0:00

Parents that are just empathetic

0:02

do not create empathetic children.

0:04

If their one-way empathy

0:07

begets self-centeredness, it does not beget

0:09

empathy. So children have to see

0:11

how empathy is modeled by a

0:13

parent, but a parent can't stop

0:15

by being empathetic. The parent must

0:17

require the child to know how

0:19

to empathize with the mother and

0:22

father going through, what their brother

0:24

and sister is going through, and

0:26

so appreciate them and be

0:28

empathetic to them. Welcome

0:31

to the Art of Charm podcast, where

0:33

we break down the science of powerful

0:35

communication and winning mindsets, so you have

0:37

the cheat code to succeed with people.

0:39

Every episode is jam-packed with actionable steps

0:42

to unlock the hidden superpowers inside of

0:44

you. Level up with us each week

0:46

by listening to interviews with the best

0:48

in business, psychology, and relationships. We distill

0:50

thousands of hours of research in the

0:52

most effective tools and the latest science,

0:54

so you can start winning today. Let's

0:56

face it. In order to be seen

0:58

and heard, your communication needs to cut

1:00

through the noise, and we're going

1:02

to show you how. I'm AJ, successfully

1:04

recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And

1:07

I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter,

1:09

rock and roller, and co-founder here at

1:11

the Art of Charm. And for the

1:13

last 15 years, we've trained

1:15

thousands of top performers and teams from

1:18

every background. We have dedicated our lives

1:20

to teaching men and women all they

1:22

need to know about communication, networking, and

1:25

relationships. You shouldn't have to settle for

1:27

anything less than extraordinary. All

1:32

right, let's kick off today's show. Today, we're talking

1:34

with Dr. Warren Farrell. We had Warren

1:36

on for his previous book, The Boy Crisis,

1:38

in 2019, and we're excited to have him

1:40

back. He's been chosen by the Financial Times

1:42

of London as one of the world's top 100 thought leaders.

1:45

His most recent book, Role Mate to Soul

1:47

Mate, The Seven Secrets to Lifelong Love, is

1:50

based on his teaching couples communication for the

1:52

past 30 years. Today, he

1:54

joins us to share his four-step apology to

1:56

help you resolve any conflict. We discuss why

1:58

you need to... create a conflict-free

2:01

zone in your relationship and specifically

2:03

how you can create it. We

2:05

discussed the higher expectations trap that

2:07

dooms romantic relationships and how

2:09

to give appreciation the right way that allows

2:12

your partner to feel heard and understood. Welcome

2:15

back to the show, Warren. It's great to have you.

2:17

Thank you, AJ. I'm looking forward to this. Johnny

2:21

and I were curious, a bit of the backstory and also the

2:23

title, so Role Mate to Soul Mate, so

2:27

can you share with our audience the title

2:29

of the book and the backstory of how

2:31

this book came together? Yeah, the title of

2:33

the book came about from I was doing

2:35

couples communication workshops that at the very beginning

2:37

I wasn't calling Role Mate to Soul Mate,

2:39

but then I started seeing that everybody as

2:41

they, when they fell in love, they felt

2:43

that they were soul mates. But

2:48

it was really passion mates, not soul mates. And

2:50

then as they started to get to know each other,

2:52

particularly if they moved in together, they started

2:55

feeling, why don't you put the dishes

2:57

in the dishwasher rather than the sink? And why do

2:59

you leave the toilet seat up? And I mentioned that

3:02

to you before. When I first

3:04

met you, you made this great dinner for me. And now

3:07

you serve me leftovers. And all these things

3:09

were happening. And

3:11

then people were sort of, they evolved into

3:13

playing roles in their life, which didn't necessarily

3:15

mean male doing this and the

3:18

female doing that in terms of breadwinner

3:20

and being at home with the children.

3:22

But they figured out roles that were

3:24

good for them. But

3:27

they oftentimes felt

3:29

that they were walking on eggshells because they

3:31

feared that they didn't want to criticize their

3:33

partner because they knew that historically,

3:36

even when they expressed a concern, that their

3:38

partner would experience it as criticism and

3:40

then would respond to it defensively and then that would escalate.

3:44

And so I'm not in the mood, and my partner's not in

3:46

the mood for escalating and getting into a big argument, especially

3:48

right now when we're going out to dinner.

3:51

And so I'll just keep it to myself. I'll keep it to

3:53

myself. I'll keep it to myself. And

3:56

so when I talk to couples about this,

3:58

they say, you know, why do you keep

4:00

it to yourself? yourself because the normal outcome

4:02

of my bringing up a concern is

4:04

that it gets worse, that my

4:07

partner becomes defensive and it escalates and

4:09

I escalate defensively to that and before

4:12

you know it, we're both sorry for

4:14

what we said and are angry and

4:16

neither of us felt hurt

4:19

and we just go into a sort of

4:21

more defunct space. So it's better just to

4:23

keep it to myself, but also I am

4:26

finding myself drinking, I am finding myself

4:28

you know sort of building up this

4:30

internal volcano. If it's a woman

4:32

talking, she's talking to her women friends about some of

4:35

the things she doesn't like about her husband. If it's

4:37

a man talking, he's more likely just to keep it

4:39

to himself and so it's not good for either one

4:41

of them and so I then

4:43

started working on, all right, is there a

4:46

way that a

4:48

couple could really hear each other without

4:51

becoming defensive and

4:53

I realized that historically speaking when

4:56

you heard a criticism, it was a

4:58

potential enemy. So it made

5:00

sense to survive to get up your

5:03

defenses or alternatively kill the enemy before

5:05

the enemy killed you and that was

5:07

wonderful for survival, it's just dysfunctional for

5:09

love and

5:11

so I asked myself is there a way

5:13

around this and long story

5:16

short after 30 years of working with

5:18

the Role Made to Soul Made course

5:20

people, I started scheduling calls about three

5:22

months after I did the actual Role

5:24

Made to Soul Made workshop and

5:27

I asked people what worked and what didn't

5:29

work and I kept refining and making it

5:31

better and better and I

5:33

found that one of the things that really did work

5:36

was knowing how to fill the reservoir

5:38

of love with appreciations and

5:41

then setting aside a time that I

5:43

called the caring and sharing practice in

5:46

which both couples learn to be able

5:48

to hear each other's

5:50

perspectives but before they did

5:52

they altered their naturally biologically

5:55

defensive state to be able

5:57

to hear everything their partners

5:59

said. that even whether they

6:01

disagreed with everything, even whether it was exaggerated,

6:03

even if it was in a sarcastic tone

6:06

of voice. And then when

6:08

I had couples practice that and say

6:11

these mindsets, these six mindsets out

6:13

loud to their partner, their

6:15

partner saw that the person that

6:17

they were about to share their

6:19

concerns with was feeling, was preparing

6:21

themselves to really hear them. And

6:24

therefore they felt safe to communicate rather

6:26

than walking in eggshells. And

6:29

then I taught them how to

6:31

leave their partner feeling completely heard,

6:34

completely seen, completely not distorted. And

6:36

that really changed the life of almost every

6:38

couple that I've had a chance to work

6:40

with. And so then I started feeling upset

6:43

that this was really wonderful for people

6:45

who could afford the, you know,

6:47

the thousand to $5,000 to make

6:49

the trip to Big Sur and Esalen or

6:52

other places that I was teaching. But it

6:54

was, you know, that is not available to

6:56

everybody. So I created the online video course,

6:58

which is, and then with the Rollmate to

7:01

Soulmate book basically gave that away. And

7:03

so the people really could do this in

7:05

depth with their partner. Well,

7:08

I can definitely feel a lot

7:10

of those issues in my own relationship as

7:12

much as we work on them. And I

7:14

think it's hard for people when they go

7:16

through that starting phase of feeling that immense

7:19

amount of passion for their partner to

7:22

then fall into this phase where you

7:24

talk about the four depleters of love

7:26

come into play. And all

7:28

of a sudden we're relying on instincts, we're

7:31

relying on emotion. And even with the best

7:33

intentions and caring deeply about the other person,

7:35

we're hurting them. And over

7:37

time that hurt turns to resentment and then

7:39

those relationships fail. And I

7:41

think a lot of us, we like to

7:43

think of Soulmate as, oh, just perfect. Like

7:46

we just match, there's no work. And

7:48

I don't need to go to a course. I don't

7:50

need to read a book. I don't need to watch

7:53

a videos online to get to that place. But actually

7:55

that's just not how love works. And I think that's

7:57

jarring for a lot of us based on what we

7:59

do. here in Hollywood movies and seeing

8:01

books and plays, etc., around

8:03

this idea that I just need to find that perfect match.

8:06

And John and I have talked a lot about

8:08

this, how this then leads to people writing people

8:11

off too soon in their dating lives and

8:13

ending up single and very frustrated because

8:16

they're searching for something that is just

8:18

not out there. Absolutely.

8:20

And the more they're soulmates,

8:23

to some degree, that sort of natural

8:25

connection, the more vulnerable

8:27

they feel. And so when

8:29

a man feels that he's

8:31

respected by being the protector

8:34

of his wife and then his wife

8:36

criticizes him, he suddenly feels like, my God, she

8:39

must not respect me. And I know

8:41

enough about her to know that if

8:43

she doesn't respect me, she can't possibly love me. And

8:46

the woman is often feeling like,

8:48

if he's criticizing me, he's supposed

8:50

to be the person who's my

8:52

nurturer, connector, and protector.

8:55

And what is he doing criticizing me? And

8:59

so he's so precious for a while. And

9:01

so in a way, the more you perceive

9:03

yourself as soulmates without having the way of

9:06

being able to share what your concerns

9:08

are, the more

9:10

oftentimes you

9:12

find yourself vulnerable to being rejected or

9:14

what you perceive as being rejected or

9:17

criticized by your, quote, soulmate. Yeah, and

9:19

I think the other part about this

9:21

is we grow and change. And

9:24

when you fall in love and you've been together, my

9:26

wife and I have been together over 10 years now,

9:29

looking back and when we met, we're

9:31

much different people. As much as we

9:33

like to think we share the same

9:35

core values and similar mindsets, that changes

9:37

over time and different career

9:39

paths, different choices made. And of course, it's

9:41

kind of hard to rectify that when you're

9:44

feeling this passion, but at the same time,

9:46

you have these concerns and things that you

9:48

wanna air with your partner and

9:50

you're concerned about how that's gonna be

9:52

received and how you can communicate it

9:55

in a way that leads to not

9:57

only change and ideally healing instead of

9:59

tearing apart. You

10:01

are so right. And that's really an important thing

10:03

to remember is, you know, most people who

10:06

are married 60, 70 years and, you

10:08

know, they're near their death beds. And

10:10

the question is asked, what's

10:12

the secret to your marriage? And

10:14

the answer will often be something like, well,

10:18

there has been four different marriages here,

10:22

you know, and particularly the marriage becomes

10:24

different when you have children. Children

10:26

are the, you know, the big game

10:29

changer because you're not only talking

10:31

about who you are as people, but what your

10:33

philosophy is on raising children and whatever your philosophy

10:35

is on raising children, you find out that it's

10:37

basically half right and half wrong. And,

10:41

you know, no one without children is an expert

10:43

on children because it's a, you know, it's, and

10:46

it's, it's a little bit like, you know, writing

10:48

a book. When I write a book, you know,

10:50

I perceive it to be something, but then the

10:52

book almost becomes its own person after

10:54

a while. And you start seeing that you

10:57

discover things and with children, you especially discover

10:59

things that are, you know, how much discipline,

11:01

how much lenience, how much nurse, nurturance, you

11:04

know, when to enforce a boundary, when to

11:06

be forgiving, you know, and then the child,

11:08

you know, and then you have a brother

11:11

and a sister and you, or two

11:13

brothers or two sisters or three or four

11:15

children. And, you know, wait, why are you

11:17

treating Jimmy this way? When you treated me

11:19

this way? And, you know, and,

11:22

you know, why were you so protective to

11:24

this oldest child and less protective to the

11:26

youngest child? And, you know, there's nothing about

11:28

fairness that could easily be justified

11:33

in raising a child. And so it's,

11:35

and therefore the mother and father, you

11:38

know, get into not just the disagreements,

11:40

but how to do what I call a

11:43

role mate to soulmate checks and balance

11:45

parenting so that you don't,

11:47

you know, that you, that each

11:49

partner understands what the

11:51

rationale is of the other partner. Why

11:54

mom doesn't like it when

11:56

the daughter cries when dad

11:58

teases her? Why is

12:01

dad doing the teasing to the point

12:03

where the daughter cries? Is

12:05

there a positive function of teasing? Yes, there

12:07

is. But you don't

12:09

see that when your daughter is

12:12

crying because you're moving into a

12:14

protector instinct that overpowers anything that's

12:16

rational. How do you

12:19

set aside time to hear your partner

12:21

when you're not in the crisis mode?

12:24

That's what the caring and sharing practices

12:26

is about, not only to spend

12:28

the time doing that, but to know

12:30

how to do that. Everything I advise

12:32

in the caring and sharing practice, as

12:34

you probably already notice, AJ, is

12:37

biologically unnatural. It's really about making

12:39

an evolutionary shift. That's

12:41

what intrigued me about writing Role Mate to Soul

12:43

Mate is that, I always

12:45

want to write a book where the

12:48

problem is very large in society, but

12:50

there's no solution that's been discovered yet.

12:53

I think that is a key

12:55

distinction because people hear relationships are work

12:58

and we have different definitions of work. But

13:00

I think it really distills down to you

13:02

moving beyond just your biological

13:04

urges, and actually moving

13:07

to a place of true partnership with the

13:09

other person. Then of course, as we bring

13:11

in children and the family grows, the family

13:13

unit and understanding that. You

13:15

might have this natural innate inclination when

13:17

in conflict to respond in a certain

13:20

way, but when you're with your partner

13:22

and you're building a family, that's not

13:24

a healthy way to respond to maintain

13:26

that relationship. That's really what the work

13:28

is that we do in a relationship

13:30

to keep falling in love with all

13:33

the different versions of our partner that

13:35

will get the joy to experience. Absolutely.

13:38

To let your partner know, in

13:41

the caring and sharing practice, I make it really

13:43

clear that this is a

13:45

once a week practice where you

13:47

start out giving two sets of

13:50

appreciations to your partner and I

13:52

teach couples how to appreciate each

13:54

other not just generally, but

13:57

very specifically. If it's

13:59

Thanksgiving coming. up and I say to

14:02

my wife in front of

14:04

the company, you're really Liz,

14:06

my wife's name. Liz is

14:08

really a good cook. And yeah, Liz

14:10

feels appreciated by that, but she's been told that a

14:13

half a dozen times or a hundred times. And

14:15

it goes in one ear and out the other.

14:17

But if I say, how did you get the

14:22

turkey's skin so crisp? Now

14:24

she's feeling like she's being called upon as an

14:27

expert and doing something and she sees that I

14:29

really see something of value to what she's done.

14:31

And if I move to the next level and

14:34

say, well, how did you get the dressing so

14:36

moist? And how did you do that at

14:38

the same time that you got the skin

14:40

crisp and the dressing moist? How do you

14:42

manage that? And then

14:45

I say, well, I really love the spices. Well, it's

14:47

nice to say I really love the spices, but what

14:49

spices did you sense? And so if I say, I

14:52

really love it. Maybe was it parsley,

14:54

sage, rosemary, thyme or some other Simon

14:57

and Garf local spice? She

14:59

really sees that I've paid attention

15:01

to the spices, the caring, the

15:04

choices of spices and all those

15:06

challenges. And when I show both

15:08

curiosity and appreciation at a very,

15:11

at what I train my couples

15:13

to do five levels of specificity,

15:16

then the partner really feels seen. So

15:19

the caring and sharing process starts out

15:21

with each partner sharing two appreciations of

15:23

each other. But then the

15:25

really tough stuff is

15:27

how do I alter my

15:30

naturally biological propensity for defensiveness

15:33

and change it temporarily to a

15:35

new propensity to be

15:38

able to hear my partner's criticism in

15:41

such a way that allows them to

15:43

feel completely heard. So

15:45

I'll give you one example of that. I asked them

15:48

to read out loud or to say out

15:50

loud to their partner something I call the

15:52

love guarantee. And the love

15:54

guarantee is the person about ready to

15:56

hear their partner's criticism says,

15:58

I know you will. feel more loved by

16:01

me if I provide a

16:03

safe environment for everything you

16:05

want to say, even

16:07

if I 100% disagree with the content, even

16:10

if you say in a rough or angry

16:12

or shouting tone of or sarcastic tone of

16:14

voice, I will then

16:16

nevertheless know that it's what I

16:18

want to do is provide a safe environment for

16:21

you saying that in whatever way

16:23

you wish. And if I do that,

16:25

you'll feel more secure with me, less

16:28

like you have to walk on eggshells, you'll

16:30

feel more loved by me, and therefore

16:32

you'll feel more loved for me. And

16:34

the more you exaggerate or

16:37

shout, the more you

16:39

will expect to not feel security with me.

16:41

And if I nevertheless

16:43

provide security, you'll have even a deeper

16:45

level of appreciation, a deeper feeling of

16:47

security, a deeper feeling of being loved

16:50

by me, and therefore more love for

16:52

me. So let me not be

16:54

threatened by the exaggeration of the shouting, but

16:57

let me see it as an opportunity to be more

16:59

deeply loved. That's the love

17:01

guarantee. And so when

17:03

he or she, the receiver of criticism,

17:07

meditates into that, but meditates,

17:09

says that out loud, the

17:12

person about ready to share their concern can

17:15

begin to see, is seeing that they're

17:17

safe because their partner is preparing themselves

17:19

to be safe. My most fun mindset

17:21

to give one more is I

17:24

have every couple in the workshop sit

17:26

back to back, take out a yellow

17:28

pad, and to write down on the yellow

17:30

pad, the answer to the following. You're

17:32

with your partner and she or he is about

17:34

ready to be killed, either in a car accident

17:37

or say drown, let's say, with

17:39

100% certainty that you can save their

17:41

life. But you also know

17:44

that you have about a 50% chance of

17:46

dying yourself if you save their

17:48

life. Would you be willing to

17:50

take that chance? Yes,

17:53

no, uncertain. Your

17:55

partner will never see your answer and

17:58

just eliminate the the factor of

18:00

if you have children eliminate the concern of

18:02

children, just take that in an isolated way.

18:06

And about 90% of the men and

18:08

about 80% of the women say,

18:10

yes, they would be willing to risk their life at a

18:12

50% level to save their

18:14

partner's life. I give them

18:16

a couple of options if they're in that 20% or

18:18

10%, but that's the general thing. So

18:21

the first mindset I ask everybody to do is

18:24

to say, if I'm willing to die for

18:26

you, well, the least I can do is

18:28

listen to you. And

18:31

it puts the job of listening in

18:33

perspective. And so there's six mindsets

18:36

like that. And as I was

18:38

mentioning before, those mindsets,

18:40

the six mindsets that have survived

18:43

are the ones that the majority

18:45

of people have increasingly said three

18:47

months afterwards, when they practice this

18:49

each week, that this is the

18:51

mindset that really helped them center

18:54

themselves and helped them feel like

18:56

they are ready to give their

18:58

partner a deeper amount

19:00

of internal security and not move

19:02

into defensiveness. I think

19:04

for a lot of people who

19:06

do not view coaching or relationship

19:09

counseling as a plus, they

19:12

tend to go there when the

19:14

relationship has already hit rock

19:16

bottom or is on its way to

19:18

rock bottom. And what people don't understand

19:20

in that case is that

19:22

those lines of communication, if you've let

19:25

it get that bad, have been utterly

19:27

destroyed. And those lines of

19:29

communication need to be rebuilt. So

19:32

those mindsets

19:35

seem to help in reestablishing

19:37

those lines of communication so

19:40

that the couple can

19:42

then begin to communicate again. And

19:44

for Lord knows how long they

19:46

haven't been. If they're coming to

19:48

a counselor or to one of

19:50

your group sessions after

19:53

they've already destroyed their relationship and tried to

19:55

pick up the pieces. You're

19:57

absolutely right. I think one of the things that inspired

20:00

me to put this into book forum was seeing that

20:02

a significant number of couples, usually about

20:04

a quarter of the couples attending the

20:07

workshop are in this type

20:09

of situation that you're talking about. And

20:11

some of them have filed for

20:13

divorce already. So

20:17

a very high percentage of those that

20:19

filed for divorce, say

20:22

on Monday after the workshops over,

20:25

we both agreed that we're calling

20:28

the attorney and saying, let's

20:30

unfile for divorce. Because they

20:32

just had no idea that they could

20:34

be heard or seen like this. And

20:36

what was more important is that they

20:38

had a method they could use every

20:41

week. And I had drummed

20:43

it into their head that they

20:45

needed to use this every week

20:47

because this requires practice. And

20:50

once you learn it, it's not going to,

20:54

there's 23 love enhancements that I have built into the

20:56

Role Made to Soul Made course and the book. And

20:59

you're not going to be able to remember them.

21:01

You're not going to be able to, unless you

21:03

practice them. And so let me be realistic about

21:05

this. This is not read it once, oh,

21:08

I got it and do it. This

21:11

requires an evolutionary shift and an evolutionary

21:13

shift doesn't happen by just attending a

21:15

workshop or just even reading the book.

21:17

And that's why I created the online

21:19

video version that I'm practically giving

21:21

away with the book because of that. Johnny,

21:26

we've been getting a ton of

21:28

questions lately about how to build

21:30

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21:32

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21:35

career ladder. Absolutely. People want to

21:37

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21:39

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21:41

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21:43

genuinely want to work with. Well,

21:45

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21:47

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21:49

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21:52

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21:54

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21:56

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21:58

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22:00

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22:02

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22:19

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23:01

what else happens with that that we

23:04

haven't touched on? And we should put

23:06

some light on it, just for our

23:08

audience's sake of why we're discussing this,

23:11

which is modernity, whether on

23:13

purpose or just the way it is

23:16

set up, attacks relationships.

23:18

It attacks nuclear families.

23:21

You wrote extensively about how it

23:23

hurts the boys. In

23:25

the boy crisis, when we were

23:28

discussing before the show, a lot of the

23:30

policies that led to the problems that you wrote

23:32

about in the boy crisis have not been

23:34

fixed. And our

23:36

nuclear family is being

23:39

attacked through modernity. We

23:42

know how addictive our devices are.

23:45

We know how toxic a lot of

23:47

the ideas that are floating around are.

23:50

And again, if you think you're

23:52

just going to meet somebody, have

23:54

children, and have a perfect relationship,

23:56

you're sadly mistaken because there's a

23:58

lot of people of things that

24:01

are taken aim at you,

24:03

your relationship, and your happiness. You're

24:06

absolutely right. And so two things on

24:09

the modernity issue is

24:11

that what I found when I

24:13

did the research for the boy

24:15

crisis was that the children that

24:17

were most vulnerable were more the

24:19

boys and the girls, but both

24:22

children without dads had

24:24

challenges on more than 70 different

24:27

metrics, getting suicide,

24:29

not doing well in school, becoming

24:31

failures to launch, dropping out of

24:33

high school, taking drugs or drinking,

24:35

being addicted to porn, on

24:37

and on and on. But I did

24:39

find a huge difference between the children

24:41

that had mom and dad at home

24:44

raising them and the ones that didn't,

24:46

especially ones that had an involved dad

24:48

that were not dad deprived. But even

24:50

if they had a dad that was doing what I

24:52

call the father's catch 22, that is, he

24:55

interpreted his role when the child was born

24:57

to be away from the family earning money

25:00

rather than being with the children directly. Even

25:03

among those children, they knew that father was

25:05

coming back and a father was

25:07

at least involved some weekends, they had

25:09

that security, but it was the ones

25:11

particularly that in divorce

25:13

situations that had challenges. And

25:16

then there was another group that you

25:18

talk about that that is an outcome

25:20

of modernity for sure. And

25:22

that is that 40% of women today

25:24

who have children have children 40%

25:26

without being married. Now,

25:29

some of these women have children with a

25:31

man that they're living with. However, a live

25:34

in relationship with a child lasts an average

25:36

of three and a half years. And

25:39

then after that three and a half

25:41

years, oftentimes what's lost is the father.

25:43

There's a divorce, there's sometimes anger at

25:46

the father, and the child is looking,

25:48

the boy child

25:50

in particular is looking in the mirror and seeing that

25:52

there's a divorce, he has very little contact with his

25:54

father. But as he looks in

25:56

that mirror, he sees, you know, he remembers

25:58

hearing from mom, you know, that your dad

26:00

is a liar. he's irresponsible and he's a

26:02

narcissist and the child's looking in the mirror

26:04

and seeing that he has the

26:07

nose, the eyes, the hair of the father

26:10

and that maybe he's a narcissist who's a

26:12

liar who's irresponsible and there's no

26:14

child that can't figure out times when he's been those

26:16

ways. And so he begins to

26:18

worry that maybe he is inherently like his

26:21

dad but he can't talk to his dad

26:23

about it because he doesn't want to destabilize

26:25

the relationship more by having the dad and

26:27

mom get into an argument, can't talk to

26:30

the mom about it because she's taking care

26:32

of him every day and still doesn't want

26:34

to destabilize that but that's a problem of

26:36

modernity to a greater degree because we never

26:39

had a period in history before where 40%

26:41

of women were having children without being married.

26:44

The other thing that's much more of a function

26:46

of modernity is the divorce

26:48

option. Children, boys are

26:50

doing worse than girls in all 63 of

26:54

the largest developed nations. What's

26:56

common among developed nations? Developed

26:59

nations usually have mastered a

27:01

greater deal of survival skills

27:03

than less developed nations. So developed

27:06

nations can give people the

27:08

option of having a divorce. Less

27:10

developed nations are focused on survival and

27:12

they can't allow the social permission or

27:15

the legislative permission for divorce nearly

27:17

as easily. But once you

27:19

have survival taken care of then

27:21

you look for things like a happy life and

27:23

a fulfilled life and so I'm

27:26

not being fulfilled with my husband with my

27:28

wife so therefore I want the option of

27:30

divorcing. You don't worry about that if you

27:33

can barely survive. You do pay attention to

27:35

that once you can survive. Just one last

27:37

point on the divorce situation. Children

27:39

who are old enough, eight, nine,

27:42

ten, they start to figure things

27:44

out and the minute there is

27:46

a rift in that

27:48

parental structure they will exploit it.

27:51

I certainly did when I was a young

27:53

teenager and saw that in my family.

27:55

I used their getting divorced as leverage

27:57

to get the things that I I

28:00

want it. It doesn't take

28:02

very much for a child to figure

28:04

that he can play both of them

28:06

off, which only divides everything

28:08

even further. Three answers to that

28:10

question. Yes, yes, and

28:12

yes. And

28:14

then the third comment, I'm just shocked that you

28:16

would ever have thought of doing that as a

28:18

child. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

28:21

Yeah. One thing that I

28:23

do want to point out that was strong in

28:25

the book too, is the idea that success in

28:27

your career, those skills do not translate to success

28:29

and love. And one feature

28:31

or bug of modernity is

28:34

now the cost of raising a

28:36

family requires two working

28:38

partners. It requires both parents

28:40

being active in the workforce

28:43

for most people, for majority

28:45

of people now. And

28:47

with that, we're now bringing these skills

28:50

that help us in our career

28:52

into our relationships, and they do

28:54

not work to create the functioning

28:56

healthy relationship communication that we need

28:58

to be successful. But a lot

29:00

of us can't untangle ourselves from that

29:02

because work has become 24, seven, 365. Yes,

29:07

so let's deal with that. There's two very

29:09

important things there. One is

29:11

the success love tension, the tension between

29:14

success at work and love at home.

29:16

And I'll spend a minute on that.

29:18

And the other one is the belief of

29:20

what is needed to make a couple happy

29:22

or to make a family happy. So one

29:25

of the interesting studies was the Harvard University's

29:27

80 year longitudinal

29:29

study on happiness. And

29:32

what they discovered was that if for a

29:34

family of four, depending on where you

29:36

live in the United States, it takes about somewhere between

29:38

60 and $90,000 a year to

29:41

raise a family of four in

29:43

a way that if you

29:45

have more than that, once you've reached

29:48

that level, that happiness

29:50

is achievable more

29:52

by additional time with the family

29:54

than it is by additional time

29:56

at work. And so it's really

29:58

important for... Most people

30:01

hear that because we almost always,

30:03

as a family of four or

30:05

a family of two or three,

30:08

increases their income, they start

30:10

having aspirations for things that

30:13

cost more income. Better

30:15

home, better neighborhood, and so on. But

30:17

the studies of which families

30:19

are happy are the ones that

30:21

base amount, that's what we call

30:23

survival amount, is achieved. The

30:25

additional time is worth more

30:28

than the additional dime. The

30:30

second is what you projered out, and I'm really

30:32

glad you saw this in Role Made to Soul

30:34

Made AJ, is the tension between

30:37

the qualities it takes to be successful at

30:39

work and the qualities that

30:41

it takes to be successful in love.

30:43

For example, let's say you're a top

30:46

executive at Boeing and you have eight

30:48

salespeople trying to sell you a better

30:50

door, let's say. To

30:53

be a good CEO, you listen for

30:55

a while and you start

30:57

asking yourself questions. Inside of yourself, you

30:59

start self-listening. You listen to yourself, say,

31:01

is this person have a good reputation?

31:04

Does this person, have they sold other

31:06

things in the past? Have they worked?

31:08

How can I fit this into my

31:10

Japanese infrastructure? We're having a lot

31:12

of people quit at Boeing here and we're firing

31:14

a lot of people. How will the new people

31:16

be able to adapt to this particular method? You're

31:20

doing a hundred functional things. You're

31:22

self-listening in a number of ways

31:24

that are very functional for being

31:26

a good CEO. If you're

31:29

really doing that for years,

31:31

your brain gets wired to

31:33

self-listen. Now you take that wired brain to

31:35

self-listen and you come home to your wife or

31:37

your children or your husband or your children and

31:40

you find that your husband or your wife is saying that

31:42

they've had a really challenging day at work and

31:44

you listen to them for a few seconds and then you start

31:46

thinking and you start self-listening. You say,

31:48

oh, I have a solution to that. Particularly

31:51

if you're a male executive and

31:53

you love your wife and your

31:55

wife is having challenges, when a

31:57

man loves a woman and a

31:59

woman is having challenges, it's

32:02

like for a man a woman's

32:04

bleeding. And your instinct

32:06

as a man is like, if

32:09

you care about my wife, if I care

32:11

about my wife, there's nothing that we consider

32:13

doing and stopping that bleeding by putting this

32:16

band-aid on that bleeding. But the way to

32:18

put the band-aid on the bleeding is not

32:20

by giving her a solution, it's by the

32:22

way to solve the problem is allowing her

32:25

to just listen. Now women who

32:27

are top executives end up having the same

32:29

problem also, not only with

32:31

their husbands, but also with their children.

32:33

Men have it to a deeper degree

32:36

proportionally, but both are the wrong solution.

32:38

So the qualities it takes to be

32:40

successful at work, which is

32:42

self-listening is included in those qualities,

32:45

are in tension with the

32:47

qualities it takes to be successful at love. And

32:49

the way that I can get through to top

32:52

executives about that is that

32:54

when you just listen and then

32:56

follow listening with more listening

33:00

and then you share and then your wife says

33:02

to you, she pauses, instead

33:05

of coming up with a solution, just

33:08

stop with knowing that you've already

33:10

solved the problem by listening. Now

33:13

what about if she asks you for your ideas,

33:16

just to say, I'll be happy to offer you

33:18

an idea or two, but do you

33:21

have any ideas? Oftentimes, as

33:23

a person takes the time to

33:25

vent, they have ideas

33:28

in their mind as to possible solutions.

33:31

And it honors that person to ask

33:33

for their ideas first and

33:35

then maybe offer your own ideas afterwards.

33:38

But the solution is

33:40

listening followed by listening followed by asking

33:42

your wife or your children's or your

33:44

husband's and children's perspectives on what they've

33:46

vented about. Yeah, and

33:48

I know it in my own relationship,

33:51

we talk about it with our clients,

33:53

how important it is to recognize when

33:55

someone is seeking emotional validation and

33:58

not solutions to problems, worked

34:00

in an environment that's 24-7-365 solutioning. I

34:04

got a Slack notification, I got an email in

34:06

my inbox, and I got a solution, whatever that

34:08

message is, it's hard then to put

34:10

on your validation hat when you get home with your

34:12

partner and listen and listen and

34:15

listen to problems that you internally feel like

34:17

you already have solutions for without just blurting

34:19

it out and wanting to move forward with

34:21

dinner and then get back to the other

34:23

solutions at work that you need to solve.

34:26

Absolutely. And this

34:28

is really something biological. I mean,

34:30

when you are becoming successful and

34:33

you begin to hone the

34:35

art of solving problems and self-listening

34:38

to do that, listening to yourself,

34:40

begin to hone solutions while somebody

34:42

else is talking, and your

34:45

brain begins to adapt to that and neurons

34:47

connect in a certain way. And then

34:49

you come back home and those neurons are

34:51

still connecting that way. You learn

34:53

to do a very good,

34:55

quick solution. And so that's important.

34:57

Part of what needs to come up in the

35:00

caring and sharing time is helping

35:02

the other person know that time when you

35:04

really listened to me and you just listened

35:06

to me. And then I asked

35:08

you for some ideas and you said, well, I'll

35:10

be happy to give them, but what are your

35:12

ideas first? I felt so called

35:15

upon, I felt so validated, I felt

35:17

so heard, or conversely, sharing

35:19

in the caring and sharing time that

35:22

when you just interrupt me like that and come up

35:24

with an idea, I feel on some

35:26

level that you're saying that you could

35:28

figure out in a few seconds

35:30

what I couldn't figure out in a lifetime.

35:33

And I know you're trying to help me, but somehow

35:35

or other, that didn't make me feel honored. I

35:38

wanna touch on the appreciation piece because I

35:40

think it dovetails with what I've also experienced

35:43

in my own life from family and friends,

35:45

which is when one

35:47

partner chooses then to do kin work,

35:50

that kin work is not rewarded

35:52

in the same way that you're

35:55

rewarded in your career with promotions,

35:57

salary increases, achievement awards, recognition. and

36:00

call outs. That kin work is

36:02

head down. In large part, the child is

36:04

not able for most of their lives to

36:06

appreciate what's going on. They're just trying to

36:09

survive and you're trying to help support them.

36:11

And then your partner is struggling now on

36:13

a single income, trying to lean heavier into

36:15

work to unlock more income, to support the

36:18

family. And it creates

36:20

a situation where there is no appreciation

36:22

happening and both partners

36:24

feel unappreciated. And one

36:26

thing that we recognized in our relationship was

36:29

it is important to create a routine. So

36:31

for us, it's Friday night, date night. And

36:33

we hope once we start a family to

36:36

continue this routine with some help and support,

36:38

but for the two of us to come

36:40

together at the end of each week and

36:43

to be appreciative of one another and

36:45

to be grateful for what we

36:47

have as a couple. And we

36:50

have not skipped a Friday, even while

36:52

traveling, even when work stuff has come

36:54

up, we've always carved that out. And

36:56

it's just been there. It's been foundational

36:58

to our relationship. And when

37:00

we have had struggles with communication,

37:03

we know that that Friday is coming up to

37:05

help us solve that. So instead

37:07

of looking at it like, okay, now we need to rush

37:09

to read the book and I got to solve this. How

37:12

about you create a habit and

37:14

routine with your partner to work

37:16

on having that consistent communication, that

37:18

consistent opportunity to appreciate and be

37:20

grateful for one another before we

37:22

even introduce the criticism so

37:25

that we are in a regular cadence

37:27

keeping connected with our partner, recognizing that

37:29

there's so many other distractions going on

37:32

outside of our relationship that easily suck

37:34

our attention away. Boy, I so

37:36

agree with that, AJ. And when you

37:38

move to that next level and you have children, one

37:41

of the most functional things I think that

37:43

I talk about in Role Mate to Soul Mate is

37:45

creating family dinner nights without creating

37:47

family dinner nightmares. And

37:49

the first step, as you

37:52

know, I say in that is no electronics

37:54

at the table. And I

37:56

teach people, parents, sometimes parents will say

37:58

to me something like. Oh,

38:00

I tell my children no electronics at the table, and

38:02

then they still bring those electronics at the table. I

38:05

say, you know something? You're the

38:07

child. The child is the parent.

38:10

What do you mean, I have no leverage?

38:13

Excuse me? Do you cook a meal for your child?

38:16

Do you prepare desserts for your child? Do you

38:18

take them to places? Do you buy

38:20

them things? You have

38:23

more leverage than ... We could

38:25

sit here and develop your leverage for an hour's

38:27

worth of itemized things that you do for your

38:29

child. At that family

38:31

dinner night, once the electronics are away from

38:33

the table and you have enforcement

38:35

mechanisms to do that, the next

38:38

thing is to require to teach everyone

38:40

in the family dinner nights how

38:42

to do those appreciations at multiple

38:45

levels of specificity. What

38:47

do you appreciate about your brother, your sister?

38:50

You know, after you get through the

38:52

... No, I'm sorry. You

38:54

don't have the option of just ending with,

38:56

ah. If you want to end this family

38:59

dinner night and get back to your video

39:01

games, you're going to actually appreciate something about

39:03

my sister, my brother. Oh,

39:05

they're my brother. And then

39:08

you teach them the five levels of

39:10

specificity, and they'll hate it at first.

39:13

And that's part of what you require at that

39:15

family dinner night in order for them to be

39:18

released from family dinner night. And

39:20

then you, as a parent, you model

39:23

appreciating each of the children, but

39:25

then you also ask the children

39:27

to appreciate you and their

39:29

brother and sister. Why? Because

39:32

parents that are just empathetic

39:35

do not create empathetic children.

39:37

If they're one-way

39:39

empathy begets self-centeredness. It

39:41

does not beget empathy.

39:45

So children have to see how empathy is

39:47

modeled by a parent, but

39:49

a parent can't stop by being

39:51

empathetic. The parent must require

39:54

the child to know how to empathize with

39:56

the mother and father going through what their

39:58

brother and sister is doing. going through

40:01

and so appreciate them and

40:03

be empathetic to them. The people who

40:05

understand this and catch this most quickly are teachers.

40:08

Oftentimes they'll be a very empathetic, warm, loving

40:10

child in the class and the teacher will

40:12

be expecting to meet a parents that are

40:14

very empathetic and warm and you know that

40:16

type of thing and oftentimes they find parents

40:18

that are a little bit that way but

40:20

that are also quite you know

40:22

they're quite disciplined in their orientation and

40:25

the reverse. Oftentimes they have

40:27

children that are very self-centered and

40:30

they'll meet parents who are loving

40:32

and empathetic and appreciative and

40:35

they begin to see that one-way empathy

40:38

does not beget empathy if he

40:40

gets self-centeredness. Hey Johnny

40:42

have you seen what just arrived at the

40:44

studio? Oh you mean our brand-new AmazeFit Balance

40:47

smartwatches? I've been waiting for those bad boys

40:49

to show up. Right? These aren't just any

40:51

smartwatches these are like having a personal health

40:53

coach right on your wrist. I

40:56

can't wait to dive into all the features.

40:58

I heard even track sleep stress and oxygen

41:00

levels. And let's not forget the ZEP app

41:02

integration with those cool AI features they're so

41:04

next level. It's all about helping us push

41:07

outside our comfort zones which let's be real

41:09

we could all use a lot more of

41:11

and I'm especially excited to log all

41:13

of my lifts with strength exercise

41:15

detection to allow ZEP to build

41:17

my own personalized programming. Yeah

41:20

and that battery life up to 14

41:22

days no more constant charging after my

41:24

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41:53

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44:50

Well, we're huge fans of appreciation. And we

44:52

believe that, and we teach our clients that

44:54

it deepens every relationship in your life, not

44:56

just with partners or with your children. So

44:58

I'd love to unpack the five levels of

45:00

appreciation to help our audience. Because I think,

45:03

and when we introduce this in our class,

45:05

a lot of times when we think of

45:07

appreciation, we think of external things like, oh,

45:09

I love that shirt you're wearing, or hey,

45:11

Johnny, thank you for getting your hair done

45:13

before the show here, it's looking great. But

45:16

those surface level things that anyone can appreciate

45:18

us by really carry no weight in a

45:20

relationship. And when we're talking about

45:22

people we really want to deepen a

45:24

relationship with, it takes a level of

45:27

thoughtfulness, validation, understanding, and really care to

45:29

appreciate someone deeply. So how can we

45:32

as partners and as friends appreciate

45:34

others better? Yes, actually,

45:36

I'll even take that to a more

45:38

challenging level. Let's say you're

45:40

getting together at Thanksgiving or the holidays, and

45:43

you're meeting with your family members and of

45:45

course, everybody's desire is to increase

45:47

the love and closeness, that's what family is about.

45:50

But one of them just voted for

45:52

Trump, the other one just voted for Kamala Harris.

45:55

And you just can't understand why one of them

45:57

would do whatever is different from what you are

45:59

doing. And in the past, you've

46:01

gotten into arguments about this. And so you've

46:04

decided that the best way to do this

46:06

is don't discuss politics, don't discuss religion. But

46:08

that's kind of sad because politics and religion

46:11

are reflections of people's values. And isn't it

46:13

sad to get together with somebody you love

46:15

and want to deepen your appreciation for and

46:17

love for and just ignore

46:19

all these areas because they may create

46:22

conflict? Wouldn't it be wonderful to really

46:24

understand what's the virtue behind

46:26

these values? And so the

46:28

first thing that I would have what

46:31

I train couples to do, so

46:33

once they learn all the techniques that I

46:36

teach in the workshop for their interpersonal communication

46:38

as a couple, I then

46:40

ask people in the workshop who have different

46:42

political views to work on hearing each other.

46:45

And so the first step is what I call

46:47

a lone power. So you might say

46:49

to your brother or your sister or your

46:52

cousin, I'd really love to

46:54

understand and hear your

46:56

perspective on things. And I'm

46:58

willing to do that alone for you

47:00

until you feel fully seen for

47:02

the values you have and

47:05

appreciated for the values you have, even if

47:07

they're different than mine. I would love

47:09

it if at the end you do this for me as well. But

47:12

that's not a requirement. I just want to do this for

47:14

you. So the first step is what I call a lone

47:16

power. The second step

47:18

is appreciating them. So you say, well, I

47:20

remember when we were kids. And

47:24

you, let's say the sister's talking to

47:26

our brother and said, I remember, especially

47:28

this time, our early thanksgivings. And

47:32

Uncle Joe said this, and I disagreed with

47:34

him. I think you disagreed with him. But

47:36

you stood up and you

47:38

said to Uncle Joe, I have

47:40

a different perspective on that. I

47:42

remember you reading stuff about that

47:45

perspective. And so I appreciate so

47:47

much how you kept yourself informed.

47:50

I also appreciated the fact that I didn't have the guts

47:52

to stand up to Uncle Joe, but you did. And

47:54

you did it very nicely. You didn't just yell at him.

47:57

You just said, Uncle Joe, here's my perspective

47:59

on that. Do you agree? And Uncle Joe

48:02

didn't agree, but you stayed with it and

48:04

you weren't ruled by the need to get

48:06

approval all the time. I so

48:08

respected that about you. So what

48:11

have we done here? As you can see

48:13

that those appreciations were at multiple levels. The

48:16

sister didn't say to the brother or vice versa, you know,

48:19

I think you were really a great kid. Something,

48:21

you know, or you know, I always liked

48:23

the dresses you wore or the clothes you

48:26

wore, things like that. But you rather

48:28

really got to the core of

48:30

who they were as a human being,

48:33

how they expressed themselves, the courage that

48:35

they had, the ability to articulate, the

48:37

ability to read and so on. Now,

48:41

eventually you're going to have a different perspective

48:43

than that person, but that person has just

48:45

felt appreciated at multiple

48:47

levels and that sort of is a

48:49

very important entry

48:52

into being able to feel that they

48:54

are going to eventually be willing to

48:57

hear a perspective that's different. Another

49:00

thing that you do is you find one of

49:02

the wisdoms in Role Mate to Soul Mate is

49:04

the wisdom of every virtue taken

49:06

to its extreme becomes a vice. And

49:08

so people like Tim Wals and Jeff

49:11

Wals. Tim Wals is the potential vice

49:13

president's brother who has not

49:15

spoken to Jeff. Jeff has

49:17

not spoken to Tim for eight years.

49:19

He says because of Tim's progressive ideology.

49:22

And so one of the things that might happen

49:25

is Jeff feels that feminism is

49:27

all about cancel culture and things like

49:29

that. Very anti-male and is always

49:31

talking about the patriarchy and men as the oppressors

49:33

and women as the oppressed. But

49:35

instead of saying that he starts out

49:38

with asking himself, what's

49:40

the virtue in feminism? The virtue

49:42

in feminism may have gone on

49:44

the virtue train so far that

49:46

it moved into vice land. But

49:48

for a few minutes pay

49:50

attention to the original virtue. And so

49:52

search, this requires discipline.

49:56

Search for somebody in your life, maybe

49:58

your daughter. be

50:00

your wife, who generations

50:02

ago before feminism would

50:05

never have considered becoming an executive

50:07

or a scientist. Your daughter is

50:09

now talking about wanting to do

50:11

that type of profession, and

50:13

everybody else around her is

50:15

open to seeing her as being capable

50:18

of doing that and doesn't

50:20

feel that she should just be a homemaker

50:22

or a secretary, a nurse,

50:25

or whatever, a teacher, but she

50:27

should be able to do anything that she wishes

50:29

to do with her life. So

50:31

is there anybody in your life who

50:33

has benefited from these doors that

50:36

feminism has opened? If

50:38

so, sharing that with

50:40

Tim. And then

50:42

when it gets to the reverse, instead

50:45

of focusing on the the other cancel

50:47

culture dimensions or the anti-male dimensions of

50:50

feminism, you both appreciate the

50:52

virtue first. The next is

50:54

to look at what you have in common. Okay,

50:56

so Tim and Jeff Walls, what do they have

50:59

in common? Or what does your

51:01

brother or sister have in common with you

51:03

if you're both having very different political opinions?

51:06

You are both caring. Neither

51:08

of you is apathetic. You

51:10

may have six other people at your

51:12

Thanksgiving dinner table, maybe 12 other people

51:15

that don't really care about these

51:17

issues. But what is democracy based

51:19

on? It's based on caring.

51:22

It's based on not being apathetic.

51:25

So this is what you both have in common.

51:27

More than anybody else at our dinner table, we

51:30

both care. We both

51:32

end up being apathetic and not

51:34

being apathetic. And then you

51:37

move into the caring

51:39

and sharing process that I discussed

51:41

before. Let me hear

51:43

not just the virtues, but let me

51:45

hear what your perspective

51:48

is on this. Why do

51:50

you feel feminism is awful? Why do

51:52

you feel feminism is good? Why do

51:54

you think that guns are crucial? Why

51:56

do you think that guns are American

51:58

society sickness? and so on, and

52:00

no matter what the perspective is,

52:03

your job is not to argue with it.

52:05

Your job is to be in an altered

52:07

state, wall, and share what

52:10

you heard the person you

52:12

disagree with say until they

52:14

feel that even if you disagree with

52:16

them, that you have

52:18

at least heard what they said and the

52:21

way that they said it, that you haven't

52:23

distorted anything, that you haven't missed anything, and

52:25

that you're inviting them to even add something more.

52:30

When that process is finished and

52:32

then you end it with new appreciations,

52:35

your brother or sister or

52:37

somebody in your family will

52:39

feel so loved and so

52:41

understood, and there's zero requirement

52:43

for anybody to change their opinions about

52:45

the politics. They just need to know

52:48

that you're not holding them as the devil. Yeah,

52:51

that distortion and inability to

52:53

fully appreciate another person's values

52:56

and opinions can cause

52:58

a ton of damage in any relationship. I

53:00

can't even imagine in a sibling relationship like

53:02

the Walls family. I think it's important

53:05

to recognize in all of these situations,

53:07

we're talking about relationships that we care

53:09

deeply about and we want to continue.

53:12

So there are always gonna be edge cases

53:15

where maybe the relationship isn't healthy, but in

53:17

relationships that are healthy that you care about

53:19

the other person, it's important to bring that

53:21

level of appreciation, the openness

53:23

to the criticism, and then

53:26

also a big skill set is learning how

53:28

to apologize, to really solve

53:30

conflict in your relationship. And oftentimes

53:32

some of these criticisms are being

53:34

levied at us because there

53:36

is a wrong that happened and we need

53:39

to apologize. And you break down a four-part

53:41

apology that I think is really powerful for

53:43

those who are struggling in

53:45

relationships where a simple, I'm sorry, or

53:47

I'll do better next time isn't cutting

53:49

it. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, so somebody says,

53:52

Krista told me that she was cold

53:55

on the way to school today. You didn't give

53:57

her a coat. That's really not cool. Krista's

54:00

really upset, was really cold, and

54:03

you know how subject she is to a cold. And

54:05

so a defensive response might be

54:08

something like, oh, thanks,

54:10

I'm really happy you once again

54:12

saw the mistakes I made. Maybe

54:15

someday you could point out something that I do

54:17

right as if you'd even bothered to

54:19

notice. That would be like the

54:22

opposite of the four-part apology. And

54:24

the four-part apology would look

54:26

much more like something like a thank

54:29

you in a tone of voice that

54:31

shows sincerity. And then agreement

54:33

that I really don't, I certainly don't want

54:36

Krista to get a cold. What I'll

54:38

do differently next time is make sure that I

54:41

check the weather and maybe do a

54:43

little bit of margin for error and give Krista something

54:45

else to take with her in case it does get

54:47

colder. And fourth is the

54:49

tone of voice. You can say

54:51

all those words in a tone

54:53

of voice that has sarcasm attached to it, and

54:56

they're all lost. But the

54:58

tone of voice is crucial in addition

55:00

to the acknowledgement of the issue and

55:02

then the willingness to do it differently

55:04

the next time. Yeah, I

55:06

think it's important to recognize that in a

55:08

lot of these situations, apology is

55:11

not enough, a recognition of not only where

55:13

the error was, but how we can improve

55:15

next time, how important it is to get

55:17

this right, to go along with

55:19

that apology in a tone that actually welcomes

55:21

the other person's perspective in instead of putting

55:23

up a wall or withdrawing, which I've certainly

55:26

struggled with in my own relationship. And

55:28

as we go through the book and

55:30

we go through this conversation, I know

55:33

that there are some in our audience

55:35

who feel completely time starved, completely overwhelmed

55:37

with work and familial obligations and things

55:40

going on outside of their relationship. What

55:42

advice do you have for those couples who are struggling to

55:44

find the time in their life

55:47

to do some of these important

55:49

things that we've just covered in this

55:51

episode to mend and strengthen their relationships?

55:53

So what I find is

55:55

once somebody does this, then

55:58

they see, my God. How

56:00

much time I have saved so much

56:02

of the time when I'm walking

56:05

on eggshells about a concern half

56:07

of my Psyche is

56:09

thinking about that how to say that when

56:12

to say that every on some

56:14

level I know that every cell in my

56:16

body is being sort of poisoned that I

56:18

will live less long because of the stress

56:21

and That I will

56:23

do the compensatory behavior like drinking or

56:26

maybe you know doing some drugs or playing

56:28

a video game or you know Watching something

56:30

useless on TV just to relax

56:32

and undo my body if

56:34

I add up all that time And

56:37

add up the the stress that it takes in

56:39

my body That's a lot

56:41

more time than the couple of hours a

56:43

week that I'm being asked to first

56:46

appreciate my partner be appreciated by

56:48

my partner and listen to one

56:50

concern that they have and Knowing

56:53

how to do the other part of what's talked about

56:55

a role mate to soul mate Create

56:57

a conflict free zone and

56:59

then sustain that free zone for

57:01

the entire week leaves me with

57:04

so much more internal relaxation and

57:06

peace of mind and knowing

57:08

that the one concern I might have I

57:11

have ways of Working with that

57:13

concern journaling with it doing things that

57:15

will allow me to process it And

57:17

if it survives as a concern at the

57:19

end of the week that my wife or

57:21

my husband or my partner Will be

57:24

there to be able to hear

57:26

me even if I mistakenly frame it even

57:28

if I exaggerated even if I tell Get

57:30

upset in the process of telling

57:32

it what a joy that is to

57:34

know that what a source of internal peace that

57:36

is I Couldn't agree more

57:38

and I think having that weekly practice is

57:40

just so powerful for your relationship the relationships

57:43

that really matter in our lives Thank

57:45

you so much for joining us again, and I

57:47

appreciate this book We know the last time

57:50

you're here We talked about the boy crisis

57:52

and how important it is to have healthy

57:54

romantic partnership relationships and healthy families So we

57:56

really appreciate the work that you're doing where

57:58

can our audience find out more about the

58:00

book? book and the online course to help

58:02

them in their relationships. The online course is

58:04

so important that I'm basically practically

58:06

giving it away when somebody buys the

58:08

Rollmate to Soulmate book. And

58:11

fortunately Amazon right now has a 30% discount

58:13

on the Rollmate to Soulmate book. So that's

58:15

probably the easiest way to get it. If

58:17

you have a bit more money, please go

58:19

to your local bookstore and support it. That's

58:21

very important as well. And then

58:24

don't just read Rollmate to Soulmate as

58:26

a book. Really practice with your partner,

58:28

your loved one, the online video course.

58:31

If you go through that course with

58:33

your partner and it doesn't work for

58:35

you, my email is in the book

58:38

with the guarantee that I'll give you full money

58:40

back. I don't want anybody to ever feel

58:42

that anything that they bought from me is

58:45

not worthwhile. Well, thank you

58:47

again for stopping by. We really appreciate it. It's

58:49

been really wonderful talking to you. I can feel

58:51

the kindness and every vibration in your body and

58:53

your wife is a very lucky woman. Thank

58:56

you. Thank you. And

59:07

thank you for joining us for another

59:09

amazing episode of the Art of Charm

59:11

podcast. And now here's the time where

59:13

we like to showcase one of our

59:15

X Factor Accelerator members. Take it away,

59:17

Ron. Hi, this is Ron Palermo

59:19

and I'm a corporate lawyer. Taking

59:22

the X Factor Accelerator is one of the best

59:24

decisions I have ever made. If

59:26

you want to consistently show up as a high value

59:28

person, someone who makes a

59:30

great first impression, effortlessly makes

59:32

new friends and connections and

59:35

enjoys deep and authentic relationships, X

59:38

Factor Accelerator will get you there. The

59:40

AOC team is passionate about what they

59:43

do and are totally committed to your

59:45

success. And most importantly, they know how

59:47

to get the results you want. My

59:49

only regret is not taking the program sooner.

59:52

If you are serious about showing up as the best

59:54

version of yourself, I urge you

59:56

to sign up for the X Factor Accelerator.

59:59

You will be so. glad you did. Thank

1:00:01

you, Ron. It was a pleasure working with

1:00:03

you too, and good luck to all your

1:00:05

future endeavors. If you've

1:00:07

gotten value out of this or any

1:00:09

of our podcasts, please head on over

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to your favorite podcast player and rate

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and review the show. It means the

1:00:16

world to us and it helps others

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find the show. If

1:00:20

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1:01:30

a huge thank you to our producers, Michael

1:01:33

Herald and Eric Montgomery. Now

1:01:35

go out there and have an epic

1:01:37

week. Your

1:02:00

taste of black only is

1:02:03

today Yeah,

1:02:05

but I remember you Yeah,

1:02:08

I remember you Yeah,

1:02:12

but I remember you