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.

Senior dating advice - Text Message Breakup Part 2

On life and love after 50 Newsletter                       April 1, 2016
By Tom P Blake

Senior dating advice: Text Message Breakup Part 2

In Part One, we talk about two senior dating issues that came to light from last week's "Breakup by Text Message" newsletter.

Part 2 - A link to Amazon.com

Part 3 - An update regarding our Facebook page

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Part 1 - Why do we stay in bad relationships?

Most Champs who responded to last week’s newsletter agreed that breaking up by text message is a classless way to bail out. Mary Lou summed up our group’s sentiment perfectly: “What a chicken s*** way to end a relationship.”

And Stella said, “Breaking up via text: once a frog, always a frog. You can kiss them for all eternity, and they will always be a frog!”

Mindy added, “Time for the modern-day ‘Dear John’ letter! There will always be people who don’t want the drama of break up—no lectures, or tears, they just want out in the easiest way possible. Immature, yes, disrespectful, yes…but effective.”

As the newsletter responses came in, two bigger senior-dating issues came to light: First, why do seniors put up with or remain in relationships that aren’t right for them?

I reread the email from the woman who had received the breakup text messages. She had written that the two guys didn’t make her a high-enough priority: “I wasn't demanding that I came before all else in their lives but to be a little higher up on the food chain.”

She stated that when she brought up the subject of being a higher priority to them, that is when she saw their behavior toward her start changing for the worse.     

She wrote, “With each of the relationships, career work for these senior men was a serious top priority. Ok, I get it, no big deal but you did say you wanted a relationship, right? Gotta give and take.”

In my book, “Finding Love After 50. How to Begin. Where to Go. What to Do,” 

                                                 

I recommend a list of the qualities one might seek in a mate. My most important quality: your mate should be willing to make you the top priority in his or her life. And, of course, in return, you must make your mate the top priority.This is a major key to a happy relationship. 

If the person you are dating doesn't make you a high enough priority, why do you stay in the relationship? And, why did she stay in those relationships?

After last week’s newsletter was published, the text-message-breakup lady sent me a second email, which revealed even more about the men she had been dating.

She said, “In the most recent relationship, his being OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) was growing like a monster. He went from sharing a house with his mother to having his own apartment, which I happily found for him and helped him settle in, at his request.

“I also knew we would never live together; it would never work. I was ok with that. With the new apartment nothing could be out of place or he would get upset. That's where I think he was beginning to think I was going to come in and change things.”

So, why did she stay in the relationship?
  
She also stated, “From his having issues with Mommy Dearest, I was seeing the mistrust he felt with the women in his life, me included.”

Again, why did she stay?

I think more than anything, her pride was hurt because these men broke up by text message. My guess is she will get over being dumped by these two guys rather quickly; she might even see that these guys did her a big favor, which is the second lesson that evolved from last week’s newsletter:

Lesson 2: Often, when seniors get dumped, this might turn out for that person to be a great favor (because the relationship wasn’t going to work in the long run so better it ended now).

Champ Debbi had that experience. She wrote, “I live in a senior community and met a member of the male persuasion (can no longer call him a gentleman or a man) while walking our dogs. After several years as dog-walking friends, we started dating.

“After six months, he stopped calling. I contacted him after the first few days of silence and was told we were fine, that he was ‘just being weird right now.’  

“After three months of silence we ran into each other. He said, ‘I have to call you some time and talk about what happened. I'm sorry for my behavior, I'm just weird.”  

Debbi said, “I walked away laughing, figured I dodged a big bullet with this one. I've heard better lines from high schoolers.”

By giving Debbi the silent treatment, this guy did Debbi a big favor and she realized it just three months after the silent treatment began.

I had a similar situation happen to me (long before text messages existed). On Christmas Eve, 1993, my wife of six years cleaned out the house and left with no notice or warning. I was damned angry. But, it turns out she did me the greatest favor anyone has ever done for me, although at the time I didn’t see it that way. Her action left the door open for Greta to enter my life. We’ve been together for 18 years.

As often happens in life, opportunity arises out of adversity.

The woman who received the two breakup text messages said, “Now I have to accept things and move on, never to know the reasons for the breakups. I can only make my own deductions.”

I have to add, she should also say, “Thanks guys for doing me a great favor, even though you broke up in a chicken s*** way (as Mary Lou described at the top of the newsletter). Now I can move on and make my life better.” That's what she needs to focus on going forward.

And finally, I have a buddy I've known for years. He recently dated a woman for 18 months. It was an up and down relationship. He took her to Las Vegas for her birthday, treated her to the Celine Dion show and tried to make it a special occasion for her. Three days later, she broke up by text message. He's happier now than he's ever been. The text message breakup did him a big favor. 
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Part 2 - To order "Finding Love After 50. How to Begin. Where to Go. What to Do," follow this link to Amazon.Com:http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Love-After-50-Begin/dp/0972796606/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459434162&sr=1-1&keywords=finding+love+after+50

If you want an autographed copy, at a better price, email me atTom@tompblake.com, which is a new email address for me. 
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Part 3 - Facebook page - Several of you (there are 470 members) have had questions about the longevity of the Finding Love After 50 Facebook page. Here is the skinny: I do not plan to shut it down, although that is what I said two months ago because it was becoming too much of a personal FB page for a few individuals. Recently, the posts have been pretty normal so I see no need to close it. I do not want to appoint administrators as I am quite concerned about the people who ask to become members--too many questionable profiles that would concern me being members of our group. I have no problem with people starting their own FB page and inviting our members to join. 
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This newsletter, On life and love after 50, is the only newsletter Tom publishes. If you have friends who would like to receive it, they can sign up by going to the following website. It's a little confusing, because the website is Finding Love After 60. The newsletter is On life and love after 50, but this website is where you sign up for it:
 http://www.FindingLoveAfter60.com