Are You Striving or Status Quo?

We can get pretty caught up in our classification of each other from time to time – race, culture, age, gender, occupation, cheese pizza or supreme.


On any given day, I can lump all of humanity into just two catergories:

The Strivers and The Status Quo.

The Status Quo can typically be found on the couch, playing video games, complaining about work while not doing anything to improve it. They have a vast collection of movies, DVR’d shows, Netflix channels, and satellite tv stations, all existing on one gargantuan media center (“television”).

Strivers are characterized by constantly moving about from project to project, idea to idea, and having far more goals than they can achieve. They can be overheard loudly talking about their last great adventure, business venture, or night out, or they are planning their next one. They are often defined as “ADHD” or “Type A”.

The funny thing is, we are all BOTH Strivers and Status Quo. I guess I am wrong to characterize these as categories – not very therapist-like of me – they are more like two ends of a spectrum:

Striving……………………..Middle…………………………Status Quo

As I think about it, we all seem to fluctuate back and forth on. Just like any spectrum, going too far to one extreme and staying there for too long can be dangerous or unhealthy. Never moving from a particular spot on the spectrum can boring for you, and tiring some for those around you.

So where are you on that spectrum? Where are you today, where are you this year, and where do you WANT to be on it?

What are you going to do about it?

Me, I love striving. I’m a big fan of getting out there and DOING something with my family, my health, and my career. Racing, hiking, writing, DOING things. New things, different things, setting goals and moving forward. But I sure do enjoy falling into the couch to play a good round of mindless video games for an hour or two (3….maybe 4… hopefully never more than 4….). And I have NO PROBLEMS hanging up the hammock and disappearing into it for a few hours, if I’m allowed to.

I am, by no means, perfectly balanced in this spectrum. I find myself going to far to either end from time to time, and it takes a bit of encourage to find my way back. The important thing is to find your way back. To set some goals, but allow time to relax.

How do you manage this see-saw?

If you need help Striving, check out the works of Seth Godin and Hugh MacLeod, two of my favorites over the past few years.

If you need help relaxing with the Status Quo, there is no better teacher than “The Dude”, the anti-hero from The Big Lebowski who sparked an entire ‘religion’ around relaxing.

Where ever you find yourself on the spectrum on any given day, I hope it suits you. If it doesn’t, do something to change it. If you can’t do something about it, talk to somebody who can help you do something about it.

How Do You Feel Love?

Several weeks ago, The Terminator inspired a few articles on preserving, protecting, and improving your marriage. This week, I wanted to share with you one final resource in that work. This book and Gottman’s 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work that I wrote about last week sit side-by-side in my office, as they go together very well to prevent marriage difficulties, or to help solve them when they arise.


Gary Chapman has written several helpful books for couples, families, and parents based on the same principle, The Five Love Languages. These are EXTREMELY helpful books to take a look at before marriage, during the good times or rough times of marriage, and when it comes to raising children.

I will share with you the basic premises of the book, but I encourage you to pick up a copy and keep it on hand as a reference throughout your family life.

The basic premise is that we all have a “love bank” or bucket that our spouses or family members either deposit into or make withdrawals from. Making frequent deposits results in an abundant, happy, and healthy family life and marriage; too many withdrawals and your account will be overdrawn.

The trick from Chapman’s point of view is that we all experience and express love in different ways based upon our family of origin, what we were taught about love, our personal preferences, and a host of other variables. If we express love in a way that is different from the way our spouse feels love, then we have a disconnect – even though you might be trying your hardest to express your love, your spouse might not feel it, because they experience love in a “different language”.

The goal then is to understand what language both you and your spouse (or children) feel and experience love, and how to step outside what may be your normal expression of love to meet their needs.

Fortunately, the Chapman books break this down into FIVE easy to understand ‘love languages’, and provide a few different inventories to see which language is yours.

His five love languages are:

- Words of Affirmation – giving and receiving words of kindness and encouragement

- Quality Time – not just spending time together, but being fully present

- Receiving Gifts – as simple as it sounds, but hard to get right

- Acts of Service helping out, finishing the ‘honey-do’ list, making the coffee

- Physical Touch – hugs, kisses, holding hands, high-fives, intimacy

Looking at these written here, they appear very basic, almost simple to do. But it’s not always that easy. It takes hard work and insight for us to understand our significant others primary love language, and then a committed effort to act in that manner to express our affection.

If you can identify your primary love language, and your spouses, you are half way there. But it takes time and perseverance to learn how to express your love in a way they will feel it most. Keep at it. If you need a little help, I highly recommend taking a look at the book, and reviewing it as much as possible.

7 Principles for Making Marriage Work - A Review

Can you believe it only takes seven steps?


This is not my title, not my idea, but that of John Gottman and the Gottman Institute. They have been researching couples, their communication, and relationships for quite a while now. I’ve enjoyed the Gottman collection of works in my own married life for quite a while, and I have prescribed this particular volume for most couples I work with. Not only is it a great reference with empirically based suggestions, but it also works to give us a common language to discuss common difficulties most couples are confronted with at some point.

I wanted to introduce this work to you in more depth and share some of it’s teachings. You can use some of these as a defense against issues getting worse, or you can use them to work your way out of relationship pitfalls. If these concepts resonate with you, click on the link and pick up a copy for yourself, or for someone you think might benefit from it.

The Seven Principles are fairly basic, but require a consider amount of work to put into place. Therefore, each one comes with a list of suggested exercise to engage in.

I will warn you, as I do everyone I recommend this book to, the first three chapters can be quite abysmal and depressing. They highlight Gottman’s technique for “predicting divorce” and suggest several obstacles, or “The Four Horsemen”, of relationship destruction. If you can get past these first three and digest what they have to offer, then begin the exercises, you will be well on your way.

Principle One is “Enhance Your Love Maps”; or what I like to think of as getting to know each other again, and again, and again. It is amazing how relationships change over the course of years. What might be even more amazing is the amount of people who don’t expect them to change and are blindsided by it. We need to continually get to know our significant other through talking, dating, and engaging in connecting activities. There is a great exercise at the end of this chapter that simply involves asking each other questions and finding out what you don’t know about your spouse.

Principal Two is about continuing to grow closer, and is titled Nurture Your Fondness and admiration. This principal offers steps to continue to build appreciation in your relationship so that it doesn’t face too much challenge. It is really about looking deeply to find what you like, admire, and appreciate about your significant other.

Principal Three suggests that we Turn Toward Each Other, Instead of Away. Another, more common way to state this is to WORK WITH your partner, rather than against. But in the daily struggles and trials of work, relationships, parenting, etc; it can be very difficult to engage in that behavior consistently. This principal suggests we think of our relationship as having an “emotional bank account” (a common concept in marriage books and theory) that we must continually make more deposits than withdrawals.

Principal Four, a tough one for us men, is to Let Your Partner Influence You. This concept suggests that we continue to increase our connectedness, admiration, appreciation, and emotional bank account simply by allowing ourselves to be influenced by our spouses thoughts and feelings, especially when it comes to critical decisions.

Principals Five and Six get right to the heart of most problems – conflict, disagreement, discord – whatever you want to call it, these two principals deal with identifying a relationships “Solvable Problems” and determining how to “Overcome Gridlock” of those problems that may not be solvable. If you find yourself able to do these two things well in your relationship, you are ahead of the game. If not, these two chapters will be worth their weight in gold.

Finally, Principal Seven, the ‘fun’ Principal, is about “Creating Shared Meaning” in your relationship. In order for a relationship to continue to be healthy and to flourish, the people in the relationship need to share commons goals and meaning in their individual lives, and as a couple. This final part of the book offers suggestions on what to do to get to that shared meaning.

I find myself ‘prescribing’ this book more and more lately. Therefore, I thought it might be helpful if I offered a synopsis on why I have found it so helpful, and why so many couple I have worked with have benefitted from it.

This can be a great resource to prevent certain pitfalls in relationships, and even more so, can help you get out of trouble spots when they occur. If you think you might benefit, if there is the slightest tinge in the back of your mind, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy.

You can find out more about the book, or order your copy here:

6 Steps to Talk Through Your Problems

In my last article I talked about all those important relationship issues that need to be addressed through the course of a relationship – money, chores, sex, children, work, play… the list goes on and on. Agreeing to spend even a minute bit of time with another person requires agreement, compromise, and understanding of expectations. Committing to spending your life with another person requires any exponentially greater amount of these qualities.


How do you get there?

Communication. Healthy, positive, effective communication focused on working through issues and coming to agreement, even if the agreement is simply to peacefully disagree.

So if your communication isn’t quite healthy, positive, and effective, here are a few tips taken right out of the texts for Counseling 101, Couples 201, and Don’t Drive Your Significant Other Crazy 401 (advanced class).

These are all fairly basic tips that are easy to implement. However, in our modern times, they have seemed to diminish considerably in our interactions with each other. Try these in your next disagreement/argument/discussion.

Turn off the tv, put down the paper, close your laptop, put your phone out of reach. The bottom line here is to put away any distractions and focus intently on what the other person has to say. This goes for your spouse, significant other, coworkers, and even your children. If you are going to take the time to enter into a discussion with someone, do it wholeheartedly.

Eye contact. Let the person know you are paying attention by looking at them – this is considerably easier when you adhere to tip #1.

Listen. Who ever thought one word could be so hard? It is though. We are hard-wired to be selfish, self-centered, and self-serving people; it’s part of our survival mechanisms. But when we enter in to a conversation with another person, it is vital to focus on what they are saying; even when other things pop into our head. Usually, you can expect a full range of thoughts to come into your head, like “what should I get at the grocery store, did the Cubs win, what’s for dinner, I can solve that problem…”; the list goes on, I’m sure. Of course, the big obstacle to listening is thinking about what you are going to say next – a huge communication breaker. The goal here is to shut down that list, or the part of your brain ready to answer back, and to focus intently on what the other person is trying to say to you, WITHOUT thinking about outside issues, or what you want to say next. One simple word, “LISTEN”, but so hard to do.

Minimal Encouragers. These are little cues you give to indicate that you are listening – it helps to make sure you are listening first; but the natural head nods, “uh-huh’s”, and “hmmm’s” will indicate to the other person that you are paying attention. It helps them to keep going in the discussion, and it will help you focus on what they are saying.

Paraphrase for meaning. This is another great way to trick yourself into listening better – make sure you are hearing what the other person is saying by asking; “so you are saying……”, or “what I heard you say is…….”. This may not be natural at first, but it gets easier the more you try it. It will also validate what the person is saying and let them know you really get what they are trying to communicate. One more thing, doing this sarcastically, with a negative tone, or in an angry way will have the exact opposite effect it is intended to have.

Don’t Problem solve – Validate. OK, this is where that “advanced class” comes in. This is probably the toughest but most important part of communicating. Unfortunately, for us men, we seem to be set-up through evolution and industry to think we have to SOLVE every problem put before us. Don’t worry, ladies, you are developing the same tendency. We all need to stop trying to solve each other’s problems, and work harder to validate each other’s thoughts and feelings if we want to improve communication and our relationships.

What does it mean to validate someone else’s feelings or thoughts? It is simply the act of understanding, or showing empathy for how that person feels. You don’t have to agree with them, but just understanding them goes a long way in letting them know you listened. This can be accomplished with several of the tips above, or by simply echoing their feelings as you heard them; “that must have been frustrating”, “that sounds like a really exciting moment,” “wow, you must have been nervous”. These are all examples of how you can validate someone else’s feelings.

The next time you are entering in to an important conversation with a loved one, focus on using these techniques to make the discussion more healthy, productive, and effective. Try hard to hear them, and work to validate their feelings, rather than solve their problems.

Save Your Family from "The Terminator"

Sigh… here we go again. One more high-profile story of infidelity and the havoc it causes in a marriage, in a family, and for the individuals involved. Infidelity is much like addiction in that it doesn’t affect only the individuals involved, but ripples through the lives of the family and community for a considerably longer amount of time than it takes for the act to occur.


It’s devastating.

As a person, I am sad for the people involved. I am sad for the children who are learning unhealthy behaviors and attitudes from unhealthy role models. I am sad for the spouse left behind. I am sad for the spouse who committed the act, and the guilt that will follow them. I am sad for those individuals who will be affected indefinitely in a myriad of ways.

As a man, I’m sick of my peers making bad decisions. We are expected to be the rock on which our family is built, the cornerstone. We are expected to be bastions of morale thinking and doing the ‘right thing’. Decisions like this skew those expectations for everyone. The rest of us have to pick up the slack for your bad decisions, guys.

As a therapist, I am convinced that marriages can avoid these situations with some degree of work and investment. I also know that, should these situations occur, a marriage can heal; but it does take more work and investment.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to share with you some of my favorite resources and concepts for protecting your marriage and family, avoiding infidelity or divorce, and healing from difficult times when they do occur.

The first one may be one of the simplest, but one of the more difficult to take care of – managing expectations.

Misaligned or ‘out-of-whack’ expectations can be the cause of considerable hurt, frustration, and resentment. Whether it’s where you will be going for the holidays, where the money goes, who does the dishes and who mows the long, how to discipline the kids, or how often you engage in intimacy; each topic has the potential to explode into a major disagreement if you are not both on the same page.

Avoiding these disagreements is often as simple as talking about them and coming to an agreement before negative emotions build. But that isn’t always that simple – honestly who wants to talk about dishes of all things? And how many of us are really all that comfortable talking about SEX? Even though sex is a critical part of a healthy relationship, just as critical as money, and who takes care of the bills, it’s not always that easy to discuss.

The fact remains, sex, and all of these topics need to be discussed. As do many more.

If you are able to come to an agreement on important topics in your marriage before they become an “issue”, you are doing yourself, your spouse, and your marriage a great service in avoiding conflict and hurt feelings.

Take some time to open up a discussion on these concepts. If you struggle to talk about them, find a good resource to help you through it.

Next week, I will be writing about having the discussion using the basic foundations of communication. I look forward to hearing how your discussion works out.

Choose Your Race

Can you believe we are almost five whole months in to the year 2011?

It’s been almost five months since we talked about those darned “New Year’s Resolutions” and all the changes to put into our lives as a result of the calendar changing over.

So how are you doing with that?

Have you achieved that goal, have you accomplished that resolution?

Are you looking for something new and exciting to try – a “Mid Year’s Resolution?” Or are you just annoyed that I am even asking the question?

If you are celebrating a success – if you lost the weight, or gave up the cigarettes, or wrote the book, or spent more time with your family, or changed your career, or got the degree, or whatever it is you accomplished; AWESOME!!!! Good for you! Congratulations!!!

If you are annoyed with me for writing about it, or with yourself for not doing it, what do you want to do about it?

There are quite a few tools sitting around my website to help you out with that – and a few more will be available once the website is updated in a few weeks.

But, until then, try this:

Make a decision to change something

Utilize SMALL, incremental steps

Add in some accountability from others

Achieve success.

The equation is that simple. How will you put it in to practice?

As for me, as I write this, I am wrapping up all the hard work and training needed to run a long race. Once you receive this, I will be recovering from that long run, and planning the next outlandish goal for the year.

What about you?

What’s your race this year?

It's Time to Man Up!

This article could also be called, “What Do You Mean You’re Leaving Me With the Kids?!” Thanks to my wife for inspiring this article by leaving on Friday, and taking the weekend away. Happy (day after) Mother’s Day to her and all the mom’s out there. Thank you for everything you do.


Alright guys, it’s time to step up and man up.

Too many of us our relinquishing our responsibility as “men”, “fathers”, and “husbands” in exchange for video games, beer, hunting, sports, or any other extracurricular activities.

Too many of us are using “Work” as an excuse to avoid being at home, to avoid taking responsibility for our families.

Things need to change; we have to start doing better. Those who are working hard to do the right thing are having a hard time carrying the weight of those who aren’t. It’s making everyone look bad.

This is the game of your life; and only your marriage, your children, your livelihood, and your future weigh in the balance. It’s time to step up and get involved in all these aspects of your life. If you don’t, something else will fill the void you leave in the life of your kids, or in your marriage, or in your future.

I’ve shared a great website here before that covers a myriad of manly topics – www.TheArtofManliness.com has covered date night, top books for men, shaving techniques, workouts, dress codes, and a ton of other topics over the past few months. It has a considerable cache of great manly info, I encourage you to check it out. In this article, I am going to talk about the manly art of…… Spending Time with The Kids!!!!!

If you are spending enough time with them, and those who have an outside few and important opinion (mom) agree, great! Keep it up. If you are not, and you’re not sure what to do, here are a few tips. If you are not sure what “enough” is, I will tell you what I do. I aim for at least an hour every weekday – homework time, coaching time, play time – whatever I can work in to our busy schedules. Then the goal is for us to spend most of the weekend together doing something fun and character building (for them AND me), because that’s what families do more weekends than not. That’s what we signed up for when we had kids.

Teach them something. Every time the oil in the cars gets changed, my daughters help. I’m pretty sure they could change it themselves at this young age. Cleaning the house is a team effort, so it gets done quicker and they learn how to take care of things. Same for cleaning their room – although not as easy to be as active in that part of teaching – we do try to make it a team effort in order to teach. Let’s face it, not many eight year-olds know what it means to “clean up” unless they are taught and it is role modeled for them. Life is full of teaching opportunities. You don’t have to look very hard.

Show them your favorite hobby. Hard work deserves its reward. I’m a huge fan of doing anything outdoors. I appreciate the opportunities to go camping or hiking with friends – we all need time away. But it’s just as much fun to take the family camping, or to take my girls hiking. We just picked up a new GPS unit so that we can do more geocaching together. Whatever your hobby share it with your kids. If you don’t have any hobbies, develop or redevelop some. Check out the fun of geocaching at www.geocaching.com , or you can take a look at the app on your smartphone. Magellan has put out a new series of very basic starter units that you can pick up for a reasonable price. Nothing says “manly” like mixing tech and the outdoors, using our billion dollar satellite system to find piece of Tupperware in the woods.




Coach them. This is right in line with teaching them, but requires a bit more focus and research on our part. Are they in a sport you don’t know much about? Learn it. Do they play your favorite sport? Step up and coach the team – I know most kids leagues are always looking for qualified coaches. Whether you were an Olympic athlete in the sport, or just found out about it, you are qualified to coach because you are a Dad. There are plenty of resources available online or at your library to learn the sport and how to coach it. If you are not able to dedicate the time to a full season of coaching, take the time every weekend to support the team by working with your child in the yard – throw the ball, shoot some hoops, kick the soccer ball, hit the puck around – do something. Be active. Be a part of their interests.

Do something THEY like to do. This is not always easy, but one of the most “manly” things you can do. I can’t tell you how many times of tried to play Polly Pockets or Barbie or My Loving Family. It’s more fun when the gigantic Barbie comes to raid the Polly Pocket village, but that doesn’t always work for my girls. What does work is letting them take the lead, I just get to be a witness to their play, and they like that. We have been able to find some common ground with Legos. Whatever it is your child likes to do, try to be a part of it. It can be rewarding for your, but immensely rewarding for them.

Give her some away time. All of these suggestions have been aimed at this point – Mom needs time away. It doesn’t have to be two weeks in Hawaii, although that might be nice, but it could just be a few hours with you and the kids out of the house, or just letting her get out for a cup of coffee with friends, or even get away for the weekend. Just as we need, and deserve, our evenings or weekends with the guys; mom needs that too. Just as much, you need time with the kids – it’s not always easy, but neither is parenting. The point is that you do it. Start putting the time in, you will get better at it, and it will get easier as you go.

Hopefully you did something nice for mom yesterday. Now, what are you going to do with the kids this week, and next weekend, and the week after that, and during the summer? It’s not just one day. Being a dad is a full time job. It’s more than a full time job. So get to work.