Ep 8 Unlocking the Secrets to Lasting Love: Insights from Todd Malloy

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the UnTalk Podcast and Guest Introduction
02:56 Todd Malloy's Journey to Becoming a Therapist
06:11 The Importance of Addressing Sexuality in Relationships
09:08 The Impact of Early Exposure to Pornography
11:52 Navigating Sexual Norms and Expectations
14:53 Understanding Sexual Addiction and Its Roots
17:53 The Role of Communication in Healthy Relationships
20:50 Keeping Relationships Spicy and Engaging
23:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
26:47 Performance Mindset in Marriage
31:17 Understanding Infidelity
35:48 Defining Boundaries in Relationships
38:17 The Complexity of Communication
39:17 Vulnerability and Acceptance in Relationships
40:13 Understanding Emotional Trauma
41:10 The Role of Emotions in Personal Growth
43:12 Neural Hijacking and Emotional Responses
45:28 Journaling for Self-Discovery
48:03 Letting Go of Past Hurts
49:58 Intentional Living and Legacy
54:46 NEWCHAPTER

Summary

In this podcast episode, Mr. Todd Malloy, a licensed marriage and family therapist, shares his journey and insights into relationships and personal growth. As the founder of Inner Peace Counseling Center and the first black man to achieve ASECT certification as a sexual therapist, Mr. Malloy discusses his diverse background, including faith-based counseling and corporate management.

He recounts his early aspirations to become a therapist, influenced by his challenging upbringing, and how he returned to this passion after a career in engineering. The conversation explores sexual norms, the impact of early exposure to pornography, and the importance of addressing sexual trauma. Mr. Malloy emphasizes open conversations about sex, emotional vulnerability, and continuous learning in relationships.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

So ready. How's it going, brothers? Good brothers. Oh, this one. We normally don't do our banter this this, you know, we normally do our banner and just slide right in, but uh, as you can see, we got a guest here today. So uh first of all, we're gonna just welcome everybody back to the UncTalk podcast. Uh I'm your humble host, Jay Jermaine, aka Mr. Get a Job. You already know it's Joe from work. He's Jared. All right, man. Good brothers. It's good to see you all guys. You know, today's uh, you know, obviously a special day for us. This is a first for us. We're gonna have our first interview. So we started heavy, brought the heavy hitters in to end our series on relationships. So um we're gonna just get started. We've been scratching the surface, but we're gonna dive deep today. So, you know, we've been talking about money, we've been talking about uh birds and the bees with the kids, leadership. Uh, but today we're gonna dig deep into sex marriage and you know, just kind of tip into how we navigate conflict and relationships. So to help us out, we brought the brought the big guns in to help us bridge the gap. We have uh Mr. Todd Malloy here. Let me hold on. Let me uh I think we can break out sound effects here. Hold on, wait. Uh can we break out sound effects? Oh, we got sound effects.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Oh, oh that is impressive. That is impressive. Thank you, sir. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Uh, just for the audience's sake, Mr. Todd here is uh a licensed marriage and family therapist. Um, and he is the first black man to be Asect certified as a sexual therapist and sexual counselor, sexuality counselor. Uh he's a founder of Peace Counseling Center in Huntersville, North Carolina, where he has spent years uh helping people maximize and celebrate their lives. Mr. Todd here speaks about uh from 18 years of face-faced uh counseling experience, 25 years of corporate management experience, and is even a nominee, and he and was even a nominee for uh integrative sex therapist of the year uh for 2021. Uh he brings understanding of relationships, family, sexual therapy, uh intimacy. And uh, you know, we want to just dive right in and just learn from Mr. Todd today. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Man, we we've we've been looking forward to this. I think Joe and I were on here just a few minutes ago just saying, like, oh man, we've been we've been pumped, we're pumped.

unknown 2:50

But we're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Well, look, I've been since since since Florida, I've been waiting. You said you were gonna call, so I believe.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Hey, and and we we made the call because we wanted to we wanted to dive right in, and and I knew you'd be a fantastic guest for us. So, but we want to open it up and just I want to just hear your story, hear your heart. Now, we don't want the political correct story. This is the Unk Talk Podcast where the unks, we sit around, we we keep it real, we want to, we want to be real for the unks, and we want to give the nephews the real roadmap. So let's dive right. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Well, um, it's kind of unique. I kind of took a long journey to get here. However, when I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be a therapist when I was about 15. Why is that? Because I saw life as being real fragile. I've I've seen growing up, um, neither one of my parents had a high school education. Both of my parents, neither of my parents made it through the ninth grade. My father left when I was five. So I had a younger brother at five start calling me dad. So I was five, uh, dad at five, and he was my three-year-old son. And then from 12, at 12, you start working, paying bills, doing all of these other things. In the course of life, my mother did the best she can, so it's not about villainizing anybody. But it's just, but it's marginalized, it's stressful, it's socioeconomically, it's impoverished. However, one of the beautiful things my mother did when I was a kid was she took us to Coney Island. She put us on a train. We took the train from Connecticut to New York. We stayed in a hotel. We had a joint adjacent room, and we were running through the rooms, running through the hall, my brother and I, and we ordered food service, and we were just living. And we went to Coney Island, I had a little sailor hat on, and a little shirt like I got on right now. And I was just as happy riding the merry-go-rounds and doing all those things. And my mother said, I did that for one reason. Because otherwise, that's the one trip we went on. And she said, I did this to let you know that there's more to life than the six blocks you live in. And that was the catalyst of me pursuing to be greater than the area that I lived in. And in rich to the despair that I saw, you know, my mother, my mother had a hard time raising two boys in the 60s without a man. So she was she was not seen as the nicest of women because she didn't have a man, so everybody thought different things about her. So, but in the midst of that, I'm seeing adversity, seeing drugs, seeing illegal gambling, seeing pregnant women kicked downstairs, kicked downstairs, kind of tells you life is fragile. And in the midst of this, even as a kid, I recognized I didn't want to be part of the problem. I it was, it was, I wanted to be a part of the solution. So it came to me to be a therapist. So when I when I was graduating from high school, they sent, they said, What do you want to do? I said, I want to be a therapist. So uh I go to University of Connecticut Medical School and let me spend the day there. I'm walking up front. Meanwhile, I got out of the public school, went into the private school, private school, but I had to pay for it. So I went to work to pay for private schools for myself because I was going to be sucked into the neighborhood. So I asked my mother permission to do something different. I did something different. So they put me up, I walk up front, I'm walking up front, the only black child, walking up front with the with the with the Clark Kent looking dude with the white coat on. He looked at me and he said, What is it that you want to do when when when you finish? I said, I want to be a psychiatrist. And he said, 12 more years. And real talk, and real talk at 17. I dropped my head. I said, damn, I worked this hard just to pay for high school. I can't. 12 years? Damn. So right in that moment, right in that moment, because I was good in math and science, and my uncle was a draftsman. And he said, Todd, become an engineer. And I said, okay. And I went and became an engineer. And I wait, wait, check this out. I said, Well, at least I could do it in four years. However, you know, life comes in, you get distracted by women, all kinds of other things. So that four-year degree took 10 years, and then I said, Dude, wait a minute. You could have been a psychiatrist. So, needless to say, I spent time being a mechanical engineer doing design work for a lot of the companies. Next cell phones, cell phone design, composite boom trucks, hybrid technology, all of that good stuff. I got patents and those things. But needless to say, I was challenged at church one day. And uh my bishop said to me that will it matter that I live? And something happened. Okay. If I design one more, if I design one more cell phone, who cares? I wanted to impact people's lives. And from that moment on, I actually gave myself permission to go back to my youth and reclaim me becoming a therapist. So in the midst of that, in the midst of that journey, I decided to, I went to seminary school. Because um, in the midst of me, well, I went to seminary school to find me, real tall, just to help me balance the load and deal with my own emotions and all of those things. The things we don't talk about. And you can't say it, say it out loud because people won't call you butter. So I dived into the Bible. I dived into the Bible, went to seminary school, even went to therapy school to for me to work me out and work out my relationship. However, but then it turned out that then I turned it into my vocation, which was the chosen choice altogether. You know, then as I as I was looking in where to go in therapy, licensed marriage and family work would be best because it was working with the whole person. The Freudian approach and so forth, they deal with you issues with your mama, as opposed to looking at a global person socioeconomically, ethnically, culturally, yada yada yada. And that, and for as far as I've been concerned, because I'm a Bible, that that's the approach God would have me have is the whole look at a whole person.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

It makes the most sense.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

So in turn, then then that turn, uh, I was always had an interest in sex, and if I'm gonna deal with the whole person, I gotta deal with the sex piece. So in turn, when I was in uh grad school, I went to a conference, a sex conference, and uh in the midst of it, the head of the the head of the University of Michigan sex therapy program was speaking. The conversation went well, and then she invited me to be a part of her program, and I said yes. Now I said yes because it was opportunity, but I also said yes because actually, real talk, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a porn star.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Real talk.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

I wanted to do porn stars, then I'd be making porn movies. I saw I saw Phyllis Hyman in the in the in the Hustler magazine, and I was I was sold at that point. Look, he said, I can't stand here living all alone. I can remember every song she sang. But in the midst of that, I said, but I can't, but if I if I become a porn star and do all that, I'm gonna say my mama.

SPEAKER_04 10:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

So when I got the opportunity, when I got the opportunity to legitimize it, put some letters by my name and be able to do the same thing. Yeah, right, all right. I figured I figured that that wasn't a bad thing. And between the licensed marriage and family, my eclectic life, between seminary school, also serving as a pastor for seven years, and and everything else has kind of put me together to really be able to be a part of the solution to the ills of society as opposed to a part of the problem. Because ultimately, all I've ever wanted to do is to help people be the authentic self that's inside that doesn't always happen outwardly. So as my through my eclectic life, through my academic training and et cetera, et cetera, it allows me to do that effectively today. So irrespective of the testimony and how it came to pass, it did all come together for the good. I just had to live long enough and apply myself for it all to come together to make sense. So that's how I got here.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

This culmination of experience of life to bring you to this moment.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Man, you you you you hit the you hit the full setup, man, and and and a lot of this, a lot of what you talked about, um, you know, I know Joe had a had a bunch of questions on, but to kind of lead it in, I'm I'm gonna just tee us off and just just point out the one obvious thing and kind of get asked you to fill in a little more gaps. You know, you wanna you focus on the whole person, you know, you you in and and healing the whole person. It's funny that you went into the most neglected part of relationships. The stuff we don't talk about in church, you know, we're talking about sex therapists. Like, it's look, I grew up in the church, and the only thing they told me to church was hey, sex bad until marriage, then it's good.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yeah, but you don't hear me, people we say that in jest, but people fail to recognize how traumatizing that is. Because check this real tall, I have women saying, Hey, I've heard don't have sex, don't do this, don't do this. Now I get married, now my husband wants me to swing on a chandelier, and all I can hear in my mind is mama said don't do that. Yeah, that's nasty.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it and it's it we don't we don't we don't address the switch. We we we we just demonize it so much to where people almost have trauma around it. And and that's just on the women's side. That's just on the women's side. We I mean here uh when we focus on we focus on the on the men's side, and what men tend to do is we tend to hide it, we tend to bottle it up where it shows up in early porn addiction, early um you know, sexual activity early on, you know, earlier than we even should. Before we even, you know. And so what what it what tends to happen is even if we are dealing with pain in that area or confusion or just need more understanding, we get shunned because we have to be quiet.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Exactly. Exactly, exactly. And and truth be told, God doesn't have an issue with sex. People have an issue with sex. It's very clear. He would have never put the songs of Solomon in the Bible. And he said, be multi- be fruitful and multiply, and he and all of those things. Actually, the church took took their stance in regards to to sex from Saint Augustine in a 400 AD article that he wrote, and he talked about his own struggles with sex and so forth, and yada yada yada, and then it kind of got canonized by the church. It's all a bad thing. He was talking about his personal struggle, I read it. He was talking about his own personal struggle, and then it got canonized. However, God doesn't have an issue with sex. The only issue there might be is timing.

SPEAKER_04 14:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

But not sex itself, because even in the midst of it, he says, a married bed is underfiled. Matter of fact, I'll I'll tell I'll tell the bad joke I said at a wedding one day. They said they asked me to pray. And I said, Well, pray before I pray, I gotta say something. I said, people get married and think the thrill is gone. However, according to the Bible, a married bed is under filed. So what you were doing before is actually wait until after the whips and chains come out. Because it's sanctioned. And if you agree and I agree, hey. Happily married. Yeah, they didn't laugh too much. They didn't think it was funny. But but I said, but then I said, you can't throw a stone at me because I it's in the Bible. That's why knowledge is important.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Joe start picking the plank out of their eye. So that's typically what happens too. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Now we gonna we're gonna now, Joe, I'm gonna let you go ahead and jump in because I know you you know, unleashed the draft.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

I'm itching, I'm itching the these are important topics for me, man. You know, some of them are personal. By some of them, I mean all of them. So the first question I had in your experience, how has the like the exposure to porn from an early age and and the type of extreme porn that is available now? How have you seen that affect sexual growth in young men or even disrupt uh sexual norms in established relationships? Or have you have you dealt with that?

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Well, let's let's let's let there's an underpinning to all of this. Obviously, we can look at teenage, young teenage people and hormonal things change. However, but when you're talking about and and and for the sake of any of my colleagues that are listening, according to the American Association of Sex Educators, Copselors and Therapists, we really don't acknowledge the term sexual addiction. Reason being that's a symptom, it's not a root cause. Ah, you're trying to fill a void. Right, right. It usually manifests through sexual trauma, through, through not having control. If you feel, if you're in a if you're in an environment where you're raised and you feel um minimized or or powerless. That's the one, as you search online, that's the one thing that you can always control.

unknown 16:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

What you look at for how long, the type, the whole nine. Because if you think about it as young people, they don't have control over many things. And that's the one thing that they have, then it develops into a coping mechanism. Now, let me add to this that there's a book called Love Maps. Um, unless you're a real nerd, you probably don't want to read it. Because it had the guy, the the the author creates new words and puts the definition on the back of the book. Okay, okay. So, but but when when there's a the what is it, the the but the the psychological development process that children have to go through their stages. And you go through those stages in order for there to be a healthy development. But when those gaps happen, now that turn that could turn into one of 602 fetishes that that currently exists in the world because, for example, you have a younger person, for example, you have a young person that is now watching porn, and they might be coerced, which a lot happens by older children, four or five years older, whatever the case may be.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Or older women.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Like exactly, but what that does is create gaps. You it's too much too soon, and it distorts the narrative because you don't really have a frame of reference to understand what's really going on with your body, what that person is, and are you being used as a toy, or are you uh is that person really involved in me? So it can mutate and turn into a number of things. So it's not so much of their use of it, but personally, I think if you normalize it and turn it into a conversation, you take some of the intrigue away from it. Because you notice the more they hide stuff for you, the know you the more you want to know about it. Exactly. But if we normalize it, because in my house, when I grew up, sex was a common conversation. We brought, we had life cycle books, we had all of these things. My mother, we used to wrap up after we take a shower. My mother said, Why are you ashamed of your body? Just go where you got to go. Ain't nobody looking at you. Right, but but to be comfortable with your body. Because my thing is, how how would how can you tell someone not to touch my when they say don't touch private areas or your private areas supposed to be private, they're not supposed to be private to you. Right. And if you don't understand your own body, how do you teach someone to take care of you? What you remember, you just supposed to, the the common term, you just supposed to know. But if I don't teach you how to care for me and you just met me, I'm supposed to just let me, you just poke on me like a pinata and wait for that surprise? Or should we actually teach each other and actually I understand myself well enough to teach you? Because Tupac said, tell daddy how you want it, not how to give it.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Yeah, there you go. You're not wrong. So it's not so much that it's sexual deviancy, it's really a symptom of something else they're dealing with in most cases.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

I have a client. I have a client that that was molested as a kid, and he has a fetish of long hair. Of long hair. So women that have hair on their arms and on their legs, the hairier, the more attractive you find. And it's as a result of some of the abuse that he took as a kid. So it can turn into a number of things. It can make you over sex. Really, yeah. And and also but also make you selfish. Because now it's a it's no longer about the person, it's about yourself in your own fix.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

And then you can start using people because you're not really they're not you're not really interested in them, you're interested in the thing that's not.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

There's no emotion, no real emotional connection, it's more transactional for you. However, the other people may be coming attracted to you, but for you it's transactional. Not that you can't have happy or healthy relationships, but there is a challenge with monogamy at times.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

At times, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Well, well, but let me ask you the but funny thing is this real talk. You ever notice that I'm not talking about y'all, I'm talking about y'all friends. You ever notice when there's a side piece, you ever notice you tell the side piece everything.

SPEAKER_04 21:04

Yeah.

unknown 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

My question is, why aren't you doing it at the house? It might be a little easier, you won't need the side piece. If you stop suffering in silence and actually tell the truth or change, maybe you actually get a solution. Because you can never get to you can never use distorted or diluted information to get to a real solution.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Yeah. You you know, you kind of you kind of teed it up for kind of how we were what we were kind of wanting to even dive into a little bit more was just, you know, I mean, we're all married here, just to give you kind of context, we're all married men. Um we all of us have kids.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Oh well I'm divorced. So I've been through the full life cycle. So you've been through the full life cycle.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

But we but we're still trying to figure out how to keep how to keep everything spicy uh in our relationships. How to, you know, how how I mean what Joe, you know, it's not as easy.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

It's not as hard as people think. First and foremost, we have to recognize that when you meet somebody, you met them that day. And then every day after that, they change him. Yeah. That's right. And so as opposed to thinking you know somebody, you should canonize what you should do is say, hey, have like Jay-Z moments. Allow me to reintroduce myself. Right. Because through different seasons, change. Even in the natural cycle of life, every seven years, every seven years, you're a different person. Why? Because through the cutting of your hair, the washing of your body, the cells are leaving your hair, cells are coming off your body. You shed like a snake. So if every year, naturally in science is already proven we're always changing, why is that when I met somebody at 20, 25, whatever, now she's 60, and I'm saying, well, you've changed. She's supposed to. Exactly. So, but why are we not looking at our partners like students? Why are we not exploring and being creative? And as we're having new thoughts and ideas and even new sexual positions, because don't nobody want to have missionary all day, all day. Nobody wants to eat spaghetti every day. So why not we have these real conversations so we can actually begin to introduce, introduce ourselves to each other on a more consistent basis. When I asked my mentor how long she was married when I first met her, she said I was married 50 years, and she said, No, I've been married 50 individual years. I said, What does that mean? She says every year between Christmas and New Year's, we have a conversation about whether we want to stay married and what we can carry into the next year and what ain't going. And she said, There have been some tight years that we might have there were some tight years we we just made it through, but now they now they're like 75 years, 75 years in. Yeah. All right, all right. Well, because but every year what they do is they get rid of the baggage, they don't let the baggage build up.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

And then build up the resentment and bitterness to where you don't like each other no more. And then then then we start acting out of character. If that made sense.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Oh yeah, it does. That's that's that's right in line with uh you must you you must have read my notes, man. It's just it's right in line with exactly what I want to talk about. That's that's that's so good.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Well, that's in a little more perspective. Uh Joseph Joseph's been married since high school. So he's uh he he married his high school sweetheart. Amen. And you know, I'm this is my second marriage, so I'm on turn number two. We're gonna try to make this work. And then Jared married his I would say college sweetheart. So we've all had different journeys and we're all just trying to trying to figure this stuff out.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

I mean, shoot, we just Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

You know, but you know the best way to figure it out is I keep asking questions. Ask for clear.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

There we go. There you go. Yeah, you know, that's something.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

You know what something means. And stop thinking for the other person.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

I like that.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

For example, real real talk, real talk. We we guys here. So when someone says, I love you, you you you go, oh, that's nice. You should ask a question. Well, what does that mean? Because if you ask ten people what love means, you're gonna get ten different different definitions. What we do is take somebody's, we take our definition and put it on somebody else's word. And then we get mad at them because that meaning, you know, when they said I love you, I want you to be my wife, he said you can be my wife. But only for tonight. Right. Because we're not asking for clarity. We assume our perception is not the other person's truth. So we haven't we don't ask for clarity enough. We just assume that we know. Because think about this: nobody teaches us how to be married or in relationships. We're only taught to be students, professionals, law enforcement, military personnel. Everything else is you got parts, I got parts, let's all together hope for the best. And so, unless we put intentionality about where we're going and what we want, we will make ourselves irrelevant in our own situation.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

And then wonder why it's not working out.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yeah, that's it. What if you were just as intentional about your relationship in your life as you were with your career?

SPEAKER_02 26:30

Whew. Okay. Okay, on that note right there. On that. So let me kind of dive in a little bit. So, you know, kind of what one thing we've been bantering about a bit a bit is um performance mindset as far as uh in the bedroom when you get in marriage.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Like what I was gonna say, we we okay. When you when you said bed when you said performance, I thought did we just switch to the bedroom real fast?

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Uh yeah, yeah, we're we're switching, we're right in the bedroom now. We're right in the bedroom. Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Shout out to our sponsor, Blue Chute Now.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Hey, hey, from your mouth, okay? We'll we'll get 'em. We're working on sponsors. But you know, as it with being a kind of corporate-minded, we all we have this sort of perform, perform, perform mindset, and sometimes we can even take that into marriage and into even into the bedroom. Where um we're we're just as men, we we drive to perform and we seek to perform at at our highest rate, but then sometimes it feels like it backfires when when it when we get into marriage and the especially in our sex lives, because I mean we're getting I'm getting I just turned 42.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Because if you if you make if you make sex about perfor let's do it, I actually I said this earlier today to someone. Sex can be very transactional. What makes sex good is the emotional connection, it's not pieces and parts moving. Because, for example, this is true. Young man has is pushing a little 17-year-old A straight A student in high school, is mowing the grass. The he's pushing the lawnmower with his pelvic region. He's not paying attention, he's on the phone, but he eventually gets an erection and ejaculates. He thinks that he's actually in love with the he's attracted to the lawnmower. Right, right. Okay, now in the midst of this, he in the midst of this, his grades are dropping, nobody can understand why. So then he eventually comes to therapy, and we figure out because he thought he had a, he's he's looking up online objectification and all of this other stuff that he got going on. And then when I chat him, I said, excuse me, um let me share you something. The body will deceive you. Nerve endings, when you stimulate nerve endings, it don't know what's stimulating it. All it knows it's stimulated. So your body is that is a natural response when the body is stimulated. So even when he ejaculated, even though he may have enjoyed it, it ain't it ain't the same as if I'm emotionally connected, because the research is already out there. The stronger the emotional connection, the stronger the quality of the quality quality of the intimacy and the orgasm itself. Because it's it's bigger than the sum of the parts. Because when we put pieces and parts together, we got pieces and parts together. We got pieces and parts in emotional connection, that connects us to universal God force, and we we're one with the universe. Did that make sense? Yeah. It does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

Yeah. It's it's it's hard to it's almost an ejectification that sometimes can happen.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Right, but to your point earlier, this is why women and men in general don't like to deal with emotions, is why you should. Because the more emotionally available and vulnerable you are, the more emotionally and available your partner is, and that's where all the extra come from. We all know what extra is.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

I'm trying to keep y'all on the air.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Look, look, no, no, no, no. We wanna, we hey, we wanna we wanna be real because men are men are. No, no, real.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

When I say extra at the office, everybody knows even women know. Yeah, he would get extra. Everybody know what extra is. That's all the extra stuff you asked for on the birthday.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

But let's take it there. Let's let's look at um, you know, let's say there's a man that's out there that's that is in the depths of infidelity right now. He's he's married, he's he's booed up on the side here. Let's help the let's help the uncle or the nephew untangle that and get back to his, you know, to to his first love, to to the one or to his okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

First thing I would do is say, sir, um you're really not cheating on your wife or your first love. You're cheating on yourself. You're cheating yourself of whatever ideal you I you created when you met that woman. And you're saying the ideal that you wanted, you're you you're already willing to put it at risk. Because think about this, most of the time, and uh again, we're talking about your friends, not nobody here. But when you got a side piece, you really don't want to leave your the one you're with. You're just using it as a placebo to survive, hoping that there's a change, but you focus the energy on change outside of the house instead of in the house. It's a lot of sense. Really, it's less about the person, and why not you start dealing with you and why you're betraying yourself of your own truth, and then let's build from so it's not even even about the it's not even about the lady.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

It's about discovering the truth of the thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

It's about the individual. Because Chick, most of the time, I some I've heard some of the most interesting reasons why people cheat, but ultimately it's either some level of insecurity that they have individually, or misconceptions because they're unwilling to learn a new truth. You know, what I share with people is that as we grow and as we evolve, we gotta let go of something. Like when a rocket ship goes to a moon, you notice it drops off certain pieces because they're no longer relevant. We grab something from childhood and we make it relevant after we did. That rocket booster sitting on the moon with us, boy. I have to remind people, I have to remind people: you do not believe in the stork anymore. You do not believe in the Easter bunny, you didn't you don't believe in Santa Claus. We all got bills at the house.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Okay, so therefore, let go of the rest of that stuff too.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

I like it.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

I like it. Look, there's something to that. I mean, that the the the holding on, the the the the cherishing of of what was what what what once was, the the reminiscing.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Right, but how is that but how is that looking backwards gonna cause you not to trip going forward? Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 32:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

And it's not that it's it's not that it's irrelevant. I appreciate what it was and what it did, but it opened the door to a new elevation, a new understanding. Correct. That's where I need to do it. Correct. Even Rakim said it ain't where you're from, it's where you're at.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

It's where you're at. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

It's interesting. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

It is it definitely, it definitely um gives us gives us uh, you know, you're hitting on a a a lot of different challenges that we've we've been talking through over the last couple of weeks. Um but staying connected, you know, f finding um finding that that that new space, not only with with our kids, but also with our with our with our wives.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

But I'll say I think can I can I can I interject? You're starting to get me excited. You're gonna talk about stuff that I like now. No, no. Go ahead, please. So, but in order for for a healthy relationship, think about this. In order to be free, there's there there's two precursors required to be free, to feel free and have that experience. Be honest with yourself and honest with the environment. Without those two things, you can't be free.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Dig into honest with the environment.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

When I say honest with yourself, honest with your environment, whoever is the people in the environment. Hey, honey, do you want, do you, do you like my soup? Nope, because it got too much salt in it. No, no, no, baby. It ain't harsh. What I'm sharing is I I want to live for you. I'm trying not to die of too much salt. Right, right. It's love, baby. It's love. It's love. But you asked me a question. Even when I first got married, I used to tell my wife, don't ask me a question you don't want the answer to. There you go. Because if you ask me, I'm gonna tell you. So just be prepared for the response. Because stop, we can't script people's language, we can't pick and choose and canonize and have people affirm our truth for us just to make us feel good. Now you're setting me up to lie to you. Exactly. Then that can only go. That's the direct reflexion of my character.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Yep. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, 100% it does. I I do that.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Even though I look like a bull in a shine shop, I present like a bull in a china shop. But I'm really a fine piece of China. But I have to know that for when I move, I know I can't be with a woman that's a sledgehammer. Exactly. Exactly. I think she should get the worst out of me. She's gonna find the biggot, think she's gonna find the bear. And I don't even like the bear. Why anybody pull him out? That's right. Man, I'm But if I don't understand myself and create the boundaries for me to be successful and be willing to teach someone for we for us to create an environment for us to be successful, because most people that get together, they wrestle with whose house was better. My mom and them did it this way, my mom and them did it this way. Well, don't matter because both of y'all didn't have any power in either of those houses. There you go. You should blow that up from the beginning. Why? Because what you're trying to build and referencing the houses you came from never included the people you're with. That's right. So they would never fit in that box anyway. They didn't even include the book. You gotta blow that box up. We have to redefine, because for example, what was it? Um, Big Daddy Kane. Some women like it, some like rough, rugged, and rude, but I'm subtle and smooth. You don't disapprove, it just got given a chance. Let me show you how it works. Did that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 36:43

That's real right there. No, that's real right there. Because oftentimes men are taught to just suppress your feelings. You know, you know, you need to be holding the door in every metaphorical way that you can for women, you know, that you need to, you're always second place and your feelings don't matter, and you shouldn't even have those sort of feelings. What are you, a pussy? You know, there's all sorts of things that berate and belittle uh what we want. And we get used to that, and then when we bring that into the relationship, we just kind of we just kind of sit on the sideline and just let it happen. But secretly we're up to the body. You know what we want isn't happening.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Yeah, but then that within itself causes an erosion of the relationship. 100%. Now you're telling me I can't be vulnerable and transparent. In real talk, all men want to be wanted just as much as women and women want women want it. Because I always tell women when they come into my office, because in my office I always tell men's secrets and women's secrets. I tell everybody secrets. I said, Look, men want to be wanted just like women. I said, because however, we can't say it because you're gonna think we're butter. So I said, however, but if you notice, he never rejects a smack on the ass, and when you bring flowers, he don't say take them back. Right. Right man I said that to for the last 40 years, they agreed. And the women too. Yeah, right. But we can't, but we don't talk about it. So I talk about taboo stuff. I want to talk about everything. Why? Because if I you tell me everything, I miss nothing, and I know exactly how to connect. With enough information, nothing is random. There's a poem that I even send to people. It's called Uh Knots, K-N-O-T-S by R. D. Lang. And it says, you know, but basically at the that last line says, I don't know, well, says, I don't know what what I'm supposed to know, but I think you know, you think that I think you think, but I think you think I know it. But I don't, but I can't tell you that I don't know it because you think I should know it. So to help me, just let's just tell everybody each other everything. Everything's easy for both of us. I like it. Leave no stone unturned. Right, because if I can't be truthful with you, if I can't be vulnerable with you, I don't need to be with you. Mm-hmm. I get hard, I fight lions and tigers and bears when I leave my house. I don't want to fight nothing. I don't want to fight when I come. That's right. That's received. I want to be respected, I want to be accepted. And with that, you get the best of me. That's right. That's right. Except it is. Yeah. Because we're all human and time out for women saying men don't have I this is what I hear in my office. I had a I deal with sexual trauma and a number of other things, but there was a gentleman in here, gentlemen I was working with dealing with sexual trauma from youth. He's married, and uh obviously he's having some sex issues, yada yada. So he said to me, you know what? My wife said, S I told my wife what happened, and she said, so what? Get over it. And he said, But you know what the funny thing is? Her sister was was assaulted about the same time I was many years ago as a kid. However, they still cater to her sister, but they treat me like shit, like I'm a punk because I haven't gotten over it. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

And I I I how she's expecting it.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

Yeah, exactly. That's your partner. You're supposed to be. We are human. We are all human. And matter of fact, if you turn off your emotions, how are you going to be successful in life? I'm going to give everybody a news flash that analytics is not new. I know we we changed in sports and all this other stuff. But that is, analytics is as old as the human mind, a human being. Why? Because it's a computerized human nervous system. Hey, think about when you're a kid, you reach your hand to a stove and it gets hot and teach you not to do that no more.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

That's what emotions are. When you're fearful, you're in a new terrain. Slow down. There might be landmines, so be strategic, not anxious. When you're anxious, slow down, you may trip over your feet. When you're depressed, that's internalized anger. What it is, is I'm mad at somebody else, but I won't project it where it belongs. I'll hold on to it and punish myself. So what we're rejecting, that's what we're gonna hold out much to study. We should be looking to study and understand. So now we know how to counteract it. That's why I don't hold much. Hey, me and me and my lady make an agreement, whatever the case may be. And she says the first time it goes wrong, I say, Yeah!

SPEAKER_05 41:28

I'm out.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

That's right. That's right. Why? Because I know me. Let me build it up. Can I be frank? Okay, cool. Because if I let things build up, then it's gonna start challenging my character. If you challenge my calendar, I can't promise you what man I'm gonna be. Exactly. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Now you fight me. Say that again. Say that one more time. Say that bar one more time. You said if you challenge. You don't know what kind of man you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Right. Basically, right, because if you if I cannot be vulnerable in all of who I am, naked and unashamed with you, and then I have to lie to you or withhold, it will erode me as a person. That means that challenges my character. And therefore I'm lesser of a man and you can't hold me to know. That's right. Because you're fighting against environmental love for your wife. It don't have to be that way. But if I can't be emotionally safe and secure with you, if I no different than what in general men say. If I can't be a man, well, men don't say it out loud, we say it amongst ourselves. If I can't be a man at home, I'm gonna be a man somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 42:35

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Because at the end of the day, I'm gonna be a man.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

I'm gonna be a man. That's I'm gonna be a man. I'm gonna be a man.

SPEAKER_00 42:41

If I stop being a man, I cease to exist.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:44

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Ooh. Ooh. Okay. Okay. We've dropped a lot of gems in here so far, so far.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

And I you asked me to come on now.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

No, no, no, no, no. Hey, hey. We have dropped a lot of gems. This is perfect. I'm I'm gonna um look Joe, you had a you had something that um that you you were saying that you were dealing with your own self as far as you know the anger that you have that that you've been that you've been holding on to.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

Yeah, something that you said earlier. I I felt personally attacked, it was so good.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Um that the Lord's conviction boycott.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

Yeah, that that was it was really good about the lack of control when you're younger and how that manifests into a controlling behavior when you're older. That's something I've seen.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

My priority becomes on stabilizing your emotional well-being because my comfort is a fadly familiar feeling. Because what it does is it's called neuro hijacking. Neuro hijacking. If I feel today the way I felt when I was years ago, those moments blend and I respond today as though I'm with the original offender.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Yeah, so there's there's a lot of that that I see in some of the things that I do, and I rationalize it as Oh no, I need to do it this way or it won't get done properly, or you know, you know, whatever thing that I tell myself on why I need to do it.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

What it is is that think about this, real real talk. Um it was interesting when I've over the years I've spoken a lot. However, I stress one of the reasons I I was wondering one day why I'm so stressed when I speak. And and oftentimes, like the what you asked me to do, tell you about me. I usually don't do go through that and tell people that. I usually go right into talking. And then I one day I asked myself recently why I did that. And I said, because when I speak, they usually give me a certain amount of time. And I know that I can go to preacher route sometime. And what I don't want to do is disappoint people and run over time. Why? Because when I disappointed my mama, it was hell to pay. I know what being beat with an extension cord while you're wet feels like. You see Jesus. That's right. Shit, boy. And but when you've gone through those types of things, that the whole point of disappointing people, it's a fairly familiar feeling. What it is, I feel the feeling like a kid again, and then it shrink it neurologically takes me back there. Dan Siegel calls it neuro hijacking, John Gottman calls it flooding, but it's the same. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Yeah. Yeah, right. That's that's really interesting there. That's that's something for me to really ponder on.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

To really begin to see yourself in the in the in the impact that your youth had. What I tell them to do is go, I want them to journal. And I journal something specific. I want you to journal from from when you, as far back as you can remember until you left home from during those formative years. And what I want you to do is pretend you're at an a at a movie theater watching a movie, and it's exactly like your life with all the people, the houses, the colors, the cars. But I want you to pay attention to the primary character, that's you. But now, as you're watching that child in those various experiences, instead of the child defining it, I want you, the adult, to define what that character is going through. I want you to tie what emotions are. Don't think back to when you're a kid. I want you to be the adult you are and watch this kid, and I want you to define what's going on with that kid. Now, because why? Why when they do that, they'll recognize the narrative is different. Because when you're a kid, you think everything's your fault. Yeah. You're always the problem. But if that's in your subconscious, because people fail to recognize your conscious mind doesn't determine what you do. That's right. Subconscious mind.

SPEAKER_04 46:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

The conscious mind is the protector of the subconscious mind, but the subconscious mind is before formed before the sub the conscious mind is fully developed. So that means that early information we get, there is no filter. There is no, we don't know if it's right or wrong for us. That's right. It's just in there. We look at our parents as gods. So no matter what they say, we believe it. We suck it up like a hoover.

SPEAKER_04 47:12

Yep. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

And then, but and we will mimic that throughout life. However, but now when you become an adult, you recognize no mama, mama was a crack addict. Daddy, daddy had issues. Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Real talk.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Real talk. And and they were punishing me because they couldn't manage themselves, and they were projecting their disdain on me. So now that releases the client of weather pain and shame because now they can put the attention and write. They write letters to parents, uncles, aunts, whoever. But then we create a way for them to articulate. They don't always have to confront the people.

SPEAKER_04 47:48

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

But what they have to do is get their own understanding and then write a letter. They can choose to burn it, send it, hold conversation, but or flush it down the toilet. But it's to get the resolve for you, not necessarily for the other people.

SPEAKER_04 48:02

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

It goes back to forgiveness being for you more than even the person that you're forgiving.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Exactly. Exactly.

unknown 48:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

Check this out. Too oftentimes we're holding on to things in anger and pain and hurt and disappointment and looking at ourselves through other people's eyes that ain't even around no more and ain't thinking about us. That last part.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Ain't even thinking about you. You sitting here thinking about it for 35 years. Exactly. Yeah, buddy. Yeah, buddy.

SPEAKER_02 48:35

Man. Man, we we we are going to I'm I I wanted, you know, first of all, we're gonna have you back, Mr. Todd. All right. No, man, I appreciate it. We're gonna have you back because there was about four different rabbit holes that I'm glad we didn't we didn't go down this time, because this would be three hours, and we definitely gonna respect the time that you factored with each other.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Remember, remember when we talked, I said I got about 40 years worth of data up here. So when I talk, it all just comes in.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

We want to have you on as much as we can because um, you know, the this is the foundation of transferring the knowledge from the OGs and the unks to the nephews. This is what we're building right here. We're building the the foundation of legacy. And legacy isn't always money, legacy is the culture, legacy is the knowledge, legacy is the the the the nuance and and and the the instincts that are transferred from the elders to the the upcoming generation, and we just want to do our little part here to continue that journey and continue that legacy and build it on and hand it on. So what what I like to do, this is, I mean, since you're the first guest, this is a new tradition we're gonna have. Um what I like to do is say, um, give me one thing that you are doing that's outside of your work that you're just super that you're just into right now. Like what are you into right now that that you just that you want to share with the audience?

SPEAKER_00 50:06

No, I can't you're making me think because I'm a nerd. I think about real talk, what I do is my calling. So there's really no separation between me and it. I see, I see. However, real talk, because even when I'm not in my office or studying, I'm writing, I'm doing something.

SPEAKER_04 50:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

And I'm processing and I'm thinking, and I watch, hey, I people watch. However, outside of that, you'll you'll outside of that, you'll see me at a cigar lounge with a nice with a nice bourbon.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

Okay. Okay. Hey, um, I just found out, you know, the Pappy Van Winkles, they make a stick. Pappy Van Winkle, you know the Wellers and Pappies? They make a stick.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

I had no idea. I'll have to try that.

SPEAKER_02 50:50

Get me some Wellers and Get you some Wellers and get a Pappy Van Winkle stick on your.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

Well, you could invite me to Houston too, though. I hear that's supposed to be a chocolate city.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

We we are trying to do it, set up some lives. We're we're we're gonna do that. We're gonna do some lives. Jared and I will.

SPEAKER_00 51:08

I haven't been to Houston, but I've heard good stuff about it.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

Oh man, it's the best. It's the best. We're trying to decide Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio right now. So we're gonna do one of those two, one of those three areas, and um all of them have great Mexican food. All of them have great music and places to go.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

The only place I've been in in Texas is Austin.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

So as long as we have send me somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 51:32

No, we'll go somewhere different.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

Yeah, we'll give we'll get we'll we'll get you set to set up news.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

People in Austin, I had a great time. I went to I went to the Whole Foods and everything. I had a good time. But I but I'd like to see other parts of this.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

Well, before we sign off, Mr. Todd, what where are your socials? Where can we find you if they want more? And then also where can anybody who is in in the area of uh Huntsville, North Carolina, where can they get in touch with you or touch base?

SPEAKER_00 52:01

Okay, well, well, Huntsville is uh Huntsville is in in Alabama. I live in Huntersville.

SPEAKER_05 52:06

Huntersville.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

My office is in Huntersville, North Carolina. And the easiest, the simplest way to find me is go to toddmolloy.com. T-O-D-D-M-A-L-L-O-Y.com. That'll give you phone numbers, social media, give you anything you want to know about me, and most importantly, it'll it'll challenge you to think. Because we I talk about the principle of Toddism, intentional living and so forth, such that people get to live a life worth celebrating. It's time to be intentional. Stop winging life. Think about it this way. When it's business, it's strictly business, right? That's why we treat people like we do in corporate world. However, that's a monolithic system that we dedicate our lives to. We study industry journals, we go to college, we do this. The the more complex system are the relationships because it's because it is business. Family is business, the money you take care runs this system. However, but now I got feelings, emotions, and all these other things going on. However, we wing this system, but we meditate and concentrate on this. What if we were just as intentional over here as we are over here?

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Yeah. It seems like we could have our life filled with the same.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

It's a challenge for people to begin to be intentional and really understand why you believe what you believe. I oftentimes ask men where they get their man where they get their definition of manhood from. And I explain to them how it's not relevant to their life because they got it from two generations before, that and they were in different socioeconomic situations in the whole nine yards. Ain't living, you know, it's not even relevant.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

Why have a definition that's not relevant that'll keep you in a state of feeling inadequate?

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Yeah. But it's because it because you can expand that to so many other different things where our mindset is just built in a system that doesn't really exist anymore for us, you know?

SPEAKER_00 54:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

And that's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 54:03

We want to challenge, we want to stimulate avenues of thought. We want to ask why. Even in corporate America, root cause analysis is do five why, do the five whys. Why are we asking ourselves when we have a problem? We ask, why don't we ask ourselves five times?

SPEAKER_04 54:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:19

Well, we're gonna hold on, we're gonna hold on to that one. We're gonna hold it. We will talk about the five whys and leave it intentional lives next month, next time we have you on. Um but uh until then, I am Mr. Get a job, Jermaine. Go for work. Thank you, Mr. Todd. And thank you, Mr. Todd. And uh I love you guys. Thank you for joining us on the Only Talk Podcast with our special guest, Mr. Todd Malloy. If you like what you heard today, comment, like, and subscribe on YouTube and Spotify or your preferred podcast platform. If you want to reach out to our guest, you can find him at toddmalloy.com or on Instagram at I am ToddMalloy. We'll be back next Tuesday with another episode of On the Talk Podcast.