Love, Lies & The Narcissist’s Game with Marshal Gillen

[00:00:00] Hector: Fellas, what's going on? Hope this episode finds you well, and I hope this episode leaves you better than when it found you. Today's episode is with Marshall Gillen, and he is a friend who I knew from, I guess, perhaps a different life for him. You know, a different life for me. When I, when we started talking, we talked about, you know, how we, when we first got into the internet marketing world, we put on an event together.

[00:00:54] Hector: This was back in, I guess, almost 10 years ago now. And life has gone on and we have lived a number of lives. He was a public speaking coach. He had a online community that thousands of people in his community and his brand is sort of shifted and adjusted. But recently it has revolved around helping men overcome.

[00:01:16] Hector: Narcissistic abuse and the amount of visibility and engagement and interaction that he's gotten since he has started this sort of journey has been, inspiring to see. And what's interesting is that it seems that it's all too common for men and something that perhaps is not.

[00:01:37] Hector: Something that is talked enough, nearly talked about nearly enough. Can we talk about all the things that go on with narcissistic abuse, how you might move yourself out of it, you find yourself in it as well. So it's a fantastic conversation, but enough for me, y'all let's get into today's episode with Marshall.

[00:01:56] Hector: Marshall, welcome to the "Modern Masculinity" podcast, man. It is an honor to have you here.

[00:01:59] Marshall: Brother man, it is awesome to be here. Thanks for having me on the podcast. It's been a minute, dude, It's been a minute. We're much older now than we were in the  beginning.

[00:02:05] Hector: Yeah. I told the listeners in the intro kind of how we got connected and sort of that story. I always ask our guests, we don't go into accolades, and we don't go into all the amazing shit you've done, and how much money you've made yourself and help people make, and all the cool things you've done, because I think that I've talked about on the show. We're more interested in taking us into your world as a man, all of the different loads that we carry in a variety of ways, but that weight that we carry as men can be really heavy. And so I'm curious, what sort of weight you feel you're carrying, and sort of the things that you're like working through like today or this week, this month sort of thing.

[00:02:39] Marshall: Yeah, man, that's a good question getting right off the start, getting right after it., I just turned 40. Uh, probably like two weeks ago at the time recording this podcast, and what the listeners don't know is for probably the third time in my life, my a complete life I've been fell apart. Completely fell apart.

[00:02:54] Marshall: 140 days ago, it's time to record this podcast, but who's counting? And, what I have found, Hector, is that based on my childhood, I made a living out of carrying as much weight as I can, and I didn't know what to do with any of it. And because I, and again, we can expound on this as we go, but because I didn't understand what a healthy man looks like because I never had a healthy male figure in my life, I never seen a healthy relationship. My whole life was just me trying to prove and perform and trying to find love and acceptance and validation from people by going out and doing this thing. And so it's interesting for me to be on this podcast now because by all intents and purposes, I'm glad we're not talking about athletes and stuff, because of the world status, I am the lowest I've been in my professional career. I have nothing. I have nothing right now.

[00:03:34] Marshall: And it was all taken from me. And that was because I tried to balance too many plates for too long in my life, instead of focusing down on becoming the man I was supposed to become before God. And it's very timing and fitting that we're here at this time.

[00:03:44] Hector: Yeah, I mean, amen brother. And part of the challenge that I realized is that you and I went through some really challenging... I don't know what you would call it, relationships, breakups, you know. I went through divorce, you went through a breakup, and at least for me, what it did was like it in its simplest, form was like removed my self worth, it totally depleted my sense of self worth and my like who I thought I was, right? As you scattered it and that made it hard for me to build my business, that made it hard for me to stay fit to do all the things that we're supposed to do as man when you fucking feel like nothing.

[00:04:18] Marshall: Well, let me ask you this then, dude, because this is what I discovered, right? Did you find that it really removed your self worth, or was it revealed that you really didn't have any self worth to begin with?

[00:04:26] Hector: Well, there you cut to the chase. And I'd said this to other people but it was like, she made me feel so seen and so validated and so whatever and so when you take her away, now I don't have the validation, now I don't feel seen. And this past weekend I wrote a song about that exact thing. I wasn't doing it. It was like a single songwriter thing, I was totally out of my place but it was a chance to write a new song, and i'm kind of grateful for that, because we could have gone on and me not knowing that I was this codependent or this reliant and someone else for feeling any type of way this long.

[00:04:58] Marshall: Yeah. We don't realize that it's meant because nobody taught us that, we don't even know what codependency means. We hear the term and it's flippant and it's kind of thrown around social media, but to really understand codependency is to understand addiction, right? We know that, I know that, i'm a former addict and the term codependency actually comes from addiction.

[00:05:14] Marshall: To the audience, I'm sure you know this but codependency is a addiction term, it's the term for the people that enable the drugger, the drug addict. So if i'm the father and my child's a drug addict the child's not codependent on drugs, the father is making him codependent by enabling him to continue to use.

[00:05:29] Marshall: And so that's the problem with addiction, right? Is there's the enabler and then there's the abuser or the person that's abusing the drug. And so oftentimes now when you take that out and put it into a relationship, now what it looks like is the woman becomes the drug, as you're saying, but that's what the term comes from.

[00:05:41] Marshall: And so I want people to understand is that what we're talking about is a literal physical chemical dependency on another person, because you were never able to develop that self worth and hold that masculine frame because nobody taught us as a child. I was codependent, unhealed codependency, anxious attachment style, and it's wreaked havoc on everything because I was never able to validate myself.

[00:05:59] Marshall: I was never able to find acceptance of myself. And so because I was constantly trying to perform for either my dad who walked out on me and my mom, or my narcissistic stepfather, no matter what I did I was not able to get the validation that I needed. And so as a boy, I was continually chasing and chasing and chasing.

[00:06:15] Marshall: And when the accolades weren't enough, then it went to drugs. And when the drugs wasn't enough, it went to women, and when women wasn't enough it went to the next one, and the next, one and the next one. And I always like to say, it's like I've only been in toxic relationships.

[00:06:24] Marshall: I'm divorced. I was divorced when I was 24. I've been engaged like six times, bro. Like that's not true, like four times, still a lot. And they're always the same thing, and it wasn't until literally just very recently where I realized, damn every relationship I've ever had is , toxic, and it's toxic because I mean I didn't know it was toxic like a fish doesn't know it's in water and so the fact that we're having these conversations that's so important. I hope that from this episode men can just start to have these conversations in their garage, or on the water cooler, opening up and talking about these things that we feel. We're not enough for, because not feeling enough and not feeling picked is the thing that's caused mostly every problem in my entire life up until now.

[00:06:56] Hector: Fucking amen, bro. Fucking, you know. What's weird is that, and i've said this on the show before but I don't remember a time up until recently, where my soul or my number one driving motivator, wasn't a girl. Like fucking kindergarten. I was like doing whatever I can get in the grades, playing the sports, doing whatever I needed to do to fucking get the hot chick. And then it's almost like, okay, you get there, you get it, and then it's taken away, and you're like, well now what? And I remember when things started to really fall apart, I started downloading all the dating apps, and I downloaded like the parent dating app. It was fucking weird.

[00:07:29] Hector: And I remember being like, whoa, bro, you're going into some weird fucking territory here. And the fact that I couldn't help myself was a big red flag to me because I'm a pretty self aware person, and I know that most guys don't do and care to do the amount of breathwork sessions and meditation sessions to get to the place where you're kind of noticing all these things, but I knew it was like, this is not good. This cannot stand man,

[00:07:50] Marshall: No 100 percent. I like that you mentioned that because those are the tools that I use too. Now when you're a young man, you're eager to see the world, right? You're eager to leave and cleave and go do the thing, and so you get a couple old hats like me trying to tell you what to do, and you're like, I'm gonna sit down and breathe and meditate and write my journal, and you just go continue to chase, but I think that if there was more men that were setting an example in society of what it looked like to be a healthy divine masculine in his power and strong, that it wouldn't seem so cliche or corny or whatever, right? Like a couple guys being like, oh, well, I gotta figure out how to breathe and meditate.

[00:08:21] Marshall: But what I wish people would understand, what I wish men would understand at a deeper level is what we're really talking about, and Hector, you know this better than all of us, is emotional regulation, our nervous system is deregulated from childhood, especially if you grew up in a toxic household, nothing that you did or that if you grew up in a one parent household, these things have been deregulated when you're a child, and we don't know how to re regulate and then if you live in a western society where it's we're taught performance go, go, go, do, do, do, have, have, have, men never get a chance to slow down.

[00:08:47] Marshall: So when you take that thing away, maybe it's football, maybe it's soccer, maybe it's a woman, you take that state, that performance away from a man, all of a sudden he doesn't know who he is, because he's never slowed down to sit in his pain and find out.

[00:08:57] Hector: Yeah, and I think that's why you see porn, and weed, and fucking rubbing tugs and all these sorts of things. It's just men not knowing how to regulate. And I don't blame either. There used to be judgment on those things, that's because I'm working on my own sort of healing in regards to judging, and I haven't judged myself the hardest, but it's also like, man, this shit is so hard to get over.

[00:09:18] Marshall: Oh,

[00:09:19] Hector: shocked at and it's the first time that I'm letting myself sort of feel the feelings instead of in past relationships, just like moving on, going out, partying, trying to distract it away and then: Oh, there's the next girl, and then you're in the same exact cycle that you were before, because you didn't take the chance to actually work through it.

[00:09:36] Hector: And I didn't want that to happen. I felt like I owed my kids the rebuilding of myself before I went out, and their moms already found somebody else and thinking about a new family and what like already, and I'm like, Whoa, fuck.

[00:09:47] Marshall: Dude, that shit's hard for the people who don't know who I am. That's what I've been diving into as of recently. I've been working with men who are survivors, let's say, of narcissistic abusive relationships. And I'm not saying that about your wife. I'm saying that this is something I deal with.

[00:10:00] Marshall: a

[00:10:00] Hector: a hundred percent was, you can say, I'll say.

[00:10:02] Marshall: Which is men dealing with, Okay, let's unpack this for a second. Because that's a big word. That's a word that gets thrown around a lot. I don't mean to, um, I don't want to insult your audience, because I don't know how familiar they are with what they know. But let's talk about regulation for a second and distraction before we get into all the things, because actually, you and I know that as a man, we spent our whole life outrunning our pain, and we were usually probably the people that are like: oh, I just can't sit still, I can't be alone, I got to be doing something. And what young men don't understand is that in and of itself is the problem.

[00:10:28] Marshall: Because we as men have to understand that our emotions are stored in our body. Our memory is only 5 percent stored in our brain, 95 percent of our memory is stored in our body. So when something traumatic happens in life, our brain timestamps that moment. And then sends that information and stores it in the cell or in our DNA.

[00:10:43] Marshall: So I was coded, so now anytime that a situation comes up again where we are going to feel that unsafe, the time stamp registers, it goes through our DNA and it says alert, alert, alert, alert, and that's what anxiety depression all these things feel like anger feel like, but as a young man, we don't know that so when we start to feel that dysregulated emotion, we don't want to feel it we don't want to sit with it.

[00:11:01] Marshall: So we'll distract, I'm going to go hang out with friends, I'm going to go play video games. And you get a little bit older it's like, I'm going to try that drink, and it's like, I'm going to try that drug. And then it's like, I'm doing this. And all of a sudden, before you know it, you've built a life that's consistent of never being able to actually process the emotion that you feel.

[00:11:14] Marshall: So what I'm saying to everybody on the podcast is this, emotion is energy in motion. So if you have an emotion that doesn't get a chance to move out of you, that energy stays stuck in your body and as a man, it compounds over time until you snap. Now, the reason that I'm saying this is that whether you have a narcissistic woman, avoidant, a secure attachment, it doesn't matter. One of the things I find in my work, Hector, is that men want to come in and say, "Oh, my woman was a narcissist", and then we'll actually do the work and it's like, well, it turns out she wasn't actually a narcissist, she was this or that. And you were not showing up as the man that she could have been.

[00:11:44] Marshall: Now, again, I'm not talking to Hector because we both know what is up with our own lives. But what I'm saying to men is we so easily want to dismiss the things that we're going through as somebody else's fault because we look at our performance or our willingness to perform and we're like, what are you talking about? I'm doing everything I can, I'm out here working, I'm doing all the things like what do you mean I'm not trying.

[00:12:02] Marshall: And we don't understand that just by our nervous system being deregulated where we show up in her energy she can feel that. And she doesn't feel safe and seen and heard because you as a man are not safe and seen and heard for yourself. You as a man don't see yourself, you as a man don't feel and don't hear yourself and you project that into the world.

[00:12:20] Marshall: And so why i'm saying this to everybody as it pertains what we're talking is like, okay Let's bring that back to the conversation of codependency and how we show up in a relationship when we don't understand how to hold that emotional space for ourselves, will never be able to hold that emotional space for a woman, and then we become reactive, and then what we usually learn, and especially if you grew up without a father, which I did, I had my dad was gone, but the narcissistic stepfather who might as well been absent told me I was worthless piece of shit every day. When you grow up void of that then the mother figure, the feminine becomes the nurture.

[00:12:46] Marshall: And so what does my mom do when I'm a child? She nurtures me. And who's my biggest cheerleader? My mom. And when I fall down, who picks me up? My mom. And when everybody's being mean to me, who tells me that it's okay and I'm number one? My mom. So now we get into a relationship, we're seeking that femininity to actually complete us, to fill a void, to regulate us.

[00:13:01] Marshall: And so when we get with a woman, and not a girl, but when we meet mrs Right, who's actually a woman and we are deep dysregulated because we haven't learned how to do that because we're always distracting and running, now we perpetuate that under her, we expect her to be our mother, we expect her to be our therapist and not that she can't hold space for us to do those things, but that is not her job within the marriage or within the relationship at all.

[00:13:19] Marshall: Most people get into a relationship because they're lacking something, what most people actually want is companionship, a real relationship means reflection. If you get into a relationship you have to understand that it is going to become a reflection of every single weak point that you have.

[00:13:31] Marshall: Every insecurity is going to be highlighted and reflected as a mirror in that relationship for both sides. And unless and until you as a partner and a collective are able to regulate yourselves and then each other, you're always going to be in a toxic relationship. So a man can do whatever he wants, but until he learns how to do that within himself, to be seen, to feel heard, to feel safe, secure purpose driven, he'll never be able to do that to a woman and it'll always be the same, It'll be just one toxic relationship after another, he said she said, and it's this mess and the person that hurts the most is the kids, the abused grow up to become the abused or the abuser and the cycle continues.

[00:14:05] Hector: Let me just cut the fucking podcast here. I don't know what it means to be said, but it's just like, yeah. I've shared in bits and pieces, so the listeners who have, listened to the whole show, they can probably piece together my story. But narcissist is perhaps a too harsh of a word, and with that being said, I think that there, maybe it's a semantical issue, meaning maybe it's just there isn't a word to correctly capture what it is that we're talking about, but essentially, if not a clinical diagnosis, because I know that, or I think that is such a thing, I think that it's on the spectrum, it's on the in terms of polarity, I was the people pleaser, that's the role I played and on the opposite side of that pole is whatever you would put there, whatever fucking put, whatever word you want to put there, right?

[00:14:46] Hector: Some people talk about a giver taker like there's all these things but I would did not have something in myself and conversely, another person did not have something in themselves, and it wasn't like a mirror in the exact sense, but it was the opposite, like we saw what could be like, or we saw what we were looking for in somebody else.

[00:15:03] Hector: And that was what I realized, even just today, I was exactly what you said, looking for all of that stuff instead of creating it within myself first.

[00:15:10] Marshall: Well, let's talk about that for a second. So the listeners do have an understanding of what this is because Narcissism is a clinical term, right? That is the thing, so let's talk about personality traits. If we have a spectrum of personality traits, you'd have empath on this side, and narcissism on this side, there are different spectrums within narcissism and empathy, right?, of the empath.

[00:15:27] Marshall: You can have a healthy narcissism, healthy narcissism is a real thing, but you can also have a toxic narcissism. You can also be a narcissist without being clinically diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder. So if you look at my past relationship, for example, she was definitely a narcissist. Now, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a licensed clinician, I'm none of those things. So what I talk about in my content we don't diagnose people, right? I don't talk about cluster B disorders. Cluster B disorders are narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, and I dunno when iPhone really always does that. But point of it is that it does exist on the spectrum, okay, great, so let's talk about narcissism for a second.

[00:16:03] Marshall: If you look up the definition of narcissism in the dictionary, what it's going to tell you is somebody that lacks empathy, is entitled, grandiose, they think that they're better than everybody else.

[00:16:11] Marshall: Okay, well, that's what the general public thinks, so anytime someone doesn't like us, or they're cocky, or they're conceited, "that narcissist", "Oh, narcissist!". And it's like no, I don't know quite like that, so that's why I like to kind of like tiptoe into this subject because there's lots of things that overlap with narcissism, borderline personality disorder basically mirrors narcissistic personality disorder, as well as a avoidant dismissive attachment style also, we'll mimic narcissism, right?

[00:16:34] Marshall: I think it's kiddo time for soccer, so I'm going to head outside. We're going to keep talking, you guys. So what we're talking about is on the spectrum, then, okay, cool, if we know that when I come into my men, or when my men come into my coaching, they're like, well, I need to know if she's a narcissist and it's like, okay, well, first off, do we really need to know that? Or should we really just focus in on, is the relationship toxic? Is it resourceful for the people that you guys want to become?

[00:16:52] Marshall: Alright now, let's talk about what you were just talking about, which is the inverse reflection. Because what I'm talking about is what usually happens is you're going to get a polarity.

[00:16:59] Marshall: So in childhood, the way that somebody becomes a narcissist or a toxic impasse is that there's a fracture of childhood, right? There's a fracture of childhood. Something happens to them, something terrible. In a narcissist case, it's something that would make you so sick you're going to kill somebody for doing this to your kid, usually something really terrible.

[00:17:15] Marshall: Now, when something terrible childhood trauma happens, you're going to go one of two ways, you're going to split, you're going to fracture, you're either going to go towards a more narcissistic approach of the spectrum, or you're going to go to an unhealed toxic empath like I did. Now, a toxic empath is just as toxic as a fucking narcissist, but two totally different places that they're coming from.

[00:17:32] Marshall: A toxic empath abuses themselves, a toxic narcissist abuses other people. So what we've got to understand is if you're in a toxic relationship as a man, one is you're not void of blame, you are the opposite side of the pole, right?

[00:17:43] Marshall: And I think that's what's important for people to understand is that, and I'm not saying you, Hector, at all. What I'm saying is that, as men, we want to point and blame but the reality of it is, is that, even if your woman was a narcissist, you still had a role to play in it. Because you still had to show up in the relationship and allow it to be. And so pulling ourselves out of that is the healing, the narcissist won't heal, though.

[00:18:00] Hector: Well, I think for sure, and if I didn't acknowledge that to the listeners, I want to make sure that I played as equal as she played a role in being a narcissist, I like how you brought a word to a toxic empath, I was of equal toxicity in my allowance to of that and my caving of board of not my borders. Sorry. That's the election's coming up. My caving on my boundaries.

[00:18:23] Hector: And not having those, not being willing to speak up to myself, even just recently, we're cohabitating for the week. She comes in and raises the carryout, she's with the kids those days and it's a very, perhaps I don't know in a toxic environment, but it's not the long term plan, but what I'm getting to or trying to get to is that even now I'm realizing, oh, just asking her for something as simple as like cleaning the house. I never did that, I sort of expected, it I hope she would did it ,but I never asked her and then I also realized that when I do ask her she sort of freaks out and gets all upset and it's a whole thing, this is what I was avoiding, and even now I'm like what the fuck do I have to lose now, it's like there's nothing to lose, but it was that recognition of: oh, this is what I wasn't willing to do back then , and i'm not saying it would have saved it but I would have had a boundary, I would have created some sort of boundary. And then someone who's healthy in their attachment goes, well, this cannot stand, man, this is not cool. And they're willing to walk away, and I wasn't.

[00:19:14] Marshall: That's it. See, and that's what people need to understand is that the toxic empath is only toxic to themselves. A toxic empath's toxicity is that they will continue to allow because they're trying to prove that they're deserving of love, you should believe them, you should pick them.

[00:19:25] Marshall: What you're saying about them is not true. It's like the snake bites you and then you chase it asking, why did you bite me? Love me. Okay? So it's very important to say, and I want men to understand that, especially you just nailed it right on the head. It's like, the difference between the narcissist and the empath is that the empath is willing to take a look at themselves and say, fuck, something's wrong here, the narcissist will never do that.

[00:19:41] Marshall: They will never go, you know what?, yeah, maybe there are some things I can work on, actually, they'll never say that. So that's usually one of the tell tale signs between somebody that's a narcissist versus somebody that just has narcissistic personality traits, which could be lots of things.

[00:19:52] Marshall: But I think that's just super important, a narcissist is a bully at heart, they bully people, they hate people's success, a real narcissist don't want anybody to do better than them. So my ex, for example, talks shit about everybody. I mean we lived in town in Montana with Dana Linn Bailey, I don't know if you guys know who that is in the fitness industry but dana lynn and Rob Bailey are like two of the most famous people in the fitness industry, we live in a town of 15 000 people with them, you're a bodybuilder don't you think maybe we should build a relationship and start to network? But anytime the name was brought up It's like: Oh, that person's this and that, blah, blah, blah. And that should have been a first red flag in the beginning, how hateful she was of excellence, or how hateful she was of other people's success. That's a narcissistic trait that you're never going to get rid of, that's never going to change in her, and no matter what happens, a woman who hates your success like, I have a hundred thousand dollar weekend and she's pissed about what?, like what do you, what? And so, that's an important thing though, is to understand.

[00:20:36] Hector: One of the things that I wanted to get your insights on it, because you have a Instagram page and some of the videos that you put out are "Oh my God", nailed it! Yep, yep. You just scroll through and it's some of these things, and I think one of the interesting parts for me is the sort of the stages of how this happens.

[00:20:50] Hector: And you might actually be able to break this down even better, but that was one of the things that's signified to me that like, Oh yeah, this is how, because you can, to a tee, go through and put calendar dates, or Google calendar events to each of the stages essentially.

[00:21:03] Hector: And I don't know if being in it, you can see it, but at least once I've been able to remove myself from it a little bit, heal in some sort of way, you can kind of look back and go, Oh yeah, that's what was going on. But talk to me about some of these stages and how it starts and

[00:21:16] Marshall: Yeah, I will. Let's talk about this. This is called the narcissistic abuse cycle, all right? So I want everybody to understand right now it's time to shoot this podcast, today's day 33, Hector. 33 days ago, I decided to post a reel about narcissism.

[00:21:29] Marshall: I knew that my girl was a narcissist, I knew that but I couldn't accept it, so I left the relationship all the things, walk out of the house 140 days ago, were the hardest thing i've ever done in my 40 years, harder than quitting drugs, leaving my kids behind, not my kids but they were kind of like my kids, everything! I didn't know she was a narcissist at the time I thought I was the problem, now I'm gonna get into the narcissistic abuse cycle and how this starts and how I ended up here in a second, but I want men to understand first, before we get into this I had an Instagram page going whatever, and decided to just start sharing my story. I was so down and out, I was ready to unalive myself, and so I just I decided to share this thing and it hit like most views that a reel has ever gotten and I was like archive, I'm like, "Okay! Oh, I don't know if i'm ready for that". And now i'm kind of like sitting there and i'm like, "Okay, unarchive", and put the reel back up, another couple thousand views like "Oh, no, she's gonna see this, archive". So what i'm saying is that I a little bit tiptoed around this and then, yeah, I don't want to make this a conversation that makes anybody uncomfortable, but the God of my spirituality made it undeniable about a week later, that I was supposed to post about this, so 33 days ago I went all in. Hector in 33 days, we have gotten 66 million views on Instagram.

[00:22:27] Marshall: The engagement is up to like 6.6 million right now, of people actually engaging with it. And I just had to bring on VA today because I literally can't keep up the comments and messages, there's thousands a day. Why I'm saying this is because of the millions of men, if anybody goes to my Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, any platform, of the millions of men who have commented in the last 33 days, we all have the exact same fucking story to a tee.

[00:22:51] Marshall: It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable! And so what I really started to wonder then, it's like, damn, is there some sort of like a global wireless, hive mentality at work here? And so why I say that is to say that these things, the narcissistic abuse cycle is very, very clear, cut and dry, narcissists are narcissists are narcissists.

[00:23:05] Marshall: And this is how the cycle works. You have stage one, the love bombing. You have stage two, devaluation. You have stage three, the discard, and then sometimes you have stage four, which is hoovering. So let's break this down. Stage one is the love bomb. So this is the part where, I'm going to use my relationship as an example.

[00:23:20] Marshall: When I met my girl, dude, I thought, "There's no fucking way, I won the lottery, how could this beautiful woman?" I mean, she was in, Hector, she was into everything, everything I was into like, how is that possible? I couldn't believe it, smoking hot, you love to be out in the mountains, you love putting your bare feet in the ground, you love guns, you love speaking, you love entrepreneurship, you like every weird little tiny thing. And over the first few weeks and months even, it's just constant " you can't believe it", you're so empowered, you're so built up. She's calling you king, you literally are like the coming of Christ to this woman.

[00:23:49] Marshall: Okay, great, that's the love bombing phase. Also, sometimes can be a sex bombing phase, which is what it was for me at first, because the sex with the narcissist is wild, the narcissism is the most fun, best sex you've ever had, I mean, it's intoxicating. All right Now they do that on purpose to hook you. During that love bombing phase what's happening is they're grooming you, and they're learning about you, they're mimicking and mirroring you, and they're learning all of your insecurities.

[00:24:10] Marshall: At the same time they're also implanting in you something they're going to leverage against you later, which is your protector and provider. They know that you're a protector and provider, first off narcissistic women do not pick weak men. They do not pick weak men. They only pick people that they want to be. A narcissist wants to be you, because they are void of being able to be that for themselves.

[00:24:28] Marshall: And so in the narcissistic community, what narcissists look for is called supply. Narcissistic supply. And that supply could be another sexual partner, it could be women who dote on her and just think she's the shit, it could be lots of things. But a narcissist needs supply because the narcissist can't supply themselves with the energy that they need to actually love themselves. Because whatever happens in their childhood, they hate themselves, and they're so ashamed and so guilty that they cannot look at that reflection in the mirror ever again.

[00:24:52] Marshall: And so because they can't see their own reflection, they have to steal that essence from somebody else. So that's how the thing starts. You've got the love bombing stage, now they're mimicking, they're doing all the things. And on top of that, she's telling you her sad, sad story.

[00:25:03] Marshall: My dad did this, my grandpa, my mom, my blast boyfriend, soft story, fucking love me, save me. She's not saying that, but she's saying that. She's ticking all your boxes. Okay, great. Then one day, out of the blue, you do something, she asked you to put air in the tire, total random example, and you're all, I'm going to, and then you didn't, and then she asked me the next day, oh fuck, I forgot again. Now it turns into a massive issue.

[00:25:23] Marshall: And it's the first massive issue. And you're like, " Who is this person? She must just be having a bad day". And then all of a sudden this bad day kind of turns into a bad week. And you're kind of getting a little unsure because as a codependent and anxious attachment style, which most men who become involved in an narcissistic abusive relationship are codependent and anxious attachment style, but she knows this, so when she starts to pull that love away, what do we do, Hector? Oh my God, what's changed? What? I'm emotionally deregulated, my mother who loves me, the feminine nurtures, she's pulling away, Oh my God! What did I do wrong? Babe? What can I do? What can I do? What can I do? Now, whether a woman is a narcissist or not, even if she's securely attached, that's so unattractive to a woman.

[00:25:56] Marshall: No woman wants that, but guess what? The narcissist is so fucked up, she does that to you so she can judge you. And in that moment, you are done forever. You will never come back from that, and there's nothing you can do to avoid that moment. The narcissist is constantly, always, always, always looking for the other shoe to fall in everything in life. They're always waiting for the other shoe to fall.

[00:26:14] Marshall: So the entire time she's been mimicking you, and learning you, and watching you, she is waiting for you to be lying to her. Because everybody in her life has lied to her, and hurt her, and taken advantage of her. So, the entire thing is just a representation of you not doing what you said you were gonna do like every other fucking man in the world.

[00:26:26] Marshall: Okay, great. That's how the thing starts. Now the reason that it is like that is because in the beginning she did love you, during the love bombing phase what's happening for her is the idealization phase. You are literally her ideal partner, she thinks that you are finally the one that is going to crack the code, that's finally come to save her, like oh my God Find finally, finally, oh my God!

[00:26:42] Marshall: So that feeling that she feels for you mostly is real unless she's a malignant narcissist, which means she, you're a mark and she picked you and she did on purpose, which is a lot of female narcissists, but in general, you got the idealization phase. So when you forget to do the tire thing, all of a sudden you are not.

[00:26:55] Marshall: Oh my God, this guy is just like everybody else. That's why it's so violent and quick, and now you're done forever. Except she's not going to let you go, because public image is everything to her. So she's going to now make your life a living hell, so now we enter stage 2, which is called devaluation phase.

[00:27:08] Marshall: Now this phase phase lasts for as long as the man can last, or the woman can last. The devaluation phase where the cognitive dissonance starts to set in. So what we're talking about a trauma bond is being created. A trauma bond happens when somebody gives and takes, gives and takes, i'm gonna give, you pull it away, give it to you and pull it away.

[00:27:24] Marshall: And so the trauma bond is actually an addiction, that's why I have to tell my men, and this is why I ended up here, addiction is what I overcome, right? So it's fitting that I actually ended up here because these men become trauma bonded, and they don't understand why they love somebody that's so awful to them.

[00:27:35] Marshall: And what happens is you're literally a chemical physical dependency, again, on your woman. Science proves that gaslighting and emotional abuse changes your brain physically So if somebody's constantly gaslighting you, for example I'll give an example of gaslighting, one of my events that I had when we first got together, right when we first split, I made like 50 grand or something, I wired her like 10 grand to pay some bills, four months later we're talking about something, she's like you never pay anything, I'm like, what are you talking about? I wired you 10 grand the day of the event. No, you didn't. I'm like what I have the receipt! Look at the fucking Venmo! Look at all the money! I'm transferring you like, what do you mean? And she's like you're thinking, this and you're thinking that, so that's kind of a drastic, but that's what gaslighting is.

[00:28:12] Marshall: They Invalidate your reality and they confuse you, and they pick at you, and they make you feel worthless, but only to a certain point because they push too hard you might go away. So again, it's this ebb and flow, ebb and flow, so what it looks things is over time this woman that you can't do anything right for, you're always wrong, you suck no matter what, and as a man, you become depressed, you can't work, you're nothing, you can't do anything because you're constantly stuck in this fight or flight mode. But that's what she wants, because that's called course of control. She knows that if you're constantly in that state, that you will not know what to do. Now if she can keep you in this state over a long enough time, in the relationship, you're fucked, and she knows that she can control you, and so that's what the whole entire thing becomes.

[00:28:50] Marshall: Now, there's going to come a time, eventually, hopefully, sometimes not, a lot of these guys end up getting married and having kids and they just don't ever want to leave because they don't understand the trauma bond, but if you're in a trauma bond long enough, now you create what's called cognitive dissonance.

[00:29:02] Marshall: Cognitive dissonance is when you believe two things are true at the same time. But since you can't figure out which one of them is true, your brain is constantly buffering, and that's where the addiction loop cycle comes in. So it's like, I know this woman loves me, she wants me to win harder than anybody, but I'm pretty sure she hates me, she tells me all the time that she can't stand me or whatever, it's like why do you even want to be with me if you don't like me? And you can't figure it out.

[00:29:21] Marshall: Okay, so now what happens is, and I'm not saying this about your girl, I don't know, but infidelity is a massive thing for narcissists. It turns out like my girl was cheating on me the entire four years and I would have never guessed, I would have never fucking guessed, not in a gazillion years, gun to my head over, like, are you kidding me, her? No. So anyways, that's the thing that makes you sick is when you get out of the relationship and you look back, cause you start to realize all the signs that were there that were obvious of all the things.

[00:29:43] Marshall: And you're like, Oh my God. How did I not accept that and see that? So now you're in this phase where she's gonna discard you. Except remember, the narcissist hates the thought of people judging them, so what actually usually happens is it's called a reverse discard, which is that she's gonna get to a point where she makes your life so fucking miserable that you leave.

[00:29:59] Marshall: But wait, there's more. Because during the devaluation cycle she started something called a smear campaign, and that smear campaign can be something very little where she's going out with her girlfriends and she's just always saying, you know, Marshall's at home, he's just kind of dropping the ball. Actually, I think he might be a narcissist, he's like a verbally abusive to me I'm, not sure if he's cheating on me. Like all these girls are always like he's following these chicks on instagram, which I wasn't, all these things. So the smear campaign comes in because she's laying the groundwork for anybody to ever fucking know that if you left it's your fault not hers.

[00:30:25] Marshall: Why does she do that? Because she needs supply, so when you do leave her, or she leaves you and she jumps right back into a relationship immediately, I just needed this for me. After what I went through with, Hector, I deserve this, and all of her friends, and all of her fucking flying monkeys, they're like, oh yeah, you do.

[00:30:38] Marshall: And then there she goes. And it's totally destabilizing to the man because everybody that you know, and love, and trusted, they don't believe you, they think that you're the biggest scum of the earth, that's the discard phase or the reverse discard phase. And then the last phase of this is the hoovering phase, which is the narcissist looks at people like objects, like I don't need my coffee pot until I make coffee in the morning, so I don't think about my coffee pot right now when i'm with you because I don't fucking need my coffee pot, but when I need it in the morning, it's there, a narcissist looks at you like that.

[00:31:04] Marshall: I don't need Marshall, I'm doing this. When I need him, he's there, always. Just come and use him. So what happens is, you are her property or a narcissist, well it doesn't matter male or female, you're their property, they see you as property, so when you try to leave or you leave, they're going to hoover you, they're going to try to get you to come back in and you're like, it doesn't make any sense, what do you mean? And then what often happens times when they do, they'll get us back in and we'll sleep with them and then boom, the cycle continues. And that's a narcissistic abuse cycle, that's how it goes.

[00:31:27] Marshall: And if I'm being honest, Hector, and we can end it here, I'll let you get back to what we're doing is, for me personally, that suicide has always been like my number one thing. And as an older man now, I can look back over like even famous people on social media and stuff, guys who looked like they had the perfect family, and it's like you were rich and you had perfect family, why did you off yourself? And I'm starting to believe now, I bet you that most of these men are in narcissistic relationships, they have no idea, and they're probably to a point where they have accomplished and done so much and they feel so worthless because she makes them feel that he's literally worthless, that he's like, literally I was not to be trigger warning, but like, I was at that point before I left, she had me feeling like I was so fucking worthless, and I couldn't understand it. And at 40 years old, I was just like, I'm going to lose everything, I can't start again.

[00:32:06] Marshall: My personal brand is fucking shot, it's shot. I can't even wipe the slate clean, and what am I going to do? I might go to drive into the mountains, put my cig in my mouth and let the bear take me away. And that's what narcissism is. But again, the most destabilizing part is when you get out or when you try to speak up, the smear campaign is already been running but for whatever reason God called me to make this content, so i'm trying to put a stop to that.

[00:32:26] Hector: Yeah, man, I'm tired of having this conversation and yeah, we could go through and I could pinpoint each of those moments, right? And perhaps that is...

[00:32:34] Marshall: It can become counterproductive, that's the thing, once you get to a place where you're willing to accept what the relationship was, there's really no sense to go back and ruminate through it, so for all you young men out there, this hass been my rule for a real long time, for all you young men, if you feel like you need to check up on your girl by going through her phone, don't, just leave, because if you feel like you need to go through her phone I guarantee you're 100 going to find something you don't want to find, that you don't want to see, and that you're not going to want to carry around for the rest of your life. I say that kind of telling you cheek but really it's like if you've been in an abusive relationship. Once you get enough information to realize that I wasn't toxic and it wasn't really you, or you have enough diagnostic layout that what your shortcomings were, and now you're working on them, yeah, there is a point where you need to go down to pinpoint it, but I got to a point where she's like this is not helping me, it's actually keeping me stuck.

[00:33:15] Hector: Well, yeah, and I don't say that only to acknowledge your understanding of the process and your detailing of the cycle, and I'm sure a lot of guys out there.

[00:33:23] Marshall: I do want you guys listening to know that. Yeah.

[00:33:24] Hector: Well, to that point though, we've talked about one of the reasons why we've continued this show, I started the show for me because I was going through this cycle, I was in the middle of it, I was in the devaluation stage. And I'm searching for fucking answers because I thought exactly all you were saying, right? Trying to find my worth again, trying to find answers and so that was the impetus for the show.

[00:33:43] Hector: And then I kept the show going and I sustained the show because A, the guys were reaching out, I had more positive feedback from the few episodes that I'd put out in this than all of the other recordings that I'd ever done ever. And so it's like that thing where you hit on something and you realize that there's something to lead into. And then Peter Atiyah talked about the deaths of despair and how guys are suffering at four times the rate of women in death and things like suicide, and overdoses, and car crashes, and all the things that would result from what you're talking about. We're just searching for anything, anything to take away this fucking pain that we don't know how to get rid of, right?

[00:34:18] Hector: And it keeps coming back, and coming back, and coming back, and you can sedate it for a little while with whatever sort of drug or substance that you want and then it comes rushing back perhaps even harder because you tried to suppress it. I'm glad we are bringing that sort of stuff to light.

[00:34:33] Marshall: That's the one thing that most of the men say, that are on my community, my growing community, is that more than anything, they just need validation. I mean, I have grown ass men and when I tell you...

[00:34:41] Hector: Because we think we're crazy or

[00:34:43] Marshall: We think we're

[00:34:43] Hector: We think we're crazy.

[00:34:44] Marshall: I'm telling you there's no dorks, there's no weak man. I don't say names, I never say names and i'm not going to now, but I was on a call yesterday with one of my favorite hollywood actors, somebody that we've all watched the movies, because he watched my flight, because he saw an Instagram thing and click the link It paid me 300 bucks.

[00:34:58] Marshall: Like what are we talking about?, that was cool. But I say that to say that even the wealthiest most successful public eye people go through this shit as men, and even those men who are surrounded by people that can pick them up, they can't talk about it. You as a high performing successful man, how are we going to be out here talking about our women abusing us?

[00:35:15] Marshall: And if no men come forward and say it, then nobody's ever going to come forward and say it.

[00:35:19] Hector: Yeah. I'm of the mind that C is of equal amount of responsibility and fault as I am. In the sense of how long I allowed it to drag on, it was like a two, and even today, I'm still trying to find sort of flaw back. And I think a big challenge for you is like, okay, you get through it, and then just because you get through it, all of a sudden now you have this new, this new book to write, this new story, and I, at least for me, it was a very challenging process that, has taken a while, and you and I both have done a lot of work, both in the personal development space, professionally development, and then also like in this inner work healing journey.

[00:35:55] Hector: And I'm like, man, for guys to be able to go through that and then all of a sudden have to start over is what it feels like, it feels like a big mountain. And if I wasn't so fucking sadistic in my perspective on life's challenges, like I can see how very easily that just becomes something that guy's just won't talk.

[00:36:14] Marshall: A hundred percent. You and I are unique and that's what i'm finding about the guys that I work with is that, dude, I'm good, like I waited three months, I wasn't like posting, I wasn't trying to get back at her, I really went to therapy, did all things. And so when I made a decision, it was a pretty intentional and aligned decision to start talking about narcissism it wasn't like it was a reaction, I'm gonna bury her, and it's never been to bury my ex. I just realized that I wish somebody would've told me do this. I would've left, I got the red, red flag, I got the intuition on the first date, and I completely just painted the flag green and put it in the bag and here we go, you know what I'm saying?

[00:36:43] Marshall: But what

[00:36:43] Hector: bro, she's so hot, she's so hot.

[00:36:46] Marshall: A hundred percent. Dude, this is the first girl I ever had with big old fake boobs, and I was like, oh damn, you look good. I'm like, nope, nope, nope, stupid men. No, we're not stupid, but we don't know what we don't know, and we're driven by procreation so.

[00:36:57] Marshall: But, yeah, it's interesting. I don't know where I was going with that thought.

[00:37:00] Hector: Well, think what I'd like to talk about and spend the last little bit is this concept of what to do when you go through this and starting a new, because I remember talking to a good buddy of mine and I told him, I don't know what value I bring to a woman.

[00:37:14] Hector: I don't know what value, and he was like, dude, you've got to answer that for yourself. And that for me, I was like, fuck the fact that's the place that I got, was pretty wild and also what was interesting is he's like, dude, I don't see you how you're seeing yourself, I always saw you as the guy who was achieving and confident, and whatever would like, all this sort of ideal things, so the fact that you don't see yourself like this is very strange for me.

[00:37:37] Marshall: Yeah, I bet. That's the whole part with being a codependent or an anxious attachment styles, you don't have an identity. So I remember what I was getting to at the last topic and it rolls right into what we're saying right now. When I got out of my relationship, there was things I had to accept, I knew who she was but I also knew who I was. The best part about being a narcissistic relationship is that basically your entire relationship is a diagnostic breakdown of your shortcomings. So, as a man, you can take that diagnostic checkup at the end of the relationship, and if you know personal development and self mastery, Bro, this whole thing is a cakewalk.

[00:38:05] Marshall: I've been at this thing for like a day, like a hundred and, I don't know, I think a hundred and nine days in a row now of my process. I wallowed for like the first three weeks, and then I decided that I didn't want to do that anymore. I decided I know what to do, and so I'm going to put together a process, and I'm going to choose purpose over pleasure.

[00:38:20] Marshall: Now, this is where I'm going to probably veer off from a lot of people because what I'm talking about is not easy and a lot of men aren't willing to go here. But one first first is the one thing I noticed that in the space is that yes, Hector, we are blessed because of our skill sets, I'm able to move through this fast, most men don't have any personal development skills, no self mastery skills, no emotional regulation skills.

[00:38:38] Marshall: They're literally starting from ground zero, so they literally don't know what they're doing. Me, I was like, I got this, I'm going to sit in the pain, I'm going to process the emotion, I'm going to let it move, and that's exactly what I did, I finally made friends with anger. And so when I got home, the first thing I had to understand is I had to let my emotions be my emotions in a healthy way.

[00:38:55] Marshall: So I had to take a look at my diagnostic checkup, and I had to admit to myself that I'm the kind of man that says he's going to do things and doesn't, I break promises to myself all the time, which means I break promises to other people all the time, I'm indecisive, I don't follow through. All these things I, Marshall Gillen, doesn't do.

[00:39:10] Marshall: And if I'm ever going to be in a healthy relationship, then these are the things I have to take care of first regardless if she was right or wrong or whatever. So when I took a look at that and I realized okay, bro Like you need to figure out how to get better. I personally have a four step process and it's the one I teach inside of "My sacred king", but it's not like everything else, it's not the 12th step addiction. I believe now at this point in my life, that our consciousness is the authentic voice of God, and I believe that if I can clean my vessel as best as possible, like even the bible says, if I can clean this vessel and make it as pure as possible I can hold as much God potential that there is. And so, first and foremost, I had to get sober because that was my thing.

[00:39:45] Marshall: It wasn't that it was a problem, it's just that like, do I really need to be doing bumps of cocaine three or four times a month? Absolutely not. Do I need to be drinking and all these things? Absolutely not. Maybe you guys are good with it, but when Marshall has a drink, he wants to do all the cocaine in the world, and I've never been able to beat that, so, I need to stop drinking, so that was number one. Then it was like, okay, well, if I really truly want, and I said, this is not for everybody. Then I had to truly take a look at my life and say, well, how do I clean my vessel even more? It was like the processed food, the sugar, what was I putting into my mind? What was I scrolling on social media? Was I still jerking off the porn? All of these things, so once I had a layout, I took all the things, all the vices and laid them on the table, I'm like, these are all the things I'm getting rid of. I believe now that it is my purpose to become the absolute greatest version of myself as a living sacrifice to God and to give that man back to the collective in service of him, that's just what I believe now.

[00:40:32] Marshall: And so what I've done is I've created a daily process to become that man, what I call in my content, the 10.0 version of myself. So if I become the 10.0 version of myself and I do the work, the work instills the work. So if my purpose is bigger than my need for pleasure, now I can put together a daily process that i'll never miss on.

[00:40:49] Marshall: So if anybody watches my social media, it's literally the same thing every day, wake up at 3 15, I do all my stuff before I go do my daily five mile walk, then I hit my workout, then I hit my hundred burpees, then I do the next thing, and I never miss it, doesn't matter if i'm traveling. It doesn't matter, I never miss waking up at that time and doing my daily process, never, it doesn't matter if, bro, I have not slept in five days, but i'm still up at 3 15. Oh, you got to rest your body. Bro, for me personally, breaking those promises led to every single thing that I didn't want in my entire life.

[00:41:18] Marshall: So why I'm saying some of the gentlemen here is if you really want to truly change your life, you're gonna have to, first off, write down on a piece of paper what does the 10.0 version of you look like? How does he walk? How does he move? How does he talk? How does he treat other people? What does he look like when he's moving through the crowd? Who is that motherfucker? Who is the 10.0 version of yourself? He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he's a man of like, whatever. To me, that's my guy, he's a man of God. Like I said, got the best version of myself and give that man back to the world.

[00:41:40] Marshall: Okay, great. Number two, then would have to be to get in the best shape of my life. It doesn't have to be all jacked and doing a hundred burpees and lifts and weights, whatever it is for your character, whatever your character is meant to do. Marshall Gillen avatar, the character that he plays, is an athlete warrior spartan guy. I'm not gonna go run a million miles, like maybe that's your character.

[00:41:56] Marshall: So first is getting rid of the bullshit, drop devices, get rid of all the bullshit, man, it's not helping you guys be better, that's what women and children man. Number two is to get in good shape, get in incredible shape, and again, because now if my vessel is clean and my vessel is firing on all purposes, bro, now the downloads I get wherever those thoughts come from, I don't even know where they come from, but look at the reflection in the world now the content, I'm creating 66 million views. I'm not doing anything different than I've been doing the last 10 years online, I'm still making content the same way. The detail is different of what I'm talking about, but I'm still doing it all the same. The only thing that's changed is me.

[00:42:29] Marshall: So I get rid of all the bullshit, I get in really great shape, and now I'm ready to meet God. Okay, what I mean by that is really what you need to do is meet yourself, and until you can sit in silence with yourself alone, you're never going to be able to meet whatever that creator of that higher power is, not not in its fullest power. And so that's the mark that love most men. Most men miss, which is what we spent this entire episode talking about, sitting in the pain, because if you sit in the pain long enough, it's going to heal, gentlemen, remember healing is your ability to hold pain.

[00:42:56] Marshall: Like if I have a big cut on my hand, I can't heal it just have to heal over time, but my ability to withstand the pain every time I get bumps in, or rips over it cuts against, oh, damn it, like okay, my ability to heal, my ability to hold on, to hold that pain without giving up. So if you can learn now to sit in your pain what's going to happen over time is it's going to filter out It's like pushing the pus out of a wound. Now for me personally, If you scroll back my Instagram far enough to a couple weeks ago, I was very angry, but I was angry with a purpose, and I said that in my content,. I'm so angry, I have to let this out, but I'm not gonna go spill it out over everybody, I'm gonna find a place in my daily process, which for me personally, is during my hundred burpees, where I show up and I process the emotion, I move the emotion out.

[00:43:35] Marshall: So if I get rid of the bullshit, if I get in great shape and I'm able to meet myself at a deep enough level, now I can start to make a deeper connection with God.

[00:43:41] Marshall: And then the fourth thing that I recommend all men do if they're trying to heal is you have to find a community of men, iron sharpens iron. The reason that 95 percent of men fail in the world is because they try to do it alone. Even in Genesis, it tells you that a man is not to be alone. A man is meant to be with other men, iron sharpens iron, and so the process I get people to move through these toxic relations. Now, obviously there's tools and strategy things within what we do, but even a man on his own, I've proven the process, literally the last 140 days now, whatever it is, gets over, get in shape, get with God, get with men, and if you do those four things and you're actually truly dedicated to be the 10.0 version of yourself, what happens now is that, well, it doesn't matter what happens now, bro, because my worth, again, comes from the work. It's not about the aesthetics, it's about the standards and principles that you instill in you on the way to becoming that man.

[00:44:22] Marshall: Now there's nothing to me that's more important than the process, because it's a reflection to the world. I'm sacrificing myself every day, not in some, oh, altruistic, look at me. Like, Marshall Gillen's a fuck up, Marshall Gillen's always been a fuck up, so I killed that motherfucker, that's why I tell people my content, like when I was going to that angry face i'm like this guy right here, I hate him, this is the guy that couldn't hold on to his girl, this is the guy that couldn't save his kids, this motherfucker couldn't do nothing right, makes me emotional just talking about it, but i'm not mad at him. I'm just mad I don't want to be you like fuck you, bro, you took everything from me, you've taken everything from me, and i'm left with this shit because you, and so You The 10.0 version of myself is not that.

[00:44:59] Marshall: And so now I'm like Halloween party, that's why I can't have fun, I'm just like, there's no other purpose, I'm so close to God and I'm so driven by what it is that I feel. I feel so alive and on fire lately because I have this clean vessel that has a purpose that is aligned with a higher creation, and I have these men for all over the world who are coming to me because and for nothing else that I'm able to help them heal something I was never able to heal for myself. I make less money than I've ever made in the last 10 years and I'm happier and more fulfilled, I'm doing more meaningful work than I've ever done.

[00:45:27] Marshall: And that's the thing that other men are coming to me now for is because they're like, I want that. The world offers me nothing, Marshall, all these parties, these cars, they're nice, I'm not saying don't get that shit if you want it. But what I'm saying is none of that matters, none of that matters in the end. And when you're able to truly build a brand and build a life around giving back to somebody else that can't really give back to you, as cliché as it sounds sounds, that's when everything changes. And now my world is starting to reflect that where it's like, I'm working with these ads. Like one of my very, again, not to say a name, but one of my very favorite WWE wrestlers, I guess he was WWF back in the day, WWF wrestlers signed up for my program the other day, and I'm like, are you shitting me? And so it's like an outfit, and I don't know what's going to come from this, but what I'm saying is that it seems like God is moving in my life in a way that I'm going to get to do a lot of really exciting, cool shit. And it's finally because I stopped living for myself and I started living for something else.

[00:46:10] Marshall: And that's my process, and that's the process that I'm helping men with. And like I said, it's a lot because it takes sacrifice and dedication to become the best version of yourself, which most people are not willing to do.

[00:46:18] Hector: Well said, my man. Well said. I would love for you to share, I got one more question for you, but I'd love for you to share with the guys where they can learn about the programs and get more connected with you.

[00:46:25] Marshall: Just follow me, just message me guys, I'm a real person, just message me. Hit me up, let's talk, I'm a real person, let's be friends. Follow me on any Instagram, any profile, you can message me. We got all kinds of programs for all kinds of stuff. I got mid level programs, and low level programs, and high level programs.

[00:46:39] Marshall: What I want men to understand is that if you need a safe space, to be seen and heard and you got toxic relationship, then you should come find one of my communities online and we'll be there for you. Not just me, you should go to the comment section, there's barely any hate in my comment section.

[00:46:50] Marshall: It's like masculine men supporting each other, makes me emotional to think about, I mean grown ass men telling each other that they love each other, and they're calling each other kings and picking each other, it's again I'm motion, it's real healing and I'm not doing anything, dude, like I'm not doing anything, I wake up in the morning and I just give it to God and I post a reel, and I tell my story, and these men are fucking healing, millions of them across the world.

[00:47:12] Marshall: And it's like who am I? And what am I? Why are you giving this to me? Like why did I even deserve this? And that's what keeps me going man, because I just purpose over pleasure, purpose over pleasure, and that's it. And so if you want that, you want healing, you want to be seen, heard and validated, just come find us on social media, The Gillen gang is there, you gotta go any comments, say anything, and they'll pick you up in a second, instant.

[00:47:31] Hector: I love it. We're going to link it up to the show notes. My last question for you is, in your opinion, what is the definition of modern masculinity?

[00:47:37] Marshall: Becoming the greatest version of yourself and giving that man back to the world. That's it, becoming the greatest version of yourself is a sacrifice to God, as a living sacrifice to God and then giving that man back to the world in service of the collective, there's nothing else more masculine, that's like Jesus.

[00:47:48] Marshall: Now, this is not about Jesus, I'm not religious, I don't believe in Jesus in a way where like, Oh, he died for me and I have to be saved by him. I want to be Christ like, I want to be like Christ, Christ consciousness, my breath. Heaven is in my mind and the Lord is the law of the universe.

[00:48:01] Marshall: The universal laws of the 10 commandments in Christ is my conscious breath. And God is actually my imagination or my thoughts, then heaven on earth is my mind on earth, and my christ consciousness is the spinal fluid and nervous system, and the breath that moves up and down which gives me life. And if you adhere to the law of the Lord of the land, which are the universal laws that make up this realm that we live in, now all of a sudden we're not even talking about religion, we're talking about how to walk this earth like Christ, which is not a religious thing at all.

[00:48:27] Marshall: If you want to buy into that dogma, that's fine and there's people at my church that will probably hate that I talk like that but that's just how I believe. And I know seven out of ten pastors that are still jerking off right before they go up to the pulpit. So really, when we're talking about being a Christian, or even being anything, what does it mean to be a masculine man? It means to become the absolute best version of yourself to walk this earth as a Christ conscious being, in service to the collective, and heal people from the pain that they can't heal themselves from by simply being the reflection that they're ready to see. And that's what the sacrifice is. You sacrifice yourself to become that reflection.

[00:48:54] Marshall: That's how I feel.