The Living in Clarity Podcast, w/Coach Ratner

Infinite Marriage Audio Book, #12 Final Chapter Plus More!

• By Coach Daniel Ratner

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What if your marriage could not only last a lifetime but also be filled with passion and deep love? Join Coach Ratner as he concludes his audiobook, "Infinite  Marriage," with profound reflections on the art of maintaining a thriving relationship. Through Coach Ratner's personal journey of transforming his written work into an audiobook, you'll uncover practical wisdom and tools essential for navigating the four phases of love. He highlights the significance of effort in marriage and blesses his readers with the hope of achieving an extraordinary partnership with their soulmate.

This episode is also sprinkled with touching stories, including a heartwarming tale from the Essentials Program in Jerusalem, where Coach Ratner helped a 78-year-old man find companionship through social media. This narrative beautifully emphasizes that the desire for love and connection knows no age limits. Additionally, get a sneak peek into Coach Ratner’s forthcoming book, "Never Feel Unloved Again," and learn about his innovative plans to refine his writing process. Whether you're seeking relationship guidance or an inspiring story, this episode promises a rich blend of heartfelt insights and uplifting moments.

Speaker 1:

This is Coach Ratner of the Living in Clarity podcast. We are now on the final words of the audiobook of Incident Marriage. I hope you enjoyed reading this book. Marriage is one of the most beautiful and meaningful relationships we can acquire in this world. Although it is not hard to get married, it takes effort to have a loving, passionate relationship with one person for the rest of your life. Learning what it takes to go out into the world and try to meet your soulmate is much easier if you have the right tools and wisdom. I hope this book has given you the clarity to find someone with whom to smoothly progress through the four phases of love. My blessing to all my readers is that you will not only merit your besheret, but you will love each other for the rest of your lives, and not just in a good marriage or a great marriage, but an awesome marriage, one where you have achieved the status of never leaving. If you enjoyed my book or have some constructive feedback, please leave a review on Amazon. I can be found at wwwcoachrattercom or on my weekly podcast, the Living in Clarity Podcast, on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. I also teach weekly public classes on relationships and personal growth at the famous Essentials Program at HHTor in the Old City of Jerusalem. Thank you so much for reading my book. Well, that was fun. I enjoyed that.

Speaker 1:

I was walking to the old city a number of months ago and I got kind of tired of filming on my podcast. It took a lot of work how to find a cameraman, how to find space, how to get everything set up. It was just not an easy thing to do on a consistent basis the way I wanted to do it. I'm sure there are easy ways to do it that I could using computers. I just didn't do it Anyway. So I wanted to continue the podcast.

Speaker 1:

I decided to do audio only and I thought to myself you know what? I have a lot of material I have. You know my fifth book was coming out Incident Marriage. I had four other books. I'm finishing my sixth book called Never Feel Unloved. Again I go, I should just read my book because people kept asking me why don't you have an audio book? And so I figured I'll just do it myself. So that's how this started and I got to tell you it was really enjoyable to read.

Speaker 1:

The funny thing about reading the book is that you really find the mistakes in the writing when you're reading it out loud. And I think what I'm going to do next time is actually read my next book out loud before I actually go to publish it. That way I'll find any mistakes that I have. Unfortunately there were some in this book. It's a whole long story. Anyway, I want to go over some other ideas that I have developed since I've written this book and that really could have been to the book, but I want to give it to you now.

Speaker 1:

So one is the story was I'm setting up a girl and thank God, in my classes at the Essentials in the Old City of Jerusalem, I had a guy coming who was in his late 70s and he was single a Jewish guy but not connected Jewishly, and he loved the class. He came for a week, stayed for three months and at the end of his time period he met with me and he said I really want to get married again. I never thought I wanted to, but after learning about torah and, you know, growing jewishly, he decided he wanted to get married. So at least find a woman to spend time with. So I said to him you know, let me post a picture of you on my facebook page. You know I have 1800 friends on my facebook page and I said you never know what's going to happen. There's always a lot of you know widows out there, older women, who want to have a nice man like you. And so I posted a picture and through one of my contacts, someone contacted me. A woman said her mother was looking for a man and she was, you know, an older Jewish woman. And she asked me if I could vouch for him and I said I can't. I don't know him that well. I know him just from coming to my classes. He seems like a great guy. Anyway, they ended up meeting and now they're together, which is an amazing, amazing story.

Speaker 1:

So I took that story and I was trying to coach a woman in her around 40 years old who was a beautiful woman, outgoing, she was great. And I said to her you know, I succeeded in setting one guy up and he met his new soulmate. I go, can I try it for you? And she goes sure. So I posted a picture and I got a lot of responses because she's beautiful, and there was a guy who happened to be living in the same city as her, in Jerusalem, and I said I was talking with the guy, I said let me vet you, I go, let me meet you.

Speaker 1:

Before I set her up with this guy. He was like a few years older than him, than her, and he was, you know, not great look, but decent looking, not overweight. And so I met with him and he was awesome. I mean, I got to have a nice time with him. He was very aware of my needs, got me a you know a coffee cappuccino, asked me if I wanted more sugar or milk just very aware and very engaging. I really enjoyed my time with him. So I asked him what he did for a living and he loved his work, which is really important. He loved what he was doing.

Speaker 1:

And I said to the woman I said I found a guy for you. I said I invented him. And she asked me what he did for a living and I said I think he's in the education business, not with technology like he does technology, but actually with education. And she said to me these famous words that stuck in my mind he's not my type. I said what? What do you mean? He's not your type. You know nothing about him. He's a few years older than you, he lives in this city and he loves his work. He's growing Jewish. What do you mean? He's not my type. She goes, no, I want someone who's more in business. I go this is technology, education, this is huge businesses. There's huge, gigantic companies, billion-dollar companies, who are doing technology and education combined.

Speaker 1:

And she says, no, that's not the guy I want to meet. I'm Mary, and it got me thinking you don't know your type until you meet your type. You have no idea what your type is and it made me so frustrated and I don't, I can't, I can't help this woman anymore Because, like, how do you not at least give it a chance? How do you not, like, just from his job? You've never seen him, you've never talked to him, you have no idea who this guy is. She knew nothing about him except exactly what he did for work. I told him that he was really happy with this job and he loved working, which is a really good big thing that someone loves their work, what they do. So you don't know your type until you meet your type.

Speaker 1:

When my wife met my future wife met me, she wasn't looking for a five-foot-eight redhead who wasn't religious Like she wasn't. Like that wasn't what she was looking for, not even not religious, completely secular. So you don't know your type. Until you're muted, you have no idea who it's going to be. Anyway, that's one idea.

Speaker 1:

Another idea is that, talking about compliment, don't criticize. It's such a major part of relationships that I was trying to set up another girl and she was like sitting in her late 30s, newly religious, and she went out with a Swati guy and they're at a restaurant and she goes to wash for a sandwich and he goes and washes and she comes back and says a blessing before she ate her bread and he didn't say anything. And she says to him are you going to say a braha? He goes no, I just. And my hands are dirty. And she said to him you know you're supposed to say a bracha. And of course this relationship didn't work and I said to her afterwards I go, do you realize you were criticizing him? She says no, I wasn't. I go. Yes, you were Telling him. He needs to say it abruptly, is criticizing him? She goes no, I was trying to make him into a better guy. I said this is where a problem lies.

Speaker 1:

In relationships, criticism becomes such a part of people's lives that they don't realize they're criticizing. They have no idea. You know my mom was critical. She was, you know, ashkenazi and it became part of you know, some people in my family became very critical also and you don't realize you're critical because it becomes part of you. It's just part of your day. You don't think you're being criticized and it becomes part of your life. And criticizing tears apart a relationship, it really does.

Speaker 1:

I read something recently that studies have shown that relationships thrive when there is a four-to 1 ratio between positive and negative speech. That means for every negative interaction you need four positive ones to counteract it. But here's the zinger is that when you have a big negative interaction, it takes 17 positive interactions to counteract that one negative moment. Negativity this is according to Sarah Patach. She published an article on Hcom. Negativity creates cortisol in the brain.

Speaker 1:

Cortisol is an interesting little stress hormone that acts as a stimulant, while humans prefer endorphins, the feel-good hormones which I've talked about. During exercise, when faced with a choice between cortisol or nothing, we choose a stimulant every time, which means we're going to choose the negative reaction because it creates cortisol. Your brain desires an endorphin, but it'll take cortisol as it must. We utilize cortisol because it helps us feel things, but you need endorphins to connect to your spouse, and cortisol and endorphins can't coexist. Some people thrive off cortisol because that's the only stimulant they get. You feel really alive when you are looking for the tiger that's about to pounce on you, or in the form of your partner. This makes cortisol addictive. And also, when you are on cortisol, you can't form a relationship because you're trying to protect yourself the whole time. So this is why it's very important that we compliment, don't criticize, because we want to have endorphins, our spouse to have endorphins to be able to connect to us, our spouse to have endorphins to be able to connect to us.

Speaker 1:

And then the concept I came up with was when I talked about attention, that a man must ask his wife three questions when he comes home from work, and I came up with an analogy. I recently was in Chicago no, I don't remember where I was, maybe it was New York and I came up with this analogy of Actually it was Dallas. I came with this analogy that you know, I had a little small cup of water, like you know, a six-ounce cup and I said to the audience this is how much a guy can handle, this is how much information we can put into our brain and I came with a pitcher full of water, a big pitcher. I go and this is how much our wives want to pour into us and I go. This is why we have a problem. This is why we have a problem. This is why sometimes guys will walk out on their wives when they're talking, because they need to get to the point and we only have so much bandwidth. And I thought that was a good analogy because you can actually see it and it makes sense to me.

Speaker 1:

There was a woman in Chicago that I coached recently that after one of my talks that said her husband walks out on her when she's talking to him. And I said to her you know, I've done the same thing to my wife even recently Like she'll be talking to me after I've gotten back from teaching, telling me what's going on in the day. And next thing I know I think in my head oh, I have donuts in the kitchen, I just walk out. Because suddenly my mind switched from listening to my wife to donuts in the kitchen and she said you're walking out on me. I'm like I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that. And this woman had the same problem with her husband. I said maybe you know you're giving too much information to him, maybe you need to talk in bullet points. So that's something else that you know has come to my mind since I've written this book that we, as a guy, we can only handle so much information and I like using the pitcher full of water and a little small cup as an example. Yeah, so those are the things that I've added in to my classes since I've written this book and it's available on Amazon and if you enjoy it. It was funny.

Speaker 1:

I was teaching recently at a seminary, an Ishtar seminary, here in Jerusalem, and it was a group. It came in for like two weeks of the summer and they said, oh, you wrote that book, infinite Marriage. I go yes, I did, because I don't know if anyone reads it. She goes oh my gosh, we've been reading it every Shabbos on the outside, in the grass, in the park. I'm reading it out loud and I'm like it gave me some great pleasure that some people were actually reading my book. But anyway, that's the end of, isn't it, marriage Soon.

Speaker 1:

I am going to read my next book Never Feel Unloved Again and that is on the symptoms of low self-esteem, ways in which you cause low self-esteem in other people and then eventually the strategies to cure low self-esteem, and I'm very excited about it and I really hope you enjoyed listening to my podcast. I think this podcast is probably airing in like August 2024. Hopefully by the end of the year we'll have the next book out and thank you so much. Please, if you happen to like the podcast, please comment, share positive, negative comments, I don't really care, just any comment would be great to hear. You can email me and also go to Amazon and leave a message about the book if you enjoyed it. Thank you so much and this is the Living in Clarity podcast. I'm Coach Ratner. See you next time.