Jim Duzak | Live on Sound Authors

February 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome to Sound Authors! Today on the show as always I have three author guests and one musician and as a little preview I’ll tell you about the upcoming guests. The third guest on the show will be Nina Burleigh and she’s got a book called Unholy Business: A true tale of faith greed and forgery in the holy land, that will be an exciting one talking about the ossuaries in Jerusalem and things like that. The second guest on the show I’m very excited to chat with Garen Thomas who is the author of Yes We Can: A biography of Barack Obama, and of course that’s a great book to look at these days with our new president in office for about three weeks and at the end of the show we’re going to chat with Snowblink, a great duo out of Canada. Right now, my first guest on the show is Jim Duzak. He’s the Attorney at Love, and of course this is the week of love, its valentine’s week and the book is called Midlife Divorce and the Rebirth of Commitment. Welcome to the show Jim Duzak.

Jim Duzak: Well thank you very much Dr. Kent, its great to be on.

Dr. Kent: So tell me a little bit; you’ve been dealing with marriage and divorce and all that and all the issues surrounding relationships for quite a while.

Jim Duzak: Well that’s right I guess you could say both personally and professionally as a 28 year husband and father and I worked at a fairly young age also and a single father afterwards. Meanwhile I was in law school and married my second wife as a result of meeting through a personal ad. I’ve been a divorce lawyer, a divorce mediator and it’s been a lot of different ways of approaching men and women relationships.

Dr. Kent: So tell me about this book Midlife Divorce and the Rebirth of Commitment. Of course we all know a lot of people that hit middle age and say this isn’t it for me anymore and they get divorced, so what does this mean rebirth of commitment?

Jim Duzak: Well the commitment part I think is crucial to the book and what I’m saying is that they don’t necessarily have to get divorced in order to make a commitment nor do they just have to stay in their marriage and make a blind commitment to their marriage no matter how unsatisfying that marriage may be. What I’m saying is that people need to make a commitment to themselves to live what I call an authentic life. A life that’s true to your own core values, whatever those values might be. I don’t try to tell people what they should believe and what everyone should do but what I found over the years is that so many people lose their sense of identity when they get married. They’d be less married to a partnership and so forth but it’s, you don’t stop being yourself, or at least you shouldn’t stop being yourself.

Dr. Kent: So Valentines Day is coming up so speaking of not stopping being yourself, it is a confusing day for most men. What exactly do those fellows go out a do? Do you go buy the proverbial flowers, the necklace; do you just be a nice guy for a day and then go back to normal life? What’s this thing about Valentines Day in our culture?

Jim Duzak: Well here’s what I have to say. There’s no question that Valentines Day with all the hype associated with it and needing attention, it puts a lot of pressure on both men and women for different reasons and I can certainly sympathize with men feeling they’re being manipulated and so forth but I have two things to say. If you have a woman in your life and she means something to you, chances are that she does look at Valentines Day as something that’s important. For one day go along with it and make her happy and take her to a nice place. If she’s worth being in your life, she’s worth splurging on. But the other thing is though that I feel Valentines Day should be the once a year event.

I mean literally it is but any more than say mothers day or fathers day should just be a once a year you know paying attention to mom and then forgetting about her. I think to make the spirit of valentines day to come through people, both men and women need to do little things every day to keep it going and you said before just go back to your old habits and that’s precisely what people should NOT do. Its true you don’t have to go out necessarily and spend a fortune 365 nights a year and I don’t recommend that but if you do little things that you just work into your daily routine that will enhance the romance in your life without breaking the bank.

Dr. Kent: So what is the working relationship and what’s the difference between I guess in this book you talk about midlife divorce. What’s the difference between young people falling in love, middle age people falling in love? The first time, the second time the twelfth time?

Jim Duzak: Well, you would like to think that people learn from their mistakes and middle aged people would be maybe a little more careful, a little more discerning and that probably is the case. The flip side of that though I think is that when people who have gone through a tough divorce or they’re in their 40s or 50s or 60s, and they’re starting out all over again in the dating world, oftentimes they try too hard to especially very early in the relationship I mean as early as the first date to make sure that everything is right this time.

They want to be absolutely sure that whatever the problems were last time around won’t be a problem this time and I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to want to avoid making the mistakes of the past. You certainly want to do that but I think most people put too much pressure on the first couple of dates. They are so concerned about is this person right for me for the long term that they don’t even have any fun and unfortunately a lot of people that might otherwise have been a perfectly good match for them might get scared off. A lot of first dates these days between middle age people feel more like a legal deposition than a date. There’s all these questions and you can tell that the questions are there to try to exclude you or get rid of you from the list as you answer them wrong. It’s not much fun.

Dr. Kent: So you talk about also strategies for improving a marriage, how to be different, you’ve got a workshop entitled Marital Boot camp for Men. What is the key to a successful marriage?

Jim Duzak: Its sort of a variation of what I said before. My philosophy of life really is little things repeated often and for men in particular, those little things start with simply paying attention. So many women complain that “he’s always got his face in the computer screen when I try to talk to him” or there’s the guy who never compliments his wife. Before you can compliment her you have to notice, you have to pay attention that she got her hair cut today or that she’s wearing something you’ve never seen before. You have to get in the habit of noticing and then not just relying on the fact that well she knows I love her or she knows I think she’s beautiful, just say it. Say it once in awhile. Yes, she may at some level know that you care but we all like these little reminders that it really is still true and that’s typically the problem with men. That they don’t pay attention to the little things and if they would just do that, in most cases the big things will take care of themselves.

Dr. Kent: What kind of big things are we talking about?

Jim Duzak: The big things could be for example the fantasy about having an affair. I’m absolutely convinced that particularly for women, when women have affairs nine times out of ten its not she’s in search of better sex, she’s in search of somebody who will pay attention to her and appreciate her and treat her nice, treat her with respect. Most of the time, the kind of woman who has an affair is not really waking up someday and saying I want to have an affair but she meets somebody who seems to treat her the way that she feels she should be treated and quite frankly most people that have affairs would rather not be looking elsewhere.

I’m not trying to justify people who have affairs, I’m not saying just because there’s justification for it but I understand the motivation and other big issues might be money problems. Getting into big arguments over your spending habits and so forth and a lot of times if you had just expressed yourself over little things that come up in this area you wouldn’t get to the point where you’re $30,000 in debt on your credit cards but a lot of people just try to avoid conflict and they say well you know this is a problem but maybe it’ll go away and maybe it’ll get better, but usually it doesn’t.

Dr. Kent: I’ve heard a couple situations that just pop to mind that are timely right now. One is that a lot of soldiers that have been deployed for a long time will come back and their marriages will fall apart. The suicide rate is actually very high based on part of that and then there’s these economic times, most put serious strains on relationships. Are there ways to get through that? It’s interesting to think about that on Valentines Day.

Jim Duzak: Yeah I mean its not a pleasant thought but there’s no question that military marriages in particular are very high stress situations and because your combining a number of things that are in and of themselves high stress. The fact that most military people is a in some sense a predictor of divorce. Generally speaking the younger you are when you get married the more likely it is that your marriage will end in divorce and a lot of couples are people that got married in their late teens, early 20s, late 20s and the couples are used to being separated for a long time and certainly separation can be a huge stress if people aren’t properly prepared for it. Not to mention all the temptations that go with it.

The wife whose left behind who’s trying to raise kids without the father and all that kind of thing. There’s no easy answer to that; all I can say is I know there are a lot of military spouse support groups out there and I would say to anybody listening who is a member of the military, I would just urge them first of all you’re not alone. What you’re going through, thousands and thousands of other military families are going through so try to find support within your peer group.

Dr. Kent: Then there’s another thing happening now. My next guest of course is a biographer of Barack Obama and the new president and first lady really love each other and set such a beautiful example for African American communities that really need like an infusion of some of that positivity as well as all of us in these times.

Jim Duzak: Absolutely and all politics aside, one of the things I remember reading something Mrs. Obama said a few months ago when she was interviewed for a magazine. She said they have always considered their date nights to be something inviolatable. In other words, whether it’s Saturday night, Friday night or whatever it is, I don’t know if they’re still doing it in the Whitehouse.

Dr. Kent: They are, I heard on the news they had taken a valentines date night.

Jim Duzak: And that’s a wonderful thing! They insist on nothing interfering with it and it’s a matter of importance to them and their little girls are growing up in that kind of environment where they can see that there’s nothing more important to daddy or mommy than the two of them and these are wonderful things to see. Again, all politics aside, you may or not agree with him politically but I think he’s a wonderful example for all of this.

Dr. Kent: Absolutely. So let’s talk about this book for one minute; Midlife Divorce and the Rebirth of Commitment. Why did you decide to write a book? Where can we find it? What else can we find and all that?

Jim Duzak: The easiest ways is to go to any of the major online booksellers like Amazon, or you can go on my website, which is www.attorneyatlove.com and you can read excerpts from all seventeen chapters of my book on my website as well as get direct links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and all the rest. So that would be the easiest way to learn about it.

Dr. Kent: What inspired you to write the book in the first place?

Jim Duzak: As I said earlier almost 40 years or so of dealing with men and women relationships from just about every angle but particularly in the last few years especially when I was doing a lot of divorce mediation as a full time mediator for the divorce court in phoenix. I just have seen so many couples who had given up on their marriage prematurely in my opinion. My job was not to try to bring them back together per se although there were many cases where I sort of hinted that they might’ve been a little bit rash in filing for divorce after only being married a month or two and I had cases like that.

But I really do feel that a lot of people didn’t know how to deal with conflict or were just uncomfortable with all the accommodations you have to make when you live with someone else and a lot of them had unrealistic ideas about what marriage would be and so forth and I just felt that I tried to reach people who maybe hadn’t given marriage a try. Maybe hadn’t tried a lot of suggestions that I make about how to find the satisfaction you’re looking for within their marriage without settling for less. I don’t believe in that either. I don’t think you should stay in a horrible marriage; oh this is my fate in life. I honestly believe that most divorces are unnecessary. Not all but most could probably have been worked out to the mutual satisfaction of the couple.

Dr. Kent: So we’ve been speaking with the attorney at love, his website is attorneyatlove.com and his book is Midlife Divorce: The Rebirth of Commitment. It’s been such a pleasure chatting with Jim Duzak.

Jim Duzak: Well thank you Dr. Kent, I really enjoyed it.

Dr. Kent: My next guest on the show as I mentioned earlier is Garen Thomas. She’s the author of Yes We Can: A biography of Barack Obama so come on back for that and we’ll enjoy chatting with her.

Posted by admin | Filed Under AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Dating, History, Holidays, Inspiration, PODCAST, TRANSCRIPTS

Marcus Wells | Body Thermodynamics

August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Interview with Dr. Marcus Wells [18:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dr. Marcus Wells’ book revolutionizes ways on how to energize the body without radically changing your lifestyle. Thermogenix reveals “hidden” cellular potentials that restore, rejuvenate and rebalance your life. In a growing aging society, how we’re to maintain a balanced metabolism will be more important, but also will become more problematic. Dr. Wells’ incredible idea blends both a strong scientific basis towards understanding energy with a natural pursuit of it. This demonstrates so many ways that have been overlooked or misunderstood that we can now achieve what is often call the “super burn” effect of metabolism. This method helps you recapture “latent potentions of energy” necessary to live a more productive happier and healthier life. Dr. Wells was educated and trained in western medicine in the U.S.A. Upon receving his Doctorate of Medicine (MD), he continued his medical education at the world’s premiere bio-medical researchcenter, the National Institute of Health (NIH) where he trained with the nation’s most notable scientist in the areas of heart, lung, blood, and metabolic diseases.

Posted by admin | Filed Under AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Food, Health, Holidays, Medicine, PODCAST, Science

Susan Hetrick Transcript

April 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to “Sound Authors”. Today is the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. Something that was very important to him was his family. Of course, they’ve carried his legacy down through the years.My next guest is Susan Hetrick. She has a book called “Advice from the Blender: What to Know Before You Blend So Nobody Gets Creamed”. It’s an amusing title, it’s been successful for her, clearly, and it’s a book about how to live with families, how to live with step-families, something that we’re seeing in the world all the time now.Welcome to the show, Susan Hetrick!

Susan Hetrick: All right! Kent, how are you?

Kent: Good! Tell me a little bit about what inspired you to write this book, “Advice from the Blender”.

Susan: Oh, about four years ago, I got married for the second time and he brought two children and a cat and I brought two children and two dogs and a hamster. And we had to figure out how to live together without killing one another. And at the same time, I was in graduate school, pursuing a Master of Divinity degree and one of my classes was a marriage counseling class.We were looking through resources and I could not find very much out there about what to expect when you blend two families. The few books that were available most were over 10 years old. Some were written by people who weren’t even in stepfamilies.And so, I decided that there was a real need out there for a book that actually told it like it was and gave people a better idea, a realistic idea, of what to expect when they enter into a stepfamily situation.

Kent: And what was it like for you? You said you had a hamster?

Susan: [laughs]

Kent: Two dogs… That’s a concern to me more than the kids.

Susan: [laughs]

Kent: What happened with the cat and the hamster? Were they friends?

Susan: Actually, they ignored one another. We ended up having one of the dogs ate the hamster, so…

Kent: Oh no!

Susan: Oh, yeah. [laughs]

Kent: Well, tell us about your book. What does it help people to do, “Advice from the Blender”?

Susan: Well, it’s a short, easy to read book and it’s about eight chapters long. And what I talk about is various things like having realistic expectations. It’s not going to be like the Brady Bunch. Sad, but true.And one of the things that people need to know is they need to focus on making their marriage strong. That is the number one thing that people forget to do. They get so involved with the kids and life and things like that, that they turn around and wake up one day and go, “Oh, who are you?” So, they need to focus on their marriage.They also need to be a united parenting team. Just because someone is the stepparent doesn’t mean they’re not also raising these kids.

Kent: Give us a couple little tips. Your book is constructed of some quotes, some bullet points with tips. Even at the end, you go into some bible verses and things like that. Give us some tips.

Susan: OK. One would be, for example, with the children. You’re dealing with two sets of kids, both who’ve been through, probably, a divorce with their parents. They’re thrown into this situation of suddenly they have a new stepparent, they have new stepsiblings. And one of the keys is to be united on discipline.One of the great things you could do would be to sit down together. As the parents, sit down together, preferably, before you get married, but if you’re already married, that’s OK. Sit down together and decide what are the behavior expectations for the children in the house and what are the consequences for breaking those rules and then present those to the kids as your house rules.This is really helpful because one, your kids can’t argue with the house. But two, I also brings to mind that yeah, the rules maybe different in Dad’s house as opposed to Mom’s house, but that’s OK. Just because they are different rules doesn’t mean that you can ignore them.

Kent: So, rules setting is really important. And there’s a whole bunch of other tips, very practically, to work through this problem.You advertise the book as being Christian and again, there are Bible verses at the end. How does that play into it for you? You have a Masters of Divinity.

Susan: Right. I have a Masters of Divinity in Counseling and Family Ministry. Obviously, faith is a big, big part of my life. However, even if you’re not a Christian, there’s very practical tips in this book for how to deal with a blending family, from everything to the kids to the ex-spouse to the in-laws and the out-laws.

Kent: So, tell me what is the best thing that two people could do when they say, “OK, let’s get married” and they’re thinking about two children, say they each have two children. What’s the first step for them? Should they write down some lists? Should they talk to the children? Should they meet them slowly? How does that work?

Susan: The key, I think, is time, is give it a lot of time and be very, very patient. Kids really don’t deal with their emotions, strong emotions, all at once. So, you can tell your kids, “Hey, I’m dating this person. He’s very, very special to me and we’re thinking about getting married. I want you to meet him and meet his family and get to know one another.”But then, give it time. I mean, I heard of a family just this last year, his third marriage, her third marriage. They met each other in September and decided to get married on New Year’s Eve. This is four months. They introduced their kids the day before the wedding and said, “Hey, guess what? We’re getting married tomorrow!” My advice is don’t go that route. You’re just setting yourself up for a disaster.So, time is of the essence and so is communication. That is vital. You’ve got to talk about all kinds of things like boundaries in your family. Everything from whether or not you like to sleep with your bedroom door shut or open to who’s allowed in your bedroom at any time of the day. Everything from that to discipline to who takes out the garbage and who cleans the house. All of these things have to be renegotiated.

Kent: Well, we can go to your website at advicefromtheblender.com. You’ve got a blog, free articles and more information about the book.

Susan: Absolutely.

Kent: It’s been a real pleasure chatting with you. I can definitely say if I ever get in the unfortunate circumstance of getting divorced and then remarried, I will certainly consult your book and your website. Thank you so much for being on the show.[music]

Susan: Thanks, Kent.

Kent: ”Advice from the Blender” by Susan Hetrick. You can get it online at advicefromtheblender.com.My next guest is Emmy Award winning legendary, wonderful composer, Jeff Beal. Come on back, you can’t miss it.

Posted by admin | Filed Under AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Christmas, Health, Holidays, PODCAST, Thanksgiving, TRANSCRIPTS

Susan Hetrick | Family Blender

April 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Interview with Susan Hetrick [8:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today we spoke with Susan Hetrick, about her “Blender” concept for families, and her new book. Here is more from her website:

Tales from the Blender is a collection of stories, suggestions and guidance garnered from the real-life experiences of Christian couples living in blended families all over the United States. These families generously shared the good, the bad and the ugly about blending: what to look forward to, what to watch out for, what challenges they faced and, most importantly, what has worked for them. Susan Hetrick gives you real-life illustrations on how to deal with: • We’ll-live-happily-ever-after-Syndrome • Choosing to love children who wish you were dead • Bonding as a family without using duct tape • Holidays with ex-spouses • The “Ex-tended” family experience – fruits and nuts aren’t just for breakfast anymore • Talking yourself out of that urge to run away to Timbuktu With fundamental discussion questions for the entire family, a succinct synopsis at the end of each chapter, and a unique House Blend Recipe, Susan Hetrick whips up an honest, challenging, inspiring and funny serving of the house blend, with a Christian twist.

Posted by admin | Filed Under AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Health, Holidays, PODCAST, Religion

Deborrah Cooper Transcript

February 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Announcer: Welcome, and thanks for tuning in to Sound Authors with host Dr. Kent. It’s for candid conversations about everything, from cuisine to culture, and from nature to nurture. Now here’s your host, Dr. Kent.

Kent Gustavson: Welcome to Sound Authors. It’s the day after Valentine’s Day, and hopefully we all had a good one by this point. It’s my honor today to have four very special guests.My first guest is going to be Deborrah Cooper with her website Sucka-Free Love. My second guest is going to be Amy Schoen with getitrighthistime.com. Both are relationship experts.The third guest on the show is something a little bit different. He’s an expert on politics. He wrote a biography of Ronald Reagan.My fourth guest is the very incredible singing duet of Neal and Leandra, singing the song “Old Love” from their album “Old Love”.So, let’s get started here. My first guest has a website called Sucka-Free Love as well as a book. Welcome to the show, Deborrah Cooper.

Deborrah Cooper: Hey Dr. Kent, how are you?

Kent: I’m good. How are you doing this Valentine’s Day?

Deborrah: Not too bad.

Kent: all right, so tell me a little bit about your book.

Deborrah: Oh, wow, where do I begin? The full title of it is “Sucka-Free Love: How to Avoid Dating the Dumb, the Deceitful, the Dastardly, the Dysfunctional, and the Deranged”, which pretty much covers every kind of sucka I could think of.

Kent: You have to define a sucka for me. S-U-C-K-A, what does that mean exactly?

Deborrah: That’s kind of a catch-all term for every person that becomes involved with you for any kind of reason other than love and respect.They’re there for what you can provide for them, for the benefits that you offer, which may be something as simple as sex, maybe money, other kinds of favors. They manipulate, they control, they cheat, they lie, they steal. They do kinds of things that ultimately end up hurting you.The goal for this book is to get people to recognize those games as they start coming along so they can protect themselves.

Kent: This is a totally new dating environment these days. There’s a million ways to meet people, but are there any good ones out there?

Deborrah: Any good people, you mean?

Kent: Well, that too, but any good method to meet them?

Deborrah: You know, I hesitate to say that anything is bad. I have to say that because you can meet some really great people in environments that are traditionally discounted as negative, say nightclubs, bars and singles mixers.Everybody is going to go into those environments at one point or another for whatever reason. What you want to avoid, though, is those that are there every single weekend and make it their home. You don’t want them.You can’t even say that church is necessarily 100% foolproof either, because knuckleheads go to church too.

Kent: You’ve heard a lot of stories. Do you have any stories to share with us to illustrate what’s in your book? Is this just woman talking about men, or can men also find a sucka woman?

Deborrah: Oh yeah. Unfortunately what we traditionally call the nice guys like yourself, I’m sure, might typically be caught in the web of a female sucka. I call those chicken-heads.In the first chapter of the book, entitled “Which Came First, the Chicken-head or the Egg?” it’s particularly devoted to men that deal with women that are termed gold-diggers and users. They see a guy as somewhat of a nest egg.

Kent: You deal with all these issues, what people are always asking, like “Why won’t men call?” You talk about interracial relationships. Where did you get started with all this? It’s been, what, 15 years?

Deborrah: It has. It’s been 15 years actually in the business. But the information that I bring to this field has been information that’s been coming to me from a wide variety of sources practically since birth.My dad and I had a very close relationship. He spent lots of time talking to me about men and relationships, how to be a lady, how to conduct myself in the world, this kind of thing. As I grew up, I took those lessons with me. So, as I got older and got to dating age, I was able to see exactly what he was talking about.I came into the dating world light-years ahead of most girls my age. As I got even older, I was able to see the games that even women older than me didn’t see, didn’t recognize. People were coming to me for advice, and it just kind of morphed from there. Now I’ve been doing this professionally for 15 years.

Kent: What is the most common mistake people make in a relationship?

Deborrah: I knew you were going to ask me that. [laughter] If I had to pick just one, I think I would say that they don’t accept the person for what they are. They think that love is either going to change the person, or that what they see right in their face isn’t as bad as they think it is.They ignore the red flags. They just ignore it, and they stay in relationships and stay involved with people that they really should have passed by. That, I think, is the biggest mistake and that causes the most problems.

Kent: You deal with singles every day. Have singles changed over the years?

Deborrah: I think so. The environment is different. Even though we all love our Internet connections and our Blackberries and our cell phone text messaging and picture messaging, those things I think have taken us away from the ability to really communicate with the other. People do a lot of hiding.It’s hard, even when you have a relationship with someone, to really develop the depth of understanding and intimacy that I think most of us are really looking for. People are in relationships, but they still feel lonely.

Kent: You said you spoke to your father a lot about men and all of that stuff. Have you fallen into some of these traps yourself?

Deborrah Cooper: I’ve met guys. I’m not going to lie, I’m not going to lie. I have met them, but I was lucky, though, in that that’s as far as it went.I met them, I may have gone out on a date or two, but we did not have any relationship because I was able to see what they were all about. So, I was somewhat protected. Oh yeah, boy, they’re out there.

Kent: Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. It’s a notorious holiday for men not quite giving it right. There’s so many hopes attached to the day. What do you think about that?

Deborrah: A couple of friends and I was talking about that, starting something called the Un-Valentine Day: just to get together and celebrate the fact that we are accomplished and smart and beautiful women.I don’t want women–or men either–that are single to put too much stock on it, because after all it is a commercially created holiday by the floral industry and the card industry.But, it has come to mean something in relationships which forces those that are not in one at the moment to reconsider our position and feel a little lonely and upset when everyone else is getting these giant bouquets at work.I think for the most part it is just one day. The whole point is to be around people that love you. It does not mean that that has to be someone of the opposite sex. So, if you have friends and family–you know, go spend your Valentine’s Day with your mom.If you can’t love that person that loves you more than anything in the world and show some appreciation to that individual, what else is there?

Kent: Exactly. What’s your plan now? What are you working on?

Deborrah: Well, I just finished an article as a matter of fact, which has references to the Valentine’s Day letdown that you just mentioned. It’s based on a survey of three hundred men with the ten dating secrets that women need to know. I’m going to put that into an article.My next book is going to also be based on that same survey for women that want to get married and the title of that is “So You Want to Get Married? Why Would He Choose You?” We delve into what men are actually looking for in a wife versus a girlfriend. I think a woman is confused on those issues.

Kent: That’s also something that’s changed so much. It changes all the time, depending on what the stars are doing. Not the stars up in the sky, I mean movie stars and all that. But I guess either one, right?

Deborrah: Either one.

Kent: What’s some wisdom you could impart to men and women? I even have friends that are so frustrated; they say “I’ll never meet the right person”. What do you tell people like that?

Deborrah: In the back of my book, actually that’s one of the chapters that I cover, is “If love is the answer, please rephrase the question”, which somewhat reflects the frustration and confusion that singles that are out looking experience in the dating world.What I did was put together something called my ten rules for psycho-free dating. Just ten quick little guidelines, like “Never date someone just for love”, “Don’t settle for less, just avoid being alone”, “Avoid dating someone with different values or core beliefs, that is key”, “Ask lots of questions before you get yourself involved next time”.You know, you need to know who you’re getting involved with. Focus on commitment; focus on the person that you’re trying to commit to. Never date someone just because they want to date you. This is also important.You have to have screening technique. Just because someone finds you attractive and interesting doesn’t mean that you have to return that thought.”Never rush into a commitment before you know who you’re committing to.” I’m sorry I’m repeating myself. “Always be a person of your word,” this is where we’re talking about communication, honesty and developing trust.”Don’t waste your time loving someone that doesn’t love you back.” I can’t even tell you, Kent, how important that is and how much that’s ignored.”Listen to your inner voice and pay attention to the red flags that you see”. And then the tenth one is “Never bring baggage of the past into the present”. That is very important too.A person should never be charged with crime and have to do time for something done by someone in your past. Let it go.

Kent: What do we find in your book? Is it kind of a guidebook for how to do it, or fun to read? What do we find?

Deborrah: Well, you find all that. It’s hilarious. It’s a question and answer format with commentary by me.As well there’s a questionnaire there so you can assess the relationship that you in, with a sucka or not, as well as those ten rules for psycho-free dating I just read you. The seven chapters are divided by topics, so you can go right to the issue that is in your life right now and read the rest later.It’s very informative, very down to earth, very real. I don’t use a lot of highfalutin’ psychological psychobabble words. I talk to you just like I’m talking right now. People that have heard me talk can hear my voice.I just want people to feel like they have a friend. I can’t meet everyone, but I can be with you through the pages of this book and guide you through the mess before you get in deep.

Kent: It’s been a real pleasure speaking with you. You have a couple of websites online, askheartbeat.com as well.

Deborrah: Yeah, that’s my chief website with most relationship advice and articles on it. That’saskheartbeat.com.

Kent: Then we have suckafreelove.com. That’s the fun site that talks about this brand new book “Sucka-free Love: How to avoid dating the dumb, the deceitful, the dastardly, the dysfunctional and the deranged.”We’ve been speaking with Deborrah Cooper. Thanks so much for being on the show, and happy Valentine’s Day.