the transcript here.
Transcription
the transcript here.
Marriage Startup Episode 34 [Intro music] LESLIE Welcome to the Marriage Startup Podcast, Episode 34 - Podcastus Interruptus, or Why It May Not Happen Naturally. In this episode we talk about what it means to keep plans and goals flexible, and when to hold your ground. LAURA That's just a fancy way of saying we need to change our podcasting schedule, while still talking about important stuff like life and sex along the way. LESLIE And of course we can't have an episode without the heart of the show, the "What we're going to do for each other.” LAURA I'm your host, Laura Camacho, co-founder of Glimmering, partner of Wild Goose Guidance, and the work-at-home mom of three kids who are gone today [chuckles]. LESLIE And I'm your co-host, Leslie Camacho, the Chief Espresso Officer of the Camacho household, and man, have we needed a lot of espresso lately [laughter]. Oh, man. All right, so we're going to - we're not actually sure how - well, I guess when you download this you'll already know how long it is, but as we're recording it now we're not sure how long this is going to be. LAURA Will this be the short show we always think we're going to have, or will we string it out for an hour? LESLIE We've only had one of those, I think. Maybe two. In any case, let's start with some news and updates, because we do have a couple of them. Why don't you start with the first one? LAURA Sure. The theme music has been finalized, and it is currently being mixed by someone who sounds like they really know what they're doing. It's very flattering to have someone volunteer their time for us, but a big thank you to our friend Lance Hamilton who created the music, and found the hookups for the mixer. LESLIE Yeah, and in particular I think I'm just really happy with how it turned out. I know it's really different than the very Marriage-esque Pachelbel's Canon, but there's something upbeat yet relaxing, and I really like how it captures sort of a Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons Project, 70s vibe at the end, because that really reminds me of you. It seems to capture you quite well. LAURA [chuckles]. LESLIE Especially since you're wearing your sort of flower child - LAURA What?! [laughter] LESLIE - shirt today, and you've got your hair pulled back. You're very beautiful. LAURA Okay, well, I am a huge Pink Floyd fan so I'll take that as a compliment. LESLIE [chuckles] The other thing we want you to know about is I was interviewed recently on the Show Me Your Mic podcast hosted by Chris Enns, and Chris is the owner or - I don't know if he's the only owner, but he's one of the owners of something called the Good Stuff Podcast Network. They have a bunch of great shows. Show Me Your Mic is where he interviews www.MarriageStartup.com Transcript by Siobhán at SED Transcripts (siobhan.sed@hotmail.com) ! other podcast hosts, and I've been a fan of that show for a long time, and he has an open application process. So I just contacted him and said, "I'd love to be on your show. Here's Marriage Startup and Haywire," and he said, "Yeah, come on. I'd love to talk to you," and it was a great conversation. I got to go into a lot of my back story about why I want to do Marriage Startup, and also into some of the production stuff that we do, and how the show's actually made. Then we also get distracted by board games a lot, which - I didn't know that Chris liked board games, so that was a welcome surprise to the conversation. LAURA It was a surprisingly fun podcast to listen to for it being about technically podcast gear, which I'm not really that interested. Like, show me the mic I'm supposed to speak into, but I don't really care what it's named or how it all works. But Chris is a really great host and he manages to make the interview really interesting and fun. LESLIE Yeah. I've listened to the show for quite a while, and I've discovered a lot of really interesting podcasts out there. I always learn a lot and typically there's a fun story to be had in it as well. So we'll link to that in the show, go check that out. I really enjoyed it and thank you again, Chris, for having me. It was wonderful. All right. Let's get into the main topic. LAURA Okay. LESLIE I'm not sure really how to explain it other than the last three weeks have been just very challenging across the board. Just unexpected things happening, and I think especially over the last week, at the risk of too much information, there's been at least three times where you and I have just set aside - you know, we found a moment in the middle of the everything. We thought, "Oh man, the mood's right." We're trying to have some intimacy on the spur of the moment. LAURA Mm-hmm. LESLIE [sighs]. LAURA [chuckles]. LESLIE And our son, bless his heart, has a radar. LAURA Yes. LESLIE He has a sex radar. LAURA [chuckles]. LESLIE Where every time there's some intimacy going on, whether he's asleep or awake, he comes and finds us. LAURA Yes. LESLIE And it's uncanny, and frustrating in many, many ways. And the show's not actually about that, but I just felt like that's exactly the right analogy to everything else that's going on in our lives. There's these other plans that are great, that we've tried to schedule, that we've tried to do organically or naturally, and it's just not happening. www.MarriageStartup.com Transcript by Siobhán at SED Transcripts (siobhan.sed@hotmail.com) ! LAURA Yeah. LESLIE This has everything from a death in the family, to having a super bad case of allergies. I'm still congested, I'm still trying to hold in the cough. [coughs] Case in point. And today's better than it has been in about a week-and-a-half. A couple days ago it was really bad. I feel like I'm about a week-and-a-half behind on work. I'm also feeling a little bit of impostor syndrome on my coaching side because I'm telling people how to be productive and stay with it and really get into routine, and I am off my game for the last two weeks. I haven't been doing my journals like I have, I've been off exercise. I've just been completely out of sync, and especially since Friday, every time I try to get back in sync it has gotten derailed for one reason or another. I'm not healthy enough to start exercising again so I'll start exercising and then feel terrible. I'll start journaling again and be really - or doing my productivity journal and just get sidelined because it's overwhelming, because I don't have the space to get back into it. I start thinking about family again and then I start thinking about death, because that's been a topic recently. Depression brought his big brother [chuckles]. So there's a part of me that was really tempted to get down on not just myself but us and family. But that hasn't happened, and that's worth talking about. Another great example would be this show. We wanted to record this show on Saturdays and keep it released on Thursdays, and every time we've attempted that it has been like pulling teeth to get it done on weekends, and it's not working. It was causing resentment. LAURA Yeah. It was way too stressful. LESLIE Our initial approach was, "No, we're just going to shoulder through this. There's circumstances in life preventing it, and next time it's going to be better." There comes a point where when you say "Next time it's going to be better" too many times, you realize that no, no, this is the norm in life right now, and that's something that we just acknowledge this week. We actually got about 50 minutes of a show on - when was it? Sunday? LAURA Yeah. LESLIE It's not even usable. We did it at the last minute, it felt crammed, and we were 50 minutes in before we realized that no, we're - this is just not right. It's not in the spirit of it, it's not the tone, it's just work. So we started thinking about how to deal with that, and that led to a larger discussion on how do we deal with all the other stuff going on. That kind of sums up my view on the past two or three weeks, especially the last week. What about you? What have the past couple weeks been like for you? LAURA It has felt hard to get into a rhythm. I feel like the last two or three days I'm starting to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel of chaos and upheaval, but I'm still - I totally fell off the 5 Minute Journal wagon over spring break. I haven't opened it in almost three weeks now, I think, and it's sitting there on my bedside table. I look at it every morning, and I look at it every night [chuckles] and part of me just doesn't want to do it. Part of me's like, "Meh, it's not worth it. Doesn't really do anything," and the other part of me's like, "Oh yes it does, and you know it. It's worth the effort." www.MarriageStartup.com Transcript by Siobhán at SED Transcripts (siobhan.sed@hotmail.com) ! LESLIE We have 90-plus days of positive results. LAURA Yeah, yeah, but it just feels like, "Oh God, something else I have to invest effort into," and I just - I'm running out of effort. The last month has been very, very, very poor sleep again from Ethan. He must be going through some sort of growth spurt, and he's up two or three times a night. Last night he really didn't finally settle down for any length of time over 90 minutes until 1:00, and then he was up for the day at 4:30. So that was how much sleep I've had, and I've had days upon days of interrupted sleep. [sighs] I think that's the hardest thing for me, is I can't - I don't have any energy to create momentum. I'm just trying to get through the very bare minimum of survival, to keep everyone healthy and fed, basically, until this little blip of sleeplessness is over, and then I'll get my feet under me again. So that - it really just comes down to sleep for me. It almost always does. One thing I'm really proud about myself is that I have made exercising a priority, even though I'm tired. LESLIE Yeah, you have been really good about that, in the middle of everything. LAURA I have run every single day this week except for today. I needed to rest today because I just - I'm so drained. But I've been doing my running, and I have integrated a kettle bell workout at the end of that. Whenever we come out to your office to watch a show in the evening, I always do - I pick up the 12-pound weights and I always make sure I do a few sets of something with the weights out here. So usually that's the first thing that I let go when I'm feeling really tired, but I know that I can't. It helps my mood, it helps my energy levels. If I drop exercise I will probably just fall completely off the map [chuckles]. LESLIE So yeah, that describes what it's been like, and what I want to spend some time talking through right now is that it feels like in the past couple days we have started turning things around, starting on Sunday, starting after our failed recording on Sunday. LAURA Mm-hmm. LESLIE We kind of had a reset and then it feels like we've made progress ever since then. What I'd like to do is just talk through how we've started that, and in particular if we see each other doing things that we weren't doing before, or noticing things about ourselves that we weren't doing before that's been helpful to us, because I know that this is usual. It doesn't matter how much we invest in productivity or personal growth or all these things, you can't prevent… LAURA Life [chuckles]. LESLIE You can't prevent life. You can just deal with it better and better and better. I really do feel like the things that hit us over the past three weeks would've taken us out for months last year, and instead it took us out for maybe a week-and-a-half. That is something to be celebrated, compared to where we were when we started this podcast especially, and even more so before that. One of the things I see you doing this time around that's very, very different is that you are - you seem to be asking for more help sooner without www.MarriageStartup.com Transcript by Siobhán at SED Transcripts (siobhan.sed@hotmail.com) ! strings attached, without giving yourself strings attached. I can tell that's been very good for you. This morning's a great example. I got up early and my intention was to do some proposal work, or try to get myself back in line. I had this Miracle Morning all planned out for myself. You were already up and you're just like, "I'm going back to bed. Thank you for watching Ethan." LAURA [chuckles]. LESLIE And it wasn't really - you kind of made a sort of "Is that okay?" inflection at the end. You might've even said it. But it wasn't really - it wasn't the hesitant "He's probably going to say no so maybe I shouldn't be asking you this". Six months ago, that conversation would've been like "I'm really tired. How're you doing?" and you would've felt things out a little bit and said, "If it's okay with you, if you're not doing anything important, I would really like get more sleep, if it's okay, if you can watch Ethan? But if you're doing something important work-related, I'll stay up and I'll do it, and I'll just" blah-blah-blah. LAURA Right. LESLIE This morning was like, "I'm going back to bed, all right?" [laughter]. LAURA I think I was a little more polite about it but - LESLIE We're going to dramatize it a little bit on the podcast. And for me, I was like, "Oh man, I had my own stuff to do." LAURA [chuckles] I saw that look flash across your face too. LESLIE Yeah, but it only lasted for two seconds and it was like, "No, she really needs this, and if I give her this now it's going to help me later, and I can just bring my laptop in and I can be on the couch with Ethan, and I'll get in kid time because that's on my list." So my brain immediately worked through my list of priorities instead of what I had to do. Instead of a task list, my brain has now been trained to act on a priority system, which is one of the things that's really been helping me. But I'll get to that a little bit more in a second. I just wanted to point out to you that I love how you are acting on the authority you've always had, and that you've owned it. It is so good to see you like that. LAURA Thanks. It feels really good to not be afraid of disapproval. That's really what it is. Like, "Oh, Laura can't handle it. Now I'm taking on the burden." Being a burden is a huge big fear I've had to overcome. So yeah, and when I saw that look go across your eyes, you were like "[sighs] No, all my plans!" because I knew that - because you had told me the night before that you had a call at 7AM, and so I knew that here it was, 5:30, you were going to want to spend that time eating your breakfast quietly, preparing for your call, doing some stuff. And there I was like, "Here's a kid!" [chuckles]. LESLIE "There's your son." LAURA See ya! LESLIE Deal with it. LAURA But I saw that look go across your eyes and I was like, "I'm worth it. He'll be okay," and what was really awesome was that a car alarm across the www.MarriageStartup.com Transcript by Siobhán at SED Transcripts (siobhan.sed@hotmail.com) ! street woke me up right before 7:00, so I got up and took over and you could head out - I'm assuming head out for your call. You left right - you were able to leave right at 7:00 without having to wake me up or anything. LESLIE Yeah, and so from my end, the reason that interaction was so good for me is one, I love seeing you have that freedom because that was one of our shared goals; that we wanted to give you that same freedom. But for me, it also did not put me in charge of your feelings. It was just about what needed to be done and how - and what the outcome of that would be, but it wasn't caged in the "Oh, my feelings about our relationship for the rest of the day are about to hinge on what you say." For me, I could just simply evaluate it for what it is - can I really watch my kid? I can run through my priority list and instead of wondering, "If I say no, if Laura's going to be mad at me for the rest of the day, is that really worth it?" Because of the tone and the authority you had in asking, I knew that your heart wasn't on the line. Sleep was, your attitude in terms of and how sleep affects that, that was certainly on the line, but our relationship, there wasn't anything involved in that in terms of a negative. That was just like a huge amount of stress relief for me, and that let me figure out the rest of the stuff. And it's more than just this morning - you've been doing that on a regular basis in a lot of different areas, and that is a really big change from where we were when we started this podcast. LAURA Oh, yeah. LESLIE It has definitely taken getting used to, but now that we're more on the other side of it more than the beginning of it, so worth it. I'll take the authoritative, fully invested in yourself - hearing just you saying "Yeah, I'm worth it"? Yes, yes, you are [laughter]. We both agree. Because you're just more alive, and that's what I want. I want a partner who's alive. LAURA The thing that I've noticed you doing is pouring your energy into our kids especially. I think part of that is because I've stopped gatekeeping so I'm not trying to protect you from the stress of having kids. So they're just there, they're part of the family, and you're there, you're part of the family, so the dynamic is really different. Last night you spent a whole lot of time helping Sophia learn how to rollerblade in the living room. Our precious neighbor sent over a complete set of rollerblades and pads for Sophia, because apparently they have the same foot size [chuckles]. Sophia's super excited and she keeps insulting me, sort of inadvertently, about how I am so not nearly as good as Daddy. LESLIE [chuckles]. LAURA "Mommy, it's like you've never done this before! It's like you've never taught anyone to ever rollerblade." I'm like, "I haven't." She's like, "Daddy's so much better at this than you. I'm going to go ask Daddy if he can help me." Because you've stepped up into a much more interactive dynamic with the kids on a regular basis, on a day-to-day, all the nitty-gritty stuff, those big special milestone sorts of things are also yours, and your kids' hearts are yours in a way that maybe haven't been in the past year. LESLIE Yeah, that's very true. It was very, very unusual for Sophia to talk about me in that sort of way in any capacity, not just roller skates but any www.MarriageStartup.com Transcript by Siobhán at SED Transcripts (siobhan.sed@hotmail.com) ! capacity before. Same thing with Alana and Ethan too. They've just - they feel a lot more free to show up and "Hey, Daddy, can we play Minecraft in the office?" or "Can we go for a walk?" I can tell that they feel a freedom about it. I want to describe what my approach has been, because it's working so far. And again, it's based on the commitment - on the theory, really, that I wanted to test at the beginning of the year. That's to put my priorities in terms of what is most important versus a task list, or specific goals. So it's priority, goals, tasks, in terms of how I cascade how I approach things. When I first realized that I wasn't getting back in sync with stuff, I really tried to go all-in in how I was going. As I stepped back, I looked at it and I was like, "Man, I was actually doing a lot to keep myself healthy and growing personally and professionally." The 30-Day Miracle Challenge, I did that for 60 days, and that's ten things pretty involved every day. Not a lot of time but a lot of effort to do it, and there was a lot of reward on the other side of it. But what I noticed is that it suddenly felt very overwhelming to get that and the client work, and then I started getting down on myself. Then I asked myself "If I was my client, what would I do?" Well, the first thing I do with every client is say, "I just want you to commit to two things every day, as a starting point to build back up momentum. You're going to do more than two things every day, but there's two things because I want you to get easy wins and I want you to get in the habit of building back up your wins." So I started doing that on Monday. I was thinking, "All right. So what else would I tell my clients? Well, you want to start with your priorities." My priorities are God and myself, so the first thing I did is I made sure I was reading Scripture every day and praying in the mornings. I started Monday with just that commitment, and then I added in - past that, I added in, "Okay, I need to do something for myself because I know that I don’t recharge myself." For that part, the thing that I gave myself was just releasing the burden of trying to get back into everything at once. So the first day it was just "No, you don't have to do anything except recover. You can just sit between work and not feel pressure to do it. Just let yourself recover, let yourself sift through it." Then on Wednesday I was able to add exercise back into the mix. But actually before exercise, I added kids back into the mix. I was like, "I want to make sure I'm interacting with the kids every day," so I made sure I was taking Sophia to school when I needed to, I made sure I met her at the bus stop even if it meant saying no to a client call, which it did, that I was able to read The Hobbit to them in the evenings or help with roller skates or watch TV in the evenings with them. Then I added work back in, and catching up. I was still doing client work through all this, but in terms of judging myself or in terms of how I was trying to get back on track, work came after all those things, and yesterday I felt back at work. I'd been doing work prior but I felt like I'm doing good work again. Then this morning, we were able to have the interaction, I was able to take over, I was able to sit down and spend an hour on a proposal, I was able to prepare for my new ventures www.MarriageStartup.com Transcript by Siobhán at SED Transcripts (siobhan.sed@hotmail.com) ! meeting, I was able to watch my son, I had breakfast, I still had my quiet time, I got my affirmations in, I got my visualization in. So I've been able to now be up since 4:30 and had all this stuff done, and as I look back at it now I was like, "Wow! I didn't intend to be this way but because I did my" - and I think that I have the priority system to thank for that, to go in and just keep my priorities straight. So I'm feeling really good about how we're handling it right now. I'm suppressing a cough [laughter]. Oh, dear listeners, thank you for the cough. I'm not sure I can edit all those out. I'll try to get the worst ones out. All right, so - oh, you know what we forgot? We actually - say what the new schedule is. So this all goes back to how it affects the podcast, because actually the catalyst of this whole conversation was how does this affect the podcast. LAURA Right. LESLIE Historically speaking, starting from the beginning of the year, our best shows when we feel about it have been recorded Wednesday mornings, and so we're just going to keep Wednesday/Thursday mornings as time allows. Or actually Wednesday afternoons or Thursday mornings - LAURA Yeah, as soon as the babysitter comes on Wednesday afternoon. LESLIE We feel the most prepared, it helps to me halfway through the week so we have a perspective on the week, and we're also catching up with each other but it's also enough time to have evaluated how we're doing. So when we gave ourselves the grace to revisit the schedule, it became clear that the pressure was to record on Wednesday or Thursday and then publish right away. We don't want the crunch between recording and publishing, and so we just said, "Why don't we change when we publish?" What we're going to do is we're going to record on Wednesdays or Thursdays like we have been, but we're actually going to publish new shows on Monday evenings, so late Monday or early Tuesday is when you can expect new episodes. That's going to start this Monday. So this episode's coming up on Thursday as usual, and Episode 35 will be out Monday evening. We've got that one planned and written already, and we'll get it recorded. So on your end there's no skip in the programming, because that was really important to keep the consistency going. So that's the announcement. That's a 27, 28 minute way of saying we're moving to Monday evenings [laughter] and here's all the back story and reasons why, in the hopes that it will help you be gracious to yourself, and when life gets tough that you can be flexible. What we're learning right now is that the key to that flexibility is starting by priorities, not tasks, and then build up through easy wins, get the momentum going again, and just give yourself the time to rebuild and regain momentum. Because that way you don't stay stagnant - just take that one step and keep going. Anything else you want to add to that? LAURA No, that's it. It's all good. www.MarriageStartup.com Transcript by Siobhán at SED Transcripts (siobhan.sed@hotmail.com) ! LESLIE All right. That said, we're going to take a short break now with a few seconds of Lance's beautiful music, and we'll see you on the other side with what we're going to do for you this week. [Break music] All right, and we're back with what we're going to do for each other this week. This is the part of the where we're proactive in how we're just going to do something, I don’t know, helpful to the relationship, but mostly for the other person more than anything else. I feel like I fumbled over that - sorry, first-time listeners. You've got a twinkle in your eye! LAURA It's nothing [laughter]. Really. LESLIE Do you want to go first or do you want me to? LAURA Sure. We'll save the best for last. So this is super small and it seems really insignificant, but I think you're going to appreciate it because it's something you don't think of doing yourself, but you love it when it's done. I'm going to clean your glasses for you [laughter]. LESLIE Yes. Yes, I really do, and no, I rarely - I don't really think about it until they're, like, "Hey, am I getting cataracts?" Yes, that would be very, very welcomed and appreciated. What I'm actually going to do for you this week is that we haven't had a chance to make good on last week, because Monday we were supposed to go see Furious 7 but Ethan was sick, so he couldn't go to the sitter's. There is a showing at 12:15 that we can squeeze in right before we need to pick the kids up, and we have not had any date time this week. What we learned is that if we don't get our date time in before the weekend, it doesn't happen because there's no weekend dates. Since I've been working at 4:30 and I have all of my - I have one commitment. I have an appointment at 2:30'ish so I may literally have to run back to the theater and keep my 2:30 appointment, and then I have a document that I need to write for my business partners but I can handle that this evening because it's not due until Sunday, I just want to get it done today. So let's keep the priority thing going. Assuming that fits in your schedule with what you need to do, I would like to end the podcast, say our goodbyes, and go catch a movie with you. Play hooky [chuckles]. LAURA That sounds really good. There's always things on my to do list but you are my priority, and Vin Diesel is also pretty special too. LESLIE Yes. Yes, he is. No arguments from me. LAURA So yeah, let's go watch a movie. LESLIE All right. That sounds like a fantastic plan. That's going to do it for us this week. We hope you enjoyed the show. We would love to know how you stay flexible when life really hits you, what has worked to help you recover quickly? And not just quickly but also in a helpful, holistic way. If you have tips, suggestions, stories to tell us, we www.MarriageStartup.com Transcript by Siobhán at SED Transcripts (siobhan.sed@hotmail.com) ! would love to hear from you. You can email us directly at - oh my goodness, I'm so sorry, my voice is getting worse and worse. You can email us directly at hello@marriagestartup.com and anything you email us there will be private, unless you do explicitly tell us otherwise. Or you can post it on Facebook. We have an active little Facebook community that's growing. I'm surprised by how more important Facebook has become in my life versus Twitter ever since starting this podcast. I have a whole new view on Facebook. I still think they're draconian and evil but I love the people on it [laughter]. Anyway, Facebook rant aside, you can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/marriagestartup, and you can also find us on Twitter, which we've actually been posting to a little bit, at @marriagestartup. And if you love the show and you want to help spread the word, or you want to hold us to task for something in a more public, critical way, you are welcome and invited to do that by leaving us a review and rating at iTunes. That also helps spread the word on what we can do, and you can do that by going to marriagestartup.com/itunes. Laura's reminding me that we are starting to consider sponsorships and accept donations to keep the podcast going, since we are now looking at this as a non-profit that we want to just grow to really help people who are growing a business and taking their relationship just as seriously, even more seriously at the same time, to just keep you healthy. If this is your first time listening to the show, again we want to remind you that we use the term "marriage" because that is - culturally, it's the most accepted but what we really mean is your long term commitment to the person you wake up next to. If you call that marriage, that's awesome. If you don't call it marriage, that's awesome, so long as you keep that commitment. We want to hear from you, however that works for you. All right. You will hear from us early next week, late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, depending on your time zone. Thank you, guys, and as always, be kind to each other. [Outro music] www.MarriageStartup.com Transcript by Siobhán at SED Transcripts (siobhan.sed@hotmail.com) !