Attendees
Endre Gabori, Jonathan Welton, Joshua Boswell, Margie Boswell
Transcript
Joshua Boswell: Hey guys, welcome to the Happy Family Club podcast. We're so excited to have Andre and Jonathan here with us today. You guys are in for an amazing experience. As we’ve talked with them… the background these two gentlemen have is just absolutely incredible.
We've had so much joy learning about them and digging into their background and discovering what brought them here. So we're gonna learn some more about that today as well.
Margie Boswell: And what work they're doing, for the world, it’s amazing.
Joshua Boswell: Absolutely. So, just as a brief introduction… Actually I wanted to say, I emailed you guys a little earlier, and said, Hey give me an introduction. Because as some of you might know, I have been MC at hundreds of conferences and events. I've been keynote speaker at lots of places. I've introduced hundreds of speakers around the world. So I'm always amused when I ask for bio or an introduction, what comes back, right? It tells a lot about the individual.
And I got two short sentences: Andre is the founder of The Bulletproof Husband. And Jonathan is a master coach and author of The Bulletproof Husband book.
And I was like… Now that is awesome. I think that was one of the best things I've ever heard, because it shows the humility, it shows the strength of characters. Like… we don’t have to brag about ourselves, our work speaks for itself and I just love the approach. So, thank you guys for being here.
Now, I'm gonna add a few more things. Did you want to add something else to that?
Margie Boswell: Yeah. One thing I loved about Endre when I was learning about you Endre is just that you saw a need in the world. Dozens of men that were needing help. And they were having a hard time in their marriage, and they just didn't have any resources to deal with it and to figure it out. And you saw that need and you wanted to fill that need and now you’ve created all these tools and resources for people and for thousands of men to help them in their marriages and their families and help their children to have a stable life.
I really look up to you for what you're doing out there.
Joshua Boswell: And I want to say too, about Jonathan, first as a doctorate in ministry and has done incredible work in Bible and spirituality and textbooks. He spoken around the world, he's done incredible stuff.
But I think the thing that I admire most about you Jonathan is that you took these tools that Endre has created, applied them personally to transform your life, which is a ton of work. I mean, that is not a light thing and then you're like, You know what? This is amazing. I'm gonna turn around and share this with other people. Which you have done.
And now your new book that's out and co-authored by Endre and a couple others that contributed and just… very excited about that. We'll talk more about the book later but… anyway.
Margie Boswell: Thanks for being here.
Joshua Boswell: Yes. Thank you so much for being here.
Endre Gabori: Thanks for having us.
Joshua Boswell: I would love to jump in and the question of the day is: Is there one principle that you guys could share with our community that would help them to have a happier family?
And I guess before we dive into that specifically, maybe you could just share a little bit about your backgrounds. And specifically, I'm most interested in your passion. Like, what brought you into this space, where you're doing this incredible work for men around the world? So I'd love to hear your insights on that. Maybe Endre you can start us up.
Endre Gabori: Yeah cool. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's been a 7 year journey.
I'm 36, and when I started The Bulletproof Husband I was 30. So one of the big challenges I had in front of me is how do I get through to men and not have my age come in the way? Some of them when I worked with had children older than me.
Joshua Boswell: Mmm.
Endre Gabori: I was able to get through to them and my passion really comes from my childhood. And some of the traumas and experiences from my childhood. My parents divorced when I was just two months… Yeah, two months shy of five years old, and it caused a lot of trauma. From bullying to not having a father figure… My father left to Canada at that time, I was living in Hungary with my mother. My sister was there. I was in a very feminine environment so I didn't have that male role model, that masculine role model. My grandfather passed away when I was nine.
And… fitting into school and life in general was difficult because some of the experiences that my friends had, especially coming from a small town, I didn't have that. It was really hard to relate some of the things, their father was teaching them, but I didn't have a father to teach me that.
00:05:00
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: So that came with all these difficulties and insecurities that kind of piled up over time. And as I was getting older and older, school, high school, university… These insecurities became more and more pronounced, and they were impacting different areas of my life.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: I wasn't able to be authentic. I doubted myself. And decisiveness was a challenge and actually I made my age the excuse for everything. Because typically, I surrounded myself with older people all the time and…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: I brought in my age as something that's in the way for me to be at their level, because they're older… so well of course...
Joshua Boswell: Right, right. Yeah.
Endre Gabori: And then when I was 24, I started a personal development journey. Which really transformed everything. It really put me in this masculine realm and allowed me to experience what it is to have healthy, authentic, masculine relationships. And when that started, I really dove in, and I went all in. I went to fire meetups with other men, did a lot of work on myself. A lot of introspecting. Got a lot of clarity around what it means to be a man and how to relate to other men. How to relate to women. And I did a lot of volunteer work in that realm for about six years.
Endre Gabori: Meanwhile I was working various corporate jobs, kind of hopping one year to the other from one job to the other. It just wasn't fulfilling. Specifically I was in sales and I was always in the top three, but there was something missing. And I said, I don't like this corporate gig. I'm not getting any fulfillment. I'm really passionate about helping men.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: I get through to men. My age at that point wasn't an issue. I've gotten really grounded in who I am. And then I was taking a shower at home, 2017. And in the shower… popped The Bulletproof Husband.
Endre Gabori: And so, yeah, I called Gary Menezes who was my personal and business coach at the time. I called my co-founder Jonathan Scannell. And I said, I think I got it. I think this is what I'm gonna do. And I would love the two of you to be on this journey with me.
You know Jon at that time was… he had three jobs, two kids… Gary was involved in other stuff too. But we made it happen and we kicked it off, we tested it, and the need was there just like I thought it would be.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: And I was able to merge my passion with also providing for the family and really doing what I love, making a difference for men. But more importantly impacting children because really at the end of the day, it's the general generational change that I'm always looking for.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: Yeah so here we are.
Joshua Boswell: so, Yeah.
Endre Gabori: Yeah, go ahead.
Joshua Boswell: I just want to say it's amazing how much of my story you just told. I mean I was nine when my parents divorced. My dad abandoned us. So in a lot of the behavior, like… You know, the insecurities, the indecision, the roaming from job to job. Does that sound familiar, babe?
Margie Boswell: Sounds familiar!
Joshua Boswell: So Jonathan, I want to get your backstory in just a minute but there's something you said that was really interesting. You said I think it was about age 24, 25… You said I just really started on a personal development journey and dug into Masculinity etc.
And what I'm interested in is the precipitating event. Like… what caused that switch to happen? Because what we've seen is so many men… It's like the old story of if you've heard that old farm anecdote where, the guy walks by the farmhouse, and there's a hound dog sitting on the porch, and he's moaning and he stops and he asks the owner, Well what’s your dog moaning about? And he answers, Well he’s sitting on a nail. Why does he just get up? He says, He's too lazy of a dog to get up, so he just moans about it. Right?
And I think sometimes men, because we're afraid to ask for help, we just suffer. But you didn’t. Something shifted in your head. And I would love to see if you have an insight as to why? Why happened there?
00:10:00
Endre Gabori: Absolutely, absolutely. So I started my first job on January 4, 2011, just right out of university. And I had a colleague there named Quentin. And one day… we drove to work together back and forth… And one day, we were driving back home from work and he looked at me and said, Hey, I think I have something for you that might be of great value. I can tell that you have some challenges, unresolved stuff with your father. And I’d like to take you somewhere and actually introduce you to a few people. And so I did, and that was my first, I guess guest fire night with a bunch of men who've been, you know, doing that type of work.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: And I went and then I went to the next one and then I went to the next one and then I did some programs related to that. And from there on, it was just up.
Joshua Boswell: That's awesome. Ya know what I love about that is that there was a friend who was observant and caring and stepped in. And, honestly, I see… as I look at you guys… because I got a marketing background. And as I look at your guys' marketing, your message, how you reach out and connect with people, I actually see that kind of approach reflected in everything you guys do. It's like, Hey, we care about you and we're gonna share this, you've got some unresolved concerns, so let's help. And it shows up everywhere in what you guys do. So it's really cool. That backstory makes sense now. So good.
Endre Gabori: Thank you.
Joshua Boswell: Jonathan, tell us a little bit about your reason why and your journey for being here.
Jonathan Welton: Yeah. And I come from a different perspective, I wasn't there at the beginning, I'm not a founder. I came in because I needed The Bulletproof Husband. And I came in because of sitting on the nail. I was the dog moaning. My wife actually asked me a similar question a few years into the process of being in Bulletproof Husband. She said, Why is it so hard for men to actually deal with their stuff?
We see this over and over again that until they get what we call the slap, which is… it could be finding out that she's having an emotional affair. It could be that she wants a separation, a divorce. There's many variations of the slap but it's a wake-up call for men.
And it's really… the picture that came out of me when she asked me about it was this idea of what I call the bucket of pain. And it's… every man's carrying around a bucket of pain from his childhood from his adolescent teen years, all of that. And we shove it down and we ignore it. We don't know what to do with the pain.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: And because we drag it forward with us, we then get into a relationship and she's getting exposed to all the pain that we're carrying. And when there's enough pain outside that says, You have to deal with the bucket of pain or your whole life will be pain. You'll lose your job, your marriage, your kids, all of that stuff, there becomes enough leverage to say I'll finally look at the bucket of pain.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: Well for me, I carried my bucket of pain around till I was about 35 years old and it crashed my whole life. I had international ministry, traveled to 35 countries lecturing, an online school with thousands of students, doctorate in theology, 15 books I'd written... I don't know, 12 at that point? Something. And the whole thing came to a collapse and… to the point where we separated my wife and I for three months. I went and got counseling five days a week. I was like, I gotta fix me. It's not okay, I have three young daughters. I want this marriage to work. I want my family to survive. But I couldn’t. I wasn't making any progress. I spent the three months in counseling. I thought I was making progress. My wife thought, maybe he's making progress. She took me back in. This was 2018.
So she took me back in, and we lived through 2019 and then when the covid lockdown started to happen around February, March 2020, we're living in upstate New York at that time. And so, the lockdowns were really intense and she's with me all the time in the house and she's like, You haven't changed.
And she's talking to a counselor at that point, who's saying, we've worked with men like your husband for the last 40 years and they don't change. That was his perspective, his track record was like, Prepare for divorce. Give up hope. Not my favorite counselor in the world, but that was his perspective and…
00:15:00
Joshua Boswell: It's like staying when the team’s failing, maybe it's the coach, right?
Jonathan Welton: That's right, give up the game. So It was kind of the death sentence at that point, but it wasn't just that. Around around the same time of March 2020. My best friend who was the senior Pastor of my church gave me a letter saying, You're not welcome at church anymore. So I got kicked out of church. So I got former staff members start writing nasty blogs about me, and putting all kinds of shaming stuff out to the world.
So it was a wave of stuff and this was two years after I had collapsed everything and I thought I'd worked on myself. I was going to sex addiction 12-step meetings because I talked to the counselor and said, Where can I find somewhere where guys are honest? And they said, Go here. So I started attending 12-step groups.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, right.
Jonathan Welton: I was doing online stuff. I went to a place where they put electrodes on your head and they listened to the brainwaves and then they play it back for you as an audio. And it was shocking how it started to wake up all this childhood trauma that I didn't know was there.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: It might sit down with a counselor and they'd say, Tell me about your childhood. I thought it was all rosy and I thought it was great. I could hardly remember almost any memories and…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: So it wasn't until I did that process in the spring of 2020 that all these memories started to come up, but it was actually Inside of the Bulletproof Husband, which I joined in May of 2020 that I could then process those memories.
Jonathan Welton: And so the memories came up, but I needed somewhere to actually share with men and feel heard and get that stuff out and actually have a model of how to get it out.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: Because that was a lot of what I'd done up to that point. And I have all these books behind me. I used to be a massive reader and very intellectual, but I was so detached from my emotional life.
Joshua Boswell: Mm-hmm
Jonathan Welton: And so my wife was not experiencing the authentic, core, heart of who I am. We would just argue and cycle around. At that point, we were married 14 years and thousands of arguments that… they would be this thing where she brings something to my attention, and I'd get defensive and run away. And I’d basically stonewall for a few days. And then things would smooth out, we'd be okay for a few days and then she'd bring something else to my attention and the cycle would repeat.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: It was endless like that. Until I came across the material, and it was shocking how fast, because we were still meeting with a marriage counselor at this point and after being in Bulletproof for two weeks, she said to him, He's making the changes I've been waiting years for, I just don't trust that it's going to last.
Joshua Boswell: Wow. Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: And I'm on the right track…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah this is great. Step in the right direction, it's cool.
Jonathan Welton: Yeah. So that's how I got from there. It took about 90 days in the program, which is very fast. I mean, I don't want to give the impression that everybody does this, but for our situation in 90 days, her counselor, who was saying, Give up hope said, I don't know what they're doing in this group, but it's like a miracle and you guys should get back together. We did a 180 in three months as he observed from a distance what was happening.
And so we're back together by August of 2020, Endre invited me to be in the coaching program in the fall of 2020. And I became the first certified coach the following year. And then we said, Let's write the book and I have the skill set of lots of writing but this was… This was a new task for me to actually have three co-authors and work through the process of, How do I share material that has benefited my life, but wasn't material that I found in my own study?
It really… I feel a steward or something of the material that's been given. It's a high honor to be able to actually carry this out to the world.
Joshua Boswell: Sure.
Jonathan Welton: That's been part of a little bit of my journey.
Joshua Boswell: But in truth… and because I saw you, you've got a masterful book and a textbook that deal with the Bible and taking the whole Bible etc.
00:20:00
Jonathan Welton: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And in that respect… you have already been on that journey of taking and being a steward of truth and sharing it with the world. You took God's truth and shared it and…
Jonathan Welton: That's… yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So God had already prepared you to write that book in my opinion.
Jonathan Welton: I agree.
Jonathan Welton: I'm a gift of God to Endre and the Bulletproof Husband.
Joshua Boswell: So this is my… actually, I was wondering… This is a side note. Then I want to get into the next question but Endre, I wonder what that feels like to hear Jonathan's story. I mean, you've heard it a lot but… Just knowing that what you did for this, 30 something year old punk kid… (I'm saying that facetiously) But look at the change you've had in individual's lives. I’m just wondering what that experience is like to hear that story.
Endre Gabori: Well, Jonathan doesn't know this. But there's been a few times I’ve heard his story where I've always cried a little bit because it's so overwhelming. A bit tearing up too now.
It's really amazing. I resonate with him a lot, not only because of the story, but because he went up against all odds.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Endre Gabori: And when I was breaking through with TBH, The Bulletproof Husband, I felt I had all the odds against me.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: You know, I didn't have kids at that time. I was young. And it's like, how am I gonna get through to people who, again, have sons older than me?
So, all that uphill battle, all the odds against me… and I see that in his story as well. Because out of the ministry, two slaps from his wife, narcissistic, oh… he cannot change. It's not possible. All the licensed professionals are telling him that.
So I admire that, the tenacity, the persistence, I'm honored that he was able to trust us. And take a leap of faith in actually, not only learning the tools, but implementing them. Because one of the things that the bulletproof husband is very strong on is implementation.
Actually taking the tools. This is not an intellectual course. You will learn a lot. It will open your eyes, but if you don't put it into action, and every tool is actionable, then it's not going to move the needle anywhere in your life, for your kids, for your wife, nobody. And the fact that he did that is… it's humbling.
And many other… We have a lot of success stories. Everybody who commits to that and actually Takes that step… And there has to be a little trust, that's why we're a membership first and foremost because we want easy access so you can see that, Hey, this is real. All you need to do is learn it, implement it.
And so I always get emotional with Jonathan's story because it's a beautiful story. It's one of those stories where everything's against you and the probability of success and achievement is very low, yet you push through and you make it happen and you turn everything around. So it's always an emotional experience for me to hear your story.
Joshua Boswell: Love it. Thank you very. So here's… I really want our listeners to take two things away. And then, we're gonna dive in here. But first of all, I love how both of you came to a point where you're willing to be vulnerable.
I mean, even though the slap happened and one way or another, to the both of you, there was a willingness to be vulnerable. And then there was a willingness of somebody else to reach out and share that experience.
And then, there was that… you know, what I love about both the stories is in both cases, there's something very manly and very powerful that rose up in you guys. It’s like Okay, we're not gonna just listen, we’re going to do. We’re not just going to be hearers of the word. We're gonna be doers of the word. We're gonna go out there, we're gonna implement this. We’re going to apply.
Endre Gabori: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: We're going to fight for our families. We're gonna fight for other people's families. We're gonna fight for life. I love your motto. I’m gonna get it wrong, but it's like we have The Bulletproof Husband so that marriages will stay together, so the children don't have to go through the trauma. Right? Again, I slaughtered your motto there but that was close, right?
Jonathan Welton: Got the heart. Yeah.
Endre Gabori: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So… you guys listening, especially men, and women too, but especially men, I want you to recognize that there is a massive amount of hope. But to get to that hope, you’ve got to be willing to be a little vulnerable and you’ve got to be willing to act. And if you do that, then transformations are absolutely possible when you got the right tools. Which is why we're interviewing you guys.
Margie Boswell: Exactly.
Joshua Boswell: Because we want… we want them to have the right tools. So let's talk about that for just a minute. What's a key principle that you believe will lead to happier families for these guys?
00:25:00
Endre Gabori: The spine of the program, which is emotional self-sufficiency. So, I want you to look at emotional self-sufficiency as the backbone of The Bulletproof Husband. It's in the name. Bullets equals insecurities. Becoming emotionally self-sufficient is getting rid of your insecurities. And that's an emotional process.
So, we have all these dozens, and dozens of tools, but they all are attached to this backbone of emotional self-sufficiency. Because that is what brings permanent change.
And all we're interested about. That's all we care about is permanent change. We want to make sure that when a man takes on the work and implements the work, those changes stay forever.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: They're not just,… ahh… I'm gonna change for a week or two months. Around until my wife comes back or I can move back home. No, this is a way of life. All the other tools that we teach, they don't worth much unless the emotional self-sufficiency is there, which is the backbone. And it is also one of the hardests components of the bulletproof husband in a man's life.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: We've had men from Navy SEALs, Marines, all kinds of military backgrounds. And every single one of them says, I've never done anything as difficult as mastering… pulling my bullets, getting rid of my insecurities. Doesn't matter what Navy SEAL training I went to and what I had go through in terms of getting ready for serving my country. Nothing has been as difficult as connecting with my emotions and being able to deal with my emotions versus running away from them.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: But it's permanent and… it's a game changer for everybody. And the coolest thing is,… it's immediately noticeable. Immediately. Now typically, when a wife gives the slap to the husband and the husband implements these changes, the wife will be the last one to acknowledge the changes. But when others are starting to see it around the man, the wife is noticing at the same time as well, but she's not going to boost his ego, because she's pissed at him right now. Things are not working.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Endre Gabori: So yeah but it's immediate. So yeah. Hope that kind of answers your question or… gives you a little…
Joshua Boswell: Now a follow-up question… I don't know if, Jonathan, you've got anything else to add that before I follow that up?
Jonathan Welton: Yeah, I think it says it really well. The picture of the spine really adds, because there are a lot of tools.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: It's not just one, but there is this core. And knowing… ya know, if you're on the other side of the fence where you're not emotionally self-sufficient, what that feels like to a woman is so scary. To have a man who's needy and triggerable and insecure. And if you try to bring something to his attention, he shuts down, or he explodes.
It's such a painful experience to be with a man who is not emotionally self-sufficient. And yet, that's the standard. That’s the average, typical, normal relationship. Because there's very few that do the hard emotional work to become emotionally self-sufficient.
We become self-sufficient in other parts of our life. If you think about it, when you're an infant, you're completely dependent on the adults around you to feed you change, you take care of you. And you become independent and you grow to know how to go to the grocery store, cook your own food, feed yourself, clothe yourself, all of that.
And then you can become interdependent with another person and you share the load, you buy the groceries, I cook the dinner, you wash the dishes… we become interdependent. But if you don't do that emotionally, a lot of people are living in that dependent stage emotionally and then meeting up with another person and you're both dependent on each other instead of emotionally self-sufficient, and you've reached that place of solidness to come into a relationship and,…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: We spent almost 15 years in the pain of both of us being not emotionally self-sufficient, and it's chaos, and it's painful… and I'm sure many people listening can relate to this or maybe you know somebody else who can relate to this.
00:30:00
Joshua Boswell: Right like, I hope my friend will listen to this, right? Now,…
Jonathan Welton: That's right. I know a guy.
Joshua Boswell: My spouse needs to be here.
Joshua Boswell: So maybe you started touching on it but… this idea of what it looks like when you are dependent, emotionally dependent… maybe, can paint a compare and contrast of what that looks like? In a relationship? And then, how does it show up to be independent? This emotional independence? What does that look like? Maybe you guys can address that real quick.
Jonathan Welton: I’ll let you start, Endre
Endre Gabori: Sure. So, when a man…. Okay, before I go there, I want to… moving forward, the tools and everything we're going to talk about, I really want to set the foundation or the context of where I'm coming from.
Joshua Boswell: Okay.
Endre Gabori: The Bulletproof Husband differentiates significantly between the feminine and the masculine. So everything that we talk about… ya know, we believe that men and women are equal. We believe feminine and masculine should have equal opportunity, all of that. And the feminine and masculine are not the same. Two, very different animals with different skill sets, different uniqueness, different abilities, different communication styles.
And it's important to understand that because when we talk about tools, the understanding of these differences are critical. And I think it'll set the context for you, when I speak about certain tools, including answering your question, where I'm coming from,…
Joshua Boswell: Right. Thank you.
Endre Gabori: So we believe that it is the husband's job to fulfill the wife's emotional needs. But it is not the other way around.
Joshua Boswell: Mmm.
Endre Gabori: It is not the wife's job to fulfill the husband's emotional needs. The husband needs to be emotionally self-sufficient and lead the way. And he should be doing that through his healthy masculine relationships.
Now, we're not saying that you can't rely on your wife for emotional support and things like that, okay?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: It's the dependency, the need. Right? So the husband shouldn't need the wife to fulfill his emotional needs. Because when that happens, then the wife starts to get suffocated.
Endre Gabori: Because for the feminine to express, and to be in her feminine, it's critical to be able to express those emotions. And if the husband, the masculine cannot create that safe space for her to do, so, then she will start to feel suffocated. 99%. And I'm not saying a hundred percent to just go with the germ commercials? It kills 99% of the germs?
Yeah, yeah. That's what this is. Okay? So 99% of affairs start as emotional affairs, because the husband is not capable of fulfilling her emotional needs. She's been giving signals and signs for years. And at some point she says, Okay, I can't breathe anymore. I'm suffocated in this relationship. I can’t be myself. I am losing my identity. I can't express myself. And so she then goes to a girlfriend or another man. To get that need met.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: And then from there, it could turn into a physical affair. Because, of course, the man at that point who she's going to wants one and only one thing, which is to get into her pants. That's the… That is the short-term overview. Okay? Does that kind of make sense?
Joshua Boswell: It does make sense. A hundred percent. Yes. And I love,…
Endre Gabori: Okay.
Joshua Boswell: I love the clear distinction of the reality of the difference between masculine and feminine because there is a major difference. And I think that a lot of times we get into trouble because we try to cobble and have this egalitarian perspective of those roles.
I once heard it said to me that, men are 100% better at being men than women are, and women are 100% better at being women than men are. And just this comparison that there are these two different forces and actually there are roles that are important. So I love that distinction, and it really gives a clear idea about where you're coming from. Yeah.
00:35:00
Endre Gabori: Yeah, and it even goes for… on the parent side there's certain things that a mother can do that the father just doesn't have the same skill set, or vice versa, right?
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
Endre Gabori: And of course, the two of you know that really well with that little army of yours. So coming back to that, when we talk about emotional self-sufficiency and how that shows up in a relationship… well if a man is emotionally self-sufficient, he's no longer distracted by needing to fill certain voids because of his insecurities that the wife typically would have filled in the past.
Because when we're in the honeymoon stage and everything is lovey-dovey, those things are not at the surface yet. But as time goes on, the curtain falls and both the wife and the husband will start to show their true self, including their insecurities.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: And at some point, the fulfillment of each other's voids are not going to be there anymore. And then that's when the reactions come. But if a man's taking care of those, pulled his insecurities, dealt with his bullets, then he can now create a safe space. Which actually helps the wife with her bullets.
The process of pulling the wife's bullets is very different. Now, the husband cannot do that for the wife, the wife has to do it, but the husband is critical in creating that safe space to facilitate her to be able to do that.
And so that's what's possible.That's why we have so many success stories where the wife comes to the husband and says, You know what, I need to work on myself. I've been seeing the changes that you've been going through, that you’ve been consistent with it. I believe these changes. Now I see that this is who you are and it's starting to highlight things that I need to work on now.
So the wife will take on his leadership and then she'll start to explore different ways of working on herself. So that's kind of the pros and cons that I can shed light on what it looks like in a relationship. Jonathan, anything you want to add?
Jonathan Welton: Yeah, it's… I think culturally, because most people have that emotional dependency inside their relationship, it's such an important question of, What can it look like in the independence phase?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: And then there's… I think what we miss is that you move through three phases. You're dependent, then you become healthy, self-sufficient, solid. Now you're independent, but then you actually surrender to your commitment. You made a commitment to take care of raising these children to be in this committed relationship, and that's the commitment back to interdependence.
Joshua Boswell: Mmm.
I'm going to actually be in this relationship together with my spouse. And at the same time, I'm also going to make sure I'm also emotionally self-sufficient, and that's an interesting dance at times, because… you know, my wife knows if she brings something to my attention, I'll hear her. I'll take responsibility and I'll say, You know what, I will take a look at that. And then I'll bring it over here and talk to my men about it and say, Okay she said this and this and this… do you see that? And they'll say Yeah you totally do that. Okay. Help me find where it's coming from.
And there's something way back here that she was poking at that. I didn't realize where that was coming from and they helped me do the emotional work so that I can bring it back to her and say, Yeah, you're absolutely right. And this is where it came from. I can see how it's impacted our relationship. I can see how it's affected you.
And now she's feeling extremely heard and seen and understood and valued, and it's just really powerful for our connection. But I don't… I don't make her my counselor. And I think that's the unfortunate thing that a lot of husbands do is if they're not just running away when something's brought to their attention, if they're listening, then they might then turn her into their therapist. And that's the burden of a lot of wives.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Jonathan Welton: And it's not… the point of what happens inside that is it kills, the polarity between the masculine and the feminine.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: There's such confusion about this in our culture right now, we talk about egalitarian and there's egalitarian and there's complementarian. And there's these different concepts of subservient women or equal women and that's one piece of the puzzle.
There's also gender roles where people talk about who washes the dishes, and who raises the children. And that's another piece of the conversation, but the masculine/feminine is like a dynamic in nature. You know the masculine it's this solid picture. Yeah, I know you guys, you have a faith background. So, if you go through and you see, when King David writes in his songs about God, he talks about God, as a fortress, a tower, a shield, a rock, it's all these solid things. But when He talks about the feminine side of God is Holy Spirit.
00:40:00
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: He talks about water, wind, waves, oil, fire… things that are constantly changing.
If you look at any religion around the world, you look at ancient times, there's always an understanding in them of the masculine and feminine as a solid unchanging and movable thing. And the feminine as a moving, shifting, dancing, blowing in the wind, palm trees on the beach.
And these dynamics between the two… and we've got to make sure that we don't lose that in our relationship. So when we lose that, it actually loses the attraction. The attraction is you have to have both. north and south pole magnets pull toward each other. When you’re both north, they repel. When you're both south, they repel.
And so that dynamic gets lost when a man is triggerable because he moves from this solid masculine into this flashy scary man. And it's not attractive and…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: …and you lose that.
Jonathan Welton: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And… we’ve seen this relationships where sometimes when that happens, the woman with her mama bear instincts says, I’ve got to create solidity in the family for these children, and so I’m going to step up. And we see now they’re trying to… and I saw this when my Dad left. My mom was like well, now I’ve got to be hard core, now I’ve got to be this shield.
But playing both sides, it was just…. Again seeing this in my mom, it was literally almost impossible. It's very, very hard.
Jonathan Welton: It's painful and exhausting on both sides.
Joshua Boswell: It is. Yeah. My mom would work super hard and then she'd have these two or three days and just total collapse and she just like… It was crazy. So she's a hero. She did amazing stuff.
Margie Boswell: But I love what you’re doing in building up the man so much that the wife now has freedom to now work on herself. And then the interdependency we talked about that's beautiful.
Joshua Boswell: So cool. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know… And I don't want to dig into all your secrets. Well I actually do, but we don't have time to dig into all your secrets. But what are some practical ways that we can get to this emotional self-sufficiency? Is there something that we can start applying right now today that you can share with this and give us some insights on? Like action things, because it's all about application, taking action, right? So where do we go from here?
Endre Gabori: Moving away from the head and into your heart and your feelings which, for the man of today is a difficult concept because, ya know, boys don't cry and all kinds of different societal impacts that men have had when they were growing up. That kind of trains you to stay away from it, to suppress everything, to push everything down. I gotta look good. I have to impress. I can’t… I have to hide away from that. They can't find this out about me. And it's… all those thoughts go on.
We have different personalities. Everybody has multiple personalities. And we need to get down to the deepest one, the one where we're so honest with ourselves and we're so open to actually entertaining these feelings that are inside of us.
To help you with the implementation. I'm going to talk a little bit about what insecurity is. Okay? Because surprisingly, if you ask therapists and counselors, a lot of them can't really see it concisely. And insecurity is very simple. It's suppressed hurt. That's all an insecurity is. It's hurts that you have acquired from your childhood, your young life, and you suppressed down.
And something happens, an event. Somebody passes away, parents divorce, you get bullied, whatever that may be. And as a child, We're not capable of blaming others for why that event happened. The automatic place where we go to is blaming ourselves, children.
00:45:00
Joshua Boswell: Wow.
Endre Gabori: And the majority of the deepest bullets that a man can have come from the age of 5 to 8 and 11 to 13.
5 to 8 is when a boy experiences failure for the first time, the notion of failure. And 11 to 13 is when the sense of belonging, the need to belong starts to get established, and all the hardships that come with that.
And so, because the child's brain is not developed to blame others. He blames himself and he concludes things about himself. I am stupid. I'm not good enough. I’m not worthy. I'm not lovable, whatever that may be. And he then, develops very creative survival behaviors. So that he doesn't have to feel the hurt and the pain again.
If I'm bullied and I conclude that I'm weak, I'm gonna go to the gym and work out and I'm going to be a big guy so nobody can take advantage of me. If the teacher calls me stupid in the classroom, then I'm going to be an expert reader and I'm going to educate myself and I will be an intellectual, Right? These are examples of the overcompensation that starts to happen. But in reality, the suppressed hurt is still there. It hasn't been dealt with.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: The child whose teacher called him stupid when he was in great too or three will be always on the lookout. Who thinks that he is stupid?
He'll always be on the lookout to portray himself as someone who's very smart so that nobody can really find out that deep down, because of his suppressed hurts, he thinks he's stupid or the weak boy who thinks deep down he's weak.
But he's overcompensated so much that from the outside he looks strong. But deep down he still has the fear of being weak, right? And so when you get the psychology behind that and you get that, ok… young boys do not think their way into this. They feel their way into this. Well now you then start to understand as counterintuitive as it may sound, I need to fell my way out of this. I cannot think my way out of this.
January 1st comes, I'm gonna go to the gym. New Year resolution. I do it for two, three weeks, and then I'm back to the same pattern.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: It's because willpower is being used, but the real reason as to why you're not wanting to go to the gym, which is governed by insecurities and suppressed hurt, hasn't been dealt with. So then we fall back in the same cycle which Jonathan mentioned. A lot of those same cycles that he went through. But once he dealt with the suppressed hurt then yeah.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Endre Gabori: So the short version…. I gave you the long version just to understand the background. The short version of what this looks like is genuinely taking one of the two approaches: Gathering with men that you trust, men who don't judge you. And engaging in emotional work, which means connecting with your feelings and then allowing your body to express those feelings in whatever way that may sound.
For some men… and do not do it in front of your wife. Because for the wife, this is a scary. This is a scary thing to experience. Even sometimes for men. So, it might be yelling, screaming, it might be crying. And I mean crying. I Imagine a five-year-old boy who didn't get his candy crying, bawling for an hour, boogers all over his face, and I'm talking really grieving all that suppressed hurt out, right? So it has different ways that it looks
And of course, most men don't have access to healthy masculine relationships from the get-go like that. So it is critical that you master this doing it on your own also.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: In private, somewhere where you're alone, where you're not distracted by anybody, where you can truly express yourself. And then in parallel, you want to start building masculine relationships, which is something we promote at the bulletproof husband and it's very life-changing when you can really be vulnerable and you're not judged for it.
So really, those are the parts. You want to connect with your feelings, allow your feelings to get into some form of expression through your body. And then, eventually… Sometimes this will show up as anger or frustration, but eventually it will give you access to the hurt. And once you have access to the hurt, the grieving process starts of that suppressed hurt.
00:50:00
And… that's permanent physiological change in your body when you let go of that. Your energy field shifts, everything just totally transforms. You feel a five-ton gorilla off your back. It's just… you see the colors differently, you interact with others differently, and it's immediately noticeable.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Now, while these steps are very simple it's kind of like Winning the lottery, simple. You go to the corner store, buy a ticket and you win, or you don't win, right? But it's really difficult to actually win it.
Joshua Boswell: All right. Right.
Endre Gabori: The same thing here because how counter intuitive it is based on how we've been raised and how our society is. The steps are very simple. But mastering these steps and taking the leap of faith and having to trust that this actually works… that's where most men have challenges. And that's where the support structure, speaking to other men, different creative ways that they've done, it comes in to importance.
Joshua Boswell: What's amazing is… So we have this masculine side that… and Jonathan, I want to hear your feedback on this real quick… but it's amazing to me. We have this masculine side. And at least the way I was raised, and I think that I'm not alone in this, but least how I was raised, being the rock, being the shield, being the tower means you don't have feelings, you never crack, you never show emotion. It's like you're stoic and stalwart. Period. End of discussion, and what's crazy is, is that is this huge either intentional or unintentional lie that we've been fed.
Because to be strong and to be solid, we have to deal with those emotions. That's what I'm getting out of this conversation so far. And it's actually processing and dealing with those suppressed hurts... It's that that makes us into the tower, the rock, the solid, the immovable… right? Is it's an amazing dichotomy and I'm not sure that I've ever heard it stated quite so clearly as you have right now, it's beautiful, right?
Margie Boswell: It’s amazing. Yeah, a couple years ago, we went to Spain for a week. And we actually talked to this shaman and he had us hold sticks and beat them into the ground and yell certain things from our childhood that we wanted to get out. And I never quite understood it till you just explained that, Endre.
Joshua Boswell: Margie… from a feminine side, Margie was like, That was weird. But I was like… I liked it. It was kind of cool.
Margie Boswell: He loved it!
Getting it physically out of your body… and I never grasped it when we were doing it, but now, as you're explaining this, I'm seeing the virtues of it and how physically experiencing those emotions can change you and help you deal with it.
Joshua Boswell: So, under your perspective on this, what’s your insights, Jonathan?
Jonathan Welton: Yeah, I think that's such a beautiful concept of how you saw it and you still didn't quite understand it. And I think that's even where a lot of people are at that. This concept is one of the things Endre said and I just want to go back and highlight it.
We didn't think our way into the hurt when we were a little kid. We felt our way into the hurt. But then we go to a counselor as an adult and we say, My wife always says this and it really bothers me and I get upset about it.
And it's like… you can't think your way out of the childhood hurt that you're carrying around. You still have that bucket full of pain and you're dragging it forward in your life. And that's all the suppressed hurt and pain, and emotions with you. And every time you do this emotional work. It's like you're taking one teaspoon out of the bucket.
And it's not all like… Ah, I pulled all my bullets in a week in the program. No, you're gonna be at this, and to give the picture to it, this was why, for me, part of why the change was so fast was because I got after it. I think that I say this way the best $75 I ever spent was going to buy a punching bag off of Facebook marketplace.
And tying that in with the instruction in the program and how to get in touch with your emotions and how to pull up the suppressed hurt.
I would literally exhaust myself every three days and I needed three days because I would do this emotional work to the point that I would lose my voice. And so then it was cough drops and throat coat tea for the next couple days and then I would…
00:55:00
Endre Gabori: You went all in.
Jonathan Welton: I was like this is it! This was my chance to save my marriage, my kids… like I will do it. I'm all in and it was that entire summer every three days, I went after it…
And you'd go through these phases to where, at first, you're in touch with the present of what's happening. My wife said this, it made me feel this way. So there's a surface level of anger, and guys relate to that, we feel angry, we get that.
They did a study years ago, where they put a bunch of testosterone into women and estrogen into men, and then they did a journals report of, What did you feel? What was the experience for you? And for the women that took the testosterone, what they kept saying is, I just felt so angry. That was what came up with them. And for the men who took the estrogen, it was like, There's a rainbow of emotions I've never seen before.
So this concept… we as men are very aware that we get angry about stuff, but then we just shove it back down.
But underneath that when you break through that layer, there's all this childhood hurt that we've built up and it… really grieving is the word for it, that we have to grieve it out and get in touch with.
So, it would move in the phase through anger at the beginning and then sadness and grief and wailing and letting out all this stuff and loss, and mistreatment, and all of these feelings that you go through. Once you break through the layer of anger.
And most guys have never been told to get in touch in that way. And so we try to fix it with our head. We try to think our way out of our hurt and that's counseling, that's reading, that's listening to podcasts, blogs, all the stuff. But what we actually need is to actually sit with our emotions and get them out. And that's a very active thing to do. It's not passive. You actually really actively have to engage in that work.
Endre Gabori: I want to give you a kind of and an image version of how I look at anger, ok? Yeah. All of you have been to a dance club. And there are bouncers in front of the dance club. And the bouncer decides whether you can… or security, let's call them… whether you can go in or not they check your ID and all of that.
That's what anger is like, anger is the bodyguard. It prohibits access to suppressed hurt. So, when a man is capable of letting out all that anger, then he's able to get access to the suppressed hurt. Which is a scary process. A lot of men don't want to go there, but once you're able to get through the anger, then it will come very naturally because that's all anger is. Anger is a protection mechanism for men to prohibit access to suppressed hurt.
You know… Thousands of years ago, when men went out hunting and the tiger came, they didn't really have time to consult their emotions. They had to go into anger mode and survival mode, right? I mean, it sounds silly, but really that's where it derives from. The different roles back thousands of years ago, and some of these haven't changed. It's just the environment around us has changed how society is. But the anger is there to protect. And it's one of the easiest ways to… to hide.
Endre Gabori: Does that… Is that helpful? Does that make sense?
Joshua Boswell: Very helpful.
Jonathan Welton: Another picture that I built from that because that is such a helpful picture, is ya know… When a wife comes along and she's pointing at something, she gets anger from the man as a response. But knowing that underneath it is all this pain that's really what's behind it.
She's getting the bodyguard response from him, that's pushing away. But another picture for it would be like in New York City where we have these manhole covers that are in the street. The manhole cover, this heavy circular metal disc, is the anger. And it's blocking. But if you pull that manhole cover off, there's a sewer of feelings that are old and toxic and painful flowing under that street. And we never think about that. We never think about what's right under my car right now. But if you get the manhole cover out of the way…
01:00:00
…which is that anger… if you get past that layer, all this stuff flowing underneath there.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: And that's… that's hard work to do. And that like Endre said, we can do that by ourselves and we can do it in community. And the community it's great. We have a Facebook community, we have an online group community, but there's also inside the community, we do events. We have gatherings. We have get-togethers and retreats where men can come face to face and do even deeper levels of work. So the bulletproof husband has lots of opportunities for men to do this work together.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah so I just glanced down and can hardly believe, but we're short on time, which drives me crazy because I really love this.
So I want to talk a little bit more about Bulletproof husband and give our community some more access to that in just a minute. But really quick, I'm fascinated by both the bodyguard and the sewer cover analogies.
And while we don't have time to get into… once we get into the sewer, once we get into the club, we've talked a little bit about how to address some of those and express those emotions in our physical being. But the transition point. Like… getting past the bodyguard is so fascinating to me because, I mentioned a little bit earlier but I find that myself and so many times other people I've interacted with, and spouses… you only see the anger and never show the right ID to get past the bodyguard, right?
And I wonder if you have some in it's all like… That getting past that is it just an awareness level or there's some mental tips and tricks that you could share with us? How do we move to that to start into that to start the real work?
Endre Gabori: Getting rid of hurt and anger is the same. It's through your emotions.
It's the expression of it that is different. When typically, when you're grieving and you're getting rid of your suppressed hurt, it’s more of you know crying. Through crying, grieving. The anger part is probably more physical, more… more louder than that.
And that's why it's recommended that you do that privately, somewhere where nobody can see it.
So for Jonathan, it's a boxing bag, right? Which means that when he feels anger, he allows the anger to take over. And then he expresses that. One of the ways his body wants to express that anger is to beat up the boxing bag. Right?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: We have men who go in the middle of the woods and scream as if they were a werewolf. Another example… I can see… I can see how that would be an interesting scene. Yeah, that's why you do it. You do it because even
Joshua Boswell: I got that right here. I got it.
Jonathan Welton: Just need this kind of full moon…
Joshua Boswell: I got acres of forests back here.
Endre Gabori: You'll scare your kids.
Jonathan Welton: though, just the full moon.
Joshua Boswell: Well we’re joking about this a little bit, but there's so much power in what you're saying. So keep going, I don't want to interrupt you.
Endre Gabori: Yeah, yeah. But really the process is the same, it’s through the emotions. It's just the expression of that emotion that will look different when it's hurt and it will look different when it's anger and frustration.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: Yeah, my experience of it would be about 10 minutes of letting out the anger, the frustration that's in the present. And when I get to the end of that, I would pause and there'd be about a minute of just quiet and my heart's racing and I'm feeling all that. But I feel like I got the anger out. There's this moment of pause. And then all these old feelings. Of when else I felt like.
Oh… I had a girlfriend that talked to me that way. Oh, my mom. My older sisters. I used to think… ya know, whatever. And that wave would hit, and then it would be weeping. And it would go from I'm punching the boxing bag, the heavy bag, but now I'm hugging it and I'm wailing, and I'm crying.
And it goes from a puddle of sweat to now, a puddle of tears and just deep deep, to the point my abs are hurting and then it gets to a point where it's past. I let it out.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: And I feel like I’m done. And now I'm sore abs, sore throat, shoulders, arms. I'm tired. I'm done. I feel like I wrung out the rag of everything connected to that. And then the next time I had something come up, I would go after it again.
Endre Gabori: I do want to give a quick caution. Okay? So it is critical to boost confidence for a man before doing emotional work. And it's critical to boost confidence after, because when you do emotional work, it will bring you down. Right?
01:05:00
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: But… if you boost confidence before, then the place where it brings you down from is much higher. And then if you boost confidence back up after then you're back at the normal level. But now you've cleared the stuff and now you can go back and be present with your wife, with your kids and so forth, but the confidence part is super critical. Confidence boosting, emotional work, confidence boosting.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: That’s the proccess
Joshua Boswell: Awesome, so 30 second clarification. What does that look like? Boosting confidence? What comes to my mind is partly seeing things as they really are, because I have a tendency to look at and degrade lots of stuff about what I do. And oftentimes I look at that and I'm like, is that really true? Am I really terrible at that? Actually no, I'm not, but maybe there's a different approach, right?
Endre Gabori: Well I could talk another hour about that because we have many tools for that but here's the version. One of the areas where men are dependent on their wives is confidence. So they look for their wife for appreciation, approval, and all these different things so that they feel confident about themselves.
And when the relationship is not working and the wife decides to withdraw those gifts to the husband, then the husband is left stranded and doesn't know how to boost his own self-confidence. So one of the things around confidence is there are dozens of tools you can use to manufacture your own confidence so that you're no longer dependent on your wife or anybody else. One of them is what we call Integrity checklist.
Joshua Boswell: Mmm.
Endre Gabori: Okay, Integrity Checklist is a list of things that are unfinished for you. Things that you've started but you haven't finished or things that you've always wanted to start, but never got around to it.
Both of those camps of items are distractions. And the more distractions you have in your life, the lower your confidence, the lower your integrity will be and the lower, your confidence will be.
So when you start to knock off things on your integrity checklist, it automatically boosts your confidence, anything from two hours, to two months, depending how big the item is that you crossed off.
Jonathan Welton: There's many different tools, like Endre said, for building confidence, but we lay out nine of them really clearly in the book, The Bulletproof Husband. So we have some of this as a roadmap for men. Personally, the Integrity Checklist was huge for me.
Also, speaking with other men, I would call a guy after I did emotional work and tell him what happened and what I did and we'd celebrate together and it would pull me back up to like, Okay. It could be very hard to go through that experience, and then carry it forward through your day. I didn't even remember half those traumatic memories and… now they're in my head.
If you get any head about it, that's not good. But when you can celebrate it as I don't think I'm ever gonna be triggered at that level again. Look at what I just did. Next time my wife says this to me, I'm excited to see what happens in me because it's not poking some old thing. I've actually let that out. This is exciting.
I took on a context at one point of the idea that it's like a man has a thousand tiny little doors all over him and every little door has a toxic gas behind it. Every time you do work, emotional work, you open one and you air it out. I'm becoming a better man.
Joshua Boswell: Nice.
Jonathan Welton: I'm becoming healthier, solid and I'm removing an infection… like this is powerful stuff.
Jonathan Welton: Otherwise you end up thinking like… Why did I go back into that dark place of my childhood? And you can end up in a pity party or a dark place.
So as he's saying, it's really important to build it up before and after. Because otherwise, you're gonna hurt yourself emotionally, mentally, if you don't do this right. And that's part of the amazing thing of having all the coaches in our program, we work with men. I mean, some guys will hire a coach one-on-one just to do emotional work once a week and get on a call with a guy. So it's amazing what we have available to us?
Joshua Boswell: So tell us a little more, because we need to wrap up, but I want to hear more about The Bulletproof Husband. You alluded to… it's a membership. There's private coaches. So, tell us a little bit more about the full spectrum of resources available, because clearly what you're sharing is amazing.
01:10:00
Jonathan Welton: I think of a three-legged stool. The main one is the community where you're interacting with over 800 members.
Joshua Boswell: And membership, the community? It's part of the membership?
Jonathan Welton: Yes, everything I'm going to tell you in the three legs is a part of the core membership that people can sign up for.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
Jonathan Welton: And so you get to be a part of the community. And the great thing about the community too is that you have people all around the world. So if you wake up at 2:00 in the morning and you're struggling with something, you can just share it in the community. And the guy in Australia is gonna say, well, let me give you some feedback. So yave this active participation 24 hours a day with men,…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: who are all going through something similar.
Jonathan Welton: Second piece of it is the call. So the group calls, which I didn't even know that this was a feature when I signed up. I didn't understand that from the website and I'm like, This is amazing.
They have zoom calls which are audio. So you could be at the grocery store, washing your dishes, whatever, and there's usually about a hundred + guys on a zoom call and you'd get on and someone like Endre or one of our other master coaches will be answering questions, interacting and helping guys walk through practical questions for three hours on a zoom call. And so at this point zoom calls almost every day the week and so there's an incredible amount of participation.
And then the third piece is the video modules. The day somebody signs up, they get 30 videos released to them at that moment, they get more videos one weekend and then it's every 30 days. So there's a whole library of stuff that tells you, How do you walk this out? How do you create wins in your life? How do you build your integrity? How do you build your confidence? And so, those are the three main things, although we have other pieces. We have one-on-one coaches available, We have retreats that are available and I'll pass the torch to Endre. What else do we have available?
Endre Gabori: Yeah, so I'll be fully transparent when we started the bulletproof husband, this used to cost anything from $3,000 to $10,000.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: And after one year, I very quickly realized that this is not in integrity with me. It’s not… I want to make a difference. This is very prohibitive. I want this to be as much accessible as possible. And so then, in 2018, we made this a membership and… I said, okay, come in, just experience it, just see what it is and actually trust it. And most of our success stories are from membership.
We understand that there's men who may want to go faster. Men who want to meet us and want to come to a retreat or men who need, in addition to membership, one-on-one guidance. So they'll have one-on--one coaching. So those are available, but it's not mandatory. So, 80% of the members, 90% of the members… I’m making these numbers up, but approximately… they're very happy with the membership.
Six different calls a week, confidence call, mindset call, implementation call, and so forth… ya know, bullet pulling call. We have a call dedicated for bullet pulling, right?
Joshua Boswell: Love it.
Endre Gabori: And different skill sets for, ya know 25 coaches that are active. 25 certified coaches who all went through one of our training programs to actually be able to help the community.
So there's a lot that you get with the membership in itself. And if somebody wants more or needs… has different needs? Then those are available as well. They usually just put their hand up and they'll let us know. But that's the community, the core is the membership itself.
Joshua Boswell: Awesome.
Jonathan Welton: And, I didn't hear Endre say it… but that lowered the price from tens of thousands down to 300 a month which …
Endre Gabori: Yes, down to $297 per month.
Jonathan Welton: The context for me is that $297 is that's one hour with a divorce lawyer like that…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: Let's avoid that entirely and move this dirt.
Endre Gabori: And here's the thing, we have a referral program. So anybody… who refers one man will get one month free.
Joshua Boswell: Oh man…
Endre Gabori: So, if we have a member who refers one man a month every month, their membership is free. Right? And you can cancel anytime. We want you to stay…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Endre Gabori: …because you're getting the value, not because you're locked in or because you pay tens of thousands up front, and not… No, no stay because you are getting value. You're doing the work. And in fact, a lot of times I'll even tell men, Hey, if you're not gonna do the work, please cancel.
01:15:00
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Right.
Endre Gabori: Save your money. Don't waste your time, but if you're gonna do the work, I know you're gonna stay because you'll see the value. So yeah,…
Joshua Boswell: Totally.
Endre Gabori: Hope that answers the question.
Joshua Boswell: Yes. It’s awesome. What I love about that approach, again, is it's so in line and full of integrity about how you originally started your journey, both of you. Somebody shared with you, this information and brought you in and the transformation ensued as soon as you implemented the work. So it's awesome. It's very beautiful.
You guys, this has been incredible. Thank you so, very much. Is there anything that I should have asked, that you wanted me to ask, or that you wanted to share as we wrap up here?
Endre Gabori: Yeah. The book is coming out. September 26, it's available for pre-order. It has a lot of the membership stuff in it. And publicly… I do this all the time, but publicly I want to say thank you to Jonathan again, for being the voice in making that happen.
The way he articulates the tools and the concepts and how he weaved in his journey, as well as other members' journeys, is just incredible. And I'm very blessed and thank you, Jonathan, for making that happen.
So we're excited. We’re excited because now there's another resource that's available. And more men's lives will be touched and hopefully, more kids' lives will be saved from a broken home.
Joshua Boswell: Awesome. Thank you. Jonathan, anything you want to add as we wrap up?
Jonathan Welton: Yeah, I'll just say… one of the things that we're excited about long term is our hope to see this make it into schools as well.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: These materials, these concepts that… things are in a weird place in our society right now. And there's a lot of kids suffering from broken homes, broken families…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
Jonathan Welton: And how can we steer the ship back to the place that men don't feel constantly masculated and are not living in this place of pain, but can be healthy and solid and lead their families and lead themselves.
And we're excited to see long-term where all of this is headed, because we're… the fruit right now already... It's just been beautiful. I think all the time, I'm so thankful for what they've created and how it's impacted my wife and my three young daughters and the thought that someday, maybe they can marry some bulletproof men themselves.
Joshua Boswell: Hey, I love that.
Endre Gabori: And thank you, the two of you, for having us, for putting this together. And I am shocked how you have managed to have such a huge family, so successfully. And it's such an inspiration for me and thank you for getting to know each other and giving me the opportunity to experience a power couple like yourself who's able to do all this. And do it well. Not only that but then continue to make a difference for other families. So thank you. It's very honorable
Joshua Boswell: It's been a joy, can't wait to deal more with you guys and participate more in the community and share this with lots of people. As we have said many times, one of our missions is to really become a megaphone for you guys and to help share this. Because there's a lot that can be done here. So, thank you for spending your time today. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Bye.
Endre Gabori: Thank you. Take care.
Jonathan Welton: Thank you. Bye.