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As we navigate the intricate tapestry of human connection, Paul Zome, a beacon of resilience and hope, joins us to share his story of transformation from a strife-filled childhood to becoming an international bestselling author. His book, "The Role of Love," isn't merely a collection of pages—it's a lifeline, offering innovative tools such as the love language dice to strengthen our bonds. This episode spotlights the undeniable impact that understanding and embracing the five love languages can have on our relationships, highlighted through Paul's anecdotal wisdom as he emerged from the shadows of being the tenth child in a family where love and respect were scarce.
Diving into the heart of our societal fabric, we explore the transformative power of personal accountability, not just in our lives but extending to our youth through journaling and the influence of social media. Paul's insights on nurturing kindness and responsibility inspire a vision of a more empathetic and connected community. Like the beauty of clouds parting at sunrise, we discuss embracing life's trials and finding the stunning beauty that lies beyond, illuminating the path toward personal growth and community betterment.
Our journey with Paul culminates in a call to revolution—a kindness revolution—where the simplicity of a dice game can set the stage for a wave of positivity within schools. The 'Roll of Love' isn't just a game; it's a catalyst for change in how teens understand themselves and interact with the world. We travel with Paul through the complexities of modern identity, relationships, and the importance of creating a supportive forum for teens to express themselves. For those yearning to be part of a conversation that's reshaping our approach to love and self-growth, Paul Zome's wisdom is a guiding light, offering practical resources to foster positivity in every facet of our lives.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Good afternoon and welcome to another episode of A
Contagious Smile, where everysmile tells a story.
This is unstoppable, and I'm soexcited to have Paul Zome with
us because he has the mostresilient, inspirational story.
I can't wait to share it.
We've been talking, prior tocoming on, about this beautiful
picture behind him.
I can't wait for him to talkabout that for us as well.
(00:23):
Paul, I can't thank you enoughfor finding time to come on with
us today.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Thank you, victoria.
It's a pleasure to be invitedto your show.
Pleasure to be with you, thankyou.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Oh, thank you.
Now you are an internationalbestselling author.
You're just like a jack of alltrades.
You've got so many things goingon.
Tell us a little bit about yourbook first, before we dive into
who Paul is.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Sure, I wrote a book called the Role of Love and it
has to do with this dice that'sright in the middle of the cover
there and it's kind of a playon words that you roll the dice
outside of you but the changethat happens is within you.
So R-O-L-E of love is how Iexplained it.
The role of love is actually adice that's about one inch by
(01:09):
one inch that has the differentlove languages on it.
You can see there, for thosethat can see it, those are two
hands looking like they're readyto hold hands.
That would represent touch.
This one is the Taylor Swiftheart that she sends to her
family, or Caitlin Clark heartthat she sends to her family
after playing basketball.
(01:30):
Only this one has aconversation fly out.
So these would be the wordsfrom the heart, for the words
also got a hand holding anhourglass representing time.
Looks like a waiter holding atray representing service.
And then the last one would be,of course, the gifts.
Five love languages, six sideson the cube.
(01:50):
The last one is surprise me.
Surprise me is just on that day.
There's just two instructions.
Victoria, you roll the diceevery day, whatever it lands on.
That is the love language.
You practice giving away allday that day, and by doing that
over a 30-day period you'lllearn all five love languages,
backwards and forwards, so thatnow you can see it when it comes
(02:11):
your way, really closes thatcommunication gap that most
people have.
Most people can only see whatthey like, they can only see
their primary love language.
This gives you peripheralvision.
Say, oh, they're loving on me,it's not my primary love
language, but I still canrespond to that.
So it's kind of solving thatcommunication problem.
I had it when I was younger.
I grew up in a dysfunctionalfamily and this really helped me
(02:35):
immensely.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I love your website.
I'm going to make sure that weput the link in it to everyone
for the show notes, because evenon your website it's just so
inviting, it's just welcoming,and it talks about all this as
well, which is just fascinatingto me.
I'm so excited because there'sso many things I want to talk to
you about.
But let's go back to yourchildhood.
You didn't have an easychildhood.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It was not easy.
I'm number 10 of 11 children,victoria, I'm the tithing child,
but I'm the youngest boy andwhat would happen is my father
was a truck driver and he'd comehome on the weekends and he
always dated my mother.
I don't know of a Friday nightthat he ever missed dating my
mother.
In fact the kids wouldn't.
(03:19):
We wouldn't see him until aftertheir date on Friday night.
But the date kind of went likethis in my imagination because
what happened afterward was hownight.
But the date kind of went likethis in my imagination because
what happened afterward was howI perceived how the date went.
That my mother would disgorge,as when two people haven't seen
each other for a while, they saywell, how was your week, how
was your week?
My mother would say all thethings that happened during the
(03:39):
week and I can imagine my mothernever was there, like I said,
but I can imagine my motherstarting at the top of the list
of all the children and by thetime they get down to number 10,
me.
My father has been annoyed,annoyed, annoyed, annoyed,
stacking all these annoyancesuntil he has this flash of anger
and I felt like the target ofall that anger, like a black
(04:03):
sheep, not particularly a blacksheep.
It's just that he was annoyedfrom all my brothers and all the
older siblings just because itcame down to that and I was the
youngest and probably mostvulnerable and just felt like I
got the brunt of whatever he wasmad about.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So what did that entail for you when he got to
that point?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
It was actually physical punishment, verbal
abuse.
He was never the perpetrator ofsexual abuse, but in my family
there was some sexual abuse thatwent on and there were just
there's financial abuse.
There were a lot of differenttypes of abuse in the family, so
it really was an angry culture.
An angry culture meaning thatthere are no boundaries.
(04:49):
You can talk over people andyou know while they're talking,
and just we didn't have allthose manners that were taught.
My father had an eighth gradeeducation.
My mother had a high schooleducation.
I think education really playsa big key in how you react to
and interact with other peopleabsolutely so.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
It was also a respect issue as well correct.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, there was no.
No, there was no risk.
So it was like that.
Is that tina turned out sayingno, they got no respect, or who
is that?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
isn't it, aretha franklin?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
aretha Franklin, that's it.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, yeah you know one of the other shows we have
free and Paul, one of the showsthat I actually did was with my
husband last night and we weretalking about this very subject
and I'm so glad that you're here.
I'm not going to tell you whichone of us was standing on what
side, but one of us is very muchagainst any type of paddling,
(05:44):
spanking, welting, whatever youwant to call it, your adjective
of choice, and that the otherone says it's OK to paddle on
the butt.
How do you feel about that fromthe childhood you went through?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
We, we went through a lot of things, and my father,
father's favorite thing ofchoice was the belt, and so it
was not even just the paddling,but just having a tool in his
hand.
In fact, I remember my olderbrothers in high school woodshop
.
One of the projects that theteacher presented for a choice
(06:22):
was you could create a paddlethat had the, the little welt
marks in in the paddle, thatthat could be your project and
you could gift it to yourparents.
For, for, yeah, that was the,that was the project, a wood
woodworking project.
I did.
I did spank my children with,with the hand open hand and um
(06:43):
and and hopefully I I don'tthink it was very often, but it
was, uh, definitely often enoughthat I feel, I feel terrible
about that.
I feel that I should have beenmore diplomatic that way.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I wish I would have had the knowledge absolutely,
and I guess my facial expressionsold you which side I was on,
but my husband has been a personthat's like no, I think if they
need it, they need to pop onthe butt.
You know and I'm like I don'tagree because you're giving them
just this action that after aminute or two the sting is gone.
But sit down, have aconversation with them.
Like our daughter, faith hasnever been popped never.
(07:17):
And yet she's incrediblyrespectful.
She has her own podcast.
She will say I'm sorry, I didwrong.
I taught her.
You know pencils have an eraser,and that's what life is about
is learning from the mistakes.
Nobody's perfect.
And let's talk about somethinglike if she didn't finish her
schoolwork, I would say to heryou know what?
(07:38):
I love you, but I don't likethe fact that you chose to do
XYZ instead of finishing yourschoolwork, so you chose to give
up your phone for the evening.
You chose to do that.
I'm not taking your phone away.
Your choice of not completingyour schoolwork chose to give me
your phone, and I think that ismuch more powerful than
(07:58):
spanking again or like eventeachers now and I had this
discussion again is liketeachers.
Now some teachers in some stateshave the authority to paddle
our kids, and I think that'sabsolutely not okay.
Because how is it okay,hypothetically, if your child
goes to school, your child getspaddled, but if your child comes
(08:21):
to school being paddled, thensometimes they open a case
against you for child abuse.
But a teacher who you know notnecessarily a stranger per se
can pop your kid.
I don't agree with that at all,like I don't think a teacher
has the right to lay hands onyour child.
Do you think that?
(08:41):
I mean, I think that's just awelcoming to more violence in
the school.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I agree, and just think of the principle of just
step back a minute to get thatthe 30,000 foot view of that.
Victoria, you're trying toteach children not to hit.
You're trying to teach childrento stop the violence, but here
you are hitting them, here youare spanking them, and it's just
(09:05):
.
You know, you have to have thatcongruency within your own
personality because whateveryou're sending out, actually
it's coming right back to youand just have to be careful
about that.
And I found that you knowanother thing that happened in
my childhood that we probablyneed to talk about, because it's
part of part of what.
(09:25):
What was my problem is that Irealized it was my problem is
that I was critical of otherpeople and my whole family was
critical of other people, andwhat we would do is we would
stack annoyance on top ofannoyance until we had a flash
of anger, go back down and startbeing annoyed again what other
people were doing wrong, as ifwe had the ability to control
(09:49):
their life or to makesuggestions or do anything.
And I realized that that's aboundary I didn't learn growing
up and I had to learn it alongthe way.
That just was an epiphany forme.
I'm not in charge of them.
I'm not in charge of thechoices they make, and whatever
they do is really I can't.
(10:09):
I don't have the privilege orability to be critical of them.
And I realized I was that peoplehave faults.
Nobody's perfect.
But I was really realized thatmaybe that's 10, maybe that's
20% of their personality are thedisplay of their weaknesses and
faults, but I'm missing thewhole 80 to 90% of what that.
(10:32):
What was good about that person?
And as I'm, as I'm rolling thedice, what happened for me is
almost instantaneously, justwithin a 30 day period, so
quickly that all that was erasedand I'm now looking the other
direction, saying what's rightabout that person, what can I
love about that person, insteadof what's wrong with that person
(10:52):
.
And you should listen to me soyou can fix that problem that
you have thinking I'm theauthority and I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Well, let me ask you you have a child who says, let's
just say they're gettingpaddled or physically abused at
home, and then they come toschool and they act out because
they want attention.
And if the only way they knowto act out at school is in a
negative way and they get introuble at school, where's their
safe place?
So if we implemented which Iabsolutely love your rules, what
(11:22):
do you think that would happenin our school system?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
your rules.
What do you think that wouldhappen into our school system?
You know what?
That's a great question,victoria, and I'm introducing
this to the school systemlocally and it's just a test
right now, but it's working verywell.
What happens is that, as aclass, maybe one of the students
, maybe the teacher they'll rollthe dice first thing in the
morning takes two seconds to dothat.
No time at all to take out ofthat teacher's day.
(11:46):
It's already jam-packed anyway,so we really can't take a lot
of time from them.
But the teacher might take 30or 40 seconds and say class,
this is the type of behaviorwe're watching for that
particular day.
They go through the day At theend of the day.
What I've created and given tothe teachers around the world is
a pdf of this that says whatthey rolled opportunities they
(12:09):
saw to love in that way, whatthey did about the opportunities
.
Every child would have to fillout now and report what they did
during that day.
So now I it took me until I wasage 35 years old approximately,
victoria, before I realized that, oh, I'm responsible for my own
stuff.
I was blaming my father.
He said the way I am is becauseof him.
(12:32):
You go talk to him.
He's the one that needs tochange, not me.
And it was really my problemand I was blaming him.
Even seven years after he hadpassed away, I was still blaming
him until I woke up one day andsaid I really am responsible
for my stuff and it really kindof that was the paradigm shift
that started changing my lifeand moving in a different
(12:53):
direction, and I think that ifwe can get children at age six
I'm testing it in the elementary, the primary school right now,
k through six we can get them tobe responsible for their own
actions.
We're going to tamp down a lotof that bullying, a lot of the
violence and a lot of thedisciplinary problems that
(13:13):
teachers and principals spend alot of time on instead of
teaching.
That opens up more teachingtime, more learning time.
The second thing about it isthat at the end of the day,
these kids are just tired ofbeing in school.
They're antsy.
They've been there all day.
They're really tired oflearning.
Their brains are mush.
(13:34):
The last 10 to 15 minutes ofthe day is really non-productive
time, according to manyteachers that I've talked to
around the world.
Let's take this activity ofjournal writing as a
decompression activity.
Tamp them down a little bitbefore they're actually sent
home and just let them think.
Let them think through the day.
(13:54):
Just have that regrouping,think through the day, write
about it.
The teacher does a check mark,sends the paper home.
Maybe there's some greatstories there that the teacher
might want to read in front ofthe class the next day as
they're rolling the die, andjust work on this behavior.
If these children learn allfive love languages, how to give
(14:14):
it away and how to watch for itwhen it comes out their own way
, and watching for the positivethings about their classmates,
it's going to be a differentclassroom, it's going to be a
different school, it's going tobe a different community and
it's going to be for that child.
It's going to be really adifferent life, lifestyle.
They'll start off really with afoundation of a literacy of
(14:36):
love that they would not haveotherwise.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yes, Now the page you just showed me is that in your
book.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
That's a journal, so that's a separate book all by
itself.
So Roll of Love book, and thenthe journal is separate.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Which we're going to have links to because these are
fabulous.
These are absolutely fabulous.
You know we're reading thateven in middle school, that
there was just a story about amiddle school young boy who had
a 125-page manifesto of what hewas going to do to his school.
And to think about these kidsthat are going home and writing
this, the parents say they haveno idea.
(15:12):
You know, it's mind blowing.
You have a kindergartner whocame to school and shot their
teacher.
These are things we didn'tworry about when we were in
school.
Do you believe and this is justa way out in left field
question do you believeelectronics and the social media
perception, because you can bewhoever you want?
I mean, there's these teenagerswho are a totally different
(15:33):
person on social media and thekids believe wholeheartedly that
they would know if they have apedophile looking at them, that
they know all aboutcyberbullying, but it's still
happening all the time.
Do you believe that the socialmedia footprint is damaging our
youth?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I believe it is to a certain extent, but I believe
the media of the past has alsodone the same kind of damage,
that we're focused on thenegative parts of life, in fact,
instead of the beautiful partsof life.
You know we talked about thispicture a little bit earlier of
this offline, but just thiswhole picture.
This is a sunrise on a lake incentral Utah, south central Utah
(16:17):
, and I just happened to bethere one day and this fisherman
that's in the picture came upand asked permission if he could
fish right beside me, and Isaid who has permission?
I mean, he even owned a cabin,or his grandfather built a cabin
on that lake in the 50s and Iwas a visitor and he was still
asking me permission to fishright beside me and it was just
(16:40):
a really very kind person.
And then the sunrise, thesunrise happened and this is the
picture that I got of thatsunrise.
But I was telling you, victoria, a little bit earlier that I
had a driving route that I wouldget up before dawn and come
back after sunset and I had alot of windshield time there and
(17:02):
I saw, I saw the sunrise, I sawthe sunset.
After about six months of doingthat I realized that that, oh,
the very best sunrises and thevery best sunsets all have
clouds, just like it is in life.
We all have our problems and aswe work through our problems,
then, and only then, is when wesee the silver lining on the
(17:24):
clouds.
That's the only time that we'regoing to be able to see how
beautiful that was, that we wentthrough that trial to be able
to gain that understanding thatwe wouldn't have had otherwise.
And so people have asked me thequestion Victoria, do I regret
having grown up in an abusivefamily?
I wouldn't have had it anyother way, because I'm where I
(17:48):
am right now.
You know, it would have beennice to learn, to learn love a
lot sooner in my life, but, butthrough the trial I'm become who
I am today, which is totallydifferent than the way I grew up
, and it's the try.
Trying to make it a more lovingworld is really a mission that
(18:10):
I've got right now.
I'm very excited about loveright now.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yes, and you used the techniques, if you will, to be
your footprints on what not todo.
So the way you learned was howyou learn not to be growing up.
So, with this tumultuouschildhood you went through, how
did you become comfortable tostart a healthy relationship?
How did you feel like you'd beokay to go into one and and be
(18:38):
secure?
How did you transition intothat from where you were?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
That's a really good question.
I didn't have any problemtalking to people and to be
friendly with other people.
There was a time that it got tothe point that I felt like,
well, I still could be criticalof that person and I really
learned to be able.
I needed to put the brakes on.
(19:04):
So it's just like taking yourcar in to get it fixed.
Sometimes you need brakes andyou've got to put the brakes on
for your, for your mouth.
You've got to put the brakes onfor your thoughts and you've
got to put the brakes on for formaybe the touch kind of touch
that you're doing, you've justgot to put the brakes on and
know that those are.
That's the boundary, that youcan't go really go any any
(19:27):
farther with that thoughtprocess, with that physical
process.
You can't go any farther andand and be able to know when
those times are.
And so, trial and error, I've.
I've on my third marriage rightnow.
So it's taken, taken me througha lot of heartache to get to
this point.
But you know the first, througha lot of heartache to get to
(19:50):
this point, but you know thefirst, first wife.
We had 23 and a half yearstogether and then I would
imagine that part, part of myresponsibility of that, the you
know, the demise of that firstmarriage was the anger issues
that I had, the stacking ofthose annoyances.
But it's different now.
I felt that there was anopportunity for me to do
(20:11):
something different, and I triedto do something different.
Try to improve myself.
Rolling the dice has helped mequite a bit and qualified me to
be a better person for the nextperson that I married, and so
what I found now, victoria, is,instead of stacking annoyances,
I stack kindness on top ofkindness on top of kindness.
And so what I found now,victoria is, instead of stacking
annoyances, I stack kindness ontop of kindness on top of
kindness, and it gets me to thehigher laws of love.
(20:33):
I look at these love languagesthat Dr Chapman had identified
and I use the theory.
I don't use his application atall.
You'll notice there's nothingabout romantic at all.
This is decency of a humanbeing that you're sending love
out without any expectation ofit coming back, and just
trusting the laws of theuniverse, that it's the law of
(20:53):
the harvest, or karma, or thelaw of attraction, whatever you
want to call it.
Whatever you send out is goingto come back to you someday.
So using that and stackingthose kindnesses will
springboard you to the higherlaws of love like charity or
compassion or forgiveness ormercy or trust.
(21:15):
Those are higher laws of love,or even intimacy.
Can you imagine insulting,insulting, insulting and then
having that expectation at theend of the day?
So there really is not going tohappen.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Right, absolutely.
And you know I I've taught ourdaughter from day one like it
doesn't take but a minute togive somebody a compliment once
a day.
Do something nice for someoneevery single day.
You know, I don't know how muchyou know about us, but my
daughter just came out ofanother hospital stay where she
had her 53rd surgery and wealmost lost her twice.
So this child would get stuckand she'd say thank you, thank
(21:52):
you for sticking me, or thankyou for taking care of me and
for her she'd always say, oh, Ilove this.
And I said everybody is soquick to jump to negative,
everybody's so quick to judgesomebody.
I'm the person that's going tocall your supervisor and say
they did such an amazing job andI just want to thank you,
because nobody does that anymoreand I think if more people just
(22:12):
did that a little bit, thenwe'd have a much softer world.
Because this is so just.
Everybody's like let's do thebare minimum and get out of the
way and not care, andeverybody's just so negative.
And it's just the ability thatthat will make somebody's day.
I mean, it absolutely makes ame say and it doesn't cost a
thing.
And in return we feel reallygood too, because we're helping
(22:32):
somebody else and you're helpingbrighten their day.
You don't know what's going onwith them.
Somebody takes your parkingspace and you're cursing them
out left, right and center.
What if their best friend justpassed away?
What if they just broke up withthe love of their life?
You don't know what's going onin their world.
(22:52):
I mean, just move on.
At the end of the day, is thatreally such a big deal?
It's not really a big deal.
If you had pulled in thatparking lane a minute later,
that space would have been goneanyway.
So just find something else,don't let it just control you.
You know, I mean, that makessuch a big difference.
So how did you startimplementing these beautiful
rules that you're you're livingby?
How did it just come tofruition for you?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
well, it started actually it started with with
the block of wood.
I this is like two and a halfinches by two and a half inches
huge block of wood.
You can see how the, how sharp,sharp the edges are there.
And I I found that that if, ifI was trying to roll this, this
cube, that it was go thunk,thunk, thunk, maybe three thunks
(23:32):
, maybe four thunks.
So I could almost program andsay, okay, I want to do whatever
and make it a weighted dice androll it, and yep, came up.
That's what I wanted to dotoday, and so really wasn't the
randomness that that had, andyou'll notice these sharp edges
too.
That was really me.
I had these sharp edges of mypersonality that I wanted
(23:54):
rounded up.
So the next one I made, I didit.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I love that.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Did the rounded edges and now it would roll normally.
So it took two years, victoria,to get the artwork done, to
make the dice.
Now it's about one inch by oneinch cube that we've got right
now, but it just took so long.
There was some progression thatway.
But along the way, while I'mrolling that huge dice, I'm
realizing that if I'm lookingtoward positive, I absolutely
(24:28):
can't look at negative at thesame time.
So I really tried and really wasworking on looking at what's
right with people instead offocusing on someone.
Just took my parking space, butit really didn't even have my
name on it.
That's the one I wanted, butbut maybe there's another one
around the corner or somethingyou know.
It's just just quit gettingupset about that, quit being
(24:51):
annoyed at that.
It's out of your control.
They took it, they were therefirst.
It's out of your control.
Find another one.
And I realized that love's likethat too.
I can't bid love to come my way, but I do have control over
sending it out and respondingwhen it does come my way.
Those are the only two thingsin regards to love that I have
(25:13):
control over.
So choosing to send it out allday long is something that is
very easy to do.
I put these pictures on thedice for that very reason.
I put these pictures on thedice for that very reason.
They will burn into your mindas an icon, rather than, if I
said the word elephant, you'renot seeing E-L-E-P-H-N-T in your
(25:38):
mind.
You're seeing the picture ofthe elephant.
And for that reason I have thepictures on the dice, so that
it'll burn into you.
You'll remember what you rolledthat day and practice it all
day long.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I love it.
I love the square and how yourounded the edges.
It made me think about, likewhen you have kids and you have
a sharp corners, you want toprotect your kids, so you baby
proof them, you put things on itso they don't get hurt, and
then what do you do?
You make your next cube withthe rounded corners, and that is
.
I love that.
That is just so amazing thatyou have done that.
(26:10):
What is next for you?
What's on your plate next?
That?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
you have done that, what is next for you?
What's on your plate next?
I'm still trying to work withthe schools right now, victoria,
I really think that if we canstart this new generation of
children with kindness, it maytake 30 years, it may take 50
years to get to that point, butlet's start there and let's get
this kindness revolution going.
Let's start there and let's getthis kindness revolution going,
(26:37):
really get it going strong.
We really need them to focus onwhat's right about each other
and stop the focusing on what'swrong.
That's the media, that's they'vetrained us to do that.
That's the all the newspapers,the newscasts, nightly newscast.
You know 90 to 90 to 95 percentof that.
That newscast is just bad news.
Even the weather could be badnews, but the weather is
(27:00):
probably the best news on thenewscast.
And that's really kind of a sadscenario that we've come to
that point that the weather isthe only good news and that's
still something that we don'thave control over.
So why complain?
Why complain about it?
It's going to be what it'sgoing to be.
How are we going to respond tothat?
And just learn how what we havecontrol over work in the realm
(27:23):
of what we have control over,versus what we don't have
control over.
Let it go.
It's going to relieve a wholelot of stress in all of our
lives if we just stay in ourlane.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I have a request question and I'm going to put
you on the spot because we're onair.
So, we have the show that Faithdoes.
It's called the ContagiousSmall Teen Talk and it is an
unconditionally safe place wherekids come on, they talk,
they're heard, they are listenedto.
We try to make a difference forthese kids.
We have a co-host who is anamazing child.
He was a Make-A-Wish recipientand he wanted to be on a podcast
(27:57):
and after having him on, he nowco-hosts with Faith and these
teen talks are actually aired incertain schools and I would
love to see not that I'm puttingyou on the spot I would love to
see if I could get you to comeon to teen talk with the kids at
teens.
I get so much ridicule forcalling kids to have you come on
to teen talk with the kids atteens.
(28:17):
I get so much ridicule forcalling kids to have you come on
and do this with them and itgets played in the schools
because we need to get this out.
I think this is fantasticbecause our kids, like Logan,
who you meet, says I go toschool to learn and instead I'm
being ridiculed because I'm notidentifying the kid next to me
as a dog Cause today he's a dog,tomorrow he's a cat, Tomorrow
he's whatever.
And then there's catnip in thecat litter in the bathroom for
(28:39):
them to go to the bathroom andI'm like, are you kidding?
And he's like no, and he goes.
You know you get insulted andyou get in trouble if you
mispronounce their pronouns andI'm like we've got to do
something.
This is crazy, because they'renot teaching cursive anymore.
They really don't teach mathanymore.
They everything is doneelectronically.
They can bring phones to school, they can bring soft drinks to
(29:03):
school and these aren't thingswe did.
I mean, you know our biggestfear was not getting home before
the streetlights went on, Likethat was our.
You know, I would love toinvite you to come on with the
teenagers and talk to them aboutthis and let them do like a
little view of your game and getit out there and let the
schools hear it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I'd love to do that, victoria.
It's interesting that I thinkthat rolling the die and
focusing on sending love out allday long doesn't look at black,
it doesn't look at white, itdoesn't look at brown, it
doesn't look at gender, itdoesn't look at sexual
orientation, it doesn't look atanything.
It doesn't look at brown, itdoesn't look at gender, it
doesn't look at sexualorientation, it doesn't look at
anything, except it looks atthat person as a person, and a
(29:41):
person that's deserving ofrespect and kindness.
That's it.
That's it, it erases everything,and I think that we really need
to teach that that if it's aperson, I'm not sure about the
animals.
We should be kind to animalstoo.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I agree so but treat them as as an individual, treat
them with that higherintelligence, treat them and
just focus on what's right aboutthem.
If we just just do that, justfocus on what's right about that
person or that dog or that cator whatever, if we focus on
what's right about that, thenwe're going to be in a lot
(30:21):
better shape than trying to becritical about that person and
I've lived a life of criticism.
It's a whole lot better life,living a life of love.
I can tell you from my ownexperience.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yes, Paul, I think that every school should teach
this.
I mean seriously, becausenothing's getting done to help
our kids not feel safe, not feelsecure.
They are able to stop the steam, and it's not about that.
These kids should not spendtheir adulthood recovering from
their childhood.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
It doesn't work with indulgence, Victoria.
It absolutely does not workwith catering to just individual
needs.
It works with catering to thereal, real desires and who they
are and what they represent bythe actions that they take.
We're all responsible for ourown actions.
Who is that person and how canI love that person?
(31:12):
That should be the mindset andwe've got to get away from the
critical mindset which wouldmake them think that I've got to
stand up for myself because I'mbeing criticized.
I've got to stand up for my dogrights or my cat rights or my
gender rights or whatever.
You've got to stand up for thatbecause you're being criticized
(31:32):
in one way or another.
Forget the criticism.
Forget the remedy for thatcriticism that we just cater to
what they want.
Focus on them as a person,what's good about them, and it
just solves, solves a lot ofproblems.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Oh, you have been such an amazing guest.
Tell everybody where they canfind your books.
Again, I'm going to get all ofyour links and I'll post them in
the show notes.
But where can everybody findyou find your books?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You can find my book and the journal and the dice on
my website, rolloflovecom andagain, it's rolloflovecom.
The play on words R-O-L-L isoutside of you, r-o-l-l-e is the
change that happens within you.
So rolloflovecom is whereyou'll find that If you are
listening to this podcast andlike the Audible version, you
(32:19):
need to go on Amazon.
But don't type in Roll of Love,because you're going to get
love, this love, that love, amillion things on Amazon.
Type in my name, paul Zolman,and the Audible version of the
book will come up and you canlisten to that.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
That is fantastic.
I can't thank you enough forbeing here.
I'm going to get you on theTeen Talk Show.
I thank you so much for beingwith us today and I look forward
to having you back with us soon.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Thank you, victoria, it's been my pleasure.
Thank you Fun show, thank you.
Good afternoon and welcome to another episode of A
Contagious Smile, where everysmile tells a story.
This is unstoppable, and I'm soexcited to have Paul Zome with
us because he has the mostresilient, inspirational story.
I can't wait to share it.
We've been talking, prior tocoming on, about this beautiful
picture behind him.
I can't wait for him to talkabout that for us as well.
(00:23):
Paul, I can't thank you enoughfor finding time to come on with
us today.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Thank you, victoria.
It's a pleasure to be invitedto your show.
Pleasure to be with you, thankyou.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Oh, thank you.
Now you are an internationalbestselling author.
You're just like a jack of alltrades.
You've got so many things goingon.
Tell us a little bit about yourbook first, before we dive into
who Paul is.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Sure, I wrote a book called the Role of Love and it
has to do with this dice that'sright in the middle of the cover
there and it's kind of a playon words that you roll the dice
outside of you but the changethat happens is within you.
So R-O-L-E of love is how Iexplained it.
The role of love is actually adice that's about one inch by
(01:09):
one inch that has the differentlove languages on it.
You can see there, for thosethat can see it, those are two
hands looking like they're readyto hold hands.
That would represent touch.
This one is the Taylor Swiftheart that she sends to her
family, or Caitlin Clark heartthat she sends to her family
after playing basketball.
(01:30):
Only this one has aconversation fly out.
So these would be the wordsfrom the heart, for the words
also got a hand holding anhourglass representing time.
Looks like a waiter holding atray representing service.
And then the last one would be,of course, the gifts.
Five love languages, six sideson the cube.
(01:50):
The last one is surprise me.
Surprise me is just on that day.
There's just two instructions.
Victoria, you roll the diceevery day, whatever it lands on.
That is the love language.
You practice giving away allday that day, and by doing that
over a 30-day period you'lllearn all five love languages,
backwards and forwards, so thatnow you can see it when it comes
(02:11):
your way, really closes thatcommunication gap that most
people have.
Most people can only see whatthey like, they can only see
their primary love language.
This gives you peripheralvision.
Say, oh, they're loving on me,it's not my primary love
language, but I still canrespond to that.
So it's kind of solving thatcommunication problem.
I had it when I was younger.
I grew up in a dysfunctionalfamily and this really helped me
(02:35):
immensely.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I love your website.
I'm going to make sure that weput the link in it to everyone
for the show notes, because evenon your website it's just so
inviting, it's just welcoming,and it talks about all this as
well, which is just fascinatingto me.
I'm so excited because there'sso many things I want to talk to
you about.
But let's go back to yourchildhood.
You didn't have an easychildhood.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
It was not easy.
I'm number 10 of 11 children,victoria, I'm the tithing child,
but I'm the youngest boy andwhat would happen is my father
was a truck driver and he'd comehome on the weekends and he
always dated my mother.
I don't know of a Friday nightthat he ever missed dating my
mother.
In fact the kids wouldn't.
(03:19):
We wouldn't see him until aftertheir date on Friday night.
But the date kind of went likethis in my imagination because
what happened afterward was hownight.
But the date kind of went likethis in my imagination because
what happened afterward was howI perceived how the date went.
That my mother would disgorge,as when two people haven't seen
each other for a while, they saywell, how was your week, how
was your week?
My mother would say all thethings that happened during the
(03:39):
week and I can imagine my mothernever was there, like I said,
but I can imagine my motherstarting at the top of the list
of all the children and by thetime they get down to number 10,
me.
My father has been annoyed,annoyed, annoyed, annoyed,
stacking all these annoyancesuntil he has this flash of anger
and I felt like the target ofall that anger, like a black
(04:03):
sheep, not particularly a blacksheep.
It's just that he was annoyedfrom all my brothers and all the
older siblings just because itcame down to that and I was the
youngest and probably mostvulnerable and just felt like I
got the brunt of whatever he wasmad about.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
So what did that entail for you when he got to
that point?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
It was actually physical punishment, verbal
abuse.
He was never the perpetrator ofsexual abuse, but in my family
there was some sexual abuse thatwent on and there were just
there's financial abuse.
There were a lot of differenttypes of abuse in the family, so
it really was an angry culture.
An angry culture meaning thatthere are no boundaries.
(04:49):
You can talk over people andyou know while they're talking,
and just we didn't have allthose manners that were taught.
My father had an eighth gradeeducation.
My mother had a high schooleducation.
I think education really playsa big key in how you react to
and interact with other peopleabsolutely so.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
It was also a respect issue as well correct.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, there was no.
No, there was no risk.
So it was like that.
Is that tina turned out sayingno, they got no respect, or who
is that?
Speaker 1 (05:20):
isn't it, aretha franklin?
Speaker 2 (05:21):
aretha Franklin, that's it.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, yeah you know one of the other shows we have
free and Paul, one of the showsthat I actually did was with my
husband last night and we weretalking about this very subject
and I'm so glad that you're here.
I'm not going to tell you whichone of us was standing on what
side, but one of us is very muchagainst any type of paddling,
(05:44):
spanking, welting, whatever youwant to call it, your adjective
of choice, and that the otherone says it's OK to paddle on
the butt.
How do you feel about that fromthe childhood you went through?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
We, we went through a lot of things, and my father,
father's favorite thing ofchoice was the belt, and so it
was not even just the paddling,but just having a tool in his
hand.
In fact, I remember my olderbrothers in high school woodshop
.
One of the projects that theteacher presented for a choice
(06:22):
was you could create a paddlethat had the, the little welt
marks in in the paddle, thatthat could be your project and
you could gift it to yourparents.
For, for, yeah, that was the,that was the project, a wood
woodworking project.
I did.
I did spank my children with,with the hand open hand and um
(06:43):
and and hopefully I I don'tthink it was very often, but it
was, uh, definitely often enoughthat I feel, I feel terrible
about that.
I feel that I should have beenmore diplomatic that way.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
I wish I would have had the knowledge absolutely,
and I guess my facial expressionsold you which side I was on,
but my husband has been a personthat's like no, I think if they
need it, they need to pop onthe butt.
You know and I'm like I don'tagree because you're giving them
just this action that after aminute or two the sting is gone.
But sit down, have aconversation with them.
Like our daughter, faith hasnever been popped never.
(07:17):
And yet she's incrediblyrespectful.
She has her own podcast.
She will say I'm sorry, I didwrong.
I taught her.
You know pencils have an eraser,and that's what life is about
is learning from the mistakes.
Nobody's perfect.
And let's talk about somethinglike if she didn't finish her
schoolwork, I would say to heryou know what?
(07:38):
I love you, but I don't likethe fact that you chose to do
XYZ instead of finishing yourschoolwork, so you chose to give
up your phone for the evening.
You chose to do that.
I'm not taking your phone away.
Your choice of not completingyour schoolwork chose to give me
your phone, and I think that ismuch more powerful than
(07:58):
spanking again or like eventeachers now and I had this
discussion again is liketeachers.
Now some teachers in some stateshave the authority to paddle
our kids, and I think that'sabsolutely not okay.
Because how is it okay,hypothetically, if your child
goes to school, your child getspaddled, but if your child comes
(08:21):
to school being paddled, thensometimes they open a case
against you for child abuse.
But a teacher who you know notnecessarily a stranger per se
can pop your kid.
I don't agree with that at all,like I don't think a teacher
has the right to lay hands onyour child.
Do you think that?
(08:41):
I mean, I think that's just awelcoming to more violence in
the school.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
I agree, and just think of the principle of just
step back a minute to get thatthe 30,000 foot view of that.
Victoria, you're trying toteach children not to hit.
You're trying to teach childrento stop the violence, but here
you are hitting them, here youare spanking them, and it's just
(09:05):
.
You know, you have to have thatcongruency within your own
personality because whateveryou're sending out, actually
it's coming right back to youand just have to be careful
about that.
And I found that you knowanother thing that happened in
my childhood that we probablyneed to talk about, because it's
part of part of what.
(09:25):
What was my problem is that Irealized it was my problem is
that I was critical of otherpeople and my whole family was
critical of other people, andwhat we would do is we would
stack annoyance on top ofannoyance until we had a flash
of anger, go back down and startbeing annoyed again what other
people were doing wrong, as ifwe had the ability to control
(09:49):
their life or to makesuggestions or do anything.
And I realized that that's aboundary I didn't learn growing
up and I had to learn it alongthe way.
That just was an epiphany forme.
I'm not in charge of them.
I'm not in charge of thechoices they make, and whatever
they do is really I can't.
(10:09):
I don't have the privilege orability to be critical of them.
And I realized I was that peoplehave faults.
Nobody's perfect.
But I was really realized thatmaybe that's 10, maybe that's
20% of their personality are thedisplay of their weaknesses and
faults, but I'm missing thewhole 80 to 90% of what that.
(10:32):
What was good about that person?
And as I'm, as I'm rolling thedice, what happened for me is
almost instantaneously, justwithin a 30 day period, so
quickly that all that was erasedand I'm now looking the other
direction, saying what's rightabout that person, what can I
love about that person, insteadof what's wrong with that person
(10:52):
.
And you should listen to me soyou can fix that problem that
you have thinking I'm theauthority and I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Well, let me ask you you have a child who says, let's
just say they're gettingpaddled or physically abused at
home, and then they come toschool and they act out because
they want attention.
And if the only way they knowto act out at school is in a
negative way and they get introuble at school, where's their
safe place?
So if we implemented which Iabsolutely love your rules, what
(11:22):
do you think that would happenin our school system?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
your rules.
What do you think that wouldhappen into our school system?
You know what?
That's a great question,victoria, and I'm introducing
this to the school systemlocally and it's just a test
right now, but it's working verywell.
What happens is that, as aclass, maybe one of the students
, maybe the teacher they'll rollthe dice first thing in the
morning takes two seconds to dothat.
No time at all to take out ofthat teacher's day.
(11:46):
It's already jam-packed anyway,so we really can't take a lot
of time from them.
But the teacher might take 30or 40 seconds and say class,
this is the type of behaviorwe're watching for that
particular day.
They go through the day At theend of the day.
What I've created and given tothe teachers around the world is
a pdf of this that says whatthey rolled opportunities they
(12:09):
saw to love in that way, whatthey did about the opportunities
.
Every child would have to fillout now and report what they did
during that day.
So now I it took me until I wasage 35 years old approximately,
victoria, before I realized that, oh, I'm responsible for my own
stuff.
I was blaming my father.
He said the way I am is becauseof him.
(12:32):
You go talk to him.
He's the one that needs tochange, not me.
And it was really my problemand I was blaming him.
Even seven years after he hadpassed away, I was still blaming
him until I woke up one day andsaid I really am responsible
for my stuff and it really kindof that was the paradigm shift
that started changing my lifeand moving in a different
(12:53):
direction, and I think that ifwe can get children at age six
I'm testing it in the elementary, the primary school right now,
k through six we can get them tobe responsible for their own
actions.
We're going to tamp down a lotof that bullying, a lot of the
violence and a lot of thedisciplinary problems that
(13:13):
teachers and principals spend alot of time on instead of
teaching.
That opens up more teachingtime, more learning time.
The second thing about it isthat at the end of the day,
these kids are just tired ofbeing in school.
They're antsy.
They've been there all day.
They're really tired oflearning.
Their brains are mush.
(13:34):
The last 10 to 15 minutes ofthe day is really non-productive
time, according to manyteachers that I've talked to
around the world.
Let's take this activity ofjournal writing as a
decompression activity.
Tamp them down a little bitbefore they're actually sent
home and just let them think.
Let them think through the day.
(13:54):
Just have that regrouping,think through the day, write
about it.
The teacher does a check mark,sends the paper home.
Maybe there's some greatstories there that the teacher
might want to read in front ofthe class the next day as
they're rolling the die, andjust work on this behavior.
If these children learn allfive love languages, how to give
(14:14):
it away and how to watch for itwhen it comes out their own way
, and watching for the positivethings about their classmates,
it's going to be a differentclassroom, it's going to be a
different school, it's going tobe a different community and
it's going to be for that child.
It's going to be really adifferent life, lifestyle.
They'll start off really with afoundation of a literacy of
(14:36):
love that they would not haveotherwise.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yes, Now the page you just showed me is that in your
book.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
That's a journal, so that's a separate book all by
itself.
So Roll of Love book, and thenthe journal is separate.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Which we're going to have links to because these are
fabulous.
These are absolutely fabulous.
You know we're reading thateven in middle school, that
there was just a story about amiddle school young boy who had
a 125-page manifesto of what hewas going to do to his school.
And to think about these kidsthat are going home and writing
this, the parents say they haveno idea.
(15:12):
You know, it's mind blowing.
You have a kindergartner whocame to school and shot their
teacher.
These are things we didn'tworry about when we were in
school.
Do you believe and this is justa way out in left field
question do you believeelectronics and the social media
perception, because you can bewhoever you want?
I mean, there's these teenagerswho are a totally different
(15:33):
person on social media and thekids believe wholeheartedly that
they would know if they have apedophile looking at them, that
they know all aboutcyberbullying, but it's still
happening all the time.
Do you believe that the socialmedia footprint is damaging our
youth?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I believe it is to a certain extent, but I believe
the media of the past has alsodone the same kind of damage,
that we're focused on thenegative parts of life, in fact,
instead of the beautiful partsof life.
You know we talked about thispicture a little bit earlier of
this offline, but just thiswhole picture.
This is a sunrise on a lake incentral Utah, south central Utah
(16:17):
, and I just happened to bethere one day and this fisherman
that's in the picture came upand asked permission if he could
fish right beside me, and Isaid who has permission?
I mean, he even owned a cabin,or his grandfather built a cabin
on that lake in the 50s and Iwas a visitor and he was still
asking me permission to fishright beside me and it was just
(16:40):
a really very kind person.
And then the sunrise, thesunrise happened and this is the
picture that I got of thatsunrise.
But I was telling you, victoria, a little bit earlier that I
had a driving route that I wouldget up before dawn and come
back after sunset and I had alot of windshield time there and
(17:02):
I saw, I saw the sunrise, I sawthe sunset.
After about six months of doingthat I realized that that, oh,
the very best sunrises and thevery best sunsets all have
clouds, just like it is in life.
We all have our problems and aswe work through our problems,
then, and only then, is when wesee the silver lining on the
(17:24):
clouds.
That's the only time that we'regoing to be able to see how
beautiful that was, that we wentthrough that trial to be able
to gain that understanding thatwe wouldn't have had otherwise.
And so people have asked me thequestion Victoria, do I regret
having grown up in an abusivefamily?
I wouldn't have had it anyother way, because I'm where I
(17:48):
am right now.
You know, it would have beennice to learn, to learn love a
lot sooner in my life, but, butthrough the trial I'm become who
I am today, which is totallydifferent than the way I grew up
, and it's the try.
Trying to make it a more lovingworld is really a mission that
(18:10):
I've got right now.
I'm very excited about loveright now.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yes, and you used the techniques, if you will, to be
your footprints on what not todo.
So the way you learned was howyou learn not to be growing up.
So, with this tumultuouschildhood you went through, how
did you become comfortable tostart a healthy relationship?
How did you feel like you'd beokay to go into one and and be
(18:38):
secure?
How did you transition intothat from where you were?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
That's a really good question.
I didn't have any problemtalking to people and to be
friendly with other people.
There was a time that it got tothe point that I felt like,
well, I still could be criticalof that person and I really
learned to be able.
I needed to put the brakes on.
(19:04):
So it's just like taking yourcar in to get it fixed.
Sometimes you need brakes andyou've got to put the brakes on
for your, for your mouth.
You've got to put the brakes onfor your thoughts and you've
got to put the brakes on for formaybe the touch kind of touch
that you're doing, you've justgot to put the brakes on and
know that those are.
That's the boundary, that youcan't go really go any any
(19:27):
farther with that thoughtprocess, with that physical
process.
You can't go any farther andand and be able to know when
those times are.
And so, trial and error, I've.
I've on my third marriage rightnow.
So it's taken, taken me througha lot of heartache to get to
this point.
But you know the first, througha lot of heartache to get to
(19:50):
this point, but you know thefirst, first wife.
We had 23 and a half yearstogether and then I would
imagine that part, part of myresponsibility of that, the you
know, the demise of that firstmarriage was the anger issues
that I had, the stacking ofthose annoyances.
But it's different now.
I felt that there was anopportunity for me to do
(20:11):
something different, and I triedto do something different.
Try to improve myself.
Rolling the dice has helped mequite a bit and qualified me to
be a better person for the nextperson that I married, and so
what I found now, victoria, is,instead of stacking annoyances,
I stack kindness on top ofkindness on top of kindness.
And so what I found now,victoria is, instead of stacking
annoyances, I stack kindness ontop of kindness on top of
kindness, and it gets me to thehigher laws of love.
(20:33):
I look at these love languagesthat Dr Chapman had identified
and I use the theory.
I don't use his application atall.
You'll notice there's nothingabout romantic at all.
This is decency of a humanbeing that you're sending love
out without any expectation ofit coming back, and just
trusting the laws of theuniverse, that it's the law of
(20:53):
the harvest, or karma, or thelaw of attraction, whatever you
want to call it.
Whatever you send out is goingto come back to you someday.
So using that and stackingthose kindnesses will
springboard you to the higherlaws of love like charity or
compassion or forgiveness ormercy or trust.
(21:15):
Those are higher laws of love,or even intimacy.
Can you imagine insulting,insulting, insulting and then
having that expectation at theend of the day?
So there really is not going tohappen.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Right, absolutely.
And you know I I've taught ourdaughter from day one like it
doesn't take but a minute togive somebody a compliment once
a day.
Do something nice for someoneevery single day.
You know, I don't know how muchyou know about us, but my
daughter just came out ofanother hospital stay where she
had her 53rd surgery and wealmost lost her twice.
So this child would get stuckand she'd say thank you, thank
(21:52):
you for sticking me, or thankyou for taking care of me and
for her she'd always say, oh, Ilove this.
And I said everybody is soquick to jump to negative,
everybody's so quick to judgesomebody.
I'm the person that's going tocall your supervisor and say
they did such an amazing job andI just want to thank you,
because nobody does that anymoreand I think if more people just
(22:12):
did that a little bit, thenwe'd have a much softer world.
Because this is so just.
Everybody's like let's do thebare minimum and get out of the
way and not care, andeverybody's just so negative.
And it's just the ability thatthat will make somebody's day.
I mean, it absolutely makes ame say and it doesn't cost a
thing.
And in return we feel reallygood too, because we're helping
(22:32):
somebody else and you're helpingbrighten their day.
You don't know what's going onwith them.
Somebody takes your parkingspace and you're cursing them
out left, right and center.
What if their best friend justpassed away?
What if they just broke up withthe love of their life?
You don't know what's going onin their world.
(22:52):
I mean, just move on.
At the end of the day, is thatreally such a big deal?
It's not really a big deal.
If you had pulled in thatparking lane a minute later,
that space would have been goneanyway.
So just find something else,don't let it just control you.
You know, I mean, that makessuch a big difference.
So how did you startimplementing these beautiful
rules that you're you're livingby?
How did it just come tofruition for you?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
well, it started actually it started with with
the block of wood.
I this is like two and a halfinches by two and a half inches
huge block of wood.
You can see how the, how sharp,sharp the edges are there.
And I I found that that if, ifI was trying to roll this, this
cube, that it was go thunk,thunk, thunk, maybe three thunks
(23:32):
, maybe four thunks.
So I could almost program andsay, okay, I want to do whatever
and make it a weighted dice androll it, and yep, came up.
That's what I wanted to dotoday, and so really wasn't the
randomness that that had, andyou'll notice these sharp edges
too.
That was really me.
I had these sharp edges of mypersonality that I wanted
(23:54):
rounded up.
So the next one I made, I didit.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I love that.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Did the rounded edges and now it would roll normally.
So it took two years, victoria,to get the artwork done, to
make the dice.
Now it's about one inch by oneinch cube that we've got right
now, but it just took so long.
There was some progression thatway.
But along the way, while I'mrolling that huge dice, I'm
realizing that if I'm lookingtoward positive, I absolutely
(24:28):
can't look at negative at thesame time.
So I really tried and really wasworking on looking at what's
right with people instead offocusing on someone.
Just took my parking space, butit really didn't even have my
name on it.
That's the one I wanted, butbut maybe there's another one
around the corner or somethingyou know.
It's just just quit gettingupset about that, quit being
(24:51):
annoyed at that.
It's out of your control.
They took it, they were therefirst.
It's out of your control.
Find another one.
And I realized that love's likethat too.
I can't bid love to come my way, but I do have control over
sending it out and respondingwhen it does come my way.
Those are the only two thingsin regards to love that I have
(25:13):
control over.
So choosing to send it out allday long is something that is
very easy to do.
I put these pictures on thedice for that very reason.
I put these pictures on thedice for that very reason.
They will burn into your mindas an icon, rather than, if I
said the word elephant, you'renot seeing E-L-E-P-H-N-T in your
(25:38):
mind.
You're seeing the picture ofthe elephant.
And for that reason I have thepictures on the dice, so that
it'll burn into you.
You'll remember what you rolledthat day and practice it all
day long.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I love it.
I love the square and how yourounded the edges.
It made me think about, likewhen you have kids and you have
a sharp corners, you want toprotect your kids, so you baby
proof them, you put things on itso they don't get hurt, and
then what do you do?
You make your next cube withthe rounded corners, and that is
.
I love that.
That is just so amazing thatyou have done that.
(26:10):
What is next for you?
What's on your plate next?
That?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
you have done that, what is next for you?
What's on your plate next?
I'm still trying to work withthe schools right now, victoria,
I really think that if we canstart this new generation of
children with kindness, it maytake 30 years, it may take 50
years to get to that point, butlet's start there and let's get
this kindness revolution going.
Let's start there and let's getthis kindness revolution going,
(26:37):
really get it going strong.
We really need them to focus onwhat's right about each other
and stop the focusing on what'swrong.
That's the media, that's they'vetrained us to do that.
That's the all the newspapers,the newscasts, nightly newscast.
You know 90 to 90 to 95 percentof that.
That newscast is just bad news.
Even the weather could be badnews, but the weather is
(27:00):
probably the best news on thenewscast.
And that's really kind of a sadscenario that we've come to
that point that the weather isthe only good news and that's
still something that we don'thave control over.
So why complain?
Why complain about it?
It's going to be what it'sgoing to be.
How are we going to respond tothat?
And just learn how what we havecontrol over work in the realm
(27:23):
of what we have control over,versus what we don't have
control over.
Let it go.
It's going to relieve a wholelot of stress in all of our
lives if we just stay in ourlane.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I have a request question and I'm going to put
you on the spot because we're onair.
So, we have the show that Faithdoes.
It's called the ContagiousSmall Teen Talk and it is an
unconditionally safe place wherekids come on, they talk,
they're heard, they are listenedto.
We try to make a difference forthese kids.
We have a co-host who is anamazing child.
He was a Make-A-Wish recipientand he wanted to be on a podcast
(27:57):
and after having him on, he nowco-hosts with Faith and these
teen talks are actually aired incertain schools and I would
love to see not that I'm puttingyou on the spot I would love to
see if I could get you to comeon to teen talk with the kids at
teens.
I get so much ridicule forcalling kids to have you come on
to teen talk with the kids atteens.
(28:17):
I get so much ridicule forcalling kids to have you come on
and do this with them and itgets played in the schools
because we need to get this out.
I think this is fantasticbecause our kids, like Logan,
who you meet, says I go toschool to learn and instead I'm
being ridiculed because I'm notidentifying the kid next to me
as a dog Cause today he's a dog,tomorrow he's a cat, Tomorrow
he's whatever.
And then there's catnip in thecat litter in the bathroom for
(28:39):
them to go to the bathroom andI'm like, are you kidding?
And he's like no, and he goes.
You know you get insulted andyou get in trouble if you
mispronounce their pronouns andI'm like we've got to do
something.
This is crazy, because they'renot teaching cursive anymore.
They really don't teach mathanymore.
They everything is doneelectronically.
They can bring phones to school, they can bring soft drinks to
(29:03):
school and these aren't thingswe did.
I mean, you know our biggestfear was not getting home before
the streetlights went on, Likethat was our.
You know, I would love toinvite you to come on with the
teenagers and talk to them aboutthis and let them do like a
little view of your game and getit out there and let the
schools hear it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I'd love to do that, victoria.
It's interesting that I thinkthat rolling the die and
focusing on sending love out allday long doesn't look at black,
it doesn't look at white, itdoesn't look at brown, it
doesn't look at gender, itdoesn't look at sexual
orientation, it doesn't look atanything.
It doesn't look at brown, itdoesn't look at gender, it
doesn't look at sexualorientation, it doesn't look at
anything, except it looks atthat person as a person, and a
(29:41):
person that's deserving ofrespect and kindness.
That's it.
That's it, it erases everything,and I think that we really need
to teach that that if it's aperson, I'm not sure about the
animals.
We should be kind to animalstoo.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
I agree so but treat them as as an individual, treat
them with that higherintelligence, treat them and
just focus on what's right aboutthem.
If we just just do that, justfocus on what's right about that
person or that dog or that cator whatever, if we focus on
what's right about that, thenwe're going to be in a lot
(30:21):
better shape than trying to becritical about that person and
I've lived a life of criticism.
It's a whole lot better life,living a life of love.
I can tell you from my ownexperience.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yes, Paul, I think that every school should teach
this.
I mean seriously, becausenothing's getting done to help
our kids not feel safe, not feelsecure.
They are able to stop the steam, and it's not about that.
These kids should not spendtheir adulthood recovering from
their childhood.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
It doesn't work with indulgence, Victoria.
It absolutely does not workwith catering to just individual
needs.
It works with catering to thereal, real desires and who they
are and what they represent bythe actions that they take.
We're all responsible for ourown actions.
Who is that person and how canI love that person?
(31:12):
That should be the mindset andwe've got to get away from the
critical mindset which wouldmake them think that I've got to
stand up for myself because I'mbeing criticized.
I've got to stand up for my dogrights or my cat rights or my
gender rights or whatever.
You've got to stand up for thatbecause you're being criticized
(31:32):
in one way or another.
Forget the criticism.
Forget the remedy for thatcriticism that we just cater to
what they want.
Focus on them as a person,what's good about them, and it
just solves, solves a lot ofproblems.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Oh, you have been such an amazing guest.
Tell everybody where they canfind your books.
Again, I'm going to get all ofyour links and I'll post them in
the show notes.
But where can everybody findyou find your books?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
You can find my book and the journal and the dice on
my website, rolloflovecom andagain, it's rolloflovecom.
The play on words R-O-L-L isoutside of you, r-o-l-l-e is the
change that happens within you.
So rolloflovecom is whereyou'll find that If you are
listening to this podcast andlike the Audible version, you
(32:19):
need to go on Amazon.
But don't type in Roll of Love,because you're going to get
love, this love, that love, amillion things on Amazon.
Type in my name, paul Zolman,and the Audible version of the
book will come up and you canlisten to that.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
That is fantastic.
I can't thank you enough forbeing here.
I'm going to get you on theTeen Talk Show.
I thank you so much for beingwith us today and I look forward
to having you back with us soon.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Thank you, victoria, it's been my pleasure.
Thank you Fun show, thank you.
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