Speaking and Communicating Podcast

I think it's better to ask genuine feeling questions.

How did you feel after your divorce?

How do you feel about your ex-spouse?

How do you feel about what's going on in the world?

It's asking feeling questions, not thought-provoking questions or opinions that allows for genuine intimacy.

Welcome back to The Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host Roberta Ndlela.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning in to.

Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development.

And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review.

Now let's get communicating.

with Jonathon Aslay joining us from Los Angeles.

He is a relationship and dating coach.

And as you know, on this podcast, we say communication skills will help you both professionally and personally.

So today we're delving into the personal aspect of it.

And before I go any further, please welcome him to the show.

Hi Jonathon.

Hi Roberta.

Thank you so much.

I'm honored to be here.

Thank you for being here.

Welcome.

Please introduce yourself.

Well, as you shared publicly, my name is Jonathon Aslay.

I'm a dating and relationship coach.

I predominantly work with women, although men seek me out as well.

And my specialty is midlife, which I say is after baby making years and before retirement.

So most of my audience is between the age of 42 and 69.

And the reason why I talk to that demographic, speaking of communication, is roughly 75% of singles in that age range are divorced.

And oftentimes, divorce is a result of poor communication in their relationship.

What's interesting is just because you had lived on this planet for 40 plus years doesn't make you any better communicator than someone who's only lived on the planet 20 years.

So I'm really grateful to lean into this conversation today.

That is so true.

And actually, I remember back in the day when they asked the question, what is the number one reason for a divorce?

I used to think, duh, it's money.

But it turns out, I think probably finances might be second or third, but they used to say communication or lack thereof.

I think it's interesting.

And just because you brought that up, I want to lean into that for a second, because typically, like you said, money and also intimacy, whether it's emotional or sexual intimacy, were the primary reasons for divorce.

And the fact that communication exceeds it, it's because they have poor communication about money and sex.

It's still about money and sex.

It's just they have poor communication around money and sex.

Right.

So it is the underlying factor in all the other things.

Yes.

And mostly, if we really get granular, I think it's because of a lack of communication, couples begin to stop being on the same page.

Meaning, what one person wants and what the other person wants is a little bit either nebulous or unspoken.

And so what happens is you have this unspoken need by one or both people, and they're not communicating their needs in a way that's seen, heard, and understood.

And what happens is, as your needs start to be eroded, if you will, and there's no speaking up, two people tend to start going in two different directions.

They stop being on the same page because they're not having healthy conversations about their needs.

How long have you been coaching this age group?

I mean, professionally, I've been doing this for 15 years as a dating and relationship coach.

Right.

So when you ask your clients, when they first started dating and decided, this is the one for me, I'm getting married.

Did they have good communication during that phase of their relationship?

And is the reason for the divorce maybe sometimes, or life gotten the way they had kids, they focused on bills and they just started to grow apart, as they say.

Well, that's a complicated question.

So if I looked at it from my lens, I believe most couples in general have poor communication skills, poor relationship skills, poor emotional maturity.

I say this as a broad statement for most human beings.

Now, I'm not talking that they're not responsible and pay their bills kind of immaturity, if you will, but emotional maturity.

And I think throughout history, up until about 100 years ago, women were predominantly dependent upon men for their survival.

And as that began to shift, the needs within a relationship began shifting roughly when women were empowered.

And we, we men should be very grateful for a woman's empowerment, their capacity to be sovereign beings.

What happened is though, if we look at the past, is that we have this old narrative of how relationship should be and we haven't really adopted a new narrative centered around not so much the need for survival, but the need for deep emotional connection.

And I believe that's the value within a romantic relationship is deep emotional connection.

Well, that comes from not just the physical aspects, which we hyper-focus on in dating, you know, it's attraction, entertainment, romance, and physical connection without developing the emotional connection.

So they start from a weak premise and holding on to this weak premise to build the foundation of the relationship.

And some couples do succeed and they have a strong emotional connection.

And then sadly, 50% of first marriages end.

I bet you of the other half that are still together, half of them are miserable in relationship.

I'm just speculating here.

But then when you think about second and third marriages end at a 65% to 75% rate.

Like if we look at that and go, well, what's the problem?

You think you'd be better the next go around because you haven't done any work to improve your relationship skills, to improve your emotional maturity, to improve your communication skills.

So what's the definition of insanity?

Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

That's right.

The second ones have a higher divorce rate.

Oh, yeah.

But because there's this fantasy belief that chemistry equals relationship success.

So I would just say statistically, and this is not a fact, let's say first marriages last between 15 or 20 years, and usually the last five or 10 years, there was a lack of physical intimacy.

So now you're back in the dating marketplace and all of a sudden, boom, chemistry with somebody and you jump into bed, you start having sex and you're like, oh my God, we love each other.

This is so intense without any real foundation of shared values, lifestyle compatibility, and then I said emotional maturity earlier.

So then boom, they find themselves divorced and they're like, okay, well, I don't want to make that mistake again.

So they go back in the marketplace, but they're still amped up on chemistry, believing that that's relationship success.

And that's why third marriages end at even a higher rate, because you haven't learned from your mistakes.

We never learn, do we?

I think on some level, we're forced to learn whether we like it or not.

But the difference is, are you going to choose to learn from a place of awareness, or are you going to do it from a place of the two by four that hit you?

And then are you going to listen to the wake up call of that two by four hitting you?

Because here's the thing, say for instance, and I know you've seen this because there's dating apps, and then we go on a first date, like you said, we look for chemistry.

Do we ask questions such as what is it that you like, Jonathon?

And I say, roses and chocolate.

And I think, if he brings me roses and chocolate, he's the guy.

Or do I ask about his goals?

Or do I ask how do you handle conflicts?

Like a lot of people, I think, we have so much information and so much noise, we have lost the art of even knowing how to establish if Jonathon has good communication skills.

And if I do...

Yeah, this is a great question.

There's articles, the 30s, I think it's the New York Times or Washington Post or something like that, the 30s, questions to ask someone.

And well, some of them are, you know, like, what are your goals?

Okay, that's a great question.

But that doesn't get into the nitty gritty.

I think it's better to ask genuine feeling questions.

You know, how did you feel after your divorce?

How do you feel about your ex-spouse?

How do you feel about what's going on in the world?

It's asking feeling questions, not thought provoking questions or opinions, that I think allows for genuine intimacy.

And what is intimacy?

I can't remember if it was Brene Brown or Esther Perrell or someone else that coined it.

Into me see.

See into me.

And Roberta, what you were just saying is really a reflection of, you know, we do a poor job of actually getting to know another human being at a real heart-centered level.

Like, what are they feeling in their heart?

Most dating is something like this.

I'm going to take a little cheat sheet from the TV show Seinfeld.

It's a lot of communicating on their phone, texting.

How's your day going?

Did you have a good day?

Hope you had a good day.

Tell me all about your day.

I want to hear the specific of your day.

Did you do yoga?

Did you do, like, the performance of life and not the real heart of life?

And what you're looking for, coming back to those questions about how did you feel about the ending of your marriage, if the person points the finger at the other person and it's 100% their fault, they were a narcissist, they were an alcoholic, they cheated, all this stuff, and they take no ownership?

There's no real growth from that person that's probably living from a victim consciousness, and victim consciousness bleeds in communication in a way that there's not a real connection with another person.

Here's the reason I ask, so I'm within the bracket you're talking about.

I'm not divorced, I've never been married, but I'm 49.

And yes, I think the biggest challenge is, like you said, a lot of people in that age group are divorced.

So they've been married before.

So it feels as though if you were to ask what we consider heavy questions, like, how do you feel about your ex-spouse?

We have this fear that it's going to scare them away.

It sounds too heavy.

I'd rather we ask, what's your favorite color?

And I told you it's purple.

And do the Seinfeld thing.

Sure, sure, sure.

Well, you're bringing up a point.

Nobody wants to feel interrogated.

I get that.

But at the same time, if you crave emotional depth, like in other words, you've done the work, you've healed your childhood, you've healed your past relationships, you have adopted a perception of who am I?

Why am I here?

What's this all for?

You have a sense of awareness of who you are, then most likely, you crave a deep emotional connection, okay?

Now, if you have another person who's done the work, you know, is embodying a desire for a deep emotional connection, those people can have a first date that might look like an interview or even an interrogation on the outside, but those people are having fun because they're talking on an emotional level.

So I agree, people who are only seeking attraction, entertainment, romance, and physical connection will be turned off by deep questions.

But guess what?

That's what you want to do.

You want to turn off the person who isn't like you, and you want to lead by example, and the right person is going to go, wow, I love these questions.

Let's roll up our sleeves and dig a little bit more, because you're actually getting to know this person on a deeper level.

And I use the word intimacy again, because we're trying to get to the truth.

Who are you?

Like, who are you really?

Are you someone where we're going to match on the things we care about in life?

Are we going to match in our stability in life and our responsibilities in life?

But more importantly, are we going to match like we're good friends?

You know, ultimately, if you look at the best relationships, they operate as really good friends.

They really, really, really, really like each other.

It's not love, it's strong like, like you just can't wait to wake up in the morning, I can't wait to talk to my best friend.

Those are the happy relationships.

And so I think those relationships start with depth.

The sooner they start with depth, the better, is what I'm trying to say.

So you want to scare the one who doesn't want to be in depth.

Yeah.

Because that's the fear as well is, oh my goodness, Jonathon, I'm in my 40s.

How many first dates am I gonna scare away before I find the guy who can be deep and be okay with it?

No, and this is tricky because to some degree, dating apps has made it very easy for men to get casual sex.

It's made it very easy, particularly in the divorce category, because here's what happens.

Eighty percent of divorces are initiated by women, mostly because of poor communication, mostly because of lack of emotional connection.

But they go back in the dating marketplace and they're like, I didn't have chemistry, I didn't emotional connection.

So they meet someone and there's this physical chemistry, there's lust and limerence, and then they get sucked in to the sexual part before they built the friendship part, and then they find themselves back out there again.

In other words, because it's a short lived experience.

The reason why I speak to women is when you set the standard of your sovereignty, of your desire, you're going to shy away those casual sex men.

Okay, and I get it.

Most men seek casual sex, but it invites in the one who genuinely wants a serious relationship, who genuinely wants emotional connection.

I always tell my clients, I'm your big brother.

If I could be there on a first date, I'd have a shotgun pointed at the guy's face and saying, what's your intention with my sister?

Like, I would literally do that if I could do that for clients, because now you're put on the spot, because if you're going to be a dick to my sister, you're going to get shot in the ass for it.

Okay?

I do believe that to some degree, men should set a standard of intentionality.

But the fact is, as I said earlier, and what I didn't get into this piece of the puzzle, most divorced people are deeply wounded.

It's the unraveling of the tapestry of your life with another human being, and very few men and women have done anything to heal from those relationships.

So they're going out looking for the next high, the dopamine hit, the dopamine hit, the dopamine hit.

And women are guilty of this as well.

So I'm here to set a standard.

Look, be intentional about your dating.

Communicate more radically honest in the beginning.

Find out what it is the other person wants to see if you're on the same page.

And ideally, hold out for sex until trust has been built.

Now, trust can happen quickly or it can take time.

I don't believe in a set timeline like, you know, Steve Harvey says, wait 90 days in his book.

And I mean, certainly that's going to weed out a lot of the looky-loos, no doubt about it.

Right.

But I don't believe in strict timelines.

At the same time, building trust should be the paramount agreement between two people.

It's to build trust.

I'm meeting you because I see you as a potential for a romantic relationship.

You're doing the same.

Let's operate from a place of building trust and building a friendship and building deep connection before we jump on the sexual bandwagon.

You can actually do it all at the same time, but boy, you better have some really good relationship skills.

You better have some good communication skills.

You almost need ninja-level skills if you're going to do it all at the same time.

How do I know I can trust you?

What are my observations?

What am I looking for to establish if Jonathon, that I have just started dating, can be trusted?

What am I looking for?

This is really nuanced.

I mean, you almost need to be an FBI detective to have...

I mean, if you had that skill, you could pick up on it pretty quickly.

But most of us don't have those FBI interrogator skills, okay?

That skill to read people like an instant.

So I believe one of the best questions to ask is to find out about their childhood, their relationship with their mother and father, and listen, were they traumatized in their upbringing or garden variety upbringing?

People that were traumatized, I mean, deep trauma, if they haven't done any work to heal, they're going to carry that forward in their new relationships, most likely, okay?

Also, because I speak to a demographic of over 40, you have to find out about their past relationship experience.

It's like, if you were interviewing someone for a job, you'd say, hey, tell me the last three places you worked.

You'd ask, what caused the ending of that?

Now, here's where it gets tricky, because this is what people do.

It was his fault.

It was her fault.

It was her fault.

It was his fault.

It's always the other person's fault.

Now, you gotta pay attention.

Do they act like a victim in what happened?

Yeah, I was with a narcissist.

He was abusive.

He drank incessantly.

He was verbally abusive, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, making them out to be the devil.

Here's the thing.

You have a part in this.

If you can't own 3%, but you're operating from victim consciousness, not victor consciousness.

And I would only invest in people who take ownership of their choices, 100% ownership of their choices, because if they don't and they're not self-reflective and they're aware of their fears, their insecurities, their negative patterns, their limiting beliefs, their judgments towards others, how their actions might affect other people.

If they're not aware of that, it's all victim, I was at fault, I wouldn't invest in that person, because they're just going to bring this into every new relationship.

And by the way, I said a mouthful there.

So for everybody listening and watching, I just want you to know, it takes ninja level skills to figure this shit out.

Excuse my French.

But I'm here to say is you have a choice.

You can either be intentional, or you can follow the path of attraction, entertainment, romance, and physical connection, and roll the dice.

You can roll the dice, and sometimes it's double sixes, but most of the time it's going to be snake eyes.

I was saying, one of the pattern they have, if they're the victim and they actually did everything wrong and was the narcissist, you're going to be the next villain after they end your relationship as well.

Can I tell you a quick story?

Oh, please do.

We love stories.

Okay, so this was about 10 years ago.

I met this woman through my Facebook page.

We had mutual friends and we went out for a date.

And I'm like, oh, what happened in your marriage?

And she goes, well, I was with a narcissist.

Later, I said, what happened to your last relationship?

Oh, he was a narcissist.

What about the guy before that?

He was a narcissist.

What about the guy before that?

So I'm thinking to myself, well, I'm not a narcissist.

So I can be her hero.

And we dated for about six weeks.

And you know what, I just wasn't feeling it.

And we candid with you, we had sex.

We went down that route.

And I started to pull away and I ended it.

And do you know what she said on Facebook the next day?

Jonathon was a narcissist.

Well, she didn't use my name, but she goes, I just finished with another narcissist.

You know, I'm like, man, and I do this for a living.

And I didn't read the writing on the wall.

Did not see the red flag when everybody before you was a narcissist.

You know, it's interesting because I do my best to practice what I preach discernment.

My real teaching is centered around discernment, but I have chased chemistry.

I've ghosted people.

I've breadcrumbed.

I've loved bomb.

I've done it all from a very unconscious place.

Mostly my past, you know, maybe 10 or 20 years ago, I operated that way.

But you know, I still make mistakes.

It's very human to overlook even what you know.

Dating and relationships is not for the faint of heart.

You better have strong inner constitution with you because, boy, dating and relationships triggers.

What I believe is the number one emotional health wound, and that is, I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable, and I'm not likable.

And quite frankly, if that's your wound, dating is going to trigger that like nobody's business, and it takes a fair amount of work to really step into self-love.

It's why I wrote a book about self-love, and it's the journey of personal development, self-help, and spiritual work as a precursor to start stepping into your sovereignty.

This is what it's all about, Roberta.

When we can stand in our power, then we make choices from an intentional point of view, and not an ambiguous point of view, and particularly for women, because you've been taught to sit in your feminine energy and let men lead.

Men are supposed to be the leaders of a relationship.

And I'm like, ladies, you are giving the job to the wrong person.

Men are not good at this.

You've got to set the container.

Hey, listen, if you want my vagina, then this is the way it's going to be.

But I'm not going to let you get there until we build trust with one another.

And I'm being a little bit intentionally humorous and rhetorical, just to illustrate a point.

We love that, because when you mentioned all the ghosting and the love bombing, it's funny, the other day someone made a video and said, I've ghosted about 10 people during my dating life, and the dating pool is a cesspool.

And a lot of people said, for your behavior to call it a cesspool, guess who's in the dating pool?

Us.

We create the cesspool.

It's not out there.

Your behaviors are creating the cesspool.

So we need to change that.

We have the power to change that.

Yeah, you know, there are so many videos now on social media, you know, whether it's Instagram, Facebook, you know, so forth, that is a parody on the dysfunction of dating.

It's a negative messaging.

By the way, it's based on truth.

But I think if we watch too many of those, and we're not watching enough of the real, heart-centered connection out there, I want to invite everybody who's listening this, who's single, looking for love.

Stop watching videos that are negative about men and women.

Stop watching videos that are negative about dating or relationships, because all that does is feed the negativity.

I want you to immerse yourself in things that are based from a positive point of view, from a role model point of view.

Start immersing yourself in that.

Just start surrounding yourself with that.

You said you're single.

That's what I want to invite you and everyone to do, is immerse yourself with the positive.

Do your best to avoid all that negative rhetoric, because all that's going to do is going to feed more of what you don't want.

That is so true.

And speaking of all this dating advice online, the first thing I always ask myself if somebody is sharing dating advice, is I have been with I want to be relationship wise.

Meaning, if I want dating advice, shouldn't I be listening to married couples, Jonathon?

You know, I have an argument for and against that.

Okay.

So if someone got married 20 years ago or 30 years ago before online dating exists, they have no effing clue what it's like today.

In particular, 20 years ago, we didn't have smartphones, we didn't have this information overload we are experiencing today.

So if someone got married 20 years ago, I'm not sure that their advice applies because their lens is 20 years old.

Okay.

That's just my belief system.

At the same time, somebody who's in the trenches and who's actively dating, then they've struggled with relationships that at least they understand from an empathetic point of view what everybody is going through.

It's kind of like the oncologist, the one oncologist who's never had cancer and the one who does have cancer.

The one who does have cancer probably is a better doctor from an emotional point of view because they've experienced it.

Okay.

And they can be equally good at what they do.

So I'm not discounting it, but somebody who's in the trenches or someone brand new, and they've been in the fire of they've been divorced.

They've had a couple of significant relationships that didn't work out.

Now, I'll be candid with you.

I'm describing myself.

So I'm trying to prop myself up in this, you know?

And I am in a relationship right now in my life with somebody who is wonderful.

It's relatively new.

What I teach from that lens, because I've been in the trenches up until 2025, you know, I'm not speaking from a pulpit where I got married 15, 20 years ago.

Right.

You know, the reason I say that, because a lot of the time people who are still single, at least you speak positively about your relationship.

People who are still single, they'll go on a date, something would go wrong.

And somehow, they always nitpick the wrong thing.

I don't know.

It's like programmed in us.

They nitpick the wrong thing to share.

And then whoever is listening is obviously going to have less confidence in the dating market.

Yeah.

Like we are looking for that positive, Jonathon says dating can be great type of videos, but they are minimal.

You know, it's interesting.

This reminds me of a video I watched just this morning on Facebook.

It was a one minute and a half video, and it was about a man and woman, young couple in their late twenties, probably, and they were just wrapping up a first date, and they were really excited about each other, and they were walking home in two separate directions, and they just gave each other a nice, friendly goodbye to one another.

And they were commenting on what a great date was.

The gal gets on the phone as she's walking, she's telling up to her girlfriend about this amazing date, how wonderful it was, and how he seemed kind and gentle and blah, blah, blah.

A notification pops on her screen with a Venmo request of $16 that the man had sent.

And the caption says, Ick.

Now, a lot of people would judge him for that behavior.

Probably, there was never a discussion of who was responsible for treating for the date.

Men are traditionally expected to.

But that's an expectation.

That's not an agreement.

Now, it might have been that he didn't feel connection with her and he wanted to be reimbursed for her share of the dinner.

That might have been the case.

But she immediately took it from a negative point of view instead of being curious.

Because what if, in his mind, he went to the date thinking we were going to split things anyway?

Again, this is communication.

There was no discussion.

But the traditional narrative is, oh my god, what a cheapskate, what a loser, what an asshole.

That's what's being perceived by his action.

Without any understanding of what was actually going on, why did he do that?

Maybe his reason was valid.

And without being curious, by the way, I'm assuming she'd never talk to him again.

But what if we act from a place of curious?

Hey, I'm really curious.

You know, I see that you sent me a Venmo bill.

I guess I went under the impression that you were treating.

Can we talk about this?

Have a conversation about it?

Just to unpack, because maybe they might find some common ground if they communicated with one another to get some clarity instead of her snap judgment.

What a loser.

What an asshole.

What a cheapskate.

By the way, I'm going to suspect a lot of women watching this would agree with that perception.

You probably won't take my side in this scenario.

But I'm here to say she had this great date.

Don't pass it up.

That's miscommunication.

Now, he could be a jerk.

He could be an asshole.

He could be all those things.

But there might have been something else.

And that's what I invite curiosity.

What is communication?

Being curious, finding out more.

Like asking the question, hey, I'm really curious.

I was a little surprised.

I was stunned to the impression that you were treating.

Because we didn't have any conversation when the bill came.

You reached over it and paid for it.

So I'm a little curious why this is the case.

Are you not interested in me?

You could start going deeper.

So communication, that's what your podcast is all about.

And we do a poor job.

And that's where it's happened, this itch, instead of being curious.

That story is very important because one, as you said, culturally, usually the man is expected to take care of the day.

In fact, you know, 50 Cent, the rapper, he was on Stephen Colbert.

And Stephen asked him and said, who should pay for a date?

Whoever's idea it was to go on a date.

Well, this is a little tricky because first dates usually through an online connection.

The man typically initiates because that's the traditional expectation.

But it's really two people meeting for the first time.

And I think two people should meet not from a date, but from a place of curiosity.

Let's say they both split the bill.

And then the following day, he calls up and says, hey, I'd like to take you out to dinner.

There's a definitiveness.

But first meetings, this is the tricky part, because men just are expected to initiate.

We're expected to pay.

Do you see the word expectation?

It's not coming from a place of agreement.

It's coming from a place of expectation.

And the hard part in this is, it's not coming from a place of generosity.

When a woman expects a man to pay, that negates my agency for generosity if it's expected.

Again, I believe treating should come from a place of mutual generosity.

I believe couples that take turns from a place of generosity are couples that are going to build a stronger foundation versus a place of expectation.

And I think it's time to shift that narrative, particularly when it comes to paying, and shift it to a place of mutual generosity.

I want to know what your clients, especially because you said they're in their 40s, what is it that they do on the first date, especially because they've been divorced.

So they're doing this second time around.

Because a lot of the narrative being pushed is like a guy has to prove to himself that if this goes further, he is capable of taking care of you.

So he should be, because you even have women say, I don't pay a simple bill.

So that expectation, I think a lot of women are now developing it because of the culture.

So remember I said earlier in this conversation, 100 years ago, women were radically dependent upon men for survival, predominantly because men represented the majority of the workforce.

They had the majority of the resources most of the time.

I mean, there were certainly women who inherited from family and whatnot.

In today's environment, let's take a look at that divorced man, for example, that age bracket.

Well, a lot of times there's alimony, there's child support.

His resources have dwindled substantially in many cases, okay?

And because of that, he doesn't have extra resources to take care of someone else.

In many cases, nor does a young person who's just starting out.

I have a 29-year-old son.

He doesn't have resources to take care of someone else.

I mean, he'd love to be partnered with someone, but he just doesn't have it.

Especially after COVID here in the United States, we had a displacement of wealth, you know, for a lot of people.

So a man's capacity to take care of someone has diminished dramatically and predominantly because women are in the workforce.

They have their own capacity to generate resources.

So if you're expecting a man to do that and you're generating resources, then you're not operating from a partnership point of view.

You're operating from either expectation point of view or a princess point of view.

Like, are you going to step into your queen and say, hey, look, we're doing this together as a partnership.

And by the way, this is a really sore subject for men.

The reason why men see casual relationships, mainly because, to be blunt, women have made it easy to some degree.

And that's not women shaming, by the way.

That's just pointing out an obvious truth, because women are empowered to do whatever they want.

Okay, so I'm not shaming that.

But at the same time, there are a lot of men that have shame around the fact that they can't take care of someone else.

And that's such a traditional script that many men rather have casual, even though they prefer to have something more substantial, but it's safer to have casual because they don't have the resources to take care of someone.

With all the divorce costs and everything you have to pay for now, two households.

By the way, most men don't even have the capacity to take care of two households.

They might, in many cases, they're having to fend for themselves.

A lot of women go through divorce thinking, oh, I'm going to get taken care of.

All of a sudden, they're like, I have to go get a job.

I got to take care of the kids.

You know, the destruction of marriage has caused a real financial calamity, particularly here in the United States.

And so a lot of women have found themselves in circumstances, I mean, they're having to cover significant portion of for themselves.

And this is where there's a benefit to being empowered.

I think it was Jane Fonda, who was on an interview within the last few years.

She was saying, look, ladies, you should have your own money.

Do not become dependent upon men.

When you have your own money, you have sovereignty.

That's kind of the narrative I'm here to pitch.

You know, don't expect it from a man.

Hey, if you meet a man who's worth $5 million and makes a half a million dollars a year, great, okay?

Abundance is great.

If you're Lauren Sanchez and you meet Jeff Bezos.

But you know what?

Here in the United States, 80% of the population makes less than $100,000 a year.

Okay, that's 80%, roughly.

And roughly, within that bracket, they don't have the money in the bank to survive one year without work.

Like, that's 80% of the population.

You know, we can focus on that 20%, you can hope for that, but most everybody falls in the 80% bracket.

So, your book is What the Heck is Self-Love?

What the Heck is Self-Love?

Anyway, A Journey of Personal Development, Self-Help, and Spiritual Work.

What are the main takeaways from there, especially in this dating pool?

Yeah, you know, this is a great question.

You know, a lot of people look at self-love as being manicures and pedicures.

I mean, that's self-care.

And self-love sometimes has a negative connotation, but I look at self-love from the vantage point is that we all have an inner six-year-old inside of us who has fear, doubts, insecurities.

And self-love is nurturing that little scared six-year-old inside of us from an emotional point of view, also from a physical point of view.

You know, whether you have fight or flight tendencies and that sort of thing when it comes to circumstances.

So it's nurturing that little six-year-old inside of you.

And self-love isn't selfish.

It's like you're on an airplane and the flight attendant says, you know, in the case of cabin pressure change, if you're traveling with small children, put the oxygen mask on yourself first.

Okay.

Well, that's what self-love is, is nurturing yourself first because you can't take care of anyone else if you don't nurture your own soul.

And so there's 30 plus practices in my book, very simplistic from speak your truth, do it from a kind place.

If you're sincere and from the heart, you can't say the wrong thing to the right person.

There's just some short stories within each to invite humans to do the work, to heal from our past, to be better present, to be better prepared and be present in the future.

And hopefully design a life where you have a lot of joy and abundance in your life.

And do you think applying those strategies if we are in the dating pool and we're experiencing the ghosting and all the things that make us people, do you think that it won't sting so much?

Because I think that's the fear.

Do you let go of that fear of rejection?

I think if you're thinking about that before a first date, you'll probably get it, okay?

If you're thinking about a white Tesla, you'll start seeing white Teslas out on the street.

And by the way, where I live, I see nothing but white Teslas.

So I think you have a choice.

You can set the intention it's raining great men, it's raining great women.

You can set an intention that you'll experience somebody who's genuine, trustworthy, present, that sort of thing.

Now, recognizing that ghosting is not about you.

It's about the other person.

If someone has fear around speaking up, that's more of a reflection of them.

And then here's the thing, if you judge that person, just like in the video where the women were judging the man for the $16 Venmo, you know, the minute you judge someone, you're going to be trapped in a victim consciousness.

You're trapped in judgment instead of being curious.

And so when someone goes or love bombs, by the way, I've loved bomb.

I've gotten so excited.

I'm like, Oh my God, you're so amazing.

You're so wonderful.

That's just a lot of times hyper excitement.

And like my mother used to say, I used to take everything your dad said with a grain of salt, you know, when you're sovereign, you don't take everything to the nth degree.

You kind of go, you know what, you know, this person might be a little bit excited.

Like if someone goes, you can just say, wow, they must have been in fear, you know, I wish them well.

And by the way, if we just started saying, I wish everyone well, instead of judging them, we will start attracting more joy in our lives.

It's just a natural byproduct.

Yes.

I think if you love yourself that much, you do wish people well.

Cause like you said earlier, everything is a trigger of what's going on inside of you and what you communicate to yourself.

Absolutely.

Any last words of wisdom before we close?

You know, this conversation has danced around communication.

And this isn't easy.

I mean, it's seriously being able to identify, and particularly I'm inviting everyone to recognize that to be a better communicator, invites everyone to really understand themselves from a place of what you're feeling, what you're experiencing, particularly in the area of fear and insecurity, particularly, because it's not all about the joyful feelings.

It's really those feelings that cause discourse.

And learning to sit with those emotions and simply express yourself in a sincere, kind, loving way.

I feel fear.

This is why I feel fear.

And just operate from a place of honest conversation, not confrontation, not accusatory.

Just express yourself.

If two people express their fears, actually, if they started by expressing their fears in dating, they would get rid of all the junk and then they could have fun thereafter.

Get it out of the way.

Yeah, exactly.

So I'm here to start with radical honesty with depth.

That's my invitation for everyone.

Radical honesty and depth.

Words of wisdom from Jonathon Aslay.

Right there, my coffee mug.

Radical honesty.

Radical honesty.

Wow.

You can get that on my YouTube channel.

It's one of the products I sell.

That's my logo.

We're going to put those details as well.

Jonathon Aslay, the relationship and dating coach with over 200,000 followers on his YouTube channel.

I will put all those details on the show notes.

Thank you so much, Jonathon.

I've enjoyed our conversation.

Likewise, Roberta, thank you and wishing you all the best.

My absolute pleasure.

Thank you as well.

Before you go, would you like to share with us your website so our listeners can reach you?

Sure.

My name is listed here, Jonathon Aslay.

Just simply cut and paste that into Google.

You'll see my YouTube channel pop up.

You'll see my website pop up.

You'll see my social media pop up.

You're more than welcome to follow me.

That's easier.

Just cut and paste it, put it in Google and go from there.

Perfect.

Jonathon Aslay.

Thank you for joining us on the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

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