Tom Blake's Interview with Chicken Soup's Mark Victor Hansen - 10 Dating Tips

On Life and Love after 50  Newsletter

Tom Blake's Interview with Chicken Soup's Mark Victor Hansen. His 10 dating tips still hold true today

I am in the process of updating my Finding Love after 50 website, which entails editing more than 200 articles that I wrote 10 to 15 years ago. One article I came across was an interview I had with Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the best-selling series "Chicken Soup for the Soul"  and co-author of "The One Minute Millionaire."

                                   
                         Tom and Mark Victor Hansen - 2003
Hansen was considered in 2003, when I interviewed him, as America's leading expert on human potential; his business letterhead described him as "America's Master Motivator." He is extremely personable, positive and likeable as well. The interview was about middle-aged and senior dating. His answers to my questions are as important today as they were in 2003. I added the italics.

Tom: “Where should middle-age and senior singles go to jump-start their lives and meet a potential mate?”

Mark: “They should volunteer by test-tasting 12 different groups to find the one or ones most suitable for them. There may be 100 people at each meeting; that's 1,200 people from whom to choose.

“If you want quality dating - a good relationship, great thinking, possibility for travel, good belongingness, somebody with high self-confidence, high self-esteem, who is trying to make a difference at whatever level - you'll find people like that in volunteer groups.”

Tom: “What advice can you give singles who say they can never trust again?”

Mark: “You have to have self-trust before you can trust others.

“All of us are on a spiritual path and all get betrayed. From forgiveness you go back to deep self-trust. You realize you aren't alone, and that's one of the things the "Chicken Soup" books help people with. Most people need a deeper process rebuilding trust than from a 20-minute church sermon.

(While discussing divorce, Mark asked if I had written a book. I told him my book - scheduled for publication May, 2003, – Finding Love After 50. How to Begin. Where to Go. What to Do, will help divorced and widowed people).

                                                    

                                            Tom's Book on Amazon.com

Mark said, "You've got a market of at least 20 million there. In doing research for our upcoming book, 'Chicken Soup for the Divorced Soul' (publication in 2005), we learned that the divorce rate is 150 percent in America, which means people who get divorced get divorced multiple times.

"Americans don't know how to grieve and one thing you've got to grieve is your divorce. It takes a year and a half to heal at a minimum, and more time for women than men."

Tom: “I tell singles they should know the qualities that are right for them in a potential mate. Some say that makes love too scripted. They believe love should ‘just happen.’ What's your opinion?”

Mark: “That's the way 16-year-olds think, and it gets them in trouble. People must know what's right for them.”

Tom: “Many older people complain that the singles they meet are too set in their ways and not relationship material.”

Mark: “The new (lifestyle) model, especially in California, is not to get hard in your attitudes. Take a guy like Art Linkletter – he skis six weeks a year and surfs six weeks a year. My daughter can't believe he catches air for 30 feet at a time. He's happily married, but he's as alive and enticing to women as he is to men.

“So, the complaint goes back to the ones who complain. If men or women aren't growing, then they won't find others who are growing. And about gray power - no one should give up their sex life or their life at all.”

Tom: “Can a relationship where two people have a 20-year-age difference work?”

Mark: “We're going into a new age I call the age of the soul. We ask, how does my soul relate to your soul? Are our souls comfortable? Is the essence of my being there? The essence of my being has nothing to do with chronology. A 20-year-age gap is irrelevant, assuming people are spiritually mature and they've done some self-work and introspection.”

Tom: “You're one of the marketing geniuses in the world: Do you think singles should use marketing techniques - such as the Internet, personal ads, networking and dating services – to try to meet someone?”

Mark: “Absolutely. Everyone's got to learn to market him or herself. Do marketing that rocks; it will help bring love back into your life.”

Tom: “Can people who elect to remain single lead a happy life on their own?”

Mark: “Only if they've done a lot of self-work and made themselves feel comfortable with themselves. What I teach on self-esteem is a trinity: 'I like me, I like me alone, and I like me with other people.' Most people have never done the ‘I like me’ step.

“You must have positive, correct self-love first. If I'm in a bonded relationship and don't have self-love first, I won't be OK.”

Tom: “How can people keep a relationship alive and fresh?”

Mark: “Read love books to each other once a month, then discuss them and say on a scale of 1 to 10, where is our relationship? If it's less than a 7, what do we do to get back to a 7? No relationship operates at a 10 full time. Most couples never have that kind of a conversation.”

                      
          Couples should read to each other without falling asleep

Mark's final advice for older singles: "Have lots of friends. Stay active. Get out and meet new people. If you've got the intention to pay attention, you'll get the perfect retention of your love."
Orange County is blessed to have Mark Victor Hansen as one of its leaders.

In re-reading this interview in 2016, Mark’s advice still applies. He is a genius. Here are 10 highlights of what Mark Victor Hansen said:

1. To jump-start one’s life, volunteer trying at least 12 different charities or groups to find the right one for you
2. To trust again, you have to trust yourself, which starts with forgiveness
3. When going through a divorce, you have to grieve. It takes at least a year and a half to recover
4. Singles looking for a mate must know the qualities they seek in a mate
5. No one should give up their sex life
6. Regarding dating someone older or younger, Hansen said, “A 20-year-age gap is irrelevant, assuming people are spiritually mature and they've done some self-work and introspection.”
7. Singles must learn how to market themselves
8. To be in a bonded relationship, you must love yourself first
9. No relationship operates at a level-10 all of the time. Communication between couples helps refresh relationships and keeps them at a high level
10. Have lots of friends. Get out and meet new people (Gee, where have you heard that before?)

Note from Tom: In 2008, Hansen and co-creator Jack Canfield sold Chicken Soup for the Soul. The new owners have carried on. As of 2016, 110 million copies have been sold.

I hope Champs found this interview with Mark Victor Hansen as inspiring and informative as I did.

A 2014 year-end message for singles

On Life and Love After 60 Newsletter

By Thomas P. Blake     December 25, 2014

A 2014 Year-end Message for Singles

It’s hard to believe that we’ve reached the final column of 2014. The December holidays are behind us. For many singles, those holidays were a mixed bag of emotions. Sure, many got to spend Christmas or Chanukah with their families and relatives and that is a treasure. But there can be an emptiness that goes along without having a gift under the tree from or for a lover.

Not to mention that singles are often reminded this time of year by well-meaning friends and family that they don’t have a mate. They hear comments like, “What a shame that you don’t have someone to share the holidays with,” or, “You should work a little harder to meet someone.” Most singles just finesse those comments outwardly, but inside, the comments can grind at them.

So, I never write a joyous Christmas week column because my primary focus is on singles age 50+, and I don’t want to make them feel worse than they already do. Yes, married people tell me they read the column as well, and I appreciate that, but my main concern is the singles.

The December holidays magnify emotions. Some people decide to get divorced or to break up during this time. It’s probably because they want to start the New Year off heading in a new and different direction. But when that happens, it can be a real downer for both sides of a busted relationship.

I speak from experience. On Christmas Eve, 1993, my wife of six years cleaned out the house and moved out of my life. No notice, just, “See ya later Thomas.” I was pretty shocked, unprepared, and angry. Christmas wasn’t very merry that year.

But out of the ashes, with the New Year, came opportunity. A better life. And it opened the door for me to meet Greta, with whom I’ve been blessed to spend 16 years. That event also launched my writing career, although when it happened, I wasn’t a writer.

However, six months later, my first newspaper column was published, titled “Home Alone with Only Dogs for Company.” Since then, I’ve written more than 3,000 columns on Finding Love After 50, published four books, and appeared on the Today Show and Good Morning America. These things would have never happened had my ex not left.

Today, it’s time to focus on the New Year and the hope it brings to all of us—single and married.

One silly thing that encourages me every year is knowing that after December 21, the days start getting longer. Even when something can get me down, I just think that every day ahead for the next six months will bring more light and less darkness.

I was stand-up-paddle-boarding in Dana Point Harbor Tuesday with my friend of 25+ years, John Hawkins, and he surprised me by asking, “What is your New Year’s resolution?”

It caught me off guard, I hadn’t really thought about it in those terms. It’s not as if I don’t have plans for 2015. I do and I sure as heck have thought about them and worked on them. But I didn’t have an answer in clear, concise terms, or, as Mark Victor Hansen, the co-founder of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series and empire, called it, an elevator speech.

What Mark meant was, you see someone in an elevator and you’ve got 30 seconds to pitch them concisely on something that you want them to know about—a book, movie script, life insurance policy, used car—whatever you are selling—doesn’t matter.

I did not have my elevator speech prepared; I rather mumbled my response to John that my main goals for 2015 include retirement from my deli, travel with Greta, and writing more newsletters and newspaper columns and maybe publish a book or two. That wasn’t a 30-second elevator speech; it took about two minutes to say that.

My message this New Year for older singles is to remind yourself that adversity and loneliness can lead to opportunity, hope and a new direction in life that can be rewarding and exciting. But, it’s up to each person to look for that opportunity, seize it, and move forward with a new bounce in his or her step. Everybody has a talent, all they have to do is find it, and nurture it, and it will grow.

I often think during this time of year of what a woman reader told me long ago: “I’ve been married and unhappy and single and unhappy. And single and unhappy is better--because I am free to make changes to my life today, tomorrow or next week, without having to go through the divorce process or getting permission from anyone other than myself.”

Besides, being single at 50, 60, 70, or 80 isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s pretty darned good. A large number of our Champs choose to be single and love the lives they are living.

So rejoice in your singleness this New Year, because a new and exciting life awaits you. Seize the opportunity.

And if the “retirement from my deli news” piqued your interest, you will hear a lot more in the January, 2015, newsletters.

Happy New Year. Raise a toast to all of your fellow Champs, which I will also do. You are all so special to me.