The institution of marriage has been in the national spotlight like never before. Politicians are defining what it means and attempting to shape its parameters. Millions are glued to their television sets to see if total strangers can get together and make it down the aisle. The state of “happily ever after” seems to be on everyone’s mind. Marriage is still meant to honor love, commitment, and life-long partnership, but it requires dedication and hard truths. Those contemplating marriage need to face tough questions about what it means to be married, their partnerships, their values, and their future. Is marriage the right direction for you and your partner? Are you ready?

1001 Questions to Ask Before You Get Married is the book to read long before you plan that walk down the aisle or say I DO. Love can be bliss, but marriage takes work. Communication, compromise, and joint decision-making are key ingredients to a successful marriage. Unfortunately, couples often overlook these things when planning a wedding. This book provides pointed questions, hypotheticals, and self-exploratory quizzes that will help individuals define themselves and their goals, find out more about their partners and their goals, in order to reasonably manage matrimonial expectations. The book has also been published in Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Vietnamese and Farsi.

Author and relationship expert Monica Mendez Leahy has helped hundreds of couples explore their common goals and perspectives as well as their unique differences as they prepare for their life journey together. Marriage involves a constant state of maneuvering, change, and honoring differences. From exes and past relationships to pets, raising children, money issues, living together before marriage, and physical intimacy – each person brings his or her own unique set of personality traits and requirements.


About Monica Mendez Leahy

Monica Mendez Heahy has been helping couples prepare for marriage for more than twenty years, and has married hundreds of couples as a Deputy Commissioner of Civil Marriages for the County of Los Angeles. She hosts a series of couples' workshops in the Los Angeles area and has been featured in the Ladies Home Journal and the Wall Street Journal and on Lifetime Television. Couples can also seek her advice at the www.1001questionstoask.com web site.

Join me and two different yet similar business men who have worked their way up the success ladder and what and how they did it!
Darryl Dunn is the appointed General Manager for the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California since July 1999. Darryl is responsible for all financials, marketing and operational needs and special events as well as the Rose Bowl Football Game and UCLA Football Games.
and......Travis K. a computer creator and inventor, is an innovator, who’s talents took him from rags to riches with a blink of an eye, or so it seems……………..

Here is a sneak preview of what these men are thinking, feeling and saying...

Darryl said that he used to believe.......”That business was just based on numbers and operational aspects.
He can sabotage when things are going well by taking things for granted and not focusing enough on the small things. The reason for knowing things about yourself is to catch it, and prevent your subconscious mind from creating a situation you do not want to happen. Know yourself to work with yourself.”
For Darryl, the struggle times meant having multiple jobs and figuring out how to pay rent; not to mention how to get to a place where he would be fulfilled professionally, and also be able to take care of his family. Being fulfilled is a sense of motivation regardless of what your job is.

On the other side of the struggle, Darryl said: "I feel so grateful, but I never forget what it was like to struggle. I think the difficult times helped make me who I am today. My belief system now for business & a happy life is very much based on relationships and communication. Without being excellent in both, you can't succeed. Also, I very much believe in developing a process on how to get the answer you're ultimately seeking.
“Belief systems definitely matter to me now. You need to keep yourself focused and not deviate too much; otherwise something important may fall through the cracks. This is called self discipline.

It is so essential to know yourself before going into a creative process/meeting. Often I have different people I respect giving me different advice. At the end of the day, I follow my instincts and if I don't know where I am heading entering into a meeting, I can bounce around.

Early life effects present life because the basic communication and relationship skills are taught or not taught here. The most important skill in my opinion is to be “people oriented. “If you don't have these skills, you can still succeed, but eventually you have to acquire them to be happy and fulfilled.”
Now when Travis K. was asked the same questions he said; “My old belief system in business was to fight until you win. The End.

My sabotages when things are going good are: to be first; over confident and then of course, apologetic for my success and sometimes the way I did it.

The struggle period was a never ending battle against the world. It was a lonely, hard place to be. If fight is my belief then the “for and against philosophy” is inevitable. That is an exhausting process in itself.

Now when I am on the other side of this mini war……. I still work just as hard but my brain is more relaxed. This is not exhausting.

My belief system now of business & creating a happy life is: Fighting may still be or feel good in a way but listening is better.

A belief system matters because...what you believe determines what you do. What and how you do something determine who you are.

Excellence depends on knowing yourself, so knowing yourself before going into a creative process/meeting is the most important thing you can do for your own integrity. Find ways to do what you do best, and let others participate in the ways that they can best contribute.


So Mona asks the question: Does it matter "who you are" and “what you believe”?

And Mona says: "Definitely work on control issues to get clear on your beliefs".

Early life effects present life more than we will ever know.

What was you old belief system in business?

What are your sabotages when things are going good?

What was it like starving/struggling?

If on the other side, how does it feel now?

What is belief system now of business & happy life?

Do belief systems matter and why?

How important is it to know yourself before going into a creative process/meeting?
Why?

Does early life effect present life? Explain

Feel free to ask yourself these questions and more................... And stop the underlining depression of Capitalism/Democracy/and The More Monster.
Striving to be #1, at best, is a perception and just a moment in time.

For additional thought provoking material go to chapter 12 in Invisible Warfare . Chapter 12 lists the realms in their order and why they have to be in this order to keep your beliefs in alignment.

Call In With Your Stories and Questions of...

What Love Is...
&
What You Thought Love Was and Found Out It Wasn't Love At All!

Love in the 21st Century is One Big Ball of Confusion!!!!!!
Love wasn't a choice not so long ago. You were told who you could and couldn't marry. You knew what your role was and you just did it. You were highly supervised. Discipline was strict and painful. Fear and Punishment Ruled! Those were the good old days.

Freedom to Love has opened up a great Big Bowl of Worms.

Freedom requires:
Self discipline
Self awareness
The understanding of opposites and others
Self responsibility and ownership of your thoughts, feelings as well as actions

Confusion is so important for Clarity. The Understanding and Acceptance of Opposites is the beginning of Wisdom.

You know how they say “Confucius Says”? Confucius sounds like confusion to me. Confucius actually speaks in confusion as a passageway to Clarity. He speaks in dichotomies and oxymoron’s with understanding ending in clarity. To understand confusion is to be loving.

~"If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand."

~"Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous."

~"The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it."

~"The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar."

~"The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions."

~"The superior man...does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow."

~"There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth...lust. When he is strong...quarrelsomeness. When he is old...covetousness."

Quotes from Confucius, The Confucian Analects

If love means to understand all things then the experience of the opposite of understanding is a must for depth and intimacy. So being confused and attracting opposites is imperative for love to grow deeply.

Thus the joke of why Men are attracted to Women and visa versa because men and women are opposites too. Therefore they clash on just being themselves from the lack of understanding of themselves let alone the differences of the other.

And if that combo isn’t ridiculous enough, how about putting Logically based lovers together with Emotionally based lovers often leading to fights, depression and cheating.

Sometimes when Logically based people are attracted to the reflection of themselves without the opening of their own inner opposite part, the heart/feelings and intuition, this relationship falls flat and becomes platonic.

When Emotionally based people attract Emotionally based partners this can be volatile like the War of the Roses movie and often becomes about domestic violence and then hot sex because passion and anger go together.

Since Love is a God word and Truth is a God word and those words are repelling because they are opposite ... watch this nightmare. Love is warm and Truth is cold, so the awareness of these opposites is required for True Love, but how do they hook up together?
So understanding and loving the truth of ourselves and those not like ourselves is a must for depth, intimacy and chemistry.

This Understanding then brings us to The Light!

God is Truth which Lights The Way to Love and we Create from this ... or not.
What are you creating?

If you are controlling as a way of loving that means you are out of control inside and not understanding yourself. Control does not go with Peace. Control can scare others to shut down which seems like peace. When someone suffocates themselves they can become passive/aggressive. This energy is a time bomb. Be prepared for aggressive warfare in the end. Where’s the peace?

Impatience and control does not create Listening although that is the desire. Passive is not listening. It creates intimidation and obeying blindly. Be prepared for rebellion and vindictiveness with this so called Love!

Call in Sunday morning to see what is Love and What you thought Love was and Found Out Love wasn't.

To Talk with Mona Live Sunday Morning Call 1-800-336-2225

We are heading into Valentines Day and the study of Love is soooooooooooooooooo important. This is Part 1 of Love from an Open Heart with Deon Joseph, L.A.P.D.!

Part 2 is next week, February,17. Wait until you see what love is not where we think Love is.

Sometimes love grows best in times of struggle because it must to
help us survive. Sometimes Love is Killed to survive and bitterness with painful act outs are the result of our struggles.

What is Love? Love is the Understanding of all the things Good, Bad and Ugly.

Now with understanding comes Patience. When love embraces all truths and lies,it heals and becomes Spiritual.

Love as Understanding brings Hope because it does not Judge.

Well, on today's show, we are going to walk through a Cop's mind where his heart is attached to his thoughts and actions, creating education and healing. The alternative is to see in judgment and punishment which results in becoming reactive and same old, same old.

Deon Joseph has been a Senior Lead Officer for the skid row area for about three years. He has actually worked in skid row for about ten years of his twelve year career. Officer Joseph is the liaison between the skid row community and the Central Community police station. He has developed creative crime fighting techniques to combat violent crimes in the area. As a lead officer, his most important function is to show the community who the police are as community supporters and not just doing what officers do. Officer Joseph says; "It is the best gig in the world because I have helped more people in this capacity than I ever did as a patrol officer."

So I ask myself.....Why is Officer Joseph so loving? Where did such a deep understanding of addiction, hard crime and relationships between cops and abusive communities come from? I knew it had something to do with his life experiences. And yes, parenting does matter.

Deon's mother, Margie, raised 41 foster children, and his father, Milton, regularly employed ex-cons in his businesses. When Deon looked at Skid Row's drug-addicted and homeless residents he saw them like family.

So Love is Understanding, not Judgmental. He will tell you the truth about people without judging them. Do you know how to do this? How do you tell an upsetting truth without an opinion of good, bad, right and wrong, stupid, smart? When truths are judged they lose all hope of recovery and that is one of the biggest ways to keep abuse and crime alive. Keep judging, then complain and then say there is nothing you can do about it. But is that true? Does understanding and boundaries offer a chance for a Miracle? Is that what Valentine's Day is here to remind us of?
Counseling in this way of understanding is Deon's family's code of Ethics. Can we take this in and copy it in our own way? Wanna try?

Love is magic as long as you know how to Love the Truth.

Learn more about what Love is and is not in Invisible Warfare.... Chapter 9, What's Love Got to Do With Care

Play can be in everything. Humor and freedom in everyday life makes life worth living. We are bombarded with burdening energy and the “More Monster” so why do we work, learn and grow if there is no fun along the way? If I have to wait for the end of something to celebrate and the road was miserable and the road is the longest part who cares?

Join me and my guest, author and speaker "Dr. Play", Howard Papush as we explore why the concept of recess was so important to us as children and why it's still so very much needed in the workplace and how to use Play to think “Outside the Box”. How in touch you are with your child-like qualities and how to enhance them.

Here’s what “Dr. Play” has to say … “A January 1999 article in a special business career section of the Los Angeles Times entitled, "To Think Outside Box, Get Into Sandbox", suggests that employees have to learn how to "make work into child's play" if they wish to be more creative and innovative in their careers.

There's a great deal of research to back up this theory. Psychologist Donald MacKinnon at the University of California/Berkeley did a body of study on the subject of creativity. His findings-creativity is not a talent; it is a way of operating-a mode of behavior. He described the particular facility as "an ability to play" and concluded that the most creative people are "child-like", for they are able to play with ideas and to explore them.

Children, who possess what social philosopher Arthur Koestler called, "innocence of perception" have an innate ability to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Their imagination is uncorrupted by outside constraints. In play, they bring passionate attention to activities.”

“Dr. Play” offers programs/seminars/breakout sessions for businesses that include interactive discussions, revealing quizzes, guided meditations, and dynamic experiential play exercises that will aid you in thinking "outside the box", opening your eyes to a new creative world.

1. Why a sense of joy seems to be absent in many parts of our society.
2. Having a more balanced approach to one's day and one's work.
3. A new and more exciting definition of "creativity."
4. Why being in touch with your inner child is so valuable.
5. Guided meditation back to our childhood and the way we played when we were kids.
6. RECESS--a series of interactive, cooperative games that unleash waves of energy, laughter, and self-esteem, build trust, teach support, encourage risk-taking, provide acknowledgement and validation, reveal commonalities, and spark creativity.
7. Discussion of the games, the ways individuals participated in the activities, and how one can change their style, communication, and attitude to be more effective in their lives.
8. Specific strategies to deal with ongoing stress in one's career.
9. Reorganizing your work space to create more joy in your environment.
10. Employing these methods in your home life--better relations with your mate, your children, the family, and the neighbors.
11. A series of empowering messages to remind you to take recess every day


About “DR. PLAY”, Howard Papush

Nationally known as "Dr. Play," HOWARD PAPUSH uses his unique communication and facilitation skills to teach organizations how to build a binding sense of group harmony and community. He also helps people get more in touch with their creative souls and provides individuals with tools to aid them in managing their stress levels.

He is a former broadcasting executive who, for more than 25 years, worked closely with some of the most famous personalities in the history of the television industry. They include Johnny Carson, Barbara Walters, Ralph Edwards, Dick Clark, Allen Funt, and "Howdy Doody."

He earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Speech and Communications from Queens College of the City University of New York. While an undergraduate he held the title of Director of Student Activities, and was selected for inclusion in the national publication, Who's Who Among Students In American Colleges And Universities.

Check out Dr. Play’s Book: When’s Recess? Playing your way through the stress of life.

Feeling hassled, anxious, overworked?
Not having enough fun?
Need to laugh more?
Want to feel young forever?

For more information on programs by Dr. Play visit: http://www.letsplayagain.com