Two Secrets to a Really Happy Marriage

I was in the doctor’s waiting room and picked up a men’s magazine with a cover story on something about what men really want in sex.  Now I’ve shared that in the book His Needs, Her Needs (see my resources) it is stated that a man’s number one need is sex.  I was right when I assumed the magazine article would discuss various acts and positions.  But the take away from scanning the article was that men believe the most important thing in sex is their partner’s enthusiasm.

I believe that every marriage can be really happy with the addition of two things.  The first thing needed is enthusiasm, and not just for the sex.

Two weeks ago while discussing the four things I learned living overseas, I mentioned some coworkers who complained about relatively insignificant things and constantly compared their experiences in Spain to living back home.  I’m reading The Magic of Thinking Big, and David Schwartz talks of the importance of digging in to study something to in turn become more enthusiastic about it.  He gives an example of a family who moved from Detroit to Florida, but did not dig into the history, plans for the future, or the people of their location in Florida.  So six weeks later they moved back to Detroit, where their friends were.

Now I’m pretty sure that if you weighed Detroit versus Florida, Florida would come out on top – unless that’s where you live right now.  Dr. Schwartz says that this family moved their bodies to Florida, but left their minds in Detroit.  That is a good way of describing many of my coworkers who went to Spain for  a two year contract – they were there in body, but did not dig in to the language, history, culture, art, and people and left their minds in the USA.  I can contrast that with the coworkers that had an opportunity to come to Spain for a week or two.  In general they approached the opportunity with enthusiasm and like an adventure, and wanted to soak up as much of the experience as possible, like a sponge.

In a marriage you have to really know your spouse and be enthusiastic to be with them.  Enthusiasm ensures that you are with them body and mind.

The second thing needed in a really happy marriage is a positive attitude. 

At the SCORRE conference, I had the opportunity to ask several couples with decades of marriage each, what they thought was the most important thing for a long and successful marriage.  One husband replied immediately: “more sex.”  While there is some truth to that, he added that he really thought the most important thing is to always assume the best and give your spouse the benefit of the doubt.  He added that you always get back more of what you give.  That sums up beautifully the idea of thinking positively about your spouse.  We reinforce and fertilize our thoughts by repeating them, so why not start with something good and positive?

When I began this blog I shared the story of the debate between the Roman and the Greek that was done in sign language, from the Book of Good Love.  The Roman ruffian assumes the Greek doctor is threatening him, and responds with a threat of his own.  But the Greek doctor assumes the Roman is responding to his scholarly statement with a scholarly correction.  Each one sees what they expect and want to see.

As Dr. Schwartz says, right attitudes pave the way to really happy married life.  I have discussed how encouragement and gratitude can turn Good Love into Better Love.  But with enthusiasm and a positive attitude, it becomes even happier Better Love.  What about you?  Are you in your marriage body and mind?  This very day, can you show more enthusiasm to your spouse, and concentrate on the positive?

Three Steps Towards Conquering Fear

Almost everyone, even those who make their living giving presentations or speeches, has a fear of public speaking.  I tested my fear of speaking this week at the SCORRE conference where I learned about public speaking and applying the SCORRE methodology to both speaking and writing.

I have found in recent self examination that fear is at the heart of many things that have impacted my life, and quite a few unpleasant childhood experiences.  When I wrote about the fact that Suicide is Never the Right Answer, I talked about pain and shared a story about my root canal.  Many people share the fear of the dentist, and watching the movie Marathon Man does not help.  In the movie, Dustin Hoffman is tortured by a Nazi dentist trying to get information (that Hoffman doesn’t have) on the location of some diamonds.  My dentist told me a couple times I wasn’t feeling pain, only pressure and vibration, when I flinched and moaned.  Well, I know pain, and I know when I’m feeling pain.  So I asked the dentist to please not ask me if it is safe (the question repeated to Hoffman during his torture).  The dentist said he had seen the movie but had never had a patient refer to it before.  But he didn’t offer any more Novocain or anything else either.

Some recent reading led me to think of three steps I need to take in addressing some forms of fear in my life, and these same steps can help you conquer fear:

(1)   Recognize your fear – I was re-reading Michael Hyatt’s book Platform – Get Noticed in a Noisy World the week before SCORRE because I thought I would get a chance to talk to him at the conference.  He talks about five obstacles to success, but says the last one – fear – is the only real obstacle.  The others are only excuses.  Fear paralyzes us and impedes our movement forward; we get stuck.  But we can’t work on conquering the fear and getting unstuck to move forward if we don’t realize the role of fear on us.

(2)   Take Action – What Michael Hyatt shared with me, and it was good to review, is that courage is not the absence of fear.  Courage is the taking of action to move forward despite the fear.  So once we have recognized that we have fear that needs to be addressed, we need to purpose to take action to defeat the fear.

(3)   Think Positively – It has been shown that constant repetition of our thoughts reinforces them and actually makes them grow as fertilizer would a garden.  What is critical is that this is true for both positive and negative thoughts.  So we also have to purpose to grow a garden of positive thoughts in our mind by both thinking positively, and also repeating those same positive thoughts over and over.

We all have fears of various kinds.  We can choose to magnify those fears and let them block our success or we can conquer them by first recognizing they exist, then taking action to move forward, and continually purposing to think positively.

The image above is thanks to a page of fear quotes at http://www.anthonybasich.com/inspirational-quotes/fear-quotes/

Four Lessons From Living Overseas For Ten Years

I lived in Spain for ten years while working in a Civil Aviation Assistance Group of the Federal Aviation Administration – helping Spain improve their air traffic control system.  As I look back on that time there were four important things I learned in those ten years.

The first thing I learned is that different doesn’t always have to be better or worse than what you expect or what you are used to.  Sometimes it is just different.  As an example, one coworker constantly complained that he had to ask for butter for his bread at a restaurant.  Another example was the complaining about the different driving habits.  My response was, if you want everything to be just like it is back home, why leave home?  When a person is willing to adapt, it makes for greater satisfaction and happiness, in life in general – not just living in a foreign country.

The second thing I learned is the importance of being able to speak the language of the place where you live.  I never would have been able to understand the people and culture to the extent I did, or be successful in my work, without learning Spanish.  Foreign languages come to me with difficulty, but I had the two necessary prerequisites – a desire to learn and the opportunity to speak it every day, all day.  Now my hobbies include studying Spanish refranes (proverbs) and Medieval Spanish poetry like the 14^th century Book of Good Love.

The third thing that I learned was how different the meaning of the word “history” can be between the United States and Europe.  Our country is a little over 200 years old and to go into a house built in the 18th century is impressive.  In Spain I was impressed when I went into a church built in the 9^th or 11th century, and even more impressed when my 8 year old son found a coin from the 2nd century Before Christ.

The last thing I learned has to do with making dates each weekend with one of my four kids, just the two of us.  Each child had a date with dad once a month.  I learned much later just how important those dates were to the kids.  These times resulted in important “us” memories.  At one point my son Matt told his grandmother that his favorite thing about Spain was his dates with dad.

More importantly, as I learned how much these times meant to me I discovered my biggest regret in life as I approach my 60^th birthday.  Now that all four kids are adults and have left the house, I wish I had spent more time with them as they were growing up, and been more consistent over a longer period with the dates.

My outlook on life and my appreciation of and tolerance of differences were affected by living for ten years in a very different culture.  But when I look back on my life, I don’t wish I had spent more time at work, or more time traveling for work and hobbies, or more time with friends.  What I wish I had spent more time on are my children.  If you have kids, and they’re still at home, value the time you have with them and try to make the most of it.  Make more good memories together.

The photo above has a quote from the poet Leon Filipe:

“Spain …
… about your life, the dream,
about your history, the myth,
about the myth, the silence…”

Fighting Mediocrity

“The truth is, mediocrity is natural.  You don’t have to do anything to drift there.  It just happens.”  Those are Michael Hyatt’s words in his book Platform – Getting Noticed in a Noisy World.  It’s the truth – in every area of our lives, without an effort to fight mediocrity, that is exactly where we end up, mediocre or worse.  We would all like an extraordinary life, but we drift into settling for the ordinary.

Sometimes we take our marriages and family relationships for granted.  We get caught up in the urgencies of everyday life and we forget things.  We forget that our parents won’t always be here, or that we won’t always be here for our children and grandchildren either.  But without a fight to make the most of the time we do have together, to make good memories that will last, we later look back and find we have been stuck in mediocrity.

A recent visit with our granddaughters prompted us to visit the store together and get some card games (including monopoly) and a game with dice.  The dice had symbols on each side and after rolling them you make up a story using each symbol.  It was a good and sometimes surprising exercise of the imagination.  It would have been easy to settle for the ordinary and just drift from meals to watching TV, but we wanted to make some memories – and we did.

I’ve been reviewing the importance to me of coming up with some goals, both short and long term.  As I recently shared, next month I turn 60 and I want to shift some priorities.
The main shift is that I want to move closer to special and extraordinary and distance myself from the mediocre.  I have shared in Action, Application, Change that you have to take action to apply the wisdom you read or hear.  But action alone is not enough.  You have to make application of the specific wisdom that indeed seems so applicable to you.  The most important step though, and the one I have missed over the years in certain areas, is that you have to be open and willing to change.  If you don’t see the application all the way through to make a positive change in your life, the wisdom does you no good.  You may have heard a fantastic message, taken notes and highlighted parts, been convinced that the wisdom of the message is applicable to your life, even realize you want to apply the principles to your life and determine to do so.  But if you are not really willing to change what you hear and see needs to be changed in your life, you remain stuck in mediocrity.

I shared in Action, Application, Change that James 1:22 tells us if you listen but do not do, you deceive yourself.  You deceive yourself into thinking you have made progress because you’ve heard wisdom that gave you insights.  That makes you feel better, and the deceit that that is enough prevents you from following through and purposing to change.  I have found that when I “come to my senses” (like the prodigal son here and here) and see the need for change and then purpose to be open to the needed change, improvement comes in a change for the better.  How about you – have you heard or read something lately that should prompt a change for the better?

Thanks to http://www.kgsbikes.com/news/on-the-road-to-mediocrity-from-seth-s-blog for the image.

Victim or Crowns and Victory?

There are two words in Greek for crown, one for the crown of rule like a king’s, and another a victory crown, won in a competition.  The second, the victory crown is the crown I receive from my granddaughters.  Proverbs says that grandchildren are the crown of their grandparents.  There is a competition for my time and interest, just as there is a competition for the time and interest of my granddaughters.  When I succeed in making a memory we all will treasure and remember, that is a victory in life against the daily struggles and circumstances that can sidetrack us.

Proverbs also says that an excellent (worthy, virtuous, strong) wife is the crown of her husband.  And just as submission is to be mutual with both the husband and wife, I believe that an excellent husband is also the crown of his wife.  But the wife is mentioned in Proverbs because of her importance to the strength and maturity of the family.  By maturity I don’t mean the age of the family or its members, but their ability to grow and learn from their circumstances and experiences.

The heart of how an excellent wife does this is by accepting the responsibility for the family support and growth.  This morning, while singing “You wear the victor’s crown, you have overcome” I was struck by the contrast between an excellent wife and maybe a not so excellent wife.  The excellent wife has overcome many challenges and issues and come out of them wearing a victor’s crown, which in turn provides a crown to her husband.  In contrast, another wife thinks more along the lines of “you have been overcome” and assumes the role of a victim.

The victim mentality gets stuck on blaming others and circumstances for everything that they wish was better.  The victor mentality accepts the fact that they cannot change all the circumstances or events, but they can control how they respond to them.  They can choose to be a victor rather than a victim, and therefore deserve a crown.   How about you?  Are there some areas you could look at more as a victor?  Do you appreciate the crown of victory provided by your spouse?

Lessons From the Grandchildren

I was thinking of the contrasts I see observing  my granddaughters, and my eye was caught by an article on the difference in the number of laughs per day of a 4 year old versus those of a 40 year old.  This article, and several others suggest almost a two order of magnitude difference – 300 laughs at 4 years versus 4 laughs a day at 40 years.  While I find it hard to believe that the average 4 year old laughs 300 times on an average day, I would believe that there is an order of magnitude difference – that is that a child laughs ten times more often than a mature adult.

But there are other contrasts that also come to mind as I observe and interact with my granddaughters that seem to highlight the differences between young and “mature.”  Not only do the young laugh more, they laugh longer and harder.  Another difference is the level of enthusiasm of youth, which I commented on in reference to my granddaughters, here.  I would like to show the same enthusiasm for those activities I have decided to invest my time and money in – those things I deem important in reference to my limited resources, as is demonstrated in youth upon receiving presents.

Then there is a wonder in youth, the ability to be surprised or even amazed at the things we mature folk accept as normal or even take for granted.  The wonder maintains and increases the level of interest, which magnifies the return gained from the efforts and experiences that prompt the wonder.  I could use more wonder in my life.  I need to remind myself not to take so many important things for granted – from my health to the love and partnership of my wife.

Then there is an innocence in youth.  The young don’t worry about so many “important” things, like the huge national debt, or rogue powers gaining nuclear weapons.  For so many of these things, we mature ones can’t really impact or change them, so does it really serve us to worry about them?  Some suggest that innocence is really the most attractive characteristic of a child, one of the reasons that children are so beautiful.

Something that I would say goes hand in hand with innocence, is curiosity.  I want to have more of a desire for the investigation and learning of a child, even if it is in reference to mature subjects.

It would seem that many of these characteristics of youth could be summed up with the French term, joie de vivre, or joy of life.  I would define it as a relaxed and spontaneous enjoyment of life, life to the fullest.  Isn’t what we all want?  What can you do to increase your laughter, enthusiasm, wonder, innocence and curiosity?

Thanks for the image, from http://www.perfectlyflawedandgracefullycalled.com/2012/09/05/preserving-innocence-a-moms-most-important-job/

 

The Importance of Confidence

Two weeks ago I shared Michael Hyatt’s experience golfing with two friends.  They were both excellent golfers, but one was encouraging and the other very critical.  Michael always golfed better with the encourager, and enjoyed it much more.  He surmised that the encouragement gave him more confidence which in turn allowed him to perform better.  It was as if the confidence that you can do better becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when you believe it, through the encouragement of someone who knows the subject.

Just as Michael saw the value in encouragement giving confidence through a contrast, so I have seen principles brought to life through a contrast of the good and not so good.  I talked about the differences between a good boss and not so good one here and here.  One of the characteristics of a good boss is the willingness to make decisions promptly.  This in turn comes from the boss’s confidence, I believe, and the knowledge that delaying a decision leads to a wandering of the organization.

When a boss has well placed confidence he leads a team and makes wise decisions.  I have appreciated working for good bosses with this characteristic.  But the contrasts are the bosses who seem confident in their skills and abilities as a manager, but their confidence is largely misplaced.  As a result of their bad decisions and without the proper consideration of the inputs and outcomes, their poor management breeds contempt and a lack of teamwork.

We have also all had coworkers with an abundance of confidence.  I remember those whose confidence was well placed.  They knew their area of expertise and were willing to share with others.  They valued the opinions of others even though they knew their stuff.  The contrast is the coworker who is confident to the point of arrogance, who thinks he is better than all the rest because he thinks he knows it all (even when he demonstrates he doesn’t).

The meaning of the word confidence is to trust or have faith.  I’ve been talking about self confidence, so that is faith in yourself.  We need to have faith that it is true that we can do better, can be better, and enjoy it more.  We have to be able to visualize success and our ability to do this.  Perhaps most important is that we have to be consistent in our endeavors.  This again becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.  As we build more confidence, we eliminate the self-doubt, which in turn leads to success, which then enables us to become even more confident.

How about you?  Is there someone who encourages you, or someone you wished encouraged you more?  Why not tell them?  And isn’t there someone you would like to see with more confidence, that could use words of encouragement from you?  What are you waiting for?

Thanks to http://howtogetconfidence.org/ for the image.  Our cat looks like that one, and his name is Leo, but I’m not sure he ever looks in the mirror.