 Hey everyone, this is Helena Hart from commitmentconnection.com and welcome to my interview with Carlos Cavallo on how to communicate with a man in a way that brings him closer. Carlos is a really amazing dating and relationship coach and expert in communication so I'm so excited to be talking with him today. Welcome Carlos, thank you so much for being here. It's great to be here too, thank you. Great, so I just want to jump right in. If you wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about how you came to this work and became a dating and relationship coach, that would be great. Sure, I mean a lot of it came from, I think as a lot of people do, it came from my own failures and the relationships that I was experiencing. You know, I learned first for myself and then of course to pass on to other people and I started out coaching guys both with dating relationships and generally just how to be more attractive men but also doing a little bit of life coaching in there and I kind of went into a self-immersion program of understanding not what should be in relationships but how things really are and then how we create relationships based on the reality of how people and how people work within a relationship and the real differences between men and women. I love that, thank you for sharing that, it's great. So what are some of the biggest mistakes you see women making when it comes to communicating with men and talking with them? Well, these are going to probably be, I'm hoping they're going to be different than what many people have heard before but one of the real big ones that I noticed was when women deflect compliments. When a guy is complimenting a woman, he's actually trying to give her a gift. It's literally like giving a gift and if she deflects it with, oh you know, there's a very funny video, I think it's Amy Schumer, where they do this back and forth of women that kind of deflect the other women's comments and compliments because it's not acceptable among women. Well for guys, it's actually essential when a guy compliments you, you've got to be willing to accept it because otherwise it's like a gift you're turning away. Another big one that I've seen is not expressing admiration and appreciation for what a guy does within the context of a relationship. It's very huge. A lot of women don't realize that a man feels loved within a relationship to the degree, the degree that you actually appreciate them for it. It's like your gift back to him. So admiration and appreciation is a very important factor in men feeling love. That's great, yes. I'm totally guilty of that first one and I tend to like shut down when someone compliments me. It's really, I'm just starting to get used to like even staying open to be able to hear that. So that was a great one and how would a woman convey appreciation or admiration to a guy? Like are there specific phrases or words that she should use when she's doing that? You know the easiest thing is just to say it, I mean just say, well I really appreciate you doing that. That's it. I mean and if it's sincere, he'll feel it and he'll take it in, give him time to take it in and it's kind of like a little warm glow inside us that really inspires us in terms of the relationship. Men will give a whole lot more once that batteries are charged in them. I completely agree. I really found that like acknowledgement and appreciation are kind of like the fuel that men run on, especially masculine energy men so I could not agree more. Why do you think men and women have such different communication styles? Well, men and women grew up hanging out with and bonding with more of their own gender typically, right? And not to be flippant, we're different because men and women are different in terms of brain development and the communication areas of our brains. And it's a fact that our brains have significant differences in the strengths that we have. Men learn to communicate facts. They also learn how to communicate to establish status. That's how boys grow up and why they're always putting each other down and trying to one up each other and compete. It's basically to win and to demonstrate independence and strength, whereas women learn to communicate to fit in to not be threatening or confrontational and women also communicate to connect. So when we understand the natural inclination, then we can recognize that when they happen in conversation. I call it observing ego, where you can kind of stand outside yourself a little bit and observe as if you're like a third party in the conversation that's watching the interaction. But again, if we fight reality and expect the opposite sex to be just like us, we're always going to end up frustrated and we're going to be defeated because we're really arguing against reality. We have to learn how to see things from the other side. That is totally brilliant. I've actually never heard it put that way before. So thank you for that. I totally agree. So let's start from the beginning, something that women ask me a lot is like when they're starting to date a new man, what are some questions that she could ask him or things to talk about that will really bring him closer right at the beginning of the relationship? One of the best things you can do and I teach this actually to both men and women is to do something a little bit unexpected, which is to ask a really meaningful question. I call them power questions. One of the ones, I'll give you an example here, a good example of a power question was something I used to use when I was doing speed dating. I knew that first of all, everybody was asking the same question. So where are you from? How long you've been here, blah, blah, blah. And it's always boring, especially in a limited time context. So what I started doing was using interesting questions. One of the ones I used to use was, what are you doing to make the world a better place? And then they'd be like, oh, I don't know. They kind of threw them off a little bit, and then they kind of got into it because it's a bigger question. It's a much more interesting question. Another good one is if you could have any career or job in the world, what would it be? That one's a little less daunting. Or give them a dilemma question, which is really fun too, where you ask them, would you get a really big visible tattoo to save an endangered species? And those questions can also help you kind of figure out their moral compass along the way too. So asking questions is good, but even better is just observe their behavior as you're asking these questions and see how they respond and kind of read between the lines. I really like that. Yeah, it's different. You're right. Men and women both kind of are sick of hearing the same questions over and over, and that's why they don't like dating or online dating. I totally agree. So to understand men better, what do women need to know to like read his signals? I know you're an expert on, you know, reading a man's signals or figuring out what he's really saying, sort of like reading between the lines. Do you have any tips for everyone watching when it comes to that? Yeah, one of the big questions I get is probably one of I think the biggest questions that women have about men is why men pull away or why do they become distant within a relationship? And it's often misunderstood and obviously not knowing the reasons actually creates something. Well, it's something I call the disconnection feedback loop. See, men usually disconnect or they unplug from a relationship to recapture their sense of masculinity. A lot of women interpret it as being something they did wrong. But what happens is he wants to get close and men are very intensely close right up at the very start, but after a certain period of time, he has to pull back. And again, it has nothing to do with her. A man doesn't feel completely like a man when he's intensely connected to a woman for too long of a time. He needs to be able to connect it in cycles. It's kind of like catching your breath after you're exercising. The exercise feels great, but you need to catch your breath and then you can come back at it with more renewed focus and more energy. So that's one of the really important dynamics that women have to understand about why men do that. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yes. That's probably like one of the number one questions I get are women coming to me like, what do I do? And we take it personally. We think, I mean, a lot of times this has nothing to do with her really, but we can tend to take it personally or think we did something wrong. And then we think like, well, if we caused it, then we can fix it, right? And then we do all the things that just push him further and further away. So I love what you're saying that. So what should a woman do in a circumstance like that? The man starts to back off after they spent a significant amount of time together. What would you recommend she do? Well, the best thing to do is also the hardest thing to do, which is to just let him. I mean, literally the best thing you could do would literally be pushing him where you would push him to, you know, back into his cave or back to get a little bit of a breather where you say, hey, you know what, we both have probably busy weeks going on. Why don't we catch up again next weekend and see what's going on? You know, instead of trying to push or for something to happen during the week, push him away. And that gives him a feeling of loss and of space that he wants to reclaim, right? It's what we call a positive feedback loop. It gives him something to pull on instead of something to push away. Because the big mistake is to try and cling and try and pull him back in when he's really trying to get that breather he needs. It's stifling, it's smothering, he needs it. So push him away for a little bit, and then you don't have to be as afraid of pulling him back in later. He'll be more receptive to it. That is perfect. Wow, this is really valuable information. This is just going to be so helpful for everybody. What else, when it comes to like signals and reading his signals, I would love to hear more about what you have to say on that. Well, again, the feedback loop we get into, where a guy pulls away because he needs to attend to his own feelings of masculinity, but he doesn't tell you when that's going on is really huge. But mostly it assumes, he's assuming that you're okay with it. You're going to be okay with it, but not understanding that a woman feels the disconnection in there. So one of the things that I tell a woman to do is that each side kind of has their own mysteries about how they react to a relationship and how they respond in a relationship. And a really good thing for a woman to do is to let a guy know that this happens. Because a lot of women have that experience of feeling a little bit of panic when a guy pulls away. And she can even explain it like that. She can say something like, you know, I'm working on myself. I'm doing a lot of things and trying to be more aware of what goes on in a relationship. And one of the things that kind of can freak me out sometimes is when a guy doesn't call me for like a week and, you know, she's puts that out there and then the guy's going to be like, oh, okay. Because sometimes guys aren't even really aware that they are possibly neglecting her in a lot of ways. It's just, it doesn't simply enter his mind. So her bringing it out makes him more aware and cognizant of it. I love that. I'm really like a huge fan of very like straightforward, direct communication, but still being soft and feminine at the same time that was perfect. What you said, that actually brings me to my next question. So if there's something that a man is doing or not doing, let's say a woman wants her man to do something or wants him to stop doing something, how can she best communicate this to him in a way that's really going to bring him closer that he's going to respond positively to it? Or should she even bring it up at all in your opinion? Well, you don't want things to fester. If there's something that you want or need in a relationship, you should be able to communicate it. But one thing you have to avoid is the way you communicate something, it's more about the way it's communicated, right? It's never, it should never be chastising him verbally. It should never be any kind of punishment or berating. Sometimes a woman can, actually very frequently, a woman can communicate indirectly her discomfort with something and it comes across as being a little bit passive-aggressive because the woman doesn't want to be confrontational, right? So she's going to communicate it in a way that she hopes he gets the hint, but unfortunately he won't. So we don't want to do that in public. You don't ever want to chastise him verbally. Again, the easiest thing to do is that. So the best way to get him to do something that you want him to do is to aspire him to do it. And the best thing to do is to appreciate the behavior before it's actually demonstrated. For example, let's say she's got a problem with him being a little bit messy around the house. And one of the good things she can do is to point out and acknowledge him for the things that she wants him to do. She can say something like, honey, I noticed the bedroom is usually pretty tossed by the time we get ready to go to work. Can you help me with straightening it out before we leave? And then when he does do that, you got to acknowledge it. Just say, thank you so much for doing whatever it is. Clean up the bedroom, not leaving your underwear in the sink, whatever it is. Perfect. I really love that great example. And what about like when women are more in the beginning stages of dating? Let's say she wants a man to call her more or plan a date or be more affectionate, something like that. I hear from women a lot who just kind of want more from a man. Is there a way that they can communicate some of those kinds of things? Early on, you're always a little bit more skittish because it's that unstable, insecure zone of not knowing. But again, being kind of upfront and being clear with your communication is always going to be better than trying to be clever or indirect with it. You got to be... Communication, they often say, is a much broader definition than a lot of us are used to. We think of communication as being us speaking to a person, but really it's us speaking to the person, seeing that they understood and then getting them to kind of feed it back to us. So we know they got what we said and that can be tricky too. So in the start of a relationship, are you talking about a specific situation at the start of a relationship? Yeah, anything. Let's say a woman wants a guy to call her more and not text. I hear that one a lot, or she wants to be more affectionate or more proactive, something like that. One of the things guys respect more than anything is a very direct request for whatever it is you want. So if that's what you want, again, don't hint it to them because guys are terrible at subtleties and communication. You got to be more direct. So if he's texting you, you let the text go back and forth and then just finish it with, hey, let's catch up by phone later. What time are you available? Very direct like that. Now a woman's going to be like, oh my god, I can't do that. That's too direct and confrontational, but trust me, that's how men communicate. And we appreciate that coming from a woman is very direct and simple communication. Yeah, I completely agree. Men are, in my experience, are pretty... They're not inferential. They don't always get our hints. Even though we think we're communicating them strongly, they don't always get it. So I know men really appreciate that straightforward, direct communication, especially if we're not making them wrong or not doing something. So I love that. That was great. Let me switch gears a little bit. How would a woman know if she should keep trying to make her current relationship work or end her relationship and start over and try and find somebody new? That's another situation I hear from a lot with women. Yeah, it's tricky because nobody really likes to tell somebody, oh, you should dump that person or whatever. We always want to encourage them to give it their best shot. But there are a lot of relationships that are better off ended sooner rather than later. And really to accept that, we have to be very accepting of the fact that most relationships don't work out. I mean, really the only one that works out is the one you get married in and the one you, I guess, spend the rest of your life in. So you've got to be willing to go through a lot of relationships. So you have to listen to your heart to give you that final answer. But you do have to realize that when you're in a relationship, it's probably the toughest decision to make. Your viewpoint is going to be skewed. You've got an emotional investment. There are hormones in both men and women's bodies that keep you actually addicted to the relationship itself, the interaction back and forth. And it's also the path of least resistance to stay in a relationship. The hardest thing to do is to leave the known for the unknown that could be worse than what we have. It's that saying better than the double you know than the double you don't know. So we're going to be more tempted to stay in it. Oh, it could be worse. You start to rationalize things. That's why the best thing you can do at the start of any relationship or actually before you get into a relationship is to make a list of the things that are must-haves for you. You've got to have and the list of things that you don't want in a relationship and always be a little cold and critical. Sometimes you got to kind of take your emotions out of it to get the right answer to be able to compare it to what you want and what you're not getting. So if you have that idea in your head, it'll be a lot easier for you to make that decision down the road. That is brilliant. I love that. I know I was like the queen of staying in relationships way too long. And this is Leo. I told you he'd probably jump in here. He always, as soon as I stood up the camera, he always just wants to point in on the conversation. So yeah, I would always, I don't know a woman on this planet actually who hasn't stayed in a relationship way longer. But I totally agree with what you said. It's that unknown is so scary sometimes. So like how, what would you tell a woman who's sort of at that place where she is ready to find something else better for herself, but she's scared of the unknown? Do you have any tips for someone in that situation? Well, one of the best things you can do is to kind of ground yourself in your own reality. I mean, think back to the time before this relationship. You were probably in a similar situation. You didn't have anybody necessarily. You weren't, you may not have been dating anyone. You might have been in a period where you weren't seeing anybody. You were dealing with the uncertain DNA time. So you were okay. What's got you spooked right now is the fact that you're also going to be losing something you've already got. And as the saying goes, we're always much more afraid of losing what we have than what we could possibly gain. So you have to also balance it with the future hope of really finding the match that you want. If you've got a good idea of the kind of relationship you want, and you can imagine that clearly in your head, well, then you've got something to look forward to and something to kind of carry it past a lot of the uncertainty and anxiety going out on your own again. I totally agree. I know it can be just a really scary place to be in, but everyone I found was in a great relationship at some point had to take that step into the unknown. Absolutely. So I love everything you said about that. What would you say is like the most important quality to look for in a partner and in ourselves even in order to have a really like successful fulfilling relationship? Well, I have a skill that I call, it's called, it's a little wordy, but it's called looking at you looking at me. And what it is, it's cultivating this ability to see through the eyes of our partners and ourselves. We've got to be able to see how the other person is perceiving us and kind of against it goes back to what I was talking about before where you can step out of your side and observe from a more removed viewpoint. I think that's probably one of the most important things because you have to be able to look at your own needs, your own, any situation, you know, even if it's down to something where it might be like a jealousy pervoking event, you're out with your significant other and he or she's talking to somebody else, you've got to be able to step out a little bit from yourself and detach from your emotions and be able to disconnect. And it's a tricky one because it's probably, from what I've seen, it's one of the hardest to acquire, but also the most important to have. It's not just valuable in your relationship, it's also valuable in business and negotiation and working with people. Any interpersonal skill requires you to kind of step outside of yourself and look at something from a detached perspective. Yes, absolutely. Wow. That can be difficult though. Is there any, I mean, how specifically can someone do that? Like what's the first step? Let's say they're in like an emotionally charged situation with their partner and it can be hard to step out of that. Do you have any tips on how they can actually do that? Yeah, one of the best ways would be through journaling, which is a popular thing for women I think to do is it starts out with your writing in a diary when you're younger. Even guys do it, it gives you a perspective and that's really what we're talking about, is perspective. It's kind of like climbing up on a mountain to look down on everything and see what it looks like from a more detached viewpoint. You can do that through journaling. Write down, if there's an event or a conversation you had where you're a little confused about the outcome, write it down, kind of journal your feelings and how things transpired in the interaction and then really look at your emotions because that's what's triggering you. How are you responding to that? What was it you felt that made you say that thing that might not have gone over so well? Where are your emotions coming into play and that sort of thing? Journaling is excellent for that and I highly recommend everybody use that for the relationships but it also gives you that ability to go back and look at something that happened with a new perspective that lets you improve as you move through a relationship instead of falling into old patterns. I love that. I can just imagine. It's almost like a little observer stepping back sort of like zooming out and getting a bigger picture. Yeah, I love that. That's a really, really great tool. So once we're in a relationship, how can we be sure to communicate with our partner in a way that our needs get met or that we get what we want, we get everything we need in the relationship itself? Yeah, that's really important. One of the things is, well first of all to watch out for those dysfunctional little loops that we get into. Sometimes we have hot buttons and our partner pushes the hot button and then we react to it and then they react to our reaction and then we get into this kind of a crazy tornado of emotion. That's one thing to watch out for. So understand and know your own hot buttons and what triggers you. A lot of couples fall into what I call a pattern of indirect communication. They assume things that are being communicated or understood or leave things unspoken and hopes that the other person should just kind of know what they meant by it or know what they were meaning and you got to avoid that elephant in the room to avoid the possibility of the person maybe rejecting you or revoking their love. These are all fears that come into play in a relationship. Again, knowing your hot buttons, but you got to have a little bit more willingness to be more direct with your communication. Just kind of step out of your comfort zone, be willing to press into that space of being a little bit more persistent and it's probably what a lot of people like to call assertiveness. It's not being annoying, it's not being aggressive, it's being assertive, it's making sure that both needs are being met in the relationship. That is great and I'm like laughing over here because I've found we tend to find people or attract people who like push those buttons in us or know exactly how to push your buttons in a way that just drives you crazy. So do you have any like specific scripts or things to say? Let's say you have certain things that you're sensitive about or that you have a button that could be pushed, would you do recommend like communicating that with your partner up front or like before it happens or after? What's your suggestion there? Yeah, I definitely recommend you do that. I think it's actually, it's very important for women to do this for a lot of reasons. Number one is guys are hyper sensitive to what we call that a clingy needy girl. The one that we assume is going to kind of overwhelm us with the need to have a relationship when we're not quite ready. Most guys are ready for relationships by the way and what happens is we can kind of get spooked easily. So one of the ways you can avoid that is to communicate something that you know triggers you just very simply putting it out there with a story is the best way. Just have a little story about a previous time that it happened like, oh my god, I got to tell you about this. This one girlfriend of mine has always managed to push my buttons like this and then you just kind of explain the situation where it actually came up. He'll have a context and he'll be able to understand that. You can't just say, oh you know what it really pushes my buttons when people just text me back, hey instead of okay and don't reply and then full text. He needs a little bit more of an example and that really does a good job of like I call it training him to not do those things to not push those buttons. So communicating with stories always a good way to go. That is great. I've actually never heard it put that way before. So thank you for that. What about after it's happened? Let's say a man says something that really hurt your feelings. Maybe he wasn't I'm sure he wasn't aware. Most men aren't trying to hurt you. They're just sometimes clueless about those buttons, you know. So what would you recommend a woman say to a man after the fact? A good way to do it is to be a little bit self-deprecating about it. Make sure first of all that you are past most of the emotions of it because sometimes the emotions of the moment can make you communicate it in a little bit harsher way that you might interpret as being an accusation. Guys are very sensitive to things that trigger a woman's anger or don't please a woman because it's just this little thing in our psychology we're always trying to make women happy. It's a very big drive that most women don't even know about that guys have. So be careful that you don't do that. You don't want to communicate something that might make them think oh my god she's rejecting me based on that but come back with something very just slightly self-deprecating is fun but with a little bit of humor like oh my god so let me can I tell you something about one weird way that I respond to things and let him give you permission to actually do that first. Don't just go barreling into it because there's something I have something I got to tell you can I tell you about and let him say yeah yeah go ahead tell me whatever it is. That helps a lot because now he's kind of a part of the interaction instead of just the receiver that you're throwing the stuff at that's a really good way to do it and then you can kind of go into a detail about so it kind of may be able to feel a little bit weird you know just describe the experience from your perspective and the way your emotions came up without bringing him into it as much as you can and you'd be amazed at how much more responsive he'll be first by asking if you can and then by bringing in your actual experience to it. I love that it's almost like owning your experience like rather than holding a man responsible for your feeling just sort of sharing your feelings without making him wrong or I found men like they can handle our anger and our emotions they just don't like it when we say it's their fault like you made you made me upset or you hurt me or you disrespected me is that do I have that right that's something I really experienced. Yeah that's that's very important in fact because when you do attribute it to us or make it even slightly seem like there's it's our fault even if it is our fault it really puts a guy on the defensive as it does to a woman too right it's pretty it's probably one of those things that we both both sides do equally so really do that and then another thing actually is to also understand I have a saying it comes from Steve and Coby which is understand first and then be understood so maybe it's a good idea before you go into your trigger and what happened and why you know he did what he did find out why he did what he did kind of ask him a question about that just say hey it was kind of curious you said this what you know I'm not sure maybe I misunderstood that and let him explain it and you'd be surprised that what he said and what he actually meant were actually pretty far apart and then you can go oh okay because I totally misunderstood that and you'd be surprised how that clears it up right there you don't even have to go into a lot of detail about it. Yeah I'm laughing again over here yeah absolutely men do not always mean what we think they mean like I found our perception about what a man means is like wrong so much of the time because it's going through our own filters and perspective and everything so that was really helpful this this has been I just can completely like I don't know that this is really really helpful you're talking about things in ways that I haven't heard them before so I know everyone got so much out of this thank you so much and where do people um where do people go to learn more about you and what are you know do you have a free gift to offer everyone listening I'm sure everyone's gonna want to go take advantage of that. Sure definitely um well of course the best gift is just to get on my newsletter get all the great stuff I've got for free I mean I send up videos and all sorts of stuff like that but I've got a a quiz that I know women love taking it's called uh does he love you and you can get that actually at datingadviceguru.com forward slash does he love you or does he love me I think I have it under both in case you you change the pronoun but that quiz it's actually on the site you'll find it all over the site gives you a quick quiz to figure out whether or not he's as into you and the relationship as you might think he is perfect I love it so datingadviceguru.com slash does he love you do I have that right does he love you yep perfect well this has been amazing I actually learned a lot so thank you so much and uh yeah hopefully we can do this again yeah this is really great thank you