Ep. 8: Deliberate Love

all right well good afternoon good morning maybe even

good evening depending where you are in the world I’m Dan seawald and Welcome to

our eighth edition of the deliberate way now we’ve had a short break for some of

the summer festivities and travel but we’re back and let me tell you there is

no better way to spice up your Tuesday it is Tuesday right yeah it’s Tuesday there’s no better way to spice up your

Tuesday than to be able to talk with Dr Sarah uh I’m going to tell you all about

Sarah Sarah I’m going to tell you all about yourself in a moment but I have to

give a full disclosure here Sarah and I go way back

um it’s probably been about 15 years when Sarah did her first foray in

Corporate America and as we had a chance to work together one day we’re in the

cafeteria back in the days when people went to the office and we were chit chatting and I said oh what do you have

going on later today and she said to me well actually I have a uh a talk show

that I’m going to be doing and I laughed I said yeah no really she said well actually I am I um I have something that

I’m doing on the BBC and that’s when I scratched my chin and said this is not your usual corporate innovator not by a

loan shot um as I would discover Sarah and and folks is that you are definitely a

unique person in many ways and as it turns out Sarah is one of the real

thought leaders in the space of Human Relationships love and sex apology yes I

said the three-letter word that nobody likes to say these days but yes sex I guess sexology has more than three

letters but sex does have three letters now we’re going to be delving in what

may seem like far outside the bounds of corporate Innovation but you’re gonna

find the deliberate practices habits and things that Dr Sarah nazarzad does are

going to have really interesting implications not just personally but also even professionally so I’m excited

and it’s a real treat and pleasure to have you here Sarah so thank you for joining thank you so much for having me

it’s gonna be fun it’s it’s already fun Sarah now I’m going to tell you a little

bit about yourself so folks know about you um you were born in Iran you were

educated in the United Kingdom and you became an American citizen been working

in the U.S and outside for that matter also ever since and during that time

you’ve been called a leading expert in the relational space of intimacy

um working with couples corporate media large corporations uh the United Nations

which I thought was super interesting as well as ngos in this space and um

amongst other things that people may not know about you Sarah um you are regular on the BBC World

Service Persian TV on human sexuality and relationships you’ve been a cultural

advisor a consultant for governments and ngos and people may have caught you

before on TV and on the radio on ABC News BBC Al Jazeera CNN NPR and uh maybe

a whole bunch of other acronyms as well so you’re pretty pretty widely distributed and out there what I thought

was super interesting that I didn’t know was that you were named as one of the best love doctors by Harper’s Bazaar and

also a organization called datingadvice.com named you as one of the

10 best sex and dating experts and there’s been so many other impressive words even particularly around

Innovation which I thought was was super interesting the BBC gave you an innovation award which was really

exciting um I will mention one other thing without going too deep on this is that

you have a forthcoming book about the notion of love has not come out yet but it’s pending and I guess your Publishers

would probably have to be drawn in quartered if I talked any more about it but uh that’s coming in the fall tell me

a little bit more about it without revealing too much uh sure so um if I may say good morning

good evening good day and night to everybody who’s listening

um yes it’s a book on love um the accumulation of all of my work

and research in the past two decades so I’m very excited and hopefully there

will be tons of innovation in it so it’s not what you think

so I encourage people to get out and kind of as soon as the pre-order pre-orders should be ready sometime

later this year and we are hoping for the release by the beginning of next year

very exciting now my interest is so peaked we’re gonna have to peel some

things out of you today but not too much just enough to maybe wet our appetites

um Sarah now you may be a first time viewer of the deliberate way there are

probably others who’ve seen it before for those who are kind of the uh the Neil fights if you will couple of words

the deliberate way is a way for us to meet and listen to experts like you

um and understand the deliberate way that people approach their craft whether you’re a scientist an athlete an artist

an advocate a sexologist by getting to know you better to know

about your crafting your practices we’re able to discover a few practices habits

tips that really can apply to our own lives because we find I find that the

most successful people the most Innovative people are inherently deliberate in the way they do things so

I’m excited to deal deeper and without any further Ado let me ask you the kind

of first most obvious question what do you do during the day what what is a sexologist what tell me a little bit

more about you and what you do in your craft that’s a great question and I have to

say depending on the day and which one of my hats I’m wearing it could vary but

whatever I do has to do something with the way that people relate to one

another and relationships whether I’m doing research facilitating meetings or

sitting with clients writing anything that I do has to do something with

relating interesting very very mysterious tell me

a little bit more because when I hear of sexologists intimacy I figure it’s kind

of the the very kind of breast tax of of the way people relate or engaged but it

sounds like it’s more than that it goes much more beyond that tell me a little bit more

well you know when we talk about the relating if I may go back a little bit because when I was growing up in Iran

and it was post-revolution so post-revolution you had to learn who you are who the other person is because they

could be dangerous to share anything from your family to you had to preserve

parts of you for different Social Circles or you know political circles

just to keep yourself and you know your loved ones faith and safe so through that land of paradox that you

know who is this who is that I started to learn about the concept of the other who is the other who is one of us who is

the other so that was the first thing when we’re talking about relating right and then little by little as you’re

talking about deliberation you know the way that you do one thing is the way that you do everything that’s

what I came to realize I went to sexology well first actually before sexology I went to Linguistics and if I

wasn’t a doctor in social psychology I wouldn’t I would be a linguist for sure

because I was always interested to see where the language is lead us culturally

and socially and where um we lead the language and that came to

help me a lot during our work um you know with the BBC for example I realized

that um so there are certain languages that depending on the needs language has to

um correspond to the needs of a society right let’s say for example you are speaking with a group of Eskimos they

have variety of words for snow somebody who grew up in a desert they

didn’t really need that they might have a lot of terminology around the word sand different types of sand right so

these are the things that are always fascinated me Fast Forward Thinking About Sex and I’m hosting this show for

the BBC and I’m realizing that to empower people around sex relationships anything we need to give them words so

that when we are talking about pleasure we are talking about orgasm you know what not it’s not something that the foreigners

do so it was really important to have a far C term to or do terms so terminology

that people could actually relate to and say actually orgasm is not only for Western liberated people we have it too

interesting language really waves in into everything I want to I want to

rewind a little bit too if you don’t mind this is very very interesting so going back to your kind of your origin

story I as you we talked about beforehand I love origin stories of how

did people arrive at where they are today you already mentioned that you had a propensity for Linguistics and that

kind of was kind of LED you there but you also are an immigrant you had moved

from Iran to the UK to the U.S generally I found that most people’s kind of kind

of migrations have a big impact on the way they do things the way they they see things tell me a little bit about the

experience of being in Iran which has been sort of noted as the kind of the arch enemy of the United States I know

that’s not necessarily true but um it’s often sort of positive that way politically to being here in the US how

does that shape the work that you do and the choice pieces that you’ve made but to hear more about that

well you see that’s interesting and I’m glad that you asked that question because if you think about the United is

this and Iran at the political level that’s exactly what you’re talking about so they really you know like at least on

the surface they’re like this with each other but when you talk about Humanity people look

um with the women life Freedom Movement that we just had you know really not we

I shouldn’t really include myself because they were Brave mostly younger generation of Iranians that led that

movement right I don’t know if you were following up on social media there were so many people who had nothing to do by

Blood by ethnicity by lineage to Iran from this country and any other country in the world that they were Avid

supporters so when it comes to the humanity when it comes to our needs for Agency for

freedom for Liberation for Truth for moral values I think we come together

more than we know so on that note I would say if I tap into the other I

could really keep myself distance if I tap into the other but also who shares

my values my fears my deepest human deepest human needs

then the unity will be um more powerful

it’s very very distances tell me a little bit more just uh how did you you

come from Iran all the way to the US and and end up in this particular field tell

me a little bit more about that well when I was in Iran I started I did

my linguistic degree in Iran so at the time I was the representative of the

university and I was always like that I was always the representative of the class since I was

I remember when I was six I would you know do the morning you know announcements of the school and I was

always like that and it goes back to my parents that they always said that we have more responsibilities Beyond

ourselves be there for the other and I’m so grateful because you know they actually raised us I’m not thinking

really about ourselves right so and I know many people many of your listeners do that as bad

so fast forwarding from that I realized that there are so many different things that people don’t talk about like for

example um talking about Iran schools are separate we don’t have co-ed

schools up to 12th grade like nowhere kindergartens are separate now so even

at the kindergarten level separate so if I grew up in a family that I don’t really have any cousins or any brothers

or you know um any male figure I really don’t know much about men I don’t know how to

interact with them I’m taught to be scared of them you know this is just um like when I was growing up it’s very

different now obviously within the social system that we can talk about later and um so one thing that I wanted to do

at the time was I was at the age that I wanted to start dating I wanted to start

to see okay who is out there is there somebody that I’m going to meet and maybe marry maybe start my family and

then I was thinking to myself what am I supposed to see this person only at the parties like underground parties only at

my music class only which happened actually I met my husband through music so so there was a live TV show and I

volunteered to be on that live TV show and there were the all the heads of the universities big universities in Iran

so my topic of conversation was I wanted to advocate for co-ed

I said look we are maturing how it was not typical in Iran just just putting

that out there that was not not permitted no well there were universities like for example medical

school very few universities that had co-ed classes but women sitting here men

sitting here so like still no mingling no public mingling as such but my

question to the head of the university in that live TV was you say keep away

okay we do that and then you say but meet somebody and then you know get to

know them and make a very successful couple them and marry them for the rest of your life and you know

um Iran at least by the governmental you know jurisdictions is it Muslim country so in Islam marriage is half of your

religion so if we’re supposed to keep do you know all of this pressure and how am I supposed to not know a man how to

treat them how to be there not know and not knowing anything about myself at the presence of another person you know an

opposite uh person opposite sex percent and all of a sudden I’m gonna just enter

the marriage and live happily ever after How’s that gonna happen how did that

work out for the most part in Iran it was was it Greater tension in marriages or greater failure rates

not really not really but the difference are they have their own challenges you know

human relationships are you know in different ways but I have to say that from the experiences

I have you know Consulting with people especially on the show the level of questions are more basic

than you get here so like you know like how to relate to the other person it starts with the

anatomy how to so you know seeing this person as a very different entity than yourself

you know so these are the things that come up that um are a little bit more

different tell me about so that lets me move a little forward from there the the

talk show that you you were on or responsible for in the BBC

um where did it go to who did it reach what was the focus of it um tell us a little bit more about that

because it sounds like that was very important and and had a lot of impact on on many people but maybe a library a

little bit more about that if you would sure you know also linking it to the topic of conversation here to be

deliberate and to be Innovative right one of the things that I wanted to do

was to reach people where they were and you know I didn’t PhD on that you know so in my PhD I actually had a hard to

reach group to study and I put it in quotation mark and it was very funny because the first meeting I had they thought it’s my language barrier that I

put it in quotation I said no no that’s very deliberate because as depending on

who you call hard to reach maybe we are actually alienating them further so

nobody is hard to reach if you reach them have that in the back of your mind God went to the BBC editor and I said

look um I want to meet people Beyond filters beyond what is allowed or what is not I

want to produce an Evidence informed platform for people around sexuality and

relationships and this was the first obviously and it was pretty

interesting to kind of put forward and I wanted to meet people where they were

now I’ll tell you how it worked I’m so grateful to the BBC that gave me

that platform really truly first we started with radio program why because you could actually have your

radio sneak out somewhere and listen every Wednesday night listen to it and

the letters that we got and phone calls and um it’s amazing amazing really so and

then after that we moved to online and TV um so nobody could filter us

people who get the information so my um thing was not just oh well put a

program together about sexuality my question again deliberation and Innovation goes back to the questions

you ask right how do I reach these people they’re somewhere so millions of people to answer your

question millions of peoples obviously whoever that spoke foresee anywhere in the world I still to this that like I go

to somewhere I walk in and they recognize my voice or they recognize it’s so interesting how many people even

are telling me that every Wednesday night we would gather with friends and listen wow your program and then after

that we have this conversation and it warms my heart because that was the purpose to break that taboo you know

tell me about the what type of topics would come up and and I guess sort of

adjacent to that I’ll load this with one other question I I would assume that that relationships

and the ideas of Love are very different across different regions and countries and cultures

did you find that having um having worked across different cultures and and what type of impact did

your work have on those people that you were reaching um so two kind of kind of uh connected

questions but I’d love to hear about both of those so as you know I work across countries

and what it means is that I don’t just go to deliver a training or something

wherever that I go in the world so far I think it’s about 40 something countries so when I go if I speak the language I

deliver it in that specific language because I think you know it empowers the people and if I don’t speak the language

I work with The Interpreter to kind of phone in into the tailor-made language for that group and I asked them to see

the actual people so that it’s not just me and the Professionals in the room right so people come and then you know I

conduct a client session and then you know people observe you know this sort of work some other work that I I do I go

to communities and talk to them a lot of the depending on where I am sometimes

the because of my background people relate better and and I have to ask them

which part of me you’re relating to is this a woman from Iran that is going to

agree with you being for example you know the ideas that people have of a

woman from Iran they never in their Wildest Dream thought that a woman from Iran could teach you know like sexology

for example um so they wanted to mystify they want me to normalize it for them that you

know people in the most advanced and you know Progressive countries like for example Sweden do it the same way that

we do so a part of it is destigmatization and normalization for

people another part of it is to be the ambassador because I always feel like

I’m so privileged to go around the world to learn the less lessons and then come

and say well have you thought about it I thought that you know for example in Afghanistan they do it this way do you

want to give it a try or I go and say in Egypt do you do it this way in Iceland

they do it this way so oh that’s really interesting so let’s give it a try here so kind of Bridging the gaps between

cultures and bringing the collective wisdom to help people where they feel stuck

so that would be the first thing wait and I have to ask one quick follow-up is uh when you think about

people who are stuck or cultures that maybe um are are less or more Progressive what

do you see as some of those characteristics of those are more Progressive versus those that are stuck

if you will um what have you observed given that you’ve been across the world talking

with with people about their relationships for me the best way to answer that is

the most Progressive people and I’m not talking about the wealthiest countries or whatnot right but most Progressive

individuals that I meet are the ones who have healthy boundaries healthy and firm

boundaries and they’re not in a place who are stuck and they have to create borders around themselves

so for me that’s an immediate observation that if a person is

um open enough to let the information in and they are analytical enough they have

the tools they have the permission and the tools to be analytical about the information they receive and put it to

use the way that they want based on whatever context that they live

in so for me the differences between having healthy and firm boundaries

versus borders do you find that the the the idea the

word Love Is defined differently by people

um culturally and even kind of over time they you know there’s this very when I

when people say love they you’d assume there is a singular definition it’s very

kind of Monolithic um I mean based on our conversations I’m gonna assume you don’t believe that uh

what have you seen like how do people think about that word that notion differently across different places and

even different stages of their relationships for that matter I’m trying to think how to summarize

three chapters of my book so nobody said it would be easy yeah in

a 30 second thumbnail if you would I’m sorry no give us in a 30-second uh

oh yeah absolutely so going back to the languages you know everything started there how we experience and how we

express that experience right um yeah there are differences like for

people who speak different languages they know exactly what I’m talking about like because in English we say love

being in love you know falling in love so the language around love is different but if you go to at least the languages

that I I’m familiar with let’s say Farsi for example or Arabic or Kurdish or

there are so many nuances in the way that you talk about love the the many Club The Familiar love you

know love for a mother and a father could be different love for the in-law and your own family could be different

there are individual terms separate kind of your Eskimo example that there’s many

different words but they have specific words in English we have sort of a word with context around it but exactly and

what does it say about Americans or or kind of anglo-saxon people or does it say anything I don’t know well to be

honest what I find fascinating is that in American culture as a low context country and let me elaborate on that so

we have by large if we have two spectrums around languages right one one

side is low context which is America is a very good example of low context

and on the other side of it high context countries who are older and they had

more time to evolve around language there are more homogeneous as a society they’re more High contexts

so if I look at you for example I don’t need to say much I just look at you and you read between lines right

the micro expressions are more important that you read the room a lot better right but in the low context countries

which are non-homogenous as much and a land of immigrant as we are in America that’s what makes it great right so

we come together and we try to have words for everything because I don’t

want to leave room for assumption or confusion right so now it’s funny

because in the high context countries majority of them we have a lot of words

to describe things like love like honesty like decency these sort of

things that have to do with essence of human connection we have a lot of words to describe different nuances in them in

the low context countries we come up with a lot of words to describe one word so for love we talk about it and then we

talk about it some more and then we talk about it some more but then we’re still talking about the

same thing you know very interesting I hadn’t thought I hadn’t thought that deeply about it but then again I haven’t

written three chapters on it either so that’s a very and I want to just I want to come back to one other thing which is

about time um that a lot of people when you talk about love that this idea that it’s the

same when you meet someone as you know as the relationship carries on the Ebbs

and flows um or maybe there’s an expectation that you know love is just this thing

um does it change over time and is that sort of uh kind of a uh an expectation

that it should change so the way that we view love at the

beginning of relationship is only one aspect of love and that is the problem

so tell me more yeah

so instead of having that splash of orange color that oh my God I can’t get my hands off

of you right over a period of time this has to turn into a rainbow more of

different layers more like a stronger better Foundation and many people do that 50 of the

society who don’t end up with miserable marriages or I’m just exaggerating of

the number because there’s no like kind of Statistics but uh it’s not like everybody is miserable many people like

yourself have been married for such a long time and me too you know and um so

what was different that we still sit here touch wound find ourselves you know

in a situation that what did we do so that’s what I’m interested in when you talk about that love at the beginning

and you know yes it has to be dynamic it has to change but for better for deeper for more

feeling sense of being rather than oh yeah you know what honeymoon phase is

over ah remember those days you know I wish somebody would give us a

a little bit of a chart be an analytical person to say here are the many stages that your relationship will evolve

through maybe it exists is it would be great if there was a tool so you could anticipate or plan for that or maybe

that’s a little too analytical that’s why I wrote the book ah all right well now we’re getting somewhere but that

book’s got to come out soon Sarah we we need help um I want to just note for our our

listeners that you two have an opportunity to ask questions please feel free to post questions comments in

LinkedIn live um we’ll moderate those bring those in in just a handful of minutes I’m gonna

pause so you have a chance to have your say I will also note that after we field

your questions we are going to have a short segment called Truth or Fiction

and yes Sarah you’re going to be in the hot seat where I’m going to read off

some statements and ask you whether it’s a truth or a fiction so we’ll get a little bit more deep into this topic

about sex and relationships and love um I do have a couple more quick

questions for you and then we’ll ask for any questions from our listeners as well

one question that I had um this podcast this program is called

the deliberate way as you know and I’m always eager to hear about some of the

practices and techniques that you may use in whatever your craft may be but in

your craft particularly you work with people you work with people in their relationships maybe they’re struggling

in their relationships um being a great listener and be able to help people definitely requires really

specific practices I would think what are some of the deliberate things that

you do that you can share that you think may have application to others or Beyond

just um kind of relationships what are some of the things that you or your go-to’s

um you know many people say that you need

to be curious listen with curiosity and to be honest I

left that behind long time ago because what I’m noticing is that curiosity is amazing but it has a hint of ignorance

and I’m not sure if we can afford that in this day and age I don’t know the

intention behind curiosity to be perfectly honest that’s that’s just where I’m operating from so if you’re

sitting here and out of my own curiosity not knowing how many kids do you have

what are you doing what is this what is that without an intention an interest into the other person I find that to be

a little bit of superficial for my tasting so questions without any obvious kind of road map or intention behind it

is that without the actual genuine interest in the person if I’m meeting

you and I first have to find that interest in me for you then my questions

are informed they are not just based on my curiosity and ignorance

that is one thing that I always think about and you know many of the places that hire me I actually go unprepared

because they just want me for my questions and one of the ways that I I

uh at first I couldn’t really explain when I was going to train I came up to

this understanding that how can I train people in this and then I realized that look you know put the ignorance hat down

find that interest in that person in the scenario in whatever that you’re doing

then your questions are so Guided by your informed interests so to speak and

then how do you set that how do you find how do you kind of get at setting that intention right away uh having that that

focus it could be tricky it could take a lot of time to absolutely without asking some of those ignorant or quote-unquote

overly curious or misguided questions what are some of the things you do to be

able to get there faster why well they’re not necessarily misguided if I may they’re just not as informed right

so for me first connect with the person in front

of you there’s a whole person so I will suspend my agenda and I will go with

intention that’s very important many of us get into the human relationship or a job or

whatever that we do with agenda I’m gonna do this this is gonna happen you

know like that but for me the intention matters a lot and I learned that through

the facilitation of like high-level un meetings I might have an agenda you know

I might have a road map but I can’t really hold down rigidly to that a lot

like our conversation today we had top lines we’re going to talk about this and that but I honestly don’t know what even

came out because you know we were so engaged in this conversation and uh the

topics whatever that we talk about right and um and I guess this is up to your

listeners to say whether they found it worth their time or not but yeah but you

know this this is what I’m talking about that you know so let go of the agenda operate with intention and whatever that

comes treat with respect and compassion so these are the four pillars that I

operate with when I want to be deliberate about anything in life so the four give me the four pillars again

interest yeah which leads the informed question and informed engagement with

the person or whatever scenario that I’m in and then the other one is operate

with respect and compassion and all of these requires tremendous courage

so you need to let go of that insecure ego you know beyond that making myself

presentable today you know by look I feel like you know coming to these I am

hoping to worth the while of the listeners after that you just let go you just let

go and sit here just be in the moment and feel like okay so what is it that I

know I had the privilege to have access to that they didn’t let me share so you know it Taps into that kind of

generous nature that every single person in this whole world has instead of the insecurity that how do I come across you

know yeah and so they’re there and I’ll let you know they’re you’re triggering a lot of great questions from the group

and I’ll I’m gonna share some of those questions in a moment I want to ask you one more thing or comment sort of and

ask a question um you mentioned about the United Nations and uh and working in a capacity

where it is you know relationships really matter um I’ll put a hypothetical out to you

might the the type of work that you do or kind of relationship work might it

have an impact in places where there’s tremendous um conflict and um and adversity so

places like Russian Ukraine um right now and you know the United States a lot of people would argue

there’s a very heavy adversarial kind of polarity of the you know red state blue

state of the US and the them is it relevant like we’re talking about love and intimacy But ultimately as you said

right at the beginning it’s about relationships might this have an impact or is that a

little to um polyadish it’s a little bit of a reach it does that’s why my motto is

creating World Peace one relationship at a time look Dan

um I like that I could be sitting in front of a person who hates the gut of an Iranian you know

and if I keep to my corner with my borders and you keep to your corner you

know with the borders um what comes out of this so but if we start relating there are so many

examples of amazing people Kirk Schneider so many amazing thinkers

and writers in this area that um they all talk about even like Brenda

Brown has a wonderful um I remember she has so many books so

that if I remember it correctly it’s in Dare to lead um so you know so everybody is talking

about no the other and then see find the common spaces then

proceed with that Doug on that note it might be a little bit irrelevant but maybe relevant

I hope it’s relevant for some people when you talk about like this you know from bedroom to the kitchen to the

boardroom to the UN meeting to the conflict zones it’s all about how you enter the scenario really suspend your

judgments but not to the point that you’re sucked into the situation because that’s another issue we have we try to

understand each other let’s put that to rest sometimes we don’t understand each other but it doesn’t mean that from not

understanding each other we’re gonna just kill each other I mean it sounds this is very naive but

if I am working in an organization on a team managing a team and there’s

conflict um these same practices that you’re using that you’re writing about

um very well could have real application towards kind of mending fences fixing

those relationships that get in the way of companies being successful teams thriving

um is I assume that’s not an overreach either just based on what you’re saying absolutely not we are all human there is

a human involved there’s a human nature involved and we are all the same so when we want to do Innovation I don’t know

how much you remember of those workshops that we did advisor very well going back to the basic right it’s all about who

said that these people are evil who said that we need to do this who said that you know so just questioning the status

goal like in the book I bring so many examples that my editor was actually

laughing oh my God I didn’t know that so it’s like yeah so we go with so many assumptions that

who really said that let’s question let’s just not question for conflict you

know production but let’s question maybe there’s a new way of thinking maybe it’s

like me I like your your term of productive questioning not asking

questions with a false an insincere curiosity but productive questions to

really understand um that can apply to any field in

anywhere I love that you’re you’re pulling that out I didn’t expect us to go there but I’m glad we did I’m gonna

pause for a moment because I’m gonna turn some of the questions over to um to

our listeners so the first one that came up is how applicable do you feel the

five love languages are to a healthy relationship are there other books that you’d recommend so first are you

familiar with the five love languages absolutely okay I think it’s fantastic and I’m actually

grateful to Dr chap Chapman who wrote the book because you know as humans it’s

so confusing the whole thing about relationship conflict resolution that there are bazillion books right this

zillion podcasts and everything and each of them tackled it from different perspective what five languages of love

did was in my humble opinion I feel like it brought it together gave it the way

that the brain human brain works hey people don’t get confused Within These there are nuances obviously right but

having a label having like a way to start the conversation in that regard I

love that book and the whole I think there’s even a free quiz that people can take which is really great right just to

get this conversation going so that’s one regarding further recommendations there are certain areas that I think

everybody needs to know about themselves and it’s not necessarily the book which I can also recommend but you can go even

go online just search for you know attachment style and the impact on uh

really close relation close relationships right know how you relate to other people that’s your attachment

style you need to know that by now right so that’s that and you’re not stuck with it by the way based on new research new

work in the past 15 years we know that you can move if you find yourself in a category that you don’t quite find

healthy for a relationship the second thing that you need to know about yourself is your cognitive

distortion again search cognitive distortions and then read about them

because cognitive distortions are the way that we process and internalize and

make meaning of any information that comes to us so that’s good for you to

know so these are the two things that I want you to start with our lovely person who asked me great

recommendations um there was a follow-on that somebody messaged me about

um do you recall a book called The Rules It Was Written in the 1990s

um and the notion was is that people should follow a very sort of like

pre-scripted set of rules such as don’t call the guy or the girl after the first

date wait multiple days um they codified this and almost created

like a sheet or a guideline of do these things don’t do them very prescripted

I’m judging by your body language that you’re not a big fan or advocate of this

sort of um overly codified advice that’s written not being genuine all

over it tell me more what do you mean by that so you know

okay so let’s take it 50 50 not to be too harsh

I see the product of those rules right if you tell me that Sarah don’t smile

when you go on a date you know me for 15 years I’m known for my smile I mean am I

going to go on a date and I’m like is that genuine and then what if I pass

that level then are is the book there to tell me what to do so now I got the

percent what do I do that’s perpetuation of the idea of crossing the bridge and

getting married and the Cinderella thingy what do you do now yeah then what right all right stuck with that fake

person that you didn’t yeah and that if somebody asked the follow-on question here which is not quite the same but

Builds on this are there goals or what are the goals of the first couple of dates are there goals for the first

state versus second versus third um your your thoughts about that and it’s not quite the same as the prior

question I like that question um lovely person who asked that remember how I talked about genuine interest

genuine interest and respect for yourself know yourself like literally

don’t be hungry angry tired bored lonely feeling miserable when you go on the first date that’s important because you

know this is no difference yeah you were going to say something no no I’m listening with curiosity sincere

curiosity I love this point but don’t go in tired or hungry I could see how that could

affect your disposition your mood exactly because you are kind of half animal half person I mean you know you

can’t really show up well and the other thing is when you are going like Supermarket shopping if you’re extremely

hungry you see how many rubbish you buy like we all do that this is just human psychic right or when you arrive at a

restaurant you order this much and you you’re done after this much the same thing with dating right so that is very

important for the first second or whatever date the other thing is I tell people going back also linking it to

that book rule thingy you know so really think about it this way that if you

um go on a date try to impress the person try to get some facts out of them how

nervous would you be it’s an agenda so you know that’s one and then you lead

with curiosity I would love for you to lead with genuine interest this is the best person

I’m gonna have dinner with them I’m gonna have coffee with them it’s a human being we don’t get these moments back

let’s just go get to know each other and do I like this person do I not like this

person just leave with like do you like them right can I I have to just so one

probing question for you and uh and then we’ll go to Truth or Fiction but

um some people have described that relationships and dating is a lot like

um you know playing a competitive game that you should think about it as like a competition

um there’s winners and there’s losers there’s rules and there’s things to be followed um when people say it’s like a game and

you need to follow it like almost like a strategy how do you react and do people bring that up to you is that do people

take that sort of like competitive mindset towards relationships and dating from your from your experience

I think there’s enough for all of us in this world just based on my spiritual belief I don’t believe that you’re

competing with anyone and if you are of that camp you’re gonna have your trophy and you’re gonna live a miserable life

like the social media life that your pictures look amazing and you spend

God knows how much to keep the thing together so that’s that I really have a strong opinions about that competition

however I agree with the strategy a strategy I know that it’s kind of a convoluted word but again going back to

you know the time that we shared together in corporate without the strategy of life without the strategy

the vision for for your life you can’t really start dating you need to know where you want

to end up or you get sucked in to other person and then after a period of time you resent them because they detect what

I do they control me not actually sorry you didn’t have anything so that’s why you got stuck

the only thing that I want to say here then linking everything together

you can trust your gut your gut has a brain we can have another conversation

around that by now I think many people read about it connections yeah exactly

so you will know but when to trust your God is you have a polished God you

cannot have a traumatized bruised or scarred God and then say well my God

says this person is wrong or this person is right because then you’re actually misled by your own thing you know by

your own needs agree to heal rather than really have a create a sophisticated

human relationship with another person and there was a well I’ll just squeeze one more question in here because it’s a

very it’s a very intriguing one your thoughts about online dating apps versus meeting people in person

um the landscape is wildly changed from I I always I would say it’s why would change since I first met my wife in the

in the 1990s um and it’s uh you know it’s a different landscape in general what are your

thoughts about online dating versus the kind of the old-fashioned way if you will

I like online dating because it gives you an opportunity a pool of people so

we don’t really stay only with proximity and at the mercy of other people to set us up or you know what not and some

people are shy so you know it’s not like you know everybody is extrovert and how high you know I’m open to meet people

however my only advice here just based on pure experience with you know couples

and dating uh make it in person as soon as possible

interesting so use that as a mechanism or as a tool very deliberate way to meet

people but don’t rely on as a crutch to kind of become the relationship in and

of itself yeah love that that that is a great that’s a great piece of advice

um all right we have in minutes remaining at the time has been flying by but I couldn’t let the 10 minutes go by

without playing one of my favorite games Truth or Fiction what I’m gonna do is

Sarah I’m gonna read off a statement you’re gonna have the minuscule amount

of about 30 seconds to be able to say Truth or Fiction in a quick elaboration

of why you think it’s a truth or you think it’s a fiction you ready yep all right first one

successful relationships demand that their sexual chemistry between partners

truth or fiction fiction based on Research tell me real quick it’s not enough it’s

not enough it’s it’s good to have it but it’s not enough not enough all right that was a good

start and that was quick I’m gonna flip it over to one which has been talked

about a lot in the Press lately Americans are having less sex now than

ever before Truth or Fiction yes my friend actually did the research on that

so yes is it is it something to be worried about no no I think you know we over

emphasized sexual activity by quantity and quality for the longest time I think the pendul

is going here and hopefully um if you actually go through the research you will see that there’s

nothing to worry about and I hope it’s normalizing for people who think everybody is getting it but me

that’s that’s good I think there are people who say that uh I’ve heard it quite a few times

um third one women want relationship sex men they

want casual dress absolutely fiction fiction really

or tell them all right elaborate a little bit more

they want those ones both yes but you know we can elaborate on that in a sense

that by Anatomy women could be considered as hosts and Men could be

considered as guests just as pure Anatomy right if it’s a hit or by the way we are talking all heteronormative

here like you know like a you know like a heterosexual and kind of these sort of relationships

um on that note women want to be um want to be respected women want to be

appreciated for the host that they are and women want to be not just thank you

ma’am and as we said like 30 years ago you know so we really they really would

like to have that emotional connection maybe more than men but it doesn’t make

that statement true because there are a lot of men who are really suffering

because of that you know fiction points that you just shared that you know

um this old saying that oh men are pig they’re thinking about sex all the time the brain of the woman is shoes and bags

and everything and sex is this much and the brain of a man is all sex and this piece is about you know whatever that

that’s not true that’s not true well then let’s see where we go with this next one on average men think about sex

every 7 seconds truth or fiction it really she passes what is the source

here because this came out long time ago true you know like look through the

research and I honestly don’t think there’s an Evidence behind it so I don’t have a comment is this an urban myth or

it could be an urban myth yes yeah I’ve heard it perpetuated so often that I’ve accepted it as a fact but um I like the

fact that you haven’t seen anything in your research that would suggest that that is a fact not my research or any

research that is actually solid based on fmri based on like a continuous

monitoring of the brain yeah no all right all right well that

we’ll put that one to rest um one that’s a little bit different arranged marriages are less successful

than self-chosen or directed marriages depending on how you define success if

you are going by statistics of divorce arranged marriages have less number of divorces but if you go to subjective

reporting of the satisfaction the subjective reporting in majority of

arranged marriages is also higher than the you know so so-called self

arranged or you know love love arranged but in general

um it’s in the middle I can’t really comment right now statistically I can say that the orange managers have better

success but depending on how you define success but that may also be a product of people avoiding divorce because of

other social factors and stigmas perhaps around it yeah not a clear-cut and dry Truth or Fiction

no and also they are constitutionally and socially bound and social media actually does that for the couples now

because you know they post these videos and images that they’re on date nights

and you know what not and when I facilitate uncoupling for people we have to go through their social media and

actually erase all of those and you know create a story that it’s it’s a whole thing so the community that kept the

couple together now is the social media wow all right well that’s that is a tough one although I guess the delete

button is pretty accessible all right next one I’ve got this is one I’ve heard quite a bit chocolate and oysters are

natural aphrodisiacs well

again in the middle yes I I can say aphrodisiac because you know they they have

oyster has zinc and so there are ingredients in each that could uh

produce energy and a sense of positivism and

um you know and and if they break down in the body they could produce that kind of you know sense of desire and passion

and but it’s not like you know if you have a mountain of oh it’s there then you’re really horny or okay no so I

shouldn’t try to apply uh oysters on on my wife in anytime soon to to trick her

into you can give it a try if she’s not allergic while it can’t hurt all right

last couple I’ve got for you um this idea of having a child will

strengthen your relationship or marriage is that a truth or a fiction both

both all right tell me more again depending on the foundation of your marriage if you

are very much babes in the wood and you are just very much into each other

um you know like you are under the perception that you found your person then any third person is going to be

very annoying and is going to you know make you fall apart or you know the demand of the

um current Parenthood is also a lot um that you know we have to be

everything to each other and everything to our kids um so that piece of it is a lot of

people choose not to have kids because they’re so scared on the other side of it are expectations around having kids

in certain families and sometimes when you have kids um you see different aspects of your

uh mate of your person that um it’s actually very endearing and it

deepens your love for them different types of Love enter the family so I

would say both all right it’s a not as cut and dry I have one more for you

um one that I’ve heard from from multiple people before when when the sex

is bad or non-existent that means your relationship is in deep trouble

is that a truth or is that a fiction I’m afraid most of the times it’s true

because we also have research around it in the US we have a representative research to show that when people when

sex is working is one of those depending on the meaning people attach to it right when it’s working so to speak let’s put

it in the you know kind of haircut um nobody even pays attention they’re not gonna sit you know and say that our

sex is so good and the relationship you know maybe at the beginning but when it’s not when the connection is not

there more than 70 percent of people say is due to sex relationship is not doing well but when

it’s doing well yeah if you ask couples like um how much of the success of the relationship you put down to your sex

life they say like around maybe between 13 to 17 so it’s not you know on top of

mind it’s only one of the pillars I gotta tell you Sarah where you did a

great job with the the speed round um I could talk to you for another four hours there’s so much more that I want

to talk to you about I think we’re gonna have to have another deliberate Way episode with you sometime soon maybe

when your book comes out so just a reminder your book will be coming out at the beginning of this upcoming year is

that right or hopefully yes if if everything goes well with the world another pandemic doesn’t hit everything

everything yes that’s right yeah that’s something to look forward to in 2024 not

another Heat Wave not another pandemic um Sarah it has been an absolute

pleasure to build time with you and to cover so many topics we could only go a

few inches deep but uh for people who are listening for other viewers of our

content you can always reach out to Sarah Sarah you have a really awesome newsletter I’m signed up for the

newsletter now you’ve got a very big following on Instagram you can always style you’re also on LinkedIn as well

lots of great stuff coming from you Sarah so I encourage people follow Sarah

listen to great advice not just about love and intimacy but relationships

Common Sense stuff that I think would make a big difference so Sarah thanks again for being on and thank you very

much thank you tune in for the next episode where we’re going to go deeper into a couple of other areas not

sexology unfortunately but some other really intriguing areas um we look forward to seeing you guys

have a great continuation of your summer and thanks again Sarah we’ll see everyone soon0:01
all right well good afternoon good morning maybe even
0:06
good evening depending where you are in the world I’m Dan seawald and Welcome to
0:12
our eighth edition of the deliberate way now we’ve had a short break for some of
0:19
the summer festivities and travel but we’re back and let me tell you there is
0:24
no better way to spice up your Tuesday it is Tuesday right yeah it’s Tuesday there’s no better way to spice up your
0:32
Tuesday than to be able to talk with Dr Sarah uh I’m going to tell you all about
0:37
Sarah Sarah I’m going to tell you all about yourself in a moment but I have to
0:42
give a full disclosure here Sarah and I go way back
0:47
um it’s probably been about 15 years when Sarah did her first foray in
0:53
Corporate America and as we had a chance to work together one day we’re in the
0:59
cafeteria back in the days when people went to the office and we were chit chatting and I said oh what do you have
1:06
going on later today and she said to me well actually I have a uh a talk show
1:11
that I’m going to be doing and I laughed I said yeah no really she said well actually I am I um I have something that
1:17
I’m doing on the BBC and that’s when I scratched my chin and said this is not your usual corporate innovator not by a
1:25
loan shot um as I would discover Sarah and and folks is that you are definitely a
1:33
unique person in many ways and as it turns out Sarah is one of the real
1:38
thought leaders in the space of Human Relationships love and sex apology yes I
1:46
said the three-letter word that nobody likes to say these days but yes sex I guess sexology has more than three
1:52
letters but sex does have three letters now we’re going to be delving in what
1:57
may seem like far outside the bounds of corporate Innovation but you’re gonna
2:02
find the deliberate practices habits and things that Dr Sarah nazarzad does are
2:09
going to have really interesting implications not just personally but also even professionally so I’m excited
2:15
and it’s a real treat and pleasure to have you here Sarah so thank you for joining thank you so much for having me
2:22
it’s gonna be fun it’s it’s already fun Sarah now I’m going to tell you a little
2:27
bit about yourself so folks know about you um you were born in Iran you were
2:33
educated in the United Kingdom and you became an American citizen been working
2:38
in the U.S and outside for that matter also ever since and during that time
2:44
you’ve been called a leading expert in the relational space of intimacy
2:51
um working with couples corporate media large corporations uh the United Nations
2:57
which I thought was super interesting as well as ngos in this space and um
3:04
amongst other things that people may not know about you Sarah um you are regular on the BBC World
3:10
Service Persian TV on human sexuality and relationships you’ve been a cultural
3:16
advisor a consultant for governments and ngos and people may have caught you
3:21
before on TV and on the radio on ABC News BBC Al Jazeera CNN NPR and uh maybe
3:30
a whole bunch of other acronyms as well so you’re pretty pretty widely distributed and out there what I thought
3:38
was super interesting that I didn’t know was that you were named as one of the best love doctors by Harper’s Bazaar and
3:46
also a organization called datingadvice.com named you as one of the
3:52
10 best sex and dating experts and there’s been so many other impressive words even particularly around
3:59
Innovation which I thought was was super interesting the BBC gave you an innovation award which was really
4:06
exciting um I will mention one other thing without going too deep on this is that
4:12
you have a forthcoming book about the notion of love has not come out yet but it’s pending and I guess your Publishers
4:19
would probably have to be drawn in quartered if I talked any more about it but uh that’s coming in the fall tell me
4:25
a little bit more about it without revealing too much uh sure so um if I may say good morning
4:32
good evening good day and night to everybody who’s listening
4:37
um yes it’s a book on love um the accumulation of all of my work
4:42
and research in the past two decades so I’m very excited and hopefully there
4:48
will be tons of innovation in it so it’s not what you think
4:54
so I encourage people to get out and kind of as soon as the pre-order pre-orders should be ready sometime
5:00
later this year and we are hoping for the release by the beginning of next year
5:06
very exciting now my interest is so peaked we’re gonna have to peel some
5:11
things out of you today but not too much just enough to maybe wet our appetites
5:17
um Sarah now you may be a first time viewer of the deliberate way there are
5:22
probably others who’ve seen it before for those who are kind of the uh the Neil fights if you will couple of words
What is the Deliberate Way
5:29
the deliberate way is a way for us to meet and listen to experts like you
5:34
um and understand the deliberate way that people approach their craft whether you’re a scientist an athlete an artist
5:41
an advocate a sexologist by getting to know you better to know
5:47
about your crafting your practices we’re able to discover a few practices habits
5:53
tips that really can apply to our own lives because we find I find that the
5:58
most successful people the most Innovative people are inherently deliberate in the way they do things so
6:05
I’m excited to deal deeper and without any further Ado let me ask you the kind
6:10
of first most obvious question what do you do during the day what what is a sexologist what tell me a little bit
6:16
more about you and what you do in your craft that’s a great question and I have to
6:22
say depending on the day and which one of my hats I’m wearing it could vary but
6:27
whatever I do has to do something with the way that people relate to one
6:33
another and relationships whether I’m doing research facilitating meetings or
6:39
sitting with clients writing anything that I do has to do something with
6:46
relating interesting very very mysterious tell me
What is Sexology and the Language of Love
6:52
a little bit more because when I hear of sexologists intimacy I figure it’s kind
6:57
of the the very kind of breast tax of of the way people relate or engaged but it
7:03
sounds like it’s more than that it goes much more beyond that tell me a little bit more
7:08
well you know when we talk about the relating if I may go back a little bit because when I was growing up in Iran
7:15
and it was post-revolution so post-revolution you had to learn who you are who the other person is because they
7:22
could be dangerous to share anything from your family to you had to preserve
7:28
parts of you for different Social Circles or you know political circles
7:33
just to keep yourself and you know your loved ones faith and safe so through that land of paradox that you
7:40
know who is this who is that I started to learn about the concept of the other who is the other who is one of us who is
7:48
the other so that was the first thing when we’re talking about relating right and then little by little as you’re
7:56
talking about deliberation you know the way that you do one thing is the way that you do everything that’s
8:03
what I came to realize I went to sexology well first actually before sexology I went to Linguistics and if I
8:10
wasn’t a doctor in social psychology I wouldn’t I would be a linguist for sure
8:16
because I was always interested to see where the language is lead us culturally
8:21
and socially and where um we lead the language and that came to
8:28
help me a lot during our work um you know with the BBC for example I realized
8:33
that um so there are certain languages that depending on the needs language has to
8:41
um correspond to the needs of a society right let’s say for example you are speaking with a group of Eskimos they
8:48
have variety of words for snow somebody who grew up in a desert they
8:55
didn’t really need that they might have a lot of terminology around the word sand different types of sand right so
9:02
these are the things that are always fascinated me Fast Forward Thinking About Sex and I’m hosting this show for
9:10
the BBC and I’m realizing that to empower people around sex relationships anything we need to give them words so
9:17
that when we are talking about pleasure we are talking about orgasm you know what not it’s not something that the foreigners
9:24
do so it was really important to have a far C term to or do terms so terminology
9:29
that people could actually relate to and say actually orgasm is not only for Western liberated people we have it too
9:38
interesting language really waves in into everything I want to I want to
9:44
rewind a little bit too if you don’t mind this is very very interesting so going back to your kind of your origin
9:51
story I as you we talked about beforehand I love origin stories of how
9:56
did people arrive at where they are today you already mentioned that you had a propensity for Linguistics and that
10:02
kind of was kind of LED you there but you also are an immigrant you had moved
10:08
from Iran to the UK to the U.S generally I found that most people’s kind of kind
10:14
of migrations have a big impact on the way they do things the way they they see things tell me a little bit about the
10:21
experience of being in Iran which has been sort of noted as the kind of the arch enemy of the United States I know
10:28
that’s not necessarily true but um it’s often sort of positive that way politically to being here in the US how
10:36
does that shape the work that you do and the choice pieces that you’ve made but to hear more about that
10:41
well you see that’s interesting and I’m glad that you asked that question because if you think about the United is
10:47
this and Iran at the political level that’s exactly what you’re talking about so they really you know like at least on
10:53
the surface they’re like this with each other but when you talk about Humanity people look
11:00
um with the women life Freedom Movement that we just had you know really not we
11:06
I shouldn’t really include myself because they were Brave mostly younger generation of Iranians that led that
11:13
movement right I don’t know if you were following up on social media there were so many people who had nothing to do by
11:20
Blood by ethnicity by lineage to Iran from this country and any other country in the world that they were Avid
11:27
supporters so when it comes to the humanity when it comes to our needs for Agency for
11:33
freedom for Liberation for Truth for moral values I think we come together
11:38
more than we know so on that note I would say if I tap into the other I
11:45
could really keep myself distance if I tap into the other but also who shares
11:50
my values my fears my deepest human deepest human needs
11:57
then the unity will be um more powerful
12:03
it’s very very distances tell me a little bit more just uh how did you you
12:10
come from Iran all the way to the US and and end up in this particular field tell
12:15
me a little bit more about that well when I was in Iran I started I did
12:21
my linguistic degree in Iran so at the time I was the representative of the
12:27
university and I was always like that I was always the representative of the class since I was
12:32
I remember when I was six I would you know do the morning you know announcements of the school and I was
12:38
always like that and it goes back to my parents that they always said that we have more responsibilities Beyond
12:45
ourselves be there for the other and I’m so grateful because you know they actually raised us I’m not thinking
12:51
really about ourselves right so and I know many people many of your listeners do that as bad
12:58
so fast forwarding from that I realized that there are so many different things that people don’t talk about like for
13:03
example um talking about Iran schools are separate we don’t have co-ed
13:10
schools up to 12th grade like nowhere kindergartens are separate now so even
13:16
at the kindergarten level separate so if I grew up in a family that I don’t really have any cousins or any brothers
13:24
or you know um any male figure I really don’t know much about men I don’t know how to
13:30
interact with them I’m taught to be scared of them you know this is just um like when I was growing up it’s very
13:37
different now obviously within the social system that we can talk about later and um so one thing that I wanted to do
13:45
at the time was I was at the age that I wanted to start dating I wanted to start
13:51
to see okay who is out there is there somebody that I’m going to meet and maybe marry maybe start my family and
13:59
then I was thinking to myself what am I supposed to see this person only at the parties like underground parties only at
14:06
my music class only which happened actually I met my husband through music so so there was a live TV show and I
14:14
volunteered to be on that live TV show and there were the all the heads of the universities big universities in Iran
14:22
so my topic of conversation was I wanted to advocate for co-ed
14:27
I said look we are maturing how it was not typical in Iran just just putting
14:33
that out there that was not not permitted no well there were universities like for example medical
14:39
school very few universities that had co-ed classes but women sitting here men
14:44
sitting here so like still no mingling no public mingling as such but my
14:51
question to the head of the university in that live TV was you say keep away
14:58
okay we do that and then you say but meet somebody and then you know get to
15:05
know them and make a very successful couple them and marry them for the rest of your life and you know
15:13
um Iran at least by the governmental you know jurisdictions is it Muslim country so in Islam marriage is half of your
15:20
religion so if we’re supposed to keep do you know all of this pressure and how am I supposed to not know a man how to
15:28
treat them how to be there not know and not knowing anything about myself at the presence of another person you know an
15:35
opposite uh person opposite sex percent and all of a sudden I’m gonna just enter
15:41
the marriage and live happily ever after How’s that gonna happen how did that
15:46
work out for the most part in Iran it was was it Greater tension in marriages or greater failure rates
15:53
not really not really but the difference are they have their own challenges you know
15:59
human relationships are you know in different ways but I have to say that from the experiences
16:06
I have you know Consulting with people especially on the show the level of questions are more basic
16:12
than you get here so like you know like how to relate to the other person it starts with the
16:18
anatomy how to so you know seeing this person as a very different entity than yourself
16:24
you know so these are the things that come up that um are a little bit more
16:29
different tell me about so that lets me move a little forward from there the the
16:35
talk show that you you were on or responsible for in the BBC
Deliberate Love & Relationships
16:41
um where did it go to who did it reach what was the focus of it um tell us a little bit more about that
16:47
because it sounds like that was very important and and had a lot of impact on on many people but maybe a library a
16:54
little bit more about that if you would sure you know also linking it to the topic of conversation here to be
17:00
deliberate and to be Innovative right one of the things that I wanted to do
17:05
was to reach people where they were and you know I didn’t PhD on that you know so in my PhD I actually had a hard to
17:13
reach group to study and I put it in quotation mark and it was very funny because the first meeting I had they thought it’s my language barrier that I
17:20
put it in quotation I said no no that’s very deliberate because as depending on
17:26
who you call hard to reach maybe we are actually alienating them further so
17:31
nobody is hard to reach if you reach them have that in the back of your mind God went to the BBC editor and I said
17:37
look um I want to meet people Beyond filters beyond what is allowed or what is not I
17:45
want to produce an Evidence informed platform for people around sexuality and
17:50
relationships and this was the first obviously and it was pretty
17:55
interesting to kind of put forward and I wanted to meet people where they were
18:01
now I’ll tell you how it worked I’m so grateful to the BBC that gave me
18:07
that platform really truly first we started with radio program why because you could actually have your
18:14
radio sneak out somewhere and listen every Wednesday night listen to it and
18:19
the letters that we got and phone calls and um it’s amazing amazing really so and
18:27
then after that we moved to online and TV um so nobody could filter us
18:34
people who get the information so my um thing was not just oh well put a
18:40
program together about sexuality my question again deliberation and Innovation goes back to the questions
18:47
you ask right how do I reach these people they’re somewhere so millions of people to answer your
18:53
question millions of peoples obviously whoever that spoke foresee anywhere in the world I still to this that like I go
19:01
to somewhere I walk in and they recognize my voice or they recognize it’s so interesting how many people even
19:08
are telling me that every Wednesday night we would gather with friends and listen wow your program and then after
19:14
that we have this conversation and it warms my heart because that was the purpose to break that taboo you know
19:21
tell me about the what type of topics would come up and and I guess sort of
19:27
adjacent to that I’ll load this with one other question I I would assume that that relationships
19:34
and the ideas of Love are very different across different regions and countries and cultures
19:40
did you find that having um having worked across different cultures and and what type of impact did
19:47
your work have on those people that you were reaching um so two kind of kind of uh connected
19:53
questions but I’d love to hear about both of those so as you know I work across countries
20:00
and what it means is that I don’t just go to deliver a training or something
20:06
wherever that I go in the world so far I think it’s about 40 something countries so when I go if I speak the language I
20:14
deliver it in that specific language because I think you know it empowers the people and if I don’t speak the language
20:20
I work with The Interpreter to kind of phone in into the tailor-made language for that group and I asked them to see
20:28
the actual people so that it’s not just me and the Professionals in the room right so people come and then you know I
20:36
conduct a client session and then you know people observe you know this sort of work some other work that I I do I go
20:43
to communities and talk to them a lot of the depending on where I am sometimes
20:49
the because of my background people relate better and and I have to ask them
20:55
which part of me you’re relating to is this a woman from Iran that is going to
21:00
agree with you being for example you know the ideas that people have of a
21:05
woman from Iran they never in their Wildest Dream thought that a woman from Iran could teach you know like sexology
21:13
for example um so they wanted to mystify they want me to normalize it for them that you
21:19
know people in the most advanced and you know Progressive countries like for example Sweden do it the same way that
21:26
we do so a part of it is destigmatization and normalization for
21:31
people another part of it is to be the ambassador because I always feel like
21:37
I’m so privileged to go around the world to learn the less lessons and then come
21:42
and say well have you thought about it I thought that you know for example in Afghanistan they do it this way do you
21:48
want to give it a try or I go and say in Egypt do you do it this way in Iceland
21:53
they do it this way so oh that’s really interesting so let’s give it a try here so kind of Bridging the gaps between
22:00
cultures and bringing the collective wisdom to help people where they feel stuck
22:06
so that would be the first thing wait and I have to ask one quick follow-up is uh when you think about
22:12
people who are stuck or cultures that maybe um are are less or more Progressive what
22:18
do you see as some of those characteristics of those are more Progressive versus those that are stuck
22:24
if you will um what have you observed given that you’ve been across the world talking
22:30
with with people about their relationships for me the best way to answer that is
22:36
the most Progressive people and I’m not talking about the wealthiest countries or whatnot right but most Progressive
22:43
individuals that I meet are the ones who have healthy boundaries healthy and firm
22:50
boundaries and they’re not in a place who are stuck and they have to create borders around themselves
22:55
so for me that’s an immediate observation that if a person is
23:01
um open enough to let the information in and they are analytical enough they have
23:07
the tools they have the permission and the tools to be analytical about the information they receive and put it to
23:14
use the way that they want based on whatever context that they live
23:19
in so for me the differences between having healthy and firm boundaries
23:24
versus borders do you find that the the the idea the
Love
23:29
word Love Is defined differently by people
23:34
um culturally and even kind of over time they you know there’s this very when I
23:40
when people say love they you’d assume there is a singular definition it’s very
23:45
kind of Monolithic um I mean based on our conversations I’m gonna assume you don’t believe that uh
23:52
what have you seen like how do people think about that word that notion differently across different places and
23:59
even different stages of their relationships for that matter I’m trying to think how to summarize
24:05
three chapters of my book so nobody said it would be easy yeah in
24:13
a 30 second thumbnail if you would I’m sorry no give us in a 30-second uh
24:18
oh yeah absolutely so going back to the languages you know everything started there how we experience and how we
24:24
express that experience right um yeah there are differences like for
24:31
people who speak different languages they know exactly what I’m talking about like because in English we say love
24:37
being in love you know falling in love so the language around love is different but if you go to at least the languages
24:44
that I I’m familiar with let’s say Farsi for example or Arabic or Kurdish or
24:49
there are so many nuances in the way that you talk about love the the many Club The Familiar love you
24:58
know love for a mother and a father could be different love for the in-law and your own family could be different
25:04
there are individual terms separate kind of your Eskimo example that there’s many
25:10
different words but they have specific words in English we have sort of a word with context around it but exactly and
25:18
what does it say about Americans or or kind of anglo-saxon people or does it say anything I don’t know well to be
25:26
honest what I find fascinating is that in American culture as a low context country and let me elaborate on that so
25:34
we have by large if we have two spectrums around languages right one one
25:40
side is low context which is America is a very good example of low context
25:46
and on the other side of it high context countries who are older and they had
25:52
more time to evolve around language there are more homogeneous as a society they’re more High contexts
25:59
so if I look at you for example I don’t need to say much I just look at you and you read between lines right
26:05
the micro expressions are more important that you read the room a lot better right but in the low context countries
26:13
which are non-homogenous as much and a land of immigrant as we are in America that’s what makes it great right so
26:21
we come together and we try to have words for everything because I don’t
26:26
want to leave room for assumption or confusion right so now it’s funny
26:32
because in the high context countries majority of them we have a lot of words
26:37
to describe things like love like honesty like decency these sort of
26:43
things that have to do with essence of human connection we have a lot of words to describe different nuances in them in
26:51
the low context countries we come up with a lot of words to describe one word so for love we talk about it and then we
26:59
talk about it some more and then we talk about it some more but then we’re still talking about the
27:05
same thing you know very interesting I hadn’t thought I hadn’t thought that deeply about it but then again I haven’t
27:10
written three chapters on it either so that’s a very and I want to just I want to come back to one other thing which is
27:16
about time um that a lot of people when you talk about love that this idea that it’s the
27:24
same when you meet someone as you know as the relationship carries on the Ebbs
27:30
and flows um or maybe there’s an expectation that you know love is just this thing
27:36
um does it change over time and is that sort of uh kind of a uh an expectation
27:42
that it should change so the way that we view love at the
27:49
beginning of relationship is only one aspect of love and that is the problem
27:56
so tell me more yeah
28:01
so instead of having that splash of orange color that oh my God I can’t get my hands off
28:08
of you right over a period of time this has to turn into a rainbow more of
28:16
different layers more like a stronger better Foundation and many people do that 50 of the
28:24
society who don’t end up with miserable marriages or I’m just exaggerating of
28:30
the number because there’s no like kind of Statistics but uh it’s not like everybody is miserable many people like
28:36
yourself have been married for such a long time and me too you know and um so
28:42
what was different that we still sit here touch wound find ourselves you know
28:48
in a situation that what did we do so that’s what I’m interested in when you talk about that love at the beginning
28:55
and you know yes it has to be dynamic it has to change but for better for deeper for more
29:03
feeling sense of being rather than oh yeah you know what honeymoon phase is
29:08
over ah remember those days you know I wish somebody would give us a
29:14
a little bit of a chart be an analytical person to say here are the many stages that your relationship will evolve
29:21
through maybe it exists is it would be great if there was a tool so you could anticipate or plan for that or maybe
29:27
that’s a little too analytical that’s why I wrote the book ah all right well now we’re getting somewhere but that
29:34
book’s got to come out soon Sarah we we need help um I want to just note for our our
29:39
listeners that you two have an opportunity to ask questions please feel free to post questions comments in
29:46
LinkedIn live um we’ll moderate those bring those in in just a handful of minutes I’m gonna
29:51
pause so you have a chance to have your say I will also note that after we field
29:56
your questions we are going to have a short segment called Truth or Fiction
30:02
and yes Sarah you’re going to be in the hot seat where I’m going to read off
30:07
some statements and ask you whether it’s a truth or a fiction so we’ll get a little bit more deep into this topic
30:14
about sex and relationships and love um I do have a couple more quick
30:19
questions for you and then we’ll ask for any questions from our listeners as well
30:24
one question that I had um this podcast this program is called
30:30
the deliberate way as you know and I’m always eager to hear about some of the
30:35
practices and techniques that you may use in whatever your craft may be but in
30:40
your craft particularly you work with people you work with people in their relationships maybe they’re struggling
30:46
in their relationships um being a great listener and be able to help people definitely requires really
30:53
specific practices I would think what are some of the deliberate things that
30:59
you do that you can share that you think may have application to others or Beyond
31:05
just um kind of relationships what are some of the things that you or your go-to’s
31:12
um you know many people say that you need
31:18
to be curious listen with curiosity and to be honest I
31:23
left that behind long time ago because what I’m noticing is that curiosity is amazing but it has a hint of ignorance
31:31
and I’m not sure if we can afford that in this day and age I don’t know the
31:37
intention behind curiosity to be perfectly honest that’s that’s just where I’m operating from so if you’re
31:43
sitting here and out of my own curiosity not knowing how many kids do you have
31:48
what are you doing what is this what is that without an intention an interest into the other person I find that to be
31:56
a little bit of superficial for my tasting so questions without any obvious kind of road map or intention behind it
32:04
is that without the actual genuine interest in the person if I’m meeting
32:10
you and I first have to find that interest in me for you then my questions
32:16
are informed they are not just based on my curiosity and ignorance
32:22
that is one thing that I always think about and you know many of the places that hire me I actually go unprepared
32:28
because they just want me for my questions and one of the ways that I I
32:33
uh at first I couldn’t really explain when I was going to train I came up to
32:39
this understanding that how can I train people in this and then I realized that look you know put the ignorance hat down
32:46
find that interest in that person in the scenario in whatever that you’re doing
32:51
then your questions are so Guided by your informed interests so to speak and
32:58
then how do you set that how do you find how do you kind of get at setting that intention right away uh having that that
33:05
focus it could be tricky it could take a lot of time to absolutely without asking some of those ignorant or quote-unquote
33:12
overly curious or misguided questions what are some of the things you do to be
33:17
able to get there faster why well they’re not necessarily misguided if I may they’re just not as informed right
33:23
so for me first connect with the person in front
33:28
of you there’s a whole person so I will suspend my agenda and I will go with
33:34
intention that’s very important many of us get into the human relationship or a job or
33:41
whatever that we do with agenda I’m gonna do this this is gonna happen you
33:47
know like that but for me the intention matters a lot and I learned that through
33:53
the facilitation of like high-level un meetings I might have an agenda you know
33:58
I might have a road map but I can’t really hold down rigidly to that a lot
34:04
like our conversation today we had top lines we’re going to talk about this and that but I honestly don’t know what even
34:10
came out because you know we were so engaged in this conversation and uh the
34:16
topics whatever that we talk about right and um and I guess this is up to your
34:22
listeners to say whether they found it worth their time or not but yeah but you
34:27
know this this is what I’m talking about that you know so let go of the agenda operate with intention and whatever that
34:35
comes treat with respect and compassion so these are the four pillars that I
34:40
operate with when I want to be deliberate about anything in life so the four give me the four pillars again
34:47
interest yeah which leads the informed question and informed engagement with
34:54
the person or whatever scenario that I’m in and then the other one is operate
34:59
with respect and compassion and all of these requires tremendous courage
35:04
so you need to let go of that insecure ego you know beyond that making myself
35:10
presentable today you know by look I feel like you know coming to these I am
35:15
hoping to worth the while of the listeners after that you just let go you just let
35:22
go and sit here just be in the moment and feel like okay so what is it that I
35:28
know I had the privilege to have access to that they didn’t let me share so you know it Taps into that kind of
35:35
generous nature that every single person in this whole world has instead of the insecurity that how do I come across you
35:42
know yeah and so they’re there and I’ll let you know they’re you’re triggering a lot of great questions from the group
35:48
and I’ll I’m gonna share some of those questions in a moment I want to ask you one more thing or comment sort of and
35:54
ask a question um you mentioned about the United Nations and uh and working in a capacity
Relationships and Handling Conflict
36:01
where it is you know relationships really matter um I’ll put a hypothetical out to you
36:08
might the the type of work that you do or kind of relationship work might it
36:14
have an impact in places where there’s tremendous um conflict and um and adversity so
36:20
places like Russian Ukraine um right now and you know the United States a lot of people would argue
36:27
there’s a very heavy adversarial kind of polarity of the you know red state blue
36:33
state of the US and the them is it relevant like we’re talking about love and intimacy But ultimately as you said
36:40
right at the beginning it’s about relationships might this have an impact or is that a
36:46
little to um polyadish it’s a little bit of a reach it does that’s why my motto is
36:52
creating World Peace one relationship at a time look Dan
36:57
um I like that I could be sitting in front of a person who hates the gut of an Iranian you know
37:04
and if I keep to my corner with my borders and you keep to your corner you
37:11
know with the borders um what comes out of this so but if we start relating there are so many
37:18
examples of amazing people Kirk Schneider so many amazing thinkers
37:24
and writers in this area that um they all talk about even like Brenda
37:29
Brown has a wonderful um I remember she has so many books so
37:34
that if I remember it correctly it’s in Dare to lead um so you know so everybody is talking
37:41
about no the other and then see find the common spaces then
37:48
proceed with that Doug on that note it might be a little bit irrelevant but maybe relevant
37:54
I hope it’s relevant for some people when you talk about like this you know from bedroom to the kitchen to the
38:00
boardroom to the UN meeting to the conflict zones it’s all about how you enter the scenario really suspend your
38:08
judgments but not to the point that you’re sucked into the situation because that’s another issue we have we try to
38:15
understand each other let’s put that to rest sometimes we don’t understand each other but it doesn’t mean that from not
38:22
understanding each other we’re gonna just kill each other I mean it sounds this is very naive but
38:27
if I am working in an organization on a team managing a team and there’s
38:33
conflict um these same practices that you’re using that you’re writing about
38:39
um very well could have real application towards kind of mending fences fixing
38:45
those relationships that get in the way of companies being successful teams thriving
38:51
um is I assume that’s not an overreach either just based on what you’re saying absolutely not we are all human there is
38:58
a human involved there’s a human nature involved and we are all the same so when we want to do Innovation I don’t know
39:04
how much you remember of those workshops that we did advisor very well going back to the basic right it’s all about who
39:10
said that these people are evil who said that we need to do this who said that you know so just questioning the status
39:18
goal like in the book I bring so many examples that my editor was actually
39:23
laughing oh my God I didn’t know that so it’s like yeah so we go with so many assumptions that
39:30
who really said that let’s question let’s just not question for conflict you
39:35
know production but let’s question maybe there’s a new way of thinking maybe it’s
39:41
like me I like your your term of productive questioning not asking
39:47
questions with a false an insincere curiosity but productive questions to
39:53
really understand um that can apply to any field in
39:58
anywhere I love that you’re you’re pulling that out I didn’t expect us to go there but I’m glad we did I’m gonna
Q&A
40:04
pause for a moment because I’m gonna turn some of the questions over to um to
40:10
our listeners so the first one that came up is how applicable do you feel the
40:16
five love languages are to a healthy relationship are there other books that you’d recommend so first are you
40:22
familiar with the five love languages absolutely okay I think it’s fantastic and I’m actually
40:29
grateful to Dr chap Chapman who wrote the book because you know as humans it’s
40:35
so confusing the whole thing about relationship conflict resolution that there are bazillion books right this
40:41
zillion podcasts and everything and each of them tackled it from different perspective what five languages of love
40:47
did was in my humble opinion I feel like it brought it together gave it the way
40:54
that the brain human brain works hey people don’t get confused Within These there are nuances obviously right but
41:01
having a label having like a way to start the conversation in that regard I
41:06
love that book and the whole I think there’s even a free quiz that people can take which is really great right just to
41:14
get this conversation going so that’s one regarding further recommendations there are certain areas that I think
41:21
everybody needs to know about themselves and it’s not necessarily the book which I can also recommend but you can go even
41:29
go online just search for you know attachment style and the impact on uh
41:36
really close relation close relationships right know how you relate to other people that’s your attachment
41:42
style you need to know that by now right so that’s that and you’re not stuck with it by the way based on new research new
41:49
work in the past 15 years we know that you can move if you find yourself in a category that you don’t quite find
41:55
healthy for a relationship the second thing that you need to know about yourself is your cognitive
42:00
distortion again search cognitive distortions and then read about them
42:05
because cognitive distortions are the way that we process and internalize and
42:11
make meaning of any information that comes to us so that’s good for you to
42:17
know so these are the two things that I want you to start with our lovely person who asked me great
42:24
recommendations um there was a follow-on that somebody messaged me about
42:30
um do you recall a book called The Rules It Was Written in the 1990s
42:36
um and the notion was is that people should follow a very sort of like
42:41
pre-scripted set of rules such as don’t call the guy or the girl after the first
42:47
date wait multiple days um they codified this and almost created
42:52
like a sheet or a guideline of do these things don’t do them very prescripted
42:58
I’m judging by your body language that you’re not a big fan or advocate of this
43:03
sort of um overly codified advice that’s written not being genuine all
43:09
over it tell me more what do you mean by that so you know
43:14
okay so let’s take it 50 50 not to be too harsh
43:19
I see the product of those rules right if you tell me that Sarah don’t smile
43:26
when you go on a date you know me for 15 years I’m known for my smile I mean am I
43:32
going to go on a date and I’m like is that genuine and then what if I pass
43:38
that level then are is the book there to tell me what to do so now I got the
43:43
percent what do I do that’s perpetuation of the idea of crossing the bridge and
43:48
getting married and the Cinderella thingy what do you do now yeah then what right all right stuck with that fake
43:54
person that you didn’t yeah and that if somebody asked the follow-on question here which is not quite the same but
44:00
Builds on this are there goals or what are the goals of the first couple of dates are there goals for the first
44:06
state versus second versus third um your your thoughts about that and it’s not quite the same as the prior
44:12
question I like that question um lovely person who asked that remember how I talked about genuine interest
44:21
genuine interest and respect for yourself know yourself like literally
44:27
don’t be hungry angry tired bored lonely feeling miserable when you go on the first date that’s important because you
44:34
know this is no difference yeah you were going to say something no no I’m listening with curiosity sincere
44:42
curiosity I love this point but don’t go in tired or hungry I could see how that could
44:47
affect your disposition your mood exactly because you are kind of half animal half person I mean you know you
44:54
can’t really show up well and the other thing is when you are going like Supermarket shopping if you’re extremely
45:00
hungry you see how many rubbish you buy like we all do that this is just human psychic right or when you arrive at a
45:07
restaurant you order this much and you you’re done after this much the same thing with dating right so that is very
45:15
important for the first second or whatever date the other thing is I tell people going back also linking it to
45:21
that book rule thingy you know so really think about it this way that if you
45:28
um go on a date try to impress the person try to get some facts out of them how
45:37
nervous would you be it’s an agenda so you know that’s one and then you lead
45:42
with curiosity I would love for you to lead with genuine interest this is the best person
45:48
I’m gonna have dinner with them I’m gonna have coffee with them it’s a human being we don’t get these moments back
45:54
let’s just go get to know each other and do I like this person do I not like this
45:59
person just leave with like do you like them right can I I have to just so one
46:05
probing question for you and uh and then we’ll go to Truth or Fiction but
46:11
um some people have described that relationships and dating is a lot like
46:17
um you know playing a competitive game that you should think about it as like a competition
46:23
um there’s winners and there’s losers there’s rules and there’s things to be followed um when people say it’s like a game and
46:30
you need to follow it like almost like a strategy how do you react and do people bring that up to you is that do people
46:37
take that sort of like competitive mindset towards relationships and dating from your from your experience
46:43
I think there’s enough for all of us in this world just based on my spiritual belief I don’t believe that you’re
46:49
competing with anyone and if you are of that camp you’re gonna have your trophy and you’re gonna live a miserable life
46:55
like the social media life that your pictures look amazing and you spend
47:00
God knows how much to keep the thing together so that’s that I really have a strong opinions about that competition
47:06
however I agree with the strategy a strategy I know that it’s kind of a convoluted word but again going back to
47:14
you know the time that we shared together in corporate without the strategy of life without the strategy
47:20
the vision for for your life you can’t really start dating you need to know where you want
47:25
to end up or you get sucked in to other person and then after a period of time you resent them because they detect what
47:32
I do they control me not actually sorry you didn’t have anything so that’s why you got stuck
47:38
the only thing that I want to say here then linking everything together
47:43
you can trust your gut your gut has a brain we can have another conversation
47:48
around that by now I think many people read about it connections yeah exactly
47:54
so you will know but when to trust your God is you have a polished God you
48:00
cannot have a traumatized bruised or scarred God and then say well my God
48:05
says this person is wrong or this person is right because then you’re actually misled by your own thing you know by
48:12
your own needs agree to heal rather than really have a create a sophisticated
48:20
human relationship with another person and there was a well I’ll just squeeze one more question in here because it’s a
48:27
very it’s a very intriguing one your thoughts about online dating apps versus meeting people in person
48:34
um the landscape is wildly changed from I I always I would say it’s why would change since I first met my wife in the
48:40
in the 1990s um and it’s uh you know it’s a different landscape in general what are your
48:47
thoughts about online dating versus the kind of the old-fashioned way if you will
48:53
I like online dating because it gives you an opportunity a pool of people so
48:59
we don’t really stay only with proximity and at the mercy of other people to set us up or you know what not and some
49:05
people are shy so you know it’s not like you know everybody is extrovert and how high you know I’m open to meet people
49:12
however my only advice here just based on pure experience with you know couples
49:18
and dating uh make it in person as soon as possible
49:23
interesting so use that as a mechanism or as a tool very deliberate way to meet
49:29
people but don’t rely on as a crutch to kind of become the relationship in and
49:35
of itself yeah love that that that is a great that’s a great piece of advice
49:42
um all right we have in minutes remaining at the time has been flying by but I couldn’t let the 10 minutes go by
Truth or Fiction “SpeedRound”
49:49
without playing one of my favorite games Truth or Fiction what I’m gonna do is
49:55
Sarah I’m gonna read off a statement you’re gonna have the minuscule amount
50:00
of about 30 seconds to be able to say Truth or Fiction in a quick elaboration
50:06
of why you think it’s a truth or you think it’s a fiction you ready yep all right first one
50:14
successful relationships demand that their sexual chemistry between partners
50:20
truth or fiction fiction based on Research tell me real quick it’s not enough it’s
50:27
not enough it’s it’s good to have it but it’s not enough not enough all right that was a good
50:33
start and that was quick I’m gonna flip it over to one which has been talked
50:38
about a lot in the Press lately Americans are having less sex now than
50:44
ever before Truth or Fiction yes my friend actually did the research on that
50:50
so yes is it is it something to be worried about no no I think you know we over
50:56
emphasized sexual activity by quantity and quality for the longest time I think the pendul
51:02
is going here and hopefully um if you actually go through the research you will see that there’s
51:08
nothing to worry about and I hope it’s normalizing for people who think everybody is getting it but me
51:14
that’s that’s good I think there are people who say that uh I’ve heard it quite a few times
51:21
um third one women want relationship sex men they
51:26
want casual dress absolutely fiction fiction really
51:31
or tell them all right elaborate a little bit more
51:36
they want those ones both yes but you know we can elaborate on that in a sense
51:41
that by Anatomy women could be considered as hosts and Men could be
51:47
considered as guests just as pure Anatomy right if it’s a hit or by the way we are talking all heteronormative
51:53
here like you know like a you know like a heterosexual and kind of these sort of relationships
52:00
um on that note women want to be um want to be respected women want to be
52:09
appreciated for the host that they are and women want to be not just thank you
52:14
ma’am and as we said like 30 years ago you know so we really they really would
52:20
like to have that emotional connection maybe more than men but it doesn’t make
52:25
that statement true because there are a lot of men who are really suffering
52:31
because of that you know fiction points that you just shared that you know
52:36
um this old saying that oh men are pig they’re thinking about sex all the time the brain of the woman is shoes and bags
52:44
and everything and sex is this much and the brain of a man is all sex and this piece is about you know whatever that
52:51
that’s not true that’s not true well then let’s see where we go with this next one on average men think about sex
52:58
every 7 seconds truth or fiction it really she passes what is the source
53:05
here because this came out long time ago true you know like look through the
53:11
research and I honestly don’t think there’s an Evidence behind it so I don’t have a comment is this an urban myth or
53:18
it could be an urban myth yes yeah I’ve heard it perpetuated so often that I’ve accepted it as a fact but um I like the
53:26
fact that you haven’t seen anything in your research that would suggest that that is a fact not my research or any
53:32
research that is actually solid based on fmri based on like a continuous
53:37
monitoring of the brain yeah no all right all right well that
53:43
we’ll put that one to rest um one that’s a little bit different arranged marriages are less successful
53:51
than self-chosen or directed marriages depending on how you define success if
53:58
you are going by statistics of divorce arranged marriages have less number of divorces but if you go to subjective
54:06
reporting of the satisfaction the subjective reporting in majority of
54:11
arranged marriages is also higher than the you know so so-called self
54:17
arranged or you know love love arranged but in general
54:23
um it’s in the middle I can’t really comment right now statistically I can say that the orange managers have better
54:29
success but depending on how you define success but that may also be a product of people avoiding divorce because of
54:36
other social factors and stigmas perhaps around it yeah not a clear-cut and dry Truth or Fiction
54:43
no and also they are constitutionally and socially bound and social media actually does that for the couples now
54:50
because you know they post these videos and images that they’re on date nights
54:55
and you know what not and when I facilitate uncoupling for people we have to go through their social media and
55:01
actually erase all of those and you know create a story that it’s it’s a whole thing so the community that kept the
55:07
couple together now is the social media wow all right well that’s that is a tough one although I guess the delete
55:13
button is pretty accessible all right next one I’ve got this is one I’ve heard quite a bit chocolate and oysters are
55:20
natural aphrodisiacs well
55:27
again in the middle yes I I can say aphrodisiac because you know they they have
55:32
oyster has zinc and so there are ingredients in each that could uh
55:39
produce energy and a sense of positivism and
55:45
um you know and and if they break down in the body they could produce that kind of you know sense of desire and passion
55:51
and but it’s not like you know if you have a mountain of oh it’s there then you’re really horny or okay no so I
55:59
shouldn’t try to apply uh oysters on on my wife in anytime soon to to trick her
56:04
into you can give it a try if she’s not allergic while it can’t hurt all right
56:09
last couple I’ve got for you um this idea of having a child will
56:15
strengthen your relationship or marriage is that a truth or a fiction both
56:20
both all right tell me more again depending on the foundation of your marriage if you
56:28
are very much babes in the wood and you are just very much into each other
56:33
um you know like you are under the perception that you found your person then any third person is going to be
56:41
very annoying and is going to you know make you fall apart or you know the demand of the
56:48
um current Parenthood is also a lot um that you know we have to be
56:53
everything to each other and everything to our kids um so that piece of it is a lot of
57:00
people choose not to have kids because they’re so scared on the other side of it are expectations around having kids
57:06
in certain families and sometimes when you have kids um you see different aspects of your
57:14
uh mate of your person that um it’s actually very endearing and it
57:20
deepens your love for them different types of Love enter the family so I
57:25
would say both all right it’s a not as cut and dry I have one more for you
57:31
um one that I’ve heard from from multiple people before when when the sex
57:37
is bad or non-existent that means your relationship is in deep trouble
57:42
is that a truth or is that a fiction I’m afraid most of the times it’s true
57:48
because we also have research around it in the US we have a representative research to show that when people when
57:54
sex is working is one of those depending on the meaning people attach to it right when it’s working so to speak let’s put
58:02
it in the you know kind of haircut um nobody even pays attention they’re not gonna sit you know and say that our
58:08
sex is so good and the relationship you know maybe at the beginning but when it’s not when the connection is not
58:14
there more than 70 percent of people say is due to sex relationship is not doing well but when
58:21
it’s doing well yeah if you ask couples like um how much of the success of the relationship you put down to your sex
58:28
life they say like around maybe between 13 to 17 so it’s not you know on top of
58:34
mind it’s only one of the pillars I gotta tell you Sarah where you did a
58:40
great job with the the speed round um I could talk to you for another four hours there’s so much more that I want
58:46
to talk to you about I think we’re gonna have to have another deliberate Way episode with you sometime soon maybe
58:52
when your book comes out so just a reminder your book will be coming out at the beginning of this upcoming year is
59:00
that right or hopefully yes if if everything goes well with the world another pandemic doesn’t hit everything
59:06
everything yes that’s right yeah that’s something to look forward to in 2024 not
59:12
another Heat Wave not another pandemic um Sarah it has been an absolute
59:17
pleasure to build time with you and to cover so many topics we could only go a
59:22
few inches deep but uh for people who are listening for other viewers of our
59:27
content you can always reach out to Sarah Sarah you have a really awesome newsletter I’m signed up for the
59:33
newsletter now you’ve got a very big following on Instagram you can always style you’re also on LinkedIn as well
59:39
lots of great stuff coming from you Sarah so I encourage people follow Sarah
59:45
listen to great advice not just about love and intimacy but relationships
59:51
Common Sense stuff that I think would make a big difference so Sarah thanks again for being on and thank you very
59:58
much thank you tune in for the next episode where we’re going to go deeper into a couple of other areas not
1:00:05
sexology unfortunately but some other really intriguing areas um we look forward to seeing you guys
1:00:11
have a great continuation of your summer and thanks again Sarah we’ll see everyone soon