Education, Experimentation, and Entertainment

It's pretty obvious that most people lack the tools to make a relationship last. So that's why educators like those at Smart Marriages are changing the discourse on marriage.

What tools do I recommend? This pneumatic tool has been floating in my head all week! I guess I'll call it "The Three Es".

* Get Educated *
When our romantic relationships fall apart, most of us assume we're unlucky or hopeless. That's such a lie. It's just a lack of education. Anything can be learned - Anything! It's a matter of researching the tools in order to accomplish those goals. The goal might be learning how to agree, how to disagree, how to compromise, how to forgive, how to forget, or how to accept. Whatever the goal, get educated.

* Start Experimenting *
Once you find all these new tools, you have to experiment with them. Try things out. Test the waters. When you find something works, keep it. If it doesn't work, throw it out. There are thousands of experiments you can try. Offer the experiments to your mate as a peace offering. Say, "Let's try this out for a week. If it doesn't work, we'll stop." One of you is more experimental. Negotiate a little, and put a time limit on all experiments. If they work out, keep em around longer.

* Seek out Entertainment *
The best skill is learning to laugh at yourself and your relationship. That was a tough skill the first three years of our marriage. It usually takes a while to realize that most of those topics don't marry. If you don't want kids right now, don't argue about it. If you're not buying the Porsche today, then stop fighting... whatever your argument, try this on for size. Studies show that couples fight over the same ten things for the entire relationship and never resolve those ten things. So, don't try to win that argument - you never will!! That better help you lighten up!

Turning Tide for Celebrities

First and foremost, I have a new favorite singing artist! His name is Mika. Special thanks to Taylor for helping me find him. On his page, listen to the Album sampler - it's awesome. You can also listen to the player on my myspace page.

I like to find a common bond with my favorite stars, so I'm always curious about how old they are, where they live, if they're married, if they have kids, if they're gay, and how many friends they have on myspace. ;-)

I googled "Is Mika gay?" Yah know, I wanted to see if I had another gay muscian to admire. Since he's up and coming, that would be cool. :-) But as a result of that search, I found a scathing article from a gay paper in London discussing Mika's ambiguity. So it got me thinking about Honesty, Privacy and Transparency.

Here's my take on it: when you have the job of being famous, you partially lose certain rights. Much like trash collectors who lose the right to sleep in, or doctors who take a vow of confidentiality, celebrities also have certain privileges they lose.

One of those rights they forfeit is the right to privacy. I'm not arguing for or against that fact. It's just a fact. Here's why. For celebrities, losing your privacy is necessary because it's the only way that your fans can continue to ascertain that they want to admire you.

See, celebrity power is really just harnessing the power of admiration. Fans are learning and growing as individuals by watching and judging the people they admire, the celebrities. That's how regular people figure out their decisions in life. So in order to maintain your usefulness as someone who teaches by being admirable, you must be open about your life to your fans. Therefore you lose the right to privacy.

Now, you can maintain your right to privacy as a celebrity. But the lack of transparency makes you less creditworthy when it comes to admiration. And without admiration, you have fewer fans, less fame, and less correlative income. If you want less fame, then maintain privacy and ambiguity. If you want more fame, be open and honest about who you are.

So that's why "technically" celebrities have a right to privacy, but more practically, they don't. They want more fame, and thereby give up their privacy in that endeavor.

Regardless of his sexuality, Mika's songs are really, really good. Check him out!

Make her feel loved? Exploring the habits of feelings.

Question from a loving husband:
No matter what I do, my wife never feels loved. I work really hard. Her love language is Acts of Service. I do dishes, vacuum, all kind of services, and after it was all done, she says thanks and goes on her way. But she said she still resents me. She still doesn't feel loved. Why is that? What is going on?


Answer from The Little Love Coach:
This is a case of helping her improve her awareness. She isn't aware of the love she is receiving. She isn't seeing the love in front of her. She wasn't receiving the love even when she said thank you. Here's why...

Feelings are habits. She was in the habit of feeling unloved. The habit might have started as a child. When she was younger, she might have originally looked for love from her parents, and never saw it. She might not have had the facility to see how her parents were showing love. So one day, she stopped looking. Nowadays, that effect of "not looking" has become an unconscious habit.

Here's my recommendation:
1. Start by explaining the Five Love Languages book to her. Ask her to confirm her love language to you and explain it to you in detail.
2. On a daily basis, start asking "how's your love tank? Full, almost full, half, empty?" Get her to assess how loved she feels on a regular basis. This is a great habit to gage your effectiveness in this process over time.
3. After each act of service (or any expression of love), ask her immediately afterwards how her love tank is. Ask her, "How's your love tank now?" or "Do you feel loved?"

Over time, she will start to notice herself feeling loved. Celebrate your victory every time you have helped her feel loved. Your contribution to your wife will last her entire lifetime. I cannot think of a more profound contribution than to teach her how to feel loved.

Accept, Don't Offer

Question from a Student:
He knows I like sweets, so to be a loving husband, he offers me donuts from the office. Then, I get mad because I'm trying to kick sugar from my diet. So a week later, I ask him to bring some candy home form the store. He says, "You said you're kicking sugar. Are you sure you want that?" That, of course, is also a very loving thing to say. But then I'm mad again. I'm mad because he's not helping me kick the habit. So I'm mad if he offers and mad if he doesn't. What do you recommend?

Answer from the Love Coach:
I learned this trick by trial-and-error in helping Dave help me quit sugar. In the early stages of trying any new habit (like when I was trying to start working out every day - same rules applied there), I was pretty cranky and I didn't have much will-power. That sensitivity is a hot spot for arguments. So the tip for your spouses and loved ones is: "Accept, Don't Offer." Here's what it means...

Accept
The first part means that you always must say "Yes" if asked to do something, like go get candy from the store, or let her sleep in, or whatever bad habit she wants to continue doing. The reason it's probably an emotional need. The war on habits and addictions is a long one, and we all need breaks. So asking for those treats is a great way to take a break from the battle, and get a little love at the same time. That emotional need trumps any other need.

So the "goal" of breaking the habit is on hold. By saying Yes, you are saying "I love you no matter how well you're doing at this." That support will create more confidence and will-power in the next round of battles of will. So always say Yes when they want to break their habit. Later on, they will starting asking you to say No, but let that come naturally. Let them determine when that day has come.

Don't Offer
That means that if she hasn't asked for it, don't offer it. This is reminiscent of "Out of sight. Out of mind" mentality. The trick is to find new ways to win her heart. If she is trying to give up sugar, then get creative in offering other presents, like strawberries or gadgets or jewerly. Find another way to show love. If you never mention the sweets first, then you are in a much safer situation, and you're helping her kick the habit. So in summary, never offer an out first. Make her ask for it.

Always accept; never offer. Give it a try and tell me how to goes!...

Learning Love

Wow, these daily blogs are really getting my friends involved more with Love Kung Fu! I love it!

Ya know, I posted a blog yesterday and 10 minutes later, a friend calls me. He mentioned that he finally read The Five Love Languages, and that he really liked it.

He said he and his partner have the same "love language" as described in the book, but in other ways, they think differently, or other "languages." For examples, the big picture versus the details. That's a great observation. Where else are we speaking different "languages" in how we think different from our loved ones?

I always laugh when I think about different "languages" in marriage. That's because it took the two of us years of bickering before we could even move a couch down a flight of stairs... it took years, people!

I gave my mom The Five Love Languages for Christmas last year. When we talked a few weeks ago, she reflected similar comments as my friend who just called. Both phone calls reflected a new paradigm for a skills-based approach to love and relationships. That's really what Love Kung Fu is really about. It's about learning love.

On that note, I'm going to try out a new slogan for Love Kung Fu... It's Love Kung Fu: Learning Love. Tell me what you think of our new slogan in the comments below.

Trust, but Verify

After 31 years of avoiding and hating the gym, I have finally started a steady gym routine! Fitting to my personality, I just do whatever the heck I want when I'm there. Sometimes I do yoga, sometimes cardio and sometimes I do machines. It's the machines and lifting weights that I really want to focus on. Other than getting hotter (a constant subconscious goal nowadays), I want to strengthen my ab and back muscles to eliminate my back pain.

I also have a workout buddy now. He works out at about the same time I do, so we chat off and on. He said something pretty profound about business relationships today. He said, Trust but Verify.

That's great advice for dating. You should inherently trust the people date, and the people you are in a relationship with. Then, you should verify that trust from time to time. That's unique for each person. If you have a high level of trust already, then verifying the trust might be a simple question: "did you sleep with her?" or something. If the trust level is low, then you might hire a P.I.

If the trust level is that low, then it might be a slow, tough road to build more trust. After the verification is done, you should come clean about what you did. Be open and honest about your verifying their trust. And don't take any crap from them about it. I say, verifications are fair play. "Check on me all your want!" I say, trust is earned.

Key Players in a Discourse

One of my all-time favorite classes at Landmark involved discussion of "discourses." As the class defines them, discourses are sets of conversations that linger without change for centuries, often becoming outdated. The premise of discourse discussion is that you need to understand the discourse you're "swimming in" so that you can make the changes you want to the world.

There are millions of discourses out there. Discourses like "how to drive" or all the talk about race, or things your family says about money.

In my own considerations of discourses, I looked at how a discourse takes hold, grows, and eventually dies. I saw that you could label key players in the evolution of the discourse. Here are their roles ordered from the first key player (working in its invention) to the last key players (who write the discourse's obituary).

1. The Heretic – Visionaries that foresee the transformations before their time.
Example: Galileo foresaw "scientific thinking" as a new way of thinking

2. The Cults – Outcast and Outskirt groups experiment with the new idea.
Example: Jesus during his lifetime, Elvis Presley in the beginning

3. The Entrepreneurial / Religious - Larger organized groups package the idea and make it useful for everyone.
Example: The Bible, Thomas Edison, Infomercials

4. The Early Adopters - Trendsetters embrace and spread the new idea beyond standard social circles.
Example: Paul Revere, Boston Tea Party, Al Gore for the environment

5. The Public Example – Powerful individuals solidify the value of the idea in the public's awareness, thus gathering attention and momentum.
Examples: Rosa Parks, the drag queens at Stonewall

6. The Coalitions – Organizations turn the idea into a movement. The movement challenges the status quo by addressing its current organizations, usually church and government.
Examples: Amnesty International, NAACP, HRC

7. The Judge and Jury of a Divided Nation – The nation is divided. The public is divided over the issue. Battles are won and lost in legislation. The idea is groomed by supporters and naysayers alike for its integration into the status quo.
Examples: 2004 Presidential Election, The US Civil War

8. The New Sheriff – New laws reflect a new majority of the public that embraces the idea. The idea slowly becomes the status quo. Backlash steadies the idea's progress as the idea takes hold with permanence.
Examples: Constitutional Amendments, Jim Crow Laws

9. The Dying Breed – Disbelievers lose members and become the minority. Remnants of the old paradigm are kept safe and retold to retain a relic and understanding of the past. Social etiquette takes hold of the idea, and children are taught the new idea before the old idea ever has a chance.
Example: Respect for women shown in schools, punishments for child abuse

10. The Historians – The idea, the key players, and the movement are described historically in books. The idea becomes forgotten as an idea. It simply is the truth and reality of the day.

Now the question is to the length of time that each stage takes. How long is the whole discourse? How long to overcome a single stage? Can the process be sped up at all? Are changes happening faster now than 2000 years ago?

What do you think?

All about Stereotypes

I've been thinking a lot about stereotypes. I was realizing that the past and the future are merely stereotypes. That's the only way we can make sense of these huge buckets of information called "past" and "future". Themes or "stereotypes" arise naturally in our efforts to make use of the high volume of information available.

Celebrities are the same way. There is only one Paris Hilton, Donald Trump, Ben Stein, Rosie O'Donnell. There are knock-offs and second place celebrity similarities, but each icon is only represented by one person in your mind. They have become the icon's "stereotype." The reasons for this are discussed more in Unleashing the Ideavirus and Blink.

When it comes to the goal of being wealthy, its useful to observe our icons. It's entertaining and productive to watch and emulate their lifestyle. The toll on them is that they feel pigeon-holed or stereotyped themselves. Just like mistreatment for sex, color, orientation, belief systems is hurtful, so are stereotypes spoken toward our celebrities, despite our best intentions. Here's a great example...

Whiz Biz Kids

In case you didn't click on the YEO link in my earlier blog, here's the article it linked to. This article was my inspiration for all of last year. Here's the beginning of the article with the link to the whole article below.

Whiz Biz Kids

Dallas' young entrepreneurs live by their creed: Just do it.

By Eric Celeste

Published: December 2, 2004

Calvin Carter was a success story, no doubt about it. He'd started his Web development company in his room in the early '90s at Southern Methodist University and grown it to 55 employees. The quiet kid from Florida who liked solitary pursuits (he missed the ocean, deep-sea fishing, sand) had dropped into the back-slapping, money-loving, it's-all-about-who-ya-know-kid capital of Texas and created his own business. He was his own boss, answering to no one.

But now, he was sick of it. At the height of his success, when he was building Web sites for high-profile clients such as the Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars, he realized he was no good at this. Like so many entrepreneurs, he was great at starting a business. When everything looked hopeless--not enough money, too few clients, then too many clients, how to pay for insurance, where are we going to office, the investors are antsy--he could calm the roil. But when things got really good, Carter was no longer the man for the job. The company needed a manager. He wasn't a manager. He was an entrepreneur. He didn't dream of running companies. He had an itch to create them. He had, as they call it, "the bug."

Click here to read the whole article...

1st Quarter Goals are Ready

This post is dedicated to all my entrepreneur buddies out there..

This quarter, I forgot to create my 2007 Q1 Goals since I was so excited about publishing Splatter Dating. So now that the Dallas book signings have slowed down a bit, I was at a loss for how to proceed with building Love Kung Fu.

I've always been a big fan on YEO, which is now called EO. In order to be a member, you have to have to be the Founder of a company with gross annual revenues of $1 Million. The challenge and opportunity in joining EO represents one of my life's goals: financial success.

But Love Kung Fu is far, far away from 1M in Gross Annual Revenues. After a quick search, I've found a new program offered by EO called Accelerator. Accelerator requires that your company have gross annual revenues of $250,000. That sure seems far away too, but its technically 4x closer than 1M!!! :-)

This brings me to the realization that in order for the Love Kung Fu website that I envision to get the revenues I want, I'd have to bring in 100 new members every week each paying $40 / month. That means about 10,000 new visitors to the site per week. That's a lot of visitors and I can't imagine providing the kind of love coaching I'd need in order to help 100 new people every week happy. In short: Using my current revenues, my old strategy was not viable for success.

So I sat up last night thinking... and before bedtime, I talked to Dave. If SEO and word-of-mouth isn't going to get 10,000 new visitors to my site every week, what would? And I slowly came to a realization.

As a Professional Speaking, I could reach that many people. That would eventually accomplish a goal of getting 10,000 new visitors to the site: after hearing a speech, they would probably want to check me out online. And then, I could give the high level of quality I wanted because my "clients" would not be the 10,000 visitors to my website, but more specifically the conference organizers and the heads of organizations. That vision aligns much more deeply with my sense of quality and the interactions I want to have.

This also supports the quality I heard in the Interview CD I created. The CDs haven't been selling, but then, "listening" is a different approach from an interest in a book. But if you liked how I spoke at a conference, you'd probably like an audio CD with my material on it.

[Mark goes away for a sec, and comes back...]

Oh, now you're going to love this... I look at my "end of 2007 goals" and this already fits into those goals! Last year I wrote this.

Here are my End of 2007 Goals:
1. Splatter Dating: The Fastest Way to Find True Love has sold 1,000+ copies
2. The website has 20 different products and services to choose from.
3. The weekly online magazine (the website) has 500 unique visitors every week.
4. Our primary teleclass has sold 35 seats in 2007 totalling $8,000+ gross revenues.
5. Mark Berry has booked 3 speaking engagements totaling $3,000+ gross revenues.
6. The home study courses are done.

So here are the new Q1 Goals: (By March 31st, 2007)
1. Created four individual Audio CD products to sell at Speaking Engagements
2. Created the Splatter Dating home study course
3. Created the complete Press Kit for getting speaking engagements
4. Completed the Menu for www.lovekungfu.com, and online Press Kit for www.littlelovecoach.com.

Alright, six weeks to go! Onward and Upward! If you want to get involved, or have some feedback on my goals, or support, leave a comment below! Thanks!

Leaving Behind a Legacy

The Four Arts of Love are one of the most original concepts at Love Kung Fu. Each Art represents a multitude of skills that all share a similar mood or approach, unique from the skills in the other 3 Arts.

I've always given The Fourth Art of Love titles like The Art of Teamwork or The Art of Family. Those skills tackle the task of embracing a business or a family. It is an art of managing all the stuff that a couple can do "after" they work out their relationship issues.


On the drive home from Quiktrip last night, I realized that The Fourth Art of Love is larger than raising a family or growing a business. The Fourth Art of Love contains all the skills involved in leaving a legacy behind. For many people, their family is their legacy. For others, their business is their legacy.

By calling it The Art of Leaving Behind a Legacy, the skill set now embraces many more types of legacies and contributions to the world than simply raising family or building a business. The Art is more encompassing than I originally thought.

As if to prove my theory, I happen to see The Astronaut Farmer movie preview a few hours later. Watch the preview and notice how the whole family is involved with his legacy. The skills to build a legacy require a truer, deeper relationship to your family or team in order to build a dream together. The goal of that Art is to build a legacy to leave behind you.

Freedom to Marry Day

Hey - Today, Feb 12th, is The National "Freedom to Marry" Day. Check out more information at the Freedom to Marry site. I especially loved the commercials I found on the right hand of the Freedom to Marry site - they parody the Apple Mac commercials.

The Splatter Dating CD

My first interview CD is out! Somewhere inside me, I knew an audio CD would compliment the book. The heavens agreed. My friend Cathy S, who is also coordinating the book signings with me, has an background in voice talent. She organized the entire recording session, and all I had to do was provide a place, and talk with her (our) DJ friend with the equiment.

Recording took about 4 hours. All three voice artists are single. I told them that I wanted to accomplish two goals: 1) Basic answers to questions like "What is Splatter Dating?" and "What is Love Kung Fu?" and 2) I wanted to work with them on their own love lives. I said "If you learn something, or change the course of your love life as a result of my coaching, the people listening will have the same experience, since they are right there with you. The result was some brilliant insights into love, dating and relationships.

I sat down with some clunky audio files, our mac, the GarageBand software, and no idea what to do next. 2 trips to the mac store, 3 days and 5 software crashes later, and I was ready to edit. Oh the pains of technology - hah!

What a beautiful process editing is. As I sifted through 4 hours of footage, slicing and dicing away useless chatter... pulling gems from wreckage... cropping, splicing, smoothing over the rough edges... a different dialogue emerged.

The words were exactly as they were recorded, but something greater was being said when you listened to the whole four hours, over and over again. As the chatter slowly got deleted, piece by piece, the remaining segments took shape in a natural form. They began to form a structure greater than the pieces we started with.

In only one week, I made a CD that I'm really proud of. It's really insightful. It talks about the Four Arts of Love; it defines Splatter Dating; it talks about how to enjoy your relationship, and how to enjoy dating.

It was a great experience and I hope to repeat it soon. If you have specific questions that would work great in a small group, audio CD format, let me know. Post your topics and questions in the comments section below.

The Five Love Languages at Work

A friend of mine is having some trouble with his boss. He doesn't feel appreciated at all. He said he's tired of the negativity. Here's what I told him...

I think that the staple of modern relationship education is The Five Love Languages book. Here's the summation: We each speak and hear a different language for feeling loved. When someone is speaking the wrong language, it doesn't do any good. So most relationships (romantically and in general) have a translation problem. Both people are working really hard, but speaking different languages.

Here's the languages:
- Words of Affirmation
- Touch
- Gifts
- Acts of Service
- Quality Time

My parents have been married 34 years. My mom read this book and it really helped. It's required reading for anyone in a relationship.

It relates to work because if your boss show appreciation by giving you gifts or time off to spend with family, but you really want words of affirmation, then you've got a translation problem with his or her love language.

Some people show sooo much love through acts of service or quality time or touch, but they are very negative in their speaking. If that was your boss, he or she would feel that they are working really hard to show you appreciation, but it wasn't doing any good. I'd recommend asking your boss to start saying certain things, and exactly how often to say them.

Visiting OA: Unleash the Control Freak

In case you hadn't heard, I checked out Overeaters Anonymous (OA) because I can't give up sweets. I figured I would see what I could learn from the "12 step" world of education.

My first meeting was really insightful. I kept noticing that my body was really tense, more than usual. In fact, my muscles started aching half way through. I asked myself, "What's the deal? Why do you keep tensing up?"

I figured out in the meeting that the first "Step" (read: stage / process / experience) is about admitting a certain powerlessness over your ability to solve this problem. Now I'll tell ya, I'm the oldest of five, and oldest kids are inherently controlling. Giving up control can be quite a challenge for me.

Throughout the meeting, I found it very difficult to admit defeat in my attempts to give up sweets. I couldn't believe I'd met my match in my first attempt to master this particular technology. Now I'm really intrigued to learn more. I'll keep you posted.

One question I began to think about... What would I want to abstain from for the rest of my life? If "12 step" programs are about abstaining, then I should make a list of things that I never want to do/take/eat ever again for the rest of my life. Exactly what's in that list? As far as eating healthy, is there anything I want to give up forever? Post your comments below.

Louis C.K. - Rated R

Great entertainment on kids...

The First Book Signing Went Awesome!

We had our first book signing today.

I was so nervous, I thought I was going to explode!!!

Tish, my hairdresser, said she would ask the owner, Lee Ann, of her salon. Sure enough, Lee Ann said sure, and we were off and running. We had about a month's notice. We made flyers. My friend Cathy stepped forward as Book Signing marketer and manager. She was amazing. We had about 20 different people show up in the salon, and sold 10 different books and CDs. It was a lot of fun!

The book of course is Splatter Dating: The Fastest Way to Find True Love, but "what is this about a CD," you ask? Well sure enough, we set up a recording session to create an audio interview to actually explore some of the concepts. I coached the people in the concepts: it turned out really, really good. Learn more in my newsletter. Subscribe here to get all the scoop.

These book signings have been so much fun. To come to the Virtual Book Signings this week (2/6 - 2/10), RSVP here. See ya next time!