Introduction and Guest Welcome
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Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Molinario's Early Life Challenges
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So my story begins with me being abandoned by my father when I was an infant and left to sleep in the snow.
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I then lived with my mother and my stepfather in a household that was extremely abusive and neglectful.
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I decided to leave home at 16 and try to make my own way in life, but I suffered because I had a lack of emotional and relationship intelligence.
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I was extremely book smart and street smart, but I lacked the ability to manage my emotions and manage my relationships in a healthy way.
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came to a point where I decided that the only thing that I could do was to take my life.
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This is something that I set out that this was the only way that I was going to bring myself some kind of happiness.
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And so I decided to go to a hotel room where that is where I was going to make that choice.
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And in that moment, I sat with myself and I asked myself, do I want to die?
Turning Point and Transformation
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Or do I want the pain to stop?
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And when I asked myself that question, it really allowed me to understand that I wanted to live.
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I just didn't want to live the life that I had lived up until that point.
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And so because I had this ability to teach myself so many things, I was extremely book smart and street smart.
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I said, can I obtain this other intelligence that I don't have yet?
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And if I do, will it change my life?
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Will it allow me to live a happier existence?
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And I said, in that moment, I have nothing to lose.
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It can't get any worse from here, right?
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So I said, let's try it.
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I have no idea what I'm doing.
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I don't know how I'm going to do it, but let's try it.
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And so I spent the rest of my college years when I left university, I moved to Spain,
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And I spent years and years and years learning about myself, learning about relationships, learning about communication, understanding from the science exactly how to have effective relationships with myself and other people.
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And it completely transformed my existence.
Becoming a Love Educator
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And so I decided that I wanted to share this with the world by becoming the world's first love educator.
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So we tend to think that relationships are very complicated, right?
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We tend to think that they're very messy and they're extremely emotional and we have good moments and bad moments and it's sort of normal to have this mixture of positive and negative.
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But we understand scientifically that if we want to have long lasting relationships, what I call a thriving relationship, we have to understand exactly
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What is that formula for success?
Foundations of a Successful Relationship
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Because there's a very clear formula for a thriving relationship and there's a very clear formula for breakup or for divorce or for two people living together, but they're in that roommate stage where they're living together and they're sort of living their own lives.
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So what is the formula for success?
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It's actually quite simple.
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We have to understand the foundation of a relationship makes it
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successful or unsuccessful.
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You either have a solid foundation or you have a wobbly foundation that has a lot of holes in it.
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So what is that foundation?
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The first, very first thing that you want to do to create a thriving relationship is to create a common vision.
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This is essential, especially in 2022, going into 2023.
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You and your partner have to have a very clear understanding as to what relationships
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you are creating together.
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So that means you have to go through the different aspects of your life, finances, health and fitness, your home, your career, and you have to have agreements as to what are the goals, the values, and the expectations in all of these different areas.
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Because so many times when we have dysfunctional relationships,
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it's because we don't understand what we're doing.
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We don't understand what it is that we're trying to create.
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So one person is going in one direction and the other person is going in the other.
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And so many times, both people have the right to want to go in opposite directions.
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So neither one of them is right and neither one of them is wrong.
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going towards the same thing.
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So we have to start with a very clear vision.
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I say it's like, you know, if you want to build a skyscraper, what do you do first?
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Make a plan, right?
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You make a floor plan.
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You create the building on paper first.
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You understand exactly what you're going to need.
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You obtain the tools and techniques to do that.
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And then you build the house.
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You don't just start putting things together because we understand it will just fall down.
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So we have to have a common vision.
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It's absolutely essential, step one.
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So I have a free create your vision questionnaire.
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So this is something that I offer so that couples can sit down and start to have this
Managing Expectations in Relationships
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And they have each of these different essential sections and they can go through talking about, okay, what are our values and expectations when it comes to finances?
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Meaning we're in 2022.
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In the past, finances were
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dictated by men, mostly.
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Because the man went out and worked.
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A lot of times the woman didn't even know how much her husband was making.
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She didn't know, you know, she didn't have access to the bank account.
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We live in very different times now.
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So is the man going to make the money?
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Is the woman, or if you're in a homosexual relationship, are you both going to make the money?
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Is it something where you understand how much money you need and what are you going to do in order to make that money?
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And why is that money important to you?
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Some people want to live off of a little bit and some people want to live off of a lot.
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Why do you value those things?
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So the values, the expectations, those are really, really important.
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I worked with a couple who had been married for 10 years.
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The husband was...
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working, he was providing financially for the family and the wife was a stay-at-home mom.
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She was, yeah, she was a stay-at-home mom and they were very happy for that bit.
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But after seven years, she ended up getting a job and she was also working.
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His expectation was that she was going to continue to do the cleaning, the cooking and the childcare
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And her idea was, hold on a second, but now I'm working.
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We should share the chores.
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So in that situation, again, the expectations are different.
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He thinks because he is a man that those aren't tasks for him to do.
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She believes that because they're both working, they should split the tasks.
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In this situation, neither one of them is right and neither one of them is wrong.
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The question is, what is the best for them as a couple?
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Do they want the same thing?
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Are they compatible?
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Because, and this is sometimes hard to hear, but it's very, very true.
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If one partner in the relationship says, I don't want to cook, I don't want to clean, I don't want to take care of kids, I don't want to make any money, and I want you to take care of me and rub my feet every day and do a lot.
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If that's what someone wants, they have the right to want that.
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The problem is that they have to find someone who's willing to give them that.
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So if your partner wants a different lifestyle, has different expectations than you, it's not the fault of either one of you because you both have the right to want whatever it is that you want.
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But you have to be with someone that you're compatible with.
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So if we're already in the relationship and we're having difficulties, we need to start from the drawing board.
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We need to start from what are our expectations?
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And I see this with moms a lot of times because we're in the modern day society, and a lot of moms are struggling to get their partners to help with the cooking, help with the cleaning.
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The question is, have you decided what is best for you and your family?
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So the first thing is really understanding this common vision.
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Sometimes it's more difficult to create because if we don't have effective communication to guide us through that conversation, it can be very difficult sometimes.
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So we do have to understand how to communicate effectively in order to get that result.
Effective Communication Strategies
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When we are creating this vision, we both have to understand exactly what it is that we want and why do we want it, right?
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If I say to my partner, I want to be a millionaire.
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If I want to be a millionaire, that's perfectly fine.
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But the question is why?
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Why am I so passionate about being a millionaire?
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Is it to have financial freedom?
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Is it to just buy a lot of flashy things?
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So we really want to understand as an individual why these things are important to us.
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And we have to differentiate the non-negotiables with things that we're willing to be flexible on.
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If we are in a relationship with someone and we have a non-negotiable, let's say that I'm 100% sure I do not want to have children.
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And I'm in a relationship with someone who's 100% sure they do want to have a child.
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I can be in that relationship.
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But I have to go into that relationship understanding that the other person has the right to never change their mind.
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Because it's my responsibility to be with someone who I'm compatible with.
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I have to respect people's individuality.
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So I have to know myself, know what I'm
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really stuck on that these are my choices because I have that right and understand the other things that I'm willing to be flexible on.
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And those things that I'm stuck with that I say, these are my non-negotiables.
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If I'm in a relationship with someone who doesn't match those non-negotiables, then I have to take the responsibility that I may be in a relationship with someone that I'm not compatible with.
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Now, if we say, okay, we are compatible.
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but we don't really have a clear vision yet.
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And we're having some difficulties with communication.
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We can understand how to have an effective conversation.
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So when we're in conversation, there's a speaker and there's a listener.
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We can't do both jobs at the same time.
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And we always want to.
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We always want to.
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Everyone wants to be the speaker and no one wants to be the listener.
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So we have to understand you have to pick one job and stick to it.
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So the role of the speaker is to speak honestly, openly, clearly, and with love.
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Now, the with love part is probably the most difficult for speakers.
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That means that even if you're frustrated, even if you're mad, even if your partner did something that you don't like, you have to speak to them with respect and with love.
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Because even if they do something you don't like, you still respect and love them.
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And if you don't, you shouldn't be in a relationship with them.
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So we have to really be careful not to, as a speaker, disrespect or let our emotions change the way that we are connected to our partner at the core.
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And that's we are connected by respect and by love.
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So that's the job of the speaker.
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The job of the listener, which is the harder of the two,
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It's to practice active listening.
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And this is where so many conversations go wrong.
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And this is why so many conversations last way too long.
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And why we have the same conversation over and over and over again.
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So the job of the listener is to practice active listening.
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What does that mean?
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It means listening with the intent to understand.
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That means that I hear you and I understand you.
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Not just I hear the words that you're saying, but I understand the concept that you're trying to tell me.
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So what does it mean to understand?
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To understand means that I accept what you're saying as truth.
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Now, this is a very, very difficult thing for people to do because I'm listening to you talk and I disagree with everything you're saying.
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So I say, I don't understand you.
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No, I can accept everything that you're saying as truth, meaning that it's your truth.
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I have my own truth.
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I have my own perspective.
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I have my own feelings.
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I can understand you and just agree with everything that you say.
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Those things can happen at the same time, but I at least need to understand what it is you're trying to tell me, understand your perspective, your feelings, the way that you see things, the way that you perceive things.
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So that's going to give us a baseline in which we can then move forward.
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We can use compromise, negotiation,
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persuasion, brainstorming, all of those beautiful things to then come to common ground.
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But first we have to start off with communicating effectively, which is the speaker is speaking clearly with love and respect.
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And the listener is practicing that active listening.
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I'm trying to just simply understand what it is that you're saying, and I'm accepting it as your truth.
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Now, why is it so difficult to be the listener?
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It's because when we are in conversation, and often when we are stressed in conversation, like during a fight, we only have 10 seconds maximum of an attention span before we start thinking about what we want to say next.
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before we want to defend ourselves, right?
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So my partner's telling me they were hurt by something I said, and I'm thinking, but I didn't say that, but that's not what I meant.
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But that's not, that's, right?
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And we jump over them in defense, but we're not actually listening to what they're saying.
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So we have to be aware of that 10 second attention span.
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And we have to remind ourselves, just listen, just listen, just understand.
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And then we will have our turn.
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So defensiveness comes when we feel attacked.
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So I only defend if I feel attacked.
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It's human nature.
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It's a protection mechanism.
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When we're in a relationship, we have to understand that we are on the same team.
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So when there's a problem that comes up in the relationship, it's not partner one versus partner two.
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It's the couple versus the problem.
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We really have to understand that we are on the same team.
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And so if we're on the same team, no one's criticizing, which means no one's defending.
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So what does that look like?
Handling Criticism vs. Complaints
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When you understand in a relationship, you want to complain as much as humanly possible.
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Complaining is a good thing, but we have to understand what it means to complain.
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To complain is simply to talk about something that you are unsatisfied with.
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It's to bring up awareness of something you're not happy with, right?
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But the complaint is talking about the issue.
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It has nothing to do with your partner.
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If we talk about the issues separate than our partner, we're making a complaint.
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For example, I asked my husband to take out the trash every day this week and every day he didn't take out the trash.
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Common issue maybe.
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So I want to express that I'm unsatisfied with this.
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What often happens is people criticize.
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So criticizing is talking about the characteristic of the person.
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You didn't take out the trash because you're lazy and you don't ever help me in the house and you never and you always.
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And we attack, we criticize, which means my partner is going to defend.
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But if we complain, which is talking about the issue, taking my partner out, there's no criticism and there's no defending.
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So what does that look like?
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That would be me first understanding what the real problem is.
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In this situation, the real problem is not the trash, because if that was the case, I can go take out the trash myself and then problem solved.
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It's not really about the trash.
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So what am I really upset about?
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So I can think about it.
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It could be different things.
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I'm overwhelmed by the house chores and I need support.
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I feel there's a disconnect between me and my husband because when I ask him to do something, he doesn't do it.
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So there's a disconnect.
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There's a misunderstanding.
00:20:01
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I feel maybe that I'm not as connected or
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or that the house chores aren't organized.
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As a family, we're not as organized as I would like us to be.
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So those are the real issues there.
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So if I go to my husband, what I can say instead of you never take out the trash because you don't care and you're lazy and all of these things, I don't.
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want to make a complaint, which is taking him out of it and talking about the real issue.
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So that would be, I feel overwhelmed by the house chores.
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I feel like I don't have enough time for self-care.
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I feel like our teamwork isn't where I would like it to be.
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I feel like as a family, we're not as organized as we should be.
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Then my partner can come to my side because I'm not attacking them.
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They come to my side.
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Then we use brainstorming
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We can write down all of the different ways that we can solve this problem.
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We can get a cleaner.
00:21:01
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We can reorganize the house chores.
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So we want to write down as many possible solutions to this problem.
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Then we want to try to implement whichever one we think may work best.
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So we problem solve together.
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This way, there's no criticism, there's no defense, there's no resentment.
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We work together as a team.
00:23:34
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When it comes to values, honestly, most of us have the same, the same core values.
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We all want connectiveness.
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We all want compassion.
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We all want peace.
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We all want security.
00:23:47
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We all want freedom, right?
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So at the core, we truly usually have the same values.
00:23:53
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And this is the point that I try to make when I start working with my clients is that
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You know, when people come into a relationship and they think that they're constantly fighting and they're so different from each other and they're really suffering because at the end of the day, most of the time you're fighting for the same thing.
00:24:14
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You're fighting for security.
00:24:15
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You're fighting for recognition.
00:24:17
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You're fighting for safety, right?
00:24:20
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You're fighting for connectiveness.
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But the way that you go about that is very different.
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So once they understand, actually,
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we want the same thing.
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It's like an aha moment because they realize, oh, we're not on different sides of this.
00:24:39
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We're actually on the same side.
00:24:40
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And this is why it's so important to understand how to make a complaint versus criticism.
00:24:47
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Because when you make a complaint and I say to my husband, I would love for us to be more connected.
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I would love more time for self-care.
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I would love for us to be a more organized family.
00:25:01
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He's probably not going to disagree with any of those things.
00:25:04
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So when we criticize, we often have disagreements.
00:25:10
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You never listened to me.
00:25:11
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That's like criticism is a waste of time.
00:25:14
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But complaining, we actually find that the core values are exactly the same.
00:25:38
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Honestly, you are getting yourself in trouble.
00:25:41
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Don't do it because as soon as you say to someone, you never take out the trash.
00:25:48
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First thing that they're going to do is think about that one time they took out the trash five years ago and they've proven you wrong.
00:25:55
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And you're thinking to yourself, well, that's not what I meant.
00:25:58
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It's that say what you mean.
00:26:01
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Say what you mean.
00:26:02
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Be very, very careful with always and never.
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You're asking for trouble.
Interdependence in Relationships
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And I think, you know, one other key aspect to this that's really important to understand is relationships need to be interdependent.
00:26:28
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This is very, very important.
00:26:30
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So interdependence means that I'm in a relationship with someone and we become three entities, not one.
00:26:37
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This is really what it's very confusing to people because of the movies and the music.
00:26:44
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And, you know, I tell people we have to be careful when we watch movies and we have to understand that they were made by people who want to entertain you.
00:26:54
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not people who want to teach you anything.
00:26:57
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So we have to be careful how we see things on TV.
00:27:00
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When we're in a relationship, we become three, not one.
00:27:03
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This idea of you complete me and you're my better half and all, it sounds romantic, but it's not realistic.
00:27:10
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So when we're in a relationship, it's partner one, partner two, and the couple.
00:27:13
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There are three entities and we have to nurture each one of these relationships.
00:27:18
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That means I'm in a relationship with my husband, but I also am in a relationship with myself.
00:27:24
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I have a strong sense of self.
00:27:26
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I don't get lost in the relationship.
00:27:29
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That means I have my own thoughts, my own feelings, my own perspective, and that's okay.
00:27:35
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And my husband respects that.
00:27:37
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So we have to respect our individuality.
00:27:39
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I respect that my husband isn't the same as me.
00:27:42
Speaker
I wouldn't want him to be.
00:27:43
Speaker
How boring would that be?
00:27:45
Speaker
We don't want to be in a relationship with our twin.
00:27:47
Speaker
So we have to understand the importance of individuality and interdependence.
00:27:53
Speaker
That means we're not always going to see things the same way.
00:27:57
Speaker
We're not always going to want the same thing.
00:27:59
Speaker
And that's a good thing.
00:28:01
Speaker
So when we understand how to balance and how to become flexible and how to compromise and negotiate, we're really going to have so much more freedom in our relationships.
Masterclass Preview
00:28:27
Speaker
So I have a monthly Relationships Without Fighting Masterclass.
00:28:33
Speaker
And it's called Relationships Without Fighting because I truly believe and the science shows that the future of relationships is 100% without fighting.
00:28:43
Speaker
The only reason we fight is because we don't have the tools and techniques that
00:28:48
Speaker
So I want to give everyone those tools and techniques because fighting is normal in the sense that it happens in most households, but it's not necessary and it's not ideal.
00:29:00
Speaker
So in the masterclass, I will teach you exactly a seven step formula of how to go from problem to solution every single time without fighting resentment or negativity.
Conclusion and Farewell
00:30:30
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:30:32
Speaker
Thank you very much.