[piano intro] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to "Side By Side".

My guest today knew he wanted to be a pastor at age 17, but he never dreamed about being an author.

Yet one of his books alone sold 20 million copies.

It became a worldwide phenomenon.

How?

We'll find out today when we meet Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the "The Five Love Languages".

- [Announcer] Funding for "Side By Side" with Nido Qubein is made possible by... - [Advertiser] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally, thanks to our teammates.

[upbeat music] We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

- [Announcer] The Budd Group has been serving the southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape, and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction.

Comprehensive facility support with the Budd Group.

[upbeat music] - [Advertiser] Truist.

We're here to help people, communities, and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference every day.

Truist, leaders in banking, unwavering in care.

[empowering music] - Dr. Chapman, welcome to "Side by Side".

- Well, thank you.

I'm glad to be with you.

- We're delighted to have you here.

You know, I read somewhere that you, you never thought about being an author, and yet you went on to write 50 books.

[Gary laughing] How does one write 50 books?

- I look at them when I do marriage conferences and they bring in all my books.

I look at them and say, "When did I write those?"

[both laughing] It's really hard for me to believe, to be very honest with you, but it's been very rewarding.

- Yes, and one of your books became an all-time bestseller, translated in, I don't know how many languages- - Over 50 languages.

- Over 50 languages!

And sold all over the world.

- Yeah.

- And the name of the book is?

- "The Five Love Languages".

[chuckles] - Yes.

- You know, it really did surprise me that it went to other cultures because my academic background before I studied counseling and all was anthropology, cultural anthropology, studying cultures all over the world.

So I was very sensitive to cultural differences.

So when the first publisher came, which was Spanish, I said to my publisher, "I don't know if this works in Spanish culture."

And they said, "Well, they've read the book and they wanna publish it."

I said, "Okay, let's go."

It became their bestseller.

- Yes.

[Gary laughs] That makes sense what you just said, that different cultures have different folkways, different mores.

And you wrote it more from an American perspective.

But people are people are people are people.

- Yeah, I think that when they translate it, people have asked me, "Well, when they translate it, how do you know they said what you said?"

I said, "I don't.

I can't read that language."

[both laugh] But I do know that there are differences.

Like physical touch is one of the five love languages.

And we know that there are cultures where if I met you on the street, I'd kiss you on this side and kiss you on this side.

- [Nido] Yes, yes.

- Well, we don't do that here, but it's appropriate there.

We do high fives or handshakes, you know.

So the dialects of the different languages, I think are a little different in other cultures, but I am convinced that the five languages are pretty fundamental to human nature.

- Mhm, tell me what made you think about that in the first place?

- Well, it grew out of my counseling.

They would sit in my office and one of them- - You have a PhD in adult education?

- Yes, I never intended to get into counseling either.

[Gary laughs] But when I started- - You were serving at church?

- Yeah, I started working on a church staff.

- Yes.

- And so I was teaching classes on different things, among them marriage, and the people that wanted help started reaching out.

Well, I'd taken courses in counseling, in my graduate training, but it wasn't my specialty.

But they would sit in my office and like for example, the wife would say, "I just don't feel any love coming from him.

We don't argue.

You know, we don't have any money problems.

It's just that there's, I feel empty."

And he would say, "I don't understand that.

I do everything I can to show her that I love her.

I don't see how she would not feel loved."

And I would say, "Well, now tell me, what do you do?"

And I remember one man, he said, "Well," he said, "I get home from work before she does.

I start the evening meal.

Sometimes, have it ready when she gets home.

If not," said, "She'll help me and then we eat.

And after we eat, I'll wash the dishes."

And he said, "Every Thursday night, I vacuum the floors."

And he said, "On Saturday, I wash the car, I mow the grass, I help her with the laundry."

And I was beginning to wonder, "What does this woman do?"

[both laugh] He said, "I do all of that."

And she says, "She doesn't feel loved."

And I looked at her and she said, "He's right."

"He's a hardworking man."

She said, "But we don't ever talk.

He's always washing the car, mowing the grass."

[Nido laughs] And I realized here was a sincere husband who was doing everything he knew to show his love for his wife, and a wife who didn't get it emotionally.

And then, I heard similar stories over and over and over.

And I thought, "You know, there's gotta be a pattern to this."

I had no idea what it was, but I took time to sit down and read several years of notes that I made when I was counseling.

And asked myself when someone said, "I feel like my spouse doesn't love me."

What did they want?

What were they complaining about?

And their answers fell into five categories.

And I later called them the five languages.

So that's where it came from, right out of my counseling.

- Yeah, I wanna get into that in a moment.

Let me ask you this question.

Is it men or women, easier to comprehend what you're all about?

- I think either can comprehend it.

I think typically, it's the women that read the book first, and then they say to their husband- - And then they tell their husbands to do what he needs to do.

- Yeah, you need to read this.

I've said to women, "Don't ever ask your husband to read a book.

Ask him to read the first chapter and see if there's anything there that he would like."

I say, "If he reads the first chapter, I think he'll read the book."

[laughs] - Yes, so if we take the five languages though, do men find it easier to apply and use these languages properly?

Or do women find it easier?

Or am I just completely off scale here?

- I think it all has to do with attitude.

If we have an attitude of love, which is, "I want to enrich your life."

"I want to do anything I can to help you become the person you'd like to become."

If we have an attitude of love, this book gives information, whether they're males or females.

And the information, they apply the information.

And I think husbands and wives can do it probably equally as well.

The problem is that not everybody has an attitude of love.

I had a man say to me, "My wife and I read your book.

We took the quiz.

Her love language is acts of service, but I'm gonna tell you and her, if it's gonna take my washing dishes and my vacuuming floors for her to feel loved, she can forget that."

And I said, "That's your choice."

Love is a choice.

If you want to live with a wife who has what I call an empty love tank, that's your choice.

I said, "I much prefer to live with a wife that has a full love tank."

I said, "My wife's language is acts of service.

I do wash dishes, I do vacuum floors.

And she tells me I'm the greatest husband in the world."

- But you also talk to her, right?

You also talk to her?

- Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

But my wife's language is acts of service.

- So how does one get the attitude of love?

Where does it come from?

How does one become aware of it?

- You know, for me it's having a relationship with God, because the Bible says- - Your faith.

- That's right.

"God is love," the Bible says.

But I think, I mean, you don't have to be a Christian to have an attitude of love because we're humans.

And I think we're made in the image of God, and we have the capacity to love.

But it's a choice.

And I think people, all people, either lean toward an attitude of love or they lean toward an attitude of selfishness.

And what he was saying is, "I'm not gonna do anything I don't wanna do."

I mean, it's a selfish attitude.

And if we're in a relationship, whether it's business or whether it's in marriage or anything, if we're in the relationship just for what we can get out of it, I mean, that's a selfish attitude.

Love's attitude, whether it's business or anything else, "I want to enrich the lives of people here.

I wanna do what I can to have a positive impact on people."

- So you wrote the book for couples, basically.

- [Gary] Yes.

Yes.

- But then you wrote other books that apply to business relationships and so on.

Take us there, take us to the work world.

And tell us how those languages apply.

- Well, I'll tell you why I wrote that book.

It's called "The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace".

But we basically took the love languages to work.

And I wrote it with a co-author who's a psychologist who had spent 20 years working with business leaders.

And he came to me and said, "Gary, I really think we need to take this to the workplace."

And here's the two statistics he gave me, from some government research.

70% of the people in this country who have a job say they feel little to no appreciation at work.

64% of the people that leave a job and go to another job say they left primarily because they didn't feel appreciated where they were.

And when he gave me that, I said, "Well, okay, I'm open, but we gotta do some research."

So he went into businesses for two or three years all over the country, all kinda businesses, from hair salons to construction companies, gave them a job satisfaction test, then shared the concept that each employee has a different appreciation language.

And if you want them to feel appreciated, you have to express it in their language.

Let them take the test.

Everybody learned everybody else's language.

Then every six weeks, he would send them a little reminder, keep it on the front burner.

Went back a year later, gave another job satisfaction test.

And in every case, it was statistically improved.

And that's when I said, "Okay, let's write the book."

- And what are some of the recommendations in the book?

- Well, it's basically saying if you want your people to feel appreciated, you have to individualize your expressions of appreciation.

I mean, most managers will say, "Oh, I appreciate my people.

I mean, I tell them all the time I appreciate them."

And we say, "Okay, you're hitting about 40% of your people, because for 40% of your people words of affirmation is their appreciation language.

But you're missing the other 60%."

And it's kind of an eye-opener, really, for business leaders to recognize that.

But this is the tool whereby not only management, but colleagues can learn how to express appreciation meaningfully.

So words of affirmation, meaning in the meeting they say, "You're a great team, we appreciate you, et cetera."

- [Gary] Yeah.

- Or maybe individually, they say, "We appreciate you."

- Yeah, and for some people, the individual thing is more important than the public thing.

For other people, the public thing is more important.

- What are other ways that appreciation in the workplace could be modeled?

- It's not necessarily the highest one, but gifts.

It's universal to give gifts as an expression of love.

But they need to be meaningful gifts.

You give a gift to a person and something they don't have any interest in, what it says to them, "They don't know me."

[laughs] So giving gifts, acts of service, offering to help them.

I had an assistant say to me, she said, "If my boss ever lifted a hand to help me do anything, I would drop dead."

[both laugh] She was telling me her language was acts of service.

"Offer to help me with something."

And she wasn't getting it.

And then quality time.

Giving the person your undivided attention.

It may be sitting down for five minutes and say, "Hey, tell me what's going on."

And you can talk about business, you can talk about things outside the business as well.

But it's giving them your undivided attention.

- The art of listening.

- Yeah.

Now the one thing we did find in the workplace, because one of the love languages is physical touch.

- [Nido] You can't do that at work.

- When we shared that, all the HR people said, "No, no, no, no, no, we don't touch at work."

[both laugh] - So you modified the book to the "Four Languages of Love"?

- What we did in what we call the MBA inventory, Motivating By Appreciation inventory, we left it out.

But in the book, we have a chapter on physical touch.

And essentially what we say is, if you see fellow employees giving a high five, okay to high five them.

If they pat somebody on the back, - I see.

- that's okay.

But we also deal with physical, sexual and physical abuse in the workplace, which has got to be dealt with.

And it's pretty huge in our country.

- Now, Dr. Chapman, you served at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem for a lot of years.

- Yeah.

- How many years?

- 50 years.

- Did you ever think about moving to some other church?

[Gary laughs] You know, there were other opportunities, but I never sensed that I should leave.

And looking back on it, I'm so glad I stayed where I did.

- What is it about Calvary that that kept you so connected?

- Well, I think I was so involved in what I was doing.

You know, counseling became a major part of my ministry for many, many years.

I'm still directing adult education things and teaching classes and all of that.

But I was gaining so much satisfaction from just working with the people and building those long time relationships.

In fact, two years ago when I went into the pastor, I said, "I think after 50 years, I should get off the payroll."

And he said, "Well, Gary, you're not gonna leave us?"

I said, "I'll be around to do whatever."

He said, "Look, why don't you just keep your office and keep your assistant and do what you want to."

I said, "Oh, I like that."

- So if I'm in town, I'm still there seeing people.

- Well, they're very proud of you too.

They pretty much claim you.

You've traveled from border to border and coast to coast and countries beyond, teaching seminars.

Tell us about that part of your ministry and that part of your work.

- Yeah, well, I do a Saturday marriage conference, typically in churches.

My publisher sets up a dozen of these every year and then I do some individually.

It's from 9:00 to 3:30.

And I deal with five basic topics.

Not just the love language.

But I deal with communication.

I call it Communication 101, because we're not gonna have an intimate marriage if we don't learn how to communicate.

And that's not only talking, that's listening to each other.

And then I do have a whole session on the five love languages.

Another session on making sex a mutual joy, because that's an important part of marriage.

- You can talk about that in church?

- Oh, yeah, on a Saturday.

Not on Sunday morning.

[both laugh] And then I have one on how do you share the things that bug you in a positive way?

In other words, how do you give constructive criticism rather than destructive criticism?

- Disagree agreeably.

- Yeah, and then also, a session on if you really want to improve your marriage, where do you start?

Because most of us start by, "Well, if I could just get them to change.

If they would just change this and just change that, you know?"

Well, we can't change the other person, but we can change ourselves and we can have a positive influence on the other person.

And the love languages helps you to have a positive influence.

So if your spouse is not responding to you, and you don't feel loved by them, you learn their love language, you start speaking it on a regular basis, I can tell you, they're gonna be drawn to you because love stimulates love.

In fact, the scriptures say, "We love God because he first loved us."

We didn't start it, you know?

And on the human level, that same principle is true.

Husband or a wife, even if their spouse is not willing to read the book, you read it, you get the concept, you start speaking their love language, you're influencing them in a very positive way.

- What is the value of laughter in a relationship?

- Well, I think it's important.

I think it's important in all of life.

I just think it's healthy.

And so I, in my conference, I say, "Now, I'm gonna share some things and hopefully one of my goals is your marriage is gonna get better."

Because marriages either get better or worse.

They don't stand still.

And I say, "Also, we'll have a little fun."

And I have a lot of humor involved.

- You have a lot of stories.

- Real life humor.

I don't tell jokes, but real life humor, you know?

- Yes.

Tell me if I'm wrong on this.

You talk about change.

I typically say some people don't change until the pain of remaining the same becomes greater than the pain of change.

Is my hypothesis correct or incorrect?

- I think it is.

I think it is.

For example, I think in a marriage, there is a place for tough love.

You know, if you're not feeling loved and they're not responding to you at all.

But I say before you do the tough love, do the tender love.

I sometimes give a six month experiment.

"Would you be willing, if you and I can sit here and figure out your spouse's language, would you be willing for six months to try to speak their language at least once a week on a regular basis and just see what happens?"

And most of time, before it's over, maybe four months into it sometimes, the other person starts, "Well, what can I do for you?"

[laughs] And especially, if there's physical abuse or that sort of thing going on, there's a place to- - Sure.

- "I love you too much, to sit here and do nothing while you destroy me and our kids.

And I know you can't really be happy with yourself, so here's what I'm gonna do."

And then, you take the tough love approach.

But tough love is much more effective if you've been giving them tender love because now they've got something to lose.

But if all you've ever been doing is criticizing them for two years and tell 'em how awful they are, and then you take tough love, they're saying, "Good riddance."

"I'm sick and tired of this."

- Yes, well now, you know that the world is changing.

You know, social media has had enormous impact on people's lives.

Mores even have been, shall we say, adaptable to times in which we live.

How does that affect?

Did you see it in counseling, surely you have, and you do?

Where are we headed?

Where are we going?

It seems like society today has a lot more fracture than we've ever seen in our lifetime.

Some blame it on social media.

Some blame it on access to greater financial means.

Some discuss it in other ways.

What is your view on all that?

- Well, I think there's no question about it that social media today makes us aware of what's going on in the world.

You know, when I came along back in the Second World War, [Gary laughs] you didn't know what was going on.

All you saw was the one 30-minute CBS news at night.

- [Nido] Yes, yes.

- You know, you picked a little bit here and there.

- [Nido] Walter Cronkite.

- Yeah, right.

- Yes.

- Now everything that happens is right there in front of your TV and online, anytime day or night.

And I think, because we're so aware of everything now, we get more opinionated and we get anti the other person, you know?

So we have a lot more division.

And the only way to work through differences is communication.

You know, on a personal level.

When you're trying get mad at half the world, [laughs] you can't communicate with half the world in a meaningful way.

So even online, we're shooting each other online.

So we've created an anti-love environment.

- Almost lack of civility and respect.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

So the whole thing is getting back to the awareness that, listen, we're all human and we can have differences of opinion.

But if I believe that you're a human, you are important, and I wanna treat you with dignity and respect, I wanna hear what you have to say even if I disagree with you.

And I'd like to know how you came to your positions.

If we take that approach, at least on the personal level, we can have good relationships with people that we disagree with.

- Do you see changes, generational changes in parental relationships with the children?

For example, children today are exposed to so much more than, let's say, 20 or 30 years ago.

- Well, I think fundamentally is make sure the child feels loved.

And I wrote a book on the "Five Love Languages of Children", same five Languages.

Another "Five Love Language of Teenagers", for parents.

Wrote one for the teenager, a teen's guide.

Because if a child feels loved, and I say to the parent, the question is not, "Do you love your children?"

We love our children by nature.

The question is, "Do your children feel loved?"

And if you don't understand that if you have three children, they probably have different love languages.

And what makes one feel loved doesn't make another feel loved.

So if they grow up feeling loved, then everything else that we're doing is much easier to negotiate.

Now, I wrote a book on, I call "Screen Kids", raising relational kids in a screen-driven world because- - Screen as in?

- As in online.

- Television?

- Yeah, and yeah, because as you said, teens today and even younger children...

I mean, you see them, almost little mini kids with a screen in front of them.

And I'm not anti-screens and anti-technology.

- It does look bad though, when you're in a restaurant, family of four, everybody on their iPhone.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And what I'm doing there is saying, let's have some guidelines.

You know, let's have some places where we see screens and watch screens, some places where we don't.

And let's have times that we talk as a family.

You know, just having a meal together as a family is a huge thing.

And there are many families today that hardly ever have a meal together, 'cause their schedules are this- - Mom works, Dad works, children have- - Absolutely.

Absolutely.

- Sports and so on.

- But if we're not gonna eat together, then there needs to be some time that we sit down together as a family on a regular basis and just share life with each other and be involved in each other's lives.

So yeah, a lot of practical things, I think, that we can implement that will help keep our children from simply growing up without the social skills of how to relate to people.

- On a personal level, I know that your wife was challenged with a journey of dealing with cancer.

- [Gary] Yeah.

- How did that affect you and how did the five languages of love come into that relationship?

- My wife said to me one morning.

She said to sit down, "I need to share with you something."

And she shared that she just discovered the day before that she had cancer and that we'll have to do surgery, et cetera.

And she said, "I didn't tell you yesterday because I wanted you to sleep last night."

That's my wife.

And so, she shared with me and I listened, and then I cried and I said, "Okay, Honey, I'm gonna cancel everything I've got for the next year, and I'm gonna be here with you."

Because in the church, I've walked with people with cancer.

I knew what the deal was.

And I knew it was gonna be a really trying year.

And she said to me, "Now, you listen to me.

You are not gonna cancel anything.

God led you.

You've got things to do.

You'll be here when I need you.

And if you're not here, I got friends I can call that'll be here in five minutes."

And I know she was right about that.

I said, "Well, I'm gonna have to pray about that."

[laughs] So I didn't make a decision right away.

Two days later, I said, "Honey, you really, really feel that way?"

She said, "Yeah."

I said, "Okay."

So I didn't cancel anything.

And I was there at all the significant points.

But it was a hard year.

She lost her hair, lost weight, the whole thing.

But that was 12 years ago, and she's fine now.

You know, we're both very grateful about that.

No problem with that now.

But yeah, it's a hard time to walk through.

But I think the fact that we did love each other.

Her language is acts of service.

Man, I had to pour on the acts of service because she couldn't do much- - [Nido] You did a lot of dishwashing.

- She couldn't do much of anything in that year.

But yeah, I think anytime you walk through a difficulty like that, if you both genuinely feel loved by each other and you know you're there for each other, I mean, that's just one of the parts of marriage.

You know, in sickness and in health.

- How many of millions of books did people buy of your books?

Do you even know?

- Well, I do on each, in the individuals.

I don't know what they are.

I know the "Love Languages", you said is over 20 million now.

- Yeah, congratulations on all of that.

But more importantly, thank you for being a man of service and interpreting these languages in a way that can benefit so many relationships here and abroad.

Obviously, God has blessed you in a magnificent way.

And I wanna thank you for being with me on "Side by Side" today.

[empowering music] [empowering music continues] - [Announcer] Funding for "Side by Side" with Nido Qubein is made possible by... - [Advertiser] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally, thanks to our teammates.

[upbeat music] We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

- [Announcer] The Budd Group has been serving the southeast for over 60 years.

Specializing in janitorial, landscape, and facility solutions, our trusted staff delivers exceptional customer satisfaction.

Comprehensive facility support with the Budd Group.

[upbeat music] - [Advertiser] Truist.

We're here to help people, communities, and businesses thrive in North Carolina and beyond.

The commitment of our teammates makes the difference every day.

Truist, leaders in banking, unwavering in care.