From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of AWS re-invent 2020. Special coverage sponsored by AWS Global Partner Network. Welcome back to theCUBE's virtual coverage of AWS re-invent 2020. It's virtual this year. We're usually in person this year. We have to do remote interviews because of the pandemic, but it's been a great run, a lot of great content happening here in this next three weeks of re-invent. We've got two great guests here. It's part of our coverage of the APN partner experience. I'm your host, John Furrier. Barbara Kessler, Global APN Programs Leader. Ryan Broadwell, Global Director of ISVs for AWS. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. Thanks for joining me. Hey, thanks for having us. It's great to be here. You know, we heard on the- Yeah, thanks for having us, John. Thanks for coming on. Sorry we're not in person, but tons of content. I mean, there's a lot of the VODs, the main stages, but the news hitting this morning around, Doug's comments around strong focus of ISVs is just a continuation. We heard that last year, okay? But this year, more focus, investments there, new announcements. Take us through what we just heard and what it means. Yeah, John, I'll jump in first and then let Barbara add some additional color and commentary, but I think it is a continuation for us as we look at continuing to build momentum with our ISVs. They're mission critical for us and we hear that loud and clear from our customers. As you think about building off what Doug was talking about, I think it's first important for us to start with. We look to help our partners build and build well-designed solutions on AWS, supporting their innovation and transformation and working together to deliver scalable, reliable, secure solutions for our customers. To facilitate this, we offer programs such as AWS Sass Factory that provide enablement to our ISVs to build new products, migrate single-tenant environments or optimize existing Sass solutions on AWS. And we do this through mechanisms like webinars, boot camps, workshops, and even one-on-one engagements. As you talked about, we just heard from Doug announced AWS Sass Boost, which is a ready-to-use open-source implementation of Sass tooling and best practices to accelerate ISVs Sass path. Through Sass Factory, which we've worked on with many ISVs in the last few years and you're well aware of, we have lots of learnings and we've helped a lot of partners make that journey towards Sass. Partners like BMC, Cloud Zero, NASDAQ, Cohesity, or F5, transform their delivery and business models to Sass. We've had a lot of demand for this type of engagement and we knew it was important that we come up with a scalable way to help partners accelerate their transformation. Sass Boost provides a prescriptive experience to transform applications through an intuitive tool with many core services needed to develop and operate on the AWS Cloud. In addition to that, we look to the WellArchitect framework which has proven to set the architectural best practices for designing and operating systems in the Cloud to help ISVs build their solutions on AWS. We just launched two additional lenses in WellArchitected tool to enable ISVs to conduct these reviews from within the AWS console. One Sass environment and one aligned with foundational technical reviews which helps partners prepare for the technical validation in AWS partner programs. You know, the Sass Boost, I love that. I was joking on Twitter. It sounds like an energy drink. Give me some of that Sass Boost. Don't drink too many of them. You're getting too strung out. But this is what people want, Barbara. This is about the partner network. You guys are providing more stuff, more successful programs and capabilities. This is what the demand is for. Help me get there faster. Path to Sass. Can you explain what this means for partners? I mean, what's in it for them? Can you share your thoughts? Yeah, absolutely. And Ryan talked about some of the things that we do to help partners build their ISV and software or Sass products. But in addition to that, we provide a number of programs and resources to help partners also grow their business through marketing and sales focused programs. It's an area that we are focused on investing deeply with our partner community. For example, we offer APN marketing central through which partners can find and launch free customizable marketing campaigns or even find a marketing agency to work with that has experienced messaging AWS. That also offers APN marketing activity. We recognize that not all partners, especially if they're in their startup stages have those investments and skill sets yet around marketing. So Marketing Academy offers self-service content to teach partners who don't have that capability at house tonight, how to drive awareness campaigns and build demand for their offerings. We also offer a broad set of funding benefits to help partners starting from the build stage that Ryan talked about through sandbox credits to support their development. Although it's in marketing with market development bonds and through selling with what we call our partner opportunity acceleration program, which is how we fund POCs to support our partners and winning new customers. We also heard Doug announced in the keynote that we are launching the ISV Accelerate program. This is our new co-selling program for ISVs that offers compensation incentives for AWS account managers, access to coastal specialists and reduced marketplace listing fees to help our partners continue to grow their business with us. You know, successful selling is amazing. You want to make money, right? I mean, come on, you're bringing a lot to the table. Co-selling, I think that's a huge point. Nice call out there. Ryan, can you give some examples of partners that have been successful with these resources? Hey, John, thank you. Yeah, it'd be great to kind of walk through one good example in a little bit of detail. You know, and what we've seen with SciSense is a great example of a partner that's leveraged these resources and the work that they've done with Lumahelp. So Lumahelp serves millions of patients, provides a cloud-hosted patient engagement platform that connects patients and providers.  You know, Lumahelp saw an opportunity to create new products to help patients and providers during the pandemic. You know, to decide what to build and how to build it, the company wanted to analyze sentimental, or sentimental, excuse me, Sentinel and data real-time. Using SciSense, Amazon Redshift and Amazon Web Services, data migration services, Lumahelp built a platform that delivered analytics and insights it needed, democratizing access to the data for all users. As a result, Lumahelp uncovered insights such as facts that SMS was a preferred method of communication and that many patients had similar questions. Just three weeks after their hypothesis, Lumahelp released new products based on its insights, a turnkey, EHR-enabled healthcare solution, zero contact check-in and COVID-19 broadcast messaging system. So a lot of good successes. The question that I would ask you guys, this is probably what's on everyone's mind is, I'm a partner, I'm growing, obviously I'm in the partner network because I'm being successful. I don't have a lot of time. I need to figure out all the stuff that you have. You have so much going on that's good for me. I don't know what to do. Can you help me figure out what resources and programs to leverage? I can imagine this is a question that I would have, like, I want to make money, co-sell. I want to get into this program. What's the best path? I mean, what do I do? Can you share how you help your partners get on the right road, have the right resources? What are the right programs? Because it makes it more consumable. This is probably a big challenge. Can you share your thoughts? Yeah, happy to explore that. So we certainly find a lot of opportunity to innovate with our partners and customers and as a result, we do offer a broad range of programs, resources, material to meet the diverse needs of those partners and customers. One focus of these programs and enablement model that we offer partners is to help our partners build their products and build their business with us. And the other focus is to create program structures that help customers find the right partner and the right solution at the right time. We recognize it's a lot. We want to make sure that our partners are easily able to find what's most relevant to them and to deliver this more effectively for ISD partners specifically, don't just announce the launch of ISD partner path. As with everything we do at AWS, this new program structure works backwards from our customers and our partners to deliver on the needs of both of those audiences. When a customer identifies a need for a solution, they search for that solution based on their business needs and the outcomes that they're looking to deliver rather than searching based on a partner profile. So ISD partner path pivots the focus that we have today on partner level tier badging to instead focus on solution level validation badging that helps us better align to what our customers are looking for and how they look for software products. The new model responds to that partner customer feedback that we've heard. It removes APN tier requirements for ISDs and introduces the ability to engage across all of the products, services, and solutions that a partner offers. And it pivots the partner badge attainment. So today our partners are too badging based on a tier and moving forward, they'll attain that badging to go to market with solutions that are validated and have gone through a technical assessment to either integrate effectively or run effectively on AWS. So fewer requirements to access APN programs from differentiation to funding and co-selling partners can engage more quickly in a more meaningful way and in a more clear path to develop their solution offering and go to market with AWS. Ryan, anything you want to add on terms of structural support in terms of account management and does everyone get in a rep? Does, you know, is there certain levels of attention? When does that come into play? Yeah, I think Barbara has made a great point in that we have a lot of great programmatic resources, but there's also no substitution for engagement with a person. You know, and we have partner development resources available to engage with our partners and help them develop their individualized plans that help them understand how they maximize the opportunity with their customer set and expand their customer sets. You know, this starts as soon as a partner registers with the AWS partner network. You know, they're contacted by a partner development team member within the first business day. This is a commitment we find, you know, incredibly important to the partner. And even when we have, you know, five or more new partners registering every single day. You know, we look to go beyond that and it's not just about onboarding to your point, John. You know, our partner development team, you know, works backwards from the customer and the partner to help develop. What is that joint plan? You know, and how do we focus on what's strategic to the partner and what becomes strategic to our customers? You know, with that plan, our team works to activate that broadly across the team in support of achieving our joint goals.  We want mechanisms to measure success. You know, I talked to a lot of channel partners over the years in my career and the cloud has really highlights the speed and the agility feature, but it all comes down to the same thing. I want to get my solution in front of the customer. I want to make money. I want to make it easy to use, make it easy to consume. I want to leverage the cloud. This is kind of the, this is the process. This is always happens. This is what they want. And you guys are bringing a lot to the table and that's important. And I think, you know, co-selling and having to kind of support making it consumable and easy, super great. So I have to ask you with that, what's your advice for people who are jumping in? Because you're seeing more onboarding of ISVs than ever before. And we've been commenting on theCUBE for multiple years. We've been seeing the uptick in software SaaS ISVs. And remember, Amazon is not in the SaaS business 100% and Gartner just collapsed the platform as a service in the IS categories that highlights the fact that your entire ISV landscape is wide open and growing. So there's new ISVs coming in. What advice would you give them to get started, experience and- Yeah, I can take that. Yeah, I can take that one. Thank you. And I actually want to build on something Ryan said. We actually have more than 50 new partners joining the AW partner network every single day. And so having the right structure for those partners to easily navigate and the right resources for them is something that's very top of mind for us. I think I can just still down about two primary pieces of advice from my perspective for a new partner who's trying to figure out how to work with us and get involved. First and foremost, build a relationship with your partner manager. Help them know and understand your business, the customers that you focus on, the solutions you provide. That partner manager is your advocate and could be your mentor in working with AWS. Make sure they know what you're good at. Partners are able to build the best traction with our shared customers and our AWS sales team. But it's very clear what they're good at and how their solution solves specific customer problems. Specialization through programs such as competency, which validate solutions based on industry use case or workload is really key to helping communicate that specific value. And second, I would say avail yourself of the resources available to you. We offer a number of self-serve resources such as the new ISV navigate track that is launching in conjunction with ISV partner path that provides individuals that sort of step-by-step guidance to move through that engagement with us and connect them to all the resources that they need. Marketing central, which we discussed earlier to drive marketing campaigns that can be very self-serve and driven by the partner central which offers a wealth of content, white papers, et cetera. That's our portal through which partners engage. And you can also access things like training and certification discounts to build your cloud skills to support your business. And I think both of those are really important things to keep in mind for partners who are, we're just kind of getting started with us as well as partners who've been working with us for a while now. Ryan, what do you want to add to that? Because again, there's more ISVs coming. And again, Amazon has been very disruptive in its enablement of partners. Not everyone fits into a nice clean bucket. I mean, what looks like a category might be old and being disrupted to a new categories being built. All these new categories and new solutions. It's hard to put people in the buckets. So you have a tough job. How do you give advice to your partners? It is tough, right? And the rate of transformation continues and the rate of innovation continues to, you know, quicken. My advice is lean in with us. You know, we continue to invest our efforts in developing this vibrant community of partners. So lean in, you know, we'll continue to, you know, iterate around and optimize our joint plans and activities. And we've looked to be able to continue to drive success for our customers and our partners. Well, you guys do a great job. I want to say I've watched the APN grow and change and evolve.  It's a people equation with software. So congratulations. Thanks for coming on theCUBE. Thank you so much. Appreciate the time. Thank you. Okay, great, great event here. Reinvent 2020 virtual. This is theCUBE virtual. I'm John Furrier, your host, wall-to-wall coverage with theCUBE. Thanks for watching.


So I'm so excited to be interviewing Kelsey Wonderland, a licensed therapist who shares a healthier approach to our current dating environment. And I believe she's a contrarian like me and we'll find out during this interview. She views the outdated transactional dating model as being broken, that's my words, and offers a healthier ways to approach the dating process. So welcome, Kelsey. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. So I wanna dive into it.  So I shared what I believe is the old model of how we approach dating and relationships versus a more contemporary model. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on how that all comes about, if you will. Yeah. Yeah, I think the traditional model of dating is, right? Like there's a courting phase and there's gender roles that go along with that. And even the focus of what we pay attention to when we connect with people is, like what do you do for work? What do you do for fun? And those are not bad questions to ask, but the reason I got into all of this dating coaching is as a therapist what I learned is there's so many more important things to be aware of when choosing a partner in terms of long-term compatibility. So in my mind kind of the new way of dating is sure, I mean, for me, it's a little bit more egalitarian with taking turns and paying for dates and things like that. But that stuff isn't even as important in my mind as what you're focusing on in the connection to get to know somebody, you know? Like I'm like, who cares if he paid for the first date? Like what are his core values? Does this world in the same way as you, you know, things that we know really matter when it comes down to it for the long-term? So, you know, when I think of old model, and I want your opinion on this. So I think of the focus on chemistry, attraction and romance kind of as being the driver of the bus. More importantly, that chemistry indicates relationship success. And when I say new model, I'm talking primarily, and I suspect you agree with me, emotional maturity and relationship skills. Way far more heavily into the success of a relationship. Yep, 100%. Yes, yeah, that's the other big piece is like, if you, you know, traditionally it's like, if you find each other attractive, if you have fun together and you have things in common, then, and you have a spark, like then that that's it. That like, those are the checkboxes, right? And actually what we know is like almost none of those things really are what carries a relationship through the long-term, you know? So absolutely, but like nobody teaches us any of this stuff. Like we don't learn this in school, and that's why I do, I do now is, yeah, I just felt like I'm learning so much and I'm repeating myself so much in therapy sessions clients who are like, oh, that makes sense, right? And I learned these lessons the hard way myself being in the wrong relationships dozens of times. So yeah, nobody teaches us, but this is, these are the things that we should really be paying attention to more so, which is not to say, like date somebody you're not attracted to. I mean, attraction is a non-negotiable, but having them fit like a checklist of being taller than you or being your physical type is not necessary, actually, for you to find somebody attractive. Well, okay, so let me take this down a rabbit hole. I wasn't expecting, you know? So, let's differentiate between the way women view attraction and the way men view attraction because I think to some degree, we men need our equipment to be lifted, if you will. Okay, I hope we don't have to go straight. You know, to some degree, we need to feel physically attracted. And I've noticed that women have that same need as well. And yet, traditionally, I've heard that women tend to fall and men fall in love through their eyes and women tend to fall in love through their ears. But I feel like that's changing, like they're like, no, but I want the good-looking guy too. Mm-hmm, what are you talking about? Yeah, and I think like that's part of the culture too is like, I think men want more of that as well. I think that there's such a distinction like culturally for people to talk about like, you know, men only want one thing or whatever. But I mean, I think that there's, I always say to my female clients who are like, where are all like emotionally mature men? Like there's never been more of them than there are right now because mental health and therapy and personal growth is becoming so much more of a thing that I think men also are craving and have always really craved that emotional connection. But my opinion is that societally, we haven't promoted that, you know, like as a therapist I would get a lot of questions about like, you know, well, what's, is it like a biological thing, men and women? And I mean, what I could tell you over the years of seeing thousands of clients and of both genders is, you know, that men are not that actually different from women in my opinion that they want to, they really desire emotional connection, but they've been very socialized away from speaking that way or owning that. So it tends to be more about, or it seems like it's more about physical attraction. But when you get them one-on-one in a therapy room, you find out that like they do really want that connection. So, well, here's, okay. So since I suspect your audience is predominantly women, mine is predominantly women. And we talked about this beforehand. My demographic is midlife, which I say is after baby making years before retirement. So most of the women who follow me are 42 to 69 years of age. That's not an absolute. You know, one of their, I want to say their complaint. And I feel like it's a valid complaint that while I absolutely agree with you Kelsey that men want that emotional connection, but there's a big difference between emotional connection and emotional maturity. And let's go a step further, actual good relationship skills, because that's a whole nother category in itself. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is when I came across your Instagram, like what you promote is relationship skills. What you promote is emotional maturity. And I want to talk in a few minutes about some of your different blogs because I really appreciate it. Why is vetting before the honeymoon phase so important? Like why is that so important? Yeah, yeah. For many reasons. I think the main one right is from a time, energy and emotional attachment perspective. We really want to vet people. I actually tell my clients, I would love if you're using dating apps for you to be vetting people before you even really met them. And then of course, as you get to know someone in person, that continues on. But vetting someone before you even really meet up with them to say, is this even a viable partner for me? So on the dating apps, like let's not talk about like, what's your favorite coffee? I mean, you can, but like let's also make sure we're talking about what's really important to us, our deal breakers, our values, things like that. Because what I see a lot with my clients, which is like age 22, 70 actually, is they will get attached. And this used to be me too.  And it's like, oh, we have fun together. We had an amazing date. They're funny, they're tall, whatever. And so we jump in when we don't do that vetting, then it's really hard to walk away or it's really hard to get over somebody when you realize that it's not gonna work out. So, okay, but here's the thing. Everyone will tell you every dating coach that's ever been on the planet and say, don't interview someone. By the way, for the record, I always say, interrogate them. I love that. Interrogating them. And I say that tongue-in-cheek, but asking deeper questions isn't sexy. It's not romantic. And yet, finding out when this person's last relationship ended, might not be such a bad question to find out if they just broke up 36 hours ago. Or, you know, what happened in your divorce only to find out, well, technically we're not divorced. The list goes on and on. So, would you be open to sharing some of the deeper questions you recommend talking about before, and by the way, really quickly, I'm in full agreement. Do this on the telephone before you meet them. Like, this is the time to interrogate them. I always tell people, like, it depends on your goal, right?  But if you're, which most of my clients are, if you're taking dating seriously, you wanna find your person who's a good fit for you, then I actually recommend that you ask these questions, right, like right on the app, or right over the phone, whatever. So, my process is sort of twofold. It starts with you have to know your own core values, which is just what you find important in life, right? And I do find that, like, as we get older, that becomes more clear, and I think an easier to own for ourselves, but a lot of us have never even considered that. I hadn't even thought about what a core value was until I became a therapist. So, I walk people through, like, narrowing that down for yourself and also cutting out the noise of what other people tell you should be important to you or what's important to your family or your best friend, but what's really important to you in life and in partnership. And then once you narrow that down, you use those core values to curate your profile, first of all, so that those things are what you're comfortable with, like, but as much, I think, as you can say, in terms of deal-workers and core values in your profile, literally allows the dating sites to do the work for you, so that the wrong people are like, oh, my God, I don't want that. And they move along, you never deal with them. The people who are interested in the line, they will come flocking to you. So that's the first part, but then you also want to ask questions based on those values, too. And I call that a weed out question.  So those questions are gonna depend on your values. So, like, for example, if you identify as a religious or a spiritual person, I do recommend asking that. Actually, if somebody asked the other day in my Instagram stories about how do you ask about that without coming off as insensitive or whatever you mean, you don't even know this person, right? So I always say you can go first. So you can say something like, I've realized that faith is really important to me, and I've also learned that that means different things to different people. So I always like to hear what that means to different people. For me, faith in my life looks like this. What about for you? That's a really easy way. I mean, it's not that easy. I get to say, what does that look like for you? It's a very emotionally mature way as well to approach something that could be sort of taboo I supposed to talk about and to demonstrate that you have those communication skills yourself as well. So that's one question you can ask, right? Another question sometimes is around like politics or family values, or I really encourage people to talk about gender roles in relationships. Like even like, who do you think should make more money the man or the woman? Like that's a great question to ask just to get a sense of gender roles because that comes up throughout the lifespan with somebody in a relationship of who does what, who does childcare or housekeeping or financial management of all so many different things. So many different things. It's a little different for those of us in midlife because we're not thinking about it from the raising family perspective. And by the way, just on a side note if they're just bringing this to your attention for those of us in midlife, it's more how do you blend two families together as probably one of the most challenging things. And I'm gonna go off the rails for a second. I wanna share something personal. So not by my choice, but I'm back in the dating marketplace. I had a significant relationship that ended six months ago. And I'm back in the dating marketplace and there was this one woman who swiped me on a dating profile I noticed and she wrote me but I never responded for whatever reason. Then I saw her on a different site and she looked at my photos, I looked at her. She looked at mine, I looked at hers but I already had some reservations because going back to what you said earlier I know myself and I know my values. So then I took it and so then she swiped me on bumble. I've said, okay, I'm gonna write her finally. And I wrote her a really nice message saying, hey, I just want you to know I've noticed you but I think these are the three things that we're misaligned with. That was a week ago and it's been crickets. And my point in sharing this is it wasn't sexy what I did, but it was honest, it was sincere. It was really doing due diligence and I asked it. I think this is where we could be misaligned. If I'm missing something, please let me know and it went crickets. So my point is I didn't have to waste time even on a telephone call. You know, when I say waste time. Yep, yeah, exactly. At the same time, I think a lot of people are frustrated because when they've got this viable prospect, by the way, I call it pre-qualifying your prospect. You call it weeding out. I used to be in sales. So that's what we did. We pre-qualified someone. Yeah. I think, why do you think it is? Or maybe let's discuss this for a moment. You've got this viable prospect. You're attracted to them, they check a few boxes. But you'll cling on that and they were missing so many of the things of shared values, lifestyles, blendable, emotional maturity. Why do we cling so much to a weak prospect versus even making effort for a strong prospect? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, there's so many reasons that could go so deep psychologically in terms of abandonment wounds and chasing people who are not really available or not really a good fit. But I think a lot of it, too, is we attach to the idea of somebody, or again, we don't know that. You just don't know what you don't know. So you don't know that you're missing this entire other criteria for compatibility. So you really think that that's it. But yeah, I think you're speaking about when you know that that's not really, they don't fit a lot of things, but we still latch on because they made us feel good or they validated us or we're used to chasing emotional unavailability that feels comfortable, even though it's painful. There's so many reasons for that. And just, yeah, really attaching to the idea of somebody putting them on a pedestal in five seconds and then really dating them becomes more about making them like you instead of you thinking about if they're a good fit for you. That's what I'd like to see a lot. Yeah, no, no, I appreciate that. And just something occurs to me as you're saying that. You know, I grew up when I met women the old fashioned way. I'd go to a nightclub, get drunk and meet someone that way. Yeah. You know, with dating apps now, I think there's this false sense of abundance, number one. But there's also this plethora of abundance, meaning you get a lot of particularly women that can get a lot of attention. And in that, oftentimes, I think they overlook some really good people. I think those things happen. But I really do believe that dating apps in particular, and what I mean is the swiping versus the match.com. Oh, by the way, I'm gonna ask you this in a moment, how'd you met your husband? But I think dating apps have marginalized people so much more so than when the first dating apps came out where you had to go on your laptop and there was a lot more curated information. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good point. I think that there's so many of them at this point that, and this, I mean, this is a larger cultural thing too where we're inundated with information on our phones so we're not using it very intentionally. Like you said, where you pull out the laptop after you get home from work and you're excited to check your messages and you've been thinking about it all day. It's more like, oh, I'm standing in the grocery line and I have a second, let me swipe mindlessly and it's not very intentional. And then, yeah, there's a lot of, there could always be somebody else better for me out there and you don't have to like sneak behind the person you're kind of seeing and go out to the club to find out, you just sit on your couch or on the toilet and you can see is there anyone better? So I think, yeah, it's certainly changed dating. It has, I think that, yeah, I think that it's contributed to more like ghosting and bread crumbing and all these terms that are trendy now. But I also think that in the 80s and the 90s and the early 2000s, there was, these things still happened but I feel like they just, they weren't spoken about to the extent that they are now like the bread crumbing or the ghosting or like the guy who just never calls you back is sort of what it more was is my sort of understanding. But I think that, I think it certainly has changed the dating landscape. Yeah, when I think back to when I met my now ex-wife, it was a little bit different. By the way, I met her through a video dating service. Oh my God. I don't know if I've talked about this publicly too much but I actually knew her. And then when I went to this video dating service, I go, oh, I recognize her and we had a mutual friend. But I feel like back then, and maybe this was a cultural generational thing, I treated with women with I think a little bit more respect because they didn't seem so disposable. Like you had to work for it a little bit more in my generation, you had to walk up to a stranger, feel that uncomfortableness after them out, all those sort of things where now it's just swipe and it's like, hi, that's all you have to do. So I actually believe that the dating apps have created a rather disrespect of people or when I say marginalizing is discounting them and trivializing people because they're literally just like a number. When in real life, they were at least a real person. You felt more guilty ghosting them. You still ghost, we call it just never returning a phone call but I feel like that's become the norm unfortunately and it's something sad. Yeah, like it's depersonalized. Yes, exactly. You're like desensitized to swiping. By the way, I met my husband on Tinder in 2019. Yeah, I wanna know. Let's go down over. Okay, I wanna hear the 411, give us the 411. Well, it's funny because when I joined Tinder probably in like 2014 or 15, I remember getting, it's funny actually, I remember being on a girl's trip with my best friend and she showed me, oh, there's this thing called a dating app and you can use it and so we go on there and we're laying in our hotel bed and we're in Savannah, Georgia and I go, I get my first match and I'm like so excited and I'm messaging him or whatever and I show her and she goes, oh, I matched with him too and I was like, oh my God, I didn't consider that. And I was, it was such an odd experience to be like, wait, I'm chatting with him. What is he saying to you? Is he saying the same thing? So I joined Tinder back in those days and then I had several relationships that didn't work out as well and then I met my husband on Tinder in 2017. We were both on Bumble as well but we didn't match over there, which was odd. Well, Tinder gets a bad rap for being a hookup site, you know, I mean- It's so not anymore, it's so not. I mean, my main thing with it is they don't do the prompts and everything, right? So they, it's just, I think it's a little bit less intentional sometimes what you, the bios and stuff that you find on there but I like, I curated mine very specifically for my values and my husband messaged me like really excited message and all caps about like something that I had written there and then it was like, then we, we had great conversation because I gave him material in my profile to actually lead to a deeper conversation instead of like, I'm a dog person and I love iced coffee, you know? Yeah, and I've got to go skiing and snowboarding and this, I get exhausted when I see how athletic some people are. I'm like, I already got, I already feel my heart rate going up. So we'll go down this train track for a second.  I'm sorry, I'm just going to be that blunt. They are so poorly done, whether it's every single photo sunglasses or pictures with 12 people in every photo and you can't figure them out or I saw one woman's profile, one photo of her, the sushi plate she ate, the picture of the Eiffel Tower, a coffee she drank and I'm like, and I've got to be honest with you, Kelsey. Maybe you can do some therapy on me. I get so angry.  Like, and I recognize that that's my own issue but I'm like, it's almost pathetic the amount of effort somebody, and I'm talking about people that genuinely want a real relationship. Why do you think that happens? Why do I think you get frustrated or why do I think? Well, actually, by the way, do some therapy. I'll take some therapy on that. Yeah, I mean, we all have judgments, right? So it's good to be aware of. But yeah, I imagine that a lot of folks don't, I mean, a lot of folks don't even understand Instagram or Facebook still or like, and that's not like to shame anyone. It's just there's a lot of features. There's a lot of apps to choose from. There's a lot of different ways you could upload things like, or a lot of different things you could upload. There's no real instructions on some of these apps, I guess. So I guess I'm more inclined to say, I think they probably don't understand how it works or they go, oh, I should show them what I like, right? And just in my photos and maybe they think that's a real, actually unique strategy, you know, instead of typing it out. I guess, okay, and again, I'm being a little bit nitpicky here.  I get the whole, I can do my own psycho analysis.  But I'm like, whether we like it or not, we are marketing ourselves. We may not like the idea we're marketing ourselves, but we're certainly, most humans are familiar with trying to get a job with a company they'd like to be with. So putting the best resume you could possibly put, to me, that's just logical. You know, that doesn't take a rocket scientist to get that and a dating profile isn't that hard to upload a photo and write some things about you. So I think there's a deeper ambivalence versus ignorance or a deeper, or maybe there's even like, if I put a shitty profile and I get rejected, well then it makes sense I got rejected. I'm just putting it out there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, I think there is a lot of ambivalence with dating apps because of it's inundating and exhausting. So people delete them, they end up redownloading them. They don't feel inclined to put a lot of effort in because they feel they haven't got a lot of results. So I think that there's that. And then absolutely there's, I mean, there's people who've made, there's a lot of people I know who feel I only sincerely have one good photo of myself. So I would not dare try to show another photo when really if you and I looked at it we'd be like, all of these are just fine, you know, where you have multiple, but like the self-consciousness of putting yourself out there, absolutely, there can be a self-protective part of that. Okay, okay. I wanna come back to your husband for a moment if it's okay because I think you can have a good teaching lesson, but I actually wanna talk about some of your Instagram posts, okay? Okay, and for everyone, I got it, by the way, there'll be a link to go to Kelsey's website and her Instagram page. I highly recommend you following her, it's worth it. I follow her and I'm saying it's worth it to you. So, you're very welcome. And I love, this was one that I loved the most, seven red flags you thought were green flags. And you said, he's charming and chases you. Now, why is that a red flag? Yeah, yeah, so it can be a red flag, right? You know, for two reasons, that the charming is not, being charming is not a bad thing on its own, but it is often linked, as we know, to people who are manipulative or just quite surface level even, right? So I mean, you'll see there's a lot of people in the comments, oh my gosh, I guess that was me, that was my ex who was narcissistic or who loved bomb me. So there's that that it can lead to, but then the other piece I tell people is like, it's sort of one of two things. It's like, we could be on a fast track to a toxic relationship. Or, and I think more likely, more common is, we just are totally missing what a healthy development of a relationship looks like. To your point, like the unsexiness of like, hey, what are you about? And does this align with me? Or here's like the message that you sent to the woman. Here's some things that I see that maybe don't align for us. You know, what do you think about that? Like starting conversations like that versus I'm gonna chase you and I'm gonna be charming and try to woo you versus get to know you. So that's what I mean by that one. Yeah. The next one, actually, this is the one that made me fall in love with you, by the way. It's in the same, it's in that same category, red flag, or red flags that you thought were green flags. He won't let you pay for anything. Yeah. And let me tell you, I wanna hear your perspective first because I think I know where you're going. I haven't asked you this, but why is that a potential red flag? Yeah. That one really hits mainly towards that toxic relationship. So often intensity on the front end, in a good way, like, oh my gosh, he's like spoiling you and he's taking you everywhere and he's showering you with compliments and he won't let you pay for anything or lift a finger. It can turn into intensity on the back end in a bad way. It doesn't have to mean that it will, but certainly it can. And so elements of control that we wanna be aware of throughout the dating process include, I will not let you pay for anything, but that doesn't have to mean that that's what that is, but that also, I wanna control, oh, who are you talking to? Or where are you? Will you share your location with me very early on? Or wanting to control what you can or cannot wear or saying, that shirt's a little low cut for going out in public.  Yeah, I wanna share with you something why this resonates with me is that, and first off, I'm in full agreement insisting that I have to pay for everything. Well, that takes out any opportunity for generosity from the other person.  I'd like to show my appreciation. So that in and of itself could mean that this person can't receive someone's appreciation because they wanna be in control.  I think some men, and this isn't always the case where they insist on paying, that gives them permission to dump you whenever they want because I paid for everything. In other words, there's a psychological approach for those people of control is because I've been in control, I get to dump you whenever I want because I paid for it. Yeah, and that's an interesting one. And that made me think too of like, also I pay for everything and so you owe me something.  Yeah, like it's just, it's an imbalance, right? Which if you both want that, that's okay. And you've spoken about that's a value for you or you're more traditional, that's okay. But when it's just like he's setting the rules, like he will not allow you to pay when you would like to, that becomes a problem. Yes, you know, my best friend is worth a hundred million dollars or my oldest friend, I should say. And I mean, when he's with us, he takes care of everything because he's got abundance. And yet when I offer to pay, he's like, he doesn't reject it, you know, he's like, but it's kind of an, and to some degree, and within his relationship, he pays for everything. And I'm sure if she offered, he's not gonna reject it. It's that control piece that we're really identifying. And while that might seem really attractive and might even seem sexy, well, he just pays for everything. He insists I pay for, he pays for everything. Be careful of that one. Well, I think we all want to feel taken care of, right? But a big thing that I've noticed with the women I work with in almost everything that I talk about with clients is me has been me. It's like we want to feel taken care of, but when we really think about what a healthy relationship is, is it's like, yes, if you have that kind of, somebody's like a massive breadwinner and it makes sense, sure. But like you're both taking care of yourselves emotionally and financially and physically. And then you're leaning on a partner as like a teammate. That's how I see relationships more so than like this toxic romanticism idea that especially a man is gonna swoop in and sweep you off your feet and take care of you and take care of everything. It's not really realistic, like from an emotional perspective. And I think sometimes when we desire that caretaking financially, it bleeds into other areas too. So a lot of what I teach in my primary program that people are in is like self validation and self soothing and self regulation and things emotionally that we need to learn to do for ourselves that we want to make sure we're not over relying on a partner to do that for us. Yeah. Well, kind of, so the title of the seven red flags you thought were green flags, you know, it's interesting. I did a blog recently how when we have sex too early, we can often turn red flags into green flags. In other words, a little bit different. Like in other words, because to some degree, and I'm guilty of this, I'm guilty everyone, objectivity goes out the roof sometimes the minute you're physically intimate with someone. So what are your thoughts on when to have physical intimacy? That's a great question. I get that so much. And I know there are some dating coaches who will say like they have a 12 day rule or something, you know, in my mind it's more, I always, I'm not so much about rigid timelines, but more so about like you learning what causes you to attach. And if that is a problem for you that you notice you're gonna attach when you start to engage physically, then you wanted to lay that until you know where this relationship is going and that you guys are on the same page and that you have formed an emotional connection first. However long that takes, it's however long that takes. But it's more about knowing yourself. For me at least, it's about knowing yourself really well, what causes you to attach, how to tell you're starting to attach and attune to that and implement the boundaries that you need to slow that down. Which may or may not include physical intimacy, you know? We can also attach with like staying up all night talking is something that some of my clients have done on like first or second dates with a guy and they're like, oh my gosh, we didn't even do anything. We just stayed up all night talking, it was amazing. And then that accelerated their attachment. And it's like, wait, why did that happen? Because we didn't, we weren't intimate but there's so many different forms of intimacy as you know. So yeah, I think it's for me it's a bigger conversation of many factors.   So, you know, just all of those things I encourage people to be aware of. Yeah, it's fascinating. I got addicted to the show 90 day fiance. Oh my God, me too. I stopped but years ago, oh my gosh, I used to watch it. And there was this one guy kind of, it was in the last season where he got attached to a woman who lived in Dominican Republic or something like that. And they never spoke on the phone, never video chatted. It was everything text messaging for four years. Wow. And he even flew out there to go see her and she didn't show up. And it turns out as they're doing the filming they find out he had been catfished. Yeah. I would say catfish is my other favorite. Yeah. I love that show. Oh, the show catfish. The show catfish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was painful for me to watch. I mean, sometimes that was just, but it seems to me particularly when there is distance, we rely on our devices for connection and communication and people can form huge attachments but even more so they can start giving money. This man was giving money to this woman or actually we found out later in the show it was an actual man. Yeah. And I'm here to say, I've always said this, it isn't real until you physically meet. Right. But gosh, get on a FaceTime if nothing else. Absolutely. Now I even tell people like if you're even in the same city, try to meet in the first couple of weeks from matching with somebody if you can and if you can't then just try not to have too much communication ahead of time just because you can form your own idea of this person, especially over text.  I think a little awkward meeting people, right? But especially if you're like, wait, we've connected and I've told you so many things about myself that are vulnerable and yet your nervous system will recognize this as a stranger when you very firstly eyes on them. That might go away in five minutes, who knows? But it can just really make it and then it distracts you from forming other connections sometimes. It's kind of a challenge though because I've spent hours on the phone with people and met them and what I appreciate about that is that there's a sense of familiarity. In other words, there's a sense of comfort and ease because when you're meeting a stranger especially if you have no communication whatsoever you know, you're starting from scratch whereas if there's a little bit of rapport built a little bit of familiarity at the same time and I wanna piggyback what you said I've gotten vulnerable with people only to meet them and never see them again and I felt like the walking out on the plank and the plank got pulled out from underneath me a little bit. Yeah. There's definitely a fine line to that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so. I think there's no need to hangover is what I call it. Wait, say that again. Vulnerability hangover. Oh, I've never heard that. I love that. Yeah, I didn't come up with it. I don't remember where I heard it years and years ago but you know, you share something and even if it goes well I mean, let's say you share something on a date and then the next day you wake up and you're in your own bed by yourself and you go, oh God, was it okay that I shared that? You just have a little bit of a vulnerability hangover about being vulnerable, even if it went well. Wow, you know, I thank you. I wish now I knew who said that but I'm gonna. I know we could probably Google it but I don't actually know off the top of my head. Well, go check it out. I love that because I can speak from my own personal experience where I thought, oh, I wish I could have that five second role and pull it back into my mouth when I shared. That was maybe a little too personal and thankfully I haven't had anything that has come back to bite me. Okay, I've got more questions to ask you but now I wanna ask you, okay, so you met your husband on Tinder. I think, give us the 411 on the dating process between the two of you. Well, it was funny because I actually and, you know, some of them I hesitate to say this sometimes but I do share this. I was not looking for a relationship when I met him actually and I was very open about that. And he's sort of, I mean, he's just, he's great. He was so accepting of that and he unintentionally like reverse psychology because, you know, as soon as he didn't pressure me into that, I was like, and then we, you know, so we didn't have a traditional courting process.  I did offer to split it with him. He was like, you're in grad school.  You know, so that was nice. But we went out dancing afterwards and I met like two of his best friends because it was like, oh, they're just out for, at this dancing place. So, you know, it just sort of happened. Then we went to the gym together a lot. We were members of the same gym. And I was like, I sincerely would like to learn how to lift weights. Didn't enjoy it. Don't do that anymore. But he sort of taught me about that. And we actually, I used to watch The Bachelor and The Bachelorette a lot. So there was like an evening early on and in our, like maybe the first week or two of dating or seeing each other, you know, where I was like, oh, I'm watching The Bachelorette and you know, I was a grad student watching it on my laptop in my bed in like the attic space that I was renting by my school. And so he sent me like, he sent me a photo of that actually it's the couch that's right behind me, this big comfy couch and this big TV that he had in his apartment. And he was like, or you could come watch it here. And I was like, listen, let me just be very clear. Like my intention is to seriously watch it. And then I'm going home like that. Nothing else is gonna happen. But we actually, we started watching the season together and it led to all of these really amazing conversations about what do you think love means to you? Or what do you think? Like what does a healthy relationship look like to you? Because people on The Bachelor are just all over the place falling in love with somebody based on two conversations about their cat, you know? So yeah, so that's where we really, like I think we really unexpectedly started to realize how similarly we view relationships with like that lens of realism and emotional maturity versus like chemistry and spark and intoxicating romance and you know, stuff like that, which leads to our bigger shared value and worldview of like social constructivism is something that we both sort of just see the world in that way as in everything is socially constructed. Like we're married, but we're like marriage is a social construct.  So that's just sort of it comes up in a lot of different ways in the ways that we view situations and challenges and ourselves. So yeah, we see we formed a connection and he's got great communication skills. So he said to me, you know, I was like spending a lot of time with him and like telling my mom about him and asking him to like help me move some furniture and things, but I was like, no, no, no, no, we're not in a relationship. And in hindsight, I was trying to protect myself because I had recently got out of something painful. So I was trying to, you know, tell myself, oh, as long as it's not a relationship like I can't get hurt, which is silly. And, you know, therapists and dating coaches are not immune to doing these kinds of cognitive distortions to protect ourselves. Yeah. But, you know, he called me out on it and said, listen, I just want to check in with you because you said you don't want a relationship but I noticed we're doing a lot of things that feel like we're in a relationship. And I said, no, I totally appreciate that. Don't want a relationship still. And he's like, okay, so I'm taking you at face value here, meaning we can see other people. And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we both went out that weekend and we spent time separately and we both had experiences with other people. And we came back together on the Sunday of that weekend. And I was like, oh gosh, I've got to tell him I felt really bad even though I was allowed to do what I did. And so was he. And so we came back together and we both shared it very openly, like, hey, I had an experience with someone else. And that made me realize like, oh, I don't want to, I want to be exclusive actually. So that's sort of how we went. And then it was, you know, it was a few months later that we actually decided to move in together. So it went very quickly after that. Okay, so, well, okay, so would you say this is kind of the exception, not the role? Let me explain where I'm going here for a second. Because, you know, since you communicate with women as I do, you know, I think men oftentimes one of the biggest red flags of men, particularly in my age demographic, it says, I don't want anything serious, I just want something casual. And well, yes, those casual type of dynamics can turn into something. I think there's a deeper- Oh, you don't want to put that on that. No. Yeah. Not on that.   I think there's some significant red flags, one of which is this one. And I think part of it is why it's a red flag. Well, let me take it down this road. I understand the self-preservation and also that not necessarily creating a false promise for someone. Yet the same time, I say it's a red flag to say casual because I think when people spend too much time in casual, they're not really building something with somebody else. Am I making sense? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.  And that's why my other one that I think you even wanted to talk about, my other video that I put out recently was about, like, you know, seven things you're doing with a man that don't necessarily mean you're in a relationship. And people go crazy in the comment section, I get it, because we have really been socialized that like not to directly communicate, but it really is like, you don't want to operate on assumptions. So even if somebody just hasn't said what they're looking for, or especially if they've said they're not looking for something, but then they want to take you to dinner and they want to hang out at your place and they want to meet your family and whatever, you have to be having conversations along the way. And ideally like immediately up front about what you're both intending for and what you're looking for in general. And then as things continue between the two of you, like where is this going? Is another conversation you want to be having regularly? And you'll find that, you know, you want to check in about those things because it's setting up the relationship with healthy communication, but also because the kind of men who, one huge complaint of my people is like, we dated for three weeks or three months and he was great, he seemed all in and then he just realized he wasn't ready. Those guys are not going to like the check-ins along the way, right? So if you check in. No, I'm processing that one. I'm thinking of my own behavior in the very, in the past, oh, by the way. Yeah, yeah, like, you know, if I'm emotionally, oh, this is a whole other conversation. This is probably the number one complaint of my women that I work with is, and my followers is, you know, somebody who seems emotionally available and then turns out they're not. And of course people can change their minds, but when I look at these stories of what's happening it's really like, you know, we could have deep conversations about spirituality or the world or whatever, but when you really look at it, this man wasn't able to share vulnerably his own emotions, you know? Or like he went all in really quickly and it was very romantic, but it didn't have a lot of depth, you know? Or he was very avoidant, you know? So in that case with the avoidance, like they are not going to want to check in about the relationship and if you check in, you know, if you check in along the way and that pushes them away, that's just information for you. Like, thank you so much for showing me right now that this is probably not gonna work out, you know? Instead of like holding it back, hoping he feels the same, bringing it up when you're already attached. And then he's like, oh no, I don't want that.  I think I confused the reason why I processed that was, I thought you meant just checking in like, hey, how you're doing versus check in on what's going on. Yes, a relationship. So just from the male perspective, you might find this interesting. I did a video on this differentiating between how a man shares how you make him feel. Okay, so put that in a box. So a man early on, oh my God, you feel so amazing. You're so wonderful. You're so this, you're so that. They're expressing how they feel being with you versus how they feel about you. There's, I've witnessed that in the early stages, we'll talk about how we feel being with you. So women hear that, it's like, oh, music to my ears. Those are emotions, those are feelings. But there's a difference when I say feeling about you, how I feel about you. Are you tracking where I'm going with this? I think so. I mean, as I understand that, I see it the same way if I'm understanding you correctly, which is like, I'm so smitten with you or like how we feel together or around you versus like articulating what is it that I think makes you a really good match with me? Exactly. What is it that I see in you on a deeper level? And that's my whole issue with courting, which I imagine is probably controversial, maybe even among your audience. But the courting is such historically a distraction from the deeper elements of true compatibility. And that's why, that's the only reason why I'm kind of a hater against courting.  And like, you can articulate as well, like you're paying the bill, you're holding the door and you can articulate what makes this woman an amazing match for you on a deeper level like core values, worldviews, identities, lifestyle, blending families, right? Great. But I found that those things don't typically go together. So we talked about this a little, you know, like the courting culture, I think doesn't lend itself amazingly well to really good compatibility assessment. Well, I think, okay, so, and this is a judgment I have. I think there are some women that operate from an entitled perspective. I deserve to be courted. I deserve to be showered with romance and affection and all these things. And that in and of itself reeks of entitlement, which is gonna blow up in your face later on down the road because I believe treat people the way you wanna be treated and treat the process like, I know this doesn't sound romantic, but two lawyers deciding to start a law firm together. Let's do it as two sovereign beings exploring, we can court each other for arguments. But courting, the idea of it is so based on romance, you know, so heavily based on attraction and romance that it takes away any objectivity, like I said earlier. So I think we share that same belief. Absolutely. As we're getting close to the end, I wanna bring up seven things you're doing with a man that doesn't necessarily mean you're in a relationship. And I love this because you, these are the seven things, sleeping together, texting daily, taking trips together, meeting family and friends, hanging out at each other places, going out to dinner, talking about the future. So that's made me think. I think men who might have a short-term mating strategy do all these things because they know from a woman's perspective, it sounds like it's a long-term mating strategy. So, but I would say that if men are doing these things, it looks like he's long-term. Why might it be a short-term? Why does that not necessarily mean you're in a relationship? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, what it comes down to is you just, you have to communicate, like I said, but the reality is humans love connection.  I mean, that does happen. That does happen. Not okay. But at the same time, like I find that women are not feeling amazingly empowered to just communicate that. And so the onus is just as much on the woman to say, hey, like if we're going to be physically intimate, you know, I, it's important to me to be exclusive or to say like I'm looking for a relationship or to initiate a relationship check in kind of how things are going. It's just as much on her as it is on the guy to say, oh, by the way, I don't want a relationship even though I'm doing these things with you. And it's so fascinating because it's like women's power has been externalized to men in so many ways, in my opinion. And I think that this is one of the ways that that like shows up in relationships is like, it's just, we don't even think about it. We like expect the man to again, like emotionally care take us by saying, oh, by the way, I don't want a relationship. So again, like women are very frustrated by this dynamic. But if you're not asking, like why is he going to set a boundary when it's working for him? And if nobody's, if everybody's walking on eggshells and nobody's communicating, it's fair game. It's fair game for people to be seeing other people, right? Or to be not wanting a relationship. And there are people who, you know, who do want to do all the things in a relationship and connect, but who don't want the obligation of prioritizing a partner. And I think that that's a valid preference, but it should be stated. And if it's not, you've got to ask. So this piggyback something I want to share with you, you're not prepared for this, but I wrote something about a year ago called the dating vows, okay? So it used to be wedding vows. People would recite something to each other, you know, in a wedding vow and make a commitment to one other. So I created the dating vows and I'd love your take on it. This will take me about 30 seconds to read. So it's basically, I always say, have you ever heard the phrase, women are the gatekeepers of sex, men are the gatekeepers of commitment? I didn't write that somebody else did. So this is something to do before you get to invest it in someone or even before having sex. You say, I, Jonathan or Kelsey, or, well, you're married, so, but you state your name, agree to explore the process of getting to know you with the intent to declare something serious within the next three to six months. I agree to be monogamous sexually while we're having regular sex together. I agree not to actively seek to meet and date others while we're in the dating process, including taking down our dating profiles. I agree to speak up if this isn't working for me versus pulling back, ghosting or disappearing. And I agree to invest regular time in the process of getting to know you, which looks like social activities, hobbies, mutual interests, traveling together, so forth and so on. Now, I love your take on it. First off, because I know that a lot of people would be turned off by doing this. So what are your thoughts on it? I love it. What part did you, what point in the relationship did you say you bring this to them? Well, I think before either physical intimacy or before you give your heart to somebody, which is kind of a tricky point, but it's certainly it's to get clarity and by making a vow, you have some agreements here. And I think 90% of men will say, I'm not going to do that because they know there's some other woman out there that'll give sex for free. What is it? They can buy the cow with that or they can get the milk without buying the cow kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. I would love your take, yeah. I love it. I think that, I mean, I teach something very similar which is just agreements, like not necessarily written, but agreeing that, hey, like after a couple of dates, if we feel that we want to pursue this exclusively, that we just agree to let each other know if feelings change on either side. And to know that also like feelings can waiver without it, meaning we have to end this thing that we can talk about the process of doubts throughout getting to know somebody and like exactly what you sent that woman, again, that message, like something like that after a couple of months even or a couple of weeks of, this is an incompatibility that I noticed that I'm worried about. And what do you think about that, right? Sometimes just talking about that resolves it. And so like not keeping those things in and not ghosting, yeah, all of those things I totally agree with. Well, you know, it's more, and by the way, this is more of a guideline than a rule. The idea is to be grown up. Right.  And again, this is more of a guideline than it is a rule and you don't have to write it down. It's just verbally expressing it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's like if you are seeing each other naked and you can't talk about the status of the relationship or where it's going, you're moving too fast. Yeah. You know, isn't it fascinating how I jokingly, I pull out duct tape by the way in my videos. It's, you know, it fascinates me how two people can be physically intimate with each other. And yet their voice is almost non-existent. This is the time when you're physically intimate, that you have permission. I mean, I think you'd agree. You're giving everybody permission to be absolutely authentic, vulnerable, transparent because without it, you can't build deep intimacy with someone. Exactly. Yeah, and I think, you know, physical intimacy really early on is often, it just bypasses emotional intimacy. And it makes attachment very complex. It makes it hard to walk away. So yeah, I think if you're somebody who's looking for, you know, a relationship with emotional depth, these are conversations you should be able to have with somebody.  Like have this conversation and if they're not even available for a conversation like this, like they think that's weird or they think that's too much, they're probably not your person. You know, it's interesting. And I'll kind of come to a conclusion on this note. Many of my clients, and I suspect the same thing happens for your client out, is that actually by being more intentional, it creates a better relationship than those that go in kind of with the old traditional expectation. Men are supposed to be in charge and they're supposed to rule and all this kind of stuff and leave. When a woman gets more intentional with a man who really wants a significant relationship, it actually makes his job so much easier. Why is that? Oh, I love that you said that because, you know, I mean, what I hear a lot from men on the internet is like, oh my God, it's so hard for us. Like, do we court you or do we not? And I'm like, just get to know each other as two humans who cares about like who's the man and who's the woman.  It's so irrelevant whether he opened the door for you on the first date, you know, to be honest, if he can't go here emotionally, like, it's a no for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know what? It's been an absolute treat to have you, this has been something I've really looking forward to. Yeah, same. Kelsey Wonderland will be links below to check out her Instagram and her website. She obviously does some really great work. So I want, I invite you to check out her work and sign up to her program. I make no money from this, everyone, but I endorse this person because she thinks like me, which I appreciate. Thank you. Kelsey, thanks for being on. Oh, thank you so much for having me. This was wonderful. Yeah, thanks. All right, everyone.


A white supremacist gunman went to the Al-Nua Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre and opened fire on the congregation while they were at prayer. 50 people were killed, dozens more were injured and the youngest named victim was 3 years old. One of the victims was a 71-year-old Afghan refugee and as the gunman approached the Mosque the first thing he said to the gunman and what turned out to be his last words were welcome brother. We think of mosques as being hotbeds of extremism and you know you walk in and you know you get fitted with your suicide vest and sent to a Costco or whatever but that's not what it's like. When you go to a mosque it's a space of intense vulnerability even just the actions of removing your shoes and cleansing yourself and you know bowing towards Mecca it's so disarming in a very literal sense and I think of all those times I've watched my grandmother pray whether it's in a mosque or she's just doing her Salat at home and I think about that incredible sense of peace and silent reflection and trust she's got so much trust in the world around her when she's praying like that and the thought that anyone could walk in there and commit an act of violence there aren't words for how I feel and how other Muslims feel when you consider that and it's not just a Muslim thing either the Charleston church massacre began with Dylan Roof being welcomed in amongst the congregation you know the people these violent racists are targeting could be your auntie your uncle your father your mother your kid and the thing that has gotten in the way of that gunman viewing those people in that way is propaganda and that propaganda hasn't just come from the dregs of the internet it's come from the very centre of power I found it instructive to read the Christ Church gunman's manifesto and to compare it to Anders Breviks manifesto from his massacre in Norway and what I immediately noticed is that the Christ Church gunman intended this manifesto to be poured over obsessed over dissected and argued about and I think that was a very deliberate choice your court in this position of being faced with an unbearably grave tragedy on the one hand and then a reasoning for it which disavows all seriousness whatsoever and when you're in that position it becomes very hard to articulate where the political fight back begins so for instance you know he live streamed his whole rampage and as a kind of semi-ironic battle cry he yelled subscribe to PewDiePie and now everyone's arguing you know to what extent is PewDiePie a white nationalist does he share blame does he share culpability and it's a sort of push and pull between is he joking or is he racist and it's the same with all of these references peppered through the manifesto we're in a situation where you've got these performances of racism but because it's dressed up in clown shoes you can't identify the racist and that's a deliberate place to put us in it means that we can't even agree on a shared language or a shared terminology for what's going on so one thing to realize is that YouTube facilitates this so the way the algorithm works is you start on one video and it auto plays the next or it recommends the next and you're never more than a few clicks or a couple of videos away from some really extreme white nationalist content so there's a kind of conveyor belt towards more and more hateful thinking so that's one way in which this sort of social media culture works and it's not something that people have a great deal of personal agency in the second thing is that ideas like the great replacement which is the perfect marriage really between Islamophobic racism anti-semitism and white nationalism because the theory goes that there is a sort of Zionist conspiracy to breed out white people for one of a better term is that these theories exist and proliferate within those spaces I think the first thing we need is a transformation in our establishment media culture because it is no good for Melanie Phillips to come out and say she was horrified and felt disgusted by the actions of the Christ Church shooter when on seemingly a monthly basis she will publish articles arguing that Islamophobia doesn't exist and this is after by the way Anders Bravik quoted one of her articles in full in his manifesto she of course has said she doesn't agree with him in any way but you know these racist mass murderers sure do find it hard to tell and the fact that figures like her like Rod Liddle who called for more Islamophobia in the Tory party like Douglas Murray all these people who have made their livings from whipping up hatred against Muslims and also closing down the space we have to describe that hatred I think should no longer be considered respectable faces on the current affairs circuit the second thing would be looking quite seriously at how you can break the power and the media dominance of Rupert Murdoch he is a man who has nourished from every one of his platforms channels and newspapers a state of paranoia when it comes to thinking about Muslims and in particular Muslim immigration to the global north and so we need to think quite seriously about how actions can be taken across borders to break up his media empire the third thing is tech giants so these platforms which host and build up the careers of many of these strange alt right figures white nationalist politics are no longer an unfortunate byproduct of youtube but perhaps central to its funding model and central to its growth and if youtube won't regulate itself then I'm afraid governments are going to have to regulate it and the fourth thing I think we need to completely overhaul PSHE teaching in this country but also in America also in New Zealand also in Australia because these were the classes that I bunked off when I was at school they didn't seem to teach me or anyone else in the class anything particularly useful but I feel that those are ideal settings to actually help prepare kids for the kind of online landscape they will be inhabiting because is incredibly desensitizing after maybe the fifth or the sixth time someone tweeted the video of the christ church killing at me I stopped being shocked by it and no one should be put in that position we should all feel this very deeply and I think that this kind of radicalization of white nationalist fascist far right you know murderers it starts with I think that process of desensitization and I think that's also where the humor comes in it's it's meant to normalize and to first shock and then numb people to a particular kind of discourse and you don't deal with it simply by getting rid of it you need to prepare young people for it because also generations which are you know younger than mine younger than ours they're digital natives they don't remember a time without the internet and that genie's out the bottle you can't put it back in


My name is Vadim. My question is regarding unexpressed or even suppressed sexual energy. I think I need a bit more clarity regarding the way to transform, to transmute this energy into love. As far as I remember, you told that this energy slightly goes up and then goes out as love. From my experience of holding this sexual energy inside, physically, I mean, after a while, indeed I feel something like a growth of energy, clarity, I need less sleep and I feel more strong and more focused and stuff. But after a certain point it starts to get a bit overwhelming and difficult for me to manage. Anger, in my case it's rather over-excitement, like I had five coffees in a row or something. The mind becomes, like, too much disturbed. The symptoms are pretty much like the disturbed Kundalini. I feel easier when I just physically let this sexual energy out. In most cases, honestly, it feels like a relief. It's kind of like a get rid of some stagnant energy. When I don't do it at this particular moment, when I do it a bit later on, then it's the opposite thing. I feel like sucked out and super exhausted. So, the question is what is your general advice on dealing with the sexual energy and in particular what are the risks of not expressing it in the proper moment? Firstly, it depends on what your general interest or calling in life is. For example, if you are a grihasta, if you're somebody who is leading a family life, has a partner, has children, living the life of a grihasta, there's a very different approach to the whole issue with sexuality. Or if you're a monk, then it's a different story. The problem starts there in that you are neither a monk nor are you living as a family man. So, you're already in a state of confusion. In most ancient societies, there was clarity about these things because of exactly this reason. So, while you are experimenting with the Virya Shakti, it's the Shakti of that entire force of sexuality. You are experimenting with it but your social circumstance is not clear. So, first one has to put clarity in that. But because it's not clear and because you can't put clarity into it in one or two days, whatever happens, if there is a feeling in the system to hold back and not to release, then, and this holds for male as well as female, there's no difference in that actually because both have the same kind of Shakti in a different form. If you have that need to hold back, then there is something in your system which is understanding that there is a force there which you can actually instrumentalize, let's say. But what are you instrumentalizing this Shakti for? That you don't know. If you want to be somebody who is able to transmute this energy, you don't want to release it, you want to transmute it. The transmutation of that energy means you actually pull up that Shakti into the heart area and you release it outward as a force of love. Meaning that instead of that Shakti being in the lower chakras where they have a different function, let's say a function of pleasure, a function of reproduction, that force gets pulled up and it gets transmuted into a larger unity consciousness, love energy flowing outward to all. So if you consciously do that, you won't feel that pressure, that energetic pressure. It's an energetic pressure that the system cannot hold it. There's no Sahana Shakti built up. You don't have to force the strength to hold that energy within your system. That is because this practice is not undertaken. So if you undertake this practice, then gradually what happens is you train the system to pull up the Shakti and to expel it, in a sense you can say. It's a bit violent as a word but it goes out as love to everyone and people who have that, they have a certain vibration about them. You can see that this person is not shaken by the sexual energy. You can know it. You can see a person immediately, is this person shaken by that energy or not? When I say shaken, what I mean is are they victims of that energy or are they the masters of that energy? That you can see quite clearly in a person when you see them because they have the ability, if they transmute it, to really be sources of love to lots of people around them. The question is what do you want to do with this thing, with this body that is here called Vadim, what do you want to do with it? There is a choice you can make. It's not that everything is already written down on your forehead and you have to go that route. It is both. It is predestined and it is created in every moment. So what is it that you want to do with it? Are you an experimental spiritual seeker? That's also a way to live. Then if you want to transmute that energy, you learn how to pull it up and transmute it. And I also want to say one thing that the Virya, it has two components. It has on the one hand the energetic, purely energetic component, which is also material in nature, which is more towards the energy side of the spectrum than it has the very materiality, the actual material thing. What is very interesting is that if you train yourself to pull this energy up and to transmute it, because if you don't do that, it will go into aberrations, either mental aberrations or physical aberrations like physical illnesses, mental disturbances as you also brought up, emotional aberrations, strange emotional behaviour, if you don't transmute it. When you transmute it, there are two things that also happen. One is the materiality has to find its expression somewhere. And what has been observed over the years with people who have undertaken these practices is that materiality of the Virya is expelled through the nose. It comes out through the nose. And the Shakti element is transmuted and expressed as love through the heart chakra coming out like that. So if you are able to hold and experiment and go through that, then you will find out these things and then you become of course a source of love to everyone. The other way is of course to expel it and keep that energy under control in the system. But it has its negative sides as well. So it's a choice that you make.  Then of course you don't have this kind of build up of pressure in the system. So it's a choice you have to make as to what you actually want, what is this thing you want in this life or what does it feel it has drawn towards or what is it's calling. And all these actions go hand in hand. But till the choice is not really made, what to do with this energy? Well, it depends. Do you want to continue to experience it in this way or do you want to try to transmute it? To actually pull it up and transmute it and express it as love. What is your interest? Because the spiritual path is always a matter of propensity and interest also. Some people are not interested in that aspect. They are more interested in the self-observation aspect or in surrender aspect and self-realization. In other words, they spend a lot of time focusing on the sexuality and seeing how that energy can be manipulated or also transmuted. So it is also a matter of your personal interest. What does your interest lie? If it lies in the area of transmutation of sexual energy, then that is what you will focus on in surrender. Samarpan is non-negotiable, always in surrender, deep, deep surrender. And it is possible to actually go with the truth of the being.  It is like a small glimpse in that chakra, let's say, of what actually happens when you go into oneness experience, when you go into a unity consciousness experience. It is like a small glimpse of it. So once you have had the glimpse 100 times after that, how many more glimpses? And the interesting part is that even say 50 or even 100 years ago, here in the Indian subcontinent, as per the Kama Shastras, the Anangar Angaspur, many of the Shastras written about all this, the general population, the male population was not there releasing whatever they were producing on a daily basis like it's happening now. They held back that Virya Shakti because it gave them strength, it gave them power as men to operate with that extremely demanding creature called a woman. Which is the reason why men can't really handle this creature anymore. Because if they are continuously releasing the Virya Shakti, how are they supposed to deal with that thing which is in front of them? So demanding, that is so inordinately expecting a constant service in all areas. The only way men were able to maintain that power equation with females was that they held the Virya Shakti in. They satisfied the female but didn't give in in terms of release. This is what anyone with any sense in their brains, any man would know or at least try to implement. What do they do with that energy? Then they transmute it. So it is a decision to take up living like that.  It's a decision every man has to make. What the women have to do is a separate issue. So holding the Virya Shakti, transmuting it, expressing it as love to the world around you and concurrently being able to actually maintain a sexual life if that is what is interesting for you. That should be the way you can somehow function now. Until you make up your mind to take up either being a monk or being a Grihasthi. There's nothing in between. That's all woke stuff which is not going to last very long because there won't be any men around if things go on like this for another 100 years or 50 years. It's a decision. It's a very strict concrete decision you can take. You can control it. It's in your body. It's not in her body. You can train yourself. And also, as you yourself said, that clarity in thought, that you know, clarity, general clarity about everything, the strength, the energy, everything just increases. Why would someone want to release that energy all the time? You see what I'm saying? Yes, I do. My question was also about the risks. If the system is not really ready to manage this like intensity, maybe the system is just not ready right now. Yes, it's like you train yourself gradually. You can't do it all in one day. First you have to learn how to pull that Shakti upward to the heart and to release it, right? So you take time, you practice, you slowly develop into that. It won't happen in a day. And the risks are only if the energy is not transmuted. So either it's released or it's transmitted. Then there is no risk of any mental illness or aberrations, emotional aberrations. I don't really think it's either transmuted or released. If it's suppressed, there's I think a third option which is the most like negative one. Suppressed is not possible. Suppressing it is not possible. That is dangerous. Either you transmit it or you release it, you cannot suppress. If you suppress it, then those are the dangers I mentioned before. It's either mental, like you start to actually become strange mentally. You're not able to put together logical thought processes, rational processes which are necessary for living. You're not able to do that anymore gradually. People who suppress because they think they're transmuting but they're not, you know. You feel it when you're transmuting this energy. You can feel it, you don't have to do some grandiose courses in tantric, I don't know what. It's all not necessary because you can feel the force rising in the system. You practice, you sit quietly and make it move up and express it outward. And then you are safe. And if you feel the build-up is too much, you release and then you train yourself more and more to be in that state of... The question is that are you ready to even express love at all? That is the thing, that fear of expressing love and I mean it in a general sense to the whole world is something you first have to get over also, you know. Because you take yourself too seriously. You don't have to take yourself too seriously. You have to be in surrender, bend, bend. The more you take yourself seriously the more the ego is at play. The more you're bending with a sweet smile and surrender going, then that thing will rise and love can come out of the heart basically. The heart opens then, you know. The issue of taking yourself too seriously has to be also looked at. I mean, I'm just saying this not to put you down at all but it is something to look at, you know. I agree. Oh, I'm very grateful that you agree as an exception. This time you didn't say but. It's not something so heavy. See, a spiritual seeker has to be an experimentalist, has to check this, try this, try that. And that's the joy of being a spiritual seeker otherwise it would be boring if you sat there the whole day like this. I mean, some people do it but spiritual seeking is active and it's vibrant and it's dynamic. It's not some haloed beings that are floating above the Ganga. So you are well on your way to finding yourself but this taking yourself too seriously and also being afraid of just being natural and expressing love to the other. All that has to come now, you know. It's been some years, right? I don't think you need to fear those dangers though. I think you know the difference between suppressing the energy, transmuting it and releasing it. I think you're smart enough for that. Still, it shouldn't be that that intelligence starts to reduce because you're making some mistakes in this department. I told you it's better to just get a partner and have some children. Then that takes care of everything. The woman will be there every day ensuring that you have no energy left at the end of the day. And then everything will be fine. You would make a good father, Vadim. Why don't you attempt it? No? We'll see. I mean you don't look like monk material to me. But one never knows, you know, one never knows. But yes, on a serious note, it's transmute. Make that attempt to transmute. And if it doesn't work, if there's a buildup release, again, transmute. It's a matter of practice. For a spiritual seeker, it's always experiment and see what happens.