If your relationship is in trouble, big trouble or small, I'm going to tell you straight-up how to fix it. I'm not going to try to be cute or glib, and I'm not going to hit you with a lot of clever buzzwords. I'm not going to use a bunch of psychobabble or the en vogue theory du jour. I'm going to give you the straightforward, no-nonsense answers that work -- answers that have always worked, but have just been buried in a deluge of pop-psych nonsense.

But there is a serious and outcome-determinative precondition that you have to meet if you expect to successfully rescue your relationship and reconnect with your partner. You have to get real about you. And when I say real, I mean one hundred percent, drop-dead, no-kidding real. No defensiveness, no denial-total honesty. Get argumentative, be rigid, be defensive and hardheaded, and you will lose for sure. While the focus of this book is rescuing your relationship and reconnecting with your partner, the vehicle to achieving that is you. Not you and your partner, but you. Reconnecting with your partner cannot and will not happen if you do not reconnect with yourself first.

I promise you, you can change your partner from daylight to dark, you can dump your partner and trade up to a better one, but it won't make a damn bit of difference unless and until you decide to clean house inside yourself first. This journey does not begin with you and your partner; it begins with you. You have to take your power back and become the kind of person who commands quality, inspires respect, and settles for nothing less than an active and abiding love. That change begins from the inside out as you get back in touch with who you are and as you decide what to do with your love, your life, and your vision. Your clarity and your purpose must become crystal clear. The fix, the rescue, depends on you. To proceed with any other mind-set is to guarantee failure, miserable failure. That's why I have to begin by getting you right with you. I know you aren't being true and right with yourself, or you wouldn't be in relationship trouble and you wouldn't be holding this book.

In fact, if you are in a relationship that has gone awry, a relationship that is laced with pain, confusion, or emptiness, then by definition I know you have lost touch with your own personal power, your own dignity, your own standards, and your own self-esteem. You've allowed yourself to accommodate pain and disappointment and self-destructive attitudes. You have rationalized away many of your hopes and dreams, you've settled for so many things you did not want, you've allowed apathy to set in, and along the way you've probably let your partner mistreat you over the years. But most important, you've mistreated yourself. You've blamed your partner or other circumstances for your place in life rather than making the effort to find the true answers within you. You've lost touch with that part of you that I call your core of consciousness -- that place where you are absolutely defined, the place within you where your greatest strengths, instincts, values, talents, and wisdom are centered. Think back; there was a time and a place when you knew who you were and knew what you wanted. You believed in yourself, and your life was full of hope and optimism. You were in touch with your core of consciousness. You were centered on this God-given core that uniquely defined you. And you can be centered on this core again.

This is not silly self-help talk. This may well be the most important concept you'll ever seek to master. I've studied successful people my entire life. I always wondered why these people create wonderful, rewarding relationships and lives when others just as talented muddle through with mediocrity. We all know people who get all the breaks and opportunities, yet who still can't do anything with their lives. And we know others who seemingly come out of nowhere to defy the odds and overcome immense challenges to carve their niche in the world. What I've discovered with stark and undeniable clarity is that the ones who do well are so in touch with their individual core of consciousness, so aware of their self-worth and their sense of personal value, that they not only treat themselves with enormous self-respect but they inspire others to treat them with equal respect. They live with an empowering inner clarity, one that gives them the unshakable confidence that they and they alone can determine the quality of their life. They have tapped into their core of consciousness, claimed their right to a fulfilling life, and have refused to accept less from themselves or anyone else.

The truth is not always easy to hear, but it always remains the truth -- and I'm not going to let you hide from it and, in so doing, cheat yourself. So listen to me: if you don't scrape away all of life's layers of distortion, negative input, and doubt-inducing messages, and get back in touch with your own core of consciousness, then no matter what else you learn, you will have such low standards that you will continue sabotaging your relationship. You will remain mired in pain, guilt, anger, and confusion. You can bet on it.

That's why I'm coming after you first. You must reclaim your own power and strength so that you can build something extraordinary for yourself. The power I'm talking about is not the kind of power that will make you more domineering over your partner. It will not give you more control over your partner; nor will it allow you to win more arguments.

This is not about power to take things from people so that you have more for yourself. It's about the power to give and to lift up those around you. What I'm talking about is the power that comes from depth and conviction -- the power to inspire, the power to create, the power to experience your life and relationship at a totally different level. It is the quiet, calm power of dignity and worth. When you tap into your own core of consciousness, and you start creating your own experience, you will notice that the world, including your partner, will start to relate to you differently. As Emerson once wrote, "What lies behind us and what lies in front of us pales in comparison to what lies within us."

So that is your precondition. As you go forward into this book, you must contemplate everything that's presented with an eye toward how it can get you back in touch with yourself -- how it can get you back to that core of strength that has been there since you were born. As you read, think about how you will put honor and nobility back into your heart and mind so that you can begin to engage the world from a position of strength instead of weakness. Commit right now to requiring more of yourself, for yourself, in every area of your life. With every page you read, I want your head to lift, I want your chin and your chest to come out, not as an act of arrogance but as a message of determination. Tapping into your core of consciousness, rediscovering your inner strength and drive for greatness, can be the single most significant act of your life, and your greatest gift to your relationship partner.