The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr. Kenner.com and @amazon.com.

Lisa, you're dealing with a new career.

Yes, actually, I'm recently divorced, and I'm happily divorced, and you celebrated. I'm sorry. Did you celebrate? I actually did? Yes, I really did, however, and that that's great. I did have a career several years ago. I have an education, a four-year degree, and a sales job that I did. Like, I have three children, however, okay, so now I'm in the situation of, I'm a single mom, and what's really important to me right now is flexibility. I do want to be there for my children. I want to have a flexible schedule, and I really don't want to go back into like an office situation where I feel tied down, or I feel like I can't quite be there for my children.

However, how old are they?

They're 14, 11, and 10, so they're not tiny, right, right, but they still want mom around, yeah, for school and right? And I think I'm feeling really stuck. I know I need to get back out there. I'm looking at my options. I don't live in a major metropolitan area, so I don't have as many options as I might if I maybe lived somewhere else.

What possibilities have you thought of?

The first stage is brainstorming and allowing yourself to think outside the square. I mean, to be as creative as possible, whether it's creating a new product at home that you could use with the kids, or, you know, trying to come up with different ideas. What things have you thought of?

I've actually thought about getting back into sales, which I'm very good at, but again, working for someone else. I think my gut just keeps telling me, I keep looking at these opportunities and going, well, I could do this. I'm really good at this, you know, some type of sales or creative or project management, but the thought of doing it for somebody else, you know, Monday through Friday, just turns my stomach and I feel like I have to do something that's more creative and more flexible, where I'm really more in control, and yet, I have done some brainstorming, but I still, at this point, I'm just stuck. I don't know if I'm stuck mentally, and I can't go forward because of, you know, fear or I don't know, I'm just kind of stuck at this point, and I've been stuck for several weeks.

Okay, that one of the key things is to write everything down on paper. Because if you're trying to hold it in your head and you just feel like you can't move in any direction, you know this, there's no ready answer available for you. It's not like you were went to sleep tonight, and then you came up with the snugly, and you were going to, you know what the snugly is to hold a little infancy. And you decided that you were going to create a new snugly, and you could do that all on your own. The skills you have are sales. They're in the sales category.

Yeah, I would say sales as sort of a consultative sales, writing, creative, advertising, those types of things.

Oh, wow. You have a lot of skills, and it sounds like you do. You also come across as very confident, too, in a lovely way. So if you could do writing at home, that you could do that at home, you could do a lot of creative things at home.

So you could first, Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Ah, here it is, the selfish path to romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfish romance.com and buy it @amazon.com hmm, the selfish path to romance that is interesting.

You could do a lot of creative things at home. So you could first make a list of all of the categories of things that you all of your skills, and then you can see which ones you enjoy the best you know, whether it's writing, whether it's sales, and just let your mind play with them. See if there are any combinations that come to your mind, for example, advertising or voiceovers, if you've got a lovely voice, thank you. You know, maybe you could do something with voiceovers and commercials and call your own shots. Maybe you could write scripts. Maybe, I'm not sure exactly what you enjoy doing. But there could be a lot of mom jobs, mom-friendly jobs that you could do at home, or at least have a little office space that you could go to so you feel, you get the feeling of a career, but then you need to find the niche that what niche you can fit into.

So part of it is finding what fits, part of it is introspective meaning, finding out and listing all the things that you could do or would enjoy doing. If you write them all down on paper, it anchors your mind a little bit. Then, yeah, just bopping back and forth between them. And then if you look, you can even hierarchically rank them if you want. Which would you go put stars next to the ones you like the glass and see if anything comes to your mind? Let yourself again, think outside the square because you may come up with a career.

I can listen. I came up with radio; my husband did, actually, and that's something I never thought I would do, never in a million years. I was a shy kid. So give yourself that flexibility. And then figure out what's available in your area, and it may not be in your area. You may be able to go into some metropolitan areas, and they just hire you to do the work where you live now, and you send them a copy. If you're good at writing or you do the sales from home. You want your autonomy, so you offer them your package. You don't sound like a meek person, as I said.

So you're really not. And most people come to me for advice, okay? And all of the things you said are great, and I do. I'm a big fan of making lists and writing things down and weighing them out. I think maybe, I think just now, what I've realized is I think I know what my skill set is, and I know that a lot of it isn't really available here. And I think I feel that if I send out my resume, if I come up with something that I really haven't done before. So I don't have a resume that shows that experience, right? And so then trying to send that out and say, Well, my resume says this, but I want to do this right yet I don't have the experience.

But people, yeah, people may be willing to train you. I went into radio, cold turkey, cold turkey. So it depends on your courage. And I mean, you bring your personality into the situation. If you're as peppy as you sound, then that's part of the product that people are going to be interested in, right? So listen, I wish you a lot of success. There's a book "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life" on my website that has some good exercises in it too. My website's Dr. Kenner.com and I wish you a wonderful success with that.

Thank you so much. You're welcome.

For more Dr. Kenner podcast, go to Dr. Kenner.com and please listen to this.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Drs. Kenner and Locke: The experience of shared sexual pleasure is important because it greatly strengthens the bond between partners. As long as there's a bond to strengthen. Sex can reinforce romantic love, but it cannot create closeness from thin air. It is the expression of love, not its cause. Sex cannot create self-esteem that is lacking in one or both partners. As a celebration, sex expresses self-value, but it cannot fill the void of non-self-value. Lack of sex or unsatisfying sex often undermines a romantic relationship by weakening the existing bond between partners. Sexual dissatisfaction can undermine feelings of closeness and intimacy and send the relationship on a downward spiral that spreads far beyond sex, especially when one or both partners' frustration and anger lead to progressively less sexual satisfaction for both.

Download chapter one for free at Dr. Kenner.com and @amazon.com.