(upbeat music)
Yeah, I think it was
Robin Williams that said,
and you may have quoted
this on Morning Serial,
but it's, "Every person
you meet is fighting a battle
"that you know nothing about."
So treat them with kindness.
It's one of my favorite
quotes out of Morning Serial.
Do you remember?
Yeah, it was his birthday.
It was his birthday?
Seriously?
I've got a terrible memory.
(laughing)
I don't remember that, but--
Meg's noticed she has
to catalog everything
that happens in my life for me.
So she's running two
memories out of that.
Incredible brain of hers.
Escalator?
All the way down.
Really?
And I promised myself from that moment,
I mean, I do remember that.
I will pick my family
first, always, from now on.
Yeah, right?
I think it's a bit of that fake it
till you make it sometimes.
Yeah.
In some of the hardest moments,
I have to at least pretend to be strong.
It's like a Taylor Swift song.
Which one?
(laughing)
It's like all of them, honey.
(laughing)
I love me some Tay Tay.
Hot.
Nice, it will look kinda
spicy hot, temperature hot.
It was temperature hot.
Sexy hot.
Don't put it safe while
we're out off the ship.
Talking about underpants.
Huh?
(laughing)
Welcome to the Mr. and
Mrs. English podcast.
I'm Megan.
And I'm Sean.
We're here to talk about
the wild ride of raising kids,
growing careers, keeping life together
in the middle of all the chaos.
So buckle up,
because we're all in
this crazy journey together.
Thank you, Marina.
This is M&M, six, six,
what was I saying?
Yeah, that's, I think the date.
I think that's Friday.
Yeah, I think you're right.
All right, this is M&M, six, six, so 21.
Land, la-la, land, tater tots.
Ooh.
Get yours in there as well.
Tater tots.
Yep, well, welcome.
It's welcome, everybody.
It's not a weekend for us.
We usually try to do this on the weekend.
We do.
Nor is it really late at night
or really early in the morning.
It is like a nice, hey, we
just finished work for the day.
So we're still fresh.
Kind of.
Kind of, you know,
but we're not just waking
up, drinking our coffee.
Yeah, that's right.
Or are we sipping alcohol,
because it's, you know.
Yeah, we've been nice and lube,
because we've been working all day long.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're not inebriated,
because we're drinking water today,
because we got soccer tonight.
Yeah.
And a couple other activities.
Yeah.
So I don't know if
it's at our best, though.
I mean, I've been staring
at a computer screen all day.
You know when you,
maybe you don't do it as much,
because you're in meetings so much,
but you are staring at people.
Oh, yeah.
But it's like when you have
like a flash bang in your eyes
and you can see,
you know, like the sun,
like after you look at
the sun, accidentally.
Not that I stare at the sun often.
Yeah, I hear that's actually bad for you.
(laughs)
Ironically, it causes retina damage.
I can confirm it is bad for you.
Not through personal experience.
But I feel like I've got that,
because I've been staring
at this computer all day.
I've been doing,
I've been in Excel,
I've been doing accounting stuff, so.
Oh, your favorite.
I've been catching up on
books for the companies.
So I am just a little bit like,
I gotta pull out of that.
You know what I mean?
Because you're just so into the numbers
and you know, debits and credits.
And now I'm back into, okay.
Personality again.
I know.
Tea accounts and personality.
They're kind of at odds with each other.
Yeah, yeah.
No offense to any of the
accountants that are listening.
Oh, no, no.
Yeah.
Being a CPA is a great skill.
It is, it is.
Everybody, I mean,
I don't even know what to say about that.
I know a lot of great accountants.
You work with a bunch
of great accountants.
Oh, I work with a ton of accountants.
Yeah.
And it's funny,
because even they will be like,
yeah, but I'm not a
traditional accountant.
I'm more of a.
It's kind of an inside joke with
accountants though, right?
It's like, there's certain
professions that you're like,
oh, your personality type fits perfect
for that profession.
Yes, yes.
Right? Yeah.
And accountants are one of those
that kind of fit into that.
Yeah.
Which to your point,
you work with some
accountants that are like,
but I'm not the typical accountant.
I'm not that kind of accountant.
In fact, they're all
pretty quick to say that.
That's funny.
Oh, so maybe we are
offending in the accountants then.
It's funny because they
identify as like a finance person.
Just they happen to
have their CPA license.
Yeah, yeah.
Isn't that funny how we all
kind of just identify ourselves
so much with what we do for a living?
Yeah.
Right?
I mean, some of these books,
and I didn't plan on
bringing this up at all,
but some of these books
that I've been reading
and doing the book
review on morning cereal
and just other things,
I mean, it just talks about
just how much people put into
their self-worth of what they do.
Yeah.
And maybe even men more so at times,
because that's, you know,
that's like, you know, going out,
bringing home the bacon,
literally like the caveman in us.
Yeah, yeah.
I think women do it too though.
Yeah.
You know, there's a certain, like,
I identify as a RN, a doctor,
a CPA, like whatever that is.
But not that kind of CPA.
(both laughing)
I'm finance and through,
like I can talk to the
accountants I work with,
they will tell you I
often, I'm like, I'm not a CPA.
But yeah, you do, you spend
so much time there doing that.
Mm-hmm.
And then that it takes
just so much investment
in order to get there and
feel like you're producing
and contributing.
Yeah.
I think it would almost be
hard not to take some type
of self-worth out of it.
Yeah, because if you rewind the tape,
or the VHS tape, no, you can do that too.
(mumbles)
(laughs)
It's really good.
(both laughing)
But if you rewind your
career, and I always go back,
I don't think we talked
about it on the podcast yet,
but there was a point in your time
before you were with your
current company in Chicago
where you're actually placing people.
And you saw, you had
some pretty good stories,
resumes and stuff.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Right, but tell, just for
a fun fact of the resume
about the silverware.
Oh my gosh, yeah, it had
what their duties included
or what they did well, and it was
organizing silverware.
This was on somebody's resume.
This was on someone's
resume, and I was like,
I'm hiring you for a finance position.
Were you at least counting the forks?
No, you were just organizing the forks.
Yet this isn't gonna work.
Wasn't bean counter
or anything like that.
It wasn't.
Work count, yeah.
(laughs)
I also had someone who
his aspiration was to work
in a tall building where
he could use the elevator
to go up to his office.
Did he tell you that or
was that on his, yeah,
that was in the spoken interview.
Somehow this guy made
it past just the resume,
and I ended up talking to this guy,
and I was like, and we're done.
But I'm glad you brought that one up,
because that's the
one I was gonna bring up
was that one in
particular, because if you rewind,
and I know what that guy's talking about,
everybody's got this
fantasy of what you're gonna do
when you grow up.
And some people wanna wear a
suit and a tie and go to work,
and those people wanna
go up into a skyscraper
and take an elevator
up, you know what I mean?
It's kind of the sexy,
that's just the dream scenario is.
And I remember that,
because before I was
in a white-collar job,
during college, I worked blue-collar jobs
for the most part.
I mean, I did some
other white-collar ones,
but I did both, I guess.
You did both, right.
But never a professional job
after I finished college, right?
And then I started working for the bank.
And that was a big
deal for me to finally,
when I was a salaried
employee for the first time,
I mean, again, I thought I
made it at that point in time.
And I did, I rode a
train from the suburbs down,
or I rode the L at the time, right?
Yeah, it was the L, yeah.
I rode the L downtown to
the financial district.
I wore, I did have to
dress up and wore suits
and all that kind of stuff,
and went up to the 27th
floor, I think it was.
So that, to me, that was kind of a,
wow, I had arrived at my young age,
I felt like I had arrived.
Yeah, for sure.
But you had that early on,
almost straight out
of college, didn't you?
I did, yeah, yeah.
In Minnesota.
Yeah, which, so for me, I
got used to it kind of young,
but I mean, although
when I was first working at,
so I started at Marshall Fields,
which was purchased by Macy's,
but that was owned by Target at the time.
Hey, by the way, shout
out to Marshall Fields.
Oh yeah, if anybody, yeah.
Everybody knows, if
you know Marshall Fields,
you're a Gen Xer, you've been around,
you're a Midwesterner, and what were the,
what were those little chocolates called?
Oh, the Franco Mints.
The Franco Mints.
I think Macy's still sells Franco Mints.
Do they, the same ones?
I would think so,
because that was always like a hallmark.
All right, well, DMS, I wanna know
if you put your Franco
Mints in the freezer,
or if you just left them out.
We always left them out.
We were a freezer family.
You were.
Not by my choice, but
that's just, anyways.
Yeah, those were really good.
You were with Marshall
Fields up in Minnesota.
Yeah, but our
headquarters, so it was part of Target,
so it was still part of the corporation,
but the corporate
offices were actually above
the department store,
downtown Minneapolis,
so, and they didn't want
us using the escalators,
it was a huge department store,
I think it's like eight levels, right?
So I mean, it's pretty
big for a department store.
And so we would have
to take the escalators,
and I worked on the seventh floor,
so like it was like
escalator, escalator, escalator.
Oh, really?
Anytime we had to go like,
hey, I'm gonna go grab some lunch.
Escalator?
Escalator.
Really?
Yeah.
That's so funny.
Yeah, so I didn't have an
elevator in my first job,
I had an escalator.
Yeah, wow.
Yeah.
I never knew that story.
Into the corporate offices.
That's hilarious.
Yeah, and then I did
switch over to Target,
and there we used the elevators.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, part of the
reason I brought that up
is because just everybody
identifies with what they do,
you know, like I'm a sales guy,
or like for me, for the longest time,
it was like I'm a banker,
but not that kind of banker.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
I will say that too, yeah.
Yeah, because a lot of people,
when you say you're a banker,
like, oh, you're a teller.
Right.
That's fine, there's
nothing wrong with being a teller.
Not at all.
But that's not what I did.
So I was like trying to
be, you know, I'm a banker,
but like a lot of people
thought I worked in mortgage
or something like that.
Right.
Like, no, no, no, no, I'm in finance,
I underwrite large deals.
And so there was always like
that kind of like ebb and flow
or that struggle to be like,
how much of my elevator
speech do I give these people
so that they are not a teller,
but I also don't think I'm
the most important person
in the world.
Right, right, there's, in any industry,
if you're not from that industry,
you're not gonna understand.
Like, anyone probably
in the medical field
or like academia, you could talk about
what you did in
academia, and I would be like,
I don't know, so you're like a professor?
You know, I'd be like, I don't know.
Yeah, we dumb it down.
Yeah, yeah.
So you're a teacher.
Yeah.
Because I don't know.
At the college, yeah.
I know there's difference
between tenure and professors
and all that kind of stuff, but yeah.
I mean, I kind of do, but not really.
You're right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We pretend we do, but
yeah, you're a teacher.
That, you know, I don't know.
I guess the point there was just that,
you know, everybody identifies,
and it's just such a
big part of our lives.
Yeah.
Of like, what do you do?
And like, some of
these books I'm reading on,
it's like, well, you
shouldn't define yourself by like,
I'm a finance guy.
Yeah.
I'm in finance.
Yeah.
Because I did a sales aspect to that too,
and I am not a salesman.
There's a sales aspect to what I did
with the portfolio
management and going out.
But I'm like the world's worst salesman.
I'm not the world's worst salesman.
Yeah, no, you're not.
I'm not the typical salesman.
Right.
Right, I had my own
strengths and weaknesses, right?
Right.
I found out what worked for me.
But, you know,
everybody puts these things
on their social media now.
It's like, I got my LinkedIn.
Yeah.
You know, I think I said something like,
at some point it said
something like finance expert,
but Gen X dad or Gen X,
or husband and Gen X dad,
so all these like little
words that we're all trying
to use to define like who
we are over 50 years of life.
Yeah.
I don't know where I'm going with that.
It's kind of out there right now,
but you know, everybody
gets that midlife crisis.
Like what the heck am I,
and what have I been doing?
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm almost done.
I'm getting to the end of doing.
(laughing)
I don't know how that
works, but I'm gonna go with it.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
But, and I think it changes too.
So like, I talked to
someone just this weekend.
She's like, she's telling me, she's like,
I've had nine careers.
And I was like, wow, you know,
I've always kind of
stayed in the same one.
You've had a couple different, you know,
where it was like
entrepreneur, banker, you know,
like maybe you could say
you've had two, but it's like.
I have one primary.
I've been in finance.
One primary, yeah.
But I, it overlapped
with my always trying
to be entrepreneurial.
Exactly.
And so.
Fails and successes of that.
Yeah.
Fails and successes of anything
in what people do for a living, right?
It was just, yeah, it was so interesting.
Cause I was like, it was,
as I was listening to her,
I was like, huh, I wonder
what she defines herself as.
Like I didn't have a whole lot of time
to really get to know this person.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
All I know is that she
loves what she's doing now.
She's a life coach, but it's like,
does she identify herself
as a mom or a grandmother
or you know, whatever, I don't.
Right.
Or life coach, not sure.
Right, right.
I think you just wonder
if some of those people
that are kind of
workaholics that would be labeled
a workaholic, you know, they'd be,
they would first say
that they're a banker
or whatever it might be.
Right.
Yeah.
And then, literally, it
might pop into their head to say,
oh, but I'm also married
and I've got three kids.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Whereas for me, I mean, I
always remember struggling
early in my career when we had kids,
when we started to have children,
I asked someone that I
looked up to and I said,
hey, do I go to this bank event
or do I go to my son's first of this?
I don't even remember what it was.
It was probably something at daycare.
Do you remember?
Yeah, it was his birthday.
It was his birthday?
Yeah.
Seriously?
Yeah.
We had his birthday party already,
but it was his actual--
It was his actual birthday?
It was his actual birthday.
It was like on a Tuesday
or something like that.
And so I was gonna be
gone at a bank event.
For the whole day, was I
gone for the whole day?
I can't remember that part.
See, this is everybody,
I've got a terrible memory.
So.
I don't remember that, but--
Meg's noticed she has
to catalog everything
that happens in my life for me.
So she's running two memories out of that
incredible brain of hers.
It's really small head.
So that's what it was.
Good to remember that it was his
birthday, but I asked.
I was like, should I be home
for my son's first birthday?
I've already had the birthday party,
or should I go to the thing?
And I was still young in my career.
Yeah.
And that banker said,
you should probably go to the bank thing.
Because he chose the
career aspect of that first.
And I did, I listened
to him, and I went to it,
and I missed it.
And the whole time I was
there, I was so mad at myself.
And I promised myself from that moment,
I do remember that.
That was the moment I said,
I will pick my family
first, always, from now on.
And I don't think I've
ever not done that since.
No, no.
But my point to that, again, was just,
I would much rather say
I'm a husband and a dad
before I would say I
was a banker in finance.
Yeah, yeah.
I actually did a, someone, I
had to do like an about you
or something like that at work.
And what I did was I
put together a whole,
like the whole first part
of it was all of the titles
that I hold, not
actually my title at work.
Yeah, yeah.
And it was like my chief laundry officer,
and chauffeur, and head chef,
and all the things I
was like, cheerleader.
It was all the things that I do
that take up a lot more of my brain power
and my time than what I
actually get paid for.
Yeah, yeah.
It was actually really cool.
I was on a call just earlier this week
with someone holds a
significantly higher title than me.
And he was like, hey
guys, I need to leave early
because I have to go do my dad job now.
And it was, it was the middle of the day.
I don't know what he had,
but it was just such a
perfect example of like,
yeah, I think he's got
his priorities right.
How old is he?
I don't know, but I was--
He's just a guess.
Our age, a little older. No, I think he's
probably a little older.
Yeah, I bet he's in his 50s.
Yeah, because kids are in college.
I assumed it was kind
of a graduation thing,
but it was just so cool because I'm like,
that's someone who's
done really, really well
in their career, highly
thought of in the workforce.
But you would never question,
you wouldn't question his
commitment to the company either.
But you never question
where his priority is.
Yeah.
It was really cool.
I respect that greatly just because,
I mean, similar to the
example I gave earlier,
you know, who you're choosing business,
or you're choosing, you know, life,
your family and whatnot.
And I'll just never forget,
I actually mentioned it
on morning cereal this week
or previous week when
people watched this,
but it was leave work early day.
And I think it was the day I messed up
on the, I uploaded the
wrong morning cereal.
So if you listen to morning
cereal, I know last Tuesday,
I uploaded the wrong one.
It took an hour for it to change.
So the full real version's out there
if you guys want to go back.
But that was the day I
literally said when I was younger,
it was frowned upon to
have work-life balance.
Yeah, yeah.
Right?
It was like, you had to beat the boss in,
you had to stay as late as the boss did.
Yeah.
And I just remember that
killed me because I remember,
you know, we had to get on the train,
which was an hour.
Was an hour.
From downtown Chicago, all
the way out to the suburbs.
And then it was
another 30 minute ride home
from the train station.
Yes, it was.
And so, you know, I got
in at 7.15 in the morning
on the first train.
We literally the first train out.
Yeah, we were.
And then getting back on a late train.
I mean, you're not
getting home till eight o'clock.
And if we had a family at that time,
which we did, a young family at least,
I couldn't live that
life and be that removed
from family for that long.
But that was the expectation at the time.
I liked the fact that now
people are getting that,
you know, that
work-life in most industries.
I think there are still,
banking is an old boy's industry.
Yeah.
Right?
Like things don't
change there as quickly.
I mean, they are very, I
don't know how to say it.
You know, I got a lot
of friends and colleagues
that are still in there and they know.
It's much more of the traditional--
Traditional old boys.
50s view of how you treat your career.
Exactly, exactly.
It's a little bit slower
to evolve compared to yours.
There's a little more forward.
Right, it absolutely is.
And how they view some of that.
But my whole point there too was,
if you are a true
professional, you're good at your job.
You should be able to have
a little bit of flexibility
in there because I don't
know how in today's world
you can do it without that flexibility.
I don't know.
I really don't.
I don't think I could.
And I fell into that trap
early in my career of the,
I mean, I worked all the time
when I was younger in my career.
Yeah.
All the time.
You're a very hard worker.
In fact, we have
conversations every now and again
where there's just like,
hey, let's touch base here a little bit.
Like, let's have a
refocus moment, you know?
Like you're doing incredible,
but you're starting to
lose orbit around the family.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I need to be brought back.
I remember when we first started dating,
I may have said this on the podcast,
but I would take you
downtown, my office is downtown.
On a leash.
It sounded like I would
take you out for a walk.
Go ahead, you would take me downtown.
You'd take me by the hand.
I'd take you by the hand.
I would drop you off at the bars
and then I'd go into the office.
The bars?
Yeah, because you'd go out
with some of your colleagues.
This is Minneapolis?
This is Minneapolis.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Yeah, and I would drop
you off with friends.
We weren't married yet.
We were not.
And I would go into the office,
get some work done on a Saturday night,
and then you'd call me
and be like, hey, I'm ready.
You can come, you know,
get me and be like, okay.
And all your friends were like,
she's totally cheating on you.
You're like, no, she's not.
She really is probably working.
I know her well enough.
And I was.
I was sitting alone in
a cubicle, typing away.
Yeah, I mean, you've always had that.
You have that today.
I mean, you are a great worker.
Anybody that has you as an employee
is blessed to have you as an employee
because you dedicate,
you're just all in on it
as much as you possibly can.
As much as I can.
While also being all in our family
because I don't think
other than a few conversations
that we've had throughout our marriage,
where it's like, hey, bring the orbit
a little bit closer back to home.
And likewise, you've said that to me too,
because I don't do as
much, yours is more of an orbit
where you just start getting
a little bit bigger and wider.
Mine is more of a feather in the cap,
where it's like, I'm a
rocket ship away from the family
versus an orbit, right?
Yeah, and it'll be like, okay.
And you're like, steer
the rocket ship back home.
Because you'll just be so laser focused.
Yeah.
Yeah, we always say, I was like, yep,
you have a bee in your bonnet.
That's right, I'm like,
yeah, bee in my bonnet.
Bee in your bonnet.
I'm like, yeah, you have a
bee in your bonnet right now.
Yeah, it's just, you gotta get it done.
You gotta get it done,
but I think that's also
a true partnership that you and I have,
is that you do check each other
when you get a little too
focused outside of the family.
And it's like, hey, you gotta come back.
Yeah.
And it's just a good check and balance,
good open communication.
Because a lot of times you
don't realize you're doing it
and you certainly don't mean to do it.
Yeah, I think switching
gears a little bit on that point,
and again, this is nothing we're gonna
remotely go into today.
Not that we had anything really prepared.
This was one of the
days where we were like,
what are we gonna talk about?
Clearly we actually had something.
Let's sit down and talk, but, you know,
being married, being
together for 20 years,
and there's people
that have been together
for 50 years listening to this,
or people that have been
together for one year, who knows?
Yeah.
Talking, openly talking with
your spouse, your loved one,
is just so key, and
we're really good at that.
But we talked about this
weekend a little bit too is,
you know, I don't know
if you would rate that
on a scale of one to 10 of like,
you know, we are open about everything.
There's not anything we
don't know about each other.
And that's very true of us.
I mean, on most
things that are, you know,
not embarrassing or not
super personal, you know?
We're open with each
other on those things.
But there is some level, I think,
that's still even with
us, as close as we are,
you know, like we just
don't go there sometimes.
And, you know, whether
that's A, B, or C, you know,
if that's insecurities
or just embarrassment
or whatever it might be,
to me that's interesting
that as close as we are,
there are still some of those just dark,
and they're not secrets,
but they're just those,
you know, how would you explain that?
I would say they're
more like insecurities
that you don't necessarily voice.
Like--
Yeah, those dark corners of your brain.
Yeah, that it's like,
I don't like sharing
that at all, you know?
Like as raw as I can
be, like there's just,
it's just an insecurity.
And what's probably ironic is that
we know it about each other.
Like you probably know it about me,
she's super insecure about that,
and she just doesn't
talk about it, you know?
Yeah.
Don't you think we should though?
Well, sometimes, it's not that we don't,
and it's just sometimes it's,
we don't share it all the time.
I think that's a
personality and a family thing.
Oh, I think so, for sure.
Just shook the whole
table, I hit the microphone.
I just gave everybody a
little bit of motion sickness,
they were sorry about that.
(laughing) I talk with my hands too much.
I'm a very handsy talker.
A demonstrative talker.
A demonstrative talker, yeah.
Handsy can have a
totally different meaning.
That guy that's like, how are you?
He has like the long touchdown, the arm.
No, yeah, no, handsy has a
very bad, you're not handsy.
Just for the record,
you're not supposed to go,
no, you're supposed to like hit him and
be like, get off me.
Tell those guys like that, those guys,
I can't stand creepy guys like that.
I haven't had a guy
like do that, I would, ugh.
Anyway.
What we were talking
about just, you know,
it's a family thing
and a personality thing.
I know it's a personality thing, I leave,
I wear my emotions on my sleeve and I,
it helps me to talk about
some of those tough things.
And you're opposite, you
don't wanna expose that,
you don't wanna talk about that.
I wanna solve it in my own head,
as opposed to getting it
out and talking about it.
It's, I don't know why
I've always been that way,
so whether it was a learned thing,
whether it was just who I
am as a person, you know?
In tough moments, I tend to
go inward to solve a problem
or to ruminate on it,
whereas you tend to go outward.
Yeah, well, I mean, I
know like, there's families,
your family is a little bit like that,
one side of my family is
a little bit like that,
it's like, hey,
everything's always perfect.
We don't talk about if
it's not perfect, like,
you know what I mean?
I'm not saying that from a perspective
that people are fake
or that they're not real
and they can't be real,
but it's just the way the family dynamics
have evolved over time, that it's like,
let's just, let's not
talk about the things
that are not perfect.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, and that, as you know, for me,
I wasn't brought up in a
family, I don't know how.
I think yours is just
more of a personality thing.
Is mine a personality thing?
Oh, 100%.
Where it's like, I wanna talk about it.
I'd rather rip the band-aid
off and just get it out there,
because then I feel better about it,
but I guess it's hard
because I know it doesn't make
other people feel better all the time.
Right.
You know?
Yeah, yeah, and I don't
know that there's probably
a little bit of, there's
a healthy balance of both.
Yeah, because there's
times when I'll see you
struggling with something, I'm like,
man, I wish we could
just talk about that.
But I know that's not
something she's open to.
Yeah, it's just like--
You know, just that little,
and that's why I just
bring it up for people
that are watching, it's
just interesting that even in,
I would say you and I have
a really good relationship,
but even in our
relationship, there's just those things
that are just hard, it's
the back of the brain things,
those things that touch
too close to self-worth.
Yeah, for sure.
I think for me, it's a
lot about timing too.
Like, I usually do tell
you, and it's not that I hide,
I don't actually hide
anything, if you were to ask me,
what's really bothering you?
You know, I would tell
you, and it's just like,
if it's something
that I'm struggling with,
I'm insecure about
something, a lot of times,
I need to work it
through in my own brain enough
to then be able to share it.
I think that's true.
Just, yeah.
I've kinda always been that way.
Yeah, that's probably
true of everybody too.
There's times when I'm like, not ready,
like I'm still way too raw.
This is still way too raw,
like give it a half minute.
I've been getting better
about telling people that too,
like, nope, nope, nope, it's not yet.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, so, I don't know,
humans are just interesting.
We were talking about,
you've got a minor in psychology.
My undergrad is in psychology.
Which is why I went back for my MBA.
But, you know, I think
not that we're psychologists
or psychiatrists, but
it's fascinating humans
and then the way that they,
it's just the way that people are.
You know what I mean?
It is fascinating to
see how different people
react to different situations, you know,
all these different, you know.
I think what I'm trying
to get at is that just,
it gives us this extra
lens through which we look
at our lives, through which we look at
our children's lives.
You know, from this
psychology kind of perspective
that we had a little bit of schooling in.
And it's just, I don't know, I find it,
just because I've grown
up in tough situations,
I've dealt with my own situations.
I've been depressed
before when I was younger.
I think people are frail.
Oh yeah.
And we all pretend to
be strong, not pretend,
like we talked about.
No, I think we do pretend to be strong.
Heaven flows.
Right?
I think it's a bit of
that fake it till you make it
sometimes.
Yeah.
In some of the hardest moments, right?
Like, I think there is some degree of,
I have to at least pretend to be strong.
It's like that Taylor Swift song.
Which one?
It's like all of them, honey.
(laughing) I love me some Tay Tay.
There is one in
particular, I've heard the,
some of her songs are better than I
thought they would be.
Actually, she's not bad.
Oh my gosh, she's totally grown on me.
Yeah, she's grown on me a little bit too.
But there's the one where she's like,
she's crying or something like that,
and she goes out and she does a concert.
But it's like fake it
till you make it basically.
I can't remember the name of it.
Anyways, it fits what
we're talking about right now
and what you're saying.
Yeah, yeah.
I think there's something to that.
Tay Tay's got it all down.
But it's those people, yeah,
Tay Tay's got it all put together.
She really does.
Yeah, until her and
Kelsey find it, you know.
Hopefully it's just a
happy ending with those two.
I really, you know what?
Everyone deserves a happy ending.
That's right.
Yes, yes.
But maybe to sum this whole thing up,
we got less deep topics here,
but when you find yourself
opening up to people about that,
that's what brings you close, right?
And that's why we
were able to get so close
because we have opened
up so much, you know.
That's why you're so
close with your children
because you've shared
everything with them from an age.
And your friends are like
that too, you know what I mean?
And best friends are like that
where you've just shared so much
and they know so much about you.
Those relationships are so great to have.
And they're hard to come by.
Yeah.
I think it was Robin Williams that said,
and you may have quoted
this on Morning Serial,
but it's, "Every person
you meet is fighting a battle
that you know nothing about."
Yeah.
So treat them with kindness.
It's one of my favorite
quotes out of Morning Serial,
out of all of them.
It really is because
everybody has baggage.
Everybody has dark corners of their mind,
whether they share them really openly,
whether they share them with a small,
select group of people,
or whether they choose to hold that close
and only share it when they're ready.
Yeah.
Everybody has it and
everyone's carrying something.
Because at nine out of
10, you're gonna go through,
if you go down the line
of people on the sidelines
or your friends at a party,
and you could snap your fingers
and they had to be real with you.
Yeah.
Like, how are things going in your life?
What's, is anything causing you trouble?
Or is anything causing you pain?
Nine out of 10 of them would be like,
"Oh my God, I am struggling with this."
Or, "This is killing us right now."
Yeah.
But we all go to the sideline
and we pretend everything's
great and everything's good.
That's the way humans have evolved.
Hey, it is--
Sappy stuff.
But it's all life, right?
It's part of the struggles
because then how do you show up
in the midst of that really tough thing?
Still be a great parent, a great spouse,
a great, if you work, a great worker.
And sometimes that gets to be a lot.
Yeah.
To then carry it and you're like,
"Plus I have this whole other monster
that I'm dealing with."
Yeah, you gotta get it out.
We tell our kids that even good emotions
and bad emotions, if you
don't let your emotions out,
they can start to poison you, whether
they're good or bad.
It's like, I remember when I was,
I told my oldest this all the time,
I remember being younger
when I was still living
in my parents' house
and I didn't wanna smile.
I didn't want people to share or to know
that I had a happy
emotion at some point in time,
like riding a roller coaster.
Because so much at that
point in time was so dark.
I almost didn't want people to know
that I could have a
moment that wasn't heavy.
Right, right.
And that probably
poisoned me a little bit,
not letting those
emotions out, good or bad.
I let plenty of bad ones
out probably, which is good.
But anywho, my last point to that is,
it's what makes us
all human and it's fun.
Because we went to that movie last night,
we saw "MI 7 689."
Final Reckoning?
Final Reckoning.
I'm gonna go with that one,
because I don't even know.
Final Reckoning.
And I'm sitting there
watching the end of it
and I'm like trying,
because our kids make fun of us
when we cry in some of these movies.
That are emotional, they just pull
emotions out of you.
Which is why you watch movies.
Yeah, human emotions.
I love that movies can do
that, the good ones can do that.
So I'm sitting there
trying to like, not cry.
I got made fun of because I cry
and you hit it better than I did.
The girl next to me is sobbing.
Who's not with our
family, with her family.
She's sobbing.
I love that because
that's what makes us all human.
But we don't wanna
look at the other person
because it's like, oh
my God, I'm so weak.
And in the end, we're not
weak, we're all, we're all,
just human.
All human.
And just doing the best
we can with what we've got.
That's right, that's right.
My grandma used to always say that,
she's like, everyone's just doing the
best they can, honey.
Wise words from a wise woman.
She didn't call me honey,
she called me dear, but yeah.
Dear.
If you know, you know.
If you know, you know on that one.
Yeah, so.
Well, that was a long tangent there for,
that was almost the whole show.
Wow. Yeah.
Super deep.
That was a deep one, that's right.
Sometimes you just.
Yeah, deep thoughts.
And I don't have
anything I need to get out,
it's just kind of turned there.
Yeah.
No, I feel like we've got
a little more off script
on the last few.
I have no idea, but we've
been able to fill the whole time
without having a whole lot of scripted.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I don't know,
lighting it up a little bit.
The gravy train keeps
coming to our house.
I guess maybe it hasn't
the last couple of days,
but I mean, we are
still getting packages from,
quote unquote, Sam Smith.
That's right.
We told some people, we've told some
people on the podcast,
we've told some
people at the soccer game,
we're actually getting people
that are raising their hands
for some of the items.
Which is fantastic.
Fantastic.
Happy to make
somebody else's life better.
Yes.
For something that
was just chance for us.
Yeah.
Cause it's not things
that were necessary.
We don't need it, yeah.
I'm happy to give it to someone else.
Even if I do need it, I didn't.
We didn't buy this or we didn't order it.
We weren't intending on any of this.
So if it makes someone's life better.
But it has been like two
days since we've got one.
I know.
I think the gravy
chain's gone off the track.
I know, after that second steering wheel.
That second steering wheel, yep.
Yeah.
It was fun while it
lasted though, wasn't it?
You actually asked today.
I know, I did.
You were excited to
see, well, what's in it?
What's in it?
Not because I know
it's anything that we want
or certainly need.
Because of the
randomness of the purchases.
I do wonder though, I
took kind of a step back
and I was like, I
wonder if someone looked
at our Amazon purchases.
Like if they were all
going to someone else's house,
like what they would say about us.
Oh, that's a really good thought, yeah.
Because I'm really curious.
Because this person's
Amazon packages or purchases
really leave me
scratching my head about his life.
Well, I think they
know we have a doc sound
because we order a lot of
stuff with that little dog.
We do.
We order toilet paper, so we're humans.
Yeah, yeah.
And we order--
Paper towels.
Paper towels, so we're messy humans.
We're messy humans.
Some of the main ones that we do.
Yeah, those are the ones that come on
in consistent basis.
I think the only thing I
buy on there is the dog stuff.
Yeah, I don't buy much on it anymore.
Yeah, occasionally.
I just go back.
Oh, oh, socks for our
children, our boys in particular.
One boy in particular.
He just goes through socks,
wears holes in them left and right.
It's because he doesn't
wear shoes with them outside.
Right.
He also wears socks all the time.
Yeah, so that's what it says about us.
Yeah.
That we're a regular all-American family.
Yeah, who really likes socks?
The dog and 2.5 kids.
Yep.
Yep, that's what we are.
It's what, are you, well, we have three,
but we probably shouldn't
say we have two and a half.
That's what we do.
Well, that's probably, I
was just doing the average.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's the average American.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's not me
putting down one of our children.
So which one is the half?
I think they know.
Depends on the day.
All right, well, we're getting closer
and closer to vacation,
so we're trying to get that figured out.
Yep.
We've got most of the time for the dog
sitting in the house,
sitting taken care of.
Yes, which is fantastic.
If you're in the area down here
and you know us fairly
well, raise your hand.
We have a couple of
days that we need someone
to come let the dogs hand out.
Yep.
Or if you know a really good dog sitter.
Our dog sitter is getting married,
so congratulations to her.
We're super excited about that for her.
Which means my mom is
actually taking over
a little bit with the dog sitting.
She's happy to house
it, but the dog sits,
a thing for her.
My mom is not a dog lover.
She's not, no.
And to be fair, neither am I.
No.
I barely even like our dog.
Yeah.
But I do want her to be taken care of.
Yeah.
The dog, my mom too.
Well, absolutely.
But she has to work, so
there's a couple days in there
that she needs to be relieved.
Yeah.
As will the dog.
For that reason, specifically.
Yeah, and fed I suppose too.
And fed, yeah.
Oh, she'll let you
know if she needs food.
Yeah.
But she is a sweet puppy.
That's the fun part.
You know you're
getting close to vacation,
you're like, here's
the things we gotta get
to make sure we're ready to go.
Yeah.
We got all the passports and all that
kind of stuff ready.
Yeah.
But now we're talking about sunscreen,
we're talking about the fanny packs,
we're talking about how
to keep the passport safe
while we're out off the ship.
We're talking about underpants.
Huh?
(laughing)
Well, we're gone for a while,
and I was like, I don't think our boys
have enough underwear.
I know, yeah.
They need to go through it quickly.
Yeah.
The Amazon people will
know we need socks and undies.
Yes.
Because we are the
average American household.
So Sam Smith, if you're out there.
(laughing)
Mikey socks please.
We need vacation stuff now.
Yup.
Since I was doing Amazon.
So the bird feeder,
stop with the bird feeders
in the ear care.
Yes, bird feeders in ear care,
I think we are settled on.
If anybody wants bird
feeders in ear care,
well we actually have
the ear care solved.
Both of the ear care is spoken for.
It's spoken for.
Yeah.
We will be delivering that.
So I didn't realize that
was such a hot commodity,
but it is.
I didn't either.
A lot of hands were raised for those.
Not joking, I had
pictures of them on my phone,
and they're like, yes, that's a good one.
And I was like, it is yours.
That's so funny.
All right, well let's
sum up our last week
with our words of the week.
Words of the week.
Okay, so everybody think of your words.
We got our words for
sum up our last week.
Yes.
See if anybody gets the same one.
All right, here we go.
One, two, three.
Hot. Inertia.
Hot.
Nice, what kind of
spicy hot, temperature hot?
It was temperature hot.
Sexy hot, okay, temperature hot, it was.
Temperature hot.
I feel like that was pervasive.
Every time I went outside, I was like,
oh my gosh, are we ready for summer?
Because we had some
humidity down here too,
which I don't like humidity.
My word, yeah.
Good night.
Yeah, it was hot.
Yeah.
It was hot, I don't know, that's the
beginning of summer.
Yeah, yeah.
Just the beginning too.
Yeah, I felt cooked after Saturday,
being outside all day.
Yeah, we didn't even
get into the track meet
and being out there all day long.
You were the only one at
the tent without a tent.
I was the tent without the tent, yeah.
Merchandise sales.
Yeah, and bronze did now.
Yeah.
Anyway, and yours,
maybe unpack that one a bit.
Mine was inertia, which I don't know
if I'm using it correctly, but I just--
I think that's a good one.
I feel like I'm just
being swept up in the inertia
of everything we've
gotta get done right now.
So true. With work and school
ending and getting
into the summer activities
and getting through the
vacations and all that kind of stuff.
That is just kind of
pushing, pulling at the same time.
It's the inertia of it.
Yeah.
June is gonna be like
that, just buckle up.
Buttercups.
Yeah.
Yep, yep, that's what it is.
All right, inertia.
I think that was way better than mine.
We're into June, so by
the time we get into this,
we'll be even more into June.
June's gonna go fast.
Half the people I know, I feel like,
are on vacation already.
So those are moving super quick.
Yeah. As well.
And these are the
months we wanna slow it down.
We didn't even get in
the pool last weekend.
No, but A, we didn't have time.
One of our kids is an ear infection, so.
Yeah.
We'll have plenty of time
over the next week or two.
You say that.
Knock on wood. Knock on wood.
Hope to be in it this weekend.
All right, well, I'll let
you sign us off this time.
I always do the sign offs this time.
Oh, you're a better sign-offer than I am.
I don't know that that's
been proven in the court of law.
You have a court of law for this?
Who knows anymore?
Honestly.
T.O.J.'s gonna get involved in this one.
Yeah, I, no comments.
I gotta stay off of
that one for the most part.
All right, well, hey,
thank you so much for joining.
Appreciate it, as we always do.
We will see you guys next week.
Have a great week.
All right, see ya. See ya.
(upbeat music)