically, whatever. As long as everybody else was getting from me, I’m doing great.

[00:24:32] And he turned that on its head and said, actually, the more you have, the more you have to give. So your focus should not be on the giving. It should be on making sure that your cup is full so that it has the ability to overflow, as opposed to just have the ability to be poured out all over everybody. Now that changed my life forever.

[00:24:56] Dylan Bain: Oh my gosh. On the monetary front, that’s absolutely true. You have people say, I don’t want to have the money because they’ve attached a judgment call to it. And I’ve said very similar things in coaching of like, what would you be able to do if you didn’t have to think about rent? What would you be able to do if you could donate to charity whenever you wanted to? And it was immaterial to you. What would you be able to do if you had invested in yourself, the leadership skills to take a failing nonprofit and turn it into a powerhouse?

[00:25:22] Traver Boehm: Right, with someone who’s got five bucks in their pocket, they don’t have four to give. But you got 50 grand in your pocket, you got a lot you can share.

[00:25:31] Dylan Bain: A 100%. It’s interesting, you were talking about having to try to fill the other person’s happiness. Like looking at even in my own relationship where I come in with this idea of like, I’m the man I’m supposed to work till I break and then die quietly in the corner. That’s how all the men in my family operate.

[00:25:47] The exhausted thing, every man I know, they don’t get to sit down until they can barely stand. And they do that to themselves because it’s so heavily ingrained. Then my wife comes in with this idea from her family of origin of like, once you’re a wife, you are nothing. Your entire identity is dissolved. And now you’re here. And so like, looking back on it from this conversation, it looks like, oh, I’m desperately trying to fill her cup, she’s desperately trying to fill mine. And we’re missing each other because by definition, we’re not allowed to have anything in the cup, right? Because if I have anything in the cup, then I’ve been selfish and I’ve taken it from someone else.

[00:26:19] Traver Boehm: That’s the 180 that really guys need to sit with, or a lot of people need to sit with. I always say this isn’t a male-dominated sentence. I know a lot of women who feel the same way, especially mothers. Like, God forbid a mother should have an hour off to herself. How selfish of her is the common trope.

[00:26:37] But get a good night’s sleep, eat a good meal, get a massage, spend an afternoon in a park with someone you love, having an intimate conversation, and see how much you have to give to your spouse, to your kids, to your friends. You have so much more energy to give.

[00:26:54] As opposed to, I was up for three days, I ate shitty food, I scrolled on my phone, and I stressed over money. Now, how much do you have to give to people? Nothing! Nothing. You got nothing. Go take a nap.

[00:27:09] Dylan Bain: Amazing. Well, this is a frame that I’ve used before too. It sounds like it fits here of the idea of like, the hierarchy of service. Because everybody wants to be of service, right? And so if you look at like Maslow’s hierarchy, the bottom two tiers, physiological needs, safety, security, that’s service to self. You have to serve yourself first, then you can get up to a steam and relationships, which is service to others. Then you can get up to self-actualization, which is service to a higher calling. And it’s in that order. You can’t skip one of the steps.

[00:27:39] And it’s always interesting with people with money where I’ve seen them spend themselves to zero at the end of every month, because they’re either they’re the hero of their own story. That was me. You know, I kept the wolves from the door. Aren’t I special? Or they zeros their homeostasis and that’s where they feel safe, and so they look at it and say, if I have 5, I have denied that 5 to somebody else, and therefore I shouldn’t have it because I had all my needs met, right? Even if they were mere meager they’re eating off the dollar menu at McDonald’s, and they’re like, yes, I did it! And now I have to give it all the rest of the way. And I’m like, why not? If burgers are your thing, why not go to Five Guys, right? Like really just allow yourself that gift. That’s amazing.

[00:28:23] Well, so when you’re working with these Nice Guys and you’re running a group called Man UNcivilized. And you have — full disclosure for people listening. I am in Man UNcivilized and it’s an amazing group. It has changed a lot for me. But when I first came and told my wife, hey, I’m going to join this group called Man UNcivilized. She took a step back and was like, What do you mean? So I would love to give you the opportunity, like, what does that mean?

[00:28:49] Traver Boehm: What does uncivilized mean?

[00:28:51] Dylan Bain: Yeah, in this context.

[00:28:52] Traver Boehm: You know, Dylan, this came about — this is maybe six years ago. I was living in Brooklyn. And I’d moved in. I’d done a year long project, I was kind of homeless, and I met a guy at TED. We spoke together at TEDx Santa Barbara, and he messaged me, he was like, hey, my roommate just moved out, we have this beautiful apartment right on the water in Brooklyn. Come move in if you want. I was like, cool.

[00:29:14] So I did, and at the time, I was playing with the idea of men’s work. It was like the third or fourth thing on my list, but suddenly I’d gone from traveling for an entire year to living in a huge building that had like, a little conference center. And I was like, oh, I’m going to throw a men’s group here, right? Let’s just see it. Let’s get some guys together. Let’s see what we do. I just need to get balls rolling and see what’s like throw a bunch of shit against the wall, see what sticks. So I do all this advertising. I throw it on meetup. I’m throwing it on Facebook events, blah, blah, blah, putting signs up in the building. Men’s event, free, come hang out, talk, share, et cetera.

[00:29:54] And I go down on the night of it and there’s one dude in the conference center. And I had our mentor, Mark Sylvester’s voice in my ear. Saying cool, one in a row. But you got one, all it takes is one. You can build an army with one. So I put my positivity hat on and I sat with this dude. And I like, I don’t even think. I just introduced myself. It was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just like speed fired masculine ideas on him. Like the masculine is the mountain, the feminine is the storm. We need to be grounded. We need to have integrity, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think at like the 45 minute mark, I stopped and took a breath. And he was like, whoa, hold up. I’ve followed you for the past five years from your fitness days. I’m just here to try to lose 25 pounds. Can you help me? Okay. Oh shit. Thank you for your honesty. Like, let me take my men’s hat off and put my old fitness nutrition hat back on.

[00:30:53] And long story short, he was a cop. He wanted to lose 25 pounds to do a like, charity boxing match. And I was like, okay, cool. Like, tell me about your life. And what we discerned or came down to was he said this, it changed my life forever. He said, I can’t not eat McDonald’s burritos. And I was like, okay, are you like stationed and like, are you — is that part of your beat? Like you have to go into McDonald’s? Cause I’m going to solve your problem right now. Just never set foot in another McDonald’s. And this issue is solved.

[00:31:26] And he said, oh, I can’t do that. Like they have the best coffee. And I went, okay, I have a graduate degree in a health field. I’ve helped thousands and thousands of people. And essentially I’m going to buy you a fucking French press and I’m going to solve your problem here. And I was like, not furious, but was super annoyed. And so I went back upstairs at the end of the meeting and I was bitching to my roommate at the time. I was like, motherfucker, just won’t stop eating McDonald’s, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can’t believe I wasted my time. That was super just frustrated. And then he and I had a long conversation. We stayed up into the night talking about some stuff with our dads, some stuff with a relationship that he had in high school that was really traumatic and went to bed.

[00:32:10] And the next morning he came and knocked on my door at like, five o’clock to go work out. He was a super early riser. And I was like, oh man, like stumbled out of bed, threw shorts on. He had built a gym in the basement of the building to train NBA players. Like, that was his job. So it was this beautiful gym that he had built out in this building. And so I’m like, I have one eye open, I’m like rubbing my face as we’re about to walk out the door and he’s like, hey man, real quick question about last night. When was the last time you ate McDonald’s? And I said, I don’t eat that shit, man. That’s civilian food.

[00:32:45] And he took out his phone right there and started filming me. It was like, tell me what you mean by civilian food. I was like, man, take a look at this apartment, right? We’re two successful guys. There’s no TV. There’s no drugs. There’s no alcohol. We spent the night actually talking about real shit, like real stuff that was affecting our lives. We’re about to go downstairs and get fucking savage on a weight pile. This is not how civilized men live. And if any part of civilization isn’t something I want to be a part of, because look at the results, it’ll get you. It’ll get you diabetes. It’ll get you heart attack. It’ll get you depression. It’ll get you anxiety. It’ll get you your third divorce. It’ll get you kids that won’t talk to you. It will get you uninspired. I just listed all this stuff. And I was like, I don’t want to be plugged into that machine that feels like inevitably, once you’re in it, you’re going to get spit out as one of the things that I listed. And so I went downstairs and the entire time that word was in my head.

[00:33:48] Uncivilized. And came up and shared it with the world saying, hey, if you want what everybody has, go that direction. If you want what other people don’t have, try this direction. I don’t want to eat what these fucking people eat. I don’t want to work out the way that they work out. I don’t want to think how they think. I don’t want to be in relationship how they’re in relationship. I don’t want to have fuck how they fuck. I don’t want to watch the TV that they watch. I want to go the other way. And so to me, it’s not just a rejection of society. It’s actually looking at society and saying consciously, intentionally, do I want to be a part of this thing that’s bigger than I am? And then actively taking steps to live your own way. Yeah, that’s uncivilized.

[00:34:34] Dylan Bain: It’s funny it starts with McDonald’s, I have another guest who’s coming out in a couple of weeks. And he talked, he’s talked at length about like his food journey, realizing the first time he had a farm fresh egg and realizing that like, the industrial food chain had bastardized eggs to a point where he couldn’t eat them anymore. He was like, I just, I can’t, this is terrible. I won’t do it.

[00:34:56] And I’ve even talked about on the show before the idea of the anti human society. We’re organized as an economic machine and that kind of machine is going to extract from you and when you are no longer economically useful, they kick you out, right? This is why we see homeless rates rising of like, here are people who a lot of them would be willing to work, but the job doesn’t pay for anything because they’re not “economically useful.”

[00:35:18] So I love that framing of saying like this, if this is what civilization got me, maybe we should rethink that .

[00:35:23] Traver Boehm: For sure. And everybody, it’s about choice, Dylan, right? Like people, when that — when I first put it out, we’re like, oh, do you have Internet? I’m like, yeah, I have Internet. I drive a car. Like, I don’t farm all my food and I’m not like living in a hut in the woods by myself hoping that this thing takes off through smoke signals. But I make very conscious choices.

[00:35:45] Dylan Bain: Mainly people’s suspicious packages.

[00:35:48] Traver Boehm: Just a great writer.

[00:35:53] So it’s really about looking at the world, understanding the truth of it, and then consciously deciding whether you want to engage in it or how much you want to engage in it or not, right? I still am a results dork. Like I look at statistics, I look at marriage statistics, I look at health statistics, I look at finance statistics and go, cool. There’s a big push towards you going there. If you want to have different statistics, you got to do different shit.

[00:36:24] That is why I called it uncivilized. And I get it, it tweaks people. People get upset by the word, but that’s not my problem.

[00:36:31] Dylan Bain: No, 100%. One thought that just came into my head of like how do humans, cause we’ve — I’ve had Duey on the podcast and he’s talked about our separation from nature. You know, a lot of our problems start right there where we set — we have this idea that somehow we’re in nature, but not of nature. I frame it up as we live in an economic engine. We’re cogs, we’re lubrication. We’re all sorts of other stuff. Do you think civilized society manufactures Nice Guys because they’re easier to exploit?

[00:37:00] Traver Boehm: I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t think it’s conscious. I think there’s so many sociological factors that play into it that it’s probably more on an individual level than a societal level. That being said, there is an air to it, right? I grew up in the 80s where it was like, Rambo, Commando. You name — the A team. Like, dudes were out kicking ass and taking names, right? Like, Rocky. That was the shit. That’s what every little kid wanted to be.

[00:37:33] Now I look at sitcoms and it’s like, oh, the dad is kind of a dope. He’s dumb. He’s uninspired. He doesn’t really work. Like the Homer Simpson Family Guy idea. And so I think it’s reinforced because it also plays into just a bigger societal narrative, but I wouldn’t say they necessarily manufacture Nice Guys. I just, I would say that there isn’t a lot of push against it, right? Especially now. We can look at a lot of sociological factors that the empowered male is quote toxic. The guy who’s willing to go and be individualistic is “toxic.” So it’s definitely reinforced.

[00:38:12] Dylan Bain: 100%. And to be clear, I don’t think that there’s like a smoke filled back room where people are like, yes, let’s manufacture Nice Guys.

[00:38:18] Traver Boehm: There probably fucking is.

[00:38:22] Dylan Bain: Yeah. Now that I said that, they’re listening somewhere and be like, we got to get that guy.

[00:38:25] Traver Boehm: Clintons just got an email about your podcast.

[00:38:31] Dylan Bain: I’m both honored and terrified.

[00:38:33] Traver Boehm: Live and in real time.

[00:38:35] It was like Dylan’s Bain — Dylan Bain just popped up on Bill Clinton’s phone.

[00:38:41] Dylan Bain: We got to get that son of a bitch!

[00:38:45] But I do think that society, like, we live in an economic engine and I would, as part of my health journey, I’ve gotten rid of seed oils, right? Like, so I kind of went down that thing of like, I’m going to get rid of these — my girls loved fried chicken sandwiches. And so we wanted to make them at home, and I started using lard instead of vegetable oils. And what’s crazy about it is that A, I don’t feel crappy after I eat it. My triglycerides, my cholesterol are half what they were six months ago. And I’m now using all the bad things.

[00:39:11] And I kind of think about — and you and I have had the conversation offline about flours and gluten and the difference between France and here. And it occurs to me that like, if we industrialize a part of the process, right, like with flour. We have these flours, it’s making people sick. We can now sell them a solution, which is the gluten-free stuff. So it’s not profitable to solve a problem. It’s profitable to exploit it. And I wonder if, when you’re talking about statistics with sociological statistics, fatherless homes, economic things, decline of manual labor jobs — how much of that is just the next thing of like, oh, this is a by product of the system we created, but it’s exploitable to just continue to like, oh, you’re all Nice Guys now? Let’s just pile on that. Yeah, of course! Make me happy. Make your job happy. Grovel to your boss, it’ll be fine.

[00:39:58] Traver Boehm: Yeah, you said, I definitely think there’s exploitability in — is the American way or the West way? We don’t want to solve problems. Very clearly we don’t want to solve problems, because a lot of them are easily solved. Like if we just look at COVID for an example. I don’t care what people think about COVID. What I do care is I didn’t see a lot, if any, push towards actual health. I don’t care what your thoughts are on the vaccine, but there wasn’t a national memorandum going out saying like, hey guys, there’s a disease killing people. Make sure you eat healthy foods. Make sure you sleep. Make sure you get daily exercise. Make sure you check your stress levels. Make sure you have close relationships and intimacy. None of it. There was 0.0 that I saw, which means if there was some, it wasn’t very prevalent.

[00:40:51] So, we don’t want to solve these problems because you’re right. There are huge financial interests for companies that make money off of sickness. There’s huge financial interests on companies that make money off of disenfranchised males. Period. Billions and billions.

[00:41:09] Dylan Bain: Well, just — I mean, I would say it’s probably closer to trillions, given the scale here. I went through business college. I work in capital markets. And they always say, what’s the problem you’re trying to solve? Like that’s step one of any business venture. What’s the problem you’re trying to solve? And it’s always interesting to me to say, well, but why do we have the problem, right? Why do we have a homeless issue? Why do we have — what’s causing the inflation? Can we take a dispassionate statistical look at what’s causing this and have a realistic conversation about where we want our boundaries to be, which to me, it sounds like when you have a Nice Guy of like, well, I don’t want to upset that person. We don’t wanna upset this corporation. We don’t want to affect anyone’s bottom line. Like, I would like to solve this problem, but think of Monsanto, right? Like think of the Safeway, the Krogers. What about those guys? And it’s like, but my kids are sick.

[00:42:01] Traver Boehm: Yeah, there’s not enough willingness to, one, be uncomfortable. If we talk specifically about food, most people — I won’t even say most people — a lot of people know what to eat and what not to eat, and yet don’t. And it wouldn’t be hard to educate people on, hey, just eat around the outside of the supermarket. That’s it. You do that and we’re going to get rid of 40% of the health issues we have in this country. Hey, everybody walk for an hour a day. Or half an hour a day. Okay, cool.

[00:42:34] Like I, again, go back to when I grew up, and I don’t know if they still have this in schools, but we had the like presidential physical fitness thing. And granted, they were feeding us cardboard pizzas in the cafeteria, but they were getting —

[00:42:48] Dylan Bain: — the squares on the gigantic oil trays.

[00:42:51] Traver Boehm: Exactly. You know, and I spent a good portion of my upbringing in Asia and there is like, hey, before business starts in a lot of companies in Japan and China, there’s a half an hour of fitness. People are doing Tai Chi. People are doing Qigong. People are stretching. Why? because they want healthier workers.

[00:43:12] We could do all of this. There would be a bit of an uproar, but we could. And so we have to ask ourselves, why don’t we want to solve this problem? Is it that we don’t, or is there a force bigger than we are? Or is it just that we’re all complacent around it? I can look at it from 50 different angles, but I come back to, I’m just going to ask for personal responsibility from people.

[00:43:34] You’re doing this yourself with your weight loss journey. You’re taking this on yourself. If there’s a part of anybody’s life, male, female, I don’t care how old, you have agency to at least begin to shift that. I get, there’s some problems that are bigger than us individually. If I have leukemia, I’m not going to be like, well, cool, I’ll just watch a bunch of YouTube videos and I’m sure I can kick this. But there — for most people, we know what to do. We know the things that would change our lives or start to at least move the needle. But it’s the discipline and the action steps and the accountability, the vulnerability of saying, hey, I’m going to try this. And maybe if I fail, fuck it. People will look down on me or look differently at me. I don’t. I’m a big fan of just people trying. Like, did you try? You’re good. You’re uncivilized. You’re ahead of 99% of the population if you just try.

[00:44:26] Dylan Bain: Right. Fitness, good eating, solid budgets, soulful relationships are acts of rebellion.

[00:44:32] Traver Boehm: Absolutely. 100%. 100%.

[00:44:36] Dylan Bain: When you’re talking about the bigger thing, like one of the things that I go down — I went down a rabbit hole like four months ago on municipal finance because this is into Dylan Bain’s head, right? Because I do that. And realized that like, oh, the suburbs are both not financially sustainable, but they’re also highly lucrative, right? Because when everybody’s home has to be, when there’s no third place, there’s no walkability, you get the opportunity to sell everyone a blender, everyone a TV. Everyone a coffee machine. Right? Whereas you go to a place like France or Amsterdam, that’s not a thing, right? Because everything else, there’s tons of third places that aren’t work or home, and all this other stuff. And we still have to find a way to make it work, right?

[00:45:14] It’s the same thing with budgets, when I sit down with people and say, okay, let’s look at this. And they go, I have a spending problem. And I look at it and go, no you have an income problem. Like your spending looks completely normal. The problem is that you need to be paid more for what you’re doing. And then they get into the like, well no — you know, it’s gotta be personal responsibility. So I don’t think it’s one or the other, it’s an and.

[00:45:36] Like yes, we need to have personal responsibility over our finances, our food, our fitness, our fucking everything. And we also have to understand what game we’re playing and what the rules of the board are.

[00:45:46] Traver Boehm: Yeah, for sure. And how big is that game?

[00:45:48] Dylan Bain: Because I live in the suburbs.

[00:45:49] Traver Boehm: Right. So do I.

[00:45:50] Dylan Bain: Yeah.

[00:45:51] Traver Boehm: Yeah. I have a blender.

[00:45:52] Dylan Bain: Yeah. I mean, I live in the suburbs, I have a car, like I — this is the game I’m playing. But I can also look at it and go, this is a terrible game.

[00:46:00] Traver Boehm: Yeah, and then you, at least you just have some intentionality and consciousness around it. I’m going to play this for so long, right? Or I’m going to try to win the game.

[00:46:08] I can stay here and I can have a different source of income, or a secondary source of income. Or I can limit some of my spending and know that like, if this is an unwinnable game, I only want to be in it for so long.

[00:46:21] Dylan Bain: 100%. Well, and also looking at of like, how do I use the system to my advantage of quote, I have — particularly when people come to me and they say, I want to learn how to invest. You know, the thing I always tell them is you either use the system or the system uses you. There is literally nothing in between. So you can participate and you can use the system, or you can let the system use you. And there’s lots of traps especially when it comes to investing. There are so many different traps, especially with the illusion of control that people want to believe that they’re better at. Like, I’m a CPA. I’ve been working in capital markets for a decade. I don’t trade individual stocks because I know the game. I know who’s on the other side of those trades and I know I can’t win. So I choose a different path and there’s a better way to do it. And it sounds like that’s the same type of thing for Nice Guys. It’s the same type of thing for looking at civilization. Of, we really need to start looking at what serves us and where we can have more intentionality into literally everything we do.

[00:47:13] Traver Boehm: Definitely.

[00:47:14] Dylan Bain: 100%. Well, we’re coming up on time and I have loved this conversation. For everyone who’s listening who wants more Traver in their life, where can they go?

[00:47:24] Traver Boehm: Yeah, I have a podcast called The UNcivilized Podcast. I have a book — two books actually. One called Today I Rise, great if you’re going through a divorce, you’re going through heartbreak, a breakup. Second book is called Man UNcivilized, which men and women have read it almost a 50/50 split. So please get your hands on that. It’s on Amazon, it’s on Audible.

[00:47:43] You can find me on Instagram @traverboehm, T R A V E R B O E H M. And check out ManUNcivilized.com for events, for workshops. We have our whole 2024 schedule up, or most of it already, and we’d love to meet people in person.

[00:48:00] Dylan Bain: Fantastic. Link to all that in the show notes. I have not read Today I Rise, but I have read Man UNcivilized, and it was an extremely eye opening book. 10 would recommend. Thank you. Thank you, Traver. Thank you so much.

[00:48:11] Traver Boehm: My pleasure, brother. Thanks for having me.

[00:48:14] Outro: Thanks for listening. The conversation doesn’t end here. Please share this show with friends and make sure you keep up with all the latest updates on Instagram and threads at TheDylanBain. And dive deeper into the world of finance with me at DylanBain. com where you’ll find insights, resources and strategies to reimagine your money story.