Well, hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Jonathan Asley of johnathanasley.com, and I'm so excited to be doing this live stream for you today. Our topic, how to be his number one priority, number one priority and not an option. Okay, really quickly, if you're brand new to my YouTube channel, please hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you can be notified of new videos. And if anytime during this video, the content resonates with you, please hit that like button so it gets seen in the YouTube algorithms. All right, we're gonna get started with how to be his number one priority and not an option. Now, I'm sure many of you women have experienced this feeling of being an option in a relationship. I repeat that, many of you women have probably experienced being an option in a relationship. In other words, you get a sense that you probably care more about him that he cares about you. And while maybe in the beginning of the, we'll call it the courting phase, he was pursuing you heavily. Once he starts to nest in the relationship, he starts to treat you kind of like at his beck and call. It's always on his terms and it's not on your terms. And he starts to do something called bread crumbing. And what that means is he might not contact you as frequently as he used to. And he might disappear for a little period of time. And you start to feel like you're an option and you even start to feel this when you're out in public with him. And he doesn't hold you close like you might have in the beginning or he doesn't seem to like you're at a party and he's talking to other women possibly, something like that could be happening. And I'm sure if you've experienced this, this is incredibly frustrating. And you might be asking yourself, well, how do I become someone's real priority in a relationship? Because you're tired of being an option. And as a dating and relationship coach who works with women regularly, I see this frequently. And I understand many of your frustrations. You have a very valid reason to be frustrated. And I know many of you have been encouraged to do something called leaning back in your feminine energy when this happens so a man can come closer to you and claim you because men are so chivalrous and they literally respond to when you shift your energy to a feminine state that they magically, magically, magically turn you into a priority. And I'm here to tell you as someone who studies human behavior, who's someone who's literally has got 20,000 hours of coaching and 3,000 hours of personal development work studying human behavior, I can tell you leaning back in your feminine energy is not what's going to shift a man into you becoming his priority. And it really isn't about what happens in the midst of a relationship. Quite frankly, folks, it what happens in the very beginning of the dating process is how you can establish to be someone's priority in a relationship. Because here's the bottom line, folks. I'll be candid with you. Dating is a clusterfuck out there.  It's a mess. And if we don't call it for what it is, then shame on us because it really is a mess. And I'm, by the way, as a dating relationship coach, I should be telling you quite the opposite. I should be selling you on the fairytale that you can just magically get the perfect guy that you want. If you do these 16 different steps and go through my 20 step course, you will just magically attract the right guy you want. I could sell you on that idea. Or I can be, I don't want to use the word honest, but I can be authentic, vulnerable and transparent with you and say, because I'm in the dating realm as well, and I can tell you that the vast majority of human beings lack emotional IQ. I'm gonna repeat that. The vast majority of human beings out there lack really good emotional IQ. So when a person's life is in chaos, when a person's life is in chaos, for example, they don't have the foundation underneath them to be in a serious relationship with another human being. So quite frankly, folks, ladies, if you don't want to be a man's option anymore, then it's gonna start from the very beginning on choosing a man who is serious about wanting a relationship. I'm gonna repeat that. It's important to choose a man who's serious about wanting a relationship. But you're gonna say, well, Jonathan, how can I tell the men who are serious about wanting a relationship versus those that don't? That's a great question. When I created my private coaching program, by the way, there's a link below in the description to schedule a free discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you. I created a program where you can learn true compatibility. Oh, let me just say this, true compatibility and how to ask the right questions in the beginning and how to determine emotional maturity. Now I wanna show you something that I created a few weeks back. It's called the relationship iceberg. The relationship iceberg, you can see that right up top. It says relationship iceberg. And if you can see right here, it says the word attraction. Now, if you can see this, this is the waterline and above the waterline, it says, and a little tip of the iceberg says chemistry, chemistry. Most folks hyper focus on chemistry believing that chemistry equals relationship success. So remember when I said the guy comes on strong in the beginning? Well, that is because one or both of you are experiencing lust or limerence and it's causing you to magnetically attract to one another. That's what's causing that to happen. But that doesn't equal relationship success because if we go back to the iceberg and look below the surface, you can see the importance to recognize shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. And emotional maturity is the bottom because it's the most important piece of a relationship. So you're thinking, well, Jonathan, how does this relate to being someone's priority in relationship? Well, great question. Folks, it's gonna start by choosing men who are serious about wanting a relationship. I know many of you are dating and you're even operating from a place of you seek casual as well. If you're seeking a casual relationship and he's seeking a casual relationship, then chances are there's a good chance your relationship is headed for failure because casual, while occasionally might turn into something serious, it's really a metaphor for I'm not ready for serious relationship and I'm not ready for the emotional aspects of a relationship.  Let me repeat that. When someone says they want casual from the male perspective, not from the female perspective, from the male perspective, that means I'm gonna give the least amount into the relationship as possible. And this is one of the reasons why many of you have experienced being an option instead of someone's priority. Now, there's a couple other reasons why you've experienced men who treat you as an option. And I'm gonna go back to my trusty notes here. Go back to my trusty notes here. And I wanna remind everybody that a man who lacks passion or purpose in his life, a man who lacks passion or purpose in his life, especially in his professional life as an example, he, again, the ground underneath him doesn't feel solid. In fact, men who lack passion and purpose oftentimes are suffering on the inside emotionally. And while they crave connection and they crave sex with another human being, because we all want to, we all crave connection with another human being, men who lack passion or purpose oftentimes are suffering on the inside with deep depression on the inside. Well, not, let me backtrack, not necessarily deep depression, but depression on the inside. And men who have depression, that depression is gonna take the priority, excuse me, that depression, depression, is going to be his priority in his life. In other words, feeling depressed is going to be the priority. What's the word I'm looking for? I'm getting tongue-tied here. It's gonna represent the biggest chunk of how he feels.  And that's oftentimes with men who lack purpose or they lack passion in a relationship. Now, I've mentioned what I'm about to share before, but men who are going through significant chaos, they're going through a nasty divorce, they've got issues at work, they've got physical issues going on, they might have family issues going on, whether it could be their children or it could be their elderly parents. And when someone's life isn't solid beneath them, it makes it very difficult to build the foundation, the roots to a healthy, happy relationship. So again, when the foundation is weak, I want you to imagine this, I might want time with her, but my foundation is weak and I don't feel strong enough to reach out to her on a regular basis. And this is one of the other reasons why you're treated as a option and not a priority.  These are alpha males, very strong and set in their ways. And any man at midlife who's strong and set in his ways, oftentimes it's going to be his way at the relationship and it's discounting what you may want in the relationship. I'm gonna repeat that, it's going to be his way in the relationship and he discounts it in your way, the relationship. This is why men who lead right from the beginning and women don't equally participate in the getting to know you phase. This is one of the challenges is because he's leading the relationship on his terms. This is why it's so important to ask better questions right from the beginning. I've shared with you one of the best questions to ask a man is what does commitment look like for you? What does commitment look like for you? In other words, what does it mean to you and what does it look like for you?  The relationships are always on his terms and never their partner's terms. In fact, they're not actively co-creating a relationship together. And this is one of the main struggles for men and women, especially women that choose the men that they want to be the leaders of the relationship.  You're both in your car traveling together at a two lane street.  He drops you off when he wants. That's a, he drops you off at home. He's off driving doing his stuff. And you're like, wait a minute, I'm over here. See, when you're in a relationship of a two lane street, you decide to jump on the street together and travel together. This is why I'm such a big proponent of women actively being a participant in the early stages of getting to know you by inviting men out on dates and treating on dates and allowing him into your life and asking to be a part of his life. In fact, many of the men set in their ways don't even invite you to their home after a long period of time. And those type of men are going to treat you like an option and not a priority. So how do you find the guy who's going to treat you like a priority? Ladies, first off, it's going to start by understanding first the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship. But this is one of the reasons why I highly recommend reading the book, Eight Dates by Doctors John and Julie Gottman. Help you understand the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship. Because if you know it, that's number one. Number two is learning to ask better questions in the early stages of dating to determine, is this person serious or is he looking for casual? By the way, if you're not familiar with the work of Esther Perrell, she is fantastic. She wrote a book called Mating Incaptivity. Mating Incaptivity, and in this book, she talks about something called stable ambiguity, stable ambiguity. And these are the relationships where there's monogamy and exclusivity, but that's the stable part, but it's ambiguous to where is this relationship going? It's ambiguous to even explore partnership.  And if you shared the same values by waiting six, 12, three months, four months, six months into a relationship. Folks, it is highly, this is my suggestion, it's highly important to ask better questions right from the get-go because without it, you'll be choosing the wrong man and you won't be his priority. By asking better questions and finding out, is he really emotionally mature? Do your lifestyles blendable? Or do you share the same values? In other words, do you, this is the compatibility matters way more than chemistry, folks. And if you don't get this, then it's the definition of insanity doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. And I'm here to say to you, stop it. Back to another great book to read is by Barbara DeAngelis called, are you the one for me? Are you the one for me? By the way, all the books I recommend are in the link below. By the way, I haven't even talked about my book.  A journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work, there's a link below to get my book. Listen, the reality is is most relations, it's a clusterfuck out there dating, it just is. And online dating has made this progressively worse. And yet, thankfully we have online dating because quite frankly, if we didn't have online dating right now, there's a good chance most people over 40 years old wouldn't even have those. Let me just tell you something, almost 50% of all new relationships for people over 45 years old is happening through an online connection. And if that didn't exist, it would be much like the line in the movie, Sleepless in Seattle where they say, Rita Wilson says to Tom Hanks, I have a better chance of getting hit or killed by a terrorist than finding love over 40 years old. Thankfully the internet changed that. And yet sadly at the same time, it bastardized dating. Because the reality is, is when we're meeting strangers these days, it's hard to know who they really are. And it takes about 100 hours of face to face time to really get to know a person at stage one at level one. And this is why I'm such a big proponent. I've repeated myself several times in this beginning to learn how to ask better questions. And again, if you want some help with that, schedule a discovery call with me. All right, I think that's gonna explain, that's, I think I've given you some insight as to why men treat you like an option. And if you're going to be his priority, it's gonna start by choosing a man who's serious about wanting partnership at some point in the relationship line. And if you need help with that, reach out to me. By the way, I gotta tweak this picture of my mom and dad. All right, we're gonna get started with questions. Actually, I'm gonna start with the first question because this is really important. And just as a reminder, if you post a question, write the word question and then question, you may wanna wait a moment or purchase a super sticker or super chat. The money from the super sticker super chat goes to a fund, a scholarship fund in the honor of my son, Connor, who passed away. And that scholarship fund is to help subsidize the cost of those folks seeking personal development. That's my goal. So our first question, and this is kind of a bold one, folks. So let me just bear with me one second. Bear with me. And our first question of the day is, it says, why do 80% of midlife relationships go nowhere? Why do 80% of midlife relationships go nowhere? I love this question.  I'm not here to sell you on some fantasy of relationships. In fact, as I said, I've said this repeatedly, in the dating process out there, quite frankly, it's a mess. It's an absolute mess because really for the first time in history, for the most part, in the last 50 years, people who meet are absolute strangers to one another. They have, I mean, while there are the occasions where people meet in high school and those occasions where people meet in college, for those of us in midlife, particularly in midlife, the reality is we're meeting total strangers. And the challenge with meeting a total stranger is you don't know if you share the same values, you don't know if you have blendable lifestyles, and lastly, you don't know if the other person and or you have the emotional maturity to actually be in a healthy, happy relationship. So you might be asking, what does it mean? Why do 80% of relationships fail? Well, let's think about this for a second. Roughly 50% of all first marriages end in divorce and nearly 65% of second marriages end in divorce and 75% of third marriages end in divorce. I mean, that is something to really look at. Why is there so many divorces going on for people on their second or third term? You would think it'd be quite the opposite. They would be so much better at picking people that that number would be substantially lower. But why is it so high? It's because as we age, we actually haven't learned how to pick better people. Let me repeat that. As we age, we haven't learned how to pick better people. Now some of us think, oh, well, I've learned what I want by what I don't want through online dating. Yeah, that's a little bit, but quite frankly, and I want you to also think about this. It's currently a Friday night when I'm shooting this video. There's probably gonna be 100,000 first dates here in the United States, and it could be even higher than that. I'm just gonna take a guess, there's 100,000. How many of those are actually ever gonna turn into a relationship? I'm gonna say less than 1% of those are actually going to turn into a relationship. So that would mean 1,000 out of that 100,000. And of those thousands, how many of those are actually gonna go the distance and go beyond two, three, four, go be long-term relationships? The likelihood of that is 80%. No, excuse me, 20% of those. This is why I say 80% of relationships fail at midlife because the reality is most human beings are focusing on the least important, well, I was about to say the least most, the least important thing, but this isn't true.  Let me repeat that.  And this goes back to the relationship iceberg I've talked about many times, and that tiny piece is chemistry and they do not focus on shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. Compatibility is what creates relationship success. So when a thousand people start a relationship together and all they focus is on chemistry and not focusing on, do we really share the same values? And by the way, folks sharing the same values isn't, you like sushi, me too. Do you like stand-up paddle boarding? Oh my God, I do it every weekend at the pier. Do you like the Rolling Stones? Oh my God, I've seen them in concert 10 times. Folks, that's not compatibility, that's familiarity. Compatibility is do you share, are your lifestyles blendable with one another? Do you share the same values together at a core level? And again, lastly, the emotional maturity piece and quite frankly, I believe, listen, I have learned the hard way that the number one emotional health issue facing everybody is a distressing lack of, I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable and I'm not likable, I'm gonna repeat that. I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable and I'm not likable. That's the number one emotional health issue facing almost everybody. Again, this is why I wrote my book, What the Heck Is Self Love Anyway? By the way, a link below. It's a journey of personal development, self-help and spiritual work to work on the emotional maturity piece. And this is why I continually recommend the book, The Hoffman Process. The Hoffman Process, this is a deep dive into healing childhood wounds and traumas. I'm gonna repeat that a deep dive into healing childhood wounds and traumas. Do you realize that I am probably the only, I'm one of the few, let me reframe that. I'm one of the few dating coaches that continually talks about childhood wounds and traumas as well as adult traumas that cause most of the frustration in the dating realm.    Take a look at Tiger Woods and his father and what he dealt with.  We are dealing and by the way, I don't care how financially successful someone is or how attractive they are on the outside, there is a good chance there's a little kid on the inside of that person that's deeply hurting because they've done little or no, whether they've not done therapy, whether they've not done personal development work, self-help work or spiritual work to heal that little kid inside of them. And this is one of the reasons why 80% of relationships fail or go nowhere, not to mention the fact that most people at midlife are only operating from a casual basis and not a serious basis. And this is why I continually talk over and over and over again about understanding the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship. This is why I repeat this book over and over again. Eight Dates by Doctors John and Julie Gottman, I highly recommend getting it. Because if you wanna be in that 20% category, I recommend reading all the books that I suggest. So you are in a great position to choose the right guy. Because what's the definition of insanity? Doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. Ladies, part of the problem is you're choosing, actually if you're not familiar with the work attached by Amir Levine and the work of getting the love you want by Hallervale Hendricks and Helen Hunt. This is Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. These two books teach you about love attachment style and a mago. And a mago is when we choose people like our parents. Oftentimes we're choosing the same type of person over and over again because they represent one of our parents that we need to heal from the inside because we're still trying to get either mom and dad's love. And so I'm bragging here as a coach for a second. I'm one of the few people that's talking about this that isn't a professional therapist. And this is why I'm screaming at the top of my lungs just like you would scream at a child not to touch that flame. And trust me folks, I'm your big brother. If I could be there for you on a first date with a shotgun and pointed at the guy and say, what are your intentions so we can get the real answer? I want you to learn to do that for yourself by learning the techniques and asking the right questions early on so you can choose a better partner so you don't end up in that 80% of relationships that go nowhere. And I wanna set you up for success that you can be in that 20% that has a chance to be in a healthy, happy, juicy, delicious relationship. Are you with me? Can I get an amen? All right, thank you so much. That was our first question for the day. We're gonna take some more questions.  Oh, I just realized I forgot to change the pictures behind me. All right, let's go through our questions. I know we have a lot here, so bear with me. Question, I always was direct. I told him that if he doesn't want to date me anymore he could tell me, after six months he said I came too close and he was distant. How do I get him back? All right, I'm not a, listen folks, when a man ends a relationship with you I'm not a big proponent of going backward. And I understand why you wanna go backward because most likely you're attached to this man. This is why I highly recommend reading these two books that attached and getting the love you want by Harbell Hendricks and Helen Hunt and attached by a mere delivery, Rachel Heller, most likely what you're explicit. Look, if we can all use the word love. Oh, but Jonathan, I love this guy, I love him. Look, if we oftentimes use the word love to actually describe unhealthy patterns in our life, unhealthy attachment or unhealthy amago, which is that piece where we're trying to relive our relationship with our parents or we might be experiencing codependency. If you're not familiar with the book, Codependent No More, I highly recommend checking this out but what most likely you might be experiencing is an attachment to someone because here's the bottom line. I understand that he might care for you a little bit. However, if he's not actively pursuing a relationship with you from a partnership perspective, you are always going to be an option to him. Why would you wanna choose a relationship with a man who treats you as an option? That's called the definition of insanity. And the reality is, is you're choosing that not because you, listen, if one person doesn't wanna be in relationship with you, but you say, but Jonathan, I love him, but if the other person is not actively in a state of loving with you, then it can't be real love. Let me repeat that. If it's only real love when two people actively want to be in love with, but actively want to be in love with each other, it takes two people to make a loving relationship, not one person.    We have, society sets you up for this failure because society says men should be paying for dates, men should be taking out for dates, men are the leaders of the relationship. So you were set up through the traditional and societal narrative that men lead the process. But guess what happens when they lead the process, they get to do it however they want. And if they're not intentional about being in a relationship, they're treating you as an option at their beck and call. And if you're in a midlife relationship, let me tell you something of that. Listen, folks, men in their 20s and 30s are oftentimes actively looking for a wife because they want the mother of their children. When a man is in his 40s, 50s and 60s, he's no longer searching for a wife because he doesn't need to make babies with someone new. And this is one of the reasons why it's such a clusterfuck out there for many of you. And why I'm telling you, it's so important to focus on something more than just the chemistry piece or the amago piece or the attachment piece that you're experiencing. Listen, this is just my perspective for you. I'm gonna tell you something. I would do a deep dive in loving yourself, read my book, what the heck is self love anyway? Because quite frankly, if you're choosing a guy that doesn't wanna be with you, that's your little kid going, but I want my Christmas present, but I want my Christmas present, but I want my Christmas present. Well, guess what? It's July. You gotta wait for Christmas and guess what? This might not be the present you get in December. So be present to where you're at today, focus on where you're at in your life today, heal your childhood wounds, heal your traumas, both childhood and adult traumas. And you might find that you may not be pining for him anymore to wanna get him back. All right, thank you for that question. Migra, I really appreciate it. Great question. All right, Jenny says, why are there many 40, 50 and 60 year old men never married fear of commitment? Great question. So I think it's because of the same reason why there's equally as many women in their 40s, 50s and 60s who are never married as well. Let me just tell you something. I am on the dating apps, folks, and I can tell you, I see a significant number of women in their 40s, 50s and 60s who are never married. Why are we focusing on that? Why do you care about that? Let me just tell you, there's a good reason why many people are not married. They probably, I want you to think about this. Let me change, let me take a different direction here. I'm gonna take a look at, I was the first gen, I'm a tail end baby boomer. I'm a boomer, I'm a tail end baby boomer. But if you're a tail end baby boomer or a den-exer, this, we grew up in the predominant era of the beginning of a significant rise of divorces. I'm gonna repeat that. We grew up with a significant rise of divorces. In fact, when my, and guess what happened? I got my, by the way, my parents who, those are my parents, mom and dad when they're in their 20s, they married 66 years before my mother passed away. I'm not suggesting I was a product of divorce, but I look at my son. My son, there's Connor and Colin. You know, when we got, when we filed for divorce, they didn't bat an eye because half of the kids in their school, parents are divorced. And if you are byproduct of divorce, there's a good chance you're gonna have resistancey in wanting to get married as an adult. I'm gonna repeat that. A lot of kids that are byproducts of divorce have a resistance to getting married. That's number one and, you know, number one. Number two, that can be such a traumatic effect. It makes it difficult for them to trust love. Let me repeat that. It makes it difficult for them to trust love. This is why I recommend reading the books like I have like the Hoffman process so you can heal that piece.  That all it says is all you have to do is manipulate a guy to get him to, you know, all you have to do is manipulate a guy by doing a lot of manipulation and game playing. And he'll just magically fall in love with you in this relationship will magically work out forever. Because magic fairy dust as well as manipulation always works 100% of the time, right? Okay. Listen, a significant number of men are commitment phobic. That's true. And there's a significant number of women who are not really good. They don't make good partners to be in relationship with it. It's relatively equal, the amount of people that are never been married. I suspect it's relatively equal. I'm gonna say it maybe could be 60, 40, it could be 55, 45, but I'm here to say it doesn't really matter. Stop focusing on them. And I invite you to focus on what you want. Now it's good to know why they're not married. And this is why, again, I highly recommend reading the book Are You the One for Me by Barbara DeAngelis. Because you can learn how to ask better questions along with my specific program. Check out the link below for a free discovery call so you can learn how to choose better because ladies, that's the biggest problem right now is choosing the wrong people and what's the definition of insanity? Doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. Jenny, thank you for your question. I really appreciate it. All right. See, Kathleen says the Hoffman process. I would Google it, Kathleen. All right, let's see if there's any other questions. Again, if you have a question, post the word question or purchase a super sticker and super chat, just a reminder, those super stickers, super chats go to a fund that helps for personal development. That fund is in the name of my son, Connor, who passed away. All right, Kat says, question, Jonathan.  Why so? Ooh, great question. All right, Kat, I love this question and the answer is yes, I have done this. Folks, I've had dates where I've had a good time with someone. Now, let me just preface this. I've had dates with women that I wasn't into and I pretended to have a good time. Let me repeat that. I pretended to have a good time. It might have been I wasn't physically attracted to them, but I figured for lack of a better word, I'm stuck for the next hour or so. So let me just make the best of it. And I approached it from a perspective of making a friend, if you will, or at least not necessarily cognitively thinking about them as a friend, but just being social and having a good time. So I've had more of those situations than an actual good time that I've never called them again. Let me just say this most of the time, even when I've not been attracted, in other words, I wasn't, they weren't my type. I just wasn't aroused by them. They weren't my type, but I made the best of it.  I don't do it anymore, but I've done it. Where I kind of implied, let's get together again. Now, typically I don't just completely go off the grid. I don't do that. I typically will follow up with something that basically says I don't think we're fit for one another. I'm not gonna pursue a relationship with it. And I do it via text message because what's the point of doing it via, you know, telephone or in person? I mean, that to me is a waste of time. And I'm just saying this, that's not fair. It's not a waste of time. It's just an uncomfortable feeling and texting makes it easier to do that. Now, keep in mind, this is a first date where there was a fair amount of connection, but I changed my mind. Now, there's something else that's going on here. Let's go back to the relationship iceberg and that chemistry piece. Here's the thing, ladies, you need to understand chemistry is a chemical from your brain released to your body that makes you feel good. Oftentimes, it's the chemical of testosterone, of estrogen, of oxytocin, of serotonin or dopamine, which is similar to crack cocaine. And what happens is when we go home and have a night's sleep, we are no longer feeling the crack cocaine in our body. And then we're wondering, why is it that I don't like this person anymore? I've literally had what I felt like great chemistry on a first date and then woke up the next morning going, I don't really have chemistry. I'm not feeling it for this person anymore. And I didn't understand why. All I know is I just wasn't feeling it. And I can tell you this happens to a ton of men. We can't predict these things. Ultimately, let's look at the bottom line is this. The right relationships work out and the wrong relationships don't. It's just as simple as that. The right relationships work out and the wrong relationships don't. The problem is we are so hung up is that the minute we have chemistry with someone we believe that's the right relationship and that's the deception of chemistry because chemistry does not equal relationship success. Compatibility, shared values, emotional maturity and blendable lifestyles is what equals relationship success. And so to answer your question, Kat, yes, I've done it. I'm not proud of it. I haven't completely ghosted someone. I might have done it a few times but most of the time I just write what I do when I call the dysfunctional moonwalk. I literally backtrack. And I probably have done this recently to some degree because let me be clear. Emotions can be very confusing. Feelings can be very confusing. And it's very complicated to get this recipe just right where you have shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. And you can have a couple of the pieces of the puzzle but let's say for example, the lifestyles aren't blendable. You can, a person can be in conflict internally. They actually like a person but there's some things that they don't like about the person so they're in conflict and this is why human beings can be wishy-washy. So we have to be careful the first day. Listen, when chemistry is involved, it can be really tricky because chemistry is a deceptive chemical that makes us believe we're in love with someone and that's not love. That's not love. That's just lust or limerence. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating with you? I hope so. And I hope I answered your question. Thank you so much. That was a great question. All right. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling here. Oh, Kat had another question. Oh, same one. Sorry. I'm scrolling. Hey everyone. I wanna thank you so much. Bear with me. I'm looking for questions. Again, if you have a question, post the word question. Scrolling. Melissa says, Jordan Peterson speaks about this too. Confidence and competence. I'm a big fan of Jordan Peterson if you're not familiar with him. He is a professor from Canada who is brilliant. He has a brilliant mind. I love the way he speaks and he speaks into a lot of biblical things as well but he is a very established orator and he's incredibly brilliant. So I do like his work. I think he has a book called The 12 Rules for Life that a lot of young men. Liz Taylor says, I love the iceberg analogy illustration. Thank you so much, Liz Taylor. Liz Taylor. I'd like to have a date. Jenny says, more men are seeking casual relationships on dating apps and they say so. I run from these men. Yeah, I would too. In fact, I run from the women who are only seeking casual. That's not my cup of tea. All right, let's scroll to here. Let's see, we're looking for questions. Post the word question and then write your question out so I can see it. It helps me out, folks. Jennifer says, if you don't work on yourself and heal, it will roll over into your relationships. Jennifer is correct. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Folks, inner work is critically important for both men and women alike. Now, it doesn't mean you have to have read all the books, but being introspective is hugely important in relationship, being introspective, being able to look inward and take ownership of one's life. Folks, if you're not familiar with what I call the five signs of emotional maturity, the five signs of emotional maturity, those are actions matching words, take personal responsibility for one's choices. What that means is you're in victor consciousness and not victim consciousness. You learn how to fight fair. And what I mean by fight fair is that when two people are having a discussion or a disagreement, this is in a romantic relationship, you listen to your partner's point of view and you accept your partner's point of view as being true for them. This is probably one of the number one hangups in relationship because most humans are, not only are they in victim consciousness, but they're very righteous about being right. So it's not about being happy, it's about being right when there is conflict. And then the fourth piece is empathy. And empathy isn't just I can feel your feelings, empathy is I care about your feelings, but it's also I care about my feelings. Folks, I'm gonna tell you something, most women give their power away in relationship. And one of the ways they do this is they don't speak their truth to men in relationship because you're afraid he's gonna break up with you. Chapter one of my book, Speak Your Truth, do it with kindness. And later on, chapter nine, if it's sincere and from the heart, you can't say the wrong thing to the right person.  An empowered woman. Have you ever heard the term why men love bitches?  I'll stop spitting.  Babe or beauty in total control of herself. What that means is she is in her sovereignty.  She is not dependent upon a man for her happiness. She is not suckling on the nipple of, I need you to love me so I can feel good about myself. I need you to love me so I can feel good about myself. I need you to text me all the time so I can feel safe in this relationship because if you're not texting me all the time, I don't feel safe in this relationship and blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, you gotta stop it, stop it. Oh, by the way, the fifth sign of emotional maturity is transparency. If it's material to the relationship, the two of you better be speaking up. And this is where a lot of relationships fail because they're afraid to speak their truth about the relationship because the reality is is most humans aren't really compatible with one another. It takes getting out of our ego and into our hearts to actually establish a healthy, happy relationship. This is why I highly recommend reading the book, Spiritual Partnership by Gary Zukov. And let me just tell you this, I have a podcast called the What Would Love Do podcast. In fact, this will be on the Love What Would Love Do. I want every one of you to start to approach life from the perspective of what would love do and how would love respond. Because folks, it starts by putting the oxygen mask first on yourself. I'm gonna repeat that. It starts by putting the oxygen mask first on yourself. And that means loving on yourself first so you are not dependent upon a man for your happiness. And this way, you'll be in that 20% that has a chance for success instead of the 80% as I shared before that has little or no chance of relationship success. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please hit that thumbs up button, hit that like button and say an amen. Ooh, I have the armpit stains. All right. All right. Let's keep going. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Jenny says, the Hoffman process has daily meditations to heal the inner child. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you, Jenny. Liz says, bam. Kathleen says, you nailed it. Thank you. Yvonne says, daddy issues. That is right. Okay. Vanessa says, or Vanessa, oh, I don't, I'm butchering it, Miss Field. LOL, God, I love watching you. You tell it straight and to the point. Thanks for being so honest about all of this. Thank you for helping us. I am very grateful. Thank you for allowing me into your life today. Melissa says, Jonathan, spot on. Thank you so much. Jennifer says, I highly recommend getting out of your head by Jenny Allen. It's really helped me. Yes. Okay, let's keep going. Oh, here we go. Kelly says, my ex had feminine energy and didn't want to use it to his advantage. He chose to call feelings gay so much so we have a baby son, so I have had to leave. I'm raising my children to have emotional intelligence. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. Folks, oftentimes feminine energy is confused. So feminine energy is simply receiving and masculine energy is doing. Let me repeat that. Feminine energy is receiving, masculine is doing.   So that's why masculine feminine energy. What I think she was really referring to is feminine traits versus feminine energy. Let me repeat that. Feminine traits, in other words, that we typically direct towards women more so than men. It sounds like he was very sensitive to his feelings, which is a great quality to have. In other words, to have an awareness around one feeling. I'm sorry that the relationship didn't work out. It's oftentimes because we chose the wrong partner to begin with and not necessarily just about the feminine tendencies that he had. At least that's my impression anyway, all right? Thank you so much for responding. I appreciate that. Let's see. I can't even remotely pronounce your name. Fad it let, fad it let. Okay, question. I have this guy I've been chatting with for three months and he seems to likely, but we have never spoken on the phone. He literally prefers to chat. That, what could be wrong? Folks, I gotta tell you something. Many of you are suckling on the nipple of virtual relationships. This is a perfect example of what I do not sell in my coaching practice. Folks, my rule of thumb is this. It's called the three, two, one. But three, oh wait, sorry, three, two, one, three. Three, two, one, three. Three, two, one, three. Three, two, one, three. And what that is is to have three email exchanges should lead you to one or two phone calls that should lead you to one date and this should all happen in a three week period of time. Folks, most likely this is a long distance relationship. Let me just tell you, long distance relationships fail at roughly about 99.9% of the time. They are, while they occasionally work out, when you're dealing with a total stranger that lives far away, you too have to be incredibly intentional right from the beginning, right from the beginning, very intentional and have a game plan if you're gonna start seeing each other and how to take the distance closer together to spend three months texting someone.   All it's doing is serving to feed. By the way, the fact that you're choosing this is actually the sign of, I'm gonna be candid with you. It's a sign of a lack of emotional maturity on your part. The fact that you're choosing to have a virtual relationship, a text relationship is probably a sign that you're not ready for a deep, serious, fully committed, juicy, delicious relationship. But I am Jonathan, I really am, I really am. Then why are you choosing to engage in this? Three text messages should lead to one phone call. If you don't, you go next. But no, but I like this Jonathan, I like this guy, I like this guy. Folks, I'm fan of the movie, Shawshank Redemption. There's a line that I say frequently. Get busy living or get busy dying. You can spend six months, a year, I talk to a woman. We had a woman on the live stream one. She said she was in a six month relationship. I'm like, really? So I asked the question, how often you see each other? Oh, we've never seen each other. Oh, how often do you talk on the phone? Oh, we've never talked on the phone. She calls herself in a relationship with someone she's never met, never talked to on the phone, never FaceTime. That is not a relationship, folks. That's called a cyber relationship at best. It's a cyber relationship. And many of you are suckling on the nipple of cyber relationships. And I'm gonna encourage you to stop, stop, stop doing that. It's a waste of time. I would rather you read these books instead. Learn from these books then invest, listen, I know it's feeding that little child inside of you that's hurting, that wants connection, but I invite you to do a deep dive into personal development instead of a deep dive into these cyber relationships, folks. Do you know the average person spends more time brushing their teeth, combing their hair, getting dressed to go, getting dressed in the day than actually studying any personal development? The average person, and I'm gonna say 97% of human beings spend less than 15 minutes a day. Actually, let me reframe that. 97% of humans doings do zero personal development work or little or no personal development work, but we'll spend more time brushing our teeth, combing our hair, buying shoes, getting our nails done, being waxed, all that stuff, but you spend little or no time. And I'm sorry, I'm calling you out, ma'am. I'm sorry, but you are doing the definition of insanity and that's because you're not emotionally mature because we wouldn't be choosing that if you want a healthy, happy relationship. Now, if you're okay with cyber relationship, I'm gonna say, just keep doing what you're doing. It's working. Keep doing what you're doing, it's working. It's working great as a cyber relationship. If you want a real relationship, choose someone who lives around the corner that you can actually go out on the first date with.  Grow up. I highly recommend reading the book How to Be an Adult in Relationship and adults don't choose virtual relationships. Can I get an amen? Thank you. I'm sorry, these just frustrate me. All right, Evelyn writes, question, if you and the person you were with have lots of chemistry and still does not communicate with you and cheats on you all the time.  I'm sorry, Evelyn.  This is Christmas, okay?  But I want my Christmas present. I want my Christmas present. I want my Christmas present because it's just such a shiny package. But inside the package is a cheater.    That's what an adult does.   No offense, please forgive me. I'm sorry I'm calling you out. But sweetheart, this is what a child does. And this is what a majority of women do.  Start reading these books, change your life from the inside out and stop waiting for men and understand that chemistry, going back to the relationship iceberg is the smallest piece of the puzzle. And by the way, in emotional maturity, we are talking about integrity. And integrity means if you've made a commitment to be monogamous with one another, you maintain that commitment. I'm sorry, I get riled up on these. But thank you for your question anyway. I wish you all the best because you're gonna do the definition of insanity most likely. I hope you change your mind though. Mildred, from day one, I speak my truth whether they agree or not. I know who I am and what I deserve. I let them know. They can stay or run, question. I don't text a man if he doesn't text me, is that right? That's wrong, folks. Let me just tell you something. If he sends you a text message, you can send him a text message.  Let me just tell you, it should look like a ping pong game. He takes one turn, you take another turn. He takes a turn, you take a turn. It's like a ping pong game. It is not the man texts, the man texts, the man texts.  And by the way, a lot of it is because you're seeking the need for validation from someone. But Jonathan, it feels good when the man initiates. Yeah, and by the way, men say the same thing. It feels good when a woman initiates. So my invitation for you is you take turns initiating. It's as simple as that. Take it or leave it. That's my perception and I'm sticking to it. Thank you. All right. I just saw something from tips. Hold on. This thing, oh, a lot of amens, a lot of amens. Bear with me, I saw a question. Bear with me. God, it's hard to find these. You gotta bear with me, folks. Come on, I just saw one. Oh, here we go. Question. How, question. How to work on myself? I'm new here. I'm three months out of my marriage. Okay, first book to read. Okay, great question. First book to read. This is gonna be, this is like, this is ninja level. I'm gonna take you to ninja level. I want you to read The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. And then I want you to read the book by Marianne Williamson's Return to Love. These are two great books. Two great books to change your, oh, what, before I forget. But the first book you purchase, what the heck is self love anyway? Link below, right there. These three books will change your life. Untethered Soul, Return to Love, and then my book. If you're gonna, at the newbie, these are a great place to start. Great question, tip. Thank you so much. SB writes, question. Do age gaps really matter? This guy is into me and 10 years older. Absolutely not. Do they matter? I'm just gonna say it. They don't matter. I was in a relationship with a woman 10 years younger to me. I have a friend who's in relationship with a woman who's 20 years younger than him. I have a friend who's married to a woman who's 21 years older than him. They only matter if you're gonna make a big deal about it. That's when it matters when you make a big deal out of it. Now, I will say this. Sometimes there is a perception difference with an age difference. There can be, the way they perceive the world is differently, but if two people are equally yoked, then the answer is no. If two people are misaligned, then it's gonna be a clusterfuck. By the way, what matters most is not the age gap. What matters most is shared values, emotional maturity, blendable lifestyles, and of course we want chemistry too, but that's what matters most more so than age. Thank you so much for that question. I truly appreciate it. All right.  Question, I'm 24 years old and only attracted to older men, mid to end 40s and beginning 50s. I'm very direct, but they don't seem to want to commit to me. Does it have anything to do with my age? Hey, folks, Dennis Quaid is married to a woman 30 years younger than him. I know plenty of men who are married to women 30 years younger than them, 20 years younger than them. I don't know why it's not happening to you, but I know plenty of people that are married younger people. I can't speak for you.  I don't know, but I'm gonna tell you something, a lot of older men marry younger women. So I can't tell you what could be going on. Sadie writes, Jonathan, question. Jonathan, what are your thoughts on a nice guy I met? He's divorced for over a year, but he still lives under the same roof of his ex-wife and teenage kids running a hotel together. I would never date someone that's living with their ex-spouse because it's not clean, it's not clean.  It's not clean. I wouldn't recommend it. I'm just gonna be blunt. I don't need to give you the why, just don't do it. By the way, I invite you to do this. Ask 10 of your friends, 10 of your friends what they think. I bet every one of them is gonna say, don't do it. Listen to your friends.  So let me retract that thing about friends because friends actually believe love solves relationship problems instead of shared values, emotional, maturity, and blendable lifestyles. Kathy writes, question, what do you think of a man that only texts you to go out and try and talk to him by text and doesn't reply? What do you think of a man that only texts you to go out and I try and talk to him by text and doesn't reply? Well, Kathy, how is it when you're actually going out on a date with them? Is it fun? Is it good? Do you share the same values? Do you think like your lifestyles are blendable? Does he have emotional maturity? What is it like when you're actually dating him?  Let me tell you something. By the way, if you're not familiar with the book, the four agreements, the four agreements, I highly recommend getting this book to understand, be impeccable with your word, don't make assumptions, don't allow projections of others to affect you and always do your best.  Look at my phone pocket dials three times a day by accident.  That's my opinion on that. Thank you for that question though, Kathy. I appreciate it. Melissa writes, remember Jonathan's iceberg analysis illustration and the iceberg in the Titanic we choose. We can choose to be intentional or blind to the iceberg ahead. Melissa, thank you for the $10 super sticker and what she's referring to is we can approach chemistry but it's just like the Titanic. We're gonna, if we're focused on chemistry, we're gonna crash if you're not looking and being intentional about shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. Melissa, thank you so much for the super sticker. I really appreciate it. Okay, Marcy writes, question, what do you think about men that still hold a grudge against their ex and even after being divorced for years? By the way, you rock. Yay, thank you. I do rock. I'm gonna say thank you, I do. So what do I think about those guys? They're deeply wounded and I would, and what did, what was the movie? Let's see, Forrest Gump. What was the famous line? Run, Forrest, run! I would go the other direction. Anyone who has a grudge against their ex-spouse? So let me tell you a story. Change of subject and it's kind of in the same lines. I'll never forget, I dated a woman briefly and on our first date, she was telling me about her ex-spouse and she said, oh, he was a narcissist and that's why we broke up. And I, so as we dated a little bit more, I got to find out about her three other relationships and it turns out each one of those relationships were narcissists. So I thought to myself, well, I'm not a narcissist, so I will be her hero. Folks, we dated for six weeks. I mean, we were so incompatible and she started driving me nuts. And we broke up and guess what her Facebook page said? Guess what her Facebook page said the next day? I dated another narcissist. She was referring to me. Folks, when someone has a grudge or is harboring issues in their past relationship, it bleeds into their next relationship and they often treat you as badly or poorly as their past relationships. Folks, if a person hasn't healed their past relationships, they don't make good candidates to be in relationship going forward. So I highly recommend asking better questions in the beginning so you can avoid that.  I asked the right questions, but I wasn't paying attention to her pattern. She had a narcissist every time. I didn't pay attention to that pattern. I focused on me not being a narcissist. And so I didn't focus on the patterning. This is why folks, when a man is going through a nasty divorce and he throws his ex spouse under the bus, that is a clear sign that they're not ready for a healthy happy relationship because it takes two to have an unhappy relationship, not one. And unless you have to call a doctor, an attorney, or a policeman, everything is equal in the relationship. I mean, even if a person cheated, there was something that you accepted in the relationship that allowed that to happen. So again, unless you have to call a doctor, attorney, or a policeman, we're not victims here. We are contributors to our lives. Maybe not a, maybe it's not 50-50, but it's at least 60-40 in those cases. So take ownership in your part. Marcy, great question. Thank you so much. All right, let's keep going. Let's keep going. Bump, bump, bump. Francis says, the question is a three-parter. Thank you, Jonathan. I spelled my son's name the same. Oh, cool. I didn't see your question, though. All right, let's keep going. We're gonna be going for a few minutes. Actually, folks, guess what's happening tonight? I am actually meeting one of my YouTube fans for a drink today. So by the way, on occasion, when one of you is actually in my neighborhood and there was actually some free time for those that have reached out to me publicly, when you're in Redondo Beach, I'm happy to meet you for a drink if the timing is right and I happen to meet meeting a YouTube fan for fun, to do something different. She reached out to me via a message. We became Facebook friends and she followed my work consistently. I could see her regularly. And we're just gonna meet for a drink. So it's gonna be kind of fun to do something a little different. I need to get out of my cave.  I need to get out. So I'm just gonna tell you, if I happen to be in Redondo Beach and the timing works out, I'm happy to meet you for a cocktail or a cup of coffee, most likely coffee. But it just happened to work out that it's gonna be a Friday night drink. So that's what I'm doing tonight and I gotta get ready for that. By the way, it's not a date. It's not a Tuma. It's not a date. It's just two people meeting. And by the way, you know what? Things are a lot better when we take the pressure of it not being a date. By the way, I'm not pursuing her romantically, but I'm here to say, when we take the pressure of it not being a date and you actually connect with the person, by the way, I highly recommend reading the book, personhood, personhood. Check out the author, Lee, but boosts.  Personhood, the art of being fully human. When we can focus on just being human beings connecting and we take the gender expectations out of it, you can actually connect with another human being in a much more palatable and gracious way. And I say palatable because of so many grand expectations. By the way, I highly recommend reading the book if the Buddha dated to take the gender expectations out of the equation and connect with another human being at a heart-centered place if the Buddha dated. All right, let's see what else we have. Can I get an amen on that? All right, this is gonna be our last question for the day. Question, what are significant signs someone has changed and they say they want to commit that they've changed?  So what are we talking about? It's taken me a decade or so to get into the place where I'm at today and the most significant change happened in the last four years of this decade. I believe people that require emotional, that, listen, most folks suffer at emotional maturity. It takes doing a tremendous amount of work to build the skills to learn how to communicate in relationship. This is why I'm such a big proponent of reading the book, Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. It's gonna take doing some work, learning how to be in a relationship in every, by the way, there's a link below to Jonathan recommends books. When a person reads all the books, maybe they've gone to therapy, done a little bit of coaching, that's, and you've now seen incremental change over a period of time, that's the sign.  Look it, you could have a Deepak Chopra book at your nightstand, but if it isn't highlighted page after page after page, chances are they haven't really done the inner work to heal, to be a really good compatible partner, to be in a healthy, happy, juicy, delicious relationship and my invitation for you is to choose people who have at least done some work, because if at least they've done some work, it's like planting a seed. It has a chance to grow into a flower, but if they've done little or no work, it's gonna be very highly unlikely, unless they just happen to have had a really blessed life and not a lot of trauma in their life, those folks, and they're introspective, those folks make good candidates as well. All right, I think this is a good place to wrap up. I'm gonna look at some of the comments before I wrap up. Everyone, if this was a value to you, purchase a Super Sticker right now, purchase a Super Staff, please support my scholarship fund in the name of Connor, I'd be truly grateful for that. If I bring value to you on a regular basis, I would be so honored. $2, $5, $10, make an investment in this channel so I can keep bringing you this content three times a week. I do Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, typically four o'clock on Mondays and Wednesdays and three o'clock on Fridays. I hope I provided some value to you today.  All right, this will be a great place to wrap up today. I'm gonna wrap up first off giving myself a big gigantic Jonathan Barrow hug of self love. 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 let's face it, we can all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch, bye-bye now.


It is the TRRS jack breakout. That's what I was working with before Now we have that and you can plug in your TRRS cable here is a little Altoid tin MIDI converter that I built got a QT Pi and I've got my TRRS jack TRRS jack I'm using it to send MIDI data and so for that I'm using a TRS cable and that works fine stereo cable I'm going to use the QT Pi to play a couple of arpeggios and then change the patch This is just serial UART data. That is my product pick of the week this week. It is the TRRS jack breakout


It's next when you compliment somebody else. Why do I feel the why do I mess up my lead? I think he's about to compliment me saying really good. Yeah Just kidding Oh Ever since the bonk train of the 21 year Driving us with the same sense 20 20 Holy Jesus, I didn't push you. No, no, no, I threw that angle No, no, no, no, I Was saying it's trying to convince Hold on I'm I'm off-road. I don't know why I just turn myself into snakes At least we know you're good at something Yeah, I was like this better.  Oh, I loved it. Yeah, Christmas. That's my bad So snappy at the start of it. Hey, man, you don't have to apologize to me. I sucky Let's go Comp and just gonna make us both run and he's gonna put us up there against each other first that way We can be like odd fellow the guys Okay, I was bonkin makes it hard next time Lion what up? Hey, if I get close enough, I'm gonna open your door. Yeah, this is Already, dude I have to take my eyes off the screen to feel for the key when I do that So like if you hear that noise, I'm probably in the grass Dude, I did a fart that fart noise on my co-op teacher today Like It was just really quiet Because I don't know if they knew it was like real or not I got I got I died.  I'm behind snacks and jar and so You were behind me then you disappeared. I kind of lost control. So I kind of just like waited music You need to get in this Christmas Try to get Nick. Oh, okay. I don't know who Nick is Santa Oh Snap I this all right. I'm alone now. Where are you guys when I played CS go to troll my team? Where has that been hidden this whole time I don't even think that's what the normal thing sounds like I know that's what like Yeah, so I think that was the only one I played with source When source got released that was when I stopped Oh Because they're they like release source and then there was a McDonald's map I Remember that cuz doesn't didn't Josh dubs and a bunch of them do the VR skits in there Kid yeah, Josh doesn't re kid I Trying to say shake sosa it's just not working. It's not working It's not carry on can't go any faster. It's next yes slot behind me real quick what slot in behind me Okay, that didn't work out as well as I hope But oh rabbit dude, I saw one of your cars Someone was using it in one of Goosey's top-tengers videos Well, hi, it's yeah, which one was someone was driving your Supra Uh-huh a top-tenger it because I was I saw the dashboard I was like dude That's an evil rabbit symbol and he's like what's like he's driving the Toyota Supra That's awesome. Yeah, the the a90 yeah, yeah, yeah, the original one of the first street cars That's awesome I tried to drift And this guy Chill late-night tandem session It's a good time when everybody starts going When everybody's like borderline on the brink of losing the drink Yeah, whenever the train's about to go down the hill like right now all we went through that smooth though Whoa, this is why I haven't changed the track yet. I love this track for like 10 of them right now I like this startling downhill and then it tightens up and then I Die I see you back there Christmas. Oh bad. Oh Sorry, so it's good. Just a just a little wheel love no big deal Nate that was a little more than a door tap. Oh, I tapped your door Why am I leading this cuz we have faith that you'll be able to do That man you're lying to yourselves. Thank you savior We're still good. I got a little bit too much speed. I was the draft. It was the draft from the last time The little shake it bake action for us to shake it Bake it you're already lost your wife now you're about to lose your best friend Sorry, so it's a good I came down that hill too large I Jesus I don't think I go wider Are you talking about me Whoever's leading. Oh God. There's a massive train back there. It's me leading. So we're good Funny Sorry kind of went a little shallow there. Oh good. Hey, what do you guys say on a first date? Hello? Yo, hey, Robin nice to see you Oh Rabbit be cool, man, we're meet I know meeting for the first time just be cool. Okay, here we go Tell me why I come on these servers again Did you It's true. Yeah, this is your community. So you got to deal with it so You want to see what happens though? Ever since jar put that ebls in front of his name He's become a very good tandem driver and a very good follow. But now it's probably Where we going man


We had no plan and we had no money. We just spent all our money on 500 units and we're like, how are we gonna sell these but we can't be stuck with them in our garage for the rest of our lives, so here we go. We launched at the end of January of this year but I would say like when the business really took off was in like April when Taylor's TikTok just exploded and currently that's where 90% of our sales are coming from. 90% of sales coming from TikTok. The misconception is that TikTok can't drive sales and it 1000% can and we have sold out consecutively every month until it's our first month fully in stock. We're on track to do a million dollars in our first year in sales and 90% of our sales are from TikTok. 90% of your sales from TikTok, $900,000. I should also say 100% of those sales are organic. We don't promote any of our content, it's all organic.


Hi everybody, this is your weekly top 5 articles on opensource.com, and I'm Jen with opensource.com. At number 5 this week, we have 9 tasty recipes to share, modify, and remix. In honor of Thanksgiving here in the U.S., we ran a series about open source for food and beverages that wrapped up this week. As part of the series, we published our 2015 open recipe collection. It ranges from morning foods and beverages for an energy boost, to meals for comfort, to after-work concoctions for relaxing. Our recipes for this collection are for sharing, modifying, and remixing just like open source, and we hope you enjoy it. At number 4, Mozilla Contributor Creates Diabetes Project for the Masses. Ben Karenza of Mozilla shares how he got started in open source, which leads to the story of Glucosio, an open source project he created to bring diabetes management and research software to the masses. At number 3, Will Cora Solve Bitcoin's Biggest Problems? In this interview, staffer Brian Barenhausen interviews a core developer behind the open source cryptocurrency Cora. He explains how blockchain technology will revolutionize everything from contracts to social networking. At number 2, Visualize Astrophysics Data with Blender. Jill Nyman, creator of AstroBlend, shares with the Blender for Dummies author, Jason Van Gumpster, how she uses Blender to visualize astrophysical simulations and data. She gave a talk on the topic at the Blender conference this year. And finally at number 1, Drupal-based FarmOS manages food, farmers, and community. Mike Stenta is the lead developer of FarmOS, a Drupal management system for farmers to track everything from inventory to water schedules. And Mike tells Don Watkins in this interview why he chose Drupal and how he plans to help farmers in today's tech driven world. Also, we published our holiday gift guide for open source enthusiasts and your friends and family last week. Has 14 great gifts on it. You should check it out. There is a link to it in the article here on opensource.com as well as on YouTube in the description. Thanks for joining me this week. I hope that you have a happy Thanksgiving or if you're in the U.S. and a great rest of your week elsewhere. Thanks. See ya.


Income tax 2023-2024. Free tax tools. Get ready and some coffee so you can recognize the code cracks when doing income tax 2023-2024. We would like to take the opportunity now to point out some possible free resources, free resources that might be useful to follow along in this course, although not required, free resources that could be useful in practice, free resources that you might be able to give as advice to others who have particular income tax needs. The first one, one we saw in a prior presentation is LASERT tax software. This is the software we will be using in the demonstration problems. You don't need access to the LASERT tax software to follow along. It's not going to be a course on the data input in LASERT tax software, but having tax software so that we can tinker with the tax code by running scenarios is a really useful tool for understanding. You might be able to look into the free trial on the LASERT tax software as well as some of the other softwares we've kind of touched in on in prior presentations and we'll look at here shortly. Then we can jump on over to the IRS website. So irs.gov, irs.gov is the IRS website. So IRS has IRS free file, do your taxes for free. They've been promoting this for a few years now. In the last couple years, they really promoted it hard since the changes happened with COVID and they still have it at this point in time. So if you search for the IRS free file, you will generally find it on the IRS website, irs.gov, irs.gov. Option number one, guided tax software. So for adjusted gross income of 79,000 or less. So in other words, if your income is below a certain threshold, you might have access to free software, the software not being provided by the IRS website. It's not being provided by the government. The government has come up with some kind of deal leveraging some kind of deal with the private software creators. And if you qualify, one of the qualifications being your income below the 79,000, first a word from our sponsor. Yeah, actually, we're sponsoring ourselves on this one because apparently the merchandisers, they don't want to be seen with us.  Anyways, like our crunchy numbers is my cardio product line. Now, I'm not saying that subscribing to this channel, crunchy numbers with us will make you thin, fit and healthy or anything. However, it does seem like it worked for her. Just saying. So subscribe, hit the bell thing and buy some merchandise so you can make the world a better place by sharing your accounting instruction exercise routine. If you would like a commercial free experience, consider subscribing to our website at accountinginstruction.com or accountinginstruction.thinkific.com, then you might be able to get access to that software for free. That kind of software is generally going to be software that is not the business or professional software, but individual software, not to say it's not good or anything or not as good as the professional software, but the objectives are different as we saw before. LASERT software, for example, being a software that would be used in a firm, having less of an interview process, an easier and faster data input screen so you can crank out more returns, which is actually great for tinkering with the tax code, making different changes. The individual software usually being designed to have an interview process so that you're interacting with a series of questions, mirroring what might happen if you were to go and talk to a tax preparer in person. So let the software do the work. It says it answers simple questions. That's because it's in an interview format. Choose between trusted IRS partners you qualify for, accurate math calculations guaranteed, free state tax preparation and filing with some trusted partners. Prepare and file your federal return in Spanish possibly as well. As far as a practice tool, if you use this software and you can get access to it for free and like run scenarios in the software and then use it for your own practice purposes, possibly that could be something that you can look into. I'm not sure I haven't done that myself, but you might be able to run and use that to kind of tinker with and run scenarios with possibly. Option number two, the fillable forms. Now the reason I have like the EU Yuck picture here is because I don't normally recommend using the fillable forms. You can look up the forms on the IRS website that I highly recommend. So if you don't have access to software and you're following along with our course, for example, then you could just look up like the form 1040 the related schedules all the schedules all the instructions on iris website iris.gov iris.gov and you'll you can kind of follow along where the data input is happening on those forms and get more of a holistic view of the form and the instructions. You just can't jump back and forth between the data input that will then populate the form as easily and quickly as if you used software. Now the thing with the fillable forms is usually if you were going to do your own taxes, if your income is below 79,000, then you might have a more easier tax return, although that's still getting up there. More higher income tax returns typically are more complex tax returns because you might have multiple income sources, multiple family member members and dependents and so on and so forth. Although low income tax returns can be complicated as well because of all the credits as we'll jump into later. So but if your income is above that threshold, then you then you could jump over to the fillable forms. And I think the IRS is saying we're going to allow you to do a free option. Look, everyone can do a free option. That's what the IRS would like to claim. And they can claim that basically. But I don't think you would really want to use the fillable forms if your income was above 79,000, because the income level is an indication that you have a more complex return. So if your incomes below 79,000, you want to use sometimes a software for sure and possibly still go talk to a tax preparer so that you can give some some actual advice about the tax preparation in terms of planning and not just preparation. If your incomes over 79,000, then you're probably at a level of complexity where you want more than just the tax preparation. You probably want some kind of tax planning and that kind of thing. And therefore, I would think it would be useful at that point at least to purchase the software to make sure that you have the double check the internal control of the software to help you with the diagnostics to lessen the chance of making errors. And possibly at that point actually go to a CPA firm or a tax preparer with the idea that you're going to try to settle set up a long term relationship with someone because the tax preparer then can then help you out with the current tax return, but can also help you out basically going forward in the future, possibly doing tax planning, which could be a major resource, especially for higher income individuals. And you might be more likely to get an audit or something like that if you have higher income situations because your tax code is more complex. And it would be nice if you had a tax preparer that could help you out in those situations as well. So that's why I don't really like I don't really think the fillable forms has a much of a role because if you're under 79,000, you're going to use the software free software or get a tax preparer. If you're over 79,000, then I would think that you'd still want to pay for the software at the least or possibly go to a CPA firm at that point due to the fact that your tax preparation and planning is complex to the point where you would need to the fillable forms is kind of like doing the taxes by hand, which because of the complexity in the tax code, because the tax code has become more complex over the years as all these resources have allowed it to be like software, you don't typically want to do it's kind of like payroll, you know, you almost have to have some other system that's kind of helping you with the data input or else, you know, you're you're way more likely to make errors or miss certain opportunities that you would be picking up with the tax software. Okay, so you do all the work using your instructions available for any income level, no guidance and limited calculations provided, no state tax preparation and filing. That's another issue with this one. The state tax preparation is going to be important if you're in a state that has income tax, that'll depend on the state that you're in. Okay, so then we're going to we're going to focus over here on the free software. Now, if you go to their to the free software that is available and just look at the lists of the software, not all of them have that limit of 79,000 or less of the AGI, you can see here, the free tax USA, AGI 45,000 or less, not 79,000. And so age any free and all states, that's a huge one because some softwares might not have the capacity to do all the states given the fact that the states are more complex because the states could differ from state to state. Whereas with the federal taxes, it's the same over the whole country for the most part, there still could be like state influence in terms of the cost of living and whatnot in certain calculations, but it's basically so state return free and all states earned income tax credit included if AGI criterion is met. So the earned income tax credit is another credit which is quite complex, even for low income individuals. So it used to be that your low income tax return was quite easy. But with all the credits that are in place these days, the main ones being the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit and them having a refundable portion as well as possibly a non refundable portion in some of these credits, it starts to get quite complex. You intertwine the earned income credit also with filing status, number of children, number of dependents, then it starts to get quite complex. So some of them actually don't have the earned income tax credit, which I think would be very important if your income is below a certain threshold and you would qualify for the earned income tax credits. So I think they have an interview process here, like a little thing that will recommend the software, but just recognize that you don't have access to all the software just because it's under $79,000. You also don't have access to all the proprietary softwares out there. You'll note here that into its owner of QuickBooks software, TurboTax, I don't believe is on here at all, which is interesting. You might check out TurboTax, they might have a free option if your income is below a certain threshold as well. But these are proprietary softwares, they're not like government soft, they're not made by the government, the government somehow has a deal with them. And so that's the idea. So this one, I don't, I haven't used these, I use mainly Listert. So free now under $68,000 free in some states. This one's only between, well between $17,000 and $79,000 included if that's kind of a weird one. So if you're below $17,000, no. And then you've got the IRS free file program. This one has the $79,000 or less free in all states. Make sure that it's picking up your state requirement if you're looking into these free options, because you don't want to file two separate softwares, one for the state and one for the federal, typically, unless the state gives you like a free option or something like that. The one that has the coolest name, of course, is Tax Slayer. Tax Slayer, but it's $44,000 or less, I've never used it. So there it is. And then A-L-O, and then here's my image for Tax Slayer. He's slaying the taxes. Tax Act and file for taxes.com. So these are not the only options you have. I can't vouch for any of these softwares. I've never used them. You might want to, you could look at Intuit's TurboTax, H&R Block, I think has a standalone tax package as well. Those are probably the biggest two in terms of name recognition. And I would think they would be pretty good given the fact that, again, Intuit is a big company and probably has more people. So it's, again, it's kind of strange that they're not in the program to me here. So you might look at their stuff and see if they have a free option as well. I tend, I would tend to trust them a little bit because I work with LASERT, which is now owned by Intuit. I'm not saying Intuit's the best out there, but they're big, right? They're the big one. So anyways, what else do we have? We got the Tax Withholding Estimator. Now the Tax Withholding Estimator is designed to help you to make the proper withholdings, but it can also be used as like a practice tool to kind of estimate your taxes in different scenarios, and it basically has to be like a projection type of tool. So let me do a quick recap on how this works and why you might be able to use it. Note that we file the taxes after, by April 15th, following the year that we're working on. So if we're looking at 2023 tax year, we're going to file it in 2024. But note that the design of the tax system is similar to the design of payroll taxes in that the form shouldn't actually result in any refund or payment as it was originally constructed. Basically the original thought process was we're going to have you pay throughout the year as you earn the money, and then when you file the tax return in the following year, you're just going to say, hey look, this is the taxes I owe, here's my recap of the income that I earned, and I've already paid you the money, and therefore it's just an informational return. That's what basically happens on payroll taxes, although on a quarterly basis for the Federal Income Tax Social Security and Medicare on form 941. You don't typically have a payment or refund when filing those returns, you're just recapping. However, the tax code became so complex that that's impossible to do. So you can't really guess exactly what the amount of tax that you're going to owe is, because there's too many variable components in calculating the income tax. So what are you going to do then? So they're going to say, you still have to pay during the year, because the IRS wants their money as you earn it, not after you earn it. And they also are skeptical, I would think, that if you wait till you actually owe the money, you're not going to have the money because you would have already spent it. So they want to take the money away from you before it even gets in your hands, right? That's kind of seems to be kind of the plan here. So that means that you're going to be paying through W two withholdings most likely and 1099 and possibly estimated payments throughout the year. And what you'd shoot for what you try to do is pay a little bit too much. And why do you try to pay a little bit too much? Not just because you want a cool refund at tax time. The IRS, the IRS tries to then claim as though they're the one giving you money at the end of the year. No, they're refunding. They're refunding your overpayment. They overtook the money before. Why would you shoot for a refund? Because you don't want to get hit with the penalties. That's the idea. So if you underpay, they hit you with the stick of penalties and interest, which you're trying to avoid. So you try to overpay a little bit and all the tables that we use for the W two withholdings for payroll taxes when you calculate your W four and so on are designed to be a little bit over so that so that you will get a refund, not just to make you happy, although that might be part of it from the government's perspective, because they look like the good guy, giving you money back and the employer looks like the bad guy, because they're the one forced to be the tax collector. But the real idea is that you're trying to avoid the stick of penalties and interest if you underpay. So so it used to be like you can kind of say, well, if I'm married and I have so many dependents, I can get a reasonable calculation based on my W four will help me out with the tax tables and I can figure that out. But and but now it's got a way more complex in part because the family structures are kind of different. And the credits and whatnot earned income tax credit, child tax credits are dependent on marital status and number of children and that kind of stuff, which really, you know, complicates things. So at one point in time, if you had a family unit, most families had like a one income family, and it was pretty like a married couple, one income family or someone a single, that's pretty straightforward. And they have one job, right? But these days, people often have multiple jobs, right? You're probably working, you might have worked three different jobs throughout the year. And then also had gig work or something like that and have a spouse also doing a similar type of thing. And then you could have, you know, the number of dependents fluctuates a lot more as well. Therefore, it's a lot more hard. It's a lot more difficult to figure out exactly what your withholdings will be. So you really need what you really need to calculate the withholdings is a projection software, you basically need tax software in order to make a projection out into the future, to try to figure out what your withholdings should be. And that's basically what they did on the IRS website. So now you can figure out your withholdings, you might want to look at it at the end of the year, put in all the information in there, which is basically making a projection, which will then help you to determine what your withholdings should be, which you can adjust at the end of the year, or whenever you need to, to get the proper withholdings out of your W twos or the proper payments that you need to make to avoid getting hit with the penalties and interest. Now, because it's becomes, you know, basically a software tool, though, you could you might also use it in the course or something like this or to do projections into the future to run different scenarios, you can use it similar to using LASERT in other words, you can put in the certain assumptions into the tax software and and allow it to give you a projection into the future possibly. So it's a pretty interesting tool. They've it's a lot better than it used to be. So you might want to check that one out. So what you need to have this ready. So obviously, in order to figure out your withholdings, you would need the pay stubs for the job. Why the pay stubs? Because you don't yet have the W twos, because the idea with the withholdings is you're trying to figure out the withholdings before you get the W two, because you're trying to pay your taxes before the end of the year, before the tax return is due to avoid getting hit with the stick of penalties and interest. So other income info. So if you have gig work, like YouTube income, self employed income, you're selling you're selling ETF, you know, some kind of digital currency stuff or whatever you're doing, then you need to include that as well because and then most recent tax return is something that would also be useful to help, you know, answer the questions on it as well. Your information isn't saved. So this is not something that the IRS should be tracking and holding on to. It's supposed to be a tool to help you to calculate your withholdings. So it's not like a permanent type of thing. It's a it's an estimator tool. So how so how it works, use this tool to estimate your federal income tax withholding, see how your refund, take home pay or tax due are affected by withholding amount, choose an estimate withholding amount that works for you. So obviously the goal if you if you go into there and you say, how much do I need to be withheld, then they're going to adjust the withholdings. If you have to withhold more to pay the appropriate amount of tax to avoid getting hit with the stick of penalties and interest for paying too little tax, then obviously that means that the checks that you're going to be receiving are going to be lower because you're the they're going to force your employer to take the money away from you before you receive it in your paycheck, right? So that's that's the idea. So the tradeoff is to say, do I do I want to try to have more of a cushion to avoid getting hit with the stick of penalties and interest, possibly getting a larger refund or shooting for a larger refund to be safer? And which case I'm going to have less money from paycheck to paycheck, because they're going to withhold more of it, or do I want to really cut it, cut it us cut it tight, so that I can try to get exactly what I think my tax will be to try to maximize the amount that I'm going to get from paycheck to paycheck by reducing the withholdings to as low as I can get it without getting hit too hard with penalties. All right, recommended by iris also we have the forms. So remember that this could be really useful to follow along with the course, especially if you don't have access to software, the iris website has all the forms and all the instructions. So iris.gov, iris.gov, any form that we are looking at, such as the 1040, you could just type in form 1040 or go to the forms, look up the forms, look up the schedules, it'll give you the forms and the instructions related to those forms, huge resource. Also when you're doing research, it's a great resource. And we'll talk more about the types of things that you might go to for tax questions. But one of the first places you might go would be the instructions for the 1040. So if you're saying, should this be included in income? Or should this be a deduction or something like that? One place you might start going is to the instructions, although that's not like formally the tax code, right? But it could lead you, instructions could then lead you to where you need to go from there. And depends how complex the question is in terms of how much more detail you need to get. In other words, the instructions are usually created in more like a common language, less like legalese kind of language, although still kind of legalese to a degree, but less than the actual income tax code, right? But if you have to do more research, then it might take you, it might show you where other publications are and whatnot and possibly to the code itself. If you have more nuanced questions, you need to drill down on, we'll talk more about that later.


They're office, but about other things that they learned, like you had to have some sort of aptitude to retain and learn information at a very fast pace and a very fast level for you to be able to be at the NFL, because if you don't, you'll get played out. Petit Flair isn't going to get played out anytime soon. His upside seems to be through the roof, and as he becomes a bigger named Titan over the next few years, expect to see him out stressing the value of education to as many kids as possible. I love education. Education is one of the few things that I really want to make sure I put a lot of emphasis into in terms of helping people grow and helping schools develop. I mean, my opportunity for me to go to a school like Berkeley Prep High School was through me being great academically in middle school. And I'm hoping that I'll be able to have opportunities to help kids have that same avenue to go and learn and get an education, get a scholarship and try to become better through academics.