 Men love the chase, make a man pursue you, use sex as a weapon. These are oftentimes the advice that's given to women to help them act or snatch a guy, to get the guy. But I'm here to say this playing games, this playing hard to get, using the book The Rules, actually make a man respect you. I'm here to say that it might temporarily make a guy want to be attracted to you when there's game playing going on. The problem with game playing advice, manipulative advice, controlling advice, it's not genuine. It's not sincere. It's from the heart. And sadly, though, when advice like that is used, it will attract more of the emotionally unhealthy men, those men who are struggling on the inside. Maybe it activates a childhood wound and trauma where he might temporarily approach you. Does that really work for the long term? Well, I'm here to say that playing games, that kind of advice, will not make a man respect you. And more importantly, the real challenge with respect is the oftentimes men don't necessarily respect themselves, especially men that are going through some sort of emotional trauma in their life, or worse, they have emotional trauma from their childhood that causes them to have somewhat of a dysfunctional life. So I want to lean into this conversation today about respect and differentiating between the short term uses of advice versus the more comprehensive way of looking at it from a personal development perspective. And I said a moment ago, I talked about those emotionally unhealthy men. And I can speak from personal experience. I can tell you that from right after I had, right about the time I had my divorce, which was, oh my God, early 40s, which was almost a decade and a half ago, it was a mess. I was a train wreck. And given that the demographic, and by the way, given that the demographic that I speak to is the midlife demographic, and I was just entering midlife at the time, and I say midlife is after baby making years and before retirement, the challenge with a lot of people that are going through divorce, which probably represents about 75% of those singles actively dating over 45 years old, is that there might be some emotional trauma they carried from their divorce that makes them less likely to be able to lean into a healthy, happy relationship or more importantly be able to respect themselves. As I shared a moment ago, I was a train wreck after my divorce. I'd lost my quarter million dollar a year job. I literally had to move in with my mom and dad after living in a, by the way, that's where I used to live right up over there in a multi-million dollar home in my late 30s, early 40s. Had to move in with my mom and dad. I was a mess. I didn't respect myself. Now, that could be an extreme example, but many people have gone through some sort of emotional trauma and midlife. There might be a contentious divorce happening in their life. They might have issues with their children. They might have health issues that might preclude them from really leaning into a relationship. So when a person is, when the ground underneath the person isn't solid, it's challenging for them to actually lean into a relationship and actually respect another human being because they might be experiencing some level of shame going on in their life right then and there. So again, all this game-playing type of techniques really only will temporarily, as I said earlier, trigger someone to lean in. And I mentioned to you, I was a mess. That mess lasted for over a decade. My friend, Allison Armstrong, calls this the tunnel. And what that means to say is where our blueprint of where we thought our life would be collides with our reality. And that's oftentimes called midlife crisis. And in that midlife crisis, that tunnel that Allison Armstrong talks about, it's an opportunity for a man to step into his hero journey if you're familiar with Joseph Campbell's work. And what I mean to say is the hero's journey is that opportunity to grow out of the pain and into their victor consciousness. That's right, their victor consciousness. In other words, to do the inner work. Because here's the other facet. I didn't talk about a moment ago. We're talking about the blueprint of where our life is. What about the blueprint that we were raised with in our childhood? The childhood wounds and traumas that shape us as adults. And if you're not familiar with the book attached by Amir Levine and the talk about attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller and the Amago, which is talked about in the book Getting the Love You Want by Harvelle Hendricks and Helen Hunt, why I want you to read these books to understand what's going on here is we have a blueprint that happens from our childhood, which is centered around how we attach to love for another human being, as well as the blueprint of what's known as the Amago. And what happens is if we've had trauma in childhood that goes unhealed, we oftentimes choose people in our lives, romantic partners, similar to the dysfunctionality of our parents. That's right, the dysfunctionality of our parents, whether we like it or not, some of us have had dysfunctional parents. It's very rare that we had this beautiful, idyllic, Aussie and Harriet type of upbringing. That is the rarity. That's not the norm. And some people have had deep trauma in their childhood. Many of you ladies who I've worked with, one of the first questions I ask as a coach, and by the way, if you need coaching, if you want help learning how to vet emotionally mature men, emotionally stable men, if you will, and I'm talking about from a relationship skills, check out the link in the description below to schedule a free discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you. Because what I'm here to say is, coming back to that childhood that man grew up with, if he had a trauma in his childhood, and many of you have experiences, if it goes unhealed, it's difficult for this person to genuinely respect you in a romantic relationship and ultimately wanting to feel respected, wanting to feel cherished is the ultimate experience of being within a partnership. And yet sadly today, most people are dating from this casual perspective, the situation ship. In fact, I believe dating is just a long drawn out process that oftentimes goes nowhere because many couples don't establish right from the get go that they want to afford a fully committed relationship. Look, you really want to get to know someone. I got to tell you, living with them gives you real insight in who they are. Many of you know I'm in a fully committed relationship right now. We chose to move in together five months after we initially physically met, but we'd known each other a year prior. And while I'm sharing this with you, you learn a lot about a person when you live together, but the dating process is you get together every couple of days, you get to, you know, you see each other on weekends, but you really don't see how a person lives. And more importantly, are you forging the... Oh, by the way, my coffee mug says this morning, don't make me go all psycho roommate on you. Many of you know that on my live videos, I do use substitutes to enhance the sentence. In my weekend videos, I like to be a little bit more subdued and calmer, though I do get kind of riled up. Now, of course, I just did a rabbit where was I going? So what am I really leaning into here today? I'm leaning into recognizing that most relationships today, the dating process is very casual without any real serious intention. And if you want to move this pendulum in the direction of partnership and ladies, I'm here to encourage that you take ownership of your life. I highly recommend reading this book, Why Men Love Bitches. And bitch stands for babe in total control of herself. Yes. And what I mean to say is, stop believing in this idea that men should be the leaders of the relationship. I know many of you would like that. You want to just sit back in your feminine energy and be claimed. But ultimately, you're in charge of your destiny. Leave that up to the guy because most men are clueless. I got to tell you, I got an email message the other day from a follower on YouTube. And she said, Jonathan, I've been following your religious view, your videos religiously. She even showed my videos to the man that she was dating. They began discussing the content in my videos, all of the childhood wounds and traumas and the other things I've talked about, the empowerment. And through this process, they built deeper intimacy with each other. And in that intimacy, in these conversations, which I'm going to share with you for specific conversations to have, to lean into gaining that respect. And when she followed this, he proposed to her. He proposed to her because this isn't what, what she was an experience prior to these conversations was a surface level relationship and not a relationship of real depth, not a relationship of real heart connection with one another. Now what she also did and she mentioned is that she purchased the book that I continually recommend over and over again. There's actually two books I recommend over and over again. One is the Hoffman process, the Hoffman process. By the way, there's a link in the description to all the books I recommend. And I know many of you go, Jonathan, all you do is talk about books. Well, I'm here to encourage not the techniques to crick a guy into a relationship. I'm here to encourage personal development, self-help and spiritual work so you can actually attract the kind of relationship because you've done the work on the inside. You've done that self-love work, which I talked about in my book, what the heck is self-love? Anyway, a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work. So she did this inner work before, while she was dating him, and then she introduced not just my videos, but this book, oops, I like to count, Eight Dates by Drs. John and Julie Gottman. Why I'm sharing this with you today, this book, Eight Dates, is a great book for conversation starters because here's the bottom line, ladies. You have a choice. You can be passive in the dating process or you can be an active participant. And I'm here to say, one of the fundamental principles in choosing a partner is choosing someone very quickly determining who is really compatible with you in a relationship and who's truly capable of leaning into the deeper conversations like this man was able to do. So I mentioned earlier the men who are wounded, the men who have gone through trauma. Those men are oftentimes dysfunctional. If you really want a man to respect you, then it's going to require leaning into a different conversation. First off, one of the things to do is to choose emotionally healthy men. Again, I can help you with that. Check out the link below. In addition, by the way, I realize I'm very dark here. So hold on a second. Oh, everybody, hold on a second. Hopefully that helps. The lighting helps. Yeah, I think that's a little bit better. This is just a new format I'm trying today. Choosing emotionally healthy men. Because emotionally healthy men do respect in a woman a different way. So I'm going to invite four conversations. I'm going to share with you four conversations you can travel with a guy that will actually help you lean into deeper respect with a guy. So bear with me one second. And again, I'm sorry, I'm a little washed out here. Not washed out, but not quite very bright. Okay. So these four conversations, here's what men respect. Instead of trying to love us, seek to understand us. Seek how seek to understand how we tip. Be curious about who we are as a person. Go deeper with intimacy because this builds a deeper bond in the long run. So I want to share with you four conversations you can have with a guy and I'll repeat it. Okay. To make it simple. Number one. In what way can I improve as a partner? Here's the thing folks, we might not know our blind spots in a relationship. In fact, this is something I do with my beloved. Frequently as what can I do to improve? What what way can I improve as a partner? Because here's the thing when you actually have a relationship of trust, when you have a relationship of open communication, you don't have to worry about what you say to someone in fear. In fact, coming back to my book, What the heck is self-love anyway? Chapter one says, Speak your truth. Do it with kindness. Chapter nine. That's not nine. This is nine. Nine says, if it's sincere and from the heart, you can't say the wrong thing to the right person. So I'm here to invite you to ask in what way can I improve as a partner without fear, without that contention, that you might or without that fear that you, that going deeper is going to cause this person to run away. Only emotionally, unhealthy people run away. People that actually want to lean into a relationship will appreciate this. Number two, you have any needs that you feel are being neglected? Do you have any needs that you feel are being neglected? This is a great question to ask because what happens when we sweep things under the rug in a relationship? It festers and festers and festers. If you do this too long, you might not be able to recover in relationships. So I love this question. Do you have any needs that you feel are being neglected? Each person has different needs in a relationship. So it's important to talk about your needs in a relationship so you don't find yourself in a situation where you've gone too far not really care, not really, not really, what's the word I'm looking for? Understanding your partner because many of you are operating from fear or the surface level of relationship. Number three, if I've done something that you're still hurt over, what do I need, what do you need from me to help you heal? This is a withhold. These are minor grievances. Sometimes it could be simple as I forgot to put the toilet seat down, but sometimes it goes deeper than that. It might be something that happened. And by sharing your minor grievances with one another from a healthy, loving place, from that place of love and kindness and compassion, I was talking to a couple the other day, they had a little minor grievance and they sat down and shared it with each other and they were able to check the boxes and these grievances got too deep. And what I mean by too deep is the cut is so deep you can't heal it or stitch it back together. If I've done something that you're still hurt over, what do you need from me to help you heal? And lastly, what can I help you, what can I do to help you feel more loved? This opens up deeper intimacy in a relationship. What can I do to help you feel more loved? Folks, you might be thinking to yourself, what does this deal with respect? Here's the thing. We genuinely respect those that we feel a deep heart connection with them. In these questions, I'm inviting you to go deeper than the surface in many relationships and to continually work on building your relationship day in, day out, day in, day out. My sweetheart and I are doing a couples retreat this weekend. This is something I hope to do once a month, once every two months in our relationship. Why am I sharing this with you? In these couples retreats, it's an opportunity to build deeper intimacy with one another and more importantly to build the deep roots of trust. Because beyond respect, trust is the most important thing in a relationship and trust isn't just about trusting that they'll leave you to go somewhere else. Trust is really, does this person have my best interest at hand? That's I think the deepest form of respect when you're with someone who says, because this is really the point of all of this, why do we want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't care about our needs? When this, when you actually, when two people can care for one another to the point of their interest is in their best and in other words, your partner's best interest is in your best interest from coming from that place, which will only be built through the deep roots of trust of intimacy. Can you find that space where you'll actually respect and cherish your partner? And by the way, ladies, this isn't singular for men. They have to be doing the exact same things for you. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please let me know. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Please hit that like button. Please share this video with your friends. Please subscribe to my channel if you're brand new. By the way, I'm sorry I'm a little orange. I just realized that this is going to be a challenge when I shoot upstairs here with the lighting behind me. I'm going to definitely have to get a new camera. Anyways, I hope you found value in this video. If you have, I invite you to write down these four questions. I'm going to repeat them one more time. In what way can I improve as a partner? We might not know our blind spots. In what way can I improve as a partner? Number two, do you have any needs that you feel are being neglected? Each person's needs are different. Do you have any needs that you feel are being neglected? Number three, if I've done something you're still hurt over, what do you need from me to help you heal? These are our tiny withholds and our grievances. And lastly, number four, what can I do to help you feel more loved? This opens up deeper intimacy. What can I do to help you feel more love? I hope you found value in this video. And I hope you share this with your friends. And I'm going to wrap up this video as I always do. First off, giving myself a big, gigantic thought to embarrass myself. Love. I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm going to ask you to turn to someone. A teddy bear pillow. Here's a teddy bear. And give Iter them a hug of love because hugs are a very formal source of love and we can all use more love in our lives. Thanks so much. Bye-bye now. Bye-bye.