Earn It: Empower Yourself for Love

I was so impressed with Quinlan's philosophy! Wanting something for nothing is human nature, but it's not the way the world works. We need to invest in our relationships in order to expect a good return, just as Quinlan points out in EARN IT. Far too many spouses expect to be loved without even trying to be loveable. They fault the person who can't seem to love them enough and whine about being unfulfilled instead of making the necessary changes to fulfill their partner and thereby reap the rewards. EARN IT provides a great strategy for finding and keeping the love we all crave. I plan to keep a copy of this book on my shelves for those moments when I forget that everything worth having in life requires a sacrifice. —Brenda Novak, New York Times Bestselling Romance Author

Bob Quinlan’s authentic, real-world approach to creating a lasting, loving relationship is a refreshing departure from the typical self-help guide. This is a book that every woman should give to her partner! Highly recommended! —Stephanie Chandler, author of LEAP! 101 Ways to Grow Your Business. www.StephanieChandler.com

I wish my ex-husband would have read this when we were married…. I will make sure my future husband reads this book. —Gisella Munoz-Perez

I have seen Bob present the principles of Earn It at two Rotary club meetings. I liked it so much that I asked him to share the same speech at our Rotary District Conference. —Jo Ann Lemmon, District Governor 2010-2011, District 5180, Rotary International

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earn it:

Empower Yourself for Love

by

Bob Quinlan

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Bob Quinlan on Smashwords

Earn It: Empower Yourself for Love

Copyright © 2010 by Bob Quinlan

Digital ISBN: 0982739621

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

This book is available in print at www.earnitbook.com

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Earn It:

Empower Yourself for Love

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1: Love Can Be Earned Or Unearned

Chapter 2: Love Is An Investment

Chapter 3: The Courage To Be Loved

Chapter 4: Assets And Liabilities

Chapter 5: Comparing Assets And Liabilities

Chapter 6: Return On Investment

Chapter 7: Goals

Chapter 8: Evaluations

Chapter 9: Contracts

Chapter 10: Be Response-Able

Chapter 11: Warning: Your Partner Has Options!

Chapter 12: Competition

Chapter 13: The Service Call—A Date

Chapter 14: Specialization

Chapter 15: Fill The Client’s Needs, Not Just Yours

Chapter 16: Motivation

Chapter 17: Supply And Demand

Chapter 18: Update Your Customer Files Frequently

Chapter 19: Maintenance Program

Chapter 20: Clients Are The Reason We Are In Business

Chapter 21: WIIFM: What’s In It For Me?

Chapter 22: Sometimes It Is As Simple As I Want It

Chapter 23: Selling

Chapter 24: The Real Challenge Comes After Closing—Re-Selling And Servicing

Chapter 25: Keep Your Partner As A Warm Call, Not A Cold Call

Chapter 26: Immediate Gratification Vs. Investment

Chapter 27: Risk Vs. Return

Chapter 28: Love Is Maximized As A Commission Sales Job—Love Needs To Be Re-Earned

Chapter 29: Love Is Minimized As An Entitlement—We Can’t Just Show Up

Chapter 30: Change Is Challenging

Chapter 31: Building A Legacy

Chapter 32: There’s No Supervisor—It Is Up To You

Endnotes

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PREFACE

Earn It: Empower Yourself for Love is different from other relationship books because you will be given the tools to redesign your attitude and behaviors primarily by adjusting one key perspective. Your results will change by using powerful, basic business principles and terminologies that you already understand. This book is not promoting these principles because you should, because it’s the right thing to do, or because they’re warm and fuzzy. The principles in this book have repeatedly been proven to work. They are functional, practical, and effective. Millions of dollars have been invested to study, define, and implement these principles in professional careers. Now you can improve your home life by implementing these same proven, powerful principles in your actions.

The term we is used throughout this book instead of I because of the many proven authors who have contributed to this evolution of thought. Best-selling professionals are quoted, sometimes extensively, to provide validity and clarity. With each chapter, you will probably think, Of course! or, Why didn’t I think of that before? Earn It will propose some unique perspectives for you to consider. This will be a joint effort by you, other authors and me. You are definitely the most important aspect of this book. Your interpretations can lead to behavior changes that will empower you for love. Your attitude and behavior will have the most impact on your love life.

Throughout the book, the term partner will be used to represent your loved one—whether that person is your boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé, wife, husband or someone you have not yet met. Most examples will apply to both men and women so the terms he and she will be varied throughout the writing. Chapters one and two will define perspectives, proposing what to do. Chapter two will also examine non-romantic relationships that are maximized when earned—friends, family, groups, even society as a whole. The remainder of the book will show you how to earn it— especially regarding romantic relationships. The Table of Contents provides a brief overview of the tools to be used to help you maximize your love life. Chapters one and two also ask many questions to help you assess your feelings and perspective before reading this beneficial book. You will need a willingness to honestly evaluate yourself to apply knowledge you already have in a different environment. You cannot be honest with others until you are honest with yourself.

Since business is sometimes thought of as cold and calculated, some people might question the use of objective principles for the subjective world of love. Business and personal relationships are maximized when enjoyed passionately by both parties. A fundamental principle of business is that people buy from people they like. Doesn’t this also apply at home? Conversely, some long-lasting personal relationships that have evolved over many years are sometimes taken for granted and need to be re-evaluated more objectively.

These principles are even more critical in personal relationships than they are in business relationships. If you work forty hours a week, one hundred twenty-eight hours a week (including sleep) are available for your personal time. Since you spend up to three times as much time with your personal partner, isn’t your personal relationship even more important than your professional career? Yet this only considers the quantity of your invested hours; is not the quality of your personal relationship even more important than the quality of your professional relationships? Your answers help define your priorities.

Throughout the book, examples of business-related scenarios will be described to set the stage for a principle, then a parallel with personal relationships will follow. The personal relationship example may be a few paragraphs later, but rest assured, it’s coming. After reading this book, whenever you read a business book or listen to a business audiotape, CD, or podcast, you can also consider how the information applies to your primary customer and your personal partner. If you have not listened to business training tools in the past, you can now double your benefits by doing so. You will improve your relationships with professional partners at work and your personal partner at home when you earn it.

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CHAPTER 1:

Love Can Be Earned or Unearned

You can have more love in your life because you can deserve more love in your life. You can empower yourself to receive more love in your life by changing your perspective and your behaviors about love. Just as you must earn your rewards in business, you must earn your rewards in your personal relationships. The more you fill your customers’ needs, the more of their business you will receive. The more you fill your loved one’s needs, the more of her love you will receive. When you become more valuable to your professional partners, they will give you more money. When you become more valuable to your personal partner, she will give you more love.

Unconditional love implies that love will happen unconditionally—regardless of any conditions. It suggests that we are completely powerless regarding love. We are not that vulnerable. Once we accept that we can influence our feelings, characterized as love, we empower ourselves. We cannot control love, but we can empower others to want to love us. Likewise, we can motivate others to love us less. Love can be enhanced or reduced; love can be earned or unearned. You are already empowering yourself by investing the time and energy to read this book and evaluate your love life. Your attitude will affect your behaviors regarding love.

Whether you are the Chief Executive Officer of a Fortune 500 corporation or your privately-held corporation at home, this book will expand the same basic business principles and terminology that create successful businesspeople to increase the rewards of your romantic and other relationships. Though this book will focus on romantic relationships, these principles also apply to relationships with your family, friends, co-workers, groups to which you belong—even society.

Unlike many relationship books that focus on the differences between men and women, this book will use a common language and principles understood by both. Business is no longer the good ol’ boys club; many women have become successful entrepreneurs. According to an October 2009 study, For the first time, the Center for Women’s Business Research, has utilized a methodology to measure the economic impact of the estimated 8 million U.S. businesses currently majority women-owned. Today, women-owned firms have an economic impact of $3 trillion annually that translates into the creation and/or maintenance of more than 23 million jobs - 16 percent of all U.S. jobs![1]

Men and women work successfully side by side in a variety of business models. This common ground will benefit us all. This book will focus on three primary principles:

* Love is an investment from which you are entitled to receive a fair and reasonable return on investment—no more, no less. When you invest the behaviors necessary to earn the rewards, you empower yourself.

* Once you demonstrate the necessary behaviors, you earn a return on your investment. You will become more valuable to your partner and she will reward you, partly to motivate you to meet her future needs. Her positive reinforcement will encourage you to reinvest in her. You empower your partner.

* The quality of the reward will be directly related to the quality of the investment. If you give less, you are allowed to receive less in return. The more you give, the more you are permitted to receive. You empower your partnership.

As the cover of this book suggests, in business and at home, the universe strives to maintain a sense of balance. Whether one is measuring nuggets of gold or love, involved parties are more satisfied when each receives a fair share of rewards. When more gold or love is added to one side of the scale, more rewards also need to be added to the other side to re-establish the sense of fairness. If gold or love is removed from one side of the scale, eventually it will be removed from the other side to re-create the balance. Is your love life a well-balanced relationship? If not, do you want to give more to receive more, or would you rather give less when you feel you are receiving less? Warning—your partner has the same option.

Love is maximized when viewed as a stock, with periodic ups and downs, yielding a net value over many years. People invest their assets (not just their money, but also their time and energy) where they expect to get the highest return on investment. Love is minimized when practiced on a tit-for-tat basis, requiring a constant state of balance in which one partner gives only after the other reciprocates. Is your stock in your partner on the rise or decline? Are you more or less valuable to her? Is your partner’s stock in you becoming more or less valuable to her?

These principles will not be understood by everybody. Victims, who feel others are responsible for everything that happens to them, will not assume responsibility. Fatalists, who believe their futures are pre-determined, do not understand the power of their ability to make decisions. Self-absorbed individuals will not care how their behavior affects others. Demanders who insist upon rewards loud enough and long enough may get their way temporarily, but it is probably due to wearing the other person down rather than motivating them for long-term rewards. Masochists often demonstrate behaviors to motivate others to treat them poorly or reinforce their low self-esteem. Responsible individuals will understand that nobody else can influence their love life as much as they can.

While conducting individual and group counseling for nine years, I learned that most personal relationships fell apart because one or both parties felt taken for granted. This was reinforced in business during more than twenty years of successful medical sales experience. I learned that most professional relationships also fell apart because one or both parties felt taken for granted. Anything taken for granted, including love, is vulnerable. Do you feel taken for granted? Does your partner feel taken for granted? If you’re really brave, ask her (or him).

This next paragraph I share to lead by example and to also help you understand that I am not pretending to be holier than thou. I can only suggest that you be completely honest with yourself if I am willing to do the same.

Many of the lessons presented in this book were reinforced in my personal life. I unearned my twenty-year marriage to my high school sweetheart by having short-term infidelities early in our marriage. I betrayed the basic trust necessary for any healthy relationship—that was my responsibility. My ex-wife never found out about them until I confessed them, apologized for them, and most importantly, changed my behavior: I stopped having affairs. Yet ten years later she confessed that she still could not forgive me—that was her responsibility. I understand that her response was in reaction to my behavior. She could have chosen a different response, but I cannot control her behavior. Most importantly, I could have chosen to not betray the trust and not given her the ability to choose her response. I was initially responsible. Any relationship without trust or forgiveness is in danger. When two years of counseling failed to resolve our issues, we declared romantic bankruptcy and divorced.

Multiple studies have demonstrated that about 90% of people polled believe that affairs are wrong. Yet studies such as those in The Monogamy Myth by Peggy Vaughan also show that "conservative estimates are that 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an extramarital affair. Also, …there has been a continuing increase in married women having affairs. Some factors that may have contributed to this include: having increased opportunities (through work or through contacts on the Internet), being more willing to risk divorce (due to financial independence), or less willing to conform to traditional expectations of the role of ‘wife.’"[2]

Regardless of your fidelity status, this book should help you achieve your goal of giving and receiving more love—if that truly is your common goal.

After our divorce, I learned that the process of dating has many similarities to sales prospecting. Eliminating competition resulted in finding the right woman to be my sole partner, my soul mate, and my exclusive client. I rebuilt my romantic credit by falling in love with a new investor, Christina, and remarried at forty years old. We both committed to not only earn each other’s love, but to repeatedly re-earn each other’s love to deserve the permanent relationship we sought.

Our society promotes unconditional love, but are any of us entitled to rewards we have not earned? Does anybody have a right to feel that others are required to give benefits to us regardless of what we do or don’t do? God may be able to demonstrate unconditional love, but most, if not all, humans are not. The bond between parent and child is probably the closest to unconditional love. But a parent who sexually assaults, emotionally tortures, or abandons a child is not entitled to rewards not earned; the parent actually unearns them (as demonstrated in the 2010 Academy Award-winning movie Precious). More than a few parents who feel abandoned by their children feel their love being lessened—wouldn’t the parent love the child even more if the child visited, brought her family, or took the parent places? The parent still loves the child, but the parent could love her even more. This chapter intends to prove to you that love is earned logically, physically and emotionally.

Love is earned logically. List some one-word synonyms or components of love, such as acceptance or respect. What are some other words that mean love to you? Did you think of caring, affection, passion, or devotion? Aren’t each of these earned or unearned? Isn’t acceptance earned or unearned? Doesn’t unconditional respect even sound absurd? If each of the components of love can be earned or unearned, then their collective sum, love, can also be earned or unearned. Love is earned logically.

Love is earned physically. The physical expression of love is not