So you just want to split, not a problem. Split allows you to left click on a polygon and divide it into more topology. This works on quads, it works on tries. As usual, if you hold alt, you can plan your targets ahead of time and this option works exceptionally well when used in conjunction with the point split action when you want to extrude a shape from a face. Hope that helps and as always, hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you around.


Noble Partner provides a great opportunity, one to strengthen the relationship between the U.S. and Georgia to participate together as the NATO Response Force, really through shared experiences of training together. Phase one of the onward movement really began with the rail load operations at Nova Sello Training Area yesterday. Phase two of the operation will comprise of loading those M2A3 Bradley fighting vehicles onto the ferry, which will then conduct its forward movement along the Black Sea, arriving in Georgia.


Hi, and welcome to In The Studio. We record the In The Studio monthly here at the Davis Media Access Studios. The show airs on DCTV, Local Cable Channel 15. It's also online at dctv.davismeanie.org, as well as AT&T U-Verse, Channel 99. And with me today is a very special guest. This is Ken Mercurio. And thank you so much for coming in. I feel like this has been a long time planning. And I'm very glad you made it. Thank you.  Or if you haven't on the other shot, well, you can go to that. This particular book is called Head Over Wheels. A Lucky Stiff turns strategy into a cycling triumph. You can see it there. Ken is with us today to talk a little bit about his story, about the story that he documents in this book, and some of his road to recovery, so to speak, I would say. And what you went through and all that. So Ken, first off, your background. A little bit in cycling. I'm a cyclist myself. I think in Davis, it's really appropriate that you've landed here in Sacramento, so to speak, because Davis is quite the bicycling town. Yes. You actually attended UC Davis a year ago. I did. I graduated in 73. And I must say that during my four years here, I was just a clunker cyclist. I had an old beat-up bike that I just used for getting to class. I never rode it outside of campus. That's half the people around Davis, I think, just ride clunkers. I've seen people who use their feet as brakes. It's flat. There's not much challenging terrain unless you get outside of town. So you were in Davis. And I'm a bicyclist myself. But living down in Simi Valley is where you first started getting into bicycling. It is. And I became a cyclist because I hired somebody at Carnation Company, where I was working down there. And he also had gone to UC Davis. And he was a big cyclist. And he told lots of stories about his bike ride across the country and his bike ride from Guatemala to Oregon. And it got me interested in cycling. And that's when I became a cyclist, 79. You started racking up the miles, commuting tune from work. That's true. Which was a pretty long commute. For back then, maybe even any time, I guess, that was a long commute. It was 22 miles each direction. And you do this in rain or shine? Well, not necessarily. Luckily, it doesn't rain too often in Southern California. But I probably didn't do it in rain. But still, 22 miles each way and usually four days a week. And this was with friends? Or this is sometimes by yourself? Sometimes by myself. Well, going to work, we would ride by ourselves. We would go in groups, home from work. Because back in those days, work ended when the alarm went off at 5 o'clock. And we would leave at the same time. And I rode with other cyclists. So then you started noticing that, hey, I'm not too bad at cycling. You enjoy it. You started riding longer rides. You started riding centuries, which are 100 mile rides. You started riding double centuries, which are 200 mile rides. Here in Davis. Here in Davis. And you found that you did OK on those as well. Right. I was a long distance runner. Here at Davis on the track team and cross country teams. So I have the endurance part and lungs. And yes, that trance posed over to bicycling. And I was a good long distance cyclist. Right. And then at some point, and I don't know exactly what year this was, you decided, OK, I've been doing these distance races and fun rides, I guess you'd say, for many years. You decided you were going to do the race across America. Well, that wasn't the race across America. It was a tour ride across America. But it was very fast. It was 32 days. 32 days. So we have a picture of that. So I would like the director to bring up. And I don't know if you can see. That's a picture of you. Oh, yes, the finish. That's at the finish. Yes. And that's on the particular, since we'll get into what happened to you, I would like viewers to note the bike that you're holding there, because that is particularly the bike that you had your accident in later. So note that, viewers. I want to show one more picture from that ride. This is called, this is the ride across America. It's not a race. No, no, it's just a tour company, for-profit tour company, called America by Bicycle. And it's their fast ride across America. So you can see in the font, it's pretty small. But also, I'll read it, that your final mileage was 3,540 miles over 31 days of riding. So that's a daily average of 114 miles per day for how many days again? 31 days. 31 days straight. Well, any reference? Not straight. It was 32 days, with one day off halfway. 15 days in Topeka, Kansas, we had a day off. And I rode 21 miles touring around just to see Topeka. But anyway, there was one day off. And besides that, you rode, some days you would ride more than they needed to go the distance, I guess. Well, yes, I sometimes took little off tours to go see sights, because I thought I may never get back here again. So I sort of had a reputation of the 25 of us as being the person who would take little personal side tours. So that alone is a pretty big accomplishment. Yes, that was from a lot. Riding across the country, people do it, but it takes them two months. They stop a long way. This was 31 days. And that's a pretty, all this just goes to show that you weren't experienced cyclist. That was the best shape of my life, was when I completed that ride across the country. And you started going on some club rides in Simi Valley. I joined a club after the ride across America. And on one of those club rides, particularly one that was difficult that you were working up to as a challenge, you had this accident. And so that's what brings us to your current condition and the current story and sort of life changing. My neck that moves this much. Your life changing accident. I want to talk a little bit about what happened. What I guess, without getting too much into the details, your bike broke. The fork. The fork broke. And so actually, why don't we show that a picture? It's not of your fork, because we didn't have one. But this is a fork. This is an example of a carbon fiber fork breaking. And it gives people an idea, because when they think of bikes these days, they might think of steel bikes. But this kind of shows that these are fibers and that it's basically a, I guess, plastic. But I don't know these. It's a carbon fiber. It sounds like plastic. When you tap on it, you think you're tapping plastic. Right. So your fork broke. And we'll talk a little bit about the technical side of that in a minute. But what happened to you is that you flipped over, because the fork went. Actually, there's one more shot I'll show. There's a, that's your wheel. Yes, that is the wheel. The fork that broke then flew into the wheel. And you can see in that shot that there's a lot of spokes that were just completely taken out, which is not an easy thing to do. The spokes are under a lot of tension. And they're in there pretty solid. Even though they look pretty spindly, they're actually pretty solid devices. That wheel is strong. That wheel is strong. It collapsed under half the spokes breaking when my broken fork went into the spinning spokes. At 28 miles an hour, I was going very fast. So I think that's the key, is that the 28 miles an hour is a, that's a pretty fast pace. I was going very fast. Not many people go that. You were still, like you said, you're in the good shape. You were on the club ride. Yes, I was on a pro training ride. It actually wasn't a club ride. I went on club rides all the time. But they stop and wait for you. And you can go any speed you want. This was the first time I had ever done this famous pro training ride that was called the CME Ride. And I lived in CME Valley. But I could never qualify, so to speak, to stay up with the pros until I was in the good shape that I was in because I rode across the country. And this was the first time I ever tried this ride, when people in the club said, you're good enough to do this CME Ride with the pros. Just go ahead and give it a try one day. So the one day I try it, my bike breaks. So your bike broke. You flipped over the bicycle. You landed on the top of my head.  Yes. And you're straight down. You were knocked unconscious. That's right. And I have no memory of the fall or lying there on the road. Even though I was speaking to people who stopped to help me and conversing with them, I have no memory of it. So you were conscious, but their memory was not registering. That's right. My first memories came hours later. And when did you discover the extent of your injuries? And I guess, when did you discover them? And what were the extent of your injuries? I guess I first have snippets of memory with the neurosurgeon talking to me in the emergency room that same afternoon. It happened at about 9 o'clock in the morning. And I'd say it at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon is when my memories are first there. A little snippets, though, of them saying, you have a serious broken neck, and you can either wear a halo, which they screw into your head, or you can have surgery. So the halo is the device that's got metal on it, and you have to wear the rest of your life if you don't. Well, no, you wear it to keep your head completely stable so that your broken vertebrae can heal. And in that case, if I had worn a halo and it had been successful, I wouldn't have this restriction that I now have. Because what they did instead was the surgery to implant rods with screws, screwed into my remaining vertebrae, to permanently fuse my neck. And they decided they had to do that because it was so pulverized, so sensitive, that they were afraid to even do anything with the halo. So this sounds like, is it a common injury? Is this an uncommon injury? Is it this type of injury? Aren't people normally, their spinal cord damage, I see. Oh, yes, yes, yes, the doctor, this is part of the miracle of the book of me even being here, is the doctor could not believe that I wasn't paralyzed or dead immediately because of the severity of the broken bones surrounding the spinal cord. And he couldn't understand how, if it's pulverized, completely surrounding the spinal cord, how could the spinal cord not have been nicked or in some way injured, which means paralysis or death? As long as that spinal cord is at all injured, it's death or paralysis. So somehow the bones surrounding the spinal cord, because I don't understand exactly the body parts of it, but the bones surrounding the spinal cord and the entire bones, the vertebrae, were broken. Yes, and what the doctor called pulverized when he did the surgery, he could actually see it, yes? But the spinal cord, no. No, no injuries to the spinal cord. So the doctor has told me, every time he would see me, it's a miracle that you are here with us and not with any paralysis. Right, and so you elected for surgery. I assume you went right into surgery. I would have elected for surgery anyway, but he told me later the surgery was the only option because it was just so sensitive, so pulverized. OK. So now back really quick. We could digress really quick into the accident itself. I was interested being a bicyclist myself about the carbon fiber breakage, and I'm read quite a bit about carbon fiber over the years, and I've been riding bikes, relatively newcomer, I guess, relative to you since 89 or so. As a kid, I rode bikes, but then riding bikes with a mountain bike and on the road and whatnot since about 89. And I mostly had steel bikes, and when carbon fiber came out, there was a fear, well, could this break or have catastrophic failure. And I'm wondering if you knew about that or if you feel that the manufacturing was, I guess, that gets a little bit into part of the story of the book. But if you could speak to carbon fiber in general and what you've found out. OK, I'll have to say I didn't know about the potential for catastrophic breakage when I bought the Skatante bike that had the carbon fork. And I even had a carbon fork on a bike before that. But all this time, no, all I heard was a carbon. And the manufacturer don't say there is potential for catastrophic. No, no, no. In fact, they say carbon fiber is stronger than steel or the strongest thing you could imagine. But that requires good manufacturing process to have it be stronger than steel. And unfortunately, this particular fork was an off brand. It wasn't one of the major brands that you see out there like Trek or Cannondale or Specialized. No, it was an off brand. And it turned out they didn't have a very good manufacturing process because we discovered later that when they lay down the carbon fiber sheets, they didn't lay them down tightly enough. And they were little air pockets. And over time, because I put 13,000 miles on that bike before the accident, the air pockets can grow and expand into bigger voids. And that weakens the fork. So they also wouldn't say that though here's the lifespan of this thing that you're buying. And don't ride across America with it. No, they sure don't say those things. They sell the bike.  But it certainly shouldn't have been at the end of its lifespan. No, no, it certainly wasn't supposed to have been. It was a manufacturing defect. And most bikes today still have carbon fiber. I mean, if fork breakage on a bicycle was a fairly common occurrence, you wouldn't see people riding carbon fiber forks. My incident was very unusual. Just doesn't happen. Or if it did happen, people just wouldn't be riding them.  Yes, it does happen. Being a bicycle nerd, I'm aware of there's a website called Busted Carbon or something like that. There are cases. There are cases where people will post that. And I don't know if they're off brands or if they're, sometimes it's that you have to tighten metal sometimes around the carbon if it's a seat post. Right, right, right. You can over tighten. Yeah, so it does happen. It also happens with metal. You mentioned in your book that one of your riding partners had it happen on a metal bike. Yeah, Dave Pressler, who went to UC Davis and was a bike racer himself at a B&L bike shop right here in Davis, had it happen right next to me. He was speeding down a hill out there in Saugus. And he started feeling wobbly. And when he got to the bottom of the hill, he got off and just pulled it apart. And there was his fork in his hand. And he's just lucky he didn't fall. Luckily, steel is a little more forgiving about how quickly it breaks apart. It's not spontaneous. It's not, right, right. He started wearing a helmet from that day on. Yeah, I think the trend towards wearing helmets is good, especially when you're going fast. I think sometimes in our lawsuit-driven world, I don't know if I want to say that. But helmets can be sometimes relied upon too much.  That's why they're saying, well, actually, they were hit by a two-ton truck. And so that's probably why they're hurt not because they weren't wearing a helmet. On the other hand, going at speeds of 28 miles an hour, you should definitely be wearing a helmet. Oh, absolutely. I would never. I've never gone out without a helmet ever. Right. And we don't want to scare viewers away from biking. This is a pretty amazing experience that you went through. It turns out that they were defects, or manufacturing defects, as you mentioned. It's not uncommon. Manufacturing defects certainly happen on cars and any kind of vehicles they travel on. So I think knowing the risks, obviously, still bicycle. Yes. And I still have a carbon fiber fork, too. Right. It's just that it's a name brand, and I'm more confident in the quality control that these manufacturers use. Right. So I want to talk a little bit about the aftermath of what happened. And the process you went through, sort of mentally, you suddenly became a very independent person, a very dependent person. And I wonder what that was like. You had to depend on everyone for your care. Yes. Well, that's the importance of family, friends, and love. And you had to depend on all of them. I'm kidding. Emotion. Yes, I sure did. And another fortunate thing for myself is my family tends to be the optimistic kind of people. And I kind of get that from my parents. And luckily, I didn't go through too long a period of feeling sorry for myself. I kind of moved very quickly to setting goals for recovery. Well, it sounded like, to me, that your gold recovery was pretty much the day that it happened. And we should mention that this accident happened. You're in the hospital, and you'd already paid for this Blue Mountains Parkway tour. The Blue Ridge Parkway. Blue Ridge Parkway, sorry. And some of your first thoughts, when you were able to have thoughts again, was I got to get back to the Blue Ridge Parkway. And is this possible? Yes, that's true. It took me about a week to decide that maybe this is possible. One of the first things I asked on the day of the accident to the neurosurgeon is, am I ever going to be able to ride a bike again? And I don't remember asking that, but people told me that I said that. And that kind of cracks me up. It's part of the cells of your inner being. Exactly. So I wanted to know if I could ride again, and I just wanted to know how serious is this break that I have. But once I realized that it's possible to ride a bike again, that's when I became aggressive about my recovery goal of continuing with this ride that I had previously registered for that would be 9 and 1 half months from the date of this accident. So 9 and 1 half months, you have had surgery. You're lucky to be alive because your spinal cord was not either severed or nicked, or I don't know the terms. And you're already thinking. The doctors have said, OK, you can't move your head. You can barely move your body. You're dependent upon everyone else. It sounds like this group of visiting angels, which is through your churned company. We're helping care for you. And you're sort of already thinking, I want to become independent again. Yes, absolutely. I wanted to recover as quickly as possible. I wanted my story to be like those inspirational sports stories I had read as a child of the comebacks people had made when they were against the odds. Right. And I thought it was interesting in your book that you mentioned it was about having the final goal was not necessarily just so that you can go enjoy yourself on a bike ride. It was so that you can build the independence for yourself and not necessarily have to put everyone out or whatever for you. Exactly. I wanted to have my life return as much as possible to being what it was before the accident. So what was the process that you went through to get up to that, to actually get back to normal, I guess? Well, after a couple of days of finally, I would say during the week that I was in intensive care in the hospital, I did have a couple of days or three where I was feeling sorry for myself. Why me? What's going to become of my life now? I'm glad to say that that did last only two or three days. I became more positive as I started to feel better. It's kind of like as soon as you physically feel better, you kind of have a better chance for your mental outlook as well. And I just wanted to set a tough goal for myself and hope that I, at that point, I didn't know that I could ride a bike. I was told I might be able to ride a bike, but I just thought I want to do whatever it takes to get myself back to having as normal a life as possible. And if part of that can be riding a bike again, I'm going to go for it. And did you set your own milestones to get to that goal, or were they sort of given to you, or how did you actually? It turns out I achieved the physical therapy milestone faster than I was told I was going to be on physical therapy. But most of them were set for me by the neurosurgeon. But not knowing that you actually wanted to do this Blue Ridge Parkway. Well, yeah. He knew I wanted to ride a bike again, but he had no idea that I was actually pointing toward doing something as difficult as the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was 500 miles in five days. And how difficult was that ride? It was very difficult. I guess we're giving away the story to say that, yes, you actually did complete it. Yes, it was my goal to be able to ride a bike again. And once I was able to ride a bike again on the street, I had to train like heck for two months to get ready to do one of these most difficult bike rides you can do. And when you did start riding your bike, or you still can't turn your head. No, no, no. This is as much as I can turn my head. I had to rely on a mirror for the first time. And I'll have to tell every cyclist out there, everybody should use a mirror all the time. I'm pointing to this side. It was actually on my left. But I've realized how important having a rear view mirror is to know what's coming behind you. But that's how I see behind me. And I have to stand up on the pedals and turn my whole body left or right to be able to see left or right. Cause I really, I can't see, I can't turn my head much. And what about tilting your head up so that you can see ahead of you? Oh, well, I'm very upright. That's one of the big differences between what I could do before the accident. I could be a typical cyclist and you get in those arrow bars and you can get down real low, but I can't do that anymore. I have to be very upright with my hands on the top of the handlebars. And my handlebars are raised up on a stem that's three inches. It raises my handlebars three inches. So I'm very upright to see straight ahead. Right, and so you lose a little bit of aerodynamic. Yes, I'm not aerodynamic at all. The headwinds are a killer. In this particular ride, you said it's 500 miles over five. Over five days of 45,000 feet of climbing. So it's very hilly, very mountainous. And did you, I talk a little bit about regaining confidence in order to, you know, achieve those types of miles. Not just the physical part of it, but the confidence to be back on a bike. Did you go back to where the accident happened? Oh yes, because it was right in my hometown. It's just lucky that one of the lucky things about this unlucky event was that if the fork was going to break, it didn't happen somewhere on my bike ride across the country. It happened right in my hometown. But yes, on about my third or fourth bike ride, once I could ride again, I went down the main drag of Seamy Valley, the main street where it happened, and I went right past where it happened. But by then I'd been back there physically, not on a bike, but I'd been back there to see it. And I'd gotten past that emotion. And as far as building the confidence to ride in traffic, to ride on a road where there's other cars, I mean, did that take a while? Yes, that took longer. I would say that took a few days of just riding in non-traffic areas to get the confidence of relying on a mirror and relying on what my limited mobility neck could do and just getting the feel of riding a bike again where I'm very upright and I can't suddenly turn around to see something. So yes, that took a lot of miles of riding in hours of just riding back and forth in a non-populated area to get used to riding again. I think that getting the confidence does take a lot of miles. And I think having the education helps, but also just getting those miles of confidence on the road. I briefly wanted to mention riding the book itself. This was, you were not an author by trade. No. This is, but yet, did you have an editor or how did you sell for it? It started out while I was recovering and I just had a lot of time on my hands because I was wearing a neck brace and a chest brace for three months straight. And then after that, I still wasn't allowed to ride a bike or anything I just was doing physical therapy and just working my neck as much as I could prior to physical therapy, I was not allowed to move my neck at all. Once the brace came off, I could start to move my neck. But during that time of just hanging out, I started to write a story just because so many people asked me what had happened. I decided I've told so many people the answer of what I was told happened. I have no memory of it, but I was told later by other people in the group what had happened. And so I decided to write it down just as a permanent story for myself and for family and somebody who might wanna know what happened. But the more I wrote, the more I became interested in documenting how I even got good enough to ride in this pro training ride, which took me back to the beginnings of my cycling career. And then I was writing about the physical therapy and the recovery and the thoughts going through my mind about family and friend and support and my goals. And pretty soon it just kept going until I decided if I complete this goal I've had, this recovery goal of completing the Blue Ridge Parkway ride, that could be the end of this story. Well then once I was done, what did it look like a book? Well it looks like a book, it reads like a book and I congratulate you just on the accomplishment of overcoming this accident, but also in writing the book. And I think that- Well thank you. It took years though for a publisher to accept that as a manuscript. Well, you must feel good now to see that it's actually in print. Oh what a feeling that even hearing that it was accepted for publication was the biggest thrill I've had. Well I want to, we don't have too much time left so I just wanted to thank you so much for coming in. I want to let everyone know if they're interested, I think this book does resonate with cyclists. I think your story from beginning to end resonates with cyclists as far as how you got involved and what happened. Hopefully people can learn some lessons I guess but also just be inspired. I hope so. I hope they realize that they can overcome hardships and handicaps of their own by setting goals, working hard and you can achieve these things. Yeah, step by step. Right on. If people want more information they can go to sunburypress.com is the website where this book, the publisher of this book. You can also, in the latest issue of Bicycling Magazine, this is the issue of Bicycling Magazine which our bicyclists all know about. It's probably the top publication, Bicycling. And there is an ad in the back where you can also find out about Ken's book. So Ken Mercurio, thanks. And I should also mention, this show will be airing after you peer at the Avid Reader but you did appear at the Avid Reader tonight. I hope you have a good time at that tonight. Anyway, Ken. And the Hall of Fame Bicycling Museum on Sunday. Yes, oh, excellent. Yeah, the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame also in Davis. Yes, it's at one o'clock on Sunday also. Oh, well this is, I think people in Davis are definitely, it's a treat to have you here and I'm glad we'll get. Well, thank you very much. Glad we'll get multiple opportunities to talk with you. So thank you again, Ken, for coming in. You've been tuned to DCTV, channel 15 on the Comcast Cable System. This is in the studio. My name is Jeff. Tune in next week for yet another episode of In the Studio. Thanks very much.


Well, hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Johnathan Asley of johnathanasley.com and I'm so excited to be doing this live stream for you today. Our topic, Men Use This from Women as the New Form of Therapy. All right, really quickly, if you're brand new to my YouTube channel, please hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you can be notified of new videos. And if any time during this video, the content resonates with you, please hit that like button so I could be seen in the YouTube algorithms.  It's direct, a little tough love and a lot of heart. And occasionally I use expletives to enhance a sentence. So if an F-bomb or two isn't your cup of tea, I suggest logging off right now. Lastly, these are my thoughts, my perceptions, my opinions, by no means do I suggest this is the truth. You have to decide the truth for yourself. I'm a bit of a contrarian, so my advice goes contrary to public opinion and you have to decide for yourself if it makes sense for you. All right, let's jump into why do men use this as the new form of therapy from women? Well, let's first off address the most important thing going on right now if you're probably watching my channel, whether you're in a relationship or you're single looking for love. Let's just agree that the dating process is incredibly dysfunctional today. I'm gonna repeat that the dating process is incredibly dysfunctional today. In fact, it's quite true that most relationships are rather dysfunctional because most people buy into the notion that chemistry and romance in the early stages of dating equals relationship success. And for those of us in the personal development world, we know that's the furthest thing from the truth because the reality is is most human beings are suffering on the inside in some way, shape, or form centered around, I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable, and I'm not likable. And this is a direct result of childhood wounds and traumas as well as adult traumas that have gone unhealed in one's life which causes negative patterns and limiting beliefs whether they're in their personal life, whether in their professional life in every area of their life. What happens is for most humans who have done little or no personal development work, it causes a restraint with inside of them to actually lean into deeper intimacy in a relationship, to lean into a full rich relationship where it's a co-creative process instead of a singular process that many of the leaders of the relationship and all you have to do is sit back in your feminine energy and it's all just gonna magically work out. Well, for those of you I'm here to say sitting back in your feminine energy hoping that it's all gonna work out is like expecting magic fairy dust to make your relationship work. And this is why I'm such a big proponent of individuals doing personal development, self-help and spiritual work to shore up their insights so they can actually be able to lean into a healthy, happy relationship. In fact, I wrote a book about it called What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? And it's a journey in all of the areas I just suggested and it includes a great reading list at the end of the book that will help you actually begin to heal those wounds so you can actually start leaning into a relationship and this is true for men and women alike. So let me give you an example of how a wound can affect your relationship. And then I'm gonna lean into, by the way, do you always notice I talk about leaning into? I'm just not a big fan of leaning back in life. I'm a big fan of leaning in or being neutral in life. So I'm gonna lean into, as I shared a moment ago, a couple of stories to illustrate this and then we'll talk about how men use this new form or have used women as their new form of therapy. All right, so I was talking to a friend of mine some years ago who was in relationship with a woman and it turns out she had a very traumatic experience in her childhood where her father left her and her siblings and I think there was like three or four siblings in there. I can't remember exactly. The father left the mother and the siblings to go marry another woman and to take care of that other person's family. He completely abandoned his family and his children. Now, we can criticize what he did, but to a young child, to a young woman who's 10 years old and your father's that person you look up to, this caused her to have an abandonment issue and the way this manifested in her relationship, she was highly jealous.  I mean, if he commented on someone's Facebook page, whether it was a man or woman, she would run off the rails, run off the rails.  Certainly this happens to men as well where they run off the rails for some simple thing that happened in someone's life. And it's because they have unresolved childhood wounds and traumas that carry forth in the relationship that causes so much friction. And this is why I continually say most humans have weak emotional skills or weak emotional maturity and weak relationship skills as well. And if you're not familiar with my relationship chart, emotional skills and relationship chart, I want you to check this out. By the way, this is not a fact, it's an opinion, but I roughly say 20% of the population has clinical issues, borderline personality, bipolar personality disorder, narcissistic sociopath, psychopath personality disorders. And if they're not doing any work, those people are the most problematic people to be in relationship with. And then I say over here roughly about 20% of the population is emotionally healthy. I'm being ridiculously generous when I say 20%, it's probably closer to three or 4% because the vast majority of people are in the dysfunctional range. And that's not to say dysfunctional people can't be in relationship. The challenge is if a person isn't addressing their wounds and traumas, it's going to manifest in the way they operate in the dating realm. And I'm gonna share a personal example of this because after my divorce, this was some years ago, I thought, my marriage ended, there was this thing called online dating and I thought you could punch in exactly what you want and someone would magically appear and sure enough that happened and I went on one date right after I moved out of the house and nice woman, nice date, but it didn't work out. And another woman, nice woman, nice date, but it didn't work out. And again, and again, and again. And in the course of a year, I had over a hundred internet dates, a hundred first meetings.  Now what I didn't realize that I was actually preparing myself for my now profession, so it was a blessing in disguise. And yet at that time, I was literally addicted to talking to women on the phone, sharing my experiences, hearing their experience. Why is this critically important? I'm gonna share with you in a moment because coming back to men, here's the thing about men. As men age, their testosterone levels begin to decrease and their estrogen levels begin to increase right around midlife. So right around the age of 38-ish, give or take, men's shift happens. And what happens is we have this chemical cocktail going on inside us that makes us highly emotional. Now you may not see it in the outer world, it's happening in our inner world, it's happening in our inner world. And what happens for many men is that they don't feel safe communicating with those that they know in their life.  And what's interesting that's happened nowadays is this little device has changed everything. This online dating, swipe, telephone calls, text messaging that didn't exist really 20 plus years ago is relatively a new phenomena. And what's happening is, this is how men are using this new form as therapy, is many men are seeking connection with women with no intention of actually being in a relationship and they're seeking connection as a way to vomit their emotions and their feelings. I'm gonna repeat that, vomit their emotion and feelings. Now the reason why I say vomit is because an emotionally healthy person will actually go seek therapy or seek some level of help to help them navigate this in their life. And yet probably 90 plus plus percent of men would never even consider therapy. It would seem like it's something shameful to do. So what they do is they start this online dating conversation and this happened big time during the pandemic where people were lonely and this is true of men and women as well where they were lonely and they wanted connection with somebody. And what happens is in some of these cases if not many, the connection starts to turn into a complaining session, a complaining session. And what it might mean is they might be complaining about their ex-spouse. They might be complaining about something within their children. Now here's the tricky part to understand this. The reason why I said they're complaining is to many of the women out there, you're actually hearing this as venting, as venting. And when someone's venting, women have this beautiful, compassionate, empathetic side to actually want to nurture someone when they're going through problems in their life. In fact, this is music to many of your women's ears because this feels like true intimacy. When you think a man is venting to you, you think he's actually bonding with you. The difference between venting and complaining is venting is designed to seek solutions. Venting is designed to seek solutions. Complaining is just vomiting what's going on. And when somebody's complaining, they're usually coming from a place of victim consciousness instead of victor consciousness. And this is what's happening again and again and again. Many people are using the internet as the new form of therapy. And by the way, this isn't the healthy form of therapy. I'm not suggesting that this is a good thing. It just happens to be what's happening today. This is why, folks, if you follow my channel, I'm such a big proponent of everybody reading the book, The Hoffman Process, The Hoffman Process. This is a deep dive into looking into your childhood wounds and traumas and adult traumas as a way to heal oneself because the vast majority, here's the thing. If you're single looking for love, I get it.  And yet all the chemistry and the romance in the world will not solve if you don't share the same values, if you don't have lifestyles that are blendable and then the emotional maturity I just talked about. And if you're not familiar with my relationship, Iceberg, and many of you are, here it is, above the water line is attraction and you can see the word chemistry and below the water line is compatibility which says shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. You can spend days, weeks and months thinking that you're building something with somebody over the telephone because you're driven by the chemistry piece without really ever recognizing do they have a level of emotional maturity? Do their actions match their words? Do they have victor consciousness instead of that victim consciousness? Do they know how to fight fair? Here's the thing, men and women alike are hyper focused on trying to be right when they're having conflict instead of trying to find solutions between the two people. So this is one of the fundamental problems in relationships is when there's conflict, each person goes to their corner and they feel that they're right and a emotionally healthy person isn't about, look isn't about being right. They're looking to solve the problem and another level of emotional maturity is that area of empathy and empathy isn't just I can feel your feelings, empathy is I care about your feelings. I genuinely care about your feelings and also you care about your own individual feelings that's empowered empathy and lastly transparency. And if it's material to the relationship then it's time to speak up and ladies many of you do not speak up in relationship for fear of a man running away. I see this continually over and over again you give your power away to men. And this is why it's easily seductive to get into these telephone conversations that can go on for days, weeks and months because what you are is that person's therapist. And here's the thing. If you find yourself in that position you've got to ask yourself what benefit do you get out of being someone's therapist? What is making you choose to do this? And I'm here to invite you to look forward inward, excuse me inward and maybe do some additional healing in some work so you don't get sucked into this trap of being someone's therapist in the early stages of dating or even in a seasoned relationship. And that's not to suggest I don't mean to suggest you shouldn't be supportive of your partner I absolutely want to encourage everyone to be supportive of their partners at the same time it's not your job to be their therapist it's their job to go seek help from someone else. And whether it's therapist or coach going to a workshop like the Hoffman process going to insight or going to the Gottman Institute or reading the books I recommend over and over and over again. And ladies, you know my narrative before the penis ever goes inside the vagina the two of you should be reading the book eight dates by doctors John and Julie Gottman just the fact if a man is willing to read this book with you you have an 80% chance of success than those that don't do this. Now I'm making up this number I'm saying 80% but you have a greater chance of relationship success if the two of you are actually intentional in the process. But Jonathan, I'm supposed to just sit back in my feminine energy and I'm supposed to play the game the rules and make them play hard to get and all that sort of stuff to make the guy fall in love with me. Folks, that isn't working anymore.  So until you actually learn good healthy relationship skills and I highly recommend reading the book nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg highly recommend reading this book and you better be buying this book how to be an adult in relationship because most human beings act like little children. Now listen, I'm not here to pontificate as if I'm perfect here believe me folks, I am riddled with flaws. I think the only and I make mistakes just like any other human being I'm just here to suggest what's most important is to do work and have an open heart because what's happening for many of you ladies you have a closed heart in relationship because you've been battered and beaten and I don't mean that literally, okay?  Folks, is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Is it making a difference? Please let me know, hit that thumbs up, write an amen comment so I know this is working or at least this is resonating with you and again, this is not the truth you have to decide the truth for yourself. All right, that covers the content portion of our live stream today we are now going to take questions and if you're listening, if you're on the video right now there's a chat box in the little left corner or right corner please, if you wanna ask me a question please write the word question and then post the question thereafter it makes it easier for me to find or you can purchase a super sticker super chat there's a little dollar sign in the chat box all of the monies from the super sticker super chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son Connor Asley that's a picture of Connor right there doing his little game sign, he's my son who passed away in 2018 at the age of 19 and in his honor, not only did I write the book What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway I am actually promoting all my work in his honor and in his honor, the scholarship fund is to help defray the cost of personal development work for those who need it and also to donate to the charities that I do believe make a difference in people's lives and I'm here to suggest one thing for everybody pay it forward whether it's donating to the Connor Asley fund or donating to somebody else pay what you learn here forward even share this video with other people if you think it makes a difference and please share this video with men men need to hear this as well. All right, we're gonna take questions now again, post it there and by the way, all the books I recommend are in the links below you can schedule a discovery call with me you can join my membership group or you can purchase the books or follow me on Instagram the link in the description. All right, Glenn says, hallelujah. Nikki says, amen. Lola says, amen. Debbie says, hello Jonathan you hit the nail on the head dysfunctional people everywhere we live in a disposable society where most move on to the next profile here's the thing by the way, when we say this we have to say this about ourselves too I am guilty of everything I've shared here in this video and I'm sure many of you have on some level contributed to this so when we take ownership that's Victor consciousness and not victim consciousness and I'm not suggesting anything there Debbie, thank you so much Alex says, amen. Colleen says, I do not have the book eight dates but I'll check it out I hope you do it is a game changer. Lindsay writes, question. What do you like to do when you feel burnt out from the dating? What do you like to do? Okay, what to do when you're feeling burnt out from dating? So I don't think it's a burnout from the dating itself I think it's the burnout from the prospecting the amount of prospecting whether it's swiping, emailing, texting I think people get burnt out on the actual prospecting aspect of the dating process and it certainly is frustrating as well when you go out on a date and you're not attracted to the person or you go out on a date and you're attracted to them and they're not attracted to you or you go out on a date and they're a jackass or you go on a date and they think you're a jackass so it can't and by the way I want you to think about this for a second it can wear on us emotionally dating triggers the number one emotional health issue facing most everybody that is I'm not good enough I'm not lovable and I'm not likable So it's no wonder it can be frustrating to put yourself out there Now with that said what can you do? I'm a big proponent of only investing 15 minutes a day in the actual prospecting area okay the prospecting area and then maybe 15 or 20 minutes if it warrants it communicating with someone in any given day keep it very small keep it very contained the amount of effort you put into the process in any given day 15 or 20 minutes isn't that much to invest in searching for a life mate and I'm a big proponent of folks looking for a life mate and I know it can feel painful to do this in fact a lot of times people say love is a risk and as my friend Dennis says and it's still the best game in town love is still the best game in town So what can you do? I'm not a big proponent of shutting everything down I'm a big proponent of limiting the amount of effort you put in an any given day so and then you live your life you do your sports you do your activities you do your exercise you spend time with family and friends you do social activities you do hobbies all those sorts of things and carve out a little bit of time in the day for your actual prospecting and by the way ladies this is where a lot of you fail because you don't know how to determine if someone is emotional grown up my whole coaching program is designed to help you determine true compatibility based on your personality then asking the right questions again based on your personality to determine if he's a good fit from you from a compatibility perspective and from an emotional maturity perspective so check out the link to a discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you because that's how I can help you in this process and I gotta tell you something I get calls from clients who will literally about to step into the rabbit hole of doing something dysfunctional for themselves in fact it just happened the other day someone wanted to go on a date with someone who's clearly still married and actually living with their partner and I think we all know that's probably a taboo no-no but because she had some previous relationship with someone in his family she thought that was okay and then we talked it out and she realized that she's following the pattern her pattern of doing the same thing over and over again and I'm here to suggest what's the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results folks it's time to do a better job of vetting people before you ever go on a date and that way if you do a better job of vetting in the beginning you don't have to feel frustrated because you're probably gonna go on a lot less first dates but wouldn't you rather go on a lot less first dates and narrow it down to really good prospects that's my invitation for everyone if you need some help again check out the link to schedule a call with me so coming back to your question there Lindsay just to reiterate limit the amount of time of prospecting and make sure you have a full life in the process or you can just take a break and come back to it either one great question thank you so much I really appreciate it all right let's go swimming let's go okay Hannah says question do I have to offer help when he pulls away himself he said to me he has a lot of work and needs some rest I feel like I should be offering help to him but I'm not sure I should well so offerings to help somebody you care about especially if you're in a relationship with them is a very kind gesture to offer some sort of help or support most human beings reject supports I'm gonna repeat that and particularly men most men will reject support it's okay to offer the support by the way folks that's not chasing that's not doing anything wrong that's not being leaning you know I know you're told to lean back when he pulls away it's absolutely okay to lean in to check in and offer support you have to look at why is someone leaning back do they have a contentious relationship with their ex are they going through chaos in their professional life is your relationship ideas mismatched with one another does he have problems with his family or maybe his children or worse he just doesn't have any real direction and commitment that's what usually happens and causes men to pull away is these five factors that I just shared with you and what's really the problem here today for most couples is they don't actually genuinely know how to get to know each other this is why I just purchased the book talking to strangers talking to strangers and the subtitle says bear with me for a second what we should do what we should know about the people we don't know folks we're meeting most of the time total strangers and when we meet strangers it takes more time to build the first layer of trust and in fact it takes about a hundred hours of face to face time just to build layer one of trust and if trust isn't built it's very common for people to pull away this is why I'm a big proponent of the dating process being a two lane street not the narrative of expecting men to claim you because all you do is sit back in your feminine all you have to do is sit in your feminine and the guy is just gonna magically be perfect folks it takes mutual effort for two people to get to know one another this is why and it starts by being radically honest from the get go this is why I repeatedly say before the penis goes inside the vagina purchase two copies of this book this book is designed to help build intimacy into me you see into me you see and when you start to do that in the beginning then you can establish whether or not you're by the way, remember I said before besides chemistry do you share the same values are your lifestyles blendable and is this post person emotionally mature an emotionally mature person will read this book with you and emotionally immature person will basically say things like what are you talking about? That's ridiculous can't we just live in the moment? Folks, I am tired of hearing men and women say can't we just live in the moment?  I hope so thanks again for that question Hannah I really appreciate it all right we're gonna take one more before we wrap up today Colleen says like or Colleen says I gotta love Scooby Doo Stormy says you gotta love the penis I do I love mine Suzette says thank you all right let's see let's go swimming Colleen says I love what you share you are how real you are thank you so much Angie says great question Hannah thank you so much oh let's see what Hannah's question okay this is gonna be our last question of the day oh we already did that one excuse me all right Angie this will be the last question how to help build trust with a man after he was cheated on oh okay folks there is nothing worse to a male psyche than being cheated on men are very territorial it is an absolute burst to a man's psyche to believe that someone that they cared about cheated on them not to suggest this isn't true for women women I think are a little bit more forgiving but and by the way men actually if they genuinely love someone they'll actually tolerate cheating I think sometimes men tolerate cheating more but it fucks with their psyche and by the way this is not an absolute I'm just speculating here not the part that says it messes up with their psyche but I will tell you most men if they've been cheated on have a very difficult time building trust with someone so what are these men seeking going forward they're seeking companionship connection and sex but they may not be seeking commitment because they if they haven't addressed that wound and I highly recommend that man addresses that wound with a qualified therapist a true qualified therapist to talk about it and come to some level of healing there is nothing you can do to help him build trust I mean you could be the most perfect person on the planet and he will continually most likely sabotage the relationship until he goes and seeks help elsewhere to work on that that that shame he's probably feeling and most like he is feeling a level of shame addressing what may have been the cause to it and how he may have contributed to it and then you might have a chance for deeper intimacy but I will tell you unless he's done some real deep healing that's that's a traumatic event that's PTSD and by the way if people don't go seek help when they've had PTSD that's going to be very very problematic to be in relationship with someone like that so that's my invitation for you is to maybe not invest in men who haven't done work in that area if that's what's happened in their life so Angie thank you so much for that question I really appreciate it folks we're going to wrap up our live stream today oh love I love you says perfect answer thank you so much Julie says good question I love you says thank you for your honesty I appreciate that all right folks we're going to we're going to wrap up today's live stream and listen if you felt value from this please purchase a super stickers chat before we wrap up today to donate to the Connor Asley scholarship fund if this has been valuable to you check out the links below check out the books I recommend also please share this video with your friends I would appreciate that or hit that like button as well and come back in a few days because I'm going to do I do live streams every other day for the most part and I hope you enjoy this these are one of my shorter ones I will do a longer one next one all right we're going to wrap up this video as I always do first off give myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrock of self love I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay I'm going to ask you to turn to someone Pat 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 I want to thank you so much and wishing you a fabulous day bye now bye Julie, bye Angie, bye I love you by Shannon, by Colleen, by Lovely by Elaine, by Heather take care now