Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men

What's *Your* Love Language?

• On "Mindfully Masculine" we support and encourage men who strive to level-up their lives as we share books, media, and personal stories on mental health and well-being. Challenges in your life? We deliver the tips and tools that really help. • Episode 140

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Introduction:
Dan and Charles kick off the episode with a casual chat about recent travels and upcoming events, including Podcast Movement in DC and Tony Robbins in Newark.

Discussion Highlights

1. Five Love Languages for Men
The episode focuses on chapter seven of the book "The 5 Love Languages for Men." Dan and Charles discuss their primary love languages, discovered through a $35 test on the book’s website. They emphasize the benefits of taking the test to understand both your and your partner’s love languages.

2. Words of Affirmation
Charles's primary love language is words of affirmation. Dan shares how acts of service often lead to receiving words of affirmation or quality time, aligning with his primary love language. They both highlight the importance of understanding how different love languages interact.

3. Acts of Service and Quality Time
Acts of service can be a tool to receive love in other forms, like words of affirmation or quality time. Dan mentions how expressing love through acts of service impacts his relationships.

4. Physical Touch
Physical touch is often misunderstood by men as purely sexual. The hosts differentiate between emotional and non-sexual physical touch and discuss its importance in building emotional connections.

5. Emotional Needs and Stereotypes
They challenge the stereotype that men are less emotional. The discussion covers how societal expectations allow men to express emotions only occasionally and often in unhealthy ways.

6. Evolutionary Perspectives
Dan shares an interesting theory linking the love language of quality time to human evolutionary history. They discuss how quality time might have evolved as a crucial aspect of survival and child-rearing.

7. Apologizing Effectively
A teaser for an upcoming discussion on effective apologizing, drawing insights from Dr. Harriet Lerner’s book "Why Won’t You Apologize?". The importance of sincere apologies in maintaining healthy relationships.

8. Improv and Storytelling
Charles discusses his interest in taking an improv class to enhance storytelling skills. The benefits of improv for better conversations and podcasting.

Conclusion
The hosts wrap up by highlighting the importance of understanding and effectively using love languages in relationships. They tease upcoming episodes focusing on troubleshooting love languages and effective apologizing techniques.

Call to Action
Listeners are encouraged to take the love languages test and share their results. Subscribe to the podcast for more insights on improving relationships and personal growth.

Keywords
Five Love Languages, Love Languages for Men, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Emotional Needs, Quality Time, Effective Communication, Apologizing, Improv Skills, Podcast Movement, Tony Robbins

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Charles:

Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles Alright. In this week's episode, dan and I will continue discussing the five love languages for men. We've covered all of the chapters that individually discuss each of the love languages, and now we're going to talk about how you can figure out what your love language is and what your partner's love language is, and then use that information to make some changes to ensure that you've got a relationship with two full love tanks. Please follow or subscribe to our podcast on your chosen podcast app and also check us out on youtube, where you can watch full episodes with audio and video. Thanks and enjoy.

Charles:

Hey, charles, how are you? I am doing well. Thank you, dan. How are you? I'm good. I'm glad we got to have a nice little recap of all the fun and adventures you've been up to. Mostly you, yeah, appreciate the time man. Yeah, it was you. Let me ramble, it was good. Yeah, listen, I love hearing about vacations and I like hearing about upcoming plans as well, and we'll just hit on those upcoming plans. I'm going to Europe here at the beginning of August got to be like 40 something days away now and so I'll be gone there for 10 or 11 days. Then as soon as I come back from that, I'm going to podcast movement up in the DC area.

Charles:

Podcast movement picks great locations. They move around every year and they're usually great hotels, where the one that it's in Orlando every what do they call that one podcast movement? Oh it's, oh boy, not podfest, podfest fest, that's it. Yeah, that's in orlando and every year we've gone. The quality of the hotel has gone down a peg. And I'm much more excited, our buddy adam's not going to be a podcast movie at least they haven't announced him yet. But there's other people that have been to all the ones we go to. They put on little seminars and stuff, so I'm looking forward to it. I'm staying at little seminars and stuff, so I'm looking forward to it. I'm staying at a really cheap.

Charles:

I think I'm saying like a red roof in it's just like around the corner, and I'm gonna do a road trip. So I'm gonna take the bmw up and I'm gonna stay in like charleston or something on the way up, beautiful, and yeah, make a little one-man show road trip if anything happens and you can go, great if you can, and then I'll just give you all the good details and but I'm looking forward to it. Podcast movement is the one that, for at least most of the convention, has free coffee. Oh yeah, sold? I think. No, we, we only went to the one in Dallas and they had free coffee the whole time. I like that it was. It was a pod fest where it's like are you, do you have the VIP lunch pass?

Charles:

You can't that coffee is not for you. Yeah, then you should have done a better job of protecting it, but anyway. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to that. And then you and I are doing Tony Robbins in Newark. That'll be four days right before my birthday and I think that's all the travel I got between now and the end of the year Decided not to do. Machu Picchu was too logistically too much to try to make happen before the end of the year. Yeah, okay, let's jump into.

Charles:

This is going to be chapter seven of five love languages for men. What languages do you speak? So we've gone through all of the love languages. At this point We've covered all of them. My primary is words of affirmation. I took the $35 test on the website, which we will get through that fairly quickly. There's a lot of things in this chapter about how to figure out what your love language is, what's your partner's love language, and I would say you could avoid most of those. Take out the stick to find the water, the dividing rod. You could skip all that by just paying the $35 and taking the test. If you care enough that you think you want to change any way that you relate to your wife, girlfriend or partner, then find the $35 and take the test and encourage her to do the same, and then you'll know exactly what your languages are in order, instead of having to wonder about it.

Dan:

Yeah, and you get a little bit more insight than just your primary love language. It gives you your secondary, it gives you the whole gamut of all the five love languages. And then it goes into the deeper insights, which is very literally insightful there in terms of for me, my acts of service, in terms of conveys, what it does for me and how I feel about it, and that's one of the things I liked getting in there.

Charles:

Yeah, that was what I want to. We teased this a little bit in the last episode. In the last episode, when I wanted to get to the bottom of with you is, I listened to our episode again and I raised this briefly while we were talking about your love language. But it really did feel like dan performs acts of service to get the reaction from his loved ones in the language that actually is your love language. So, yeah, I do an act of service for my mom Affirmation, then she gives me words of affirmation. Or if I spend all day doing chores with my family, then we all get to get together for some quality time and enjoy a meal around the dining room table together. So it felt like the way you described it your acts of service was the tool that you use to get the love that you wanted in the language that actually matters most to you. That lines up. Okay, absolutely. So you do chores for people and then they give you your words of affirmation or your quality time.

Dan:

Yeah, it's true. Yeah, so that's not exactly right. So I think I may have botched the quiz here.

Charles:

Yeah, I would say retake, I think it'll let you retake it once you've paid for it. Oh, I'll have to check. Yeah, take it again in that context to see if you might be doing that, because that's what it felt like when I listened to the episode.

Dan:

When I thought about it today, I actually was listening to this chapter on the treadmill again and I realized one of the ways he asks in this chapter specifically to figure out your love language is what do you do for other people to show them love? And I love writing cards, okay.

Dan:

Interesting which is words of affirmation. Yeah, and I know that one of the things that I've asked partners in the past to do is tell me why do you love me Like. Why do you like me? Because a lot of times we, if they're not if they're not comfortable with expressing that.

Dan:

That must be real hard for people it was, but the partners found creative ways of doing it. There's books that give prompts in terms of things that I love it. When you do blank, oh, I really appreciate when you have done this in the past, and so it was like a little book and it was cute and it was for somebody who doesn't. Words of affirmation is not, was not their love language. Yeah, they were able to use that, that little book, and fill those interesting. It's like a mad libs of yeah, why do you love me? Type I.

Charles:

I could see that being beneficial, certainly for somebody who might not be a native speaker of that love language. Yeah, yeah, that's one of the things that whenever I'm talking about, either looking back at romantic relationships or one that I'm currently in, renata oh, she's always. What is it that you like about her? What is it that you? Why do you like spending time with her? And then it's just like making me put it into words, and I hate when she does that but yet is that came out as your primary love yeah, but I don't know, just because I want someone to shower me with words of affirmation, doesn't that's what I want to express it.

Dan:

That right. You talked about that race. The way you show it is different than the way you receive it.

Charles:

Yeah, I would. I am much more comfortable giving accent service and giving gifts than than giving yeah words of affirmation. And I would say even my second was physical touch. Okay, and in a non-sexual context, which we'll talk about in this chapter. Yeah, I'm not super comfortable with putting my arm around people or grabbing somebody's hand to hold their hand. I like it when they initiate it with me. I like the non-sexual touch when it's initiated by my partner, but me being the one to initiate it with them is doesn't really feel as comfortable to me as when they do it for me.

Dan:

Yeah. So this was good that taking that quiz and going through this book has definitely been more insightful for me to get specific yeah, for me too, and overall that's beneficial for your partner, for not just for yourself. Ultimately it is for yourself because you're able to then express that to your partner and say, hey, this is how I feel loved and this is how I give love, and I think that definitely helps the relationship become a little bit more successful.

Charles:

Yeah, one of the things that he brings up fairly early in this chapter is the idea that men will often default to the assumption of physical touch is my love language.

Dan:

I did initially?

Charles:

Is physical touch your love language or do you just really like sex I did initially Is physical touch your love language or do you just really like sex?

Dan:

But for me, where he emphasized the fact that these are emotional love languages, right, that helped me frame it and realize, okay, yes, all men love sex basically, and I think all humans love sex when, when you throw that word emotional in there, that helps me get in the mindset of going okay, it's going to be a physical touch thing. So if it really is physical touch, then you really enjoy somebody like reaching out and holding your hand. To me that's not sexual, that's a, that's a, that's a feeling of, of love and care and tenderness type of thing. Right, that that helped me distinguish between what I thought was my love language. It was physical. I was guilty of that Absolutely.

Charles:

Yeah, because it does. I again, physical touch is my number two and I do enjoy it when my partner will reach over and put their hand on my leg or on my shoulder or something. But I think, like most men, it's if you're in an empty movie theater with your girlfriend and she reaches over and puts her hand on your shoulder, or she reaches over and puts her hand in your lap, you're gonna have two very different reactions to that. And sure, and for a lot of men, the reaction of the hand on the shoulder is that's, that's nice, but it's not going to be.

Charles:

Oh, I feel loved yeah whereas the reaction to the hand in the lap is oh, now I'm excited, now I'm getting charged up sexually. And yes, obviously we pretty much all of us like that. The one of the things the Gottman said, the Gottman say in their book is the number one complaint about relationships by men is I wish we had more sex and less fighting. And for women it's oh, I wish we were, I wish we felt more connected to each other. And yeah, most men love the sex that they get and want even more of it, but that doesn't necessarily, like you said, relate to their emotional love language.

Dan:

Yeah, and I think by focusing on as men, focusing on your emotional love language and making that a focal point of, or an important part of, your relationship, that will ultimately lead to more sex, because women will then it will deepen the connection, it will deepen their connection and they're going to feel more connected to you, absolutely.

Charles:

Yeah, and that's something that Coreyne says in his book all the time when women feel you know, like you're courting them and like you're listening to them and you're understanding them, that they're much more likely to have sexual thoughts about you than if they feel like, okay, he doesn't care about what I feel, he doesn't listen to me, he doesn't take me on dates anymore, then, yeah, that that does not put them in the mood yeah, and in this chapter it was good because he explained biologically why that happens.

Dan:

Because as men, we physically are, that the sperm builds up and it starts to cause pressure and so we start to feel physical. Yeah, it's come. I wasn't sure about that. I definitely you've never felt like you need a release.

Charles:

It makes me feel like I want to ejaculate, I don't know that. It makes me feel like I want to have sex with my partner, and obviously the most fun way to ejaculate is by having sex with a partner. I don't know that would drive the reason why I might misunderstand sexual contact for physical touch as a love language. It just seemed. It seemed like a partially unbaked cake. A lot of his ideas feel to me like partially, I would agree with you on that.

Dan:

I feel like it. It's the easy way out. You don't by saying, yes, it's my fit. My love language is physical touch, because I don't need to then go deeper and think about these emotional things, correct, which I'm not really comfortable or familiar with anyway. So the easy out is to go oh yeah, it's, it's physical touch because of sex, but I I think I was just trying to make the point that it's a little bit different when it comes to sex for men.

Dan:

Oh, yes, where it is a physical need to ejaculate for a man, and that physical need isn't necessarily quite as strong in a woman, because they don't have that buildup and that pressure. Correct, yeah, and so they. For us, I think it's a lot easier just to look at it as a physical need, like eating and sleeping, and less of an emotional prerequisite to allow yourself to relax enough and the more things that we talked about in terms of, for me, understanding the constant state of fear, almost, that women live in in our society. That's not something that we're used to dealing. Yeah, you need to feel that security, you need to feel that love in order to basically be able to then enjoy anything else, regardless of whether it's sex or not or whatever, just to be able to relax enough yeah to enjoy a nice meal.

Dan:

I I know if I'm feeling fearful or scared about things or worried about things. Everything else sucks, like all those other those nice things. That is a lot more difficult to enjoy If you go with that perspective. Yeah, look guys, invest in making your woman feel loved and comfortable and secure before, before you jump to conclusions, go. They just don't like sex.

Charles:

Yeah, and yeah, and thinking about when A woman can't ever not look at her relationship with her partner in the context of even a woman who is beyond childbearing age or doesn't want to have kids or can't have kids, it's still their bodies are wired to think of okay, is this a relationship that would be safe for me to get pregnant and rear a child in? And if you're displaying behaviors that communicate that you would not be someone who could keep her and potential children safe, that her body is going to not respond to you as someone who would be a safe father for her children. Again, even if having kids is not actually on the radar whatsoever, it's like her body and her nervous system have evolved to look at sexual partners in that context. Now, of course, women have the ability to turn that off and enjoy some casual relationships as well, but for the most part, when you're in a long-term, committed relationship with somebody, which is who this book is targeted toward.

Dan:

Yeah.

Charles:

Yeah, For her to feel excited about being intimate with you. She's going to be looking at you as a long-term mate who can protect her and her offspring.

Dan:

Right and, as you said, she could turn it off, but that requires a lot of effort and energy and our brains are wired to not exert extra effort and energy and put yourself at risk Very often, and a lot of times when you can do that very easily, there might be some other things that are off as well right, both men and women can approach relation when you're younger and you're valuing excitement over nesting and things like that.

Charles:

But, yeah, you can do a calculus, subconsciously that, oh, this would be fun, this would be exciting, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna take this risk, whatever, where you know, when you're with somebody in a marriage or a long-term relationship, it's that turning those things off in the interest of excitement and liberance. It just doesn't happen. So you're a long-term relationship with somebody and you're demonstrating behavior that says, okay, you might not be a safe partner for the long haul. Frustrating behavior that says, okay, you might not be a safe partner for the long haul. Then she's not going to be turned on or excited to have sex with you, and that's up for you. It's up to you to figure out. What do I need to do to figure this out? Because right now she's she's not looking at me like somebody that she wants to get it on with, and so the question is okay, what kind of partner do I need to be so that she does feel that?

Charles:

And unfortunately it means you're probably going to need to be uncomfortable because you're going to have to Sure because you've got a repair situation that isn't optimal. That always takes discomfort.

Dan:

Yeah, or even venture into a territory where you're talking about your feeling yeah, exactly, and that's not comfortable.

Charles:

Yes, yes, certainly not for most of us. Okay, so we did do. One of the discussion points that I came up with in the outline that we've got in front of us is the question do men have a dominant love language? Yeah, I did look this up and typically for men it's going to be physical touch and words of affirmation. Those are the ones that usually come up the most for men. Ah, interesting.

Dan:

And the physical touch side of that. Could that be because guys are misinformed about what physical touch actually means? Yeah, I think that probably is a factor. I this on the podcast and we've talked about love languages before. Their experience also mirrors that most of the guys they've been with would score high on physical touch and words of affirmation. I think that's interesting to me because I was stereotyping men as less because to me that's very emotional the words of affirmation. The words of affirmation it's not necessarily where, whereas where for me a gift or a of service to me. That that's, that's less of an emotional type of then yes or no, that words of affirmation for me. That's, that's the way I just think about.

Charles:

To think about times when a girl that you weren't dating or even particularly interested in just comes out of nowhere to tell you that you look hot in the outfit that you're wearing, oh yeah, and think of how disruptive that will disrupt your mindset. If a girl just springs that on you, it's like I just got hit by a truck here, yeah, and so that's a word of affirmation, and what I was trying to say was that, men, we are more emotional than we let on.

Charles:

Oh yes, the fact that something like that could affect us that way.

Dan:

That's what I was saying, because that's the number one. Yeah, all I'm trying to do is flip the script here and go look guys, we're a lot more emotional than we're letting on here, because we respond to that the most. That's what I was, yeah.

Charles:

Data and that's when I really look at the way I conducted myself in my relationships, the way I feel about my family of origin. It's like you know, men are as emotional as women. It's just we get this weird pass to act unemotional most of the time, and then we also get a pass to act out occasionally when the pressure cooker finally explodes and we get to have a little bit of a the meltdown about something, and then we can just sweep it under the rug and pretend like we didn't do it. I think our society does encourage men. You should be emotionless most of the time, but when it bubbles over and you act like a fool, we'll go ahead. In exchange for you acting emotionless most of the time, we'll, we'll grant you, occasionally you can have a meltdown and we'll pretend like it didn't happen. Yeah, and that's a shitty system.

Dan:

Yeah, For me. Looking back, I realized I was more emotional than I realized at the time. But I look back on it and realize how out of control a lot of those motions made me.

Dan:

I'm not able to manage them in a healthy way, and a lot of that had to do with me just not being comfortable communicating my needs in advance, and so it would bubble up and it would turn into a mess. It was a Mr Nice guy situation? Yeah, absolutely Definitely, and it was just because I was too afraid to talk about them in advance. And it never would have gotten to these, to this over the top type of situation, if I had just done those things but I didn't have the skill set and I didn't even have the awareness that I needed to do that yeah until I got older.

Charles:

Looking back now, it'd be even so much simpler, dude I also looked up what the predominant love languages are for women, and by a huge margin it's quality time, like 40 plus percent is quality time and then the other 60% share the other four.

Dan:

So I've got an interesting theory about this. Let me know what you think of this is. I wonder if the quality time love language comes from when we were hunters and gatherers and the men were out hunting all day and they would come back and they didn't have one monogamous partner. It was they basically were were having sex with multiple women in the tribe. When a woman would have a child, yeah, she would want that man around as much as possible to help with the child, possibly, or just spending time with the man, you know, sometimes it would lead to having sex or whatever that is, but just having the time was a scarce resource that a man would have available, and so maybe that the health of the child would basically be benefited by the more time a woman would have with a man I don't know.

Charles:

I know I think you're exactly right. The yeah, because we think about how our clocks were so tied into sun, sunrise and sunset and yeah, you basically hunt as long as you could, based on when you had light, and then you get whatever you killed, take it back, cook it over the campfire and then it was pretty much straight to bed, and so then the next day was usually when the sun came up. So, yeah, time was certainly a scarce resource.

Dan:

Yeah.

Charles:

And yeah, if you do have to worry about the guy that you're with or the guy that has fathered your children having other women, and the kids that are going to be the most taken care of are going to be the kids that belong to the woman that he enjoys spending his little bit of time he has with the most. And, yeah, that does track. For me that does seem logical. That quality time would relate directly to survivability of you as the woman and your children.

Dan:

Did it go through any of the other love languages where they rank? Second was acts of service as well with my theory here, because the man needed to provide for the safety and the health of the woman and the child.

Charles:

So the one that he's choosing to spend time with and the one that he's choosing to do things for will be the one who has the greatest chance of staying alive. Yeah, and then after that they were all pretty pretty even, yeah, the distribution. So, yeah, yeah, it does make sense that. Yeah, both of these make sense for the men's side and the women's side, when you look back toward that hunter-gatherer situation we were in for so long so we, the primary for men was physical touch and words of affirmation yeah, so yet you are doing the right things.

Dan:

they're the women are communicating that. The man yes, I like what you did here, or I appreciate that type of thing.

Charles:

So that gives the men some guidance in terms of what they're doing, right you and say nice things about you, particularly in a situation where everybody is living out their lives out in front of everybody else.

Dan:

Yeah.

Charles:

It also is good for your status Status yeah.

Dan:

Where you are in the pecking order. Yeah, and the tribe.

Charles:

Interesting, and again, we're just shooting off the mouth here A couple of dummies talking about things. Oh, that makes sense to me. Yeah, it does make sense. Based on my limited knowledge of anthropology, they do feel intuitively correct. Yes, absolutely. All right. So let's see what else we got here.

Charles:

We talk about how to identify one's primary love language. Again, I think the best way to do this is either take the free version of this test online or, if the free version doesn't give you enough insight, then take the paid version for $35. I would say, yeah, you're getting your money's worth. And any of these books that you buy the five love languages for men I think all of them have some sort of a test or quiz in the back where you can answer the questions and see what your love language is. It's probably ranked somewhere between the free version online and the paid version online. The version in the book is probably somewhere in the middle. So, yeah, it's not too hard. But he does give some clues, especially in a situation where you feel like two of them are neck and neck with each other. He says number one look at how you're most comfortable expressing your love to other people, and that could tell you a little bit more about what your love languages are what do you like?

Dan:

naturally do right when you like someone. Right are you maybe those? Are you like to do things for them or like for me? I love writing cards and sending emails and even texts of words of encouragement.

Charles:

Yeah, for me it doesn't seem to match up that way. I would rather do an act of service for someone or buy them a gift, but neither of those are very high on my list. Right, that's how you, that's how I'm working on what's pressing that way. And so in my case, if I had a tie, you know, looking at how I like to express, wouldn't really tell me much, but the ones that I would have a tie between aren't even two of the ones that I enjoy expressing as much so what would he mention also in this chapter was uh, what are some things that your partner does that really bother?

Charles:

yes, I like that angle. That could be an indication of how you receive love. Yes, the yeah. What is it that? If your partner withholds it from you, or your partner uses it in a negative against you, like, which are the ones that would trigger you the most? And yeah, I would say yeah. If my partner was saying negative things about me, that would bother me. Or if my partner was withholding saying positive things about me, that would bother me. If my partner was seemingly choosing not to touch me.

Dan:

Or doesn't ask me questions about myself. That's where I would feel like, yeah, that just talks about herself and what she's been up to all day long, whatever. And then who says hey, how are you Interesting? Yeah, I could see that.

Dan:

Which I've had, a couple of relationships like that where they just weren't interested, and even some friendships I've had like that. Those friendships always fizzle out. Those are not my long-term friendships. The ones that really have lasted I am the test of time are the ones where I almost get uncomfortable because I'm just not used to that. I think what's interesting about me is I think I've got a lot of friendships or acquaintances where it's pretty one-sided, where the person like talks a lot about themselves and doesn't ask me that many questions, and so that's surface level. But the ones, the friendships that have really I've really appreciated and stood the test of time, I notice are people who, you know, ask me questions to the point of where I'm almost uncomfortable because they've asked me so many questions.

Charles:

Yeah, I could see where that does feel a little bit like. All this disclosure makes me uncomfortable.

Dan:

It's not even disclosure for me, it's just oh, you want to know more about my trip or whatever we're like. When it's just like, I'm not, I'm just not, I'm just not used to also being the center of attention and to me that's becoming like oh yeah, I could see that.

Charles:

Now, what's your on your Myers-Briggs? Are you introvert or extrovert?

Dan:

I think I was introvert when I took it. It was a while ago. Gotcha Guy was introvert, yeah, and that's yeah. That's where I'm a little bit more comfortable. Usually is not being the center of attention.

Charles:

Yeah, I'll have to look up. I know your Enneagram is a nine. I wonder for most of them. You can look up to see. Okay, do nines tend more toward extroversion or introversion? Interesting when the galaxy and as she's a two, and those tend toward extroversion. But she does not hurt, she's an introvert. I definitely lean, I think, towards an introvert.

Charles:

I mean you tell me if I think. So too, I think I think you're probably more of an introvert. Yeah, I'm on the fence, but right now in my life I feel like I'm leaning more toward extroversion than introversion, and I think having the podcast probably influences that.

Dan:

A little bit too, I think, for you. It really depends on the situation it does how much control I have over it. But I think if I had to pick, you'd definitely be an extrovert.

Charles:

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, and yeah, I'm okay with that. I do I get when I'm in a social situation that has the right level of both control and chaos, where it's I feel like I can thrive, then it's a very energizing experience for me.

Dan:

So what's interesting is the couple of times where I've forced to be a little bit extroverted, an extrovert and it's gone. I am super energized by that. That gets me really excited and motivated for things. Again, it's fleeting and it's temporary, so, um, but I I definitely enjoy those moments when I'm ready for them and it goes better than expected.

Charles:

Yeah, yeah, I would say that's true for me as well. I, if I find myself in a group and I'm telling a story or explaining how to do something to people who are interested in it, then yeah, then I really appreciate that.

Dan:

You're a really good storyteller. That's something that I'm-.

Charles:

I don't think that I am. No, you're real. Yeah, I always think it could be Very entertaining.

Dan:

We always think we could be better at something in some way. But no, you're very good, you're entertaining, you're funny, go on. No, I'm not Affirmation. Yeah, I do. I see how I can present things sometimes and I try to learn from that and then become a little bit of a better storyteller, because I don't think I'm good at all, so I think I put sleep because I'm all over the place. A lot of times I think I, I get, I deliver. I need to look at the structure because I think I deliver the I ruin the punchline to it.

Charles:

Yeah, that's definitely a skill that can be developed. I think next time I'm back up in the Orlando area, I think I need to pull the trigger on taking an improv class.

Dan:

Did you improve with?

Charles:

that with the improv. No, I've only taken standup classes. I'm talking about taking an actual improvisational humor class.

Dan:

But the standup did that help you with that process.

Charles:

A little bit storytelling I think it has a little bit. I think it yeah, definitely helping me with the idea of every not just joke you tell, but every story. There has to be a build-up and there has to be a payoff. And, yeah, come, taking comedy classes definitely has helped me with the idea of you can't just have all build up and no payoff, which is the mistake that most people make when they start out in comedy. A lot of people have a lot of good premises and a lot of good setups, but you have to have the punchline where it pays off, otherwise people just feel like you wasted their time. Yeah, I know that feeling. The class definitely helped out with that. But now I think an improv class where it's specifically improvisational comedy, would help me.

Charles:

When someone is giving their half of the conversation, what do you do with it? How do you take what they've given you and basically give them a prompt that lets them continue giving you the best that they have to offer? That's tough, that's a skill set. Yeah, if you're skilled at helping get the best out of somebody else who's not skilled, in that way that it makes them feel like they've had a richer, more valuable conversation with you and it feels the great thing about people who are good at improv is they're great listeners and they're great at taking what they just heard and using that as a springboard to get the person to deliver more good content. Using that as a springboard to get the person to deliver more good content. And, yeah, I, I imagine that the people, the untrained people who are on the other side of that conversation, will feel so much better about the conversation that they've had. When they've had a conversation with a trained improv artist.

Dan:

You know what I mean yeah, when I I really enjoyed. Whose line is it any? Yeah, the tv show yeah, yeah, just the him and a couple of other people, the regulars. It just blows my mind when I go to see, like the Orlando Improv here and they're okay, but some of the stuff that he was able to create and the skill set that counts on real from this guy sack comedy lab, because if I do take an improv class that's where I'll okay and they just moved to a new venue.

Charles:

So they were on, like right on orange avenue next to that amazing pizza place that we like, and now I think they're over on, I think, on church street, going toward the not the amway kia center.

Dan:

Okay, was ollie, did he do the stand-up? Ollie was the stand-up at sack.

Charles:

Teacher at sack yeah, okay, does he do the improv? I don't think he teaches the okay. At SAC, improv is mostly a stand-up comedy place, so I was seeing online on one of the local websites like Backyard Stand Up.

Charles:

Yeah, I know some people that have been involved in that. Yeah, I was just wondering if those are any good. Some of the people that have done those shows are very funny and some of them are not so funny. I would say for the most part, when the good comics come to Orlando they're playing Dr Phillips or they're playing Kia. Sometimes the Abbey will get some decent comics, like Jimmy Carr played there a couple months ago. He's very funny. But for the most part, yeah, the folks who go to the club on I drive the funny bone now they're just. They will literally have one or two comics a year that I would be interested in paying to see. Okay, and the rest of the time, just. Yeah, it's not my cup of tea. Yeah, tom segura's wife is coming to the orlando funny bone in a couple months okay and segura is great.

Charles:

Segura is great. She's pretty good. I she's got a couple netflix specials that are pretty funny. But what's her name? Christina pizitzky or christina p?

Dan:

I think, one of my favorite things when sagura starts speaking spanish, and it's just what yeah, he's a very good.

Charles:

Yeah, it's unusual to I don't often meet people that are that bilingual, that are that good but the funny?

Dan:

it's a funny thing because he looks like such a stereotypical wet guy and then when he breaks out, perfect, yeah, yeah yeah, apparently br Bradley Cooper.

Charles:

The actor is almost a native speaker of French.

Dan:

Oh.

Charles:

And so when I see like clips of him like giving interviews on French TV shows, yeah, he speaks like a native speaker and it's so.

Dan:

Cause I'll be good enough that he's that good looking.

Charles:

He's also got to be fluent. Oh my God, yeah, just to stick the knife in.

Dan:

And he flew in French too.

Charles:

Oh my God, yeah, just to stick the knife in and French of all, yeah, yes, yeah, that's, I would like to speak that language, but I, at my age, I've decided I'm not going to pick up another language unless I decide to make the lifestyle choice of immersion, where I move to a place where that's the predominant language and I'm just willing to spend at least six months there just trying to get to the level where I can speak it and think in it.

Dan:

Agreed. I took about 10 weeks of Armenian before my trip and then I realized, oh, I'm going to Paris first. I don't know French. Yeah, I took two weeks of that on the app and it is hard. A lot of the pronunciation is not the way it looks like it should be pronounced. That's true. That's what was blowing my mind the pronunciation is not the way it looks like it should be pronounced.

Charles:

That's what was blowing my mind. There are things you have to do with your mouth and your tongue to get those sounds.

Dan:

A lot of times I'd be walking for a half hour 40 minutes, and it would take me literally 25 minutes for my mouth to be able to just make the move required to make the sounds. So if you're not living there, it's going to be gone. So that's the thing is I've I've forgotten it all already, and so you need it all around you to really be able to. Yeah, they're absorbing.

Charles:

We live in a decent sized city like orlando or tampa. Um, there are some language clubs where they're not super expensive and you can go and you have a meal and then you yeah to other speakers all night. I just don't know, you know, is once a week going to be effective enough that I'm willing to give up one of my open nights of the week?

Dan:

yeah, go do that. I think the language it would need to be would be spanish, because you're going to be able to at least use that day-to-day here. I don't see, I don't buy that if you go to, if you go to stores and stuff, that a lot of the people who work there and stuff like that I'm overhearing them speaking Spanish and stuff like that.

Charles:

So you can hear, when I go to a store that doesn't have self-checkouts, I'm angry because that means I might have to talk to somebody who works at the store. Okay, so the idea that I'm going to even talk to somebody at the store and I'm going to try to talk to them in a different language- Not even talk to them, but just at least you can hear it and picking up conversations and other people talking.

Dan:

At least you are immersed in it.

Charles:

Yeah, a little. I don't know. I don't know. I've never talked to anybody who learned a foreign language and said you know what the secret was? For me, the thing that really put me over the top was my eavesdropping. I've never heard that. Maybe, maybe you can be the first, maybe, all right, let the first, maybe. All right, let's end there for for now.

Charles:

We're going to get into the troubleshooting chapter next week where we talk about hey, here are the when your attempts to speak a new language or listen in a new language don't go so well, here's what you can do. And then we're also going to. There's a chapter coming up I think in two chapters from now on apologizing, which I've listened to, an audiobook by dr harriet lerner called why Won't you Apologize, which I first I listened to her do it. She did a back to back episode on Brene Brown's podcast all about apologizing, and then I listened to her audio book and she lays out the best case for how to apologize and why to apologize that I've ever heard. So if this guy says anything that conflicts with her, it's going to be real hard for me to accept his version of apologies over hers.

Dan:

It sounds good, I'm curious to hear that.

Charles:

Yeah, so I'll be ready to throw this guy into the bus if I think he says anything that doesn't jive with what I've already learned about apologizing. All right, well, we'll get to that in a couple of weeks. Next time we'll talk about troubleshooting and I will chat with you soon, dan. All right, have a good one, take it easy.

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