-Hi there. In this video, I'm going to share with you
four tips to deepen your connection with a man.
[music]
Hi there, Mat Shaffer, your empowerment connection
and relationship coach, here to share with you
four things you can do right now,
no matter what stage of relationship you're in with a guy.
You can be dating him.
You can be in a relationship with him.
You can just be chatting with them online.
Four things you can do right now that are going to help you deepen
your connection and really help you create a deeper level of understanding with them.
This is stuff I work on with my clients all the time,
and this is going to be fun.
Before we do it, take a second,
hit that little subscribe button if you haven't yet.
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and I love to have you be a part of my tribe.
Let's dive into this.
I want to start off with a quote from the great Tony Robbins,
"That the quality of our questions determines the quality of our life."
I think that is so true and so beautiful
and I want to take it even a layer deeper
and say that the depth of our questions determines the depth of our relationships.
Good stuff, right? Yes, because it's true.
The sort of questions we ask will determine the depth
of our relationship because questions
are the gateway to intimacy or lack thereof.
[chuckles]
We get to be really conscious of the kind of questions we're asking our partner
or we're asking the man that we're looking to get to know better
and really ask ourselves, "Are these questions
fostering deeper intimacy?
Are they creating understanding
or are they keeping things on the surface?"
Because surface-level questions are going to create surface-level responses
and surface-level understanding.
Even though it's easy,
I'm going to invite you to not just settle for the daily report,
especially if you've been in a relationship a long time
because if you're just asking him how his day went
and he's just rattling it off to you, and then you're doing it back to him,
you're keeping things really at a top-level and it's time to go deeper.
Let's do it.
My first tip here is to ask questions organically that get him to tell stories.
An important thing to realize in this is that all men,
fundamentally, we're storytellers.
We love to tell stories,
especially those that make us feel powerful or that are entertaining,
or funny.
Whatever a man likes to tell stories about you want to encourage him to do that,
but you want it to be organic.
Don't just ask him to tell you a story out of left field.
That might seem a little weird. [chuckles]
Say, for example, you're watching a TV show.
You're watching Naked and Afraid or Deadliest Catch
and you're watching that show with him, ask him,
"When is a time that you felt- have you ever felt like that?
When is a time that you've ever been pushed to your limits?
I'd love to hear about it."
Then just let him talk and you'll learn so much about him
in the process of him telling the story of him,
recounting a tale to you.
Then as long as you're present and you're just holding space for him,
he's going to feel really seen and he's going to feel really
acknowledged for what he's doing,
which is one of those fundamental drives of the masculine to be acknowledged
for what they're doing in the world.
Hold space for a man to tell stories and you're going to go deeper with him
and you're going to deepen your connection.
Now, this next tip is really important.
You want to ask questions about his passions because every man
is passion-driven at some level.
Whether you know about it or not, he has a passion.
Maybe it's something that isn't something that you understand
or something that you've ever expressed interest in before.
Maybe you've never heard of it.
Maybe he's into newts that live in Papua New Guinea.
Who knows? It doesn't matter what his passions are.
All that matters is that you ask him.
"What are you into?
What is it that really lights you up?" Get him talking about his passions
and really demonstrating genuine interest in whatever it is that he's talking about,
not because you find it interesting, but because it's interesting to him.
If he can tell that you're genuinely engaged with him
and you're genuinely listening to whatever it is that he's into,
even if it is the newts of Papua New Guinea, [chuckles]
he's going to feel really good, he's going to feel really heard,
and really safe.
It's going to encourage him to want to open up to you more,
which is really the purpose of all this,
is to create a deeper understanding and deeper connection between you
and your partner.
This third tip might be the most important cause you can use it any time
at any point in a conversation with a man,
and that is to ask him questions that get him to put words on his feelings.
This is so important because men, generally,
don't naturally come out and talk about their feelings.
He's not naturally going to go there.
If he's telling you a story, he's going to tell you the facts,
he's going to tell you the events, he's going to tell you what happened,
but he's not going to go any deeper than that.
You have an opportunity to really take the conversation a layer deeper
and get him to open up by asking him how it made him feel.
Say, for example,
he's talking to you about something that happened at work,
something that happened with some coworkers,
there was some drama, there were some challenges,
while he's in the middle of that story, just being like,
"Wow, that really sounds like it was really tough.
How did that make you feel?
What came up for you while you were having that experience?
How were you able to get through it?" Get him to put words on his feelings.
Just the fact that you asked him about his feelings
is going to be powerful for him because in male dialogue,
from man to man, we don't talk about our feelings very often,
unless we're doing this work, unless you're a coach like me,
around other coaches.
Most men don't have a lot of practice.
It can be very uncomfortable for men to talk about their feelings,
especially if they're not used to it so be patient, be warm, and be inviting,
and really ask him to put words on his feelings,
and then be patient with him as he does it because you really want him to feel safe
as he's doing this.
This is oftentimes a little scary for a lot of men
to talk about their feelings and to express
how things were feeling for them,
especially if they were feeling scared or if they were feeling angry,
and there are some feelings there that maybe they're not used
to voicing, especially to a woman.
Ask him questions about his feelings,
hold space for him to do that and you're really going to help him
create deeper levels of intimacy with you and get him great practice
at being able to put words on his feelings,
which he probably doesn't have.
Now this fourth tip is really important.
You want to ask questions in a way that really make him feel that you care
about his responses because you do.
A couple of ways to do that, one is to watch your energy.
Your energy, the way that you show up when you're asking him questions.
You want to be present.
You want to be engaged.
You want to make eye contact.
You want him to feel that you're genuinely wanting the response to his question.
That's going to help pierce through any walls he might have
and help him really feel safe, to be vulnerable with you
in the answering of that question. Think about it.
If you're asking him a question but you're doing it from a sense
of obligation, like, "How's your day or what happened with this?"
You have almost a resigned energy or just the dutifulness around it,
he's not going to feel like you actually care.
That's going to cause his walls to go up
and he's just going to give you a default response.
That's not what you want.
You want to go deeper with this so you can have a deeper connection.
Be connected, be present, be open,
and be genuinely curious about what he has to say
and you're going to get a better response.
Another powerful way to really make him feel that you care about his answers
is to ask follow-up questions.
This is really important.
As he's answering a question, if he's answering a question, say,
about how his day went and he's talking about a situation that happened
with his boss, ask him a follow-up question
when he gets done telling the initial part of it,
"What happened next?" or, "How did that make you feel?"
or, "Were there any other coworkers around to help you?"
Ask him questions so that you can demonstrate
that you were actively listening and that you actually have
an investment in what happened.
That's a really powerful tool you can use at any point in talking with a man,
whenever he's telling you anything.
If you ask him follow-up questions, you're helping him feel that you care,
that you understand,
and that you want to know more about whatever he's sharing with you.
Before I go, I want to share a bonus tip
that's going to guarantee that the conversations you have
with a man go deeper than they have ever before.
That tip is that make sure that when you're answering his questions
that you are making yourself an example of how vulnerable you want to be.
That's right.
You get to be just as vulnerable in answering his questions
and in talking to him about your life and your feelings
than the sort of answers and responses
that you want back from him because chances are,
when you start asking him questions,
he's going to respond and do the same to you.
You can't expect him to be vulnerable and him to be real
about what's going on in his life
and about his feelings if you're not doing it.
Just recognize that you are the conductor of the emotional and communicative aspects
of your relationship.
If you want him to be intimate, if you want him to be in his heart,
if you want him to be vulnerable with you,
it's going to be up to you to lead the way and to demonstrate that and to give him
permission to meet you there in vulnerability and intimacy.
There you go, four tips that are going to help you
ask better questions and have deeper, more intimate,
connected conversations with your partner,
no matter what stage of a relationship that you're in.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
If you did take a second, hit that little subscribe button,
and be sure to check the link in the comments and in the caption
because I've got a great training that I've created for you,
that I guarantee you it's going to help you create better relationships
and better results in your life.
Check that out and I will see you next time on my channel.
Bye-bye.