[00:00:00]

Paul Zolman: And I was repelling people with this anger. I was repelling my children. I was repelling my family. I was repelling people in public, friends. They were just waiting for the next flash, and they were just being very cautious about that. I wasn't endearing people, having them come toward me.

[00:00:18]

Stephen Licciardello: And we are super, super excited. We have Paul Zalman from St. George, Utah. So welcome to our show, Paul. Welcome.

[00:00:26]

Paul Zolman: Thank you, Stephen and Sharlene. I'm so excited to be here.

[00:00:29]

Stephen Licciardello: Now, Paul, you are the author of the role of love, the application of love in our everyday life. But before we go in there, why don't you tell us a bit about your background and how you revote your story?

[00:00:41]

Paul Zolman: That's a great question, Stephen. Thank you for that. I I actually grew up in and angry family, and the what that angry culture looks like is that there's a lot of abuse, all kinds of abuse. There's verbal abuse. There's social. There's emotional. There's physical. There's sexual.

[00:00:58]

Paul Zolman: There's just all kinds of abuse within that angry type of culture. That angry cut type of culture also doesn't have any boundaries. They'll talk over to the of one another thinking what I have to say is a whole lot more important than what you have to say. Therefore, I'm gonna talk while you're talking. Nobody gets hurt. That's the agriculture. So that's kind of the background that I grew up in, and I thought all all along that, you know what, there's really gotta be a better way. I remember my 1st grade teacher, missus Rogers.

[00:01:29]

Paul Zolman: She was probably very close to retirement. At least it appeared that way. Maybe she was in her sixties or something like that, very old compared to a 6 year old, 10 times my age. And but she was just the kindest person ever, and I just absolutely loved going to school. That love of going to school actually helped me thrive in school, that I wanted to do whatever they asked me to do. And I also developed that attitude at home the I wanted to do whatever I was supposed to do so I would not get in trouble. So I would not get get seriously beaten or or or get spanked severely. At age 17, I made the declaration that any 17 or 8 year 18 year old makes about their parents.

[00:02:15]

Paul Zolman: I'm not gonna raise my children like that. And everybody makes those declarations. They said my life was gonna be different. I'm gonna have a more perfect life, and then we fall back in some of those traps that our parents had. And such was such was for me. I learned from my parents how to be annoyed, be annoyed, be annoyed, stack these annoyances and on top of another until I had a flash of anger. That was the pattern that my father had. And I I acquired that pattern as well.

[00:02:46]

Paul Zolman: And I was thinking just as as hard as I could. How do I break out of that? How do you rewrite that portion of your life so that you can have a different pattern that you pass on to your children? And so that's my story the I was able to figure out something, find something that worked a little bit better.

[00:03:06]

Stephen Licciardello: So Paul, obviously, there was an accumulation of events that that brought you to that, one place where you said I have to figure this out and find out how to do this better. Was there an actual trigger event that occurred are is it just the accumulation?

[00:03:21]

Paul Zolman: I think there are several trigger events that were kept moving me. It it's like just one little adjustment. If you make a big adjustment in life, it's almost so frightening that you'll wanna go back and fall back into what you're familiar with before. So slight adjustments are the very best kind of adjustments that you can make. And there were slight adjustments along the way. One slight adjustment that was pretty profound that I remember it distinctly was I was about 4 to 5 years old, and I realized that, oh, I've been blaming my father to learn for that stacking of annoyances, for the flash of the vagrant, for the disruptive social behavior that I had. It would happen in public, it would happen at private. I could determine which straw would be that would break that camel's back and cause that flash of anger because I will we're stacking, stacking, stacking.

[00:04:16]

Paul Zolman: After it had the the flash of are, I'd go back down and I are stacking again. It was just cyclically that way. So realization at age 35 the I'm responsible for my own behavior was really a profound realization. My father had had passed away 7 years earlier, and I was thinking, that's really sad that I feel like I can still blame him even though he's not around to defend himself. He's not around to talk this out. He's not even around to to be able to defend himself in that way. So I thought, you know, I I gotta start being responsible. And I I realized at that point that I don't wanna be angry.

[00:04:58]

Paul Zolman: And coming from a negative background the that that's really kind of a double negative statement, and double negatives only work in math, as far as I know. You multiply 2 negative numbers together the makes a positive number. It doesn't work in relationships, and I was finding that out. It wasn't working in relationships, and I was repelling people with this anger. I was repelling my children, my family, people in public, friends. They were just waiting for the next flash, and they were just being very cautious about that. I wasn't endearing people, having them come toward me, and helping having them look to me for an adviser or anything like that. I was repelling people.

[00:05:39]

Paul Zolman: I didn't wanna do that.

[00:05:41]

Sharlene Licciardello: Wow. So what what would you say, like, was maybe the catalyst for you to realize the, you know, I know what I need to do to change now?

[00:05:49]

Paul Zolman: I really didn't know what the catalyst was because of the knowledge base I had given to me from my parents. I didn't know what it would take to do it, but it was just and stumbling through things, and it really came to a head when after 23 and a half years of marriage for me, the marriage dissolved. And part of the reason I I own some culpability there that those angry flashes were part of the reason why the the marriage, came to demise. So here I am single. My wife and I had 8 children. There were 5 left in the home. I became the primary custodian of the 5 remaining children. Steven, I see you smiling there.

[00:06:31]

Paul Zolman: We only had 8. My grandfather had 19, and I'm number 10 of 11. So these generations, they're scaling down. My children only have 3, Stephen and Sharlene. I want more grandchildren. What is the problem here? How why can't I get more grandchildren? So as I've got these 5 children in my custody, on the weekends off, what would happen was the where where she had the my ex wife had the children in her custody, I would do what I call destination dating. I would pick a city or pick up a person that lived in a different city. We'd agree on a meeting place, a meeting city, and we'd have a destination date, and then we go back home.

[00:07:13]

Paul Zolman: And I did that for about a year and a half, and I've traveled all over the United States and into Mexico a little bit. Went to Daytona Beach, Florida and Jacksonville, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, Columbia, South Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, New York City, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Nashville, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Cabo San Lucas, and many more cities I went to having these destinations day. I was having this wonderful midlife crisis that everybody should have. I'll I highly recommend it. It was really a lot of fun, but it wasn't finding love. I was looking for love in all the wrong places. Well, after all this is over, about the and a half years after the divorce, my ex wife decides now she wants primary custody the last three children. And she her plan was to move in with her parents.

[00:08:05]

Paul Zolman: I, as number 10 of 11 children, never knew my grandfather's at all, And I barely knew my grandmothers. They lived of approximately 7 hours east and then 7 hours west for each one of the grandmothers. So are really didn't live close to the grandparents. I thought the is really very nice thing to get the last three children get to know their grandparents. So I released primary custody, relinquished primary custody to my ex wife for for those last three children that were at the home. Now I'm all alone. While I'm all alone, my older sister calls me up. She said, I have a neighbor that I want to introduce to.

[00:08:43]

Paul Zolman: I said, sis, you know what? I have been doing this destination dating for a year and a half, finding nothing. I don't wanna do it. And you you when you're number 10 of 11, you have to do what your older siblings say. In the day, I was the the human remote control. They if they wanted the the channel change, I had shorter legs. I was I could make it to the TV a lot faster. I had to go change the channel. Walk up to the TV, turn the knob to the channel that they wanted to to watch.

[00:09:14]

Paul Zolman: That was a human remote control. You have to do what older brothers and sisters say. And I only had that one older sister, all the rest are brothers and the younger sister. So I'm kind of the thorn between 2 roses. I said, I don't wanna do this. She says, oh, come on. I said, okay. I will email her.

[00:09:32]

Paul Zolman: What kind of relationship can you expect to develop while you're doing the email? I didn't expect anything, but she was a really good writer. And so after about 4 or 5 interchanges like that, I decided I would be brave, and I was gonna ask a deep deep question. How many times have you been married? And she writes back and says, counting the 5 that are buried in the are. And I howled with laughter. I thought, I've got a limewire are. Somebody that has personality. Somebody that has a real sense of humor. So I wanted to pursue this a little bit better Stephen like my sister said.

[00:10:11]

Paul Zolman: So we started to communicate a little bit more, and finally, I moved up to where my sister was at. That's in the Saint George are, and we became more serious. Now it's time for big brother approval. So this epiphany happened at that big brother approval. I take her in, and it's 300 miles north in Salt Lake City, actually. 300 miles north of where where I live. We go in. The first thing that happens is my sister-in-law and, the only emotion that the Zollman family learned growing up is anger.

[00:10:42]

Paul Zolman: At first I did not. I said, uh-uh. Then it made me mad. I thought, oh, I've been busted. I I just verified exactly what she said. And I thought, boy, if there's a time for a change in life, a time to rewrite your story, now it's the time. So I started reading the color code and I started reading the 5 love languages by doctor Are Chapman, and I really liked the principles of the 5 love languages, But from where I came from, I could not get it. You mean, if I guess what your love language is and then I cater to that, you're gonna call that love, and we're gonna be buddies? Yeah.

[00:11:19]

Paul Zolman: I could agree that we're gonna be buddies, but I'm a terrible guesser. Hasn't worked for me up until this time. Why do you think it'll work right now? So the second thing that doctor Chapman has in his book is, well, if I take this survey, I can find out what my love language is. Well, what the heck am I supposed to do with that, doctor Chapman? Advertise? I could get a little button that says, hello, I'm gifts. Put my little Venmo QR code on there. Gifts, what do you have for me today? Here's my Venmo. Send the money. I just, I just love money.

[00:11:49]

Paul Zolman: That's awkward. I didn't I was done with awkward. I'd already had the stacking effect and had these awkward moments, these flashes of anger. I didn't wanna do that anymore. But I thought back to my childhood and I remember Stephen as dysfunctional as our family was, that playing games brought our family together. Yeah. There was still all that smack back. There was still all the put downs.

[00:12:12]

Paul Zolman: There were still very aggressive competition, but our family was together. And it felt that good to have been together. I thought, what if I could make this a game? So I contacted doctor Chapman and asked doctor Chapman, are you licensing those little pictures, those little icons that you have for the love languages? After a couple weeks, his attorney wrote back, said, no. We're not doing that. So I talked to attorney in my neighborhood the was a friend. He's a copyright attorney, intellectual property attorney, and he said that theory, like the love language theory, is not copyrightable. Application is. So the they weren't doing it as a game, so I created it as a game and made my own icons, and I've created it into a cube.

[00:12:56]

Paul Zolman: So here I'm holding the cube for your listeners that aren't seeing what we're doing right here. This side of the cube, they all have pictures on it. No words at all. But this side of the cube has 2 hands together forming a are. Very familiar thing that people are doing nowadays, but this particular heart has a conversation fly out from it. That conversation fly out means the words of the heart. That would be the words for the love language of words. Those are the compliments.

[00:13:21]

Paul Zolman: Those are people saying, I love you. That's what the words are all about. The next one is a and holding that hourglass. This represents the love language of time. Just spending time with someone. My wife loves to watch Korean dramas, and they're really good, but they're and slow. They're mostly romantic. They don't even kiss until, like, episode number 9 or 10, and of a 12 episode thing.

[00:13:47]

Paul Zolman: And it's just really kind of slow moving, but it's so clean and so beautiful. It's really kind of a great romantic way to watch and spend time with my wife. We don't even talk. We just watch and read the captions. You can't talk while you're reading the captions, so we just watch it and we spend time together. The next one I'm holding is looks like a server in a restaurant holding a platter. This would represent service. These are people people that like service like their car washed.

[00:14:16]

Paul Zolman: They like the carpet vacuum. They like the trash taken out. They like help with the laundry. They like things like that. They like to be served in that way. What that does for them is light them up. They really like that, and it makes them have a better day. You'll notice that most of these are hands stretched out.

[00:14:34]

Paul Zolman: And the reason for them to be hands stretched out like this is is that it's giving it away. You're giving love away, and that's the whole idea of this game is to give it away. This icon that I'm showing right now is 2 hands, looks like they're holding hands, and this represents touch. And the last one is a hand holding a gift, represents gifts. Five love languages, 6 sides on the cube. The last one I've created is a hand holding a question mark. That's a question mark as surprise me. So I named the site surprised me.

[00:15:07]

Paul Zolman: Just two instructions, Stephen and Sharlene. Roll the q every day. Once a day, roll it first thing in the morning. Whatever it lands on, that's the love language you practice giving away all day that day. All day to everybody. I was single at the time I created this and I said, doctor Chapman, who in the heck am I supposed to love? You say you're supposed to have a significant the? Not everybody has a significant the, and I was one of those people that did not. So if single, what am I supposed to do? Oh, I just looked around and said, well, I just have to love everybody, I guess. Wow.

[00:15:41]

Paul Zolman: That's that's a little bit more heavy the having a significant other. I have to love everybody? Oh, it's perfect for me. I was looking for that replacement behavior of that stacking effect of being annoyed at what other people were doing. Oddly ever was annoyed at myself. Well, there was one time that I was so annoyed at myself that I didn't talk to myself for 3 days. This really changed my life, Stephen and Shelly, and this is what was the impetus for changing my life. No longer was I looking at what's wrong with somebody and looking at maybe the 10 to 20% of the faults or the mistakes of another. I was looking now at the 80 to 90% of that person and the good that they had in that person, trying to talk about that good, focusing on the.

[00:16:29]

Paul Zolman: And I became so busy doing that, I forgot to be annoyed. I forgot to get mad. I forgot to stack, stack, stack, and have those angry fits. It changed my life. Instead of looking at what's bad about a person, look what's good about a person. What can you love about that person? It was monumental.

[00:16:47]

Stephen Licciardello: So, Paul, what you're saying is rolling a dice changed the way you saw people, and therefore the anger was no longer compounding.

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Paul Zolman: That's pretty close to, Stephen. Rolling the die actually set the theme for the and. A theme of how am I gonna act today? How am I gonna love all day today? That's what really changed my life. So really following that theme of that random roll of the die of and it's all love is on every side of the and. It was a decision to love all day long, every day, and all people. What I'm watching for as I'm doing that is I'm watching for people the light up. When they light up, I've discovered their primary love language. You don't have to do that anymore.

[00:17:34]

Sharlene Licciardello: So, yeah, that's for what are probably some of the the hardest challenges having and the it's like, did you come across any challenges while you're doing this process?

[00:17:45]

Paul Zolman: Well, I think the the biggest challenge that's great question, Sharlene. The biggest challenge that I've that I've faced is is being able to read what people what they were and try to figure out what their love language was. But as soon as I realized that when they light up, that's the discovery. That's what it was. And so for that person, what I did was just make a mental note that's what they like. So wash, rinse, repeat for that person or just find out, well, maybe they might like something else too. It's gonna be different every single day. And it's no longer do are you putting people in a box, Sharlene? You're not putting people in a box anymore that the survey would put you in a box.

[00:18:26]

Paul Zolman: I'm gonna feed you tacos every day for the rest of your life just because I love you in that way. And I know you love tacos. I'm gonna give love to you in that way. Provide the variety. It's the spice of life. This helps you do that.

[00:18:39]

Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. And Paul, that's really interesting that you're saying that because I definitely, you know, I've read, we've both read the book, The Love Language is, and we both know what our love languages, our primary love languages are, but is there such thing as a primary love language or can a person receive love in all of those five ways?

[00:18:59]

Paul Zolman: Great question, Stephen. The I'm absolutely in agreement with doctor Chapp, assessment that everybody has a primary love language and maybe a secondary love language. This is the way they specifically like to be loved most of all. But a lot of people have that that smattering of, well, on Christmas, I want a gift. On my birthday, I want a gift. I don't care if I'm physical touch. I want a gift. And it's just they have those these seasons of of change that they just want other things.

[00:19:28]

Paul Zolman: And I think that as we practice that season of change for everyone, we'll have that understanding. We'll know what lights them up that particular day. So as I'm practicing this over a 30 day period, I become well versed in all five love languages. There aren't very many people out there that are versed in all love languages to be able to give it away or even to see it when it comes their way. What this tries to do is close that communication gap that's out there that says, well, Steven's physical touch and Sharlene is spending time together, and they're not connecting. It's like ships passing in the night. This changes that all it gives you that peripheral vision. You say, oh, they're loving on me.

[00:20:12]

Paul Zolman: It's not my primary love language, but I can see they're making an effort to love me. They're sending love in the way that they like to be loved or the way they like to send a love. I can respond to that now because I see it. I can see they're trying. I can respond to that. With only a primary love language, Steven, you have a hard time doing the. And what it does is that people with a primary love language, as doctor Chapman had assessed, like to give that away In expectation, that is coming right back to the. It doesn't happen very often, but to me that's a transaction.

[00:20:48]

Paul Zolman: Love is not reality show. This isn't let's make a deal. It's not like that. You send the love out without any expectation of it ever coming back, but trusting the laws of the universe that were established long before you and I were ever born. Some people call it the law of the harvest, or karma, or the law of attraction. It all says pretty much the same thing that whatever you send out will come back someday. What you're watching for when you're doing this, sending love out, which is in your control, and watching how you receive it, that's totally in your control. You can't bid love to come your way.

[00:21:28]

Paul Zolman: You can't do it. Even if you tell somebody, it's almost making them duty bound, I told you how to love me. How come you're not doing it? And you get to that whiny voice that is just doesn't work. This is different, that you're sending it out without any are to it coming back, trusting the laws of the universe, it will come back. But the greatest piece that happens is that when you light people up, you've made their day. There's great satisfaction in making people have a better day. There's no satisfaction, and satisfaction. In fact, great regrets of making people miserable and making them have a miserable day.

[00:22:05]

Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. This is so good.

[00:22:06]

Sharlene Licciardello: Absolutely. Paul, you and before that what you usually do when you're rolling the dice and what you're actually looking to see if people light up. What do you do when you're practicing a gift of love, but they don't light up?

[00:22:22]

Paul Zolman: You move on. You find somebody that lights up that day. You don't spend a lot of time it's a great question, Sharlene, but you don't spend a lot of time with people that don't respond to to love that you're sending out. You know that you're sending love out. You know that you're doing practices that should light people up in that genre for that particular day. And if they're not lighting up, maybe they'll light up tomorrow. Maybe it's it's like when I was raising 8 children, you know, we cook and meal. We don't cook.

[00:22:53]

Paul Zolman: We're not a short short order cook at a restaurant. And the the answer to, I don't like this. The answer to that was, well, maybe you'll like Nick's meal a little bit better. And and it just and of motivated them to, well, I'm gonna figure out how I'm gonna eat today, and they'll they'll figure out what it is that that they like. And and they do they wouldn't have to eat. We wouldn't force them to eat their meal if they didn't like it, But maybe they'll like the next meal better.

[00:23:19]

Stephen Licciardello: Paul, I've got so many questions for you. The first one and, in your working with the love language and having 8 children, obviously all 8 children, you raise them up the same or in the same environment. Does culture, does household, does that affect your love language and what you become? For instance, I'm going back to me, my love language is acts of service. And I really believe acts of service is because I grew up in a household where everything was and, everything was provided, but love wasn't very touchy feely or demonstrated. Sharlene's love language is quality time. And that comes back to her dad because her dad would spend so many hours and they would just converse, chat. He would read to her. He would spend a lot of time with her.

[00:24:13]

Stephen Licciardello: Am I right in assuming upbringing has to has something to do with how we interpret love?

[00:24:20]

Paul Zolman: That's a great question, and it does. It really does have a have a a way that you interpret love. For example, in my household growing up, the angry household, if you weren't being hit, you didn't feel like you're loved. So physical touch absolutely became the that it rose to the top when I took the survey. Put me in that physical touch box because I didn't know anything else. And I think that at as you develop your knowledge base of the different love languages, it's gonna shift on you a little bit the you'll like giving away. It may be very uncomfortable because you're out of your box. You're out of that service mode of sending it out or receiving it.

[00:24:59]

Paul Zolman: You're out of that mode when you're doing other the other love languages. And so I think that you can have that shift, but the cultural impact of what you were raised with really absolutely has a has an impact Stephen into your adult life. But I think that you could alter that a little bit, as I said, as you learn the different love languages, and learn how to give it away, and give it away appropriately and give it away in a genuine genuine sense that you really care about these people. If you're gonna spend time with someone, especially if you rolled time on a day, Steven, that you needed service, there's a lot of ways that you can send time out or set aside some time and be of service to someone else by doing that. If sending service out is what you like to do, that's one thing. I and for me, there's conflict there that I like to receive something different than what I like to give out, and it's just it's just made my life a little bit more complicated because now I have a more rounded feel for all the love languages. And I think you can mold that with any culture. Wherever you have come from, as you learn all 5 love languages to give it away and be able to see it when it comes your way, you're gonna have that that realization come to you that, you know, I really like just giving my wife a hug.

[00:26:20]

Paul Zolman: I really like that. I I just like just do that 8 second hug just to let her know that I'm here for you, that I wanna be with you. I want to spend that time and make it an 8 seconds hug because that for Sharlene is gonna be spending time with her. That is really what she might like just as well as anything else. But you wouldn't do that to an associate at a work or at a job. You might create a high five or a FSBA, or for that person at work, create a specific handshake that has 10 steps to it. Something that's just between you and that other person for physical touch. There's a lot of ways that you can appropriately send the other love languages out and just become well versed with it.

[00:27:04]

Paul Zolman: It's gonna just expand that communication for you and just may alter your culture just a little bit just because the knowledge base. And that's for me, that's education was key to that life changing rewriting my story. My father had an 8th grade education. My mother had a 12th grade high school education. I graduated from college. I was one of the first in my family. I had an older brother that graduated, and then after I did, then I had another brother, and the I had another sister, and all my children have graduated from college now. So having that education piece, having for the love languages, really could change your culture and alter that, alter it for generations.

[00:27:49]

Paul Zolman: I wanted that in my life. I needed that in my life. I didn't want to have angry children. I didn't wanna pass that on. I wanted to have a legacy of love, so I had to rewrite my story.

[00:28:00]

Stephen Licciardello: Paul, you you mentioned something and it's just got me thinking. As a child, you were spanked and hid, and that developed to your love language because you felt love in that moment. And now your love language being touched. How did you heal that? Because you received it in such a violent way. If we can say that, that now you're receiving it in a loving way that must, you must have had to bring some healing into that area.

[00:28:27]

Paul Zolman: And, and let me explain it this way. Have you ever had anybody say, well, I'm just being critical of you because I love you. I want you to improve. You ever heard heard somebody say that to you? No. Seriously? Stephen. And does it feel like love? No. No. It it it doesn't, and it doesn't come across that way either.

[00:28:48]

Paul Zolman: I was easily able to distinguish that type of physical touch is not appropriate. In fact, I was testing this this cube with a family of 5 children, and the youngest was 4 years old. And day are rolled physical touch, and he's jumping up and down and pumping his fist and said, yes. Physical touch. Physical touch. Immediately, he goes and beats up on his brothers. He thought it was permission for him to be able to beat up on his brothers. Like, he knew it was not the right thing to do before that time.

[00:29:19]

Paul Zolman: Now he had permission. Yes. Permission. And his mother trying to suppress all the laughter said, no, son. This would be appropriate physical touch. The high five, the fist bump, or you could even hug your brothers. That's appropriate physical touch. So what it became was a teaching moment for not only that 4 year old, but for all the siblings that were in the room listening to that outburst of, yes, physical touch.

[00:29:46]

Paul Zolman: So, yeah, it was easy to distinguish just the difference.

[00:29:50]

Sharlene Licciardello: I love that analogy. Yeah. Absolutely. So, what when you bring this to schools, like, what benefit would a school have for implementing the system?

[00:30:00]

Paul Zolman: So as I've taken it to schools, and we're testing it in schools right now, what they do is they take the 2 seconds or less to roll the cube at the beginning of the day. The teacher might take 30 to 45 seconds to explain what class this is what behavior we're watching for today. These are the type of things that you could do today within that behavior that would be appropriate. And so she's trying to set the stage for the day. At the end of the day, now the kids are getting surprised because the had now they have to write about it. So they're recording what they rolled, opportunities they saw to love in that way, what they did about those opportunities. It actually is a reporting system. Now the kids have to be responsible.

[00:30:44]

Paul Zolman: Now that 6 year old or 7 year old has to be responsible for their own actions. What a godsend. I had to wait had to wait and let it happen for myself at age 35. Now they can get it, you know, when and 6 at a time.

[00:30:58]

Sharlene Licciardello: Yeah. The

[00:30:58]

Paul Zolman: other thing that that does for that is that it becomes a journal. I would have loved to have a journal from my 1st grade, that loving first grade teacher, missus Rogers, that I remember so well would have loved to have a journal. Why did I love her so much? What was it about the day in her classroom that I love so much? 10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the road, I would have loved to have shared that with my own children. Now they've got a love journal. Those astute parents will will put those in chronological order, maybe bind it for the child at the end of that school year. Now you've got a 1st grade or a 3rd grade journal. You've got something tangible that taught that child how to express the love languages. And now what you've got is you're you're stacking kindness on top of kindness, on top of kindness, on top of kindness.

[00:31:49]

Paul Zolman: What that does for you with these love languages, which I consider very basic, what that does is the languages, which I consider very basic, what that does is take you to the higher laws of love. The law of charity, the law of compassion. When you're an adult it'll take you a law of intimacy, or forgiveness, or mercy, or sympathy, or empathy. These are all higher laws of love. How do you get there? You use these basic love languages as stair steps to get the. Stacking kindness on kindness. How would it look if somebody insult to insult to insult to insult you, and then now they're asking for forgiveness? It doesn't work. It's kindness on kindness on kindness the asking for forgiveness.

[00:32:29]

Stephen Licciardello: Yeah. I love that stacking. Yeah. Paul, what are some things that people can discover when reading your book and or playing your game?

[00:32:38]

Paul Zolman: Just just the 3 products right now, Stephen what the expectation is that they'll hopefully refine their loving skills. That's really and of what we're looking for. Whether they have to write it at the end of the day, you know, in the in that classroom, the kids I've talked with teachers all around the world, and every teacher just a and% of the teachers say this. The last 10 to 15 minutes of the day is really nonproductive time. The kids have been there all day. They're tired. They're antsy. They know the bell's gonna ring.

[00:33:10]

Paul Zolman: They're they're ready to go. Their minds are mush. So that's a good time for, decompression activity. Decompression activity will be right in the journal. That's one of the benefits that you'll see from writing a journal. If you get stressed out during the middle of day, writing in a journal at the end of a day really is a decompression activity that could help you sleep a better, better sleep at night. The second thing is that by rolling the and every single day, it's gonna help you focus on what's right about people. The media in today focuses on all the negative things that are happening in the world today.

[00:33:48]

Paul Zolman: Maybe there might be 10% or 5% of that new newscast that might be positive. Most of the newscast, they they kind of are are conditioning us, so to speak, to be negative and look for the negative in other people. What this die rolling the die and what the expectation is that now you're watching for what's right about people, Look for the good in the world. There is so much good out the, so much more good than there is evil. The let's focus on that. Let's focus on the 80 to 90 percent of the peep of that person that is really good. Even if they're 60% good, they're mostly good. Focus on that larger part instead of focusing on full weaknesses that everybody has.

[00:34:34]

Paul Zolman: Focus on those strengths. It's like a magnifying glass. Whatever you magnify is gonna get larger. Who wants the weaknesses of another to be larger? And when you send out criticism of a person's weakness, guess what? That's a boomerang. And I know you have boomerangs down there. Now that boomerang is gonna come back at you with a huge velocity because as you throw it up, it's coming down a lot faster than you threw it up. That could be very dangerous for you. Why would you wanna send something negative out like that and have it come back 10 times worse right back to you? And people have focused now on your weaknesses rather than your strengths.

[00:35:13]

Paul Zolman: We've gotta turn that around. That's and expectation that they can have. The book follows is kind of a step by step way that you can do this and discover what other people's love languages without them ever having to take a survey about it.

[00:35:28]

Stephen Licciardello: Before we go on to our final questions, how do you see if everyone was everyone was to get the dye and practice 1 a day, how do you see the world? How would it change the world?

[00:35:41]

Paul Zolman: I love that question because we're really looking for people right now that wanna change themselves. This is what I wanted. I wanted more than anything to break away from that angry culture. And the angry culture, part of that breakaway from me, Steven, was that I realized what I if I could put an adjective and describe what my behavior was at that particular time, then I I had an opportunity to move away from that behavior and consider what the opposite behavior would be and then move toward that opposite behavior. For example, let me take the word sarcastic or sarcasm. If I'm sarcastic, is it on the angry side of the spectrum, or is it on a loving side of the spectrum? I really and categorize it on the angry side of the spectrum. Because when you consider the opposite, you the opposite for me would be be that genuine person. Be authentic.

[00:36:36]

Paul Zolman: Be true. And when you put sarcasm against side by side with those attributes, everybody would want to be authentic. Everybody would want to be genuine. I think that that that is something that they'll they'll move forward to, something that they they can do, and something that they can plan on having that change in their life. And it's just it's just something that I I think the world needs. We can do that individually. I can't change you, Stephen. It's an individual thing that has to happen.

[00:37:07]

Paul Zolman: We can change ourselves. We go around, and and I was going around thinking I had control over that person. What why is it doing the so wrong? Mhmm. And if I as long as I thought that I had control, I was getting annoyed and annoyed and annoyed and annoyed and having those flashes of anger. And it was such a relief to think, I don't have to be in charge of that person anymore. I'm not responsible in that way of their choices that they make. And who would want to be? I can't be right by their side and make their choices for them. It would be so resentful.

[00:37:40]

Paul Zolman: They would resent that. We can make choices for ourselves. That's the best way it's gonna happen. We make choices for ourself. Hopefully, it'll spill over into the family, into the neighborhood, into the community, into the state, the nation, and the world. That's how it has to happen, Stephen. It can't happen any other way. These people that wanna change are the ones that we're looking for.

[00:38:04]

Paul Zolman: We can help them. Here's a tool.

[00:38:06]

Sharlene Licciardello: Yeah. Awesome. Absolutely. Paul, if you what advice would you give to someone who wanted to rewrite their life story today?

[00:38:14]

Paul Zolman: I think the best advice is of advice I got from my driver's education teacher when I was 15 years old. Day in your life. Do what you have control over. Do what you can do. Yeah. Stop worrying about trying to have control over another person's life. Who are you gonna be? Who who will you be today? And what what kind of person are you gonna be? As we practice love, it knits the it strengthens the fabric of our character. That fabric of our character will come so strong that people will feel that love that we send out in a genuine way every single day.

[00:38:52]

Paul Zolman: That's advice I'd give. Decide what fabric of a character that you want and stay in your lane.

[00:39:00]

Sharlene Licciardello: Absolutely. Well, Paul, if you were to go back and rewrite your own life story today, what would that look like?

[00:39:05]

Paul Zolman: I thought about it quite a bit. There was about, it's probably been 20 years ago. I was a vending, a candy vendor, and had a route that I drove. And so I was getting up before dawn, and I was coming home after dark. And so I would see the sunrise, and I would see the sunset. You'll see this picture right here that I've got behind me. This picture is is just something I had an epiphany. After 6 months of doing that, of driving and having all that windshield time driving for that route, I realized that, oh, the very best sunrises and the very best sunsets all have gods.

[00:39:43]

Paul Zolman: Everybody in their life is gonna have these problems. Everybody in their life is gonna go through these dark spots. When they get out of that dark spot, they'll look back and say, oh, now I see the silver lining in that cloud. Now I see the beauty of that sunset on that chapter of my life. Now I see the beauty of that sunrise on the future chapter. I wouldn't change a thing. Absolutely would not change a thing. I've learned so much from going the whole spectrum of anger now to love the I don't I know what anger is all about.

[00:40:17]

Paul Zolman: I don't have to go there anymore. I've been there before. I don't wanna be there. This is a better life, and I wouldn't change a thing having that knowledge. And the knowledge base that angry culture gave me is a force within me that it motivates me to send out love every single day. There's too much anger out there, so much rage. We gotta stop it.

[00:40:40]

Stephen Licciardello: Absolutely. Paul, thank you for being on our show today. We have, I've learned so much and I'm sure you have Are. And if you want to know more about Paul and his work, head over to his website, the role of love dot com, where you can get his book, you can get the game, are, and you can get a reflective journal as you practice what he does, but we'll also put a link in the show notes. Paul, again, thank you.

[00:41:03]

Paul Zolman: Paul Holdengraber: Thank you, Stephen and Sharlene. It's It's been such a pleasure to be with you today. Thanks thanks for laughing at my jokes and.