Dennis Prager Show - Relationship Expert Alison Armstrong: Communication Should be 'Actionable'
Aired: 2020-08-06
Duration: 05:00


=== The Power of Specific Requests (05:00) ===

[00:00:00]  All right, Allison, take it away.
[00:00:04]  By the way, folks, I want to remind my listeners, you're the only person who sets the agenda on my own show.
[00:00:13]  That's amazing.
[00:00:15]  When Allison Armstrong is on, it is the Allison Armstrong Show, and our guest is Dennis Prager.
[00:00:24]  She allows me, every time she's on, she allows me to be with her.
[00:00:29]  Yes, you get to interrupt, you get to recap, you get to see when the breaks are, everything.
[00:00:34]  I just relinquish the control, Theo.
[00:00:38]  Okay, what I want to talk about today are all the ways, it's not all, but several ways that we literally stop the people who are trying to provide for us.
[00:00:53]  We literally prevent them from being able to provide for us by what we do and don't do.
[00:00:59]  And so we live in a world of thinking our husbands and wives and girlfriends and families don't want to take care of us when we don't realize we're actually preventing it from happening.
[00:01:09]  And they're really trying, and they can't possibly win at it because of what men and women do naturally and instinctually.
[00:01:17]  So I want to name it, and then I want to fix it.
[00:01:21]  How's that?
[00:01:23]  - Go ahead. - Okay, so here's the thing.
[00:01:27]  Almost everyone communicates what they need to their partner in a way that is not actionable.
[00:01:37]  So we have action-oriented people called men.
[00:01:39]  We have action-oriented people called women, multitasking, actionable.
[00:01:44]  And then we give them things that can't be acted upon.
[00:01:48]  And what I mean by that is we tend to speak in this very vague, I need more attention.
[00:01:58]  I need more time with you.
[00:02:00]  I need more support.
[00:02:02]  I need more affection.
[00:02:04]  I need more sex.
[00:02:05]  I need more appreciation.
[00:02:08]  And we expect someone to be able to step into that and take care of us.
[00:02:14]  But it's more?
[00:02:16]  You need more?
[00:02:17]  More.
[00:02:18]  What's more?
[00:02:20]  How does one do more of something?
[00:02:23]  Literally like our brains freeze.
[00:02:27]  How much is more?
[00:02:30]  Can you possibly get enough attention, enough support, enough admiration?
[00:02:35]  Can I ever win at this?
[00:02:38]  More.
[00:02:39]  Right?
[00:02:40]  More money.
[00:02:42]  No, how much money do you need?
[00:02:44]  I need more.
[00:02:45]  But how much?
[00:02:47]  Tell me how much.
[00:02:47]  You tell me how much you need, then I can figure out how to give it to you.
[00:02:51]  Just more.
[00:02:54]  Everybody stopped.
[00:02:55]  I cannot tell you.
[00:02:57]  I can't tell you.
[00:02:58]  I am smiling so broadly, it's hurting my cheeks.
[00:03:03]  I want you to know you will love this.
[00:03:06]  I have said this in speeches.
[00:03:08]  I don't know if I mentioned it ever on the radio.
[00:03:12]  I monitored my second child's first words, and they went like this.
[00:03:18]  Word number one was mama.
[00:03:21]  Word number two was dada.
[00:03:23]  And word number three was more.
[00:03:30]  Yes.
[00:03:31]  Yes, I can get it.
[00:03:33]  I can get it just like Oliver.
[00:03:35]  What you said was so good.
[00:03:41]  How much more?
[00:03:43]  That's right.
[00:03:44]  Yes.
[00:03:46]  And even that it gets worse.
[00:03:50]  It gets worse because First we're saying more, right?
[00:03:54]  Which is not winnable.
[00:03:57]  And then we don't even use words the same way.
[00:04:01]  So what do you mean by more attention?
[00:04:05]  What does attention look like?
[00:04:08]  What does affection look like?
[00:04:10]  What does appreciation look like?
[00:04:13]  I mean, there's so many different currencies of appreciation and people are appreciating people all the time and no one feels appreciated because they're paying in the wrong currency.
[00:04:21]  You know, like a woman said to me the other day, well, my husband doesn't receive appreciation very well.
[00:04:28]  I mean, just recently, he let me help him.
[00:04:31]  I'm laughing, like, you think help is appreciation to most men?
[00:04:38]  Help?
[00:04:38]  They don't want to be helped.
[00:04:40]  Ew, right?
[00:04:41]  So there's the more, which is not quantifiable or doable, and it has no when, right?
[00:04:50]  And then there's defining it.
[00:04:53]  What does it look like?
[00:04:55]  Okay, we'll hold it there.
[00:04:56]  I love it.
[00:04:58]  What does more mean?