Focus On Talents: Random Love Cube Rolls for Intentional Love Roles with Paul Zolman

🎙️ On this heartwarming episode of The Amber Stitt Show, we're diving deep into the transformative power of love with our esteemed guest, Paul Zolman, an entrepreneur, former CFO, and author of "The Role of Love", who believes that love, when practiced intentionally, can profoundly impact both personal growth and business success.

🎲 Join Amber and Paul as they explore Paul's innovative love languages game that encourages families to connect on a deeper level. Discover how a simple cube can guide daily interactions through acts of love, and how practicing love languages can lead to personal transformation and stronger relationships.

💼 But this conversation isn't just for families; it's for anyone looking to bring more love into their workplace. Paul shares insights on why nurturing kind leadership and fostering an environment of appreciation is more effective than monetary incentives in promoting employee engagement and happiness.

✨ Hear about Paul's upbringing in a disruptive family and his journey toward choosing love over anger, and how this has influenced his mission to shift the focus from finding faults to recognizing positive attributes in people.

💡 Amber Stitt, with her background in consulting, Gallup StrengthsFinder certification, and as an insurance and business specialist, adds her perspective on respecting individual differences and fostering a team culture of understanding, while Paul introduces us to "surprise me" day, emphasizing the impact of random acts of kindness.

💌 Tune in to this inspiring episode and join The Amber Stitt Show community as we embrace the concept of love not just as an emotion, but as a catalytic force for good in our families, businesses, and society.

➡️ For more thought-provoking discussions and life-enriching content, visit our website at www.AmberStitt.com.

For more information about Paul Zolman and his love cube, book, and journal please visit his LinkedIn: 
https://www.linkedin.com/company/roleoflovedice/ 
And his website: 
https://roleoflove.com 
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 #TheAmberStittShow #PaulZolman #RoleOfLove #LoveLanguages #FamilyGrowth #KindLeadership #BusinessSuccess #PersonalTransformation #LoveInBusiness

Transcript

Amber [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to The Amber Stitt Show. I am your host, Amber Stitt, and today we welcome Paul Zolman to the show. He is the author of "The Role of Love", and I'm so excited to have you on the show today, Paul, welcome.

Paul Zolman [00:00:11]:
Thank you, Amber. It's a pleasure to be with you today. Looking forward to this.

Amber [00:00:15]:
Me, too. I was chatting with you a little bit of why it's been important to my life, but why I need more around this topic. You are an author and a business owner, correct?

Paul Zolman [00:00:24]:
Correct.

Amber [00:00:25]:
And you incorporate these methods into business and in personal life. Is that also true?

Paul Zolman [00:00:30]:
That's absolutely true. I've been in the business circle for quite some time, my whole career. At one point in time, I was a CFO of a public company. So I've been around the block a few times. I know the way businesses should operate. They really need to operate with a whole lot more love.

Amber [00:00:45]:
Can we unpack that? And I know this can go back to more of an origin story for you, too, but when you think about love in business, people might go, that just sounds weird. Like, what do you mean? And I know that you're going to explain that throughout the show today. Why is it so important to really be considering our interactions with more mindfulness and love, as you say?

Paul Zolman [00:01:04]:
That's a great question, Amber. And I think that what we really need is more leaders that send love down, and then those middle managers will send it down all the way to employees that are just there to work. And I think that by doing that, we really develop a productive environment. I think that that's a whole lot more important than any hostile environment that you could create at a workplace. Why would you create a hostile environment? It's going to reduce production, reduce output, reduce all those things that hit the bottom line. You don't want to do that. And no business owner in the right mind would want to do that. But they get stern in their demands, and they get to the point that they think that they can be angry, and they get angry or they get upset, or they get to the point they're making threats of, your job's on the line, your head's on the chopping block.

Paul Zolman [00:01:51]:
Whatever they say, they get to that point. And it doesn't need to go there, really does not need to go there.

Amber [00:01:56]:
And it's not that we're trying to go sideways and not be efficient, but it's taking a moment. There's things going on in other people's lives outside of efficiency, revenue, production. So we can have a little more understanding and awareness. It doesn't hurt, right? It doesn't hurt you to even try.

Paul Zolman [00:02:10]:
Absolutely. And what I found is that the very kindest managers, the very kindest vice presidents that I've worked with, the very kindest presidents and CEOs that I've worked with have a memory hook in me. They made an impact in my life. And if we can get to that point where these people go to work because they want to go to work and because they're being impacted by this person that's a really good leader, someone that is kind and gentle and helpful in helping them learn the tasks that they need to have done. When people know what task needs to be done, they're definitely going to do it. They're going to do with happiness and joy and say, that was really fun, or that's something that I want to continue to do, or I'll do anything for that person. We don't quit jobs. We quit people.

Amber [00:02:55]:
I've told you that I study Gallup StrengthFinders a bit. It's something I've connected with over the years. And they talk about engagement on the job. And if you do some basic tweaking to just caring and interacting, and we won't go into all that curriculum, but it can really raise percentages of happiness on the job and engagement. And it's not so much about money, it's about words and those interactions. So how did you start studying this? When did this become a big thing for you?

Paul Zolman [00:03:22]:
Well, it was a big thing throughout my life, because the opposite actually was the biggest thing throughout my life. I started in a family that was kind of disruptive, kind of a very angry type of culture. What that angry culture looks like is that people are talking over one another. They're saying, "What I have to say is a whole lot more important what you're going to say. So I'm going to start talking now," and nobody gets heard. There's nothing worse than having two people talk at the same time, and then nobody gets heard. And it's really the whole idea of that people want to be heard. People want to have their ideas understood.

Paul Zolman [00:03:57]:
And I think that growing up in that atmosphere, there was abuse. There are all kinds of abuse that were taught there, but I can't blame, really my parents, because I think it was passed down to them from their own parents. And I think it's more generational, Amber, than anything else. It's not genetic, but it's generational. And there came a point about 15 years ago that I was dating someone. The first marriage fell apart. I think a contributing factor was the anger that I had and then the busyness of it. I was doing accounting and doing 70 hours a week during tax season. It was just overwhelming.

Paul Zolman [00:04:32]:
As you can imagine, that time of the year is just very stressful. And then I took it home and should have left it at the office, but I had that hard time separating that and just leaving it at the office. And so when I had this epiphany 15 years ago, it was really at the hands of my sister-in-law. I was dating someone and took this person...I'm number ten of eleven children. So I had to have big brother approval. And we were serious...I was taking this person to my big brother's house.

Paul Zolman [00:05:01]:
My sister-in-law pulls her aside and says, "The only emotion that the Zolman family learned growing up was anger." Why would anybody say that to somebody who's dating?

Amber [00:05:09]:
Yeah, don't ruin it for me.

Paul Zolman [00:05:11]:
At first, I denied it. Said, "Uh-uh." Then it made me mad!

Amber [00:05:16]:
Yeah.

Paul Zolman [00:05:16]:
And I verified exactly what she said. And so I realized at that point, Amber, that I've got an opportunity to change that perception of the whole Zolman family from, at least from me and my posterity, that I can choose to be loving. I didn't realize how ingrained that anger was. And I like to do it as a spectrum. That anger is on one side of the spectrum, and then love is on the other side of the spectrum. I was on that angry side of the spectrum. There's no boundaries. People are putting other people down.

Paul Zolman [00:05:49]:
The whole thought process is that it elevates that person, and it's just bad philosophy to have that angry background. So I wanted to learn more about love, and I started reading the "Color Code" and then "The 5 Love Languages". And I really liked the principles of "The 5 Love Languages", Amber. But where I came from, it didn't make sense to me. You mean, Dr. Chapman, that if I guess what Amber's love language is and cater to that, we're going to be buddies? I'm a bad guesser, and it hasn't happened so far in my life. Why do you think that was going to be happening now? So that wasn't working for me.

Paul Zolman [00:06:20]:
And then the second thing was that, well, if I take this survey, I can find out what my love language is. What the heck am I supposed to do with that? Market it? Advertise, "Hello, Amber. I'm this. What do you have for me today?" I should wear this little badge that has my Venmo QR code. That's right. And that was so awkward.

Amber [00:06:42]:
I like gifts. Can you give me some gifts?

Paul Zolman [00:06:45]:
That's right. Flash your ring while you're doing it. Yeah, exactly. I like that. So that wasn't working for me either. So I had an idea. I thought, well, even as dysfunctional as our family was growing up, we liked games, and games brought the family together. So I thought, "What if I could make this a game?" And so I contacted Dr.

Paul Zolman [00:07:03]:
Chapman to ask him, are you licensing those little icons, the little pictures that you have for each one of the love languages? And after a couple of weeks, his attorney wrote back, said, "No, we're not doing that right now." Gratefully, I was thankful. They're 30 years old. I thought they were kind of dated and ugly and just did not want that anyway. And that was kind of a key point. You have to develop talent that you want. And for me, it was artwork. I wanted some artwork that would really work.

Amber [00:07:29]:
The numbers guy is creative, too?

Paul Zolman [00:07:31]:
I am, actually. I have a right brain, Amber, isn't that is kind of funny. I work both sides of the brain. So, as I'm doing this, I have a friend that's a copyright, intellectual property attorney here in my neighborhood. I went to him, and he told me this, he said, "Theory, like, the love language theory, is not copyrightable, application is. So they weren't doing it as a game.

Paul Zolman [00:07:56]:
So really, it gave me kind of permission to be able to make my own icons and create my own game. So that's what I did. I created a cube that has each one of the love languages on it.

Amber [00:08:06]:
Okay.

Paul Zolman [00:08:07]:
I'm holding the cube that has an hourglass on a hand. You'll notice each one of these has a hand on it. And the hand is there because you're giving this away.

Amber [00:08:16]:
Okay.

Paul Zolman [00:08:16]:
All day long, you're giving that love language away. So the hourglass represents time. Looks like a server at a restaurant with holding a platter that would represent service. The next one is two hands together, forming a heart with a little conversation fly out.

Amber [00:08:29]:
The heart hands. Have you always had that? I have. Because this is what the younger people are doing on Instagram. You're just the original.

Paul Zolman [00:08:38]:
Well, no, I wouldn't say I'm the original, but I really incorporated it into this, and you'll see the conversation fly out. So it's the words of the heart that would be those important words that you want to say. The next one is two hands touching each other like they're holding hands. That would be touch. And then the last one would be gifts. A hand holding a gift. Five love languages.

Paul Zolman [00:08:57]:
Six sides on the cube. The 6th side is actually "Surprise Me". So there's just two instructions. Amber, you roll the cube every day, whatever it lands on. That's the love language to practice, giving away all day that day. So as I'm trying to create these boundaries that I missed, that hole in my upbringing that I missed, I'm realizing that I absolutely have no control over what that person over the fence is doing or that person the next cubicle is doing. I have zero control over what their life is like, and there's no point. What I found myself doing, Amber, was being annoyed at what they did.

Paul Zolman [00:09:31]:
I would stack one annoyance on top of another, on top of doing this stacking effect. It could be something so simple, just a straw that breaks that camel's back. Something so simple, that I'd already be at the top of my annoyances flash, and then I'd come back down and then start the process again. That was the cycle. So I realized I need to change that cycle, and I needed some replacement behavior. So I tried to figure out, well, what am I going to do? What would be a replacement behavior? And something loving obviously has to replace something of the opposite side of the spectrum. So I realized that as I'm practicing these love languages, it changed my whole attitude. It was a paradigm shift that was really important for me, and I thought, this might be helpful for many other people that might be in a same, or similar situation.

Paul Zolman [00:10:17]:
Maybe they've got grief in their life. Maybe they saw someone get murdered. Maybe they've got some problems that they want to overcome, but they need a replacement behavior. I found instead of looking for what's wrong about that person, now, all of a sudden, I'm focused on that 80% to 90% of the good of that person, instead of 10% or 20% that was bad, something that they were doing wrong, some of their weaknesses or their faults or their failings. Instead of focusing on that, now, I'm so busy focused on what's right about that person, I have no time to be annoyed.

Amber [00:10:48]:
Right!

Paul Zolman [00:10:48]:
Absolutely zero time to be annoyed. I'm focused on what's right about that person. What can I love about that person? How can I make that person's day? And it was just almost magical that it was overnight, that change overnight of just that mind shift that I needed in my own life. I thought, this is really important. It has been very important for me. Could it be important for someone else? That's how I got the business idea, to be able to do it that way.

Amber [00:11:12]:
I love the branding behind it, how you've done different things. So how does the journal correlate with the game that you offer?

Paul Zolman [00:11:18]:
The journal? Yeah, the journal came a little bit later, actually. The book and the journal came this year, just earlier in 2023. I published both of them at the same time. I've had this cube copyright since 2017. I've had that for a while. And what happened is that I went to a mental health specialist, mental health therapist, trying to see if they could incorporate it. He says, "Wonderful. Could be great, we need a manual.

Paul Zolman [00:11:41]:
We need something to do. You'd have to write a book about it." And it really is quite a different approach because I was single at the time when I developed this, Amber. And so as I'm single, I said, "Dr. Chapman, who the heck am I supposed to love? I don't have that significant other that you talk about." And I thought, I guess I just have to love everybody. And I thought, well, that's perfect, because I need that consistency. I need that.

Paul Zolman [00:12:08]:
I need my own case study, that own power in my own life to be consistent in that loving aspect. Quit going to the annoyance side, quit that behavior that I wanted to quit anyway. Quit it and start being more loving. Start watching for what's right about people instead of what's wrong about them. It was perfect for me. It develops that consistency. My first prototype, Amber, was a two and a half inch by two and a half inch wood block. You see, it has all sharp edges here.

Paul Zolman [00:12:35]:
That's exactly what my personality was. I had these sharp edges. When you try to roll that cube that had the sharp edges, this prototype, it wouldn't roll. You could almost hold up on the top what you wanted for that day. Roll it twice, and then you're right there, right where you wanted it.

Amber [00:12:52]:
Yep, but we're not learning.

Paul Zolman [00:12:53]:
No. It was kind of like a weighted dice. "Well, I want this, so this is what I'm going to roll." This is how you hold it. And I could teach people how to hold it so that they get what they want. It really wasn't that randomized thing that really was manifesting for people that need that manifest for the day. So I had to round the corners, and as I rounded the corners that it started to roll. Then I just changed the side.

Paul Zolman [00:13:15]:
While I'm doing all that and rolling that cube for the day, I'm learning the process of how to become a better person, how to watch for positive aspects of people. That took two years for the artwork to be done on this cube that I have now, two full years. I wanted it to be without words. I wanted it to be something that would be acceptable, international, like international signs, international traffic signs, or something international that way. So it would be universal in that way and be acceptable in that way. Not offensive at all, but something that people would recognize. Oh, that's what we're doing today. No matter what language you spoke, this is what you're doing today.

Paul Zolman [00:13:56]:
And so I wanted something like that. And it took a while to realize that what I have control over is giving love away and responding when it comes my way. I can't bid somebody to love me the way Dr. Chapman had suggested that, well, if you tell somebody your love language, then what? "Well, I told you how to love me. Why aren't you doing it?" You get to this little pity party, the whiny voice, and then what happens? And you start fighting again back in your brain. Yeah, it's the cycles. And so instead of doing that, what the dice does for me is, as I'm rolling that die, I'm practicing that love language all day, that day, watching for people to light up, when they light up, you've discovered what their primary love language is, or their secondary love language.

Paul Zolman [00:14:40]:
No longer, Amber, do you have to say, "Excuse me, could we pause this relationship for a moment while I have you take this survey so I can know how to love you?" No more awkward.

Amber [00:14:51]:
So many things. Okay, so I assume we've talked about business, but that dice can work for kids, too.

Paul Zolman [00:14:58]:
Absolutely. Yeah. And that's where the journal came in. I actually tested it with a family of five children. The youngest was four years old, and this four year old one day who rolled physical touch. And he's jumping up and down, saying, "Yes, physical touch!". Pumping his fists and everything. Physical touch.

Paul Zolman [00:15:13]:
And immediately he goes and beats up on his brothers.

Amber [00:15:19]:
Yeah.

Paul Zolman [00:15:19]:
He thought it was permission for him to go beat on his brothers. Now, where did that come from? Obviously, the brothers expressed love in that way to him, and so it was a perfect opportunity for the mother to say, "This would be an appropriate way to express physical touch. You can do the high five, you can do the fist bump, you can do a hug, you can do that sort of thing. That would be appropriate physical touch," and that would be loving. And so it's a perfect teaching moment. And all the siblings were there at the time. This is a perfect way to express love in that way. And so it worked well that way.

Paul Zolman [00:15:53]:
The second thing I'm doing with children is that in K through 6th grade, I'm actually tested it in the school system. And at the beginning of the day they roll the die takes 2 seconds, or less, to roll the die, the teacher might take 30 or 45 seconds to say, "Class, today we're watching for this type of behavior." And all day long the class is watching for that behavior and acting upon those opportunities that come along. At the end of the day, what I've developed is a journal page that has what they rolled, opportunities they saw to love in that way, what they did about those opportunities. I send the teacher a PDF of that so they can print as many copies as they need. At the end of the day, the teacher just does a checkmark. Yep, Johnny did it.

Paul Zolman [00:16:34]:
Mary did it, Susie did it. And then the teacher might just briefly read over several of the stories that were written about that day. The next day, if there's some great stories, the teacher might read a couple of them in front of the class, say, "Look what Johnny did yesterday. Look what Susie did yesterday." And then encourage the class in that way. So this is appropriate touch, appropriate behavior for loving in the classroom. What that does for these students is it makes them responsible now for their own behavior. No longer does the teacher have the full burden.

Paul Zolman [00:17:04]:
No longer does the principal have that part of the burden either. The student is responsible for their own behavior. Amber, it took me until age 35 to realize that my father's not responsible for the way I act. He'd actually been dead seven years by the time I was 35 years old. And I said, "Well, I guess I have to be responsible for my own stuff." Took me to age 35. If we can teach the children at six, or seven, or eight, or nine, or ten, we teach them in those young ages now, they've got responsibility for their own actions. That's a huge teaching moment for them.

Paul Zolman [00:17:38]:
The second thing that happens, those astute parents would actually, after the teacher does the check mark and sends it home, the astute parents will hold those journal pages and bind them at the end of the year. Now, what do you have? You have a love journal for that first grader. I remember my first grade teacher, Mrs. Rogers. I don't remember 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th. I do remember 6th grade, but something happened in that first grade that she had such an impact on me that I remember her, and I must have felt really loved at school more than at home. I just remember, I had that interaction, and I would have loved to have a journal about that.

Amber [00:18:13]:
One thing I think about, too is if you have this journal and you're doing this in school, if there's somebody that's not responding in the project and they're a little off. Like, say one kid is not participating or their answers are just often different. You might be able to troubleshoot if there's a problem at home with some of the kids.

Paul Zolman [00:18:29]:
Yeah, absolutely. You're definitely going to identify those problems. I think it's really going to tamp down behavior, especially for those kids that have problems at home. I had problems at home all the time, and because of that I always wanted to do the right thing. And that's probably why when I was 17 years old, I took one of those career tests, it said I'd be a great IRS agent. I was just a rule keeper. I wanted to keep the rules. I want to stay out of trouble.

Paul Zolman [00:18:54]:
And then I said, "I don't want to be an IRS agent. Those guys are hated. And I just did not want to be one of those guys". So accounting was the next best thing, I guess.

Amber [00:19:03]:
Yeah. Well, my mom works in schools currently, and some of the kids, they come in and they're just so naughty and something's going on at home where they have the siblings and there's just like a cloud over them. There's this behavior and you can't really do much about it besides their special rooms and let them throw their tantrums, et cetera. But I suppose if they're all doing this exercise, maybe they're just not being heard at home. And if you can identify and start speaking to them in their language, they might feel like there's back to that experience of, say, 6th grade for you or just being in that bigger family. They can shine at school and they get some attention, but unlearning the behavior, too, that doesn't work. But you can act like this and maybe there's some positive outcomes that can come from this project at school.

Paul Zolman [00:19:45]:
Yeah, absolutely. I agree that one thing that happens even over the first 30 day test period where you're forming that habit, obviously I've done it since 2017, or even a couple of years before that, rolling the die every single day. But what happens with that is that you learn all the love languages backward and forwards. There's not very many people that know them that way. That's why I call myself a love language linguist. That this really helped me become someone on the other side of that spectrum, where anger was one side and now loves the other side, all the love languages. To be able to recognize it and to be able to acknowledge that and just that very acknowledgment. If the kids can learn how to acknowledge one another and be loving in that way, it's going to make a whole lot of difference in their life, in their primary school life, and in their junior high school, and then their life in general.

Paul Zolman [00:20:34]:
So when they learn these attributes and they learn how to not only give love away, but they're giving these love languages away, what happens is gives them the eyes to be able to see it when it comes their way, and they can respond appropriately, as Dr. Chapman said, and I totally agree with he said, that most people can see only their primary love language. This develops that peripheral vision so that you can see it when it's coming your way and respond appropriately. We can teach children that way. We're going to have a lot better employees we're training coming up, a lot better society, a lot better families, a lot better communities who are strengthening the family. And families make up the communities which makes up state, makes up the nation, make up the world. It really could be a different world when people learn how to love.

Amber [00:21:16]:
Yeah. So I want to touch on a couple of things, because this is part of some of the consulting that's just fallen in step with my experience working in financial services. I've been hired to go to different financial firms to do the Clifton StrengthFinders. I was certified in that years ago, number one. Well, my first Strength from the Clifton Strengths would be "Input", but "Learner". So it's natural that I want to go learn about this, even though it didn't really tie into my profession, per se. But when you have awareness and you study others on your team, we're not trying to fix what we're not. We understand ourselves, but you still study the other ones and learn about your teammates on purpose.

Amber [00:21:53]:
Similar to what you're saying is you're rolling that die back and forth, and we're going to practice this. Even though it's not your favorite or the one that you resonate with regularly. It's important to have that awareness. And that's just very similar to the curriculum that we would teach. Just pull the team together. You don't want everyone to be the same. We want to give the respect and not be upset that someone's different than us. And as you've talked about, relationships, people go, "Gosh, why is someone, even in partnerships, loving partnerships, like spouses, they're different than me.

Amber [00:22:20]:
Why don't they understand me?" When we do some of the exercises, you understand them. You don't get mad that they're not the same as you, because you don't want everybody to be the same. We wouldn't get things done in business. And then we need to provide that team effort, collaboration. You don't want everybody to be the same. Of course, core values should probably be aligned, but I can see that this die can...The dice can help with that. Very similarly, on the positive note, have the awareness, get to know what other...

Amber [00:22:45]:
Put yourself in other people's shoes. Back to the one with the question mark. Can you touch on that one a little bit more, the question mark hand?

Paul Zolman [00:22:51]:
Sure. So, on that day, if you will, "surprise me". I live 2 hours north of Las Vegas, so some people call it "Dealer's Choice", but I named it "Surprise Me". And on "surprise me" day, you're just watching for opportunities to do random acts of kindness. Take, for example, the Volvo car. If you buy a Volvo because you think they're cool, there are not very many out there. All of a sudden now you're driving down the road, you see Volvo's everywhere.

Amber [00:23:16]:
It's a thing!

Paul Zolman [00:23:17]:
Yeah. And so you start loving in this way. You get to see opportunities to love all day long.

Amber [00:23:24]:
And I know that's true in business. When you really do personal development and start working on awareness, you're plugging in, you're doing the work. It's very interesting when you're being positive and putting that energy out there. Opportunities do pop up when you start doing the work. So this is a different variation of that. What I talk about is focusing on talents as the core element of just success in life. This is part of it. If you don't love who you are and others, it's going to be really tough to overcome obstacles and things that you might face without this in your back pocket.

Paul Zolman [00:23:55]:
Well, I think everybody has talents, too, and that's the whole idea, especially in business, when you're watching for assets, for human resources type of assets, and watching for the talents of other people. I started with accounting many years ago, but one of the first jobs I had more than 20 years ago was an investor accountant at Aurora Loan Services. It was a company that did mortgage servicing. In that mortgage servicing that they did, they had 200,000 loans that they serviced every single month. Well, they had some escrow accounts and some other accounts, investor accounts that hadn't been reconciled for a while. My first day on the job, they handed me maybe eight, or so. And then the next day, I got another 30 accounts, approximately 40 accounts that they hadn't reconciled. In two days I'm done with all of them, every single one of those accounts, doing the bank reconciliation, and all the employees are amazed.

Paul Zolman [00:24:47]:
And I'm thinking, well, I thought that was just a job. That's what I'm supposed to do. That was what I'm hired to do. And so I start looking around, asking other people for work, do you have anything I can do? What's next? And doing all this, and all of a sudden I'm called to the principal's office, the vice president's office, and another vice president was there, and they said, "We have a job for you, that we think you're just absolutely perfect for it." They had an escrow disbursement account that they hadn't reconciled for five months. In that escrow disbursement account, they wrote 25,000 checks per month. And so they realized the talent I had for reconciliation. They gave me this job five months behind, 125,000 entries.

Paul Zolman [00:25:23]:
Checks written, just checks. 125,000. I was working in an Excel spreadsheet doing the reconciliation on most of these. Excel only has 65,000 lines that you can put in there. Who knows that? Who's nerdy enough to know that there's only 65,000 lines?

Amber [00:25:41]:
I like Excel. I did not know that. Okay.

Paul Zolman [00:25:43]:
Yeah, there you go. And even as I've become an expert in Excel, through this process, I'm learning that it chugs. I'd get up to 40,000 lines of data, and the thing was just did not want to move, and so I had to cut it back down to about 35,000 - 38,000 lines of data. Then it would move, and I could get this bank reconciliation going. So I had to break it into sections over those several months. And it took 90 days, 90 days, 8 hours a day to get to the first point of reconciliation. They were so far behind, and I was on a first name basis with the guys at Chase Manhattan in New York trying to figure this thing out. And every day I was with them, trying to just settle the differences and get this reconciled.

Paul Zolman [00:26:28]:
I finally got it down within $1,500. I couldn't find all the other stuff. This is over $25 million a month that they're sending out in checks. And it was not reconciled for five months. So the vice presidents actually became my mentors. I'd get stuck, or I'd have brain freeze, or something like that. I'd walk in their office, "What direction does this go? Help me understand."

Paul Zolman [00:26:50]:
In 1 minute, he'd have me back on track, and I was back out the door, doing my thing, getting that reconciled. And then once I got that 90 day period over, got the first reconciliation done, it took 15 days for the next one, four days for the next one, and four days thereafter just to keep it up. But it just took the kindness of those vice presidents and seeing the talent that I had in just doing the bank reconciliations. I grew up loving puzzles, and our family played puzzles. Puzzles is a great way to make connections. And you're matching colors, you're matching shapes, you're matching everything that's there to match. That was perfect for reconciliations. And so I was the guy for that.

Paul Zolman [00:27:32]:
But if it was not for the kindness of those vice presidents and allowed me the time it took to find out who in the company of 400 employees, who is everybody writing checks and they're not recording these checks. I found them all and was able to get it reconciled.

Amber [00:27:47]:
And everybody's happy.

Paul Zolman [00:27:48]:
Everybody's happy.

Amber [00:27:49]:
Oh, I love that story. So I have a few people in mind that need, I want to call it, "The Kit", all three things. So where can we find these?

Paul Zolman [00:27:57]:
That's a great question, Amber. Thank you very much. You can find it on my website. I've got the cube, the book, and the journal in a kit. It's actually $29.99. It's a whole lot less than just one therapy session with your therapist, and it's going to last a whole lot longer. It's on www.RoleOfLove.com. Role of love.

Paul Zolman [00:28:17]:
It's kind of a play on words. You R-O-L-L the dice that's outside of you. The change that you're looking for within is R-O-L-E. That's why it's called www.RoleOfLove.com.

Amber [00:28:28]:
At Aurora, they saw this gift that you had. Do you think that if they wouldn't have tee'd this up, you might not have been in this boat? Now developing a game and a book, do you think you would have had the confidence?

Paul Zolman [00:28:40]:
Yeah, that's an interesting question. I actually had an entrepreneurial spirit for quite some time. Wanting to be my own boss, I developed a Christmas ornament company several years ago during the same time I was working at Aurora Loan Services. And the Christmas ornament company was just something that I would listen to people, and I'd go to craft shows in the neighborhood, talking about networking, go to these craft shows, and it was really market research for me. And that's kind of what I do in my own community. I do market research, talk to people. How do they feel about this? What kind of feedback can I give? And it's great trying to understand what are their needs and how can I meet their needs with this tool that I've created. It's a love tool.

Paul Zolman [00:29:21]:
A carpenter has his tools. The mechanic has his tools. This is a tool to learn how to love a lot better. I needed that tool, and I need it for myself, made it for myself. Just understanding the power of what it did for me and how it changed almost magically overnight changed my attitude of instead of looking for what's wrong with people to looking for what's right with people. That paradigm shift was probably the greatest gift I could give myself my whole life so far.

Amber [00:29:50]:
Awesome. Well, I appreciate meeting you, and I can't wait for people to watch this episode. For our listeners that need to maybe consider some self-reflection, a little bit of love, play a better role in everyone's lives. So thanks so much for sharing. Thanks for being here.

Paul Zolman [00:30:05]:
Absolutely, Amber. There's a line from "The Sound of Music" that I absolutely love. Rolf is on the ground. He's the bicyclist that delivers all the mail and everything. He's singing to Maria. She's on the second story of the von Trapp house. And he's in the lyrics that he's singing. He says, "Love in the heart wasn't put there to stay.

Paul Zolman [00:30:23]:
Love isn't love, 'till it's given away." And as you think about that, we really need to give it away. That's why the hand is on every single side of the cube. It's meant to be given away. We absolutely have control over what we give away. There's no way we can sit at home and just pine away and say, "Nobody loves me," and expect somebody to come love you. I mean, it could happen, but the chances are it won't. Consider the laws of the universe, the law of the harvest, karma, law of attraction, whatever you want to call it, it's all the same.

Paul Zolman [00:30:56]:
That whatever you send out is going to come back after many days. If we're not sending any love out, how can we expect love to come to us? We just need to send it out. And I appreciate you sending love out, inviting me to be on your show. It's been a pleasure.

Amber [00:31:11]:
Very powerful. Thank you for all of that. Thanks for being here. Can't wait to check out more on your website.

Paul Zolman [00:31:18]:
Thank you.

Amber [00:31:20]:
All right, we'll see you soon.

Paul Zolman [00:31:22]:
All right, my pleasure, Amber.

Amber [00:31:26]:
Thank you for joining us on today's episode of The Amber Stitt Show. For more information about the podcast, books, articles, and more, please visit me at: www.AmberStitt.com. Until next week, enjoy your journey at home, and at work. Thank you for listening!