Thomas Green here with ethical marketing service on the episode. Today, we have Paul Zollman. Paul, welcome. Thank you, Thomas. Glad to be with you today. I am glad to have you. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do? Sure. I’ve actually been, been in the financial industry, uh not financial services, but the financial accounting industry for quite some time most of my life. And I’ve realized that I was there because I like to obey rules. I was raised in a child childhood that, that there was a lot of abuse and I would really tried to focus on being a good person trying to obey the rules and, and I thought, you know, I need a career that has a lot of rules.
So counting was a field I chose. But in that, from that abusive childhood, I’ve had a lot of residual anger left over in, into my adulthood and had to figure out a way to, to get over that. So I’ve looked for love and, and I found a way that helped me overcome a lot of that anger issues. Thank you for the introduction. Um The, the first thing that occurs to me is, um, that’s quite an insight that you made about the profession that you decided to go, go into as a result of your childhood. I think, I think there are a lot of people who perhaps don’t, don’t even know why they’ve made the decisions, uh, that they have. Would you say you’re quite an introspective person? Um, I would say that I, I can look back and see, see things that hindsight’s 2020 Thomas w whenever you look back, it’s always, oh, I could have done that better. I could have seen, seen that coming. And I think that I’ve got that, but I think that I have that uh uh do have the ability to, to look at a, a bigger picture and see, oh, that’s why that might have happened.
And some so from decisions I made earlier in my life, I can see why something’s happened right now. Well, um when um you got in touch about potentially coming on the podcast, I, the, the summary of why I thought it would be um very interesting to speak to you is there are an awful lot of people who perhaps they haven’t had the, the best upbringing and they’re still carrying that around with them to this day. And you, um my perception is that you’ve sort of found a way to turn that anger, I think as you put it into more into love. So, um would you mind sharing perhaps a, a bit about your story and then, um, how you’ve been able to make that adjustment? Yeah, I think, I think there Thomas asked great questions and, um, there, there’s a, a couple of times in my life that really were kind of points that said, oh, why am I doing that type of, of moments, those aha moments that you have, everybody has in their life.
One of them was when I was age 35 I realized that I was blaming my father for awkwardness in within the my family and also within social situations. When I say awkwardness. If you’ve ever seen anybody get angry in public or anybody angry in your family, those are awkward moments from for the people surrounding that person. And it’s almost like uh I hate to say something like this, but it’s al almost like somebody in a pool that has an accident and now now everybody’s trying to scatter out of the pool. Now they’ve got to clean the pool and that, that sort of thing. It just repels people in that way. And I realized that I don’t want to repel people. I don’t want, I want people to draw nearer to me or, or just to be closer to people had that desire rather than repel people. And I think that’s was a key moment. The other moment was about 15 years ago that I was dating the this anger I think was con contributory to the demise of my first marriage after 23.5 years and eight Children, I believe that anger was part of, part of that.
So I was, I found myself single and I was dating about 15 years ago and found a lady that I was very serious interest interested in. And Thomas, I’m number 10 of 11 Children. When you’re number 10 of 11 Children, you have to have that big brother approval. So I took this woman up to my big brother, my sister-in-law when we got there, pulled her aside, immediately said the only emotion that the Zollman family learned growing up was anger. At first, I didn’t know. I said, oh. It made me mad. No thought busted. She, she really identified what kind of emotion that we learned growing up. And from that time I realized that there, there’s got to be a way to get out of that culture, that angry culture that has angry humor that has all the put downs, that has all the sarcasm that has all the vocabulary of anger. There’s gotta be a way to get out of that culture. And I realized at that moment I didn’t want to be there. And the blaming part is, is the part that, well, if it’s someone else’s fault that you’re angry, then you don’t have to do anything.
Any kind of blame allows you to not have to change. If you’re putting the blame on somebody else or putting the responsibility on somebody else, you did not have to change. So the blame game didn’t work for me. And now I realized it was more of a se self actualization moment as you had mentioned that introspection that I had that allowed me to make change until we realize where we at or until we can describe in, in a, a word or a adjective where we’re at on that spectrum of the spectrum I’m talking about is from anger to love. Until, until I realized I’m on the angry side of that spectrum there, I couldn’t do anything now that I know now that I real realize that from my sister-in-law pointing that out in front of someone that I cared about. I had the, the motivation now to go toward love and look toward love languages. So I started reading the book called The Color Code.
And then uh uh graduated to the Love Languages by Doctor Gary Chapman. Doctor Chapman wrote the book in, in 1992 or published in 1992. And in that book, it identifies Thomas that everyone has a primary love language. And, and then there and he identified that there are five different primary love languages. So what I found in uh I read the book four or five times. I went through the book, but the book didn’t go through me if you would have offered me, you know, a million pounds or a million dollars to uh name all the five love languages. After I went through the book, I, I don’t think I could have done it because it just didn’t resonate with me from where I came from. So, one of the things that Doctor Chapman says, Thomas is that if I guess what your love language is and if I cater to that we’re gonna be buddies, I’m a bad guesser and that really wasn’t working for me in my life. And the second thing that Doctor Chapman says, well, if, if you take this survey, then I can find out what my love language is.
Well, what are we supposed to do with that? Thomas advertise. Hello. I’m I’m gifts. What do you have for me today? A more awkwardness and that wasn’t working for me. So I had to figure out another way. So I contacted Doctor Chapman and asked him, are you licensing those little icons, those little pictures that you have for each one of the love languages? And his attorney wrote me back said, no, we’re not doing that at the time. But I had an idea as a child, even as dysfunctional as our family was, we liked playing games. And when we played games, it brought the family together, there was still all the smack talk, there was still all the put downs, there was still all the competition, but we were together and that, that was a, a good feeling to be together. So I’m trying to re remember in my mind all those good feelings, how do I get those good feelings back? So I thought I’d make it a game. I went to a, an attorney close by in, in my city and asked him, he was a copyright attorney, an intellectual property attorney. He said that theory, like the love language theory is not copyrightable application is.
So I thought he said what that meant is that I could make my own icons and I could make it a game and then call it my own. So that’s what I did. And I created a, a dye that I have. It’s, it’s kind of a cube that I have in, in my hand that has a hand holding a present that would represent gifts, the, the love language of gifts. What that means is that it, it kind of encapsulates all the love languages that you can do different things. You could give a gift of service, a gift of time, a gift, a gift of, of, of smile even to on that particular day, the next one I, I’m I’ve turned the dot I turned the cube. Now, I’ve got two hands touching that would be touch and this one is two hands together made forming a heart which is really common today. A lot of people do that. But on the, on the cube, it has a little conversation fly out. So that, that represents the words of the heart. That would be the, I love you.
That would be the compliments those on that. That’s what you’re doing on that day. Next representation on the cube is a hand holding up an hourglass that represents time, spending more time putting your phone down just actually being present with people on that particular day. And the next one would be service, the last one would be service. Service would be there’s a person holding the a tray. It looks like it looks like you’re being served something that day. Somebody would want their car washed or they want the carpet vacuumed or they want the trash taken out something like that is, is what people that like service they light up. So there’s just two instructions. Thomas you roll the die anyway. That’s the love language. You practice giving away all day that day. And so what happened for me is that instead of that anger, I realized that anger was stacking annoyances. I stack one annoyance on top of another annoyance on top of another. And then I’d have this flash. I just get just it would, it would kind of let go of all that anger.
I’d be back down and then I’d start stacking again. And what it was was I found out that I was saying what’s wrong with that person and why are they doing it that way? Thinking I could think for them thinking I could act for them thinking I could had control over that person’s life. And I realized I don’t absolutely don’t have any control over what another person does. The only control I have is what I choose to do and how I react when, when uh things happen of in, in that way, same with love. You can only send it out and respond when it comes your way. You really don’t have that ability to choose when people should love you. You, you can’t bid love to come your way except by doing loving things. And so I realized that and, and I started practicing this every single day. I’m rolling the die. I’m learning the love languages. In fact, after a 30 day period, I learned all five love languages to give it away what the mindset was then.
Was that what’s right with that person? What can I love about that person? Diabolical d diabolically different from what’s wrong with that person? A whole different mind shift there 100 and 80 degrees so to speak, that was the replacement behavior that pushed anger away. I was so busy. Thomas watching for what’s right with people. I didn’t have any time to be annoyed at what they might be doing that I thought could be better. A great concept. And um I love the answer. I mean, there’s tons of things that I want to ask you about as a result of your answer. Um One thing which immediately springs to mind is the, the dye that you, that you have and the, the, the different ways that people show love, it makes me think of different people and how they choose to show love and it kind of highlights characters, I suppose in my life. Um, would you say um that it is important to show all of the various different, I think you called it the love language, all of the various different ways that you go about doing it or can you do some combination of a few or is it possible to just do one?
Um What are your thoughts on that? But if you’re a 11 horse Thomas, then you might wanna just send, send one up. But I, but I think it, well, it rounds you out. Thomas a whole lot better. If you can send, send all of them out, you’ll see combinations and you’ll see a lot of different, different people. What, what you’re watching for now is for people to light up and when they light up, you discovered what their primary love language is no longer. Do you have to say? Could you do? Could we pause this relationship for just a moment while I have you take this survey? So I know how to love you. It’s awkward. We’re done with awkward. Don’t have to do that anymore. So you, that you’re watching for people light up and, and what happens is that, that in that discovery, you just make a mental note that they like that, that can be a primary or a secondary love language and you just wash rinse repeat, do that over and over again. Second thing that happens with learning all the love languages and then this is what I’m recommending right now that you learn them all.
Be fluent in all the love languages. You become what I call a love language, linguist sexy title. Thomas. I know you want it and put it on your res resume. And when you go to that employer, the employer is gonna say, what the heck is a love language linguist. And you’re gonna say, I just love people that, that employer wants their customers loved and they want the a loving environment within the workplace. Your resume is gonna rise to the top. The next thing that happens when you learn all the love language is it gives you that peripheral vision. Now, if it’s not your primary love language, you’ve got vision to say, oh they’re loving on me and you can respond appropriately. That’s totally in your control. I love the concept. I think it’s great. Um Do you have any um should we say before and after in relation to how you were doing it when it wasn’t conscious? So how you were loving in the world or perhaps not even? And then maybe um after you decided to implement these different uh approaches of love and what, how that changed for you in that particular relationship.
Great question, Thomas. Thank you. So I was really kind of living life. Willy nilly come, what may? And really, that’s, that’s kind of positive, kind of negative because you, if you go with the flow, that’s a positive part of Willy nilly. If you, if you intentionally send out love though, then you that you’ve got a life full of purpose. So the Willy nilly versus a life of purpose is one thing that really happened for me, something that I, I decided to do and that, that really became a blessing for me because now I have more loving relationships. I’m not repelling people like I used to repel them before when there was that burst of anger. I don’t get annoyed at what people are doing in their lane. Now I figure out how to make a suggestion if they want advice. And really that that line that I did not learn when I was younger of you ask permission for, to give them advice.
If they say no, you’re done, that’s the end. Or if they ask for advice, you can offer advice. So asking permission to give it or them asking you for advice. Those are only two ways and you really can’t cross that line and get into somebody else’s business, making decisions for them. That’s how I was getting annoyed when I drilled down and realized that was the, the underlying uh uh feature of stacking these annoyances. Uh Soon I was able to stop that, stop that behavior. The second thing that hap happened for me and then the new life, so to speak from doing this on a daily basis. I’ve had this copyright since 2017. But the die and I by doing it daily for that period of time, I found that the that I’m also stacking, but now I’m stacking kindness on top of kindness on top of kindness. And it’s taken me to new levels of love.
The higher laws of love is what I like to call. It takes you to the compassion level. It takes you to the level of charity. Intimacy takes you to the level of forgiveness. How would it be? Thomas if you’re, if you’re insulting, insulting, insulting and then you’re asking for forgiveness and you continue to insult, insult, insult. I mean that doesn’t work. You’ve got to have the kindness, kindness, kindness to get to the point that you’re gonna be able to receive forgiveness from anybody that you may have wronged, even if it was a simple mistake, whatever it was, you’re gonna get to that point. And so I think that the life, this is a whole lot better life. It’s a bit, it’s a life of peace. It’s a life of a lot less stress because I’m not worried about what other people are choosing to do. I’m worried about what I’m choosing to do. Hoping though that I can by spreading more love that they’ll spread it to their circles of influence. When I sent out anger, it made people’s day a bad day and when they had a bad day, they would spread out, spread out the hate.
You need to stop that, stop it in myself, stop it in my family, stop it in the community, stop it in wherever you live. And hopefully, you know, make this roll out across the world that we’re stopping the hate and sending out the love, love. The answer. Um The in, in a previous answer or example that you gave, you talked about the the person who is angry uh in public and how that uh repels people around them, given the fact that you’ve thought about this uh a great deal in terms of the, you know, your game and um your approach to life. Uh How would you, it’s a micro example but how would you treat that person who is angry in, in a public setting and you knew, knew of them? Great question. Thomas nobody’s ever asked that question, but it’s a great scenario. And I think that what I would do is pull them aside privately and just uh ask them, you know, how they feel right now and just talk about their feelings and why, you know, just ask them if they, they could think of a better approach rather than being, being angry, what would be a better approach?
And I think that most people listening, including yourself. And, and me, I found that if you send out anger, you’re not gonna get the, the desired result most of the times unless it’s under duress, unless it’s under f fear for that other person. And you don’t wanna live that where people fear you, you don’t want that type of, type of uh dictatorial or, or you don’t want that oppression on to send that out to people. People respond greater for love. And when you send love out, you can get what you, what you need or what you want and an angry outburst like that does not help. And I think that that would be a teaching moment that I try to pull that person aside. If they were receptive again, I’d ask permission to give them advice. I would ask permission to, to, to make a suggestion that how they might improve their speech if they were talking and if they were doing something like that in public, OK, thank you for that.
And um, yeah, I, I can imagine being pulled aside just to ask how you’re feeling is probably quite a, um, I mean, that’s a good start for that person. So I appreciate the answer. Um You also said that you were 10 of 11 in terms of a, a big family. Did you, have you made any conclusions about, um, what that has meant for you? You know how, how it’s, how it’s been in terms of your personality any thoughts there. That’s a great question. Thomas. Um, uh, I, uh, as far as personality goes, my, my father was number 15 of 19 and then I’m number 10 of 11 and I, I only had eight Children, Tom Thomas. Uh, and, and so, so the gene, as far as generations go, my sons and my daughters are only having three. I don’t get it. Why are they only having three? I want more grandchildren? I mean, didn’t, isn’t that the whole purpose? Thomas that we have Children so we can have their grandchildren? And, and it’s just so as far as personality goes, I think that it really put me in a place that I, I was obedient, more obedient to authority because I really had a lot of authority above me.
Like I said, I had to have that big brother approval, any older siblings because of age and their birth status in, in the family. You had to go to them for any advice. And I think for me, it’s really given me a personality to actually be, be more uh open to authority over me. But I also became a leader and understood what better leaders were because of that. Watch, watchful eye. I was watching what they were doing, watching the results that they were doing. And it became like you had mentioned at the very beginning, more of an introspective moment for me. So I don’t want to be a leader like that. I want to lead in this way. And the leader, best leaders throughout my career were leaders that had kindness. Those I wanted to do whatever I could to help that leader. That was very kind. Those that were, were obstinate and those that were angry, you know, you’d grudgingly do the minimum amount of work.
Those leaders that were kind, you’d actually do a whole lot more than they ever expected you to do. And it was just wonderful to get the praise of those type of leaders. Wonderful to just want to be part of the program that they were, that they were uh send setting forth whatever idea they had, you were on board for those kind leaders. And I think that, that I gravitate toward people that, that send out kindness. And I think that that’s part of the personality that, that uh that I got from being 11 on the low on the totem pole, so to speak, just to watch for uh watch for kindness and watch for leaders that uh that really send, send it out and, and uh and just move in a, in a better direction rather than those angry leaders. It’s really interesting. So your your siblings are almost like case studies for you to learn from. She’s uh she’s fascinating. You also mentioned about your uh sister-in-law and how um the Zollman family only learn anger um in terms of the emotion, my thoughts at that point were like uh, when you hear that and almost, uh, eventually agree with it, you’re at like the beginning of the journey to do something about it.
So you’re not like you haven’t done all this work that you’re at now. So what happens next for you? Is there anything significant that you remember about that? What happens next? Is, was the, oh my gosh. I have a lot of work to do that. I’ve lived my whole life now up until this point in time that I’ve, I’ve been angry all this time. Now I’ve got to, got to love and I just went, went right to work. It took about two years for the artwork um for the for the cube to be done. So what I did was I, I created a prototype that is a two inch by two inch block out of wood. And, and after you cut wood, it has these sharp corners. It wasn’t rolling very well. So if I wanted physical touch that day, it was like a weighted, weighted dye that it would come up physical touch. If that’s what I wanted to do, I just look at, I look at the dye roll it and said, oh yeah, came up just what I wanted to do and it was kind of hokey in that way that it just uh but, but then I rounded the, rounded off the corners, rounded off the corners a little bit so that would, would roll and you just work through these problems that come up and trying to develop the whole idea.
But I did, did create that prototype right off the bat and started rolling the die and started working on becoming better and intentionally focusing on love because I’d focused on anger or the willy nilly all those years. And I wanted to a different life. If there is a climb, it’s a learning curve. When you’re climbing up, that learning curve, you gotta keep going or you’re gonna roll back down the hill. So I had to keep, keep going until I get to the point that I, I really felt like I was practicing love every single day. Have you gotten any feedback from people about how it’s changed their lives? Because I would imagine it is pretty life changing activity to go through, especially if you’re, if you come from a place of anger to, to focus on that. Absolutely. That’s a great question. Thomas, I have a school teacher that has used this in the classroom time to time on the days. She uses it in, in the classroom as a class. They roll the die in the morning and then this, the teacher says class for watching for these type of behaviors all day.
That day. She had mentioned that people when they have that suggestion of being kind all day will actually take that suggestion run with it, especially Children. These are third graders that she teaches and in that, in that particular grade. It’s the nine year olds of, of, of, um, and when they’re nine years old, they’re, they’re like sponges. They want to learn, they want to do the right things when the teacher suggests them, what that looks like, it makes it a whole lot easier for those Children to do it. So, it’s really been life changing for her to implement into the classroom. It’s been life changing for that same couple that her husband knows that she does not like gifts. One day, he rolled gifts on the cue and uh was just racking his brain trying to figure out what am I gonna do for my wife that does not like gifts, but I’m thinking about what I can do for gifts that day. She loved the words. So what he did was he wrote a note and packaged it up, put it in into a gift when she opened it.
She was absolutely delighted that now she has the words and she has it in writing and it’s not just from the lips, but it’s something that she could hold on to for a long period of time. Uh I had a family of five Children. The youngest was just four years old and you’ll, you’ll notice uh Thomas that the on the cube, there are no words. It’s all pictures. So it’s like if I say the word elephant, you’re not seeing in your mind, elephant, you’re seeing the picture of the elephant that’s on purpose. So that it will be a kind of a memory book that so that you’ll be able to remember it all day long. So this young four year old, one day he, he wrote, he rolls, he rolls touch. He’s jumping up, around, up and down, says physical touch, physical touch, thinking that’s the best day ever for him because it, it gave him permission. He thought to immediately go beat up on his brothers and the, and the, the mo the mother is trying to suppress the laughter because she did not expect that that result.
It’s time to suppress the laughter. But at the same time, it becomes a teaching moment for that young young man that now the mother can say no son, the high five, the fist bump, the hugs, the pat on the back above the waist. All these would be appropriate physical touch while all the siblings are listening, they’re also learning what appropriate physical touch would be. And it’s really life changing for these kids in school of some, I’m doing a test project right now in, in a school that I’ve got a journal page on the journal page. It has what they rolled, what opportunities they saw the love in that way, what they did about those opportunities and, and because they’re having to report at the end of the day, at the end of the day, I’ve talked with teachers around the world. Thomas at the end of the day, the kids are tired. They’ve been learning all day long. The brains are mush and, and it’s just a time that they should be decompressing.
Writing in a journal is number one, a great way to decompress. A way, a great way to, to kind of settle down before you, before you go home. And the, the second thing is it teaches that responsibility that all as a child, I’m responsible, a six year old, I’m responsible for my own actions. It took me to age 35 to realize, to stop blaming other people for my actions. If we can teach that in the school system all around the world at age six and seven and eight and nine and 10, that’s gonna tamp down a lot of, a lot of the violence, a lot of the misbehavior that may happen where more learning would happen because they’re not having to deal with the discipline now. And the second thing about that is that just think of this, if your six year old is writing in a journal about what they love about school every single day and you’re collecting those, those pages as a parent, teachers doing a check mark said, yep. Yep, Tommy did that at school.
The, the your parents are getting, getting that and now they’re collecting those and keeping them in, in date sequence order at the end of that school year. Now you have a journal of love, what that child loved all. I would bind that in some way, put it all together so that, that child would have that throughout its throughout their life. Thomas, I remember my first grade teacher, I remember her name Mrs Rogers, but I don’t remember my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th or fifth grade teacher. I remember sixth grade. But why is it that I remember my first grade teacher and it was probably because she sent loving signals to me or just was loving within the classroom. And I felt like I learned a lot. I wish I would have had a journal of that time period life. Like I’m suggesting now, I wish I would have had a journal and that would have been life changing for me as well. Yeah, I can imagine it being a uh as a parent anyway, something really nice to look back at and um and read uh it, it does make me think based on um your, your past and your um uh where you were at the time when, when this was introduced to you, this concept um is there a particular person who would particularly benefit from it or is it just beneficial across the board?
I think that those people that will benefit most from this are people that actually want to change their paradigm? They wanna change what, how they, how they see life, they’re in a position that they, they really need that extra help. And they may be going to a therapist, uh, or they may not. But if they’re going to a therapist that might be a one appointment time, that might be some, uh, and then they might have to wait till the next week where they talk to the therapist. What are they gonna do in between? So, this really helps bring it to bring it home and it brings it to that daily activity. This is something that you can do to try to replace that other behavior that you have that you really wanna get rid of. This is something that if you’ll focus on this and make it primal in, in your mind and, and in your life that you’ll be a better person and you’ll change that behavior. And I think that is people watch for those, those significant moments of their life.
It’s gonna take a little bit of effort to do that. But those are the people that the people that want to make that effort. Those are the people that would benefit most from this a great answer. And uh like I said, I love, love the concept and um thank you for creating something which other people will benefit from. Um Is there anything uh closing thoughts or anything you’d like to add? You know, Thomas, there, there are a few things that a few more things I’d like to just say, you know, that we’re talking about love languages. And um as we’re talking about languages. I’m reminded of the, the Sanskrit dialect in northern India that brings us words like Nirvana or Karma. But the word I wanna talk about is Namaste, where the hands are put together the thumb to the chest, the the you bow your head and close your eyes and say Namaste. It’s a reverent type of, of, of, of salutation. So to speak of people just reverencing one another.
The Hindu language interprets it like this. But God in me sees the God in you or put another way, the divine in me sees the divine in you. And I think that if we can take that around the world and watch for the good in, in one another, that the world’s gonna be a whole lot better place. I think that we’ve been trained by the media and, and others that we’re watching for the faults of people we’re watching for the weaknesses of people. We don’t have to do that. Most people are intrinsically good and mostly good if they’re 80% good, why are we focusing on that? 20% of their weaknesses? That why are we focusing on their falls? Let’s focus on that? 80% the good part of them. And I think that no state will help us do that watching for the divine in them and, and, and iterating that saying that in, in a way that they’ll, they’ll think I didn’t realize that I had that quality and they’ll, boy, it’ll boil them up, it’ll lift them up.
That’s what we’re here for, to lift one another. It was a great point and, uh, it makes me think about, um, you know, whether, whether I’m doing that in some instances and I think just raising that is, uh, is helpful to me and to many other people. So I appreciate it. Uh, Namaste is, uh, is something that I associate with yoga. So I’ve got a new association with that term. Now, um if people want to uh do you, do you sell the, the game to individuals or not? Absolutely. So it’s if people want to buy the game or to connect with you, where do they go? They can go to my website. It’s called Roll of love.com Role of Love your roll, roll, rolling the cube, but to change within it’s role. So that’s the website Role of love.com. All right. Well, um thank you very much for your contribution and for being a great guest today. Thank you so much Thomas. It’s been a pleasure to be with you.
