Sunsets Together!

I just completed setting up a new blog that has but one purpose:  to help everyone accurately predict their own personal five year future.

Hope Is Having A “Point B”

As many of you may already know, I have two apparently disparate careers: one, as an internationally-known management consultant to start up and emerging companies - two, as a relationship expert and published author of a book called, “Efficient Love.”

Even though this combination may seem strange, these two parallel careers are really not as dissimilar as they might first appear.

As a matter of fact, these two different personal focal points I have share a common, passionate mission of mine:  Helping people get from their current Point A to their desired Point B - for both their personal life and their business life.

I want to help you finally define the right-for-you Point B for your life - there is absolutely no cost, no obligation - just my best wishes that you find your Point B sooner than later.

The premise of my personal mission is:  If folks will freely choose and fully define their DESIRED Point B, they are much more likely to reach their DESIRED Point B.

I use the Five Year Life Quiz as a starting point for most all of my consulting clients — whether it’s for Efficient Love or my management consulting related to starting or growing a company. Until I know my clients’ real and personal Point B, I can’t fully understand how to give them the very best help possible.

But beyond this business use, I strongly believe that everyone can greatly benefit from this methodology. Every man, woman and near-adult child can use this basic approach to more fully take control of their own lives.

I’ve been using this Quiz with business clients and relationship clients alike for the past dozen years. During that time, it has been gratifying to see the overwhelming, positive impact it has had on so many folks.

Because of these successes, I already know this process can help those who approach it with an open mind.

Because these issues are so important to virtually everyone’s life, I want to offer this Five Year Life Workbook as a free gift to everyone - so you can realistically take control of your life and find the congruent path to your own fulfilling personal Point B.

It is my way of “paying it forward” to the world — whether we ever do business together or not.  Even if there is less than a zero chance we will ever work together - I still want you to grab this Quiz for YOU!

If this Quiz even helps you have one insight that will help you get more quickly to YOUR desired Point B, then that is all the reward I want.

If you want to know more, or download the Workbook for free, just click Five Year Life.

Just like your prior real-life, there are going to be two kinds of rejection you will encounter using The Good-Man Methodology:  You will reject others and others will reject you.

Rejection of Them

If you are doing a good job of exposing yourself and expanding your Known Universe, then the good news is that you should end up with several, if not a huge number, of prospective Hero or Heroine applicants.  If you’ve done a good job defining your Lists and expressing your needs, wants and wishes, then hopefully most who are responding will be very close to what you seek.

Since there is only one of you, guess what?  There can usually be only one real winner.  Most folks want just one Hero or Heroine for Happily Here & Now to accompany them all the way to Happily Ever After.  There are all sorts of exceptions I can think of to the one-on-one play book, but you get the general idea.

The upshot is that you will have to tell all the others they aren’t the one.  Just like real-life…before The Good-Man Methodology, huh?  The difference is that with The Method, you now know there are no wrong answers – just different answers – and your Lists make it much easier to tell them there’s just not a match.

However, a problem that arises is that they may think that they still match the Lists when you know that they don’t. More »

A consequence of expanding your Known Universe using the Internet is that it is just as easy to have a prospective Hero or Heroine 2,000 miles away as two miles away – although it will seem to you that NONE of the good ones are only two miles away.  Which is why this is also known as the Never-Close-to-You Dragon. 

If you live in a big enough city, you might be able to find someone with whom all things match perfectly, helping you completely avoid this dragon.  Unfortunately, for most of us, our needs are so special and rarified that finding that most special and rarified Hero or Heroine will require both an expanded Known Universe and an expanded geographical boundary.

If you made it to this step of considering relocation, hopefully that means that everything for both of you during the Test Drive was either wonderful or workable.  That you both were totally honest about everything and that no deal-killers were either uncovered or suspected.

Warning:  If, during all the Test Drives, there were NO hassles, conflicts, issues, hard realities, etc., then that probably means that all that time was still just wonderful Honeymoon Syndrome – and you still don’t have a clue about each other’s DIDO! (That’s Day In and Day Out for those new to Efficient Love.)

If you did have enough reality to know that your DIDO was real and gave you both sufficient insights, you may be now seriously considering the action items and steps required for one of you to relocate.  Here are some things to consider: More »

Hopefully, you make it here. All the dating has been wonderful and you successfully defeated every one of the dragons that tried to keep you from a shared path of Happily Here & Now. You have even shared some reality and that part was amazing and incredible.

You are both now in Stage One Love and see no problems on the horizon that will keep the two of you from making it all the way to Happily Ever After.

We interrupt this trip to Ever After for a sobriety test. The problem is: What do you do next, in your long distance relationship?

Probably, leaving after each visit seems to get harder each time – even if you know you will be seeing one another again in a week or two or three. And, all the times alone seem to last forever and the times together seem to evaporate during one deep breath. Neither one of you wants to continue living like this – with all those miles between you.

So, what do you do?

Pack up and move in with one another, with one of you quitting your job and maybe taking kids out of school, pay all the costs involved to transport all your worldly possessions to where the other one is?

What happens if you do all of this only to find out that you really can’t stand to live together for any one of 10,000 reasons?

Here are a few issues that you might want to consider as a Test Drive first – before you fully commit yourself to an err lease / purchase: More »

“I’m sorry but your Method makes no sense to me. I want chemistry first! Then, if that is there, I will take the time to do my lists.”

This is one of the most-often responses I get from those who visit my web pages - but who haven’t yet taken the time to read the blog or the book, Efficient Love.

Mutual GREAT chemistry is fantastic and wonderful and, for me and most folks, is an absolutely critical part of any Happily Ever After! I personally wouldn’t settle for a long-term relationship without it. Period. (Fortunately, my own Heroine and I share ongoing, incredible mutual chemistry - even after all our time together!)

However….

Instant chemistry, and love at first sight, can also be two of the very worst things that can happen to you - things that can steal both your time and your Happily Ever After. More »

“Momomomonogamy and cococococommitment,” she stuttered during her most current anxiety attack. She stumbled just saying the words – knowing what he wanted as the next step in their relationship.

Yes, I said “she” – because unlike all the movie and TV stereotypes, this dragon is not just male – otherwise, how would it mate and have this species survive and thrive as well as it does?

Most of us envision a path of Happily Here & Now shared with just one person. Most of us relish the idea of complete and unbridled intimacy in a totally monogamous, committed relationship with the one we want to share that path with – all the way to Happily Ever After.

Premature Monogamy

However, to me, the idea of wanting instant monogamy for fast, fast, fast commitment – when you first meet someone – makes zero sense for either party, especially before either the sex or before you know whether there is an excellent match with the Ten Filters described in Efficient Love.

Even with well-defined Lists and fantastic initial chemistry, neither knows the other well enough yet to judge if there is really a close enough match to shut off all involvement with all other Hero or Heroine prospects.

Premature monogamy can be a lot like premature ejaculation – both could interfere with having a VERY Happily Here & Now! More »

Isn’t love wonderful? Isn’t love terrible?

Isn’t it terrible how cyclical the Quest for wonderful love seems to be for you?

Let me see if I can quickly point to some compelling evidence that might, just maybe, sway your thinking and open your mind to an approach that might, just maybe, be better than all the ones you have been using all these years in your own Quest for Love.

Firstly, how many times, so far, have you been in love - or thought you were?

Think back to ALL your past relationships - not just your last, or current, one. Remember all of their names since the first one? OK, how about just the ones you’ve had sex with? More »

Five Years from Today WILL Happen.  No Matter What You Do — Or Don’t Do.

Think about you and what you REALLY want. How do you want your Hero or Heroine to participate and share in your day in day out life? Does your Soulmate Applicant envision the same lifestyle and goals that you do? If they don’t, and there are major differences of opinion between you, then it can be a ticking time bomb that might destroy the relationship.

I’d like to share with you a valuable thought process that is part of The Good-Man Methodology that might give you some critical insights into your personal future. The questions are very simple. It’s the answers that will affect the rest of your life. Answers that will also help you have a meaningful dialog with your Hero or Heroine to help ensure you are both heading down the same path to Happily Ever After. More »

Like a diamond, we all have multiple facets that reflect different parts of who we are. Some of us are even brilliant-cut and have 58 facets…..some of us have less…some of us have more.  If both you and your prospective lover are both brilliant, then between you, you’re going to have 116 facets of history, wants, wishes and needs to mutually investigate before you even know if you both should take the next relationship step together.

If you were romantically interested in someone, wouldn’t it be nice to have five dates worth of information and relationship foreplay about that person - and in a form that you can read in only 5 minutes - before you ever meet? More »

The Hard Parts of Love and Relationships

My guess is that most of you have already had relationships galore. Good ones. Bad ones. Regrettable relationships. Forgettable relationships. Relationships that were life-changing. With all of them adding up to too many Cycles through too many of the Nine Stages. All of that experience has gotten you where you are right now.

Do you want to keep using the same methods you have used so far, or would you rather try a new approach? Maybe you’d like to try a new method that will let you benefit from all those dead-end trips down paths that led to neither Happily Here & Now nor Happily Ever After?

But remember: Ever After is the destination. Here and Now is the path you travel each day on the way to Ever After.

There really ARE so many possible Heroes (or Heroines) – and so little time. The problem: how to find the One – without taking all those side trips?

What Happily Ever After means to you is probably going to be significantly different from what it means to me and most everyone else. What is important to each of us can be very different and is almost surely unique in many ways.

A warning though – if you really are serious about finding your own Happily Ever After, there ARE going to be three hard parts to that Quest:

· The Hard Part: Seeking out Happily Here & Now with ONLY those who MIGHT be the companion to accompany you all the way to Happily Ever After, while you and they enjoy every morsel of Happily Here & Now you can – for as long as the ultimate destination of a shared Happily Ever After is still possible for you both.

· The Really Hard Part: Ending Happily Here & Now when it becomes obvious to you both that Happily Ever After will not happen together.

· The Excruciatingly Hard Part: Ending Happily Here & Now when just one of you believes Happily Ever After can still happen together.

This first one is bad enough but the last two can be very tough – especially when the Happily Here & Now you share is fun or fulfilling or content in so many different facets of the relationship. More »

This is probably the one dragon you already know all too well because it is one of the most common, showing up repeatedly on almost everyone’s path.

Like Sirens, you will have dragons of Loneliness or Horniness or Great Chemistryness, or whatever, softly singing for you to give up your Quest – doing all in their power to get you off course – so you once again settle for less.

Sometimes, when it’s been too long since even a nice Happily Here & Now, it is hard not to fall prey to this dragon – just so you have some of what you seek.

Sometimes, when the loneliness or the craving for any kind of intimacy or even the jungle desire for raw sex becomes overpowering and you finally find even a glimmer of mutual chemistry with someone, the song of this dragon can seem almost impossible to resist – even when you know the path he is leading you on isn’t going to be good enough for even a mediocre Happily Here & Now. More »

Oxytocin is a hormone present in both men and women, best known for being produced when women breast-feed a baby, and part of the chemical reaction that Mom Nature uses for the mechanics of producing and delivering milk.  But like a lot of stuff, it has side effects galore, including sexual arousal in women and penile erection in men.  But the part that’s important here is that it also has the effect of causing the strong psychological reaction of bonding.

Why is all of this important to talk about now?

This same hormone, also known as the “cuddle chemical,” is produced during sexual arousal but especially floods both men’s and women’s bodies at the peak of orgasm – causing the same kind of psychological bonding reaction in both men and women.  However, the levels of oxytocin produced in women are significantly higher than men (also, higher testosterone levels in men appear to reduce the effect of the oxytocin produced by guys). More »

Or, is it love, monogamy, sex?  Or, monogamy, love, sex? Or, love, sex, monogamy?  Or, monogamy, sex, love?  Or, sex, monogamy, love?

What do you think is the right order of these?  Are you sure?  Since we are talking about long-term relationships that might last till Happily Ever After, the answer here is NOT sex, sex, sex.

Those are the sex, err six, choices you have with each new relationship.  And, how important sex is to each of you will probably affect your ordering and timing of the three issues.

Without a doubt, sex with someone you totally love and adore – with both matching each other’s Profane List Two – is THE best.  There is nothing on earth that comes close to it.  On a scale of 1 to 10 – it is a 200!

But… More »

Bear in mind that a lot of the complications of finding both Happily Here & Now and Happily Ever After have to do with the arithmetic of relationship dynamics. For example, with two people, you have two relationships to take into account – you with them and them with you.

If there are three people in a relationship – you, them and one child – then there are SIX relationships in the dynamics – or TRIPLE the possible relationship complication potential of just a two-person couple.

With two kids and two adults, the number jumps to TWELVE relationships – all trying to co-exist Happily Here & Now in the same castle. A formidable task, huh?

And all that arithmetic just assumes the living-together nuclear family. Imagine the number of relationships involved when you count everyone in the extended family – including all the other family members and ex-spouses who are actively involved!

Scary, huh?

It doesn’t have to be. None of these dragons have to win. Doesn’t it make sense, fairly early in the relationship, for you both to discuss every possible issue so you can flush out any major deal-killers as quickly as possible?

Family factors and issues, and especially at-home kid considerations, can generate some very hard questions that will significantly impact your DIDO…Your day in and day out life with your Hero or Heroine. All of these issues need to be dealt with openly with every ounce of honesty in both your hearts — taking into consideration every relationship that will add to your own expected arithmetic.

If you don’t do the math now, some of these dragons might end up attacking just when you thought you saw Happily Ever After on the horizon.

Being part Texan, I would joke about this dragon being home, home on deranged – if it wasn’t such a serious and potentially violent, and sometimes life-threatening, issue for so many. If your home contains the deranged, that is probably the first problem you need to solve before you can find any path that might possibly be a real Happily Here & Now for you.

Elsewhere in the book, Efficient Love, I’ve discussed safety issues and dealing with the crazies of this World. Here, the sole focus is on the deranged – who I define as those males or females who physically, emotionally, or verbally abuse and terrorize others with either their irrational or manipulative rages.

One of the most heartbreaking discoveries from my interviews with the Tens of Thousands of people about their relationships was how horribly pervasive abuse is in our society. It is such a severe problem that you probably can’t even guess at its magnitude. And, to those who suffer the terror daily, to those who have given up on all dreams of any kind of Happily Here & Now, it can appear they are trapped in such a deep, dark, inescapable pit, Ever After.

But you CAN escape abuse. More »