Well, hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Jonathan Asley of JonathanAsley.com and I'm so excited to be doing this live stream for you today. Our topic, our long distance relationships doomed, doomed. Really quickly before we get started, 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 at any time during this video, the content resonates with you, please do me a favor and hit that like button. Really quickly, I have one big announcement to make, all my live streams do have explicit content. So if that isn't your cup of tea, I highly recommend you getting off now. All right, let's jump into our topic of, our long distance relationships doomed. All right, so long distance relationship is a popular topic to talk about and it's quite frankly relatively new when you think about it because think back, think back to caveman days. The long distance relationship is your cave was there and my cave was there. That was about as far as it was because for the most part throughout history, we lived in either in tribes and in villages. We lived in tribes and villages and then it shifted into towns. And for the most part, whoever you were gonna mate with either lived in your tribe, lived in your village, lived in your town and then as things progressed around the 1950s, at least here in the United States when people started to move out into the workforce, they oftentimes met their mate at their place of employment. So relatively, I mean, the long distance there was my office is here and your office is there. Or quite frankly, it was more like my office is here and your cubicle was there or your desk was there. But because we were more of a patriarchal society, meaning men were the predominant workers or the higher earner workers and women typically did secretarial work. But that certainly has progressed and changed. And around the 1990s, when this little, these devices were invented smart phones, well, not smartphones, but cell phones and computers and laptops and whatnot, that changed everything. And now we have access to a wide variety of people because of these devices. And I say wide variety of people, not just people that are maybe unique to you because they're not part of your social circle, but also because they can live far away. And that's what I wanna lean in today because we've seen such a rise in long distance relationships. So you might be saying, well, Jonathan, why are you saying they're doomed? Are they doomed to fail? Well, I think it's rather important. This is a very important topic to talk about because when you think about it, it's hard enough to build a relationship with someone who lives around the corner from your home, let alone a one-hour drive, a two-hour drive, a four-hour drive, a plane ride or even a passport away. And that's when I wanna talk about those different variations of long distance relationships. And we're gonna explore the validity of whether or not there's real chances of it working out and actually what you need to make a long distance relationship work out, okay? Maybe I should retitle this, what you need to make it work. Okay, so let's start with, let's start with they live a country away. In other words, they live a passport away, a passport away. And this is a very common thing I'm seeing. Now, I wanna differentiate between people that live in Europe where you could have multiple countries and you have to use, I mean, you can, here's the thing, within Europe, France, Spain and England are kind of the different space between living in California and Texas here in the United States. So what I'm really talking about is where you have to travel thousands of miles to see someone, thousands of miles to see someone. And there are plenty of people who are connecting through these devices that are beginning a romantic relationship, I say the word relationship because we have to, I wanna say they're beginning a romantic relationship on a virtual level, on a virtual level, not a physical face-to-face level. And what happens oftentimes in these cases is people will spend weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks communicating with one another before they ever meet. In some cases it could be six months to a year before they ever meet. And sometimes people can spend even a longer period of time before they ever meet someone. Now, why is this important? Because ultimately it's one thing to have a virtual relationship, it's another thing to have a face-to-face relationship. All right, I mean, there's a big difference between the two and a lot of people are experiencing virtual relationships, they're literally virtual pen pals. And until you actually are physically face-to-face with one another, and then I wanna draw attention to something that I talk about frequently in my videos is that it takes about 100 hours of face-to-face time to truly develop the first layer of trust. The first layer of trust takes about 100 hours of face-to-face time. So what I'm here to say is a lot of people will spend an incessant amount of time communicating with someone who lives far away, only to never have it come to fruition, in other words, never meet. Or when they do meet, they might only meet once. So I mean, I'm not even sure how you can solve that because I'm not a big proponent of taking more than three weeks. Let me tell everyone my philosophy. It shouldn't take more than three weeks of communication until you see someone face-to-face, okay? But that's gonna be complicated in the long distance range but I'll get to my point in a second of why I recommend this, okay? So now, going back to the scenario, and I wanna share a story of a woman who has lived in UK and she was communicating with someone in Australia. They spent a year and a half communicating with one another incessantly, Skyping, talking all the time. They racked up thousands of dollars in telephone bills and such. Well, is that true? She said she racked up some bills with telephone. Until they actually, I think, got a plan or something like that. Only to meet them once and never see them again because, and this is one of the challenges with long distance dating. We should really say, is long distance dating doom, not relationships? But we'll get to that. But then there's other relationships. So that's that scenario, okay? Then we have the, you live in Los Angeles, you live in New York, okay? It's a 3,000 mile plane ride. It's a five hour plane ride. And the exact same thing can happen with many of you. You'll talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and spend a long time before you ever meet, okay? And that certainly happens quite a bit. People will connect, but it might take a long, long, long, long time before you meet. And just I wanna remind everyone again, it takes about a hundred hours of face to face time to develop the first layer of trust. Now you might be saying, well, Jonathan, we built all this trust through the telephone. We'll get to that in a second, okay? Do you really build trust over the telephone? Okay, we're gonna get to that. Now I wanna think about those relationships where it's a short plane ride away. Someone lives in California, someone lives in Colorado. And by the way, since my audience is predominantly United States, I think in terms of the United States, but I recognize that the whole world is watching me. But just think along the lines of a two-hour plane ride. That's another type of long distance relationship. Then we have the ones where it's a five-hour drive, a five-hour drive, and then we have some that are two hours of driving or less, or one hour of driving or less, okay? So I've just laid out all these different scenarios.  This is where a lot of women get confused because a woman can actually fall in love with someone over the telephone. A woman can fall in love with someone over the telephone. A man could get infatuated with someone over the telephone and he could actually lust for someone over the telephone. Okay, that happens. But a true relationship, if you want to have a day-to-day type of relationship, if that's what you want, then it's gonna take about a hundred hours of face-to-face time, doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interests, spending time with family and friends, and overcoming some obstacles along the way, some bumps in the road, to actually build the first layers of trust. And this is one of the big challenges with long distance relationships because most of you, and I'm being judgmental when I say you, is those of you that choose these type of relationships, never really, you believe the fantasy of what it is instead of the reality of what it is. I'm gonna repeat that, the fantasy of what it is versus the reality of what it is. Because ultimately, you have to ask yourself, do you want a day-in, day-out relationship? Do you want a day-in, day-out relationship? In other words, do you eventually want to either get married, remarried, live together with someone, or have a day-to-day relationship with someone? Because there's one thing, one of several things needed to make this happen. And certainly for those relationships that are a two-hour drive or longer, you definitely need this one thing to make a long distance relationship work because otherwise it is doomed, okay? And what you need, actually you need two things. I'm gonna bring up two things. I just realized that it's really two things. First, you need a plan. How are we gonna take this into this in the same city? And a lot of you will spend weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and months and months and months investing in another human being without any game plan of how to go from here to here other than some passive conversation. But you know, like, oh yeah, you know, if things work out, we can move this and that. And I don't know how many people get sucked into this passive, oh yeah, we could live in the same town or women oftentimes will compromise who they are for the man only to find out that that's not what he really wants. And by the way, it works both ways. But what I mean to say is you have to look beyond the surface of is this person's lifestyle compatible with my lifestyle? Let me repeat that.  Because the sad part about long distance dating, it's known as what I call bubble dating, bubble dating. You're in a bubble when it's more than a four hour drive or a five hour drive. It's a plane ride away or a country away because you'll spend concentrated time together, short bursts of concentrated time in a bubble and not throughout their day to day life to see them in their day to day life. And the bubble is so great. Listen, I've done the plane ride relationships. I've done the five hour drive relationships. Well, only once have I done the five hour drive. But my point is they're so great because you get to have all this great connection, great sex, you have a great time, and then you just get to be by yourself, okay? And it can be very enticing for a short period of time. But ultimately if there is no plan, but ultimately, so if there's no plan, it has no chance of working. The second thing is you have to get through a person's true personality and learning, doing the bubble, doing the bubble, doesn't, you really don't get to see a person's true personality. You only really get to see a true person's true personality when you spend time doing shared activities and hobbies and you're maybe traveling together or you spend time with their family or friends or you see them in their work life. When you get to see them in their totality, how do they interact with other people versus the bubble that most people create within long distance? Now, I didn't address the more common long distance and that's what I wanna talk about a little bit today before we get into Q&A. And that's those people that live about an hour away. Because anything less than 30 minutes is things that you can actually navigate around. But when it gets 30, 40, 50 minutes, an hour drive, this is where it gets to be a little bit more complicated is how you're scheduling what works, spending time together. How do you get that scheduling together? And then ultimately, this is the tricky part because when people live that relatively close together, one person may not wanna move where they live and the other person may not wanna move from where they live.   And if you're not having serious conversation about this, your relationship is potentially doomed. Now, some of you might be thinking, a lot of the women might be thinking, well, why would a man invest in a long distance relationship if he's not serious? I wanna repeat that. Why would a man invest in flying, traveling if he's not serious? Because ladies, men will fly across country to get laid. Men will do that. Listen, a man, look it, there's no bordellos around the corner to get laid. They used to be very prevalent back 100 plus years ago, but they don't exist anymore. Nowadays we can go to our devices, communicate with someone who lives a plane right away, spend time, get laid, have a good time and then come back to our room. And you might be thinking, why would a guy do that? Because it's accessible, it's available. So don't get so confused because I know some of you think, well, why would a man invest in a long distance relationship and spend all this time communicating with me? Because the drive for sex is really strong and we'll take it wherever we can get it because there is no bordello around the corner. I'm not saying that's the way men think, but from a subconscious level, this is what's actually can happen. So it's not all that communication ahead of time. It's what happens afterwards. In a long distance dating, it's like that iceberg. You see only the tip. You don't see the totality of a person until you've actually spent a minimum of 100 hours of face-to-face time over a long period of time, not bubble because you can spend 100 hours in a bubble. That doesn't count, 100 hours over about 10 to 15 dates is where you build the first layer of trust. But ultimately, if you're not thinking like this, if you're thinking in the clouds, if you're thinking in the fantasy realm, then I'm here to say, be careful, beware, because there's a greater chance it's gonna be doomed because let's face it, it's hard enough to build a local relationship, let alone a long distance relationship. All right, that's my gist for today. We're gonna take questions in a second, but I do have a couple of announcements. So I hope you had value. What I said resonated with you, please hit that like button right now. I really use those likes, okay? And I'm gonna share something personal with you before we take questions. So today happens to be my oldest son, Colin's birthday, right there, Colin.  So we're gonna celebrate Colin's 25th birthday. So we got a little candle and cake here. So I want you to sing with me, but it's a song you're probably not familiar with, and it goes like this. Happy birthday, happy, happy birthday. We're in love with you, we're in love with you. May happiness be yours through all the coming years and all the best to you, all the best to you. And may you smile every day and may your cares go away and may you never, ever, ever be blue. Oh, Colin, happy birthday, happy, happy birthday to you. Wonderful you, and I'm blowing out a candle for him. Hopefully his wish, the wish I have for him comes true. So thank you for allowing me to celebrate Colin's birthday. That's him right there.  All right, thank you so much. All right, we're gonna take questions now really quickly. If you'd like to ask a question, post the question below and write the word question, or you can purchase a super sticker or super chat. All of the funds goes to a foundation I'm starting in the honor of Connor, who's my son who passed away. And the foundation is to create a scholarship fund for those folks who want personal development. And I'm in the process of making that work. So all the funds from super stickers show super chats go to that. All right, so let's look at the chat box to see what questions do we have. All right. And if you have a question, write the word question and then write the word question, Colin, and then ask a question, or purchase a super sticker and super chat, and that's easier for me to find. And I wanna thank everybody who wished Colin a happy birthday. Oh, that's very sweet. All right, if you have a question, post it below. Oh, here we go. I have no idea how to pronounce your name. So question, have you considered creating a mommy and me coaching for women and their daughters, helping the younger women avoid pitfalls while helping their moms get on track in their dating life? Oh, that's an interesting question. No, I'd never given thought to that. Now, to the extent daughters, I mean, I would prefer if I was gonna work with someone, I'd prefer them to be minimum, actually probably 21 years or older, excuse me, I'm eating some of the frosting, 21 years older, but I don't know how I'd go about that. Let me tell you a dilemma with this. Okay, so let me tell you where my brain went with this. I just wanna be candid with you. When we men go on dating apps and we see pictures of very attractive women with very attractive daughters, that is a big no-no from a dating perspective because we men see the younger person go, wow, we'd like to date them. I'm not saying we do that with any intentional being disingenuous or anything, but that's what happens when you post photographs of your very attractive daughter. You become less attractive. So I know I'm going off on a total tangent here, but ladies, this is something you need to be aware of if you're not aware of. When you post pictures of your children, especially a daughter, and if a man finds her attractive, you've literally negated your chances with, well, not totally negated, but trust me, men talk about this all the time. Oh, I'd like to date the daughter. And so you don't wanna put that energy out there. But with that said, going back to your question, I don't know how I'd create a coaching program around that, and I'm not really sure what that would look like, but I appreciate the suggestion and I'll think about that. But I will say this, the difference between the demographics that I speak to, which is I call midlife after baby making years and before retirement is a lot different than someone that's 18, 20, 25, 30 years old, because their life is like a blank sheet of paper for the most part. They're just developing their life. And most likely they're gonna seek to start a family. So however, a lot of the content I share is valuable to any age bracket. And quite frankly, I would say that a lot of the information I share is very beneficial for those that are in the baby making years to better prepare themselves so they don't become someone like most of my audience, which is divorced and dealing with all that mishaps and headaches that come with divorce. So thank you, great question. All right, if you have a question, please post the word question and let's keep going. All right. So someone says the daughter thing is scary because I flushed out a predator that way. It was very scary, but very thankful we were not harmed.  Okay, Kristen writes, uh, men dating much younger women is a total pet peeve of mine. Well, that's an interesting question. So I would like you, Kristen, to get to the root of why that bothers you because quite frankly, it's nobody's business what somebody else does. It's nobody's business. So the fact that it triggers you, that it's such a pet peeve, I invite you to look inward. Was there some incident that happened in your childhood that caused you to have an issue around the age disparity? Because it's, you know, the thing is, I'm not suggesting it's a right or wrong thing to do, but to each his own, if a woman is 45 once a day to 25 year old or a man 50 once a day to 25 year old, who cares what other people do? I want to invite you to look at what you do. But the fact that you said it's such a pet peeve, I just invite you to look at it for within yourself to say, what is the root for that trigger? Because, and now you might say, well, that's gross or whatever. But if you're not doing it, then again, why would you be concerned about what other people do? That's just an invitation I ask you to look at. So thank you for posting that. You'll probably respond and I won't see it. Okay, D2GHCD writes, question, how can I safeguard my heart with a man who works in my town but has military obligation and can be gone for months or like now in the woods for a month with virtually no contact? How can I safeguard my heart? Ladies, let me just start by saying, I don't believe in guarding one's heart. I don't believe in protecting one's heart because if you have to set up a wall, you're already doomed if you have to set up a wall. So what's most important in this particular case is this, I wrote a book called What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? It's a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work. What's most important is when you're loving on yourself, when you're loving on yourself, then it doesn't matter what the man is doing. If you have a happy, healthy life, it doesn't matter what they're doing. Now, what might be missing in your relationship is having real conversations about what type of relationship are we building? In fact, I wanna invite everybody, oh, I've got something, I wanna invite everybody to a passage I was just reading in the book by Catherine Woodward Thomas called Calling in the One. Calling in the One by Catherine Woodward, I'm gonna take this down. Calling in the One by Catherine Woodward Thomas. In fact, this is a best-selling book, New York Times bestseller. I was actually talking to her today because I needed her help on something. But I wanna read you a passage in her book on page 162 and it says, it says that way, they can stand united in a shared vision. They can stand united in a shared vision, okay? Unless they locate something outside of themselves which to join, they're going to have a much more difficult time for forging a thriving union. Let me repeat that, they're gonna have a difficult time. So my point in sharing this with everybody is this. A relationship without a common cause, a relationship without a common vision, a relationship without a common vision is very much is gonna have a really hard time developing the deep roots of trust. Now throughout history, the common cause, the common mission, the common vision was raising a family, raising a family, okay? And when you're raising a family, that's something you do together. But for those of us in midlife, that after baby making years and before retirement period, a lot of you struggle with what's our common goal? What's our common vision with one another? And if you don't have a common cause, vision or goal, it makes it difficult to develop those roots of trust that I just talked about. Add to that a lack of not loving, what happens is when we, when we going back to that original, that question about the man goes away, well, if your happiness is derived on him contacting you all the time to validate you in the relationship, ladies, you are already doomed. If you need constant validation and constant reassurance that he's in, you're already doomed. Because there's, because here's the problem here in the United States anyway, we are suckling on the nipple of, I need you to love me so I can feel good about myself. Ladies, the bigger issue is most of you don't know the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship. This is why I continually recommend the book, Eight Dates by Dr. John and Julie Gottman. Eight Dates by Dr. this teaches you the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship. And then going back to Catherine's book, without a common vision, which John Gottman and Julie Gottman talk about without a common vision, your relationship is going to be a very weak one. So let me go back to your original question. It's not about guarding your heart. It's about, do you have a plan of how to take this relationship into something? Now, most of you be like, well, Jonathan, the book, the rules say that men are the leaders of relationship and they're supposed to be chivalrous and they're supposed to know what you do.  By the way, everybody do it with me. Feminine energy, everybody do it again. Lean back into your feminine energy and a man will just naturally gravitate and claim you.  This whole idea that men are chivalrous and they're gonna claim you. And this whole idea that a man will move mountains for you. Ladies, you guys are living in a delusional land. You're living in a delusional land. Yes, when a man is chasing sex, we will move mountains for them. And some of those women that we chase sex, we might end up in a relationship with.  Sometimes they end up in a relationship and they give this narrative that we move mountains.  This is why I continually recommend reading this book. The Hoffman process, the Hoffman process to heal childhood wounds and traumas. Because what's the point of all this attraction and everything in these long distance relationship if you're just gonna end up with someone dysfunctional? In fact, I can't be, I'm gonna tell you a story. I worked with a woman for quite some time trying to convince her to get out of the relationship. She was in a long distance relationship. It was roughly a six hour drive away. They did this for three years. Okay. They got married. She finally moved in with him only to within six months. It totally blew up. It totally blew up. This is what happens with a lot. By the way, do you know most long distance relationship one the two people live together? They figure, they realized they cannot stand each other in a short period of time because they've been living into this bubble of relationship. This is why I recommend all of these books for you so you don't fall into the trap of choosing something that's rather dysfunctional for yourself. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please hit that like button to let me know. By the way, I am drinking a Moscow mule in my coffee cup that says swear a little, you'll feel better. All right. Hey, I wanna share with you an email I got from a man today that illustrates exactly what I'm talking about, ladies. A man wrote me and he says, Jonathan, I'm 53, I'll be 53 in August. Hey, another Leo like me. That's assuming his birthday is before the 20th. I just wanna say that I find your YouTube channel very insightful into the mindset of men. I've been married and divorced three, I've married and divorced three women. What you say men are scared of what love means at midlife, you nailed it. You nailed it. The nail on the head.  Being vulnerable is very, very hard. I've always equated love with marriage. Now I question that idea. Anyway, keep up the good work. By the way, Steve, thank you so much for sharing this with me. I so appreciate this and now I shared it with my audience. The reason why I shared this with you, ladies. The first 90 days, that first romance days and everything, it's all the, that's the honeymoon phase. What I'm trying to suggest to you is to look beyond the surface, that iceberg surface and look beyond that, to the real deeper understanding of what does it take to make a relationship work?  By the way, do it with me, winging it. That's what a lot of men do. It's not because they're bad guys. It's because just like this guy, he gets scared. Most likely because he has wounds and traumas that hasn't been healed. And even someone like myself who's done a ton of work on myself, a ton of work on myself, adult traumas can weigh heavily on us. For example, in my particular case, I lost my quarter million dollar year job. I lost my identity 15 years ago that crushed me. And then certainly losing Connor, my son, has certainly weighed on me. So even myself, it's done a ton of work. But what about those guys that have done zero work on themselves? Their triggers oftentimes cause a lot of dysfunctionality and it doesn't mean that they're bad people. Just like women who haven't done the work or have had wounds and traumas, doesn't make us bad people. It's just to recognize that the reality is that 80% of relationships are doomed on some level because most unconscious people are getting together, hoping that magic fairy dust will solve everything. And I'm here to shout at the top of my lungs the reason why I scream so much. It's like the child about to touch that flame. It's like the child that's about to touch that flame. Okay, although I can do that. You know, the hot stove, I scream to make sure you don't do it. And I'm also rather passionate. So for those of you that do sometimes complain about my screaming or my cursing, it's just my style, accept it or find another coach because this is who I am. All right, let's now look for more questions. Bum, bum, bum, bear with me. Wow. I agree with Jonathan, age is but a number. Actually, I didn't say that. Age is not just but a number. You know what? That's another fantasy you all have. This age is just another number. Age means something as we get older, okay? Especially 50 plus because the days in front of us aren't the same as the days behind us. And certainly people that have a 10 to 20 year age gap, there can be some differences between them, cultural differences, the way they view things. So I don't like this narrative that age is just a number. Now, the sad part is people do judge based on age. That's why it's not just a number because people egoically judge people based on that age. Now, if you met someone and didn't know their age and you fell in love with them for who they are, I totally get it. But age is part of this process. And by the way, in the dating realm, for those in midlife, most people over 50 lie on their profile. Let me reframe that. They fudge on their profiles because of age discrimination because age isn't a number. It's actually how people discriminate one another. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, it just is. All right, Jackie writes, Hi, Jonathan. Thanks for dealing with us ladies. You have never talked about women with animals and what men think about that, long distance or not. Great question. By the way, great question. I've often done posts about do you own cats or do you own dogs? Men are women alike because I think a person's personality is a reflection of the type of animal they own. And not only the breed of it, not only the type of animal, meaning a cat or dog or some other pet, but the breed that they have, okay? By the way, I'm fascinated when I see a woman five foot tall walking the beach with a great dain that must weigh twice her weight. I've seen, there's one woman that does it every day at the beach, I see her.  And it just cracks me up. When I see the big brawny guy with the pit bull, that makes more sense to me anyway. Okay, pets can be actually problematic in relationship. I'm gonna repeat that. Pets can be problematic in relationship because pets require some care that, now just like a child requires care, a pet is no different almost like a baby requiring care. You can put them down for a few hours to sleep, but if they can't go out and now cats are easier to take care of than dogs, but a lot of times pets can get in the way of actually forming a relationship with someone if they require taking care of. So I haven't talked about it, but it is actually very prevalent. Pets can be sometimes more problematic than children can be in relationship. But like anything else, it's really a reflection of how much care does something need beyond your time to develop a relationship with someone? And that has to be taken into consideration. That's my quick thoughts on that, Jackie. So thank you so much. All right, Kimberly, thank you for the super sticker. I appreciate that. All right, let's see. Kristen says, I think this is in conjunction to what we talked about before, but I'm very interested in someone who has been interested in me, but is usually interested in these women that are 15, 20 years younger. I personally would not date a man much older than me. Okay, so going back to the widest men. Okay, so look it, I'm in my mid-50s lady. Does my ego love the idea of maybe dating a 30, 35, or 40-year-old? Absolutely, dating someone 10 to 20 years younger to me. My ego loves the idea of that. Whenever I see Scarlett Johansson or something like I'd like to date her kind of thing or any celebrity that's much younger than me, I think those things, okay? Doesn't mean I'm actually gonna act upon it, and I certainly don't put it in my dating profile, but most men kind of reach a lot further than what they want. The question is for you, Kristen, is he actually able to date women 15 or 20 years younger? It's one thing to want it, just like a lot of you ladies wanted George Clooney for so long. Just because you want it doesn't mean you're gonna get it, and it's no different than people that think along those lines. But ultimately, you know what? Most people tend to fall in love with people relatively close to their own age within a five or 10-year spread. So I say go for it. Hope that helped. All right, Mary M says, question, how to spot a playboy in long-term distance? Ah, how do you spot a player, a playboy? The answer is you can't. There's no way. The beauty of distance is you can pretend to be whatever you want. In fact, ladies, sadly, people could be using old pictures of them now unless you get onto Skype or something, okay? It's gonna be very difficult. But the reality is to be able to tell a person who was a player, I could say to you, well, if he doesn't return a phone call or doesn't return a text or something like that, that could be, but that's not legitimate because there's always a variety of reasons. The reality is this, the really more important question is not to how to spot a player, is if you're choosing a long-distance relationship, what is your plan to get 100 hours of face-to-face time to build the first layer of trust and then what is your plan to ship from long distance to short distance? That's the main two questions you should be thinking about, not whether or not they're a player or not because here's the sad part. Ladies, many of you get sucked into these conversations, these incessant conversations with lonely men, by the way, I think it takes a desperate lonely person to engage in incessant communication long distance and then you get sucked in thinking you have a real relationship and ladies, men don't bond over the telephone. Let me repeat that, men don't bond over the telephone or text message.  That's how we bond with you. We don't bond through these devices. So all of you guys that get, by the way, and again, you could have a long distance that one hour drive away. Talking on the telephone is a great way for men to get some female company to talk about our problems, to get a shit off our plate, if you will, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're capable of being in a relationship.  Do you know what? Virtual relationships, probably, I will tell you, there is probably, I'm gonna say 10% of the women who follow my channel are probably in virtual relationships and they've been in these for a long, long, long time. I'm talking about incessant communication with men that they'll never meet. Now, sometimes they end up being scam artists, but those, they try to get your money very quickly, but there are men that will spend years, by the way, if a man spends years talking to a woman he never plans on meeting, the woman has to take ownership for her part. Ladies, if you want a real relationship, don't spend more than three weeks of communication and then plan on meeting. But Jonathan, we're long distance.  What it's going to do, it's gonna break your heart. And for that woman who asked the question about how to protect yourself, you know how you protect yourself? Is you don't begin these incessant communication conversations with guys hoping that magic fairy deaths will make this work. That's my invitation for you anyway. I hope that help. All right, Adrian says, question. How do you know if a guy is sincere and honest in long distance overseas if we can only text each other or type but we cannot physically spend time together? You can't, it's impossible. By the way, you can live around the corner and still not figure this out, but it's impossible. It's impossible because you're focusing on a fantasy.  Then when you find out, by the way, when he rejects it you'll realize how serious he is. Get busy living or get busy dying, meet right away.  I'm sorry, there's no way. It's in, okay. I know you hate hearing it's virtually, it's 100% impossible. It's 99.9% impossible. I don't know what that 0.1% is. So I'm sorry, but that's my, that's not advice. I'm just giving you a perspective. Okay, Nora writes, I ordered your book and I'm excited to receive it. Amazon let me read two chapters so far. You were incredible. Nora, thank you. For those who are watching, she's talking about my book.  Anyway, there's the back cover. I hope, thank you so much, Nora. I hope you enjoy it. And please write a review on Amazon. All right, Stephanie says, my person can put a tracker on me and follow my every step. I don't know why you would wanna do that, but go for it. All right, let's see what other questions we have. Counting bodies like sheep. She says that feminine energy again, it never gets old. Leaning back and everyone do it with me. Leaning back and your feminine energy, it doesn't get old. Like Kelly says, how's that feminine energy working for you? Ladies, I wanna clarify, by the way, thank you Kelly, big hugs to you. I wanna clarify something. I am all for female empowerment. I'm all for female empowerment. I'm in favor of male empowerment. I'm in favor of female empowerment. I'm in favor of human beings getting empowered. So let me just say this about feminine energy. I have no issue with empowerment. What I have issue is a lot of the feminine energy coaches are teaching you principles from the book, The Rules. The book, The Rules is a manipulative way to get first level of attraction going with another human being, okay? It's short lived, it doesn't work, and it sets you up for failure because a relationship isn't about leaning back and waiting for the man to do all the work because ladies, you're actually in charge of the emotional relationship. You are in charge of the emotional aspect. You're the leaders of the emotional aspect of the relationship, not men.  Just like this guy wrote me, he's scared to death. Okay, that's an exaggeration. So you have to lead the emotional aspects of the relationship and this whole feminine energy sets up for none of that.  And that's human dysfunctionality. Okay, everybody's got it. So if you don't study this like the book, Getting the Love You Want by Harvelle Hendricks or the book attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, Harvelle Hendricks and Helen Hunt, these are books to understand why we choose dysfunctional people in our lives. I scream at this because your chances for relationship success diminished dramatically for those who are not emotionally mature and it requires in healing childhood wounds and traumas and such to get there. So anyway, I went on a rant. Let's go to our next question. Bum, bum, bum. Leaf says, I totally agree with guarding your heart. I found out a few years ago that no more caution is expressed in the Bible than that. It doesn't mean a person should have a rock walls up but healthy boundaries. Yes, let's differentiate between walls and boundaries, are simply what's okay and what's not okay with me. That's totally fine, which is a reflection of your standards. I'm gonna repeat that reflection of your standards.   The standards are what do you want relationship? For example, I always talk about what I want. I want a relationship where we spend three or four days and nights a week together doing shared activities, hobbies, mutual interest, spending time with family and friends, traveling together, partnership, building skills, which includes our personal or professional life and intimacy, both physical and emotional intimacy. That's my standard. The boundary is whether or not someone meets that standard. That's the boundary. So the standard is what you want with clarity and the boundary is sticking to what you want. A wall is simply a wall. In fact, I wanna read something for everybody here. So bear with me one second. On my front door, I wonder, this is scribbled, but it says open and receptive to love. Relationship leading to partnership. Open and receptive to love. And I really put the word easy right here, just as a reminder, open and receptive to love. When you have walls up, you're not open and receptive to love. You can't be open and receptive to love if you have walls up. So take down the walls and have standards and boundaries in its place. Lee, thank you so much. All right. Sylvia says, amen. Thank you. Sadie says, Jonathan, can you please talk about dating etiquette such as paying for dates, when to call, when you should be second date happen and when to make it official on social media? Boy, that's a big one. We're gonna be here for about five minutes or so. Okay, first off, dating etiquette. First off, and ladies, you're not gonna be happy with them about to say, it is not a man's responsibility to pay for dates. Let me repeat, that's not our responsibility. Anyone who thinks otherwise is coming from a place of expectation or entitlement. Now, I wanna put some caveats here. First off, typically the person who does the asking should do the paying. I fully agree with that. Here's the problem when we meet people through an internet connection. Most of the time, the first time you meet, it's not really him asking you out on a date. It's like, let's meet each other. So this is where it gets a little tricky. Now, since men traditionally have this, we have this societal expectation and traditional expectation that will pay for the first date because that's the way we were trained. Most men, if they were raised right, as Matthew Hussey says, most men, if they were raised right, will pay for the first date. And just like Matthew Hussey says, I'm using his language, he goes, and if a woman was raised right, she would offer to pay. Anyone who thinks less than that is treating someone as an expectation. Now, for example, would you make a friend pay for you when you go out? No. And the reality is, is this person isn't just someone to date. This is someone to become a really good friend within your life. So treat them as a friend, not like a gender expectation. Now, some of you might say, well, Jonathan, I spend all this money to get dressed up to go on this date. I deserve for him to pay.  Ladies, I just bought a $65,000 car. Now, I could say, I just bought a $65,000 sports car to impress you. So you know what? I think you should pay for my date because I just spent all this money to impress you.  And by the way, ladies, when you're meeting for a guy for the first time, you should not go out of your way to get, you know, to spend a lot of money to meet someone for the first time, okay? So going back to dating etiquette, I'm a big believer of two people taking turns, two people taking turns in the dating process. By the way, my son Colin is calling me on the phone. So I picked up, but he's gonna just listen to my live stream right now. I wanna wish you happy birthday, Colin, if you can hear me and go to YouTube and watch me right now. I'm saying goodbye. Okay, so going back to dating etiquette, I'm a big proponent in the getting to know you phase is both people take turns, both people take turns planning dates and spending money on each other. That's my advice. You can, by the way, not everyone has to subscribe to this advice. You may not like this advice. That's okay. Let me tell you why that's a healthy way to approach it. I've studied men and I've asked this question over 15,000 men in a men's group I belong to and over a thousand men responded. Women who actively invest in the dating process by planning and paying for dates, they value them much greater than they actually value and respect a woman much greater if they make an investment in the process. I bet Steve listening and I know Doug who's listening would agree, right? So I just wanna put that in your consciousness. If you invest in the process, we respect you more. I know you've heard the narrative men are supposed to do all that but I'm telling you, listen, if you really wanna read a great book, read the book if the Buddha dated, if the Buddha dated. It talks about how we shouldn't treat people as gender, we treat people by their soul. That's how we should be dating because if we date from someone's soul, we can never be disappointed. That's my invitation for you. Now to go with the second thing, when should the second date happen? Most of the time, if you've had a first date on a Saturday or on a Thursday night, it should be within one week, the second date, should be if you're gonna see each other again, another week, and by then, it should be on average at two times a week. People should spend time getting to know one another to build those roots of trust. And when do you make it official? I say after you say I love you to each other and you have a game plan of how to turn this relationship into a partnership. Now repeat that, after you say I love you to each other and you have a game plan of how to turn the relationship to a partnership, that's my invitation for you. Thank you so much, Sadie. I really appreciate that question. Jackie says, sorry, I didn't properly ask the question earlier, but it was how do men feel about women who has animals like dogs and cats, horses and chickens? Do they view it something like having a child? Actually, yes, but even more complicated than a child. But that's to answer your question. Linda writes, question, is a two week visa long enough to know if we are a lifetime material? By the way, Landa, I want you to think about this. How many people get married, spend a year together and get divorced? How many people get married and spend five years together and get divorced?  Two weeks is not, that's the fantasy realm. Yes, it takes, two weeks is long enough to fall in love with a fantasy until you've actually gone through real issues in your relationship. And when you've read the book Eight Dates by Dr. John and Julie Gottman until you actually deal with conflicts and multiple, multiple conflicts, will you ever know if it's lifetime material? You have to look at, my mom and dad were married for 66 years before my mom passed away. They dealt with hundreds and hundreds of conflicts in their life, each one built on the next and built on the next that built trust. Two weeks, fantasy, but the minute you have a conflict, it could all blow up. So you can fall in love with a fantasy or you can understand it takes time to really get to know someone and you can't get to know them in two weeks. You can fall in love with a fantasy, but that's not gonna turn, it's not guaranteed. Your likelihood is incredibly slim, that's all. All right, MCUS says, Jonathan, in a long distance for one year, what do you think about nine hours of driving for him, visit four to five times PS Cookie still in the jar? Okay, so you've known him for a year, you haven't had sex and it's a four nine hour drive. I hope you, my only, my feeling is this, I'm assuming you spend all of your time on the telephone and you have a virtual relationship. And if you haven't had sex, I mean, I honestly wonder folks, I actually wonder is this desperate dating, is this desperate dating? Is it, or is it just something to fill a void? Certainly with the pandemic, a lot of people did this to fill a void.  That's the question you should be asking me. Do you really want a day-in-day relationship and what does that look like? This whole spending one year talking to one another, hoping that magic fairy dust will change, everything isn't going to work. I'm sorry, that's my judgment around that MCUS, or MCUS, thank you. Sal says, thank you, Jonathan, for touching on this. I'm currently in a long distance relationship and we have a plan to close that distance with blendable lifestyles, values, principles, and have ours built into our roots. Yes, they have a plan. Even with a plan, it's not guaranteed, but a plan is better than winging it, winging it. Can you do it with me? Winging it. Jenny says, I love the F-bombs. It makes me get rid of some of my anger. Swear a little, you'll feel better. All right, sorry, I'm gonna go through. I know there were more superstickers that I didn't, oh, here's Robin. Excuse me, there's some superstickers here, I gotta find. Okay, thank you so much for your supersticker, 9.99. I really appreciate that. Let me find Robbins. Bear with me, everyone. There's another supersticker here. Robin. By the way, everyone, I wanna give a shout out to Robin, giving you a big, gigantic Jonathan Bear hug of love after what you shared a couple of live streams ago. I just want you to know you are loved and a lot here in the community love you, so big hugs to you. And your question is, I know that I have a healthy relationship with myself if I wanna have, let me repeat that, I know that I have to have a healthy relationship with myself if I wanna have a healthy relationship with anyone else. I'm 58 and wonder if I still can. You know what? Until the day you die, you have all the time in the world. And what I mean to say is, I'm pausing for a second. You see how long that felt, that few second pause, but it felt like a lifetime where I wasn't talking, I'll do it again. We can have an hour in an instant when we learn to actually go inward.  You can have a lifetime in a nanosecond. So my invitation for you do the work. There's no destination. Look, I've been doing this work for a long time and I'm still a train wreck at times. There's no, you know, being human means we're flawed. What's most important is the journey and I invite you to do it every day. The book, what the heck is self love anyway? A journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work with the invitation of doing it every day. Do it every day, that's my invite for you. Big hugs to you, Robin, thank you. Nancy writes, I'm smitten with a long distance man. We're planning on physically meeting. I see a few red flags, but a dozen of green flags. What are your thoughts? Well, red flags means ask more questions.   Does anyone remember seeing the movie with Julia Roberts sleeping with the enemy?  You better get those red flags answered. Red flags means ask the serious questions. And if you need help with that, check out a link to a free discovery call with me. That's my job as a coach. If you're ready to hire a coach, talk to me about that. That's what I teach, how to vet for emotional maturity. I hope that helps.  That is priceless for one side as standards and the other side as boundaries. Yes, yes, yes, thank you so much. Jennifer writes, question, would it be selfish to invite a guy to a sporting event whom I'm not interested in a relationship, just want someone to hang out with? No, especially if you're paying. Oh yeah, go ahead and do it. There's nothing selfish, just say, hey, I wanna hang out with friends. I really enjoy your company. Can I take you out? Folks, we should be doing more of that. Don't be afraid. Chapter one in my book, Speak Your Truth. Do it with kindness.  All right, bear with me, everyone. There's a lot of questions. Oops, gosh, darn it. Weegean writes, I have a little rough day in my life today and decided to choose love and gratitude to live one day at a time. Thank you for the super sticker and thank you for that reminder. Gratitude, folks, love, compassion, gratitude, that's how we get through the days. Okay, let's see what we have. This says, oh it says, I'm a woman, I pay for dinners and outings because why not? I also dress to the nines, but I do it for me and never ask a man how do I look or expect him to buy my clothes. Yes, ladies, look at the, you know, a lot of women act entitled. A lot of women act entitled with expectations. And here's a perfect example that says, look, I can take care of myself. Let me tell you one of the disadvantages of when you have men pay for everything. And you don't actually be an active participant in the getting to know you phase that first 10 dates, the getting to know you phase, those 100 hours. Here's the thing, when a man pays for everything, he gives him a right to ghost you whenever he wants. What? Jonathan, what? A man can pay to ghost me? Yeah, because he did all the heavy lifting and you just enjoyed it. I'm not saying it's right, but that's what they get to buy. When you pay for things, this whole, that's basically treated. Now, by the way, I know a lot of men come from a place of generosity. So I don't want to discount generosity. But what I'm saying is a lot of controlling behavior, people sometimes insist on paying because that gives them the control in the relationship to do whatever they want. It's the minute you invest, it actually forces the man to say, is this someone I want to not invest money in, but when I want to invest time, what I mean by that is because they no longer, it takes them out of control and it requires them to do this. Receive, be receptive. So that's my invitation, ladies. I'm not saying, look it, you can do whatever you want. I'm just inviting you an opportunity to look at it from a different perspective. That's all. Okay, thank you so much. All right, Jonathan, we have spent two and a half weeks together each week, visit, he asked me to marry him in six months. He has been to see me four times. Okay, we've spent two and a half weeks together each visit, he asked me to marry him in the six months. He has been, he sees me, he's seen me four times. So if I'm understanding this correctly, going back to what you said, this is that person who said, we dated for one year. Okay, well, thanks for sharing that. Then it looks like you're engaged, great. Did you say yes? Why don't you tell us if you said yes and what your plans are for getting married? That's the things I wanna hear about. So thank you so much. Pat says, nobody is entitled. By the way, everybody acts entitled.  I'm not saying they should act entitled, but human beings, men and women like can act very entitled. When men pay for dates, they feel entitled for sex, okay? When you get dressed up for a date, you might feel entitled to get paid. I'm not saying it's right, but human beings can act very entitled. Okay, Leif says, thank you for the 87 likes, 183 viewing. Please close that chat for amazing advice in the comments. So what Leif's asking, if you're listening right now, please hit that like button for me. Thank you so much, Leif. Okay, Jessica writes, met a guy out. We traded numbers. He texted me to say he just ended a 19 year marriage, just began divorce proceedings. So he's a bit of a trainer. I'm thinking run, what do you think? Think, think, think, think, think. By the way, I need a sugar rush right now. So bear with me a second. So what I think, Jessica, is if you choose to go down this path, you are literally setting yourself up for failure, okay? First off, it takes a couple, first off, sometimes divorce proceedings can take one, two, three, four, five years, okay? Can take that long, number one. Number two, when a man comes out of a relationship, he's literally, a lot of men, the minute they break up, they have to be back together with someone because they have codependency issues. So if you're not familiar with the book, codependent no more, a lot of human beings attach themselves to the first person they're with, from an emotionally unhealthy place. So I think you're setting yourself up for failure. I would say, I can say that with about a 97% certainty. The problem is, most of you will hold hope for that 3%, but I will tell you every woman on this page, if they wrote something right now, they'd say run, forest, run. Don't even bother. Say to them, look, why don't you reach out? Oh, let me tell you a quick story, those of you. So I was five months into my divorce or in the divorce proceedings, and I was on Yahoo! Personals, beforematch.com. This was 2005. And I wrote a woman I was attracted to and she asked me how long I'd been divorced. And I said, well, I've been separated five months. She said to me, and I quote, reach out to me when you've been divorced and you've had your one or two transition relationships. I'm like, what is she talking about? I said, I'm totally ready to be in relationships.  Fast forward two years later, okay, my divorce was final and I had two transition relationships and that didn't work out. And she popped up on my screen and I reached out to her and I said, hey, I don't know if you remember me, but you told me this and I can't believe how right you were. I had two relationships. I so wasn't ready for anything serious. I couldn't handle anything serious from an emotional level while I was going through a contentious divorce. She was so right. She had subsequently had moved far away, so we never met, but I'm here. By the way, we're now Facebook friends, but I can't begin to tell you how much I laughed because she was so right. We all need a couple of transition relationships after our divorce, except for those co-dependent people because some people they attach immediately.  Great question though. Thank you so much, Sadie or Jessica, excuse me. All right, Shelly writes, I have been at Cancer Hospital for 16 months, have been a long distance relationship for 1.5 years, never met each other, but definitely have a really deep connection, but I feel him slipping.  Please understand I'm sending you a big hug because of the cancer. Now, let me relate to this question.  How real is that? I mean, I understand it's real over the telephone, it's real over text, it's real over FaceTime, but it's not a real relationship if you expect to spend time together day in day out, okay? It takes a minimum of 100 hours of Face to Face time to build the first layer of trust, okay? And then it takes at least another year of seeing each other two to three times a week to have any chance of truly bonding. And then we bond through social activities, hobbies and mutual interests. We do not bond over the telephone. The reason why he's slipping because we can't keep it up, well, can't keep it up. Hopefully I'm not talking about his penis, I'm talking about the emotional responsibility of talking on the phone incessantly, incessantly, incessantly. People with problems choose those kind of relationship, not people who want a day in day out relationship.  Why are you choosing to be in a relationship with someone you haven't even met? And then hope, what are you hoping for? What's your plan? That's the things you better start looking into.  I wished I listened to Jonathan years ago. Do you know people that go through my coaching program always say the same thing to me? Jonathan, this is the ones that go through my private coaching program where I teach you compatibility, the understanding of compatibility, how to vet for emotional maturity, and then how to ask the right questions. Because, Shelley, all you've done is the surface relationship. You think it's deep like the, like I'm talking about the iceberg, you think it's deep the bottom? No, you've only touched the tip of emotional connection.  That's the deeper things. And sadly, in these cases, and when I read this over and over again, oh, going back to what women say to me, over and over again, Jonathan, why didn't they teach me this in school? Why didn't my parents teach me this? Why didn't I learn this before I did it? There are so many women reading what I just wrote now, Shelley, going, don't do it, run, move the other direction. But the problem is in life, how do we learn? We have to learn through our failures. That's how we learn, because people don't actually take advice. Most people don't take good, solid advice because they gotta learn through heartache. The problem is when we have too much heartache in the dating, mating, and relating realm, it wears on us emotionally. Dating triggers the number one emotional health issue we're all facing is I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable, I'm not likable. And dating will trigger this, and long distance dating will trigger this even more. So don't lean back, lean into your life, take charge of your life, start reading these books and be intentional instead of passive. And that's what long distance relationships do. It creates this long drawn out process. And just like that woman who spent three years only to find out within six months, that was the worst mistake she ever made with her life. She uprooted her children and all of the things to move, to be with them, only to realize it's not right. This is why people live together before they get married to test drive it. Anyways, that's just my invitation for you.  Kristen says, men and who only have virtual relationships are not usable, capable of a real relationship. Men and women who choose virtual relationships neither are capable, men and women alike.  Oh, everybody's sending you hugs. Oh, joy, joy to the world. Joy, how do I overcome my fear of meeting men online? When my last relationship was long distance at first, we lived together five years, got engaged, we hit a wall, sought counseling, then he cheated. How do you overcome your fear? I'm pausing for a second. You know what, it's really simple, it's binary.  It's stop, you know, I know there's a fear, but there also has to be an area of self-discipline in human's life. Just put yourself out there and do it. Do it with a friend, have a buddy to do it with, or hire me as a coach, and we can work on it together. But just do it and play. The real fear isn't the online dating, it's all the other subsequent fears that's causing you not to do it. It's not the online dating, it's because there's a deeper fear inside of you. Any better, my invitation for you is to get to the root of that fear, and then just do it. Can I get an amen please, thank you so much. All right, have you hit that like button? Please hit that like button. Love yourself, first have fun, way to go. MCUS says, Jonathan, thank you, your realness, I appreciate that. You know folks, this might be a good place to wrap up. I just wanna recap about long distance relationships real quick, just to understand if it's a passport right away, it's likelihood is so slim. If it's a plane ride across the country or anything else, you better have a plan of how to take the long distance to short distance, better have a plan of how to take the long distance to short distance, because otherwise, if you don't have a plan and as I talked about in Catherine's book, a shared purpose, especially for those closer ones, your chances for relationship success are virtually nil, slim to none. Plan and a purpose, that puts you in a greater chance of having success. Everyone, I wanna thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to jump in today into your lives, I really appreciate this. I hope you hadn't found value of what I shared. If any of the content resonates you, check out the links in the description for a free discovery call with me for a copy of my book, my podcast, the What Would Love Do podcast, my free gift for everyone, and also my recommended books is all below. Wanna thank you from the bottom of my heart, I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do.  I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm gonna ask you to turn to someone, a pet, a teddy bear or pillow and give it or them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love and we could all use more love in our lives. Happy birthday to my son, Colin. Bye everyone. Thank you so much, Kay, Linda, Jackie, Gloria, Jessica, thank you so much. Jessica says very valuable. Thank you, hugs, virtual hugs, thank you. Thank you all so much. Have a wonderful evening. Take care now, bye now.


The next question is from Anne Hellfey. Do you have any tips on how to balance hormones as a female when training load is near athlete levels? You know, somewhere along the lines of fitness, we started to equate high-performance athletics or high-performance athlete as health. Yeah, totally. It's not, what you're looking at is extreme. Well, it's because that's what the marketers use. Yes.  Yeah, yeah, exactly. All these big brands, they use athletes to market health and fitness, but the reality is they're not the greatest example. No, and by the way, same thing goes for the competitors on magazines. You know, the people that we choose to represent health and fitness are not the best examples of health and fitness. No, not even close. I mean, studies are quite clear on this. There's this kind of bell-looking curve when it comes to exercise where a little bit does you some benefit, then you do more, and you get way more benefit. Then you do more, and you get a little bit more benefit, then you do more, and uh-oh, now I'm starting to get negative effects in terms of longevity and health. And then the more I apply, the less benefit I get in terms of health and longevity. Now, my performance may increase beyond that, but in terms of longevity and overall health, I'm gonna start to decline. This is the case with high-performance athletes. If you are a high-performing athlete, if you compete in distance running, or powerlifting, or bodybuilding, or gymnastics, or football, or jiu-jitsu, and you do it at a, this is your priority, and you push yourself to very, very athletic levels. You are sacrificing health and longevity. You're sacrificing the health of your joints in some of these cases. You're sacrificing your hormone health in some of these cases. Definitely true for women. It is very common for female athletes to lose their period, or to have an irregular period, and to have imbalances between the progesterone and estrogen. And it's because you're training at a very, very high level. So, you know, here's the problem and the challenge. If you wanna balance your hormones and you're training at athlete levels, the first thing you need to do is reduce your training volume. You gotta compromise.  And this is when just being honest with yourself, because there's nothing wrong with either one, right? If you wanna be at that super high level of athlete, understand it comes with its own consequences inside of it. Yeah, this was always a conundrum working with athletes. It's always like, how much, like, how can I find the best recovery? Can we do this HRV thing? Can I get in a cryo chamber?  And it's like, at the end of the day, like this is the decision that you have. You wanna be the best at this particular motivation, like this goal of mine is to be the best athlete I possibly can. And so I'm gonna go all in. I'm gonna use this intensity while I have it, but this isn't a long-term approach that is sustainable. Well, this is also where there's a misunderstanding for the average weekend warrior that wants to train like an athlete too. There's this misunderstanding of how athletes truly train. A professional athlete or at least a professional athlete that has a good coach and a good trainer is training their athletes to peak. They're not just training like a superstar year-round, weekend, week-out, like so that you need to keep- It's a total balancing game. It is, and what a good coach, a good coach is watching things like hormones, right? Hormones and stress and recovery and they're not taking their athlete client to their limits until it's time, until I know it's almost game time. We're getting ready for season. We're gonna prep the body, prep the body, prep the body, prep the body. Okay, here we're getting closer. We're gonna start ramping up, ramping up, ramping up, ramping up. And then it's almost time for game time, right? Or season, whatever. And I want you at the max, but then I'm gonna, and then season's there.  And so there's a real fine dance of training like a real true athlete.  And you see stuff and you're like, oh yeah, identify as an athlete. Motivational.  But the reality is we're only seeing a sliver of what goes into really training a high performance athlete. So much of that is recovery and taking care of the body and leading up to this high performance. The best strength conditioning coaches out there are way more concerned with longevity and being able to keep their athletes healthy and injury free.  That's a huge thing. Look at the Niners. We were talking about this in the beginning of the episode. Like what good does that do getting out on the field in one of the first games of the season, you get injured. Like that's the end right there. Yeah, the best trainers at that level are the ones that are the best at managing injury prevention and recovery. They're not the best ones at pushing people to the extremes. That's the easy way to go. Like just focus on, yeah, pushing.  Their bodies are especially sensitive to pushing super, super hard all the time and getting really, really lean. Like women with six pack abs. Like if you have visible six pack abs, you're pretty close to being too lean for optimal health. If not already being too lean for, now men can do this because we tend to hold less body fat anyway.  There's a trade-off. There's always going to be a trade-off and pushing to that level, your trade-off is your general health, which means your hormones are going to be, this happens to men too, by the way. Men who push really, really hard, you start to see testosterone levels start to drop and you start to see oxidative damage start to increase. And it's, you know, it never really works out well. If you're trying to have both, you got to pick one or the other and then manage the other one as best you can, but you can't have both. You can't be this extreme crazy, you know, top level athlete training at those levels and also have like amazing balance in your health. In fact, the very nature of your training is imbalanced. There's nothing balanced about training at that level. And be careful of like saying things like, oh, but I feel so good after I train like this, because that's the argument I think someone's making right now listening to you talk about. It's like, oh, but when I train this way, I feel so good afterwards. And that's what, you know, we haven't talked about cortisol junkies in a long time and this is common. You get someone who trains that way and they get this huge adrenaline rush afterwards and it feels amazing. You feel amazing and accomplished afterwards because your body's getting flooded with all that cortisol. Well, you can fall in love with feelings, right? And so there's a very different feeling from feeling balanced in your body where you have good health, general health, good strength, relatively lean body fat percentage, a healthy body fat percentage, decent mobility, good sleep. That feels a particular way. Then there's the feeling of high performance and I understand why someone would fall in love with that. I've been at that level. I know what that feels like. It does feel awesome. I feel like I'm strong as hell. I feel like I have lots of like hyper energy. I could tackle the world. It's a different feeling. Both of them feel different. Both of them feel good. You can fall in love with one and think, oh, this is what healthy feels like. Maybe not. In fact, oftentimes the feelings we fall in love with are the ones that aren't healthy. This is, by the way, this is one of the reasons why certain exercises get a bad rap. You know, like squats and deadlifts. Oh, squatting and deadlifts, doesn't that help people blow out their discs? Well, when you're talking about, you know, extreme athletes squatting. You're really getting after it. Yeah, 700 pounds or 800 pounds or people, you know, strength athletes who are pushing themselves to insane extreme levels that you never would. Yes, now you're talking about higher rates of injury and stuff like that. But for the average person, those exercises are not just safe. They reduce your risk of injury. So it is a bit of a balancing act, but I've trained many a female athlete with this problem. And it was a conversation where I sat down with them and said, what do you want more? Do you like being 12% body fat more and being at high performance? Or do you want to balance out your hormones, regain your fertility and your libido? Which one do you want more? Because we can't do both. And then once they decide, okay, I want to do the hormone thing, literally scale the workouts back, scale everything down. In essence, reduce their performance. In essence, reduce that extreme level of performance that they had, but then they get the hormones back, the fertility back and all that kind of stuff.


Good morning everybody and welcome to SAT SMT 2019 you know immediately followed by FST TCS 2019 and there are other pre and post conference workshops. So hopefully we will have most of you here for the entire week. So this is the fourth edition of SAT SMT 2019 which has been held in the format of a winter school typically three days with expert invited speakers and also some short presentations from researchers in India. So this time we are extremely privileged to have four expert speakers Venkatesh from Tata Conservancy Services he is going to talk about the use of SAT SMT in industry then we have Sanjith Seshia from University of California Berkeley. We have Matesh Soos who is going to talk tomorrow and tell us about CDCLT and we have Daniel Laber who is going to talk about pseudo-bullying SAT solvers and in addition we will have short talks by people in India who are working on mostly applications of SAT SMT and related areas and also people from Singapore okay. So this time we've had 90 registrations and SAT SMT and out of these 51 students we have code industry participation better than previous years we of course have TCS we have Mentor Graphics those from Mentor Graphics can you please raise your hands okay thank you for coming we have people from ABB I'm told ABB thank you and we have also people from Philips I've told yeah thank you there may be more representatives from industry this is the information that I could gather from the registration data so the more the merrier we really do want a good interaction between industry and academia in the development of this field in India. So I would like to also say that most of the hard work was done by my co-organizers Kuldeep Meel from National University of Singapore I guess everybody knows him and Saurabh Joshi from IIT Hyderabad and Ashutosh Gupta who's busy taking care of several things right now and Subodh Sharma and Venkatesh Chopela who were unable to be present here for some last-minute constraints I would also like to point out Akshay and Newton the organizing chairs of the whole week's events and of course you know several other people in the organizing team Chandu KK and several others so I believe there are a few logistical announcements that Akshay and Newton would like to make after that we'll get going with the talk by Venkatesh.


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