 So lately I've been giving a lot of thought to how so much dating advice, particularly for women, is centered around how women must change for men, how they must pretzel for men. In addition, there's a lot of rhetoric going out there that women act very entitled, they act superior to the senses that they don't look at themselves and where they're at in their life and they're seeking the highest quality type of man. You know, the best looking, the most successful and everything, and yet they don't show up with any of those traits or attributes of ambition or character, that sort of thing. So there's a lot of rhetoric going on around there about that. And while there might be some truth to all of this, there might be some truth to all of this. I also think for those of us in midlife, and that's the category or that's the demographic I speak to, I think it's a completely different ballgame when it comes to relationships. But this is partly because roughly 75% of singles who are in the dating marketplace over 45 years old are divorced. And so it's not that women must change for men and show up a different way. I believe men must also contribute to the process of being relationship ready. So today I thought I'd lean into the conversation and why what isn't happening, what should happening and all that good stuff related to respect and commitment. Because ultimately, I believe what's the point of dating, what's the point of dating someone if there isn't the idea of this being something more substantial. That's right. That's where my, that's my philosophy. That's the point of investing time with someone if it isn't going to be substantial. Now I recognize and when I say substantial, I mean real serious commitment. Because ultimately, when you think about it, can a man be in a committed relationship with someone he doesn't respect, can they respect someone and not be in a committed relationship. Let's explore that for a little bit because today we're seeing so much casual relationships more so than committed relationships. We see way more situationships than we see fully committed relationship. We see way more friends with benefits than we see fully committed relationships. We see way more cyber relationships than we see fully committed relationships. And I believe when a man genuinely respects a woman and desires commitment, desires that sense of fully committed, it's usually a reflection of feeling a deep level of respect for this person. So why isn't this happening? Why isn't this happening? Well, folks, I think it's time to wake up to the understanding that human beings desire companionship, desire connection, they desire sex. And they can get all that without any level of commitment about that. You can get companionship, connection and sex without much of a level of commitment. You might have a agreement to be monogamous and exclusive. I was going to say that you might even get a promise of monogamy and exclusivity. And yet oftentimes those are hollow words, especially today when people can easily replace a person through our devices, through our devices, think about that. This didn't used to be the way 50 years ago, you couldn't just say, oh, I'm unhappy in this relationship, I'll just easily replace someone. You know, when we have this level of belief that we can just easily replace someone, that's not showing a level of respect for that person. That's not showing a level of care for that person. That's not showing a level of genuine desire to explore a fully committed relationship. Think about that. The desire to explore a fully committed relationship. What does that look like? What does that look like? How do we get to being a stranger to a relationship that's fully thriving? So that's a question I've been pondering lately. And I've come up with my formula, and by the way, this is not what I'm about to share is just my experiences by reading so many different books and such. But this is critically important for understanding where respect and commitment comes from. And I call it the four stages of a relationship readiness. And while this is an order, I think it's important to understand why this order makes sense. So number one is to be your best self, to be your best self. I think to be your best self includes mind, body, spirit, and emotions. And to be our best selves, I think it's important to recognize that most of us have suffered childhood wounds and traumas as well as adult traumas that can affect our relationship readiness. It can affect our emotional maturity. It can affect our relationship skills. And this is why I continually recommend human beings investing in some personal development work. This is why I continually recommend the book, The Hoffman Process. This is a deep dive into healing childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas that makes it difficult to actually be emotionally ready for a relationship. In addition, physical health, I think that's an important component to actually invest in your physical health. Your self care, meaning taking good care of your body, exercising, eating better because especially for those of us in midlife, many I've heard from women, particularly, I don't want to be a nurse or a purse to someone. Well, man doesn't want to do the same for you. So I think human beings, this isn't gender specific. Should be in a state of doing some work to prepare themselves to be in a relationship. Now, the second piece is what I teach in my private coaching is helping understand who's truly compatible with you because in a sea of meeting strangers, we can't make assumptions that someone is compatible with us. And I'm going to tell you something. Women go through my private coaching program and they all say, Jonathan, I know what I want. I know what I want. I know what I want in a relationship. And they go through this proprietary program. You know what happens? They say to me, wow, I didn't know what I wanted. I wish they taught me this years ago because in that understanding, understanding who's compatible with you, it's also important to vet or his capacity to be compatible with you and their emotional maturity. Going back to that piece I talked about before. And one of the things I teach in my private coaching is learning which questions to ask based on your personality to determine if is this person right for me? That's the second piece. The third piece is meeting people, being yourself out there, learning good flirting skills. You know, we human beings operate from this assumption, especially women. I'll be candid with you. Many of you operate from the assumption that it should just be easy. That you should be able to snap your fingers and the perfect person will just show up without any effort of work. And let me tell you something, in a sea of strangers, it's going to require putting a lot more effort and work into the process. And like this coffee mug says, I don't want to work anymore. I want to just be put up on it. I just want to be cherished, put up on a pedestal and taken care of. Many operate from that perspective. And let me just say this, finding a mate, finding a life partner, someone that's going to hold hands with you and go the distance is going to require effort on your part. And I'm sorry to say you should treat it like a part-time job, not cavalier in this process. And the job is to be relationship ready. And by putting yourself out there and learning skills to actually the skills to communicate with someone, many of you operate from a fantasy that you're good at communication. And I've often said just because women can vomit their feelings doesn't necessarily mean that they're good at articulating their feelings. The fourth and most important piece once you've met someone is how to make this relationship thrive. Because respect comes from understanding how relationships work. And this is true for men and women alike. And by the way, it only takes one person to initiate the lead in this. So I want to share with you some notes I made in this regard. And this starts from the first date all the way through being fully committed, whether you're living together or married to make the relationship thrive. You're going to have to have regular, intimate time together, intimate physical time together. Many of you who are in long distance relationships have an intimate relationship with your telephones. And not the actual person. It's going to require face to face intimate time. In addition, it's going to require having good conflict resolution skills. Every relationships have some differences. And without good conflict resolution skills, this is one of the critical pieces to gain respect for another human being is do they have a capacity to listen to what I have to say? Do they validate what I've said? And do they acknowledge that what I've said might be true for me? Might be true for me. And by the way, both parties doing this. Number three, share duties in the relationship. You know, whether it's my mom and dad, my dad paid the bills, my mom took care of the home, but having a healthy relationship has an understanding that there are duties involved in the relationship. And you each share in their duties. Folks, you guys are operating, many of you operating from this naive place and not really seeing the big picture of how a relationship works. Share duties is one of them. Number two, play in flirting, play flirting romance with one another. This is critically important to make a relationship thrive. And this is going to gain respect for one another when you're operating from this play and flirting. Why is it going to gain respect because it's going to build a bond of greater friendship with one another and let's face it, most of us respect our friends. Otherwise, they wouldn't be in our lives. And the fifth piece that I share is integration into your each other's lives. That's why cyber relationships don't work very long because there's little or no integration of family and friends and work life. Because here's the thing, when I came up with the title, I said to myself, what is it that makes a man respect you? First, he has to be in the capacity, your backtrack to respect and commit to you, respect and commit to you. He has to be in a capacity to respect himself and be in a capacity to want commitment. He has to want commitment and be capable of commitment. So here's the deal, folks. If he's going through a contentious divorce, if he has issues at work, if he's if he's got physical ailments, the ground underneath him might not feel solid to actually invest in a fully committed relationship. He may not be capable of one. OK, so that has to be there. His life has to be in order just like your life has to be in order. Because ultimately, for a man to go that level of commitment and respect, he has to feel this one emotion. It's not an emotion, a desire, I should say. And that's the desire of I want to take care of you. I want to take care of you because when you think of the words, I love you. How many people say the words I love you? By the way, you might have known each other two months and two people might say, I love you. But don't you think I love you means I'm here. You matter. We are important. I've got your back. I'm not going anywhere and I only want you. And that comes from monogamy, commitment, trust and loyalty. That's the only way this is going to go the distance for a man to want to take care of. There has to be that monogamy. There has to be that commitment to wanting to do something greater than just casual dating. There has to be that level of trust, meaning it's not just about fidelity. It's about your feelings matter to me as much as my feelings matter to you. And that loyalty piece is saying, I want to take care of you. It doesn't have to be taking care of someone financially per se, but better folks, think about wedding vows, rich or poor, sickness and health. It means I'm going to be there for you in not just the good times, but also the tough times. This isn't going to happen unless there's real, honest communication with one another, real, honest communication with one another. This is why, listen, there's a picture of my beloved nine on our third date and for three days straight, we laid our cards on the table. We operated from a place of radical honesty. And you know what I respect right in that moment? I respected her because she operated from what I believe was a place of transparency. She shared things with me that she didn't have to share with me. She shared things with me. She didn't have to share with me. And I thought to myself, wow, I respect this person. And I believe I did the same. Transparency is critically key. Vulnerability, authenticity and transparency. Look, I know you can follow the dating rhetoric and it's all about attraction and how to make someone attracted to you. So you get to the stage of having sex together. I get it. A lot of rhetoric is out there. But how much of that rhetoric is looking beyond the sex piece? How much of that rhetoric is looking to form a fully committed relationship? A lot of that rhetoric makes a lot of assumptions that men are just so chivalrous and they're going to take care of you. Like really, well, we know that's not true. Why is the divorce rate 50% for first marriages and 65% and 70% for second and third marriages? Obviously there isn't that level of monogamy, commitment, trust and loyalty. So how do we build those? Well, folks, this is why I say continually. It takes on average spending 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 your personal and your professional life, intimacy, both physical and emotional intimacy. That's how you build the deep roots of trust by doing things together and developing the most important piece for respect. And that's ultimately, have you built a friendship with one another? Have you built a friendship with one another? Stop operating from a naive place and start being in charge of your relationship, Destiny. Folks, I continually recommend the book. Why men love bitches? Why? Because this starts from the bitch stands for babe in total control of herself. Yes, this starts from an empowerment place. You are empowered to make your choices as much as you want men to lead the process. I'm here to say you are in charge of your relationship, Destiny, not the guy. And to go back to the beginning, let me just say, if you're not in a place where you genuinely love yourself, genuinely love yourself, this is why I wrote my book. What the heck is self love anyway? A journey of personal development, self help and spiritual work. Why? Because without your piece of relationship readiness, you'll continually choose men who won't commit and won't respect you. And when you can operate from a more intuitive place that you are, who are, as I teach in my private coaching, who are really the relationship ready men versus those men that want companionship, connection and sex without any direction. I call those guys the spenders. They'll spend time with you. When you can stand in your power and say, I don't want this in your life and you start with the standard you want, you will gain a man's respect who's capable of respecting you because he respects himself. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating with you? Please let me know. Please share something so I know this is actually, this is landing on you. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Wouldn't it be great if this was easy? Yeah, it'd be great if it was easy. I also believe there's a reason why it's hard work. Because you know what? The fruits of that hard work done in advance will lead to success. For many of you, and let me just say this, good men do exist out there. They really do exist. When you are in that best you, as I started before, and you can learn how to ask better questions and you actually put yourself out there. And then now you have the tools or at least the blueprint of how to make a relationship work. You have a greater chance for success than most everybody is. Winging it, winging it. All right. I think I've pontificated enough for today. We've got to see this beautiful sunrise. I hope you appreciated that. I thought it was fun watching it on my screen. I do enjoy these morning videos having coffee with you all. If I'm making a difference for you, go to the description below. Check out my links to a free discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you. If you can't afford coaching, check out my private group where you can access to me on a regular basis. Check out my book recommendations. Check me out on Instagram. And also below is the dating vows. Read those. It's in the description in the show notes. All right. I think this will be a great place to wrap up today. First off, I'm going to give myself a big, gigantic Jonathan Barrett of self love. I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm asking you to turn to someone. I've had a teddy bear pillow and give it or them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love. And let's face it. We could all use more love in our lives right now. Thanks a bunch. Bye now. Bye-bye.