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"The most important thing you\'ll do for your relationships is what you do for yourself."

Our guest today is a\\xa0co-creator of eHarmony, psychologist, professor, author, husband and father, Les Parrott. When I shared a stage with Les at the Dave Ramsey SMART Conference, I\\xa0was blown away by his wisdom.\\xa0

He\'s shared his expertise with\\xa0Oprah, Barbara Walters and Tom Brokaw... and today he will share it with us.\\xa0My friends, are you ready to improve\\xa0your relationships with these amazing insights on sustaining life-long love? Here we go!

SHOW NOTES:

• Fight Night - the event Les and Leslie (his wife) host where\\xa0couples talk about their conflict and how to leverage it to bring them\\xa0closer together.
• Saving Your Marriage before It Starts is their most popular book.
• We aren\'t entitled and don\'t always get what we\\xa0feel we\\xa0deserve - so we must learn how to adjust to the things beyond our\\xa0control.
• Have you faced marriage myths with honesty?\\xa0Ex: This person should make me whole. We\'re set up for heartache; nobody can complete us.
• The most important thing you\'ll do for your relationships is what you do for yourself.\\xa0
  
• If you try to bulid intimacy with someone before you have done the\\xa0work of getting whole on your own, your relationship will become an attempt to complete yourself.
• Your relationships can only be as healthy as you are. A\\xa0few things you\\xa0can do to become a little more whole:
  • Embrace your significance. Can feel deep down that you have a purpose on this planet?
  • Unswerving authenticity.\\xa0Are you following your path regardless of what anyone says?
  • Self-giving love.\\xa0Realizing others needs are different than yours.\\xa0
• There are three kinds of fights:
  • Bad fights - tear us apart / rip\\xa0away the fabric of our relationships
  • Dumb fights - have no purpose / are silly
  • Good fights - bring us\\xa0closer together
• Don\'t avoid conflict, turn the fight into a good fight. You make them "bad" or "good" by the choices you make /\\xa0context within the fight.
• Empathy is the single skill that will change your relationship the most.\\xa0Conflicts dissipate when you\\xa0see conflict from their side and they see it from yours. Try to\\xa0accurately see the world from their perspective.
• Empathy has two components, your head and heart. Sympathize with your heart, analyze with your head. We typically do one \\xa0well, recognize which one you struggle with and make yourself do it, too.\\xa0
• Take Les\'s\\xa0Deep\\xa0Love Assessment: Partners answer a series of questions separately and instantly get a private, custom road map for lifelong love.

LES PARROTT\'S LIVE INSPIRED 7

1. What is the best book you\\u2019ve ever read?\\xa0Either Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman or Learned Optimism\\xa0by\\xa0Martin Seligman.

2. Tomorrow you discover your wealthy uncle shockingly dies at the age of 103; leaving you millions. What would you do?\\xa0I\'d establish, on college campuses, centers for healthy relationships to give education to a whole new generation. We\'d see divorce rate drop dramatically - and when you lower the divorce rate, it positively impacts rates of education, wealth, etc.

3. Your house is on fire, all living things and people are out. You have the opportunity to run in and grab one item. What would it be?\\xa0My laptop.

4. You are sitting on a bench overlooking a gorgeous beach. You have the opportunity to have a long conversation with anyone living or dead. Who would it be? My wife Leslie, she loves the beach. I love that she loves the beach and we\'ve had some of our greatest talks there.

5. What is the best advice you\\u2019ve ever received?\\xa0Master the capacity to adjust to things beyond your control. Life is unfair.\\xa0

6.\\xa0Looking back, what advice would you give yourself at age 20?\\xa0Relax. Slow down a bit. It\'s going to be okay.

7. It\\u2019s been said that all great people can have their lives summed up in one sentence. How do you want yours to read?\\xa0A man who loved his family with all his heart.

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I can\\u2019t wait to see you here next Thursday! Today is your day. Live Inspired.

Live Inspired with John everyday on\\xa0Facebook,\\xa0Twitter,\\xa0YouTube,\\xa0LinkedIn,\\xa0Pinterest\\xa0and get his Monday Motivation email:\\xa0www.JohnOLearyInspires.com/Monday-Morning