 So the right man does this when he's ready to commit. Okay, and we're gonna dive into this really quickly. I'm gonna tell you where this was birthed. I was watching Lewis Howe's podcast. He has a podcast called The School of Greatness and I was watching one of his videos. He was sharing his experience with his fiance, well, early stages of dating with his now fiance. And it sparked a real curious, well, let me reframe that, when I say it sparked. It's so resonated with me personally because as a man who's ready to commit, I feel as though this one factor is critically important for relationship success. And one of the things he shared was talking about some of his past relationships and how there was a lot of tension within some of his past relationships, a misalignment between him and women that he had dated in the past. And one of the things he changed his narrative by making a request of anyone who he was going to explore a relationship within the future was that they would be open to therapy within the relationship. But more importantly, would they be open to therapy in the dating process? And I thought, wow, this is fantastic for me personally, because I guess I'm in the personal development self-help spiritual realm. So for me, the word therapy isn't necessarily the construct of the way most people traditionally think of it. I think of the way he viewed it was seeking somebody's additional perspective, going to an outside source to seek a different perspective of how to improve the mechanics of their relationship, how to improve communication, how to recognize blind spots, how to resolve conflict if there's conflict within the relationship. And this is one of the reasons why ladies, I've been such a big proponent for many of you to introduce a book in the early stages of dating. And the book is Eight Dates by Doctors John and Julie Gottman. Now what this is is eight separate conversations to determine compatibility. Now, I'll be candid with you. This book was mostly designed for people in the baby-making era of their life, not necessarily for midlife per se. And yet many of the conversations in this book relate to how to really get to know this other human being to determine if there is alignment between the two of you. And when you think about alignment, this is the way most people date. This is alignment, okay? Or they align this way. Please forgive that graphic explanation, but they align this way instead of aligning this way. So when you're with the right man, or let me rephrase this, when two people have adopted, and this is just my personal puritan way of viewing things, okay, this is my righteous way of viewing things, is that when two people establish a growth mindset in a relationship, they have a chance for greater success. Now, what do I mean by growth mindset? I am sure you've heard in the past that you should accept your partner for who they are. Well, and while it is important to accept your partner for who they are, but if your partner has bad behavior, you shouldn't have to accept that. If your partner is stagnant in their life, if your partner is going backwards in their life, should you have to accept that? I believe the whole purpose of a relationship is for two people to join together and grow with one another. So I'm a big proponent of, by the way, I'm gonna be candid with you. One of my must-haves in relationship with anyone I choose going forward with is that they have a personal development, self-help, and spiritual practice. It's one of the reasons why I wrote my book What the Heck Is Self-Love Anyway, A Journey of Personal Development, Self-Help, and Spiritual Work, there's a link below, is because we will have a shared language. Now, why is this important for you? Because you may not have this, I'm here to encourage everyone to have some level of personal development, self-help, and spiritual practice in their life, and to choose partners who are equally going to join in on you with this. Why is this so important? Because this actually encapsulates emotional maturity. See, that's right. See, one of the struggles with most people is that they lack, this is a chart I made, this is not a fact, it's merely an opinion. Emotional maturity relationship skills, 20% of the population has clinical issues and this is true of men and women alike. And while I say 20% are emotionally healthy, I'm being rather generous because I think most humans are dysfunctional. Now they're the dysfunctional folks that are moving in this direction because they are doing personal development, self-help, and spiritual work. And there's another group that's moving in this direction because their wounds are suffocating them to such a degree that it's becoming almost clinical. Their capacity to actually dive into a really juicy, delicious, healthy, happy relationship. So remember I said earlier, women are adopting this practice of introducing this book to a lot of men. I am getting call after call after call from women saying, oh my God, he's reading the book and he's loving it. Now, I'm gonna tell you that some men may appease you and read the book eight dates with you. Merely because they just wanna get in bed with you, they just wanna appease you. Men will oftentimes, emotionally unhealthy men will be so driven by their penis that they'll do anything to make you happy. This is why you have to go deeper. One of the things I teach in my private coaching, there's a link below to schedule a discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you, is to uncover the questions based on your personality to, as I said, not to uncover, but to establish the questions based on your personality to uncover his true emotional maturity. You see, this is the real reason why most men and women don't succeed in relationship because humans want companionship, they want connection, they want sex. Some of you want commitment, but the thing is without emotional maturity you're not going to have a successful relationship. Let's think about this for a second. Here in the United States, we have roughly a 50% divorce rate for first-time married couples. And for second and third marriages, it's a 65 to 75% rate. Think about that. You have a three and four chance of failing on you. So, and let's exclude marriage. That's even if you got to the point of married the second or third time. What about relationships? They actually fail at a much higher rate. Why? Because we're so hyper-focused on attraction and romance in the early stage of dating without really determining, is this person compatible with me? Do we share the same values? Are our lifestyles blendable? And more importantly, does this person have the skills to actually dive into the challenges most relationships have? So, coming back to Louis Howes, he set that standard for himself. And by the way, he's a male doing this. I'm inviting, since my audience is mostly women, I'm inviting every woman to set that same standard for themselves going forward. You know, one of the things I've established is something called my dating vows, okay? Here's an example of how you can apply this. So my dating vows, it says here, by the way, there's a link below to get a copy of my dating vows, okay? Get him to commit before sleeping together. Have you ever heard the saying, women are the gatekeepers of sex and men are the gatekeepers of commitment? The dating vow goes like this. It's an agreement two people make with each other before they become physically intimate with one another. So you have this sense of attraction towards this person. You've spent some time determining that you want to explore a relationship and here is the vow you make to each other. Each person recites their name. I agree to explore the process of getting to know you with the intent to declare something serious within three to six months. That's like saying we're intentional in this process. We're agreeing that we're both going to really get to know each other to see if it makes sense to declare something serious within 90 days or a little bit longer than that. I agree to be, and you put in your name, I agree to be monogamous sexually while we're having regular sex together. Do you not realize how many people find themselves in situationships and casual relationships unclear as to the monogamy or exclusivity of this dynamic? Listen ladies, men are the gas women of the breaks. Men are the gatekeepers, women are the gatekeepers of the sex, men are the gatekeepers of commitment. It's incumbent upon you. I mean, and listen, I'm not suggesting you have to follow this advice. I'm offering this up as suggestions for you. The third one, I agree not to actively seek to meet and date others while we're in the dating process including taking down my dating profile. If how many of you have found yourself in dynamics where you're physically intimate with someone but they're still on their dating profiles? Let me say this. The online dating dynamic can almost turn into an addictive quality. It can be incredibly addictive to get validation from other people. Certainly Instagram is one way of this happens. Facebook, social media, but more importantly through dating sites. So you make these agreements if you're physically intimate with one another. This is just my suggestion for you. Number four, I agree to speak up if this isn't working for me versus pulling back, ghosting or disappearing. Do you know when grownups enter into a relationship they don't ghost one another. If something's bothering them, they speak up. They do it in a nonviolent way. You haven't read the book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. Again, link below to get a copy of all the books I recommend. What this teaches is compassionate communication. It teaches the importance to express when you're not feeling happy about something in the relationship, it express it not blaming the other person, merely express the feeling that's coming up for you. I'm feeling sad when we don't communicate on a regular basis and I have a need for regular communication to establish trust between us. So you establish what you're feeling, you express the need, and then it's incumbent upon the other person to meet that need. But we have this dynamic in our current dating environment where people ghost, pull away and disappear. Now it's one thing if you need to pull away just a little bit to process your feelings. I'm not here to suggest you have to literally deal with everything in this moment and the second that happens. We might need time to process our feelings but you shouldn't abandon the relationship while you're processing your feelings or you simply make a request, I need a little bit of break to process something. See when humans actually, coming back to Lewis Howes, I suspect because they went to therapy, Ian is now fiance because they learned common language, they learned the tools, the communication language and tools to express themselves in a healthier way. And the last vow is I agree to invest regular time in the process to getting know you which looks like the following. Those who know me know my desired relationship looks like this. We spend three or four days and nights a week together doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, teamwork building skills both in our personal or professional life, intimacy, both physical and emotional intimacy that leads to moving in together, getting married. I've established my standard. Ladies, I invite you to establish your standard because this is the basis of how you're going to choose someone in your life and the right man will wanna meet your standard because his standard is most likely aligned with your standard. His standard is aligned with your standard. Now I'll be candid with you, 90% of men will bail on this because there are thousands of women who will have sex without any commitment or agreement whatsoever. Do you realize that we have more casual relationships these days than we do marriages? I believe we have more casual, by the way, this is just an assumption on my part. We have more people in situationships without any clarity, 90, if all women band together going forward, this will change how men treat and view sex, but in the meantime, if the guy you're with agrees, you have a better chance of commitment with them. Folks, I'm here to encourage all of you, first and foremost, do your own work. If you haven't read the book, the Hoffman process, the Hoffman process. This is a deep dive into healing. Your childhood wounds and adult traumas and puts you on a path of growth. And if you really want to take it to the next level, folks, you have to read this book. If you want to take it to the next level, read the book, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. By the way, there's a link below to get a PDF copy of all the books I recommend. I highly recommend this book. If you want to take it to the next level, this is not a dating or relationship book. This is a book to really get clarity on who you are and learn how to talk to the voices in your head. And I would recommend that you and anyone you're dating start reading books together. The right man who wants to commit will do these things for you because if you approach the process, well, Jonathan, I'm just supposed to sit back in my feminine energy and just let the guy lead. If you approach the process that way, you're setting yourself up for failure. You are in charge of your relationship, Destiny. Do not give that up to a man. And by the way, you both, by the way, I'm here to encourage mutual effort from both sides. I wish we could throw out the stupid gender rhetoric and narrative that's out there and say, how can two sovereign beings show up in partnership, not in this rhetoric that men are the leaders and a woman must submit to a man because that's how relationships work. And I get it from a biblical perspective, but honestly, I'm not sure that people are happy in those dynamics as well. I look at it as two, no different than two attorneys joining forces together, two doctors joining forces together, two CPAs joining forces together. Let's establish this partnership together. And we take turns where necessary, but more importantly, we leverage each other's strengths and we support one another when we're not all that we can be. And this is one of the benefits of doing growth, personal growth, personal growth, self-help and spiritual work, personal development, self-help and spiritual work because you can grow together as a couple. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? If it is, please let me know. Post a comment below. I'd like to hear all your thoughts. As always, if you find value in this, please hit the like button. Please share this video. Please subscribe to my channel and hit that notification bell as well. Okay, I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do. First off, giving myself a big, gigantic Jonathan Barak of self-love. I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm gonna ask you to turn to someone, a Pat, a Teddy Bear pillow. Give Iter them a hug of love. These hugs are a great source of love and let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch. Bye-bye now. Bye-bye.