This is the second installment of ‘Mobile University’, or formerly known as ‘What I am Listening to in My Car’. I haven’t been spending a bunch of time in my car lately, but I continue to use that time for what Zig Ziglar calls “Mobile University”.
I didn’t select Love Smart because I need a man. I have one already. We’ve been married for nearly 27 years. I do have several friends and a couple of family members who are looking, but that’s not why I selected this book, either. I selected this audio book because I have a kid who’s not doing such a good job of loving smart, so I decided to listen to Love Smart to see if I could pass along any nuggets to help him learn to love smart. The book doesn’t address his issues, but has given me some insight into how relationships with the opposite sex are formed.
I think Dr. Phil is right that it is mostly women that seek men for long term relationships and not the other way around, so that’s why he speaks in this book primarily to women. Men simply do not read this kind of book unless they have experienced enough bad relationships that they start to get a clue that their relationship train wrecks may be partly their fault.
I agree with Dr. Phil that women tend to jump into wanting to make a relationship permanent when it’s simply not the right relationship to make permanent. People need to really pay attention to what they want in another human being and seek those people out. I know that more than a couple of people have thought the method I used to determine who I would marry was pretty cold hearted. Romance and physical attraction was not a major part of my method. I had selected men based upon romance and physical attraction and had found that those criteria did not attract the kind of person I needed in my life. I needed someone who was honest, faithful, spiritual, a hard worker, able to finish projects, relatively neat, willing to be a good father, and as smart or smarter than me. Physically I wanted someone taller, who’s naturally thin (because I am not), and pleasant in appearance. After I got specific about what I needed and wanted in a life mate, dating became much easier. I didn’t waste my time (or their time) with people who didn’t meet the criteria.
I was fortunate in being able to find that person quickly, after about 7 years of stumbling around in train wreck relationships, including a failed marriage, once I laid out the specific criteria. Our relationship works well because we have respect for each other as well as a desire to place the marriage above our personal egos. Neither of us has strayed too far from that path.
I would recommend listening to or reading the book “Love Smart” by Dr. Phil to gain some positive perspective in attracting and keeping the right kinds of people in your life.