I’m working at stopping this behavior. Here’s how you can too.
Do you overexplain? Talk elaborately and much too long as if you think you won’t be understood? Do you always have to follow a “No” with a long-drawn-out explanation of why you’re saying no? If your answer to any of those questions is “yes,” then you may have developed this as a response to how you were raised.
In my case, I developed it because I was gaslit by my mother. My mother was an alcoholic. She sadly never recovered, and she later died from complications from it.
When my parents were married, her drinking was a huge problem. The…
and how you can learn to “speak” your partner’s better too.
I believe everyone’s love language is whatever you didn’t get as a child. This isn’t a knock against my parents or anyone else’s parents. As a parent myself, I know that we all try the best we can and will fall short.
I can only hope that whatever I’m not able to give my own children, they will one day be able to learn to give themselves and have people in their lives that will do the same.
That being said, I hope that my wife and I model to our children how best to “express” to each other our…
The Love Languages framework helps you be more introspective about what you need from a partner. Here’s another way you can consider them.
When I was married to my first wife and we started struggling, we both read The 5 Love Languages by pastor and marriage counselor Gary Chapman.
Chapman’s book states that there are five different ways that individuals best understand and express love. When a person’s love language is “spoken” to them regularly, they feel truly loved by their partner, or their “love tank” is full.
The 5 love languages are
- Gifts (thoughtful tokens, not just expensive diamonds but can be),
- Physical Touch (hugs, hand-holding, touches, caresses, sexual intimacy, etc.),
- Quality Time (having connected, active time together),
- Acts of Service (such…
It’s not always easy, but with some simple tips, you can stick to any plan or goal.
Every January 1st brings a new crowd to my gym.
People who are full of motivation for this to be the year they finally get in shape, yet most of them stop showing up by February 1st.
The reason most of us give up on a specific resolution is that we lose the motivation. We make up excuses, or we start to tell ourselves that we “can’t.” We quit before we’ve really even given ourselves the chance to try.
As a Master Life Coach, it disappoints me, because most people just need help accomplishing their goals. …
On what you should consider when you face the ultimate betrayal.
“Now what?” is the same question I asked myself over eleven years ago.
In 2004, I’d gotten married on Valentine’s Day, but 5 years later, I was facing my wife and the mother of my child after learning she’d been unfaithful.
I’d known that something wasn’t right. We’d opened a business together that year that hadn’t done well. Financial problems on top of the fact that we started barely seeing one another. I’d be gone before she even got up in the morning, and then she didn’t get home until after I fell asleep.
I would have never thought that…
More men need to start paying attention to and learning from the #MeToo movement.
I’ve worked for a Fortune 500 company as a Global Product Manager for the last seven years. My boss is a woman. My boss’s boss is a woman. Though I work from home currently, I’m on the phone or on Zoom calls with women all day every day.
Before I met my current wife, I’d been mostly single for ten years, and I’ve worked with women that were attractive.
But I’ve never had an inappropriate relationship with a woman I work with. Not once.
You know why?
Because you shouldn’t do that. Unfortunately, as these situations continue to happen, there…
From lessons I’ve learned as an employee and then manager at a Fortune 500 company
As a child, my dad was determined to mold me into a leader. He used every opportunity to show me there are two types of people in this world, and it’s up to you to decide.
As I grew up, I always gravitated to leadership roles, but I found that I didn’t get the results I thought I should get.
I remember thinking to myself, I must be the unluckiest leader in the world. I keep getting stuck with these shitty teams!
The truth was that my teams were the unluckiest teams in the world: they kept getting stuck with…
and how anyone else can too.
On December 13th, 2020, my wife filmed two cute videos of me on Tiktok being sad about transitioning our infant daughter from her bassinet to her crib.
We posted the videos, and then I didn’t think about it again.
Three days later, my wife called me.
“Have you checked your Tiktok?!?” she shouted.
“No,” I told her.
“You have more than 200 followers and your one video had 28k views!”
I quickly opened up the app and saw the hundreds of notifications I’d missed.
As of the day of this writing, 2/9/2021, I have 16,121 followers.
Here’s what you should know.
Suicide is not the answer. If you or someone you love is thinking about suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1–800–273–8255).
As an advocate for mental health, it scares me to know our mental health care system is broken. I know it failed my family and me.
I am a suicide survivor. That doesn’t mean I attempted suicide and failed. It means one of my loved ones took his own life, and I was able to get through it.
On July 18, 2013, I lost my father. …
How my family copes
Since lockdown was initiated in our state back in March 2020, my wife and I have followed all of the CDC guidelines. Including while she was pregnant, had our baby girl, and up to and after we all got COVID.
But sometimes the guy you co-parent with, your amazing wife’s ex-husband, is the one who not only gets your whole family sick, but also decides guidelines don’t matter and potentially exposes even more people.
Co-parenting isn’t easy at any time, but we’ve learned some things that have informed how we’ll co-parent from now on.
When my family first came down…
Brian Ball
Husband. Father. Global Product Manager for a Fortune 500 company. Master Coach. https://beacons.ai/bdb2021
