Paul Zolman: The Role of Love, Understanding Love in Action

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Paul Zolman about the crucial role of love languages in building strong, faith-based relationships. Discover insights and practical advice that can transform your interactions with loved ones.

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Transcript

[00:02] Jan: Welcome to just talking about Jesus. I'm Jan Johnson, a seasoned believer who loves relationships and, you know, just talking about Jesus. Welcome, everybody, to just talking about Jesus. My guest today is Paul Zolman. Welcome, Paul.

[00:19] Paul: Thank you, Jan. It's a pleasure to be with you today.

[00:22] Jan: Paul has kind of an interest in love languages. How'd you get started on that? What's your story?

[00:32] Paul: That's a good question, John. Thank you for asking. I got started with it just because I found myself in a situation where I was stacking annoyance, annoyance, annoyance on top one another. And then I'd have a flash of anger, and I thought, why am I so annoyed? And I thought, oh, well, it's always other people. I was always pointing my finger at other people. And I thought, oh, you know what? I think I know someone that was just like that. And then I looked at my father, and then I looked at my brother, and everybody's stacking these annoyances about being annoyed at other people, about conditions or actions that they did, that we have zero control over, but we'd still be annoyed.

 Why are they doing it that way? What's wrong with them? And we just be asking my, asking myself those questions. And I thought, well, how do you get out of that? I grew up in that critical family. It was just part of the family, part of a culture that had been handed down. My father only had an 8th grade education. I think education can help you get out of that, but there's other things that can help you get out of it. My mother joined the church just three years before I was born, and my father never joined the church, but just he would be home on Sundays cooking the fried or oven baked chicken, and then we'd come home and we have a nice meal, and it was just kindness that he was doing, but he wasn't going to church to do anything like that. So you take Jan, that gospel and insert the gospel. You come up with a different, different dialogue. 

You're actually watching for what's right with people. What can I love about that person? As Jesus would love that person? How does Jesus see that person? And so I realized that the critical nature that I had and grew up with, I could be a movie critic, except I didn't want to sit on the couch 8 hours a day watching movies all day long. It wasn't, it wasn't going to work for me that way. So I thought, well, you know what? My father was really strict and abating rules. He loved my mother, and I could tell that he dated her every single week. Every Friday night, I don't know, ever know of a Friday that he ever missed. He was a truck driver, gone through the week, home on the weekends. Wanted that date with, with my mother. 

Well, I'm number ten of eleven children, Jan. And as number ten, I can, I was never there, but I can see my mom at that. On that date was always a maverick bar, always over alcohol. My father wasn't creative about where to go have date. I was always at Maverick Barna. So I can see my mother starting at the oldest and going down, down, down through the children and my father being annoyed, annoyed, annoyed, annoyed until the flash of anger. Sometimes I don't want to sound like a victim here, but I felt targeted at number ten because he's got ten stacks here, ten stacks of annoyances. He's ready to blow. And it must have been like that a lot because I'm the only boy between two girls. All the rest are boys. And so as number ten of eleven, number nine and number eleven are also girls. 

And I was just kind of that baloney between two pieces of white bread. And if I gave my father or my mother, especially my mother, any grief during the week, I would hear about it. And it was very severe. Sometimes, sometimes it was about, sometimes it was just overextended spanking. One spanking I remember was I was black and blue for three weeks. So it's just from that situation I thought, there's got to be something better out there, Jan. And so I was started looking, how do you, if I get angry, how do you get over that? And what would be the opposite of that? So to illustrate that a little bit, you know, Jesus taught in parables, so I'm going to bring something in right now. So the other day I was out walking and found a walking stick. This is the walking stick I found, Jen. And it's smooth on this side. Great place for your hand. But on the other side of the walking stick, you can see it's got little points here and it would hurt your hand to put, you know, over a period of time. Hurt that. I call this the naughty side of the stick. And this is the nice side of the stick. Naughty and nice. Just like Santa Claus. Yeah, Christmas time. 

But I used it to illustrate more of the spectrum. Anger would be on the naughty side of the stick and love would be on the opposite side of the stick. So I had this self actualization moment that what if I could pursue love? What if I could find an adjective for every action that I was doing? Find an adjective for that. Action. And then think what is the opposite and where does it go on the spectrum? So as Im thinking about love, Im thinking I dont know much about it. So I started reading books like the color code and then the five love languages. This time Im single. All this anger and stacking the anger probably was very a big contribution to the demise of my first marriage. I only had eight kids. Compared to my father. We're trying to tone it down a little bit. My kids are only having three and two. I want more grandchildren, Jen. I don't know how to enact.

[06:07] Jan: I have ten kids and I have three grandkids. One that I don't even know and will never know.

[06:13] Paul: Yeah, that's. Well, that's too bad.

[06:16] Jan: What's wrong with this picture?

[06:18] Paul: Yeah, well, we have children to have grandchildren. So I want to see more of them, right. So anyway, so I'm studying the love and I'm studying the five love languages. I'm trying to get the principles. I like the principles. But the application doctor Chapman has wasn't working for me. He said, Jan, if I guess, Jen, what your love language is. And if I cater to that, we're going to be buddies. But I'm a bad guesser. And it wasn't working so far, that far up into my life at that point in time. So that didn't work. Second thing that Doctor Chapman has is that. Well, if you take the survey, you can find out what your primary love language is. Yeah, well, what the heck am I supposed to do with that, Jan? Advertise. Hello Jan. Gifs. What do you have for me today? I mean, how awkward is that?

[07:10] Jan: Yeah, right, right.

[07:11] Paul: I'm trying. Trying to get away from awkward. Because stacking, stacking, stacking. Having that flash of anger is already awkward. Wanted to move away from that. So I'm thinking, well, I like these principles. I like the idea of serving and spending time with people and gifts and the touch and all that. I was just liking all those love languages, but it just wasn't working. I thought, well, I thought back to my childhood. I said, well, we played games as a family. And it brought our family together. I wonder if I can make this a game. 

So I contacted Doctor Chapman, asked him, are you licensing those little pictures, those little icons you have for the love languages? And after a couple of weeks, his attorney wrote back and said, no, we're not doing that right now. Well, I happen to have an attorney in my neighborhood that I knew, and he was a copyright attorney. He said this, he said theory, like the love language theory is not copyrightable. Application is. So they weren't doing it as a game. 

So I thought, well, I'll make my own icons and make it into a game. So that's what I did. Oh, it's just, just a dice. It's about one inch by one inch. And I just created icons that would represent each one of the love languages. There, you see? Touch. That one's the conversation flat from the heart. So that would be the words. Looks like a waiter. That's a platter for service. That's right, yeah. That wants gifts. You'll notice there's a hand holding something all the time. It's as if it's giving it away. And then the last one would be time. Five love languages, six sides on the cube. The last one is, surprise me, just a hand holding a question mark. So, Jan, there's just two instructions. Roll the dice every day, whatever it lands on. That is the love language you practice giving away all day that day.

[09:09] Jan: Oh.

[09:10] Paul: So through my course of travels, I realized that even as, as Doctor Chapman had written, that you should tell someone what your love language is so that they can cater to. That wasn't working for me, I thought, and I can't bid love to come my way.

[09:26] Jan: Yeah.

[09:26] Paul: But what I do have control over is sending it out and then responding when it comes my way. So as I'm rolling the dice, setting the theme or the purpose for that particular day, the purpose to be loved. No matter what, all there is is love on this. So even on surprise me day, you're watching for opportunities to do random acts of kindness. I'm rolling the dice and practicing all these love language. I found, Jan, that over a 30 day period, I knew them all. All of a sudden, I was going.

[10:00] Jan: To ask you, I mean, you have a natural bent to some love language or another, right?

[10:07] Paul: Everybody does.

[10:08] Jan: Yeah. Right. And so when you are just rolling your die and finding one, do you find it a little more awkward on some levels to do, you know, than what? Does this come naturally? Or is it just kind of an opportunity to learn something, how to do that love language?

[10:29] Paul: That is a great question, Jan, and very creative in that way, because initially it might be awkward if it's not your primary love language, if it's not what you'd like to receive. But I'm different than what Doctor Chapman had assessed a lot of people. I give something away that it doesn't. I don't, I don't particularly like receiving back. So I'll give, I'll give service away, but I don't really like service coming back my way. I like words and I like touch to come back to me. So really there's kind of ten love languages, five that you give away and then five that five that you like to receive. And it took me a long time to realize that, oh, Doctor Chapman, I'm reading this book that you wrote, and I'm trying to figure out what direction are you going now? Am I receiving or am I giving? And it just had real difficulty with it. I didn't grow up with this, didn't grow up with the theory or anything. Was trying to implement that into my life. And it's almost as if I'm trying to implement the gospel of Jesus Christ into my own life. Insert the gospel and your life supposed to become a lot better. Was it really having a difficult time doing that? Because it's not in my ancestry, it's not in the something that I've been inherited, not the generational things that were passed down more. Not going to church was actually what was passed down to me. So learning this was just absolutely new to me. And it may be new to many of your listeners that way too. That just trying to learn the gospel of Jesus Christ and insert this. You know, Doctor Chapman was a baptist pastor, and I can imagine that couples would come to him and they would come to him for counsel. The husband's sending love to the wife. The wife is sending love back to the husband. They're like ships in the night. They're not seeing it because his primary love language or whatever he was given away was not her primary love language. And it missed. And it just kept missing like that. So. So the idea that he had of, in a romantic setting, telling one another what your love language is, is okay, but it brings up duty or it almost brings up a place where that it's something that you expect. You create those duties and that obligation. Yeah, the expectation, and that wasn't love to me. It didn't sound like love to me at all. So the new way now, Jan, is that as you're rolling the dice and practicing that love language, giving away to everybody all day, that day, what you're watching for is people that light up when they. When they light up. Jan, now you've discovered either a primary or secondary love language for that person.

[13:21] Jan: That's what I just. Yeah, that's what I was just thinking. I was going to ask you next is what do you discover when you're doing that to. That you're encountering or whatever? Yeah, that. Perfect.

[13:30] Paul: So for that person, you just take a mental note that they like that. Then wash, rinse, repeat for that person. So as you're lighting up people all day long, you're making their day and you're helping them have a better day. But you're focused, you're absolutely focused on that particular love language. Obviously, you'll see other opportunities throughout the day. You can do it. You can take all those opportunities. But this is the focus, this is the mantra that you have the theme for that particular day.

[14:00] Jan: I love it because I, you know, most days I'll wake up in the morning and say, okay, God, who do you want me to encounter today? You know? And that would just add that next little level to something too. That's exciting.

[14:14] Paul: It is fun. And the randomness is really fun too. So Jan, no longer, if you take, took the survey and you found out that, um, you like to touch more than anything else, well, it's like me, you know, I'm not going to be touching you all day long. That's just not what I'm going to be doing. And, and so it's, I'm not going to be feeding you tacos every meal for every day, every day the rest of the day of your life. This provides that variety, gives you a full nourishment of all the love languages. When you've done it for 30 days, you know them backwards and forwards by giving it away. And the best part about that, Jen, is now you can see it when it comes your way. So back to that couple that doctor Chapman was helping. Now they've been given some peripheral vision. It's because they know all five love languages. Now they can say, oh, they're loving on me. It's not my primary love language, but I still can respond to that. I can see that they're trying to, to send love my way. And there's an understanding, there's a communication gap that has been closed, and we're just trying to overcome those communication problems. I like to call it Jan, raising the literacy level of love. Because if you only know your own primary love language, what you like, that's really kind of narcissistic, number one. And you don't want to be that way, obviously, nobody wants to be that way. Well, I guess there are some people that want to be that way, but you don't want to, you don't want to end up like that. So developing that vision that says they're loving on me and responding in that way just quiet things down makes it a more peaceful existence for everybody and more loving existence people. The communication is going to be a lot better that way.

[16:06] Jan: And I'm thinking you're not going to just have this for a couple relationship, this would also spread to your kids, to your friends. Just, anyway, I'm across the board, right?

[16:19] Paul: Absolutely. I love that John too, because what it does, it really irons out or erases all the labels that are out there. Political labels, gender labels, sexual orientation labels, racist, any labels that are out there. And if you are a person you are deserving of love, doesn't matter what race you are, doesn't matter what gender you are, it doesn't matter anything. What political affiliation, what religion you are, doesn't matter anything you're deserving of love. Treat each other like a person. Treat each other like a person deserving of love. One more thing, let's back up just a little bit. So Doctor Chapman, being a baptist pastor, one other thing, he said that these reconcile to the life of Jesus Christ. Well, I did my own fact check and I thought, well how did, how did the words reconcile the life of Jesus Christ? We absolutely love his words. We have his words, that's how we get to know who Jesus Christ is. Did Jesus spend time with people? Absolutely. He spent, took the time and to talk to this american woman at the well, just even, it didn't matter if they were jewish or not, he was talking with people, spending time with people. Did he serve people? Of course he did. Did he have any gifts? Obviously had the gifts of the spirit created miracles, turning water to wine. Those, those were gifts that he shared. And then touch, we know he touched people's eyes, touched their ears, and raised people from the dead with the touch. Absolutely. No, that touch was part of his ministry because why else, Jan, would he have to say to Mary when he was resurrected, touch me not, she was coming in for the hug or something. She was coming in for it because it was part of his ministry.

[18:09] Jan: Yeah.

[18:10] Paul: And he had to say that because he hadn't ascended to the father yet. All five love languages relate there, but we need to take it one little step further, Jan, that I found myself in the beginning wanting to overcome that stacking of annoyances to get to that flash of anger. And what I found in that 30 day period is that instead of looking this way, I was looking the total 180 degrees the opposite way. Instead of looking at faults of one another, I was looking at what's right about that person, what is lovable about that person, what's right with that person. And I couldn't look both ways at the same time. And I forgot to be annoyed and I forgot to stack those annoyances and I forgot to have the flash of anger. Instantly, the miracle happened. How Jesus manifest himself in my life. Just the inspiration alone to be able to make it into a game and to focus every single day. Simple. He does things very simply. 2 seconds or less to roll the die sets the theme for the day. Focus on that. Focus on, on the good things of people and you'll forget about being critical about them. I was maybe focused on ten or 15% of the personality, the weaknesses of a person. I was missing the 80% to 90% that was good.

[19:38] Jan: What's the greatest commandment?

[19:40] Paul: Love thy neighbor. Absolutely. Love God and love thy neighbor as thyself. Right. So as I'm focused on loving and sending out love, kindness in that way, you know, just it, it totally replaced that behavior of being critical. Absolutely replaced it.

[20:01] Jan: Boy, what a, what a word for parents, especially, you know, getting middle school, high school or something and little things that go on. And it's just like all you're seeing is they didn't have clean the room or they didn't do this or they didn't do whatever. And if you did replace that, that would be just golden.

[20:23] Paul: And it's interesting that you brought up schools. I'm testing it actually in the school system right now. Trying to get the whole mindset of love. Sending out love instead of the media teaches us to focus on look what they did wrong and just aggrandizes everything that's gone wrong in society instead of focusing on what's right. The Olympics is kind of a different story. We're glad the Olympics or those positive things that happen. Yes, somebody excelled. Yes, somebody's doing really well. But, but as I'm taking it to the schools there, there's, it's very simple. There's no curriculum. They don't need more curriculum, right. All they need is just a few, maybe 1 minute in the, in the morning, roll the dice as a class has it, whatever it lands on class. This is what we're looking for type of behavior that we should be practicing today. Teacher might take 30, 45 seconds to explain different ways that that could be manifest through the day. They go through the day. At the end of the day, I've created a journal page. On that journal page it says what they rolled opportunities that that child saw to practice love in that way. And then the last part is, what did you do about those opportunities? Becomes a journal page for that child. And I'm doing it in k through six right now. And as they're recording it at the end of the day, these kids, I found that the last 1015 minutes a day is non productive time. Teachers all over the world are saying, this is really non productive time at the end of the day. And because the kids are antsy, they've been there all day, they're trying to learn all day. Their brains are mushed. They can't learn one more thing. So what they need is a decompression activity. Take them down just a little bit. Journal writing is one of those decompression activities. This is what happens now. That child is responsible. That six year old is responsible for their own actions. It's not the teacher that's responsible. It's not the principal that's responsible for them anymore. The child, that six year old is responsible for themselves. They have to account for what they did. At the end of the day, the teacher does a check mark sends the journal page home. Those astute parents will keep those journal pages in sequential order. At the end of the year, they should bind it. That is a love journal for that first grader.

[23:03] Jan: Or that if you work with the parents as well, then you've got them looking out for those types of things and to encourage them along the way. And maybe that just spreads to how they do things as well.

[23:16] Paul: Absolutely. So if these kids are now focused on love, they're not focused on what's wrong with Billy, what's wrong with Judy, what's wrong with Susie. They're not focused at all. And they're not into bully mode. Bully mode looks to what's wrong with people and they just focus on picking on people because there's something a little bit wrong or they look a little bit different or something's wrong with their clothes or their shoes or something. They're not picking on that anymore. They're watching for what's right. And as they're watching for what's right, the discipline in the classroom should just go down to almost nothing, really. It should be because the teacher's not having to take time out of the class, time to discipline a child now there's more teaching time now there's more education, there's more learning. And it's in a loving environment which makes it stick. If you're in a hostile environment trying to learn something, it's not going to stick.

[24:14] Jan: Yeah. So you've written a book as well. Tell us about that.

[24:18] Paul: It's called the role of love and it's about all we've been talking about, about how to practice each one of the love languages. It's a lot of stories in it of different testing that I did. I tested it with a family of just five children. The youngest was just four years old. Dad. And you see there's no words on the dice at all. No words at all. So just pictures. And that four year old could recognize pictures as soon as they knew what the picture was about. One day, that four year old rolled. Physical touch. And he's jumping up and down, pumping his face. Yes. Physical touch. Physical touch. So excited. Immediately goes. Beats up on his brothers. He thought it was permission to beat up on his brothers. And so.

[25:02] Jan: So it was a little modeling there as to what that really meant.

[25:06] Paul: Exactly. So it was a perfect teaching moment, Jan, for that mother's. All the siblings are right there. Perfect teaching moment for the mother to that child and to all the siblings that are listening. No son, a high five, a fist bump, a hug, or create a fancy handshake. Those would be appropriate physical touch. And then it just becomes that they're teaching correct principles on how to love and express love appropriately, you know, as a child, very, at a very young age.

[25:40] Jan: Yeah. And so you offer some counseling in this as well.

[25:45] Paul: I do coaching, not counseling. I'm not a licensed counselor, but I can do coaching and help people that are trying to get out of that. If they're in a situation like I was in and they want to have some change in their life, I can help them create that focus that is going to change that mindset, the focus on what's right about people. Stop. Stop the critic. Stop being the critic. You don't need. We don't need. World does not need one more critic.

[26:15] Jan: I'm in agreement there. And where can people find your book and find you?

[26:21] Paul: That's a great question, Jan. I've got a website called rolloflove.com, comma, role of love. You'll notice that it's kind of a play on words. Roll is what you do with the dice outside of you. But Ro Le is the change that happens within you. So that's the website ro leoflove.com dot. It has a book, it has the journal, has the dice on there. Also have a, another ebook that I wrote that's called 101 ways to express love, and it's patterned after this, but it's about 2020 or so different suggestions of different things that you could do within each genre of the love language. So find me on my website. If you're more auditory and listening to a podcast, like this. I do have an audible version of the book, but you have to buy it on Amazon. When you go on Amazon, don't type in roll of love. You're going to have to type in my name. If you type in love anything, you're going to get love, a million things, but type in my name, it'll come right up and you can get the audible version or a Kindle version of the book right there on Amazon as well.

[27:27] Jan: Excellent. Excellent. This has been great. I love this. It's just gonna spur all kinds of ideas and I think it's. You're on the right track. I think you're really on the right track there.

[27:39] Paul: Thank you. Jen. This is intended to inspire. Inspire you to do something loving today. It doesn't matter. I'm not dictating what you should do, but the dice says this is the, this is the category. Watch for these opportunities on that particular day and be inspired.

[27:56] Jan: Yeah.

[27:57] Paul: Let, let the Holy Ghost, let the spirit, let Jesus guide you in all that you do.

[28:03] Jan: That's. That's amazing. That is really amazing. Okay, well, thank you, Paul, so much. This has just really been a pleasure.

[28:10] Paul: Thank you, Jen. It's been my pleasure as well. For opportunity.

[28:14] Jan: Thanks to.