Welcome. What you are about to hear can your life for the better.

Your host and the author of this program is Brian Tracy, one of the most popular personal development teachers in the world. Each year he addresses more than three hundred thousands of people on the subject of happiness relationships, and personal effectiveness. Brain has produced more than three hundred audio and video learning programs and has written twelve books. His materials have been translated into twenty languages and are used in thirty five countries. Brian is also the creator and presenter of the focal point advanced coaching and metering program which he gives personally to small groups of ambitious men and women in San Diego four times per year. Brians clients learn to simplify their lives focus on their top priorities, double their incomes and spend more time with their families. Brian has been happily married to Barbara for more than twenty years. They have four beautiful children and live on a golf course in San Diego. Brian has taught relationship skills to many thousands of individuals and couples over the years, and in this program he brings you some of the most helpful and practical ideas you will ever learn to make your relationship truly happy and successful. Here is Brian Tracy now, to share with you the 21 great ways to stay in love forever.

21 great ways to stay in love forever

Hello, I am Brian Tracy and welcome to this program. I have lived and worked in more than eighty countries and have been in and out of twenty two different businesses and industries in my life. I have consulted with hundreds of companies and taught hundreds of thousands of people how to be more effective in business and personal life. And my bottom line conclusion is that relationships are more important than anything else. In fact relationships are everything. There is nothing in life that can cause you more happiness or unhappiness than success or failure in your relationships.

The fact is all truly successful happy people are relationship experts. They spend a lot of time thinking about their relationships and how they can enhance and improve them in different ways. The good news is that relationship expertise is learned as a result of experience, practice instruction, feedback and reflection on what has happened to you in the past. In a way, relationship expertise is very much like cooking. The desire to have happy, fulfilling relationships is quite common; it is only the ability that is sometimes lacking. In this program you are going to learn 21 of the best ideas and strategies for happy relationships ever discovered. Each of these ideas has been tested and proven by thousands and millions of people worldwide. Any one of these ideas, if it is the right idea at the right time for you, can change your life completely. Let us begin.

Idea 1: Make a total commitment: To be truly happy in your relationship you must make a total commitment to this relationship with every fiber of your heart and soul. Making a total commitment is the great turning point in adult life, and in every relationship. You must make a clear, unequivocal, a one hundred percent decision that this is the one for you and you are going to throw your whole heart into making this relationship successful. When you make a total commitment you never consider the possibility of separating or going your own way, this is simply not an option, you make a total commitment to get into the relationship wholeheartedly, in fact, if you cannot make a total commitment in the relationship you probably shouldnt get into it in the first place. You can use the best friend test to measure the level of your commitment. This simply means that the other person should be your best friend: there should be no one else in the world with whom you are more open and trusting that this person. When you have problems or a disagreement, you resolve in advance that you will confront them, deal with them and work them out no matter how long it takes or how difficult it may be. You make a total commitment and you do not budge from that commitment. The good news is that is only when you are totally committed to a single person in a relationship that you feel totally liberated and free. When you are in a totally committed relationship, all of your positive energies can then be expressed constructively in making your family and your work truly enjoyable and satisfying Making a complete commitment is the starting point of staying in love forever.

Idea 2: communicate openly and honestly

A good relation is characterized by open and honest communication between the two people. Fortunately you can learn to be great communicator by practicing telling the other person exactly how you are thinking and feeling on a regular and ongoing basis. Refuse to hold anything back, refuse to gunnysack or to repress your natural spontaneity. If you have a concern, a problem, question, or anything else, be open and honest and clear about it with the other person. In any relationship, because the two people are different in so many ways, there will always be misunderstandings and miscommunications. Your job however is to clear these up the way you would clear the kitchen after every meal on an ongoing basis. Never let them accumulate and build up. One key to open and honest communications is for you to never expect the other person to read your mind. It is just not fair to expect him or her to just know what it is you are thinking and feeling. This is simply not possible for other people especially since your thinking and feeling is changing with every new event or stimulus in your environment. Be sure to tell the other person what you expect and what you are concerned about. Never hide any secrets from the other person, never keep the other person guessing or wondering about what is really going on in your mind; this can lead to all kinds of misunderstandings. When you communicate pick your timing carefully. Timing can be everything in making yourself heard and getting your point across: wait until the other person in a position where he or she can fully listen and understand what you are saying rather than jumping or dumping on him or her at the end of a busy day or in the midst of a lot of activity or confusion. Timing is very important. If you are unhappy for any reason, instead of expressing your concerns as an attack, instead you should say something like: You know, when you do such and such a thing, I feel such and such a way

For example you could say: You know, when you come home late without calling, I feel that you dont really care about the inconvenience that it causes me When you offer your concern as a personal observation and explain how you feel about it, youll be absolutely amazed at how quickly the other person will respond positively to change his or her behavior to make sure that you are happy. One of the keys to staying in love forever is always to be open and honest and express yourself and your concerns in a positive and constructive ways. Always deal with issues as they come up, so that you can resolve them and get on with your life.

Idea 3: ask for what you want:

Perhaps the most powerful and important word in staying in love forever is the word ask. Its the most helpful of all concepts in life and relationships. So make a habit of asking for what you want from now on. Sometimes people feel that they do not deserve to ask for what they want, sometimes people feel that asking is the same as being demanding and that is not quite correct. But nothing could be further from the truth: when you are in the right relationship for you, the other person will want you to be happy above all other things and the only way that he or she can make you happy, is by knowing what it is that you want and then by giving it to you to the best of his or her ability. Now no one knows - but you - what your needs and concerns really are, and sometimes you dont even know yourself until you actually express yourself to another person and put your thoughts and feelings into words. So ask the other person to help you when you feel that you have too much to do and too little time; ask the other person to do things that need to be done, its not fair for you to assume that the other person just knows that you need help. Sometimes people especially men, are completely unaware of your situation, but the good news is that if you always respond positively, ask for what you want emotionally. Each person has emotional needs for caring, consideration, courtesy, attention and sensitivity. If you feel that the other person is not satisfying these emotional needs, ask him or her to be more thoughtful and attended in these areas. Ask for what you want physically and sexually as well. Each person is usually eager to please the other person in a relationship and will almost immediately respond to any request that you make, but you are responsible for making the requests in the first place. Encourage the other person to ask for what he or she wants as well. Sometimes people are very shy or cautious about asking until they get some positive experience with it. You job is to make asking and receiving easy for both of you. When you ask, ask in a positive and pleasant way; ask curiously, ask respectively, ask cheerfully, but dont be afraid to ask.

The habit of regularly asking for what you want, in a clear and straightforward way can have a wonderful effect on your relationship and can become a major part of staying in love forever.

When we know that there is someone who stands behind us 100%. And especially expect the best of yourself. You should realize and accept that

Idea 4: accept differences in each other:

Now the fact is you are an absolutely amazing, extraordinary, unique and remarkable human being. In all the history of men on this earth there has never been and will never be anyone just like you. Your incredible combination of experiences, thoughts, emotions, education, background, attitudes, values, opinions makes you completely different from anyone who will ever live. In short, you are different from others, and you can be very proud of the special person that you will become. In your relationship, the other person is unique, special, and different as well, thats the major reason that you are attracted to him or to her; because of differences and strengths that are complementary to your own. A major problem in relationships is when one person tries to changes the other or expects the other one to change in some fundamental way. Many people get married with the assumption that they will shape the other person like a sculptor shapes a soft piece of clay into the kind of made that they desire. But one of the great laws of life is this: People dont change. People are who they are and what they are; they have taken their entire life to become that kind of person. People may modify around the edges or even become more of what they already are. But essentially people dont change. When we criticize the differences in the other person, we trigger deep down feelings of rejection, inadequacy or inferiority. When we criticize the differences we make the other person feel that he or she is not good enough in some way. When we challenge the differences in the other person, we tell them in a way that we are superior and they are inferior. This can be a major problem in relationships. Instead of criticizing practice what psychologists call positive regard: this means accept the person for exactly who he or she is with all of his or her positive or negative qualities. Refuse to complain or nag about a persons personality or behavior, and especially never criticize something in another person that cannot be changed. This just makes a person feel frustrated and trapped. If you would like the

other person to modify their behavior in some way, express your preferences gently. You can get far more flies with honey than with vinegar. Try expressing yourself by prefacing your words with: Why dont you? For example you could say: Why dont you give me a call if you are going to be late? Why dont you dont you let me know in advance when you want to do something, or go somewhere? In any case you should never hang your hopes or happiness on the possibility that someone is going to change and become a different person. Instead, you should accept him or her exactly as he or she is, and express this attitude of unconditional acceptance in everything you do and say. You will be absolutely amazed at how this approach on your part increases the likelihood of staying in love forever.

Idea 5: expect the best:

To stay in love forever, you should expect the very best of the other person. In every situation you should always assume the best of intentions in every case no matter what it looks like and sounds like initially. You should expect the other person to do the right thing and have a good reason for anything that he or she does before you pass judgment and become upset and angry. Negative prejudgments and negative expectations lie at the root of many failed relationships: Dont let this happen to you. The good news is that people rise to meet the expectations of the important people in their lives. The more that you express positive expectations toward the other person, the greater a positive influence you become in his or her life, and the more likely it is that the other person will strive to meet your expectations whatever they are. Many men and women have become great successes because their spouse or mate continually expressed their positive expectations of the person in his or her activities. Some of the most beautiful you could ever use are the words: I believe in you. Knowing that the most important person in our lives believes in us and expects us to be well is a great motivation. It inspires to do our best. It gives us persistence and drive and brings out the very best in us when we know that there is someone who stands behind us 100%. And especially expect the best of yourself. You should realize and accept that you are thoroughly a good person; you have wonderful talents and abilities that you are in the process of expressing and manifesting. Expect to do well at everything you attempt. Expect to be popular everywhere you go. Expect to be lovable and loved by the most important person in your life. Whatever you expect with confidence becomes your own self fulfilling prophecy. Always expect the best

Idea 6: encourage the other person continually:

Your goal should be to be the primary source of encouragement, reinforcement and inspiration in the life of the other person. To do this, you should be continually telling him or her that he or she is a very good and competent person. That he or she can do anything that he or she puts his or her mind to. One of the kindest and most helpful things that you can do is to build the other person up, especially when he or she has short term setbacks; help the other person put those short term failures in perspective. Make a habit of looking at the good in every problem. When helping the other person identify something good and beneficial in what has occurred. Especially help the other person to find a valuable lesson that exists in every problem or difficulty. When the other person is looking for something good and seeking a valuable lesson, he or she becomes positive and constructive , he or she begins seeing the situation in the proper light, he or she begins to feel more powerful and confident and in control. Finally always tell the other person: you are the best. Keep telling the other person how good he or she is. Tell the other person how smart, how confident, how capable he or she is. Always look for opportunities to build up the other person on every occasion. Your job is to become a primary source of positive encouragement in his or her life; this is a wonderful way to stay in love forever.

Idea 7: be a good listener:

This is the most powerful relationship skill of all. Good listening is essential for falling in love, and good listening is essential for staying in love. All of the very best people in relationships are wonderful at listening well to the other persons. There are four keys to be an excellent listener. Anyone can learn to be a better listener by practicing these four keys on every occasion: The first key is for you to listen attentively. Listen without interruptions, lean forward and pay close attention to the other person. You see we pay attention to the people we most value; when you listen to another person, you are telling that other person that you value them very much and this causes them to feel wonderful about themselves. The second key for good listening is for you to pause before replying when the other person stops the conversation, refuse to jump in with your own comment. Instead pause for three or four seconds and allow a silence to develop in the conversation when you pause you show the other person that you are paying careful attention to what he or she just said. This raises his or her self esteem and makes him or her feel more valuable The third key to great listening is for you to question for clarification: never assume that you understand what the other person actually meant by what he or she said. Instead ask the question: how do you mean? .Whenever you ask this question: how do you mean?, the individual will express themselves even more, enabling you to listen and build even higher levels of trust and affection between you. Finally the fourth key to listening is for you to feeding back and paraphrase what the other just said in your own words. Your ability to pause and to feedback what the other person has just said is called the acid test of listening. This is where you proof that you were really paying attention rather than just going through the motions.

Listening is often referred to as white magic, listening builds trust between two people. Listening is the fastest way to build a bridge between any two people, under any circumstances. When you become a truly excellent listener you build a solid foundation for staying in love forever.

Idea 8: seek first to understand:

Most people in conversations spend all of their time trying to get the other person to understand them. What you do is you reverse this by focusing all of your energies on understanding the other person first, before you attempt to get your own point across. Imagine that every person that you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says: Please understand me! As much as anything in life, people want and need to be understood by others, especially by important people in their lives. When you fulfill this deep subconscious need you build deep reservoirs of love and affection for you in the other person. When you seek first to understand, you simply go slowly in the conversation you ask questions like: how do you mean? or how do you feel about that? When you ask questions you give the other person an opportunity to express themselves more clearly and in greater detail. When you practice reflective listening by restating back to the other person what he or she has just said and what he or she might be feeling; you develop a deeper and deeper understanding of the persons true inner state. In seeking first to understand, be non-judgmental throughout. Dont offer opinions or try to solve problems. Just concentrate on what the other person really means, and then test your understanding by saying something like: well let me see if you understand where you are coming from and then restate what the other person has just said in your own words until the other person agrees that you understand them completely. The better you understand each other the more likely it is that you will stay in love forever.

Idea 9: set reasonable standards: Its amazing how many relationships ran into problems because one person has set unreasonable standards for the other person. One person expects the other person to be perfect in some ways if not in many ways, and this is simply not fair. The fact is that most people have far more weaknesses than strengths. Most people have a few areas in which they excel, and they have a lot of areas in which they are mediocre or completely incompetent. When you fall in love with a person, you fall in love with the positive qualities that person has. Forever after you should refuse to compare your mate with anyone else who may have superior qualities in some area. The qualities of another person have nothing whatever to do with your relationship. All that really matters are the good qualities of the person opposite to you. It may come as a surprise but, you are not perfect either, in fact if you were to sit down and honestly write out a list of your weaknesses, you will probably need several sheets of paper, and this is true for everyone. Some people are forgetful and some people are impatient. Sometimes people are irritable or easily distracted. Sometimes people appear to be insensitive or unaware in every case however, you should gently ask for what you want and point out how the behavior could be improved in some way. But most of all if you just accept the person for the good qualities that he or she has, and focus on those most of the time, this is the real key to staying in love forever.

Idea 10: build self esteem on every occasion:

Mary K. Ash of Mary K. cosmetics says that every person has a sign, an invisible sign around his or her neck that says: Make me feel important. In every interaction with the important person in your life you should do and say things that make the other person feel important. Remember: everyone has an ego; everyone needs continual reinforcement of their self esteem. In fact, psychologists say that everything we do is either to build our self esteem, or to protect our self esteem from being torn down by others. Just like you cannot tell children too often that you love them, you cannot do too many things to build up the self esteem and self confidence in the other person in your life. The good news is when you become the primary source of self esteem for the other person you also become the primary source of love, acceptance, and desirability for the other person as well. There are five wonderful practices that you can engage in everyday to build up the self esteem in the other person. They all start with the letter A.

The first is: Acceptance: unconditional, positive acceptance of the other person satisfies one of the deepest of all subconscious needs that need to be safe and secure in the eyes of another. The second A stands for: Agreeable: be a cheerful, positive, agreeable person. Instead of pointing out what is wrong, look for what is right refuse to argue and avoid arguments on every occasion. The third A stands four: Appreciation: you express appreciation by simply saying: Thank you whenever you can. And the more you say Thank you to the other person, the more the other person will go out of his or her way to do the things that cause you to be appreciative in the first place. Approval is the fourth way to raise self esteem. You express approval by praising the other person for every accomplishment or success, large or small. Praise is perhaps the most powerful self esteem building behavior of all. Whenever a person is praised, he or she feels happy, valuable, and important inside. And you cannot praise people too often for too many things.

Finally, the fifth A stands for Admiration: admire the personality, the qualities, the clause, the possessions, even the accessories of the other person. As Abraham Lincoln once said: everybody likes compliments! Whenever you compliment another person for any reason, he or she feels happy inside, and her self esteem goes up. And the best news of all is that when you practice appreciation, acceptance, agreeableness, approval and admiration, the other person will practice them on you as well. This is a wonderful way to stay in love forever.

Idea 11: never go to bed angry:

There is an old saying: Never let the sun set upon your anger. What this means is that you stay up and work through any disagreement or problem that you have before you go to bed. You should never lie there at night fuming with anger and resentment about an issue that has not yet been resolved or handled properly. The very best place to resolve a disagreement is in the kitchen or living room, well away from the bedroom. The bedroom is for sleeping and making love, not for arguing and disagree. You must keep the rooms of your house separate both in your minds and in your activities. Remember at the end of the day you are both tired and much more sensitive to little things that could probably not bother you at all during the day. So cut each other a little bit of slack. Be prepared to apologize and let it go, refuse to be self righteous, hurt or distant over a small disagreement that really doesnt matter in the great scheme of things. One of the most important questions I have ever learned in our long happy relationship is to continually ask yourself: Whats important here? Keep asking whats important - here? When you ask this question you will immediately realize that love, peace, happiness and the long term success of your relationship are more important than any particular issue that may be bothering you at the moment When you place your relationship at the head of everything else, the issue over which you are arguing often becomes unimportant and insignificant. So agree in advance that no matter what happens, you will always work it out before you go to bed. You will never go to bed angry; this is a key way to stay in love forever.

Idea 12: Visualize the other person as ideal:

Always think about him or her in positive idealistic terms. Always think about him or her as the very best person you could possibly imagine. Your visualizations, your imagination; have inordinate impacts on the way people behave around you, especially the most important person in your life. When you continually visualize your mate as the very best person he or she could possibly be, this actually has an impact on his or her subconscious mind and actually influences him or her to behave the way you imagined him or her to be. Many relationships that have been in trouble have been cured with this simple exercise. If you are having trouble with your mate take a few minutes every day to visualize and imagine him or her as exactly the person that you have fell in love with originally. See him or her as warm, kind, attentive and loving. See him or her as friendly, optimistic, cheerful and constructive. In your minds eye create an image of him or her as the very person that you fell in love with, and who you would like to see walk through the door again. Its absolutely amazing how often this mental imaging of your part will actually change the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of the other person in a positive way. One woman said recently: By using this method the man I was about to divorce disappeared and the man I married came back into my life. And especially treat the other person as if he or she was the absolute perfect person for you; treat him or her as if he or she was kind, loving, attentive, warm, friendly, patient, and everything you could possibly want in a mate. This treatment has an amazing effect on the subconscious mind and behavior of the other person and in the long can be the very key to staying love forever.

Idea 13: treat the other person like a client:

One of the keys to staying in love forever is to treat your spouse the way you would treat an attractive and intelligent client of the opposite sex in your business. Treat your spouse as if he or she was the most important client of your company and you have been assigned to take care of this client. You know that when you are dealing with important business clients you are always at your best; you are warm, friendly, courteous, attentive, appreciative, respectful and helpful. If you would behave this way with someone that you may only see for a few minutes each year, how much more important is it that you behave this way with your spouse, who you see virtually every single day. Always treat your spouse as if he or she was the most important person in your world, because he or she is the most important person. This will contribute as much as anything else to staying in love forever.

Idea 14: remember when you were courting:

The happiest and most romantic time of your life together is often when you were going out together for the first time. You should let your mind reflect back on those happy days on a regular basis. Think back and remember the times when you were the most attuned to each other. Remember those moments when you laughed together, loved together, shared together and were completely spontaneous and happy in every way. As your relationship develops it will mature. Those fabulous formative moments will pass, and develop into something deeper and more complex. You will take on responsibilities of home and family and finances. A few people think that somehow the romance has gone out of the relationship because they no longer share that warm, natural love and spontaneity that took place during the first weeks and months. However nothing could be further from the truth. Your relationship is like a fine wine: it deepens and matures and becomes richer and more valuable with age. It loses it light, spontaneous, boiling flavor but in exchange it becomes something far better and more valuable. Nonetheless, you should continually reach back and remember what you found the most attractive appealing and endearing about him or her when you were first courting. Remember exactly why you fell in love and the exact moment. What was it about him or her that sparked that magical chemical reaction that brought you two together? The more you continually remind and point out the fine qualities of the other person, the more the other person remembers those qualities and practices those qualities in his or her relationship with you. This is the surest way to cultivate and nourish those qualities and encourage them to grow and be expressed in your relationship.

Idea 15: forgive early and often:

Your ability to freely forgive the other person for any mistake he or she has made is the mark of the truly mature, fully functioning personality. Forgiveness is the key to the spiritual kingdom of peace, happiness, and personal joy. Forgiveness is the basis of lifelong happiness and its integrated into the teachings of every major religion. Forgiveness is a foundation principle of Christianity and contained throughout the bible and especially in the Lords Prayer. Psychologists agree that your ability to freely forgive others is the mark of mental health, on the other hand most of the unhappiness in the world today is rooted in the ability to let go of some grievance -real or imagine- that has occurred sometime in the past. One of the great rules for happiness in your relationship is to refuse to remain upset or angry about something that has already happened and which cannot be changed. Its understandable if a person is unhappy when something unfortunate occurs, but its not helpful for a person to continue to be upset weeks and months and even years after an event has occurred especially when nothing can be done. Fortunately forgiveness is a practice you can learn. You begin by making a decision to draw a line under every unhappy experience in your past that has ever troubled you. You then go through every grievance, and you simply say the words: I forgive him or her for everything, I let it go, and I wish him or her well. You repeat this over and over whenever you think of an event that is causing you to be unhappy, you say: I forgive him or her for everything, I let it go, I wish him or her well. You see, its impossible to freely forgive and let people go and then wish them well and continue to be upset or angry with them at the same time. By freeing the other person you free yourself. By letting go of the unhappy event, you liberate your own spirit. Its one of the most amazing and exhilarating things in life when you learn to freely forgive and let go anything that anyone has ever said or done to hurt you in any way.

Just like you keep your floors and counters clean, keep your mental counters clean as well; forgive on a daily basis. If something happened that causes you unhappiness you can express your feelings clearly and openly and then let it go. Refuse to gunnysack or to harbor grievances, refuse to bring up things from the past and to rub them in peoples faces later on. Instead set peace of mind as your highest goal. Once you set peace of mind as your highest goal, in order to achieve and maintain it, you have to let go of all the problems of your past. You will have to freely forgive him or her for anything that ever him or her has ever done. And once you do this your whole relationship will improve and become calm and peaceful once more. Forgiveness is one of the essential keys to staying in love forever.

Idea 16: apologize for your mistakes:

Its absolutely amazing how much energy people spend covering up the fact that they have made a mistake of some kind. The fact is no one expects you to be perfect; everyone makes mistakes all the time. If you feel that you have done or said something that has hurt someone in some way, go to that person or phone them and simply say: I am sorry. When you apologize to another person you are forgiving yourself and letting both of you go. If the other person does not accept your apology or responds inappropriately, that is his or her problem not yours. Your job is simply to acknowledge that you have done a mistake, and to say that you are sorry; then you can get on with the rest of your life. Finally, whenever you find yourself arguing with the other person in your relationship, be prepared to say these magic words: I could be wrong I often am By being willing to admit that you could be wrong, you open up the discussion and lead very quickly to a resolution. Its the refusal to admit that a person might be wrong that causes people to dig in and to argue and to carry on arguments far longer than is necessary. To stay in love forever you should do everything possible to keep your relationship positive and open and focused on the future rather than the past.

Idea 17: offer to help:

This is a wonderful way to stay in love forever. Its one of the three or four qualities identified by thousands of happy couples as what that keeps their relationship alive and growing. It is the equal division of the work that needs to be done around the home that makes for a happy relationship. One of the great keys to love and happiness is for you to offer to do things for the other person that he or she could quite easily do for himself or herself. The very act of helping out even when it might not necessarily be needed is a very loving act, and it builds love and affection for you in the mind and heart of the other person. To build a happy relationship you should continually volunteer to do things to relieve the burden of the other person. If he is overwhelmed with work, take the kids away or create an environment within which he can get his work completed. The man can really make an enormous difference in a relationship by looking for ways to take the burden of the home off of the woman. One of the greatest problems of women today is fatigue. One of the most wonderful things a man can do is take the children, especially infants away so that women can sleep for several hours without interruption. This is like a new breath of life for a person who is overtired and overwhelmed. And the more you do to help the other person, the better you feel about yourself and your relationship. And remember, if you feel overwhelmed by too much to do, be sure to ask the other person to help you out. People always love to help the people that they love the most.

Idea 18: Learn about his or her interests:

Men and women are different in many respects. If you have a group made up of men and women, the men will form together in clusters and begin talking about business, sports, politics, money, and material objects. The women however will form together in clusters and begin talking about people, relationships, family, children, and fashion. One of the greatest ways to stay in love forever is for each person to take an interest in the interests of the other; find out what the other person finds interesting and likes to read about, talk about and learn about. Then take a few minutes each day or a couple of hours each week to learn about that subject so that you can ask questions and discuss it intelligently. And, the good news is you dont have to become an expert on the subject; read a magazine on the subject from cover to cover, and then ask him or her a series of questions about what you have read. Become a student of the subject. People love to teach others about subjects that are of interest and concern to them. Perhaps the most important chemical ingredient that keeps people in love forever is the ingredient of compatibility. And compatibility means that the two people have a lot in common, they can talk about subjects of mutual interest hour after hour. Its a responsibility of each person to learn about the interests of the other, so that they always have areas of commonality where they can talk, share, and discuss in their time together

Idea 19: accept complete responsibility:

This is the characteristic of the truly superior person. Men and women of great character are those who accept responsibility for themselves and for every part of their lives. They continually repeat to themselves over and over: I am responsible A responsible person is proactive rather than passive. A responsible person makes things happen rather than waiting for things to happen. A responsible person takes charge of situations and actively intervenes to bring about the results that he or she wants. In your relationship you should take on whatever responsibilities are required at the time, as they say: step up to the plate. A fully responsible person does not blame other people for anything. A fully responsible person refuses to complain, or criticize, or condemn other people for anything in life that he or she is not happy with. A fully responsible person refuses to make excuses when things go wrong. Instead they say: I am responsible. The interesting thing is that when you accept complete responsibility you feel more powerful and confident, your self esteem and self respect goes up. You feel a tremendous sense of personal pride and ability. But when you blame others or complain or criticize you actually give your power away. By trying to make someone else responsible for your life, you lose your own center of balance. One of the keys to staying in life forever is for both parties to accept full responsibility for every aspect of their relationship, for each person to go a hundred percent out of the way, and for each person to look out for the needs of the other person. This is the way to create the strongest relationship of all.

Idea 20: take time to be together:

Just as flowers need water and sunshine, relationships need unbroken periods of time with each other in order to grow and become stronger. Its essential that you create chunks of time on a regular basis to spend with the other person. These should be minimums of thirty, sixty and ninety minute blocks of time where you do nothing but just be together, communicate and talk with each other. Because of your busy life, you must be creative in carving out these blocks of time, they are as essential to your emotional happiness and well being as food and water are essential to your physical well being. Take car trips with the other person whenever you can and while you drive leave the radio off. When you are in a car with another person, you actually create a sound vacuum and nature abhors a vacuum. As you sit in a silent car, the space will be filled with conversation. Sometimes you will have more, better, and richer time together in a thirty or sixty minute car trip than you would in many days in a busy household. Plan vacations away every year and be religious about taking those vacations. The key to this is for you to reserve and pay for the vacation and the travel in advance on a non-refundable basis. This literally forces you to take a vacation no matter what happens. You should take a three day weekend completely away together every three months or four times a year. You should take walks together with each other. Sometimes you can get up early in the morning and while you leave things off you can sit, drink coffee or tea and read the paper and just talk. Never let conversation become the victim of radio, television or anything imprint. Turn off the radio and television and put aside the written material whenever you get a chance or an opportunity to talk together. Place open honest communication at the very top of your list of the most valuable things you could possibly do together if you want to stay in Iove forever.

Idea 21: develop shared goals:

They say that the couple who prays together, stays together. Well, the couple that has shared goals stays together as well. The happiest couples are those who are committed to accomplishing the same things and are both moving together in the same direction. Start by developing a vision together of your ideal future. Sit together and project forward five or ten years. Imagine that your life was ideal in every respect in five or ten years. What would it look like? Take a sheet of paper and make up a dream list for your relationship. Write down every single thing that you want to have in your life if your life was perfect in every way, and you had no limitations at all. Imagine that you just won a huge amount of money in the lottery, and you could design your life in any way possible. What would you change? What would you do more of? What would you do less of? What would you do starting today if you inherited an enormous amount of money? Whatever it is, write it down, and begin asking the question how could you bring it about? The question how? is one of the most wonderful and powerful questions you can ever ask yourself for the rest of your life and the rest of your relationship. Whenever you want anything in your life, instead of thinking about all the reasons why it may not be possible, ask yourself the question how? and you will be amazed at the ideas that will come to you. There is perhaps nothing that will bring two people closer together than working and talking every day about the goals that they share, vision that they have, and the direction in which they are going. These goals, hopes dreams and aspirations become the glue that binds two people together no matter what happens on the outside. When two people are linked together by a series of goals that they are working on both together and apart, the two people become more and more tuned in to each other. They love and respect each other more. They enjoy the ups and downs, the progress and the successes together. They become a single unit and as a result, they stay in love forever.

Let me close this program by saying that this is the very best time of all of humanity to be alive, you can live longer and you can live better everyday than was ever before possible. And the most important thing in life is relationships. Your ability to build and maintain a high quality relationship with another person is more important to your happiness, health and longevity than anything else you could possibly do. Your relationship must be more important to you than any other outside consideration. You must be willing to put aside all concerns of career, money, success achievement or material object if they stand in the way of your building and maintaining a wonderful loving relationship with the other person in your life. To stay in love forever you should practice the 21 ideas we talked about in this program. Listen to this program over and over again and continually think of different ways that you could practice these principles and make your relationship better and stronger. Whenever you have a difficulty or problem, stop for a few moments and think about the ideal solution to the problem or difficulty, and then the only question you ask is: how? And the more you think and talk about how you can solve your problems and achieve your goals and create the relationship you desire, the more and better insights will come to you. You will be on your way to staying in love forever.

If you enjoyed this program you are probably ready to move to the next level of personal development in both relationships and in other areas of your life. Many years ago, after a lifetime of studying successful happy people, I sat down over a period of several months and designed a today seminar that I called The psychology of achievement. Ive never given the seminar before but I thought these ideas for personal happiness and success were so important that I just plunged in. I gave this seminar to friends and family at first including to my brothers and their wives, to Barbaras parents and her nine brothers and sisters. Soon I had given the psychology of achievement to dozens and hundreds and then thousands of people in large and small seminars all over the country. Because of the growing demand for these ideas and this program, I recorded the entire seminar on audio and began selling it nationwide. Today at the psychology of achievement have sold more than one million copies and been then translated into twenty languages. It is perhaps the most popular personal development program in history. And now you can have it for your own personal listening enjoyment. The psychology of achievement shows you how to build self esteem and self confidence, it teaches you how to improve your self-image and boost your sense of personal power. You learn how to set goals in every area of your life, how to manage your time, how to overcome obstacles that can be holding you back and how to program your mind for success in 21 different proven ways. You learn how to tap into your subconscious mind and how to unlock the powers of your super conscious mind. Especially, you learn how to become a positive, confident, optimistic and loving person, and how to get along wonderfully with the most important people in your life. The psychology of achievement is unconditionally guaranteed for one year. You can take it, listen to it, try it out, and if you are not absolutely delighted, I insist that you return it to me for a full refund. So dont delay, visit me at BrianTracy.com, click on the word Audio and order The psychology of achievement today; it has changed the lives of thousands of people and it could change yours as well. Thank you!!!!