Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
I worked as a reporter for the BBC 1. I was working on radio and TV almost every day for 10 years and trained to think on my feet and do everything live. Now I work as a moderator at large international conferences.
What inspired you to write How To Be the One?
I’ve been writing and lecturing on various aspects of relationships for many years, mainly on the business side. I lecture on MBA courses on building relationships in business. Then in 2007, with Mary T. Cleary, I wrote a book about personal relationships but the taboo side – how you deal with sociopathic dangerous people. After working on that, I thought I needed something a bit more uplifting, a look at the dating world.
In a nutshell, what would you say the book advises singles to do?
One of the most important elements of the book is that it’s not about trying to find the one person who you think is going to make you happy. It’s about working on being the person that somebody else would choose to want to stay with. That is something you have control over. It’s all too easy to meet a succession of people in dating and dismiss each and every one by saying: “Well, they are not the perfect version that I have in my mind”, when, in fact, you never think about how perfect you are in the minds of other people.
So I’ve developed what I call your emotional core. The emotional core are 4 elements of personality – attitude, self esteem, happiness and kindness. Kindness isn’t seen as being fashionable but when it comes to a long, meaningful, loving relationship kindness is probably the most important overlooked area.
Are you a fan of Internet dating?
Yes and I had personal experience with Internet dating many years ago. I’m a practitioner and not just a theorist or academic, so I know exactly what’s involved. I think there is an enormous amount of fatigue with Internet dating. The expectations of everybody are just not matched.
How does your book help people do Internet dating better?
It helps people be much clearer about who they are, what they want from themselves and what they bring to a relationship rather than focusing on what they get from a relationship.
How can the dating industry work with you? What are you looking for from the dating industry?
I would ask the dating industry to look very closely at what the trends are. One of the problems is that people aren’t learning how to be somebody who is a truly appealing individual to someone else. I’ve created an e-book called How to Be Loved and it basically takes each of the elements of the emotional core that I talked about earlier and just provides the reader with any number of daily reminders of areas to think about in order to be someone who would be more appealing to a future partner. And in some ways it is no different than preparing yourself for the most fantastic job interview you would ever have.
Read the e-book, it’s free, any Internet dating site can have it to offer it to their members.
You give them content and they give you distribution, right?
Absolutely! What I’m talking about is a much deeper personal development for people who are serious about being the best person they can be for either the partner they are with right now or the stranger they haven’t had a date with yet, who could be the person they choose to spend time with or for the rest of their lives.
I would encourage men and women to share the e-book with each other and use it as a way of discussing how to get more intimacy in their relationship. And I’m not talking about physical intimacy; I’m talking about an emotional connection. I’m always asked what love is. Scott Peck, a psychologist, said something outrageous about 30 to 40 years ago and it’s in my book. He said love is a decision, it’s not something that just happens to you.
And I deal with the subject of love at the end of the book and it is sandwiched between 2 different chapters, one is about trust and the other chapter is about commitment. And I believe love is sandwiched between trust and commitment.
