Category: Josh Feingold Blog

From time to time people ask me what I am looking for in a woman.  It is an interesting question, and since I think I finally got to the bottom of things, I thought I would share it with the world.

The first distinction to make is that at a base level, we all have five functional needs.  From these needs, I can then figure out what attributes in a person will best fulfill these functional needs.

Just to give one example, one functional need is physical intimacy, and the attribute that is borne from this needs is someone I find attractive.

So, when someone asks what I am looking for, they want to know what attributes the person should have. But in order to determine what they are, I must consider my core functional needs and then extrapolate to specific attributes.

The purpose of this post is to share my perspective on the five core functional areas that we can’t fully self-fulfill, and therefore desire a partner to help with this role.  Now, to a large extent we can all self-fulfill these functions in other ways, and even in marriage should keep that in mind, but the goal of a life partner I think is to find someone who can fulfill all of these roles to some extent.

1) Someone I respect that loves me, and I can love back.  In order to fulfill this function, the woman must be someone that has certain attributes, and therefore I respect and am appreciative of her love.  Otherwise, she isn’t “good enough” and the need won’t fulfilled.  This function is a result of our ego.

2) Someone to share daily life with in an uninhibited way.  This role reflects emotional intimacy.

3) Someone to be physically intimate with.  This is where attraction comes in.

4) Someone who has my back in life.  Good planning calls for contingency planning, and this role offers a sense of security.

5) Someone to provide human contact.  We can’t live in solitude.

So taken as a whole, these five roles create for each of us some number of attributes that we will tell our friend to keep an eye out for… and constitutes “what we are looking for.”  What those attributes are, are unique to each of us.

I’ve been thinking about love, attraction, and relationships lately, and wanted to share my current working thoughts.

I will start with the end; my definition of love.

“Love is a feeling generated by the basic human desire to have a constant connection with our primary relationships.”

First, we must understand where the natural desire for Love stems from.

In short, we see from solitary confinement and studies of monkeys, that people need companionship in this world, or they wither and die, even if their other basic needs are secure. So I will posit that there is a natural need for companionship, even if all other needs are fulfilled.

So in meeting people, an individual decides that they would like this person to be a companion for the long run (for whatever reason), and if they do, they create a feeling called Love.  The upshot is that love can be one sided, like when we love a rock star, or even food.  Further, the stronger the desire to have this person in their life, the stronger the Love.

So that is what Love is.  Let’s now apply it to relationships.

By acting though our Love languages (or if we are wise, the Love language of the object of our Love), we demonstrate the existence of our Love, with the hope that the other party will also create a feeling of Love for us.  When they do, we have created a mutually beneficial codependent love relationship – and we can say that the two parties are in love with each other. 🙂

Of interest is that attraction has nothing to do with Love.  Rather attraction is about reproduction and the desire to have (or not have) sex with another individual.

The primary influence of what will create attraction is the family and social environment that a person grows up in, and thus what an individual tells themselves is attractive to them.

(Add some complicated chemical reactions, and the next thing you know, you have all-out lust.)

Of course, often Love can lead to Attraction or vice-versa, and the often go hand in hand in relationships, but in truth, they are two totally distinct topics, and need to be thought of in that way if you want to think clearly about the topics.

 

As I think I have mentioned in the past, this blog serves many purposes, and it particularly useful as a tool to remember what I believe in.  It always amazes me when I look back and think “wow, what a smart idea, I with I had thought of that”, even though I had.

However, I realized the other day, that I had lost touch with myself.  It’s not something I had planned on doing, rather in the normal course of the business of life, combined with the fact that I finally had the emotional energy to fully reengage creatively with the world, I stopped taking the time to look inward.

It was only yesterday, when I took some time to focus, that I realized that I in fact, had forgotten how.  Wow, the most powerful tool that I learned, had been kicked by the wayside.

While this blog is a labor of love, it also resembles my outward looking instead of my inward focus.   Interestingly, I have found myself to be the most effective, both in my public and private life, when my focus was inward.  So it is time, to stop looking outside, for the time being, and look inward to regain my inner balance.

I still am about 40 posts shy of my original goal, due to the brief break I took back in April/May, but in fact, as of Sunday a year has passed since I started the blog, and I have posted 220 distinct and hopefully somewhat unique, ideas.  Not a bad accomplishment at all if I do say so myself and a project that I am proud of.   I would imagine that I will start up again in the future, but for now, I think it is time to remove the self-imposed production pressure of this blog, and work on other important life projects.  (Side note, if you put your email in the subscribe box on the right, you will be alerted when the blog starts again.)

So I will miss you, my invisible friends, who have supported me this past year with your reading of my thoughts.  While in truth, I never had the success I had hoped for, if I measure success in my readership, it certainly served me very well in other ways. Perhaps it has even taught me to be a little more humble as I continue my path through life.

Probably not.

However, I can think of no more important lesson to end with.  So I think I will.

With love and appreciation,
Josh

As I mentioned yesterday, I am attending a convention in Orlando this week, and am staying at one of the resorts associated with Epcot.  Disney came in and offered us a half-day “leadership training,” which in my mind was rather worthless, but did provide an unintentional lesson, that is very powerful, figure out a way to leverage.

What I found amazing was the pervasive Disney culture, that soaked into their employees, to such a point that they seemed to drip Disney.  The employees, seemed to have a cultish attachment to the company, unlike any other group of employees that I had ever seen.   It was almost like the soul of the people had been sucked out, and replaced with Disney created, allegences.

Honestly, it was rather off-putting,  however, the fact that a company was able to instill this level of culture, and allegiance, took my breath away.

So I wondered, how could they pull this off?  How do they make robots out of men?

My gut is that Disney is able to create a story that their employees buy into – and ultimately, sell themselves on – due to the fact that Disney is so focused on creating an production.  In fact, even our leadership training, seemed like nothing other than another Disney production.

Of course, it is ironic that Disney workers would buy into a false story and treat it like it was true.  But that does seem to be the magic of Disney.

Let’s bring this all home, and point out some practical lessons for business.

First, create a story that involves meaning, and make sure that your employees buy into it, in a real way.  Second, lets remember not to allows others stories to manipulate us, unless we are looking to be manipulated.

I am spending some time in Orlando for a conference this week, and it brings brought to mind, the endlessly repetiive loop of the ride It’s A Small World.  Having brought this to mind, I want to take a moment to talk about affinity groups, and why it seems like it is a small world, while in fact, it truly is not a small world at all.

I have already hinted at the reason why we feel like the world is small.  Affinity groups.

An affinity group, as I will define it is a group that we select to put ourselves in, and while this might not be a formal group per se, there is some common thread that brings together the people involved in the group.  It could be a shared value, a common heritiage, geographic location, or something altogether different.  Perhaps even some combination of the multiple things.

The problem with affinity groups, is that often these groups have common charactaristics and interests, so even once we leave that affinity group for another, we end up in a strinkingly similar world view.

While trapped in this world, we find ourselves in a place where the world, like the Disney ride, loops, and appears to us as a small world.

However, what is important to bring to mind, is that there are many, many other groups with which we have no connection, due to constricting ourselves, into some small world.

So while the world may appear to us to be small, in truth, it is absolutely huge.  It is just our small mind, that doesn’t comprehend this reality.