Tag Archives: relationships

TBT! Interview with The Dating Doctor

Aah my lovelorn friends! The Phil Factor has help for you. With the day of romance nearly upon us, I thought that many of you could use some help from The Dating Doctor. Here’s is my epic interview from 2015.

(02/13/15) David Coleman is The Dating Doctor. Is he a doctor who is dating? Is he dating a doctor? I don’t know and it’s none of our business. What I do know is that David has spoken on relationships and leadership to audiences all over the world.  For those of you unprepared for the holiday coming up we’ll focus on the dating part.  Don’t worry my literary friends; David’s expertise won’t be limited to just the questions I ask here.  He’s got books. Books you need to read before you do further damage to your love life.

news.uwlax.edu

news.uwlax.edu

TPF: David, thank you for taking the time to visit The Phil Factor. As you may have suspected, people read my blog. Often they’re people who spend more time relating to others online than in person. What advice about relationships do you have for people in our increasingly social media focused world?

David: To “hover” a few seconds before you hit the send button on a text, post, tweet or mail message.  Once you hit send, you have put your words, video or pictures in motion and that action cannot be reversed, and never erased, so you need to be comfortable with all the possible ramifications of the way your words or pictures are received.  Also remember, if you publicly play out your relationship on line, every day, its success or failure will be just as public as well.   

TPF: What is the biggest mistake people make early in a relationship that could doom their chances for success?

David:  They mistake infatuation for love and fall far too fast, far too soon.  Infatuation is INTENSE. It is short-lived, demanding and can turn normally rational people into “life is too short…let’s do it” optimists.  They say and do things normally reserved for couples who are a bit farther down the line in a relationship and then wonder why they, nor their partner can keep up the level of intensity they felt when they first met. 

There are three primary types of loves people experience:  Eros (Physical), Agape (Heartfelt) and Philia (Friendship).  When a couple allows infatuation to rule their actions, they often skip the development of these stages and then get very disappointed in the end when things “just didn’t work out.”

Date-Smart-430x594

TPF: What’s the most impactful way someone can grab the attention of someone they are interested in but don’t know in a crowded/busy social setting?

David:  Eye contact…smile…say hello.  The look you share, the words you use, the way you express yourself and the interest you show will separate you from those who didn’t have the guts to at least say hello.  Holding a gaze just for one extra moment and accompanying it with a coy smile lets that person know that among people in a crowded setting, you noticed THEM.  Then, before leaving, you need to walk up to them and say, “I just wanted you to know that I noticed you.  This is my card (or my name or my email address or my number…).  If you ever want to even have coffee, say hello and meet, it would be my honor.”  Then graciously walk away.  Take the high road. The view is always better from there!

TPF: Craziest question you’ve ever been asked? And what was your answer?

David:  A woman came up to me after a show and said, “I’ll bet you have never heard this one…My husband is having an affair…with my mother!”  This lady and her husband had a weekly sporting event they took part in, but they were on different teams.  She found out that he would skip his games and return home to be with her mother who was supposedly watching their children while they were out competing.  My advice to her was, to return home early from her game the following week and walk back into the house with several close friends as witnesses along with her so that it would not be her word against theirs and so that they would be caught red-handed in the act.  I also suggested that she get a top-notch therapist and good legal advice if she indeed intended to head in the direction of ending her marriage.  I heard from her a year later.  She was doing well, had met someone new and felt as if she was at a healthy point in her life.  Her husband had been distant and abusive for years so this unfortunate situation gave her the courage and strength to move on.  Her and her mother, “we’re still working things out.”

Making-Relationships-Matter-Book-1

TPF: Your traditional education, Bachelor’s and Master’s aren’t in Psychology or counseling. How did you come to a career in writing books and speaking on dating and relationships?

David: As an undergraduate and graduate student both of my degrees had a high degree of social work, psychology and communications in their curriculum so I received a heavy dose of human nature and communication training.  From a young age, I had the innate ability to read people, know where they were in their life and give them the advice that the needed to hear, not necessarily what they wanted to hear.  I didn’t care if people liked me, only if they learned from me and my service or advice exceeded their needs and expectations.   I also seemed to have the ability to introduce people to each other whom I felt “might hit it off.”  My outgoing personality served as a bit of an ice-breaker and allowed others to meet with me as a conduit.  Then, they could return and ask me questions and my advice seemed to really help them. Thus, a career was born.

TPF: Our mutual friend, magician James David, referred to you as “A real life Dating Doctor like Will Smith played in the movie, “HITCH!”” Would you say that’s accurate?

David: First, James is an amazing talent and magician.  I am proud to call him my friend and yes, he is accurate. What Will Smith’s character portrayed in the movie Hitch is what I do every single day professionally. Like he helped Kevin James’s character connect to the love of his life, I help 10 or more just like him in real life on a weekly basis.  I basically try to help people get out of their way as many are self-sabotaging their chances of being happy and meeting someone with whom they would be ideally compatible.  I have dozens of success stories under my belt over the past 20 years and enjoy working with people who are seeking healthy relationships and unbridled happiness.  Talk is cheap.  I am not.  I have found that people who pay a price work twice as hard as those who “want something for free.”

Let-Your-Leadership-Speak-Book-1

TPF: In your experience, are men more clueless about what women want in a relationship, or is it the other way around?

David:  They are both mystified at times because the game keeps changing.  The speed of the internet and social media, the explosion of dating apps on our smart phones, the increase in the number of people using dating sites and the lack of real human interaction due to texting and tweeting, etc.  has made both sexes wonder just how dialed in they are to the opposite sex.  You also have an increase in the number of people identifying themselves as bi-sexual, a-sexual, pansexual, transgender…and this keeps both men and women wondering, learning, experimenting and searching for people like me to help them navigate the often treacherous waters of dating, relationships, romance, sex, marriage, divorce and dating after divorce.   This is why I try to stay dialed in to the current trends and am not afraid to have candid dialogue with my clients and audiences.  You never get a wasted day back, so spending time heading in the wrong direction or paralyzed by fear is simply unacceptable.

TPF: David, thank you again for taking time out of what must certainly be a very busy week for you. For those that want to learn more about David, including his book on leadership as well as his books on relationships you can visit his website,   www.DatingDoctor.com and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.  Seriously, check out his website. He has some pretty impressive accolades. If you’d like some of David’s coaching you can call or e-mail him too!  Direct Coaching:  1-866-Date-Smart (1-866-328-3762) or email: TheDatingDoctor@mac.com

As always, if you want to share the love you get from #ThePhilFactor please hit the Facebook, Twitter, or re-blog buttons below. Is there any better gift for your Valentine than The Phil Factor? Umm…nevermind. Don’t answer that.

Happy Singles Awareness Day !

SAD

Yes! Tomorrow is finally Singles Awareness Day! Yup, it’s a real thing. I found it on Wikipedia, so it must be true. Have you bought yourself or someone else a Happy Singles Awareness Day card yet? Every other blog on the interwebs will bring you a post about love or Valentine’s Day this weekend. That’s why you come to #ThePhilFactor. I take a left turn when everyone else is going right. (usually when people tell you how awesome they are like I just did, it’s never true, but in this case that shoe fits like a glove)

Love doesn’t need it’s own holiday! Love is celebrated at anniversary’s, birthdays, and just about any holiday where partners give gifts. When I’m elected President, or Sexiest Man Alive, whichever comes first, I will pass a law mandating that Valentine’s Day AND Singles Awareness Day be celebrated equally. I will also mandate that unless February 14 falls on a Friday or Saturday, everyone has the next day off of work.

Somebody's etsy store

Somebody’s etsy store

Think about it! Relationships are constantly celebrated! There’s big parties about 50 year anniversaries. There’s local news features about the geriatric couple in the nursing home that have been married 75 years. Why not a little pop culture celebration of the singles life? On Singles Awareness Day guys can go out an do singles guy things like hang out with their bros and watch a game or go hunting. The singles ladies can take the day to get mani-pedi’s, go shopping,and  have margaritas with their other single friends in a bar where the guys go to celebrate after their day of single awesomeness.

Or you could pop over to Finland where Valentine’s Day is called Ystävänpäivä, which translates into “Friend’s day”. It’s more about celebrating your buddies than your loved ones. Of course Finland also has an astronomically high suicide rate, but I’m sure those two facts are totally unrelated.

Relationships and married life are great and have their advantages, but so does the single life. All of you married people out there, don’t you sometimes wish that you could do things on your own schedule? Don’t you sometimes wish you could choose what’s for dinner every night? Guys, would you rather see Deadpool this weekend, or The Choice? Sometimes if you’re married you don’t always have a choice. All the guys, and a few of the ladies reading this) said to themselves “Hell yeah I wanna see Deadpool!” At the same time, all the guys in long term relationships said, “I don’t know what The Choice is, but my wife/partner said we’re going to see it tonight.” (I’m going to see Deadpool today. Anybody want me to write a review tomorrow?)

416c45a21cfb53b00ba736cd8a659375

Being single is all about choices. Choices YOU get to make. Don’t bemoan the lack of another in your life this weekend, celebrate it. You choose when you get up, what you eat and where you go. And you can even try to choose who you go home with at the end of Singles Awareness Day!

Like I said, Singles Awareness Day is all about choices, so if you want, you can choose to show your love for #ThePhilFactor by sharing this by hitting the Facebook, Twitter, or re-blog button below. Have a great weekend! ~Phil

The New Facebook Emojis: Dislike!

Picture courtesy of Facebook Inc. and techcrunch.com

Picture courtesy of Facebook Inc. and techcrunch.com

If you live in Spain or Ireland you’ll soon have the privilege of telling someone that their Facebook post makes you angry or sad or if you love it or laughed at it. Perfect! Just what we need; more ways to express our imaginary feelings with fewer words to our imaginary friends! Instead of actually using words you can now show your friends your feelings with “emojis” that accurately portray the whole range of complex human emotions. Apparently Yay and Wow are very important emotions and obviously too long as words for people to type.

First of all, why do Ireland and Spain get to be the test markets? I have nothing against those two wonderful countries, but why are they the test markets? Hey Zuckerberg, how about you use that big brain of yours to figure out a way for each country to have their own emojis appropriate for their own culture. That doesn’t sound too hard does it?

Secondly, there’s a whole range of other emojis that I’d love to see on FB. How about a WTF? emoji? I can imagine that one would get a lot of use. Or maybe the I had no idea you were a radical political nutjob emoji. That one would come in handy a lot. Or maybe the STOP SENDING ME GAME INVITES OR I’M UNFRIENDING YOU!!!  emojiHow about the Holy crap! Enough pictures of your dog/cat, don’t you have anything else in your life? emoji.

What I’d really like to see though is a feature where you can take selfies of you showing different feelings and then you can dial those up and put a little emoji of your own face with the appropriate emotion. That would seem far more personal than the plain smiley faces.

Picture credit: randomoverload.org

Picture credit: randomoverload.org

What really gets my goat (where’s the getting your goat emoji?) is that because Zuckerberg is a high I.Q., high end of the spectrum Asperger’s guy he’s created a website that forces the rest of the world to interact emotionally in the same limited way as him. Most people have heard the term Asperger’s. It is a disorder with a very wide range from autistic people with no ability to communicate at even the most basic level to high functioning, very intelligent people who have difficulty interpreting the emotional cues of others such as tone of voice, posture and facial expression.

To be honest, I have no idea if Zuckerberg is Asperger’s in any way, but he did develop Facebook so he could talk to girls in college. Now he’s trying to boil all our emotions down into five simple smiley faces. But for someone with Asperger’s, that might be perfect because that’s how they interpret emotions, broadly without a lot of nuance.

When I started writing this today I had no intent of getting preachy or educating anyone on Asperger’s syndrome. My intent was to point out that social media of all types may connect us with more people, which is great, but if we lean on social media as a relationship surrogate we are crippling ourselves emotionally as a society. I can imagine a future in which people have lost the ability to have genuine emotions because of a lack of real, face to face interaction and we’ll just marry the people who gave us the most “likes” or heart emojis.

So who wants to hit the WTF? emoji now? And what Facebook emojis would you like to see?

If you enjoy #ThePhilFactor please share it on Facebook or Twitter (ironic, right?) by hitting the share buttons below. Have a great Saturday and get out there and emoji the hell out of someone you love! ~Phil

How You Say Good-bye May Say a Lot About You

Don’t wanna be a fool for you
Just another player in your game for two
You may hate me but it ain’t no lie,
Baby Bye, bye, bye…
Bye Bye   ~N’SYNC, Bye, Bye, Bye

Some people are good at good byes and others…not so much. Adios, auf widersehen, good-bye, sayonara, bye, cheerio, buh bye, ciao, and bye bye are all ways to break company with someone. I was going to open this post with song lyrics about good byes from Train, but I couldn’t resist. It’s as if N’SYNC wrote that song just for me. Actually, they did. I was an original member of the group before I left to start The Phil Factor. Me and JT, we’re still cool though.

ryanlamb.blogspot.com

ryanlamb.blogspot.com

Parting is not always such sweet sorrow. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad and other times it’s just plain ridiculous. Everyone says their good byes differently, and how you do may say a lot about either you or how you feel about who you’re saying good bye to.

Bye: Short and to the point. Typically used when you either expect to see the other person again soon or you hate them and don’t want to waste your breath using more than one syllable on the other person. Being on the receiving end of such a curt send off is usually not good.

images (26)

Who doesn’t love James Van der Beek? am I right?

Bye Bye: A childish and demeaning way to part. Whether you’re saying it or you’re on the receiving end, it’s not good, unless you’re four years old. If you’re an adult and you ‘bye bye’ to anyone but your kids, you sound ridiculous. Trust me, it’s especially bad at the end of a job interview. Or eulogy.

Buh-bye: This one can only be delivered two ways: If you have a billion dollars and you’re watching guests leave a party at your palatial estate or if you are saying it dripping with sarcasm to someone you hate. This is how Kim Kardashian ends every marriage.

nickfanon.wikia.com

nickfanon.wikia.com

Usually I hate gifs, but c’mon, bears waving good-bye. How cute is that?

GoodbyeIt’s all in the delivery. If you’re leaving for a long trip and it comes with a hug and a smile it’s all good. If it’s said to you by a super-villain or a guy in a hockey mask, then, as the kids say, shit just got real.

And now it’s time for me to say good bye at the end of the post. Is there a good way to do it in writing? If you’d like to use this post to give someone a message, feel free to share it by hitting the Facebook or Twitter share buttons below. From the palatial blogging estate that is #ThePhilFactor, buh-bye and have a great weekend! ~Phil

A Special Valentine’s Day Interview with The Dating Doctor!

David Coleman is The Dating Doctor. Is he a doctor who is dating? Is he dating a doctor? I don’t know and it’s none of our business. What I do know is that David has spoken on relationships and leadership to audiences all over the world.  For those of you unprepared for the holiday coming up tomorrow we’ll focus on the dating part.  Don’t worry my literary friends; David’s expertise won’t be limited to just the questions I ask here.  He’s got books. Books you need to read before you do further damage to your love life.

news.uwlax.edu

news.uwlax.edu

TPF: David, thank you for taking the time to visit The Phil Factor. As you may have suspected, people read my blog. Often they’re people who spend more time relating to others online than in person. What advice about relationships do you have for people in our increasingly social media focused world?

David: To “hover” a few seconds before you hit the send button on a text, post, tweet or mail message.  Once you hit send, you have put your words, video or pictures in motion and that action cannot be reversed, and never erased, so you need to be comfortable with all the possible ramifications of the way your words or pictures are received.  Also remember, if you publicly play out your relationship on line, every day, its success or failure will be just as public as well.   

TPF: What is the biggest mistake people make early in a relationship that could doom their chances for success?

David:  They mistake infatuation for love and fall far too fast, far too soon.  Infatuation is INTENSE. It is short-lived, demanding and can turn normally rational people into “life is too short…let’s do it” optimists.  They say and do things normally reserved for couples who are a bit farther down the line in a relationship and then wonder why they, nor their partner can keep up the level of intensity they felt when they first met. 

There are three primary types of loves people experience:  Eros (Physical), Agape (Heartfelt) and Philia (Friendship).  When a couple allows infatuation to rule their actions, they often skip the development of these stages and then get very disappointed in the end when things “just didn’t work out.”

Date-Smart-430x594

TPF: What’s the most impactful way someone can grab the attention of someone they are interested in but don’t know in a crowded/busy social setting?

David:  Eye contact…smile…say hello.  The look you share, the words you use, the way you express yourself and the interest you show will separate you from those who didn’t have the guts to at least say hello.  Holding a gaze just for one extra moment and accompanying it with a coy smile lets that person know that among people in a crowded setting, you noticed THEM.  Then, before leaving, you need to walk up to them and say, “I just wanted you to know that I noticed you.  This is my card (or my name or my email address or my number…).  If you ever want to even have coffee, say hello and meet, it would be my honor.”  Then graciously walk away.  Take the high road. The view is always better from there!

TPF: Craziest question you’ve ever been asked? And what was your answer?

David:  A woman came up to me after a show and said, “I’ll bet you have never heard this one…My husband is having an affair…with my mother!”  This lady and her husband had a weekly sporting event they took part in, but they were on different teams.  She found out that he would skip his games and return home to be with her mother who was supposedly watching their children while they were out competing.  My advice to her was, to return home early from her game the following week and walk back into the house with several close friends as witnesses along with her so that it would not be her word against theirs and so that they would be caught red-handed in the act.  I also suggested that she get a top-notch therapist and good legal advice if she indeed intended to head in the direction of ending her marriage.  I heard from her a year later.  She was doing well, had met someone new and felt as if she was at a healthy point in her life.  Her husband had been distant and abusive for years so this unfortunate situation gave her the courage and strength to move on.  Her and her mother, “we’re still working things out.”

Making-Relationships-Matter-Book-1

TPF: Your traditional education, Bachelor’s and Master’s aren’t in Psychology or counseling. How did you come to a career in writing books and speaking on dating and relationships?

David: As an undergraduate and graduate student both of my degrees had a high degree of social work, psychology and communications in their curriculum so I received a heavy dose of human nature and communication training.  From a young age, I had the innate ability to read people, know where they were in their life and give them the advice that the needed to hear, not necessarily what they wanted to hear.  I didn’t care if people liked me, only if they learned from me and my service or advice exceeded their needs and expectations.   I also seemed to have the ability to introduce people to each other whom I felt “might hit it off.”  My outgoing personality served as a bit of an ice-breaker and allowed others to meet with me as a conduit.  Then, they could return and ask me questions and my advice seemed to really help them. Thus, a career was born.

TPF: Our mutual friend, magician James David, referred to you as “A real life Dating Doctor like Will Smith played in the movie, “HITCH!”” Would you say that’s accurate?

David: First, James is an amazing talent and magician.  I am proud to call him my friend and yes, he is accurate. What Will Smith’s character portrayed in the movie Hitch is what I do every single day professionally. Like he helped Kevin James’s character connect to the love of his life, I help 10 or more just like him in real life on a weekly basis.  I basically try to help people get out of their way as many are self-sabotaging their chances of being happy and meeting someone with whom they would be ideally compatible.  I have dozens of success stories under my belt over the past 20 years and enjoy working with people who are seeking healthy relationships and unbridled happiness.  Talk is cheap.  I am not.  I have found that people who pay a price work twice as hard as those who “want something for free.”

Let-Your-Leadership-Speak-Book-1

TPF: In your experience, are men more clueless about what women want in a relationship, or is it the other way around?

David:  They are both mystified at times because the game keeps changing.  The speed of the internet and social media, the explosion of dating apps on our smart phones, the increase in the number of people using dating sites and the lack of real human interaction due to texting and tweeting, etc.  has made both sexes wonder just how dialed in they are to the opposite sex.  You also have an increase in the number of people identifying themselves as bi-sexual, a-sexual, pansexual, transgender…and this keeps both men and women wondering, learning, experimenting and searching for people like me to help them navigate the often treacherous waters of dating, relationships, romance, sex, marriage, divorce and dating after divorce.   This is why I try to stay dialed in to the current trends and am not afraid to have candid dialogue with my clients and audiences.  You never get a wasted day back, so spending time heading in the wrong direction or paralyzed by fear is simply unacceptable.

TPF: David, thank you again for taking time out of what must certainly be a very busy week for you. For those that want to learn more about David, including his book on leadership as well as his books on relationships you can visit his website,   www.DatingDoctor.com and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.  Seriously, check out his website. He has some pretty impressive accolades. If you’d like some of David’s coaching you can call or e-mail him too!  Direct Coaching:  1-866-Date-Smart (1-866-328-3762) or email: TheDatingDoctor@mac.com

As always, if you want to share the love you get from #ThePhilFactor please hit the Facebook, Twitter, or re-blog buttons below. Is there any better gift for your Valentine than The Phil Factor? Umm…nevermind. Don’t answer that.

Throwback Thursdays! Tuesdays with Tanski

For those of you who think I only make fun of stuff, this is a repost of one of my favorites from last year.

(05/05/2013) Mitch, Mitch, Mitch…what were you thinking? How could it not occur to you to try Mondays with Morrie? People love alliteration. Has my blog title The Phil Factor not taught you anything?

In high school I was on the indoor track team. I know, sexy right? I was good, but not great. I was a skinny, shy teenage boy lacking confidence in my abilities. I didn’t think or believe that I could be great and that thinking limited me. I ran as fast as was comfortable most of the time. Comfortable gets you good, not great. I may not have believed in myself, but one person did.

Chris Tanski was a slightly pudgy, bespectacled Polish man with a knee brace. He didn’t look like he had a single athletic gene in his entire body, but he was our indoor track coach and he worked us harder in practice than anything else I’ve ever done. The best thing about him was that he could see through me, or perhaps that he took the time to see through me. He could see that I had more in me,  even when I couldn’t see it myself.

One of his favorite tactics, when he knew that I wasn’t really pushing myself, was to call me out in front of the whole team in practice. “If Taylor doesn’t do this next lap in sixty seconds, everyone has to do five more.”  I hated him for that. Running, on the verge of tears, and cursing him in my head; there was never a single time that I didn’t get that last lap in the time he wanted me to. He knew. He knew about me what I didn’t know yet.

One of Coach Tanski’s biggest pet peeves with me was how I ran my races. I looked back. As I rounded a turn I’d look back to see if someone was gaining on me. How’s that for a life metaphor huh? As we boarded the bus for the sectional championships he came down the aisle of the bus stopping to offer words of strategy or encouragement to some of us. When he got to my seat he stopped and looked me in the eyes and put his hands on my shoulders. As he spoke both of our eyes welled up.

I’d love to be able to tell you the inspirational words he gave to me that day, but honestly, I don’t remember. What I do remember was the effect his words had on me. That night I ran hard, I ran forward and I never looked back. When my leg of the relay was completed I collapsed on the side of the track, exhausted; every ounce of energy drained from my body.

About thirteen years after that night, in a city 90 miles from where I had run that race, I was sitting in my office in a school for children with emotional and behavioral issues when my phone rang. “Phil, this is Chris Tanski. How have you been?” He was a principal at a nearby high school and had recently referred a student to me. At the end of the conversation he said, “We should go out for a beer and catch up.” I agreed that we should, but never made plans. A couple more times over the year we had similar conversations that ended with the offer to get together over a pint and reminisce. Some time that summer I got the news. Coach Tanski has passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. In the most unfortunate way, I had just learned another life lesson from Coach Tanski and this time there were no more chances to say thank you.

Coach Tanski, if you’re somewhere that gets wi-fi, this blog and the beer pictured below are my way of having that beer with you and saying thanks.

IMG_20130503_211744_957

As always, if you enjoy #ThePhilFactor please feel free to share by the Facebook, Twitter or reblog button below. See you on Saturday for a brand spankin’ new Phil Factor fresh out of the box. ~Phil