Modern Wisdom #1026 — Alison Armstrong — How to Treat Men Better

Podcast: Modern Wisdom
Host: Chris Williamson
Guest: Alison Armstrong
Date: November 29, 2025

Episode Overview

In this engaging conversation, Chris Williamson sits down with renowned relationship expert and author Alison Armstrong to explore the depths of how women can understand, appreciate, and “treat men better,” ultimately fostering more harmonious and fulfilling relationships. Alison brings her characteristic humor, candor, and decades of research to topics like gender paradigms, the difference between pleasing and empowering, complementary strengths, the role of appreciation, the mechanics of emasculation, and actionable ways both women and men can create lasting partnership. The dialogue moves seamlessly between personal anecdotes, research findings, and practical advice, all delivered in a lively, relatable tone.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Alison’s Mission and Paradigm-Shifting Approach

• Alison’s Purpose: Striving for "Heaven on Earth—love, people choosing love again and again over everything else" ([01:00]).
• She works by exposing and reverse-engineering paradigms, showing how our habitual worldviews make some results possible and others impossible ([01:23]).
• The conversation is frank and allows for swearing, as Alison argues, "If you water down the truth, you water down transformation" ([02:35]).

Music, Vagueness, and Precision in Communication

• Both speakers compare the value of precision and purposeful vagueness in language and the arts, noting that a degree of ambiguity allows self-insertion and greater resonance ([03:47]).

Understanding Gender Instincts: "Pleasing," Safety, and Survival

• Women’s Survival Instinct: Alison explains how women are instinctually programmed to please men due to physical vulnerability, with millennia of evolution shaping behaviors around securing protection ([05:43]–[11:23]).
  • "It's a macro program, and it's running in the background. How about now? How about now? Is he pleased?" — Alison ([07:00]).
• Men’s Preferences: Men are generally "not that hard to please," but women over-assign meaning to pleasing them, often missing what truly matters—empowerment or admiration over mere pleasure ([11:24]–[12:54]).

Safety (Women) vs. Security (Men)

• Safety vs. Security: Alison elaborates on these as distinct drives: women are attuned to felt safety (emotionally and physically), while men focus on fact-based security (resources, status, respect) ([14:53]–[15:04]).
  • “Safety is a feel. Security is a fact.” — Alison ([15:06])

The “12 Things” Men Seek Before Committing

• Alison lists criteria men look for when determining a lifelong partner ([26:34]–[31:38]):
  1. Doesn’t emasculate him too much.
  2. Genuinely likes him.
  3. Enough communication and exploration in sex ("He could do this with this one person for life.")
  4. He believes he can give her what she needs.
  5. Compatible or complementary values.
  6. Aligned futures and directions.
  7. Productive communication: problem-solving as a team.
  8. She is attractive to him (sexually, charmed, enchanted).
  • Each criterion stands alone and is non-negotiable for most men ([27:34]).
• Notable: Love and connection don’t automatically make the list for men; commitment is more practical ([20:41]).

The Most Charming Feminine Qualities (According to Men)

• Alison shares the “Four Most Charming Qualities” in a woman ([32:16]–[39:49]):
  1. Self-confidence
  2. Authenticity (“Men almost always use the word courage…”)
  3. Passion (for something outside the relationship)
  4. Receptivity (being open to receive what men want to give)
• Notably, sexual energy evokes a “take” impulse in men, while the other qualities evoke the “give” response.

Appreciation, Admiration, and “Peacocking”

• Appreciation as Oxygen: Alison calls appreciation vital for men ([41:08]–[44:08]).
  • “He would so much rather that you were impressed by him than he was pleased by you.” ([45:48])
• Peacocking: Men try to impress women they’re attracted to; if a woman isn’t impressed, it’s a “non-starter.”

Complementary Strengths: What Men Are Actually Looking For

• Men desire complementary strength in their partners, not a duplicate of their own strengths ([47:58]):
  • “Tom Brady is not looking for another all-star quarterback. Tom Brady’s looking for a Jerry Rice. Someone whose strength literally altered the possibilities of his own game.”
• Women aren’t always aware they’re chosen for these complementary attributes and might mistakenly attack men for not being strong in the same ways ([50:55]).

Letting Men Provide and the Modern Woman’s Dilemma

• The importance of receptivity: Modern messaging to women ("don’t need a man") undermines men’s core drive to provide and be useful.
• “There is no number of women that makes a woman feel as safe as one man that she knows is for her.” ([56:51])
• Noted paradox: High-achieving women often signal independence so strongly they inadvertently push away the very care and protection they secretly crave.

Trust, Surrender, and Direction of Causality in Relationships

• Alison unpacks the distinction between submission and surrender, favoring surrender as willing, trust-based collaboration, rather than reluctant acquiescence ([69:51]).
• Both men and women should specify what to trust their partner for instead of expecting "blanket trust" ([71:37]).
• “If you want the truth, you’ve got to celebrate the truth—even if you don’t like it.” ([88:59]–[89:01])

Needs, Vulnerability, and Selective Disclosure

• Both genders struggle with their needs due to social programming:
  • Women: Hold back needs for fear of seeming weak or entitled.
  • Men: Equate having needs with weakness and fear vulnerability ([86:12]).

Emasculation: Definition and Impact

• Definition: “When you diminish my ability to produce results, you have emasculated me” ([100:34]).
• Forms of Emasculation:
  • Withholding information, affection, admiration, and accountability.
  • Interrupting men, criticism, comparisons, “compliments” that are actually insults, and undermining men’s authority.
  • Diminishing a man’s happiness or victory—often when he’s most powerful ([103:45]–[160:41]).
• Key Quote: "To diminish someone's ability to produce results as a man…can be anything from being taken down a notch, the wind out of your sails, the plug was literally pulled out of the wall..." ([100:34]).

What Earns Men the Most “Points”?

• Happy Wife, Happy Life: Men value making their partner happy above all else ([150:36]).
  • "Happy is the bullseye. It’s a spiritual quality. It’s transformative, makes life easier." ([150:36])
• However, about 90–95% of women’s happiness depends on themselves; men can only provide certain “resources,” while fulfillment is self-generated ([151:48]).

Practical Trim Tabs: Small Shifts with Big Impacts

• Trim Tabs: Alison uses Buckminster Fuller’s metaphor for small adjustments creating outsized positive effects in relationships ([174:24]).
  • Example: When women don’t interrupt, men begin to open up; but reciprocity expectations differ between men and women ([174:55]).

Evolutionary and Social Underpinnings

• The “me/not me” distinction underpins a lot of tribalism, survival, and even disgust ([166:35]–[168:24]).
• Women search for “likeness” (me) for safety, but true chemistry is born from differences ([166:28]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Alison on swearing and truth transformation:
  “Only because you can’t separate truth from transformation. If you water down the truth, you water down transformation.” ([02:45])

• On women’s pleasing instinct:
  “We’re terrified of being displeasing. We strive to please and to avoid displeasing. And we’re watching you so closely…your expressions or gestures, your tone of voice are cues to us…so that you’ll save me.” ([07:00])

• On trust and receptivity:
  "I love to be ordered around, tell me what to do. I am a happy camper in a particular context other than that. So submit to—to me, submit has an element of putting up with or submitting..." ([69:51])

• On complementary strengths:
  “Tom Brady is not looking for another all-star quarterback. Tom Brady’s looking for a Jerry Rice.” ([47:58])

• On emasculation:
  “Feeling bad does not emasculate me. When you diminish my ability to produce results, you have emasculated me.” ([100:34], quoting Tomer)

• On male commitment:
  “When you guys commit, you commit all the time. Just like the whole picture, the whole package. Just scoop it up. And we can feel it.” ([96:12])

• On happiness and points:
  “Happy is the bullseye. It’s a spiritual quality. It’s transformative, makes life easier.” ([150:36])

• On disclosure and vulnerability:
  “Half the men ended up in…having a need is weak and pathetic. They just don’t need. Y’all are like Superman. Who’s… Have you ever seen a Superman movie where he ate?” ([86:12])

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:00 – Alison’s mission: Heaven on Earth, paradigms, transformative potential.
• 05:43 – Instinctual roots of pleasing, survival drives, masculine/feminine differences.
• 14:53 – Safety (women) vs. security (men); how language reveals core instincts.
• 26:34 – The 12 criteria men look for in a partner.
• 32:16 – Four most charming feminine qualities according to men.
• 41:08 – Appreciation, admiration, and the importance of being impressed.
• 47:58 – Scanning for complementary strengths; men’s selection criteria.
• 56:51 – The unique safety women feel from a man’s support; modern challenges.
• 69:51 – Submission vs. surrender; evolving trust and the direction of causality.
• 86:12 – Why men stifle needs; cultural beliefs about male vulnerability.
• 100:34 – Emasculation defined as diminishing the capacity to produce results.
• 150:36 – The ultimate “points” for a man: making a woman happy.
• 174:24 – “Trim tab” adjustments: small changes, huge relationship impact.

Conclusion & Where to Learn More

This episode is a masterclass in unraveling the nuanced, often counterintuitive realities of how men and women relate. Alison Armstrong’s research, wit, and practical frameworks offer both men and women tools to create more honesty, admiration, appreciation, and genuine partnership. Core takeaways include the value of complementary strengths, the need for precise knowledge and celebration of needs, the dangers of subtle emasculation, and the extraordinary ripple effects of small, intentional shifts.

For more:

• Search “Alison Armstrong” on YouTube for extensive free videos ([169:15]).
• Check out her website alisonarmstrong.com for courses, resources, and subscription programs.
• Her seminal works: The Queen’s Code and upcoming The King’s Code.
• Noted “NSYNC with the Opposite Sex” as a fan-favorite audio program ([169:53]).

Final Note:
Alison and Chris end with warm mutual appreciation, and an open invitation to continue the collaboration in future episodes.

This summary covers all key themes, insights, and strategies discussed — with annotated timestamps and direct quotes throughout, capturing the unique blend of humor, depth, and actionable wisdom that defines Alison Armstrong’s work.