What We Learned At ‘It’s Complicated – Live’
Sunday 3 March 2013 saw online magazine Ivy Munro organise Paul Carrick Brunson’s second visit to London for a relationship conference and mixer. If you haven’t heard of Paul, where have you been? He is the modern-day matchmaker, the pioneering African-American matchmaker, is known as “the real life Hitch” (remember the film starring Will Smith?) and is a qualified life and relationship coach, not just because of his certificates, but also because he has been happily married for over 10 years. The first conference in London, ‘The Big Conversation’ back in September 2011, was a huge success (read about it here) so it was only natural he returned to spread more knowledge about finding this thing so many are searching for – lurve. Paul sees London as his lucky charm. After the event in 2011 he returned to the U.S and was almost immediately given various offers, the most notable being from the one and only Oprah Winfrey. His show Lovetown USA is now on OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network) and he’s had his bestselling book published – ‘It’s Complicated (But It Doesn’t Have To Be).’
Here’s what we learned:
It is important – whether business or personal – to learn your relationship vitals, which are:
Your values
Your own personality type. According to Carl Jung they are: Analyst, Controller, Supporter or Promoter
What your deal-breakers/non-starers are
What the attraction is. There is a difference between ‘attraction’ and ‘attractiveness’
There is only a 0.4% chance of a stranger you bump into being a compatible other half
London seems to be the ‘screw-face’ capital of the world! We need to stop “mean-muggin”. The first 30 seconds of your body language when you meet someone will dictate how the rest of your relationship will be. 90% of your overall language comes from your body
The ‘Duchenne Smile’ is your authentic, honestly positive smile, but less than 10% of people are able to control what their smile is saying
There is such a thing as the Belly Button Rule. Wherever your belly button is pointing is where your attention is fixated
Constant lip-licking and blinking are signs of nervousness. NOW we know what’s really up with LL Cool J!!
You can fall in love again! Our first experience of ‘love’ is usually with whoever our first celebrity crush was. At one point we probably thought there would never be anyone quite like that person, but since then how many crushes and loves have we had?? We sometimes treat love as if once we get it we’ll never get it again. FYI – currently the number one celebrity crush is Idris Elba for women, and Stacey Dash for men.
“The hardest thing in life is to live your truth” – Oprah. Marinade on that for a while…
The mantra for success is:
Believe
Work your ass/arse off
Control what you can
Identify what you can’t control, and…
SURRENDER!! IF you are a believer of God, the Universe or a higher power – pray, meditate, practice whatever you practice in order to ask for guidance. Do what you can, but also don’t be afraid to throw your request out there
So what do you think Lurvlees? Did you attend the conference? Let us know what you thought.
Also, a question for you taken from the panel portion of the event that requires a little thinking:
WHAT TRADITIONS SHOULD WE KEEP FROM OUR GRANDPARENTS’ ERA OF COURTING/DATING, AND WHAT SHOULD WE DO DIFFERENTLY?
