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Damien A. Schmidt Presents ...
Ok, so this is an idea I’ve been working on, and I may eventually turn it into a book, give lectures and consult to businesses on the subject, and how to help them approach their customers etc. Right now I’m just trying to get as much eyes on it as possible and as much brains to help me work out the details etc. So don’t be shy and don’t be scared to be critical. :) And if there is anything you think I should add or look out for please let me know. Thanks in advance.
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Table of Contents The Idea Before we Begin Initial Meeting “Aha” Moment Block: Toughest Obstacle Love The Dip Brands?! The Beginning... FAQ LOVEQ Strategies:
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The Idea This simple Q describes the process that takes place in order for two people to fall in love. By this I mean that it walks through the steps necessary to build the Love-connection between two persons.
You begin with an initial meeting, then one person has an “Aha moment� and starts pursuing connection. After that you move on to the following phase where you try to overcome the toughest obstacle before you let yourself fall in love. After being in love (for a long time), you will probably fall into a dip. However, to come out of the dip you can either jump-start the relationship and do the things you used to do while in love, or you repeat the cycle and fall in love all over again, beginning with the Aha moment again. I created this model based on research that I did on innovative decision-making processes and followed up with some actual face-to-face interviews and group discussions. So far I have been 100% correct, but feedback and new perspectives are always welcome.
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Before we Begin Because the model describes any love-connection, we speak in terms of the pursuer (in most cases the male) and the pursuee (in most cases the female). To make this easier to explain I’ll use names of a male (Adam) and female (Eve). Before I begin the explanation, just a few pointers so you can understand the context; - No definite timing; The phases in the model do not have a certain time frame, the entire process can technically take 1 hour, 2 days, 3 weeks or 4 months, 5 years, etc etc - No relationship: this model does not guarantee that you will end up in a Relationship (boyfriend & girlfriend relationship, engaged or even married) nor that you will be having sex. - Always Analyzing: The circle can be broken at any given moment . Which basically brings the connection to an end. And that is because we are always analyzing (and being analysed) for faults, defects etc - Goes both way; This model is applicable for the pursuer in the relationship and the pursuee. They both have to pass through the same phases. However, the pursuer is often one phase ahead of the pursuee. - Subconscious; Some of the phases begin with a subconscious decision.
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Initial Meeting This is where Adam meets Eve for the first time. This is where they exchange names, and casual information with each other. This also starts off the casual/platonic friendship aka the Friend-zone. In this phase, obstacles can be very sensitive and getting out of the friend-zone requires even more tact than any other phase in the entire process. You recognize you’re here when: Having casual conversations Getting to know the person Your interest is building steadily for the person You start hanging out more and more You do nice things together, Things to get to the next phase: Develop intrigue Stimulate conversations Show your good qualities Show common interests
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“Aha” Moment At some point Adam recognizes Eve as someone that he Likes, more than a friend, and as a potential person he can build a connection with and so he has his “Aha Moment”. He now starts to work towards creating that Aha Moment for Eve as well. He tries to do the right things in a way that Eve would understand and appreciate in order to get her to also recognize him as a potential. This could also be seen as “coming out of the friendzone”. For Eve, it mostly comes as a light switch being switched on in her head that all of a sudden she starts to see this person as more than just a friend. Once Eve recognises her interest in Adam, she now starts to find as much material as possible to validate her feelings of subconscious choice of making Adam a potential. She also looks for signs to let her know if there is the possibility of him being even more than a potential. If Eve finds what she needs, she now lets her attitude and actions change towards Adam. Some flirting, and intimate/sexual interests arise. And depending on the type of person Eve is they might even share their first kiss in this stage. You recognize you’re here when: Your actions and attitude become more welcoming and tolerant Flirting, Intimate/sexual interests Start checking and comparing birthdays and Zodiac Signs Try to make sense and interpret the things that the person does Share and partake in common interests together Talking to friends/others about the connection (looking for information and validation) Things to get to the next phaze: Buy gifts for each other Increase Sexual interest Doing more things that they like Providing Meaning and depth to the connection Think of this phase in terms of creating a snowball to form an avalanche. Eve tries to find as much information and reasons in order for her interests, attraction and affection to grow. At the same time the relationship is heading to its biggest challenge yet: Facing the tough obstacles. Note: This phase can also be based on Lust.
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Block: Toughest Obstacle Now, after Eve recognizes that she fancies Adam as a potential, they start to spend more time together, feelings grow, etc. At some point she comes to a point where she has to consider the big obstacles that will pose a problem for the healthy continuation of the connection. Examples of these obstacles are: * Obstacles that are dependant on Adam Adam’s Physical defects, a Crazy ex-girlfriend, a “Babymama full of drama”, his character traits, he has a child from a previous relationship, - Obstacles that originate with Eve and that stop her from letting herself get too involved; She’s not ready to get let herself be loved, She is currently focused on other things, school, work, child Someone else has her attention - Obstacles on both sides; They live/move far away Parents/families don’t agree or accept Religious differences (Note: we can group all the obstacles into Physical, Historical, Spiritual, Personal categories) You recognize you’re here when: You seek for meaning in the intentions Flirting, Intimate actions increases You find yourself defending your actions and the connection to others, including yourself Looking for your position in their life First start having arguments/disagreements Making space in your life for the person
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8 Things to get to the next phaze: Make commitments Make agreements to help each other deal with the obstacles Increase Sexual interest Make your intentions clear Providing Meaning and depth to the connection Plan for the future with the person in mind This phase is a continuation of the Aha-phase. The snowball is now a bit bigger, it has some momentum and, depending on how big the obstacles are, the snowball overcomes the obstacles and continues into a full blown avalanche, aka, the Love phase. This doesn’t mean that the obstacles no longer exists. There are two ways to deal with obstacles; you ignore them and hope they work themselves out in the future, (which probably causes more problems) or you find solutions on how to deal with the obstacles and make sure they don’t continue being a problem. If the obstacles are too big for the snowball to overcome however, the connection poses a threat of falling right back down into the Aha phase or even further down into the deepest part of the friendzone.
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Love Assuming that Adam and Eve have gotten past the toughest obstacles, they now move towards the Love phase. In this phase, Eve takes a partnership role in the pursuit of Adam and matches, reciprocates or even surpasses, in her own way, the amount of energy and dedication that Adam has been investing into the building of the connection. You recognize you’re here when: You know your position in the person’s life Your intimate relations are consecrated/consummated (You make love) Your friends and family know of your connection You are willing to tell the whole world A self-confirmation The first time you say “I Love You” Things to get to the next phaze: Not live up to things from the previous phase (Continuously) Break commitments (Continuously) Not live up to the agreements made Decrease Sexual interest Make your intentions unclear Take away Meaning and depth to the connection Plan for the future without the person in mind The self-confirmation is moment where you give the person A Look (with or without them looking), A Kiss, or randomly blurt it out during a conversation, that you love them. It could also happen after coming back from a daydream about how far you both have come in your connection with each other. This differs per person and also per connection. The Love phase is where both Adam and Eve try to balance their connection. They might lean back into dealing with obstacles and they might lean forward into the Dip.
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The Dip Because they are both human, Adam and Eve fail to live up to everything they promised each other, agreed on and committed to in the previous stage. This leads to them “falling out of love” with each other (or one falling out of love with the other). You recognize you’re here when: You are not sure of your position in the person’s life Your intimate relations are diminished/reduced (to just physical acts) Your friends and family question your connection You’re not sure what to tell the World and even If you should tell the whole world Insecurity You barely say “I Love You” No Kisses to say Hello/Goodbye/Goodnight/Goodmorning Things to get to the next phase: Look for/Create the Aha moment again, Start doing the things you used to do while you were in love After the Dip, you stand a risk of either breaking the entire connection or working on reaching back to being in love. To fall in love again you either look for/create the Aha moment again, or you try to rewind the times and start doing the things you used to do while you were in love in an effort to jumpstart the Love. And so the connection continues until infinity, or until somebody had enough and the obstacles become too huge for the snowball/avalanche.
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Brands?! Allow me to talk to the business folks for a minute. Now that we understand the principles, we can apply them to our lives. Not only to our lives, but also to business as well. As I mentioned before, these processes are the same in any Love connection. If you’re busy building a brand, most likely your aim is to have your customers/target groups fall in love with your product, stimulate action and/or movement among your customers. So you assume the pursuer’s role, while ushering your customers along these phases. I’ll describe briefly, per phase, how your brand could communicate to customers, utilizing the LOVE Q, to get others to fall in love with you. Firstly, you try to get your name known among your (potential) customers and if necessary try to create an initial meeting. To do this you might consider sponsoring events, getting celebrities to endorse, etc. Then you try to show customers why they are the better choice. Here is where you may push ads comparing your product with the other, or ads explaining what makes your brand different and special from the others. After being around for awhile, having your name out there, your target audience knows who you are, you may want to start doing research to find out what are the obstacles for your (potential) target audience. After researching this, you change, adjust or adapt your brand to address the issues. Some Tough Obstacles could be the Value for Money ratio, a lack of features within the products/ services, etc. Once the solutions to the obstacles are taken care of, your brand starts to gain traction (again), you get positive feedback from your customers, etc, you can then start to assume that you have touched the hearts and minds of the customers. You can now focus on ads that remind customers why they choose you, ads that introduce new features, etc. If by some chance you happen to mess things up and lose the touch, loyalty and faithfulness of your customers, aka if you find yourself in the dip, you would have to get back to the drawing board, do the research and find out where you went wrong, and fix it! These suggestions that I mentioned can be done separately or in combination with one another. But, they need to be done!
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The Beginning... There is plenty more I can say about this model, from approaches, creating strategies, to implementation and even mentalities. But more on that soon. (I’m still thinking about writing the book - Fyi: I don’t like to write lol) But I would be very glad to hear from you and how this helped to simplify your lives. I’m confident that everyone will be able to relate to the natural processes outlined in this model. My dream is that this would help to simplify various areas of your lives for all sorts of purposes and help to increase the communication in the connections that you build! Professionally, I hope that entrepreneurs, and business owners can also make use of the Q to build their brands and use the Q as a tool to help solve problems in our society.
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FAQ LOVEQ OK, so here are some questions and comments (in bold below) that I have received about the LOVE Q and my responses. (This list will be upgraded and updated accordingly). - Seems more like stages to a relationship than stages to falling in love. I specifically decide not to use the word Relationship (as in boyfriend-girlfriend) because of course you can Love somebody and go through this cycle with them for years without being in a Relationship with them. Instead I refer more to the Connection and the "relationship" (as in whatever it is and whatever they decide to call it) - I don't think there's a map of how the road goes. I can agree to disagree here,... because I believe that if we do look at the bigger picture we can map out certain recurring phases/steps / etc that happen in all relationships. That is what I have tried to do here. But again, we can agree to disagree. (And remember this is based on a formula for any connection, and not just a romantic Love connection) - Sometimes you can fall in love with your best friend. Yes, you can Love anybody. You "reaching to that point" with a friend begins with small subconscious decisions, which then leads to the Aha moment and then the other phases accordingly. Because both parties have to go through these phases, technically you can go through these phases with or without the other person feeling the same way about you. However, if you are fortunate that you and your friend feel the same way about each other, a strong friendship is always a great foundation to start off any connection. Still, in any situation, so even if you are best of friends, for you to take the friendship out of the friend zone, somebody has to be the pursuer, somebody has to be the one to initiate that conversation and/or process and take you of the friend zone. (This can be done via verbal or nonverbal conversations) - Sometimes both people have the "Aha" moment at the same time so there isn't a pursuer or pursuee. Don't mistake Progress (how it happened) with Process (the steps of what will happen). Remember I mentioned that both parties have to walk through these same phases and I also mentioned that there is no definite timing. So technically one person can be one or even two steps ahead at any given time, while another person can leapfrog past the other.
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14 And in another situation both the time differences of each person can walk in very close proximity with each other, resulting in them entering and being in the same phase at the same time, and thus feeling the same way about each other. Yet there will still be someone to emerge as the leader in the relationship and the one to initiate the following stages etc. If their timelines are so close to each other, they can both switch roles from time to time. - I don't think love comes after the Block, I think in most cases Love is what helps you overcome the block. OK, my short answer is; I agree. Because from the time you pass your Aha moment and you decide to continue the connection with the person you (are making the decision to) Love the person. Now follow me closely on this one. After you had your Aha moment and you decide to continue the connection, at the same time you are opening up yourself (aka deciding) to let yourself Love the person and to receive Love from them as well. Think on the Snowball. You already created the snowball at the Aha phase. So when the Blocks come, they are merely things that will help you sift away and filter for yourselves if the connection should continue, if the decision to Love should continue. Remember there are two ways for you to get past the Blocks; *Sweep it under the rug - the short term solution, rewards-based route *Confront and Resolve - the long term, Love preserving route. The first is self-explanatory, so we will focus on the second latter. For a healthy Love based connection, all your decisions should be centered on preserving the connection and seeking the safest and honest route past the Blocks. Sometimes one person decides that the Blocks/ the obstacles are too big, it’s not worth it and they make a decision not to carry on. And on the other hand you find both parties deciding to stick it out no matter what. - I think there's a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone. I do agree! And for me the differences are: * Loving (the Decisions) and * Being in Love (The Emotions) And how I see it is, (and just to add a bit to my previous answer), you go around the cycle multiple times, based on the decision you made to let Love exists and grow between you. But the more you go around, the higher/tougher the Blocks are but the higher the level of Love you Share as well. If you think of the cycle in terms of a rollercoaster ride; at some points along the Cycle you may make some decisions because of the High or Low you may be feeling at the time. And these High feelings, these High emotions are what I call being in Love.
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15 - Your definition of love "You recognize you're here when" doesn't at all sound like being in love to me. It sounds more like being in a stable relationship where you feel secure...safe. [This also applies to all the other examples]. Now this is your opinion and we can agree to disagree here again. All the examples I give are based on the individuals I spoke to in face to face interviews, and my personal observations and experiences. If you have more you would want to add, please don’t be shy to let me know and send them to me. - To me the article seems to deal with something very deep in a very shallow way. Like love has been reduced to emotions and decisions, like there's some logic to it. I prefer to say; Where, When, and especially ‘Why’ (aka the progress) people do things will always be a deep mystery. The same applies for building a connection with someone else. But I do believe that there is some logic and a process behind it all (a How). And I believe that this model helps us to identify and simplify the understanding of that process by a group of Decisions, actions and Emotions.
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Strategies: Now when you understand the Q and the processes that happen, you can go ahead and start to create strategies in order to try to influence the progress in each phase. Some of the Strategies can be split up in the following strategies. Process Strategies: - Quick benefit: One night stands, I just want one thing - Long term connection: Good intentions; Doing the right thing; 1on1 marketing Initial Meeting Strategies: - More Trust via friends (friend’s reputation, dignity is at stake) - Serendipity: Randomly bump into each other coming around a corner - Cheesy pick-up lines at the bus stop - Meet at common cause events Attraction Strategies (Know your SWOT)
* Outside - Face (Looks) - Body
* Inside - Personality Qualities - Mentality Engagement Strategies: - Blow their minds : Keep impressing them - Challenge their minds: Keep stimulating them - Make them a part: Partnership - Solve their problems: Do things for them Exit Strategies: The breakup - You break up with them - They break up with you They will stick around because: - Convenience; They are lazy, - Relationship context; family, Friends, benefits - Synergy; all the things they accomplish together, the power of their combined efforts - How you make them feel: lasts even after the relationship is finished.
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Try!!! Nothing is guaranteed!
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