March 24, 2024 • 47 mins
It means being intentional about connection and collaboration.
Sammi and Nate share their framework for staying connected and the eight domains they work on together.
They share what they’ve learned from over 190 episodes of their Date Forever podcast and over 15 years of being together.
Also, they are a lovely couple!
Work with Sammi to create a fueled-up life: https://www.sammijaeger.com/
Have their goal-setting guide: https://www.sammijaeger.com/agp
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I usually don't interviewcouples on those podcasts, but
(00:02):
today I'm sharing an interviewwith a lovely couple.
Their names are Sammy and neat.
Now Sammy and Nate are naturalevery day, same old couple.
Well, of course all couples areunique in their own way, but
Sammy and Nate have a podcastcalled date forever.
They started the podcast tolearn how to have a connected
and passionate relationship.
(00:23):
Today they share what they havelearned from over 190 episodes
interviews with relationshipexperts and also over 15 years
of being in an intimaterelationship together.
One of my mentors, Stan tack,and said something like people
are naturally drawn to connectedcouples.
And during this interview, I wasdefinitely reminded of that.
(00:46):
The theme of this interview iscollaboration being on the same
team.
And also being intentional aboutconnection.
So check it out.
And I know you'll be able totake some tips from this and
apply them to your relationship.
Welcome everyone.
This is solving disconnectionand creating connected
relationships for a couples andparents.
(01:07):
My name is Jason Polk, and I'veworked this goofy with couples
as a therapist and coach forover 10 years on this podcast.
I share my experienceprofessionally and personally,
as well as those of our amazingguests.
So here's the interview.
Well, Sammy and Nathan, thankyou so much for joining me on my
(01:28):
podcast.
And I would love just to hear, Ifound you two because of your
podcast, but can you talk aboutyour podcast?
And first of all, I'm going togive a plug for it.
It's a really cool podcast andit seems like you have a really
big,, following a lot ofinfluence.
but can you talk a little bitabout it?
Yeah.
So our show is called dateforever.
(01:49):
We've had it now for about fouryears.
What this is all about is reallyabout dating your, your special
person forever, but also datingyourself.
It's been a little bit of a, amission of ours for the last few
years.
And how this really came aboutwas that, Around the time of our
fifth wedding anniversary,, wewere very loved up and we were
(02:11):
about to, basically renew ourvows, because we knew how much
our relationship had changedover the, the five years that
we'd been married.
And that seemed to be a verydifferent space to where a lot
of our friends and, peoplearound us were in, where there
was a lot of our friends thatwere going through, Some really
bad breakups and in some casesdivorce as well.
(02:34):
And so it really kind of got usthinking about like, well, where
do you learn relationship skillsto keep a good relationship in
a, in a great place?
Rather than a lot of the adviceand things like that, that are
out there to try and help,, arelationship that's in a bad
position, um, to get betteragain.
So how is it that people kind ofkeep a good relationship fueled
(02:58):
up, for the long term,especially if they hadn't been
shown a healthy, happy, thrivingblueprint at home in their
childhood?
Yeah, and I think that the, thetrouble as well with, even
having a healthy, happy,thriving relationship at home is
that you don't really see what'shappening behind the doors.
Um, like your parents might lookthriving on the surface, but
(03:21):
like, what are they actuallydoing to keep their own
relationship fueled up?
Like you might see them go ondates every now and then, but
it's really hard to, to actuallyknow a lot of the conversations
that they're even having behindclosed doors.
Yeah, no, I got it.
But I like that.
You know, where do you learnabout relationships?
And that's a really goodquestion.
And as you two know, I'm acouples therapist and a lot of
(03:42):
people really haven't learnedthat, you know, it's almost like
we piece together like differentthings that maybe we learned
from our friends or, you know,movies, um, things like that.
So obviously I think it's greatthat you two have that resource
and that's kind of the questionyou're exploring.
Um, Nathan, real quick, I had aquestion.
Can you speak about, datingyourself?
(04:03):
I mean, obviously it's cleardating your partner, but I know
you mentioned that.
Yeah.
So, so dating yourself, I thinkis one of the key things that
has really come out of thepodcast and, um, and exploring
relationships in that.
It's one thing to be able todate your partner and to, kind
of love up on them and learnabout them and.
Build deeper connections withyour, your special person.
(04:25):
But I think one of the keythings that keeps coming up
throughout a lot of theconversations we're having with
experts is that you really needto be doing that with yourself
as well.
Um, having that real deepunderstanding of what you love
and what you enjoy and actuallydoing those things as well.
Like it's one thing to, to knowthat you playing guitar or
something, but then actuallygoing and doing that and
(04:47):
spending that time withyourself.
And really embracing the thingsthat you love.
But also giving yourself the,like maybe the space or the time
to, to reflect and, and reallyspend that with yourself and
getting the most out of thislife, I guess.
and making sure that, yeah,you're really taking the
opportunity to, to embrace thislife.
Well, it's almost like a, like abalance.
(05:08):
I mean, and what I make up isthat you two, I assume, do a
good job of this, but as whatyou're saying, like a balance of
dating your partner and datingyourself yeah.
So in,, in 2017, When we renewedour vows, we'd been married for
five years, we'd seen a lot of,like, friends and people in our,
(05:29):
like, world go through thesereally awful breakups.
And yeah, like Nate said, insome cases, divorce.
And a lot of those people, youknow, we were at their wedding,
and it was not a shadow of adoubt that these two were, like,
Compatible and could build areally beautiful life together
and then somewhere along theway, it, it didn't work out how
(05:50):
they intended or how they firstset out.
but it was probably only liketwo years after that in about
2019, where I went through quitea large trajectory of growth
personally, professionally.
I crammed about 10 years worthof learning into about three
years.
I was in a professional capacitywhere I was being exposed to new
(06:11):
ideas, um, new education, likejust a whole other, way of, of
learning.
Growing and being and operatingin the world.
And, um, it sort of started tocreate this gap where I was
growing at such a rapid rate inmyself and I really liked who I
was becoming, but Nath wasn't,Nath was, um, not yet on that
(06:34):
personal, um, developmentjourney.
Um, and I think it reallyhighlighted how much work I was
doing on, on me and myrelationship with myself.
Which, ironically, then Irealized I, I had neglected a
whole part of myself and I'd endup, ended up wrapping my, a lot
of my personal identity and selfworth around this job and this,
(06:58):
profession.
Um, and I actually, I ended up,Resigning and quitting with no
plan, um, which is another bigpart of how we ended up starting
the podcast.
But it was kind of through thosecouple of,, big asteroid kind of
moments, in our life orobserving them in, in nearby
friends that the recognitionthat, Hey, my relationship.
(07:19):
with myself sets the tone forevery other relationship that I
have., and the way that I showup in my relationship with
myself is absolutely going toimpact my marriage.
So I think that's something thatNathan and I have been
cultivating very intentionally,basically since like 2019, like
onwards, we've got far moreintentional about our own
(07:41):
relationship with ourselves, ourown individual, growth and
personal development journeys,but also, the commitment to
growing together as well.
Yeah.
So cool.
And, maybe the part of this is alittle bit jealousy, but do you
feel that, uh, the podcast hashelped you to be closer
together?
Absolutely.
Yeah, we've, we've been runningthe show for like almost four
(08:04):
years now.
I think we're at like 180, 190episodes, something like that.
So yeah, we, we've spent atleast that many hours talking
with couples and experts aboutthe tips and tricks that we use.
That they found to keep herrelationship fueled up.
And we've got this reallybeautiful balance of talking
with, with experts, people whoknow the technical who have
(08:26):
studied, who are, you know,psychologists and specialists,
um, people like yourself, Jason,who like have gone deep on
learning things like attachmentstyles, and then share that with
the world.
But then we get to chat withcouples about like what
tactically works for them.
And sometimes those things are.
at the opposite end of thespectrum of what works for some
(08:47):
people and what doesn't work forothers.
So yeah,, it has,, kind of beenlike being in couple therapy
every, at least every week forthe last four years.
So yeah, the show has,,definitely brought us,, a lot of
growth, a lot of intimacy, a lotof opportunities to have
conversations and look at thingsfrom a different perspective.,
(09:08):
and yeah.
learn about some of, the tools,tips, and tricks that are
available.
And a lot of them are free, totake care of your relationship.
I've really enjoyed,, yeah,hearing the polar opposite,,
approaches to relationships.
Um, so an example of this isthat I think this was in
episodes of almost right next toeach other as well.
(09:30):
That one couple came on andsaid, our divorce is always on
the table.
Like, we choose each other andwe choose each other every
single day.
And.
If we're not choosing eachother, then we should be getting
divorce kind of thing.
Whereas like the other couplecame on and was like, no,
divorce is never on the table.
We're going to work throughwhatever, it's never an option,
(09:50):
every challenge that comesthrough, we're all in together.,
and I can absolutely see bothapproaches to this as well.
And What works for one couplemight not work for the other,
but it doesn't mean that it'swrong, it doesn't mean that it's
right even, yeah, as long as youand your partner are on the same
page about your approach to yourrelationship and what works for
(10:12):
you, that's the key thing there.
Great.
Well, I mean the question that Iwould have for you two.
Oh, yeah, by the way, I changedthe name of my podcast to
solving disconnection how tocreate more harmonious
relationships and harmonious andconnected relationships And so I
guess the question is yeah, sowhat do you two do?
I know that could be a hugequestion, right?
(10:33):
Yeah But what we do a lot, I, Ithink, um, we, like we have six
ingredients, I would say that,um, are like happy to share.
So, um, starting at a, an annuallevel, every year we take one or
(10:53):
two days, To together andintentionally plan our year.
We get away from our normalenvironment.
Um, we review the year that wasand set some goals, intentions,
plans, um, both individually andas a couple for the upcoming
year.
We check in on our values, howwell we're living them.
(11:13):
If they're still true for us.,if something has changed, we
talk about our, um, 10 year likevision plan.
Like, where are we going?
What do we want out of this biglife?
we check in on our lifetimegoals.
there's this beautiful exerciseby Keith Abraham, your 100
lifetime goals.
You can Google it.
It's on his website.
Um, so we check in on those 100lifetime goals and figure out
(11:35):
whether or not there's anythingthat we, we achieved in the last
year that was on that list oranything that we're, going to
prioritize achieving in the nextyear.
Um, we do a lot of reflection,like what were the wins?
What were the things that,,worked really well last year.
What were the hurdles?
What were the hurdles?
What were the curveballs?
How did we handle them?
Are we happy with how they, wehandled them?
(11:56):
And sometimes it's nice to dothis from the, a place of like
the dust has already settled.
Like it was maybe a couple ofmonths ago or sometimes even,
you know, almost 12 months ago.
Um, and that you can really seewhat the lessons were that we
learned.
So those two days are great.
kind of non negotiable.
We've done it probably for aboutMaybe seven years, seven years,
(12:20):
I think, maybe a little longerbecause, and that came out of,,
our place where we, we had movedinterstate,, away from, our,
friends and family and the firstyear that we were living, more
long distance from, those corenetworks, we'd ended up flying
like seven or eight times to goand be it.
In that location, and we'dreally struggled to establish
our new life.
(12:40):
And we realized like, Hey, weneed a, we need a better way of
doing this.
We need to get more intentional,more proactive and shift from,
reactive to proactive.
So yeah, that's one of the veryfirst things that we do to set
ourselves.
and our relationship up forsuccess and to thrive and gosh,
the plan does not always go toplan, like, and the goals, we do
not always achieve all of them,but, we get on the same page
(13:03):
about what's important to us.
and then at a, probably like aquarterly level.
So as at the change of theseason, um, so we generally do
that at like the end of Novemberis when we do our annual
planning.
So then three months later,we'll, we'll have a little like.
Probably two hour sort of checkin on that plan.
How are we going?
(13:25):
Have we dropped the ball onanything?
Have we made the progress thatwe wanted to make?
So like, for example, one of thethings that we want to do in
this next 12 months is takequite a sizable trip to Europe.
So there's, you know, we need abudget.
We need a plan.
We need to, book some things.
We need to do some research.
So we can't just wait until.
A couple of weeks out from thetrip to do that.
(13:46):
So we, we set some goals to,,sort of do phase one, in the
first,, sort of summer seasonof, of 2024.
So we check in quarterly onthose kinds of things.
and then at a monthly level, wejust do a quick, fuel tank check
in.
we live by this idea of living abeautiful fueled up life,, that
is across eight different fueltanks.
(14:06):
Um, so we check in on those.
Would you like me to share them?
Is that helpful?
Please! Yes, I dig it.
Yeah, cool.
So we kind of realized,, that weneeded a bit of, a better way to
make sure that we were takingcare of all areas of our life.
And this is something that kindof came out, um, of the, the
burnout that I had created formyself in 2019.
(14:26):
And I did a bit of a, a retro onwhat had worked and what had not
in the previous few years thathad got me to a place where I
was so depleted and so unhappy.
And, um, you know, Nate, the gapbetween Nathan and I was quite
big.
Um, so we went and looked atwhat are the different areas of
our life and how do we take careof them?
What does, thriving look like inthose areas?
(14:48):
So the first tank is, we'vealready talked about it, is,
self.
So my relationship with myselfsets the tone for every other
relationship that I have.
Tank number two, romanticrelationship.
Tank number three, relationshipsand network, tank number four,
humming household, tank numberfive, career and business, tank
number six, wealth andlifestyle, tank number seven,
(15:11):
the world, and tank numbereight, the future.
So every month we just do aquick little check in on how are
those tanks feeling?
Is there one that's maybe higheror lower than we want it to be?
Very rarely higher than we wantit to be.
Lower than we, lower than wewant it to be.
Is there a tank that's a realpriority that we need?
You know, that needs someattention like now.
(15:32):
Yeah, so we do that monthly andwe normally do it like over
coffee.
At a cafe or sometimes while wewalk our dog, and then, yeah, we
just have a bit of a,,relationship check in chat,
yeah, about what's working,what's not.
I think the key thing aboutthese tanks is that they don't
necessarily all need to be fullall at the same time.
Yeah., and so a lot of thatmonthly check in is like, maybe
(15:55):
our, how many household Is it a,is it a two, uh, two out of five
or something, but maybe that'snot the priority for this month.
Maybe the priority is career andbusiness, or maybe the priority
is that we've got a couple ofinterstate trips for weddings
and things like that.
So maybe our, focus area is ourrelationships and network for
(16:16):
this month.
So it gives us, that compass,,to guide us as to where we
should be focusing our energyfor the next month or for
portions of the month coming up.
It also helps us just like flagsome logistics stuff.
Like when we going on a date.
Are there any birthdays comingup?
Are either of us traveling forwork?
Have we got any concerts or gigsor events that are fixed
(16:38):
commitments in the calendar?
Things that you probably don'twant to sneak up on you on
Sunday night to be like, Oh,wow.
That's happening this week.
So that's kind of our, um,monthly.
Rhythm.
The next level down then is ourdating practice.
So, so what we do is a,, two bytwo by two dating practice.
So what this is, is that thefirst two represents that we go
(17:01):
on a date every two weeks.
The second two is that we, havea night away every two months.
And then the third two Well, inthe original version of this,,
that we saw was that you go on aholiday, like a bigger holiday
every two years.
but because travel and adventureand those sorts of things is,
really high on our values, weactually go away for two
(17:22):
holidays a year.
so that's the two by two by two.
so how this works, I inpracticality is that, the date
every two weeks is not like afixed printed, like.
every second Friday night kindof thing for us.
The way we do it is that, I'llorganize a date in the first
half of a month and then Sammywill organize a date in the
second half of a month.
(17:42):
And this works really well forus because it allows us to
either choose something that,like if I'm organizing a day, I
can either choose something thatI would really like to do and
bring Sammy along to, or I canchoose something as well that.
But I think that Sammy mightreally love to do, and have that
as, as a really enjoyableexperience.
And it really helps because, itmeans that we're not always,
(18:05):
like one of us is not alwaysplaying lead and the other one
just going along for the ride,but we're playing that key.
Kind of great lead and supportrole.
So we don't need to doeverything ourselves if we don't
want to, we normally try andkeep it a bit of a surprise or
like have a little teaser, butwe send each other calendar
invites for it.
And that will normally put alittle sort of teaser, like
(18:25):
tagline, I guess, for the date.
Yeah, it builds up a little bitof suspense and surprise,
leading up to the date.
So it's, yeah, it's really fun.
It really works well for us.
And it really encourages us thatthis is important, like our
quality time with each other isimportant.
And it does, it goes in thecalendar, um, like any other
appointment with a third partywould.
(18:46):
I mean, this rhythm works reallywell for us,, early on in our
relationship.
I was the,, instigator and theplanner and the scheduler.
I have a background in eventmanagement, so it comes pretty
naturally to me.
But I was kind of robbing myselfof the opportunity to, to be the
receiver., because I was solike, let's, let's plan it.
(19:07):
Let's schedule it.
Let's get it in the diary.
Like I, you know, we live busylives., and if we don't
prioritize it, it will just falloff the bottom of the list.
so this works really well forus, but yeah, like Nate said,
the original version of this,like we found it on like a
Reddit thread and we were like,Hey, we've been struggling to
find a rhythm that works for us.
Maybe we should try this on.,and we've been doing this for
(19:27):
years now.
and we've got a beautiful likejournal of all of Our dates, we
just take a photo, um, every dayand then we, we keep a log of
it.
So it's really quite nice tolook back on and be like, Oh
wow, look.
And then some months we have hadfar more than two dates.
especially if we've been onholidays, that sort of thing.
Yeah.
So I guess the, the second two,in that, um, In that two by two
(19:49):
by two, like being the nightsaway.
I think some people strugglewith that or struggle to
comprehend how we go away every,every two months and things like
that.
But six times a year.
Yeah, it is only six times ayear.
And what we normally do is tryand tack that onto.
a trip that we're alreadytaking.
So if we are travelinginterstate for a wedding or
something like that, we'llnormally just try and take.
(20:11):
Or like the last, last week Ihad to be in another state on a
Monday for a work commitment.
So rather than me just travelingup and back on the day, we went
on the Friday and Nate came withme and we got to make a bit of a
weekend of it.
Um, but I also respect thatwe're coming from the place
where we don't have children.
So some of the logistics hereare probably a little, a little
(20:32):
lazier for us.
But I guess we just look forthose opportunities to be able
to, take those nights awaywithout it being.
a big standalone thing, thatmight be disruptive to, to our
normal schedule.
So then ingredient number five.
Oh, sorry, Jason.
Yeah.
No, I was going to say, yeah.
Cause I know there's a, yeah,there's a two more, right?
(20:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So number five, let's hear it.
So ingredient number five is ourweekly happy hour.
So this is normally a shortlittle chat that we have, uh, we
often go out for coffee orsomething, and have this
conversation.
And this actually came from apodcast guest.
You're talking about how, um,the podcast has influenced our
relationship.
This came from, um, uh, Harryand Tristan, which was like, In
(21:16):
our first, in the first half ofour first year, I think, Harry,
I think it was a Harry, Tristan,one of them shared, this
practice that they have with,their partner where they, um,
and they had been sort ofprescribed it, uh, by their
relationship counselor, but, um,you know, it was a, an agenda of
questions that really sets themup for the week.
So it starts with, yeah., it'sjust a handful of questions, but
(21:38):
like, starting with like,, whatwould you like to be appreciated
for or actually givingappreciation for the other
person?, we talk about thecalendar, like what's going on
for the next week or two,, food.
How are we keeping our pantry,fridge stocked?
Who's cooking?
Um, what are we cooking?
What night?
So we normally just make alittle rough menu menu for the
(22:00):
week.
and we figure out like, okay,who's going to cook on what
nights if there's, if we've eachgot commitments, we take a look
at money.
So we open up our banking appand just look at like, did we
spend what we thought we would?
Are we on budget?
Are we off budget?
We've got any bigger expensescoming up.
Is there any curve balls,anything like that?
Yeah.
I work for myself, so my incomeis Is variable.
(22:22):
So sometimes we need to massagethings a little bit to make sure
our cash flow still works well.
we talk about sex, what, whatare you liking?
What are you not liking?
How are you feeling about yourbody?
Anything you want to try?
and it sounds like prettyclinical, but sometimes it might
be like, when's our opportunity?
What's this week looking like?
Yeah.
Especially if we're traveling orsomething as well.
(22:44):
So yeah it's definitelysomething that we, we factor in.
And then we just have a generalcheck in, like, how was your
week?
Did you feel connected to me?
and probably one of the mostimportant questions that was
really uncomfortable at thebeginning, but now we've got a
really good practice and rhythmaround it is like, is there
anything you would like me toapologize for?
Um, is there something I've doneor not done this week that
(23:07):
really upset you?
And yeah.
For whatever reason, we haven'thad a chance to, clear the air
or perhaps even, maybe it feltlike a small thing in the
moment, but here I am like fouror five days later still
ruminating on it.
Yeah, it creates a really nicecontainer for us to like, we
kind of now refer to it as likelet air out of the balloon,, so
that it never pops.
(23:27):
So it's one of those thingswhere, if you've done something
once, like, it's very easy tochange that habit as well,
whereas if you've done somethingmultiple times, like, and you've
created a habit about it Andyou've never received any
feedback.
Yeah.
It's one of those things that itbecomes harder for yourself to
then To then change that habit,but it also has probably
(23:49):
irritated and frustrated yourpartner for a long period of
time, which has then built upthat resentment as well.
So, so yeah, it is that reallygood opportunity as you said,
let the air out of the balloonand yeah, just air that and nip
it in the bud very early.
Yeah, and then we have a bit ofa chat about household
management, so probably twoyears ago now, we implemented
(24:10):
Eve Brodsky's, um, fair play,system.
I think is probably the rightword.
she was a project manager, inher career.
And she had her and her husbandor partner, um, had a child and
then was like, Whoa, there is somuch going on to manage this
household and this new littlebaby.
(24:32):
Why is this so hard?
So she went about making all ofthe invisible tasks of running a
household really visible.
So she wrote a book, the book'sfantastic.
and also, an accompanying deckof cards.
so there's about a hundred inthe deck.
Um, not all cards will apply toall households.
Like for us, we don't have kids.
So most of the cards that relateto children,, don't relate to
(24:55):
us.
so then we, divide and conquerthose cards.
So we take a look at them, um,each week, like, and we swap
like both of us don't like doinglaundry and neither of us are
particularly good at it.
So that's one of the householdtasks that we really don't want
to sit with.
One person for too long.
so we tend to swap that one backand forth and same, like taking
(25:16):
out the garbage and things likethat.
We, we mix it up on who'saccountable for that, but it
really helps us like staytransparent on.
You know, what's, what's my roleas your housemate?
Not just as your partner, but welive together.
Like, how do we keep this housemoving together?
and that's really quick.
sometimes it shakes out a coupleof to do's and you go, oh yeah,
I do need to go and return thatpackage, or I do need to, um, go
(25:39):
and pick up that thing from drycleaning, or I do need to book
in that social thing with thosefriends.
We say, who said, We were goingto go do that, um, thing with
like, or I do need to buy thosetickets or whatever the task
might be.
Sometimes it shakes out, to dois Nath is king of maintenance.
So normally it's my, I'venormally, I've got a request for
like, Hey, can you fix thisthing that I broke during the
week?
(25:59):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially cause you're workingfrom home full time.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, so that's our, that'skind of the guts of our weekly
happy hour.
so that's number five, and theningredient number six, is daily,
and we have a very embeddedattitude of gratitude.
(26:19):
Um, so we have a, uh, eveninggratitude practice, whereas
we're going to bed, it's notcomplicated.
We just do it.
Ask the question, what are yougrateful for today?
and we've been doing this for along time now.
I read, Sean Aker's book, TheHappiness Advantage, and it blew
my mind., just the idea that,success is Comes after
(26:41):
happiness, not the other wayaround.
Um, yeah, so we want to set, aculture of appreciating,
actively appreciating what wehave and each other.
and it's also a really greatlike temperature gauge on how
things are with us and howthings are with us individually,
because sometimes a gratitudewill go away.
(27:03):
Will flow like thick and fast,like, Oh my gosh, I'm so
grateful for the bed that I'vejust climbed into and that we
have, uh, an air fan in ourbedroom or that, we live, as
close to the beach as we do, orthat I had beautiful nourishing
food to eat today, or, Hey, howcool is it that I get to use
zoom and I, you know, I can workfrom home.
Like sometimes it's really,really easy to throw, Flow into
(27:26):
gratitude, and more often thannot, one of the things that we
express gratitude for issomething, about.
The other person, but some daysit is challenging as well.
Some days he just, I'm justlying there and it's like, Oh,
what am I grateful for today?
Like this felt hard.
This didn't work for me today.
(27:48):
What's going on?
But I guess it is then it is allabout training your brain to
look for the positives, out ofany situation or look for the
things that you may haveoverlooked or that you just take
for granted kind of thing.
So it does really, help to kindof switch your thinking and to
(28:08):
really look for what were thepositives, My day didn't go to
plan, or it felt very clunky, oryeah, things just weren't
working for me today.
The, um, yeah, the data and theresearch around the power of a
gratitude practice, that itliterally rewires your, your
brain, your reticular activatingsystem becomes wired to look for
(28:31):
things that you are gratefulfor, things that you appreciate.
And I believe that what youappreciate appreciates, you get
more of it.
Well,, being a couples therapistand working with couples in
distress.
Hearing the practice you to dois very refreshing.
But I want to highlight, youknow, and I've been coached
(28:51):
couples on this basic fact alot, and that is you to need
more collaboration.
Don't forget that you're a team.
Often people come into mypractice, they're just like
roommates, co parents, andthey're not operating as a team.
And if you slow down andremember you're on the same team
(29:12):
that is so important.
You know, I like the kind ofintersection you two have done,
date your partner, dateyourself, which I, think date
yourself also means your ownpersonal growth and you're doing
your own stuff and your owngratitude practice.
But I had a question when youtwo were sharing this, And maybe
you can't parse it out, but howmuch does your, do you two feel
(29:32):
your relationship affects yourhappiness, your personal
happiness.
And maybe you, maybe there's noway to like, yeah, you know,
it's not a math problem, butjust curious.
I, I'm of the belief and it'sprobably why it's tank number
two.
When I went through that list ofeight, you know, starting with,
with me, I got to show up and beaccountable for my energy and
(29:53):
what I bring to this space.
But over the course of ourrelationship, we got together in
Seven?
Yeah.
Um, and then married in 2012,but when I look over our like 15
plus, year long relationship,the times when our relationship
has been in hardship or in,turbulence or in There's
(30:19):
probably only really been one,one sort of chapter of what felt
like distress.
But I was not my best in anyother area of my life.
I couldn't show up as a goodemployee.
I couldn't show up as a goodbusiness owner.
I couldn't show up as, a goodfriend, a good daughter.
I couldn't show up for my own,my own goals.
(30:40):
Like it's like.
being sick.
Like when you're sick, youreally can't do anything outside
of yourself.
You just have to be sick., andthat's kind of how I think about
taking care of our relationship.
Some people will hear those sixthings that we do and be like,
well, that's a lot.
That's over.
structured, that's overregulated, that's over processed
(31:01):
or whatever, over cooked.
But for me, like, I know thatwhen I show up and take care of,
my relationship, my life justgets better.
and the research shows that aswell, like Harvard's longest
study.
tells us that it's not themoney.
It's not the career.
It's not the things.
It's not the fame.
It is the quality of yourrelationship that impacts the
(31:23):
quality of your life andliterally the quality of your
health as you age.
so for me, all of those thingsare investments.
And I, I adore this man.
I, I love him wholeheartedly andI want us to have a really long,
healthy, happy, thriving lifetogether.
Um, and what is more importantthan that?
(31:45):
It's my life.
Yeah.
Awesome.
I think, I think one of the keythings, that we've really kind
of solidified throughout thisjourney of having the podcast is
that the two of us and ourrelationship, really is the
foundation for our life andhaving the stability and
certainty within ourrelationship.
allows us to navigate a lot morevariety or uncertainty in other
(32:09):
areas of our life.
As an example, um, Sammy wastalking about her,, career
decision back in 2019 when shewas feeling burnt out and that
she decided to, Just leave herjob without a clear plan,, for
the future.
And I think it was, thestability and certainty within
our relationship that allowedher to do that,, that we had the
(32:32):
trust between ourselves that wewere solid.
We knew we would navigatethrough this, we were in it
together, and therefore we coulddeal with that uncertainty and
deal with it as a problem.
But the two of us against theproblem.
So I think that's been a key,key kind of driver in our
relationship and has helped usfrom a happiness standpoint as
(32:54):
well that, yeah, that we, weknow that we're in this
together, we can navigate toughthings together, and having the
underlying kind of level ofstability, but also happiness in
our relationships allows thatlevel of uncertainty in other
areas.
Yeah, that's great.
And, you know, one of mymentors, Stan Tacken, talks
about a relationship.
(33:15):
It's helped with survival,right?
And his kind of thing is like,life is hard.
and you two are in it together.
He has an analogy of the foxholetogether.
And he talks about,, you want totake care of that, right?
Because you're exactly what youtwo are talking about.
You're going to be better inyour other roles, whether that's
career, you know, daughter,parent, whatever that is.
(33:36):
And another term we say, it'sTaking care of the relationship
is in my own self interest.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's kind of taking care ofyourself in a way, we learned
this, like, I don't know, thisis maybe not the, the one thing
that, um, insight from StanTatkin, but I think it was him
that I learned that, Youshouldn't have conversations
(33:58):
with your person while they'rein your peripheral vision
because of our, the way thatour, reptilian brain is still
wired to think that anythingthat's outside in that wide, um,
spectrum.
So we, I, we adapted and waslike, okay, we don't have those
kinds of big conversations whilewe're like driving in the car
because we're both sitting ineach other's car.
periphery.
It's not safe.
(34:19):
It's not a safe, um, space.
Was that Stan Tuckin's teaching?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He did a, I think it's part ofhis Ted talk, but yeah, not
important conversations, likethat way.
Cause he was like, glances, youknow, it can be threatening and
that's interesting.
but also I think, the importanceof.
Facing each other like histheory is that we're kind of
like visual animals I think hewould say and if we're having a
(34:43):
conversation face to face eye toeye, you know, eye contact is
intimacy It's another way toconnect and sometimes it can be
challenging, right?
But he also says that face toface eye to eye.
He calls it error.
Correct like e r r o r, correct?
You know, if we're facing ourpartner and maybe we say
something, we can connect thaterror in real time.
(35:04):
Right.
Unlike a text, you text someonelike, Hey, what's up?
It's like, Hey, why are you madat me?
I'm not mad at you.
Right.
Like we don't know, we don'thave enough information via
text.
Maybe not the best analogy, butnot enough data points.
Yeah, he doesn't have data, andso that's what he recommends,
the face to face, eye to eye,but yeah, right on, like, Stan,
I've definitely heard him saythat.
(35:25):
Mmm, but just curious,, and Iknow we're coming up on time, I
feel like,, you two have, somuch cool stuff to share, but
what about conflict, you know?
I look at, collaboration,harmony as a way to mitigate
conflict, right.
As a way to work on, beproactive against resentment and
disconnection.
But, um, I don't know, do youguys have like a means to
(35:48):
handle.
It's funny that you ask thisbecause on Valentine's Day, a
couple days ago, we were havingchats about like the beginning
of our relationship and thethings that we really needed to
learn.
And Nathan and I fought so muchin that first year.
Like, I think that was probably,like, one of the most turbulent
(36:08):
years of our relationship wasthe first one.
We were, like, trying to figurestuff out, and we were already
in love, and we were already socommitted, and it was like, how
are we going to make this work?
Because it's like, all thisstuff.
But then probably after thatyear, we probably entered a
chapter of, like, almost, like,artificial harmony,, where we
never fought.
We proudly wear that badge oflike, we don't fight, we never
(36:30):
fight.
and I think in retrospect, thatwas probably both of us so
afraid that if we raisedconcerns or provided feedback
that we would rock the perfectship and maybe we wouldn't
handle it.
so we've definitely had to learnhow to do conflict.
(36:50):
And I think, in the beginning Iwas probably.
Too harsh, too abrupt, toodirect with some feedback for
Nath, and then Nath would takethat, personally, not as a
invitation to,, improve, or togrow, Yeah, so there's
(37:11):
definitely been, like, learningsaround when we're raising
things, opportunities with eachother, it's not a question of
your self worth, it's like, Ilove you and I love us, and then
our relationship could be evenbetter if, you Like ABC, but I
think a lot of it has been abouttaking like learning to take
ownership and accountability andresponsibility for like our part
(37:33):
in whatever the conflict is, butwe are far better at it now
than, we have been, and I thinkwe will continue to get better
at it.
I think One of the gifts ofhaving been together through,,
quite a few chapters of life,like, you know, early 20s,,
finishing uni, finishing ourstudies, getting our first kind
of, like, grown up jobs, andthen, you know, more mature
(37:57):
adulthood, I guess, and, youknow, buying assets and talking
about long term wealth and allof that sort of stuff.
Like we, we've had the, gift ofgrowing through those stages
together., and those differentstages have required, you know,
Different versions of us and theway that we show up for like to
do that conflict.
But I think now when we haveconflict, it doesn't leak into
(38:21):
other areas of our life.
Like it doesn't, the clouddoesn't hang around.
we kind of have theconversation.
Take any time or space that weneed, come back, and we're now
really good at doing theretrospect on that conversation,
like, how do you feel we handledthat?
Like, what did you learn aboutthat?
(38:42):
And we can now do that reallyeffectively without getting back
into the conflict.
We really can just look at itfrom a helicopter without Wow.
reentering the tension.
Yeah.
And I think the little practicethat we talked about before as
well of our weekly check ins, tokind of let the air out of the
balloon on those little thingsthat, that may have, yeah,
(39:04):
rubbed me the wrong way, so Ithink that in itself, is helping
to.
Prevent some of the biggerconflicts, but it's also
strengthened our muscle aroundleaning into some of those less
comfortable conversations.
it was a pretty uncomfortablepractice when we first started,
but it's become a lot, loteasier to raise that., and I
(39:24):
think the key thing aboutconflict is it's very
challenging to resolve an issuewhen you're in the heat of the
moment.
Sometimes you do need to stepaway.
And I think that's what ourweekly check in chat has really
given us the opportunity to dothat.
We're not in the heat of themoment.
We can raise something in a safespace where we know that we're
(39:45):
present with each other.
We've got each other's attentionwhere we're in the place where
we're willing to give andreceive feedback.
I think trying to set up that,that safe space to raise any
issues or conflicts, has been agame changer for us too.
Yeah.
And I think just kind of knowingyou'll have the space because I,
(40:07):
my take, it's like, and what youtwo were talking about, I don't
want to rock the boat and it'ssometimes a dilemma.
And I think for us some of uskind of like avoidant type,
right?
It's like, do I want to bringthis up now?
Do I want to rock the bow?
Is this legitimate?
I don't want to stuff things.
Right.
But just having that check inset, I think can be really
(40:28):
important.
I think for both partners, youknow, right now I want to tell
you how bad you suck, but I'mgoing to get a little
perspective, slow down, take adeep breath, and then we'll talk
about it in our check inmeeting.
And that's great.
I really like to coach coupleson having that.
Yeah.
And there's nothing worse than,like we were talking about
before, like sitting in the car,driving to a friend's place or
something and, and having aconflict when you're, when
(40:52):
you're sitting next to eachother, not eye to eye and things
like that.
And you're getting all heated upand, you get to the other end
and you sit in the car and go,we're going to go in now.
And, you know, Uh, and then yougo inside and you're playing all
happy families and yet you giveeach other daggers across the
room, like, nobody wants to bedoing that.
So if, there is the opportunity,it robs you, it robs you of the,
(41:13):
where you are and the, yeah.
Yeah.
So if there is the opportunityto be able to maybe just park
the conflict, knowing thatyou've got the safe space in a
day or two to be able to bringit up, and maybe you're no
longer in the heat of the momentand you can, reflect on your
part in that conflict as well,or whether there's anything you
could do better.
(41:33):
we've definitely learned sometricks around dealing with
conflict along the way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think one of my biggest,,insights about, like, fighting
with you, Nath, is, like, youprocess things a lot slower than
I do, like, I, I'm, like, move,move quite quickly.
Into solution space.
(41:54):
Yeah, whereas, like, and I'velearned that that's not helpful,
and recognizing that if we are,leaving each other in the middle
of a conflict or an argument,like setting up the parameters
of I need to take a walk or Ineed to step away or whatever.
And that like giving.
One another permission for thatto be okay and not have that
(42:18):
trigger like any kind ofabandonment of like, oh, my God,
they're leaving and justrecognizing that we do do
conflict differently.
And we do have different needsin that conflict.
Like, I think, nate's primarylove language is touch, so like,
if he feels me like, physically,put space between us, that's
actually,, quite hurtful andquite harmful, more so than
(42:40):
maybe it would affect some otherpeople, but even just those
little things about like, okay,I, I don't want to touch you
right now.
I'm in a,, fight or flight orflood stage.
the last thing I feel like, butthat I've learned just how
that's not helping me or us, toreally resolve it.
and I think one of our corelearnings, like particularly
(43:02):
that we've, we've talked aboutthis on date forever podcast
quite a bit is that theGottman's, For horsemen of the
apocalypse, like criticism,contempt, defensiveness and
stonewalling and recognizinglike, which one is our, our go
to, which one was our parents goto, like, how has that been
modeled to us?
What would we like to dodifferently?, And it's not like
(43:24):
you're trying to rewire yourbrain to have different patterns
and neural pathways.
It's not necessarily easy andit's not going to happen,, with
like one attempt.
But yeah, I think having theawareness of, of what is
happening,, is really, reallyhelpful.
You to have an understanding Andempathy for each other, right?
(43:46):
and I think that's importantlike understanding how you two
are wired so we don't takethings personally, right?
But I also want to pause Do youtwo like coach couples?
Like do you I mean, I know likeyour podcast does but do you
like?
coaching or things like that,how can, if someone wants to get
(44:06):
your advice, your relationshipadvice, like follow the podcast
or, you know, what's, yeah.
so I do some one on one coachingand you can get access to, to
me., Sammy Jaeger.
com, is my home on the internet.
And you'll find, one on onecoaching services listed there.
I like to,, have conversationswith people about creating a
(44:26):
really beautiful, intentionalfueled up life around those
eight fuel tanks with yourromantic relationship being one
of them.
I'll definitely put a link inthe show notes for that and a
link to your podcast as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jason, thank you so much forhaving us.
It's been such a cool chat.
It's sometimes nice to reflecton our own relationship and what
we're doing.
(44:47):
yeah, we normally, we are,asking the questions, so it's
nice to be on the receiving end.
Yeah.
Well, great.
Well, you two are lovely, youknow, like, I'm not trying to
sound weird, but you two are alovely couple.
Um, keep it up.
Thank you.
We got the stamp of approvalfrom a relationship therapist.
That's good.
Like I sit in this chair all dayand I see some, uh, People not
(45:08):
doing so hot.
Um, and they're in pain.
Dysfunction, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But also just want to highlightthe opposite of it too.
That's why I asked, you know,relationship and happiness too.
If you work on that, it's justdividends, right?
Like you feel better in a waylike you're, you're happier.
Yeah, so much so.
And if you do have children,isn't that one of the best gifts
(45:31):
that you can give your childrenis to model to them a healthy,
happy relationship.
And that won't happen if it's atthe bottom of the list.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, um, quick question.
I mentioned this, you know,being passive aggressive.
That's, you know, my old style,right?
Would you ever throw out, um,Hey, you know, maybe you should
listen to episode number 41because you're doing that thing.
(45:54):
Do you ever use that with eachother?
Uh, maybe not too much with eachother, but, uh, sometimes we'll
be walking around like in thestreet and observe other people
in our environment.
And we'll be like, Oh, they needto listen to this episode.
No, but we do maybe, maybe not,um, specifics to like, go back
(46:15):
and listen to this one, but wedo.
reference things that we'velearned a lot.
Like Adam Lane Smith taught usabout vasopressin.
And what happens when youproblem solve together as a
couple.
And it really helped us realizelike, Oh, wow.
When we were traveling so muchin our early twenties, we were
(46:37):
creating this beautiful newshared experience, but we were
also building.
this incredible problem solvingskills and trust and
vasopressin.
And I had, I never heard aboutthat.
So now we sometimes when we'retackling something hard, it's
like, okay, vasopressin buildingopportunity.
And nice, right.
(46:58):
So again, it's approaching itfrom a collaborative standpoint.
And I think really important.
Sammy and Nathan, this isawesome.
Thank you so much for taking thetime, especially from Sydney and
enjoy the rest of your summer.
Um, and again, thank you somuch.
I really appreciate this.
You're so welcome.
No worries.
Thank you, Jason.
Um, Jason, if I can just shareone other resource that couples
(47:19):
might find helpful is, wedocumented our agenda for our
annual game plan.
So if a couple wants to go andhave that sort of one or two day
deep dive into their goalsetting and things, feel free to
grab it.
It's totally free.
Um, so it's at sammyjager.
com forward slash AGP., it'sjust like a guide.
It's got some questions inthere.
It's got some agenda,, topicpoints., And it'll help you,
(47:42):
yeah, set up, um, for asuccessful conversation.
So cool.
I am so glad you heard thatinterview with the lovely couple
Sammy and Nathan.
And if this podcast has beenhelpful for you, please give us
a review And Sherif with someonewho may benefit.
Thank you so much for listening.
I usually don't interviewcouples on those podcasts, but
(00:02):
today I'm sharing an interviewwith a lovely couple.
Their names are Sammy and neat.
Now Sammy and Nate are naturalevery day, same old couple.
Well, of course all couples areunique in their own way, but
Sammy and Nate have a podcastcalled date forever.
They started the podcast tolearn how to have a connected
and passionate relationship.
(00:23):
Today they share what they havelearned from over 190 episodes
interviews with relationshipexperts and also over 15 years
of being in an intimaterelationship together.
One of my mentors, Stan tack,and said something like people
are naturally drawn to connectedcouples.
And during this interview, I wasdefinitely reminded of that.
(00:46):
The theme of this interview iscollaboration being on the same
team.
And also being intentional aboutconnection.
So check it out.
And I know you'll be able totake some tips from this and
apply them to your relationship.
Welcome everyone.
This is solving disconnectionand creating connected
relationships for a couples andparents.
(01:07):
My name is Jason Polk, and I'veworked this goofy with couples
as a therapist and coach forover 10 years on this podcast.
I share my experienceprofessionally and personally,
as well as those of our amazingguests.
So here's the interview.
Well, Sammy and Nathan, thankyou so much for joining me on my
(01:28):
podcast.
And I would love just to hear, Ifound you two because of your
podcast, but can you talk aboutyour podcast?
And first of all, I'm going togive a plug for it.
It's a really cool podcast andit seems like you have a really
big,, following a lot ofinfluence.
but can you talk a little bitabout it?
Yeah.
So our show is called dateforever.
(01:49):
We've had it now for about fouryears.
What this is all about is reallyabout dating your, your special
person forever, but also datingyourself.
It's been a little bit of a, amission of ours for the last few
years.
And how this really came aboutwas that, Around the time of our
fifth wedding anniversary,, wewere very loved up and we were
(02:11):
about to, basically renew ourvows, because we knew how much
our relationship had changedover the, the five years that
we'd been married.
And that seemed to be a verydifferent space to where a lot
of our friends and, peoplearound us were in, where there
was a lot of our friends thatwere going through, Some really
bad breakups and in some casesdivorce as well.
(02:34):
And so it really kind of got usthinking about like, well, where
do you learn relationship skillsto keep a good relationship in
a, in a great place?
Rather than a lot of the adviceand things like that, that are
out there to try and help,, arelationship that's in a bad
position, um, to get betteragain.
So how is it that people kind ofkeep a good relationship fueled
(02:58):
up, for the long term,especially if they hadn't been
shown a healthy, happy, thrivingblueprint at home in their
childhood?
Yeah, and I think that the, thetrouble as well with, even
having a healthy, happy,thriving relationship at home is
that you don't really see what'shappening behind the doors.
Um, like your parents might lookthriving on the surface, but
(03:21):
like, what are they actuallydoing to keep their own
relationship fueled up?
Like you might see them go ondates every now and then, but
it's really hard to, to actuallyknow a lot of the conversations
that they're even having behindclosed doors.
Yeah, no, I got it.
But I like that.
You know, where do you learnabout relationships?
And that's a really goodquestion.
And as you two know, I'm acouples therapist and a lot of
(03:42):
people really haven't learnedthat, you know, it's almost like
we piece together like differentthings that maybe we learned
from our friends or, you know,movies, um, things like that.
So obviously I think it's greatthat you two have that resource
and that's kind of the questionyou're exploring.
Um, Nathan, real quick, I had aquestion.
Can you speak about, datingyourself?
(04:03):
I mean, obviously it's cleardating your partner, but I know
you mentioned that.
Yeah.
So, so dating yourself, I thinkis one of the key things that
has really come out of thepodcast and, um, and exploring
relationships in that.
It's one thing to be able todate your partner and to, kind
of love up on them and learnabout them and.
Build deeper connections withyour, your special person.
(04:25):
But I think one of the keythings that keeps coming up
throughout a lot of theconversations we're having with
experts is that you really needto be doing that with yourself
as well.
Um, having that real deepunderstanding of what you love
and what you enjoy and actuallydoing those things as well.
Like it's one thing to, to knowthat you playing guitar or
something, but then actuallygoing and doing that and
(04:47):
spending that time withyourself.
And really embracing the thingsthat you love.
But also giving yourself the,like maybe the space or the time
to, to reflect and, and reallyspend that with yourself and
getting the most out of thislife, I guess.
and making sure that, yeah,you're really taking the
opportunity to, to embrace thislife.
Well, it's almost like a, like abalance.
(05:08):
I mean, and what I make up isthat you two, I assume, do a
good job of this, but as whatyou're saying, like a balance of
dating your partner and datingyourself yeah.
So in,, in 2017, When we renewedour vows, we'd been married for
five years, we'd seen a lot of,like, friends and people in our,
(05:29):
like, world go through thesereally awful breakups.
And yeah, like Nate said, insome cases, divorce.
And a lot of those people, youknow, we were at their wedding,
and it was not a shadow of adoubt that these two were, like,
Compatible and could build areally beautiful life together
and then somewhere along theway, it, it didn't work out how
(05:50):
they intended or how they firstset out.
but it was probably only liketwo years after that in about
2019, where I went through quitea large trajectory of growth
personally, professionally.
I crammed about 10 years worthof learning into about three
years.
I was in a professional capacitywhere I was being exposed to new
(06:11):
ideas, um, new education, likejust a whole other, way of, of
learning.
Growing and being and operatingin the world.
And, um, it sort of started tocreate this gap where I was
growing at such a rapid rate inmyself and I really liked who I
was becoming, but Nath wasn't,Nath was, um, not yet on that
(06:34):
personal, um, developmentjourney.
Um, and I think it reallyhighlighted how much work I was
doing on, on me and myrelationship with myself.
Which, ironically, then Irealized I, I had neglected a
whole part of myself and I'd endup, ended up wrapping my, a lot
of my personal identity and selfworth around this job and this,
(06:58):
profession.
Um, and I actually, I ended up,Resigning and quitting with no
plan, um, which is another bigpart of how we ended up starting
the podcast.
But it was kind of through thosecouple of,, big asteroid kind of
moments, in our life orobserving them in, in nearby
friends that the recognitionthat, Hey, my relationship.
(07:19):
with myself sets the tone forevery other relationship that I
have., and the way that I showup in my relationship with
myself is absolutely going toimpact my marriage.
So I think that's something thatNathan and I have been
cultivating very intentionally,basically since like 2019, like
onwards, we've got far moreintentional about our own
(07:41):
relationship with ourselves, ourown individual, growth and
personal development journeys,but also, the commitment to
growing together as well.
Yeah.
So cool.
And, maybe the part of this is alittle bit jealousy, but do you
feel that, uh, the podcast hashelped you to be closer
together?
Absolutely.
Yeah, we've, we've been runningthe show for like almost four
(08:04):
years now.
I think we're at like 180, 190episodes, something like that.
So yeah, we, we've spent atleast that many hours talking
with couples and experts aboutthe tips and tricks that we use.
That they found to keep herrelationship fueled up.
And we've got this reallybeautiful balance of talking
with, with experts, people whoknow the technical who have
(08:26):
studied, who are, you know,psychologists and specialists,
um, people like yourself, Jason,who like have gone deep on
learning things like attachmentstyles, and then share that with
the world.
But then we get to chat withcouples about like what
tactically works for them.
And sometimes those things are.
at the opposite end of thespectrum of what works for some
(08:47):
people and what doesn't work forothers.
So yeah,, it has,, kind of beenlike being in couple therapy
every, at least every week forthe last four years.
So yeah, the show has,,definitely brought us,, a lot of
growth, a lot of intimacy, a lotof opportunities to have
conversations and look at thingsfrom a different perspective.,
(09:08):
and yeah.
learn about some of, the tools,tips, and tricks that are
available.
And a lot of them are free, totake care of your relationship.
I've really enjoyed,, yeah,hearing the polar opposite,,
approaches to relationships.
Um, so an example of this isthat I think this was in
episodes of almost right next toeach other as well.
(09:30):
That one couple came on andsaid, our divorce is always on
the table.
Like, we choose each other andwe choose each other every
single day.
And.
If we're not choosing eachother, then we should be getting
divorce kind of thing.
Whereas like the other couplecame on and was like, no,
divorce is never on the table.
We're going to work throughwhatever, it's never an option,
(09:50):
every challenge that comesthrough, we're all in together.,
and I can absolutely see bothapproaches to this as well.
And What works for one couplemight not work for the other,
but it doesn't mean that it'swrong, it doesn't mean that it's
right even, yeah, as long as youand your partner are on the same
page about your approach to yourrelationship and what works for
(10:12):
you, that's the key thing there.
Great.
Well, I mean the question that Iwould have for you two.
Oh, yeah, by the way, I changedthe name of my podcast to
solving disconnection how tocreate more harmonious
relationships and harmonious andconnected relationships And so I
guess the question is yeah, sowhat do you two do?
I know that could be a hugequestion, right?
(10:33):
Yeah But what we do a lot, I, Ithink, um, we, like we have six
ingredients, I would say that,um, are like happy to share.
So, um, starting at a, an annuallevel, every year we take one or
(10:53):
two days, To together andintentionally plan our year.
We get away from our normalenvironment.
Um, we review the year that wasand set some goals, intentions,
plans, um, both individually andas a couple for the upcoming
year.
We check in on our values, howwell we're living them.
(11:13):
If they're still true for us.,if something has changed, we
talk about our, um, 10 year likevision plan.
Like, where are we going?
What do we want out of this biglife?
we check in on our lifetimegoals.
there's this beautiful exerciseby Keith Abraham, your 100
lifetime goals.
You can Google it.
It's on his website.
Um, so we check in on those 100lifetime goals and figure out
(11:35):
whether or not there's anythingthat we, we achieved in the last
year that was on that list oranything that we're, going to
prioritize achieving in the nextyear.
Um, we do a lot of reflection,like what were the wins?
What were the things that,,worked really well last year.
What were the hurdles?
What were the hurdles?
What were the curveballs?
How did we handle them?
Are we happy with how they, wehandled them?
(11:56):
And sometimes it's nice to dothis from the, a place of like
the dust has already settled.
Like it was maybe a couple ofmonths ago or sometimes even,
you know, almost 12 months ago.
Um, and that you can really seewhat the lessons were that we
learned.
So those two days are great.
kind of non negotiable.
We've done it probably for aboutMaybe seven years, seven years,
(12:20):
I think, maybe a little longerbecause, and that came out of,,
our place where we, we had movedinterstate,, away from, our,
friends and family and the firstyear that we were living, more
long distance from, those corenetworks, we'd ended up flying
like seven or eight times to goand be it.
In that location, and we'dreally struggled to establish
our new life.
(12:40):
And we realized like, Hey, weneed a, we need a better way of
doing this.
We need to get more intentional,more proactive and shift from,
reactive to proactive.
So yeah, that's one of the veryfirst things that we do to set
ourselves.
and our relationship up forsuccess and to thrive and gosh,
the plan does not always go toplan, like, and the goals, we do
not always achieve all of them,but, we get on the same page
(13:03):
about what's important to us.
and then at a, probably like aquarterly level.
So as at the change of theseason, um, so we generally do
that at like the end of Novemberis when we do our annual
planning.
So then three months later,we'll, we'll have a little like.
Probably two hour sort of checkin on that plan.
How are we going?
(13:25):
Have we dropped the ball onanything?
Have we made the progress thatwe wanted to make?
So like, for example, one of thethings that we want to do in
this next 12 months is takequite a sizable trip to Europe.
So there's, you know, we need abudget.
We need a plan.
We need to, book some things.
We need to do some research.
So we can't just wait until.
A couple of weeks out from thetrip to do that.
(13:46):
So we, we set some goals to,,sort of do phase one, in the
first,, sort of summer seasonof, of 2024.
So we check in quarterly onthose kinds of things.
and then at a monthly level, wejust do a quick, fuel tank check
in.
we live by this idea of living abeautiful fueled up life,, that
is across eight different fueltanks.
(14:06):
Um, so we check in on those.
Would you like me to share them?
Is that helpful?
Please! Yes, I dig it.
Yeah, cool.
So we kind of realized,, that weneeded a bit of, a better way to
make sure that we were takingcare of all areas of our life.
And this is something that kindof came out, um, of the, the
burnout that I had created formyself in 2019.
(14:26):
And I did a bit of a, a retro onwhat had worked and what had not
in the previous few years thathad got me to a place where I
was so depleted and so unhappy.
And, um, you know, Nate, the gapbetween Nathan and I was quite
big.
Um, so we went and looked atwhat are the different areas of
our life and how do we take careof them?
What does, thriving look like inthose areas?
(14:48):
So the first tank is, we'vealready talked about it, is,
self.
So my relationship with myselfsets the tone for every other
relationship that I have.
Tank number two, romanticrelationship.
Tank number three, relationshipsand network, tank number four,
humming household, tank numberfive, career and business, tank
number six, wealth andlifestyle, tank number seven,
(15:11):
the world, and tank numbereight, the future.
So every month we just do aquick little check in on how are
those tanks feeling?
Is there one that's maybe higheror lower than we want it to be?
Very rarely higher than we wantit to be.
Lower than we, lower than wewant it to be.
Is there a tank that's a realpriority that we need?
You know, that needs someattention like now.
(15:32):
Yeah, so we do that monthly andwe normally do it like over
coffee.
At a cafe or sometimes while wewalk our dog, and then, yeah, we
just have a bit of a,,relationship check in chat,
yeah, about what's working,what's not.
I think the key thing aboutthese tanks is that they don't
necessarily all need to be fullall at the same time.
Yeah., and so a lot of thatmonthly check in is like, maybe
(15:55):
our, how many household Is it a,is it a two, uh, two out of five
or something, but maybe that'snot the priority for this month.
Maybe the priority is career andbusiness, or maybe the priority
is that we've got a couple ofinterstate trips for weddings
and things like that.
So maybe our, focus area is ourrelationships and network for
(16:16):
this month.
So it gives us, that compass,,to guide us as to where we
should be focusing our energyfor the next month or for
portions of the month coming up.
It also helps us just like flagsome logistics stuff.
Like when we going on a date.
Are there any birthdays comingup?
Are either of us traveling forwork?
Have we got any concerts or gigsor events that are fixed
(16:38):
commitments in the calendar?
Things that you probably don'twant to sneak up on you on
Sunday night to be like, Oh,wow.
That's happening this week.
So that's kind of our, um,monthly.
Rhythm.
The next level down then is ourdating practice.
So, so what we do is a,, two bytwo by two dating practice.
So what this is, is that thefirst two represents that we go
(17:01):
on a date every two weeks.
The second two is that we, havea night away every two months.
And then the third two Well, inthe original version of this,,
that we saw was that you go on aholiday, like a bigger holiday
every two years.
but because travel and adventureand those sorts of things is,
really high on our values, weactually go away for two
(17:22):
holidays a year.
so that's the two by two by two.
so how this works, I inpracticality is that, the date
every two weeks is not like afixed printed, like.
every second Friday night kindof thing for us.
The way we do it is that, I'llorganize a date in the first
half of a month and then Sammywill organize a date in the
second half of a month.
(17:42):
And this works really well forus because it allows us to
either choose something that,like if I'm organizing a day, I
can either choose something thatI would really like to do and
bring Sammy along to, or I canchoose something as well that.
But I think that Sammy mightreally love to do, and have that
as, as a really enjoyableexperience.
And it really helps because, itmeans that we're not always,
(18:05):
like one of us is not alwaysplaying lead and the other one
just going along for the ride,but we're playing that key.
Kind of great lead and supportrole.
So we don't need to doeverything ourselves if we don't
want to, we normally try andkeep it a bit of a surprise or
like have a little teaser, butwe send each other calendar
invites for it.
And that will normally put alittle sort of teaser, like
(18:25):
tagline, I guess, for the date.
Yeah, it builds up a little bitof suspense and surprise,
leading up to the date.
So it's, yeah, it's really fun.
It really works well for us.
And it really encourages us thatthis is important, like our
quality time with each other isimportant.
And it does, it goes in thecalendar, um, like any other
appointment with a third partywould.
(18:46):
I mean, this rhythm works reallywell for us,, early on in our
relationship.
I was the,, instigator and theplanner and the scheduler.
I have a background in eventmanagement, so it comes pretty
naturally to me.
But I was kind of robbing myselfof the opportunity to, to be the
receiver., because I was solike, let's, let's plan it.
(19:07):
Let's schedule it.
Let's get it in the diary.
Like I, you know, we live busylives., and if we don't
prioritize it, it will just falloff the bottom of the list.
so this works really well forus, but yeah, like Nate said,
the original version of this,like we found it on like a
Reddit thread and we were like,Hey, we've been struggling to
find a rhythm that works for us.
Maybe we should try this on.,and we've been doing this for
(19:27):
years now.
and we've got a beautiful likejournal of all of Our dates, we
just take a photo, um, every dayand then we, we keep a log of
it.
So it's really quite nice tolook back on and be like, Oh
wow, look.
And then some months we have hadfar more than two dates.
especially if we've been onholidays, that sort of thing.
Yeah.
So I guess the, the second two,in that, um, In that two by two
(19:49):
by two, like being the nightsaway.
I think some people strugglewith that or struggle to
comprehend how we go away every,every two months and things like
that.
But six times a year.
Yeah, it is only six times ayear.
And what we normally do is tryand tack that onto.
a trip that we're alreadytaking.
So if we are travelinginterstate for a wedding or
something like that, we'llnormally just try and take.
(20:11):
Or like the last, last week Ihad to be in another state on a
Monday for a work commitment.
So rather than me just travelingup and back on the day, we went
on the Friday and Nate came withme and we got to make a bit of a
weekend of it.
Um, but I also respect thatwe're coming from the place
where we don't have children.
So some of the logistics hereare probably a little, a little
(20:32):
lazier for us.
But I guess we just look forthose opportunities to be able
to, take those nights awaywithout it being.
a big standalone thing, thatmight be disruptive to, to our
normal schedule.
So then ingredient number five.
Oh, sorry, Jason.
Yeah.
No, I was going to say, yeah.
Cause I know there's a, yeah,there's a two more, right?
(20:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So number five, let's hear it.
So ingredient number five is ourweekly happy hour.
So this is normally a shortlittle chat that we have, uh, we
often go out for coffee orsomething, and have this
conversation.
And this actually came from apodcast guest.
You're talking about how, um,the podcast has influenced our
relationship.
This came from, um, uh, Harryand Tristan, which was like, In
(21:16):
our first, in the first half ofour first year, I think, Harry,
I think it was a Harry, Tristan,one of them shared, this
practice that they have with,their partner where they, um,
and they had been sort ofprescribed it, uh, by their
relationship counselor, but, um,you know, it was a, an agenda of
questions that really sets themup for the week.
So it starts with, yeah., it'sjust a handful of questions, but
(21:38):
like, starting with like,, whatwould you like to be appreciated
for or actually givingappreciation for the other
person?, we talk about thecalendar, like what's going on
for the next week or two,, food.
How are we keeping our pantry,fridge stocked?
Who's cooking?
Um, what are we cooking?
What night?
So we normally just make alittle rough menu menu for the
(22:00):
week.
and we figure out like, okay,who's going to cook on what
nights if there's, if we've eachgot commitments, we take a look
at money.
So we open up our banking appand just look at like, did we
spend what we thought we would?
Are we on budget?
Are we off budget?
We've got any bigger expensescoming up.
Is there any curve balls,anything like that?
Yeah.
I work for myself, so my incomeis Is variable.
(22:22):
So sometimes we need to massagethings a little bit to make sure
our cash flow still works well.
we talk about sex, what, whatare you liking?
What are you not liking?
How are you feeling about yourbody?
Anything you want to try?
and it sounds like prettyclinical, but sometimes it might
be like, when's our opportunity?
What's this week looking like?
Yeah.
Especially if we're traveling orsomething as well.
(22:44):
So yeah it's definitelysomething that we, we factor in.
And then we just have a generalcheck in, like, how was your
week?
Did you feel connected to me?
and probably one of the mostimportant questions that was
really uncomfortable at thebeginning, but now we've got a
really good practice and rhythmaround it is like, is there
anything you would like me toapologize for?
Um, is there something I've doneor not done this week that
(23:07):
really upset you?
And yeah.
For whatever reason, we haven'thad a chance to, clear the air
or perhaps even, maybe it feltlike a small thing in the
moment, but here I am like fouror five days later still
ruminating on it.
Yeah, it creates a really nicecontainer for us to like, we
kind of now refer to it as likelet air out of the balloon,, so
that it never pops.
(23:27):
So it's one of those thingswhere, if you've done something
once, like, it's very easy tochange that habit as well,
whereas if you've done somethingmultiple times, like, and you've
created a habit about it Andyou've never received any
feedback.
Yeah.
It's one of those things that itbecomes harder for yourself to
then To then change that habit,but it also has probably
(23:49):
irritated and frustrated yourpartner for a long period of
time, which has then built upthat resentment as well.
So, so yeah, it is that reallygood opportunity as you said,
let the air out of the balloonand yeah, just air that and nip
it in the bud very early.
Yeah, and then we have a bit ofa chat about household
management, so probably twoyears ago now, we implemented
(24:10):
Eve Brodsky's, um, fair play,system.
I think is probably the rightword.
she was a project manager, inher career.
And she had her and her husbandor partner, um, had a child and
then was like, Whoa, there is somuch going on to manage this
household and this new littlebaby.
(24:32):
Why is this so hard?
So she went about making all ofthe invisible tasks of running a
household really visible.
So she wrote a book, the book'sfantastic.
and also, an accompanying deckof cards.
so there's about a hundred inthe deck.
Um, not all cards will apply toall households.
Like for us, we don't have kids.
So most of the cards that relateto children,, don't relate to
(24:55):
us.
so then we, divide and conquerthose cards.
So we take a look at them, um,each week, like, and we swap
like both of us don't like doinglaundry and neither of us are
particularly good at it.
So that's one of the householdtasks that we really don't want
to sit with.
One person for too long.
so we tend to swap that one backand forth and same, like taking
(25:16):
out the garbage and things likethat.
We, we mix it up on who'saccountable for that, but it
really helps us like staytransparent on.
You know, what's, what's my roleas your housemate?
Not just as your partner, but welive together.
Like, how do we keep this housemoving together?
and that's really quick.
sometimes it shakes out a coupleof to do's and you go, oh yeah,
I do need to go and return thatpackage, or I do need to, um, go
(25:39):
and pick up that thing from drycleaning, or I do need to book
in that social thing with thosefriends.
We say, who said, We were goingto go do that, um, thing with
like, or I do need to buy thosetickets or whatever the task
might be.
Sometimes it shakes out, to dois Nath is king of maintenance.
So normally it's my, I'venormally, I've got a request for
like, Hey, can you fix thisthing that I broke during the
week?
(25:59):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially cause you're workingfrom home full time.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, so that's our, that'skind of the guts of our weekly
happy hour.
so that's number five, and theningredient number six, is daily,
and we have a very embeddedattitude of gratitude.
(26:19):
Um, so we have a, uh, eveninggratitude practice, whereas
we're going to bed, it's notcomplicated.
We just do it.
Ask the question, what are yougrateful for today?
and we've been doing this for along time now.
I read, Sean Aker's book, TheHappiness Advantage, and it blew
my mind., just the idea that,success is Comes after
(26:41):
happiness, not the other wayaround.
Um, yeah, so we want to set, aculture of appreciating,
actively appreciating what wehave and each other.
and it's also a really greatlike temperature gauge on how
things are with us and howthings are with us individually,
because sometimes a gratitudewill go away.
(27:03):
Will flow like thick and fast,like, Oh my gosh, I'm so
grateful for the bed that I'vejust climbed into and that we
have, uh, an air fan in ourbedroom or that, we live, as
close to the beach as we do, orthat I had beautiful nourishing
food to eat today, or, Hey, howcool is it that I get to use
zoom and I, you know, I can workfrom home.
Like sometimes it's really,really easy to throw, Flow into
(27:26):
gratitude, and more often thannot, one of the things that we
express gratitude for issomething, about.
The other person, but some daysit is challenging as well.
Some days he just, I'm justlying there and it's like, Oh,
what am I grateful for today?
Like this felt hard.
This didn't work for me today.
(27:48):
What's going on?
But I guess it is then it is allabout training your brain to
look for the positives, out ofany situation or look for the
things that you may haveoverlooked or that you just take
for granted kind of thing.
So it does really, help to kindof switch your thinking and to
(28:08):
really look for what were thepositives, My day didn't go to
plan, or it felt very clunky, oryeah, things just weren't
working for me today.
The, um, yeah, the data and theresearch around the power of a
gratitude practice, that itliterally rewires your, your
brain, your reticular activatingsystem becomes wired to look for
(28:31):
things that you are gratefulfor, things that you appreciate.
And I believe that what youappreciate appreciates, you get
more of it.
Well,, being a couples therapistand working with couples in
distress.
Hearing the practice you to dois very refreshing.
But I want to highlight, youknow, and I've been coached
(28:51):
couples on this basic fact alot, and that is you to need
more collaboration.
Don't forget that you're a team.
Often people come into mypractice, they're just like
roommates, co parents, andthey're not operating as a team.
And if you slow down andremember you're on the same team
(29:12):
that is so important.
You know, I like the kind ofintersection you two have done,
date your partner, dateyourself, which I, think date
yourself also means your ownpersonal growth and you're doing
your own stuff and your owngratitude practice.
But I had a question when youtwo were sharing this, And maybe
you can't parse it out, but howmuch does your, do you two feel
(29:32):
your relationship affects yourhappiness, your personal
happiness.
And maybe you, maybe there's noway to like, yeah, you know,
it's not a math problem, butjust curious.
I, I'm of the belief and it'sprobably why it's tank number
two.
When I went through that list ofeight, you know, starting with,
with me, I got to show up and beaccountable for my energy and
(29:53):
what I bring to this space.
But over the course of ourrelationship, we got together in
Seven?
Yeah.
Um, and then married in 2012,but when I look over our like 15
plus, year long relationship,the times when our relationship
has been in hardship or in,turbulence or in There's
(30:19):
probably only really been one,one sort of chapter of what felt
like distress.
But I was not my best in anyother area of my life.
I couldn't show up as a goodemployee.
I couldn't show up as a goodbusiness owner.
I couldn't show up as, a goodfriend, a good daughter.
I couldn't show up for my own,my own goals.
(30:40):
Like it's like.
being sick.
Like when you're sick, youreally can't do anything outside
of yourself.
You just have to be sick., andthat's kind of how I think about
taking care of our relationship.
Some people will hear those sixthings that we do and be like,
well, that's a lot.
That's over.
structured, that's overregulated, that's over processed
(31:01):
or whatever, over cooked.
But for me, like, I know thatwhen I show up and take care of,
my relationship, my life justgets better.
and the research shows that aswell, like Harvard's longest
study.
tells us that it's not themoney.
It's not the career.
It's not the things.
It's not the fame.
It is the quality of yourrelationship that impacts the
(31:23):
quality of your life andliterally the quality of your
health as you age.
so for me, all of those thingsare investments.
And I, I adore this man.
I, I love him wholeheartedly andI want us to have a really long,
healthy, happy, thriving lifetogether.
Um, and what is more importantthan that?
(31:45):
It's my life.
Yeah.
Awesome.
I think, I think one of the keythings, that we've really kind
of solidified throughout thisjourney of having the podcast is
that the two of us and ourrelationship, really is the
foundation for our life andhaving the stability and
certainty within ourrelationship.
allows us to navigate a lot morevariety or uncertainty in other
(32:09):
areas of our life.
As an example, um, Sammy wastalking about her,, career
decision back in 2019 when shewas feeling burnt out and that
she decided to, Just leave herjob without a clear plan,, for
the future.
And I think it was, thestability and certainty within
our relationship that allowedher to do that,, that we had the
(32:32):
trust between ourselves that wewere solid.
We knew we would navigatethrough this, we were in it
together, and therefore we coulddeal with that uncertainty and
deal with it as a problem.
But the two of us against theproblem.
So I think that's been a key,key kind of driver in our
relationship and has helped usfrom a happiness standpoint as
(32:54):
well that, yeah, that we, weknow that we're in this
together, we can navigate toughthings together, and having the
underlying kind of level ofstability, but also happiness in
our relationships allows thatlevel of uncertainty in other
areas.
Yeah, that's great.
And, you know, one of mymentors, Stan Tacken, talks
about a relationship.
(33:15):
It's helped with survival,right?
And his kind of thing is like,life is hard.
and you two are in it together.
He has an analogy of the foxholetogether.
And he talks about,, you want totake care of that, right?
Because you're exactly what youtwo are talking about.
You're going to be better inyour other roles, whether that's
career, you know, daughter,parent, whatever that is.
(33:36):
And another term we say, it'sTaking care of the relationship
is in my own self interest.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's kind of taking care ofyourself in a way, we learned
this, like, I don't know, thisis maybe not the, the one thing
that, um, insight from StanTatkin, but I think it was him
that I learned that, Youshouldn't have conversations
(33:58):
with your person while they'rein your peripheral vision
because of our, the way thatour, reptilian brain is still
wired to think that anythingthat's outside in that wide, um,
spectrum.
So we, I, we adapted and waslike, okay, we don't have those
kinds of big conversations whilewe're like driving in the car
because we're both sitting ineach other's car.
periphery.
It's not safe.
(34:19):
It's not a safe, um, space.
Was that Stan Tuckin's teaching?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He did a, I think it's part ofhis Ted talk, but yeah, not
important conversations, likethat way.
Cause he was like, glances, youknow, it can be threatening and
that's interesting.
but also I think, the importanceof.
Facing each other like histheory is that we're kind of
like visual animals I think hewould say and if we're having a
(34:43):
conversation face to face eye toeye, you know, eye contact is
intimacy It's another way toconnect and sometimes it can be
challenging, right?
But he also says that face toface eye to eye.
He calls it error.
Correct like e r r o r, correct?
You know, if we're facing ourpartner and maybe we say
something, we can connect thaterror in real time.
(35:04):
Right.
Unlike a text, you text someonelike, Hey, what's up?
It's like, Hey, why are you madat me?
I'm not mad at you.
Right.
Like we don't know, we don'thave enough information via
text.
Maybe not the best analogy, butnot enough data points.
Yeah, he doesn't have data, andso that's what he recommends,
the face to face, eye to eye,but yeah, right on, like, Stan,
I've definitely heard him saythat.
(35:25):
Mmm, but just curious,, and Iknow we're coming up on time, I
feel like,, you two have, somuch cool stuff to share, but
what about conflict, you know?
I look at, collaboration,harmony as a way to mitigate
conflict, right.
As a way to work on, beproactive against resentment and
disconnection.
But, um, I don't know, do youguys have like a means to
(35:48):
handle.
It's funny that you ask thisbecause on Valentine's Day, a
couple days ago, we were havingchats about like the beginning
of our relationship and thethings that we really needed to
learn.
And Nathan and I fought so muchin that first year.
Like, I think that was probably,like, one of the most turbulent
(36:08):
years of our relationship wasthe first one.
We were, like, trying to figurestuff out, and we were already
in love, and we were already socommitted, and it was like, how
are we going to make this work?
Because it's like, all thisstuff.
But then probably after thatyear, we probably entered a
chapter of, like, almost, like,artificial harmony,, where we
never fought.
We proudly wear that badge oflike, we don't fight, we never
(36:30):
fight.
and I think in retrospect, thatwas probably both of us so
afraid that if we raisedconcerns or provided feedback
that we would rock the perfectship and maybe we wouldn't
handle it.
so we've definitely had to learnhow to do conflict.
(36:50):
And I think, in the beginning Iwas probably.
Too harsh, too abrupt, toodirect with some feedback for
Nath, and then Nath would takethat, personally, not as a
invitation to,, improve, or togrow, Yeah, so there's
(37:11):
definitely been, like, learningsaround when we're raising
things, opportunities with eachother, it's not a question of
your self worth, it's like, Ilove you and I love us, and then
our relationship could be evenbetter if, you Like ABC, but I
think a lot of it has been abouttaking like learning to take
ownership and accountability andresponsibility for like our part
(37:33):
in whatever the conflict is, butwe are far better at it now
than, we have been, and I thinkwe will continue to get better
at it.
I think One of the gifts ofhaving been together through,,
quite a few chapters of life,like, you know, early 20s,,
finishing uni, finishing ourstudies, getting our first kind
of, like, grown up jobs, andthen, you know, more mature
(37:57):
adulthood, I guess, and, youknow, buying assets and talking
about long term wealth and allof that sort of stuff.
Like we, we've had the, gift ofgrowing through those stages
together., and those differentstages have required, you know,
Different versions of us and theway that we show up for like to
do that conflict.
But I think now when we haveconflict, it doesn't leak into
(38:21):
other areas of our life.
Like it doesn't, the clouddoesn't hang around.
we kind of have theconversation.
Take any time or space that weneed, come back, and we're now
really good at doing theretrospect on that conversation,
like, how do you feel we handledthat?
Like, what did you learn aboutthat?
(38:42):
And we can now do that reallyeffectively without getting back
into the conflict.
We really can just look at itfrom a helicopter without Wow.
reentering the tension.
Yeah.
And I think the little practicethat we talked about before as
well of our weekly check ins, tokind of let the air out of the
balloon on those little thingsthat, that may have, yeah,
(39:04):
rubbed me the wrong way, so Ithink that in itself, is helping
to.
Prevent some of the biggerconflicts, but it's also
strengthened our muscle aroundleaning into some of those less
comfortable conversations.
it was a pretty uncomfortablepractice when we first started,
but it's become a lot, loteasier to raise that., and I
(39:24):
think the key thing aboutconflict is it's very
challenging to resolve an issuewhen you're in the heat of the
moment.
Sometimes you do need to stepaway.
And I think that's what ourweekly check in chat has really
given us the opportunity to dothat.
We're not in the heat of themoment.
We can raise something in a safespace where we know that we're
(39:45):
present with each other.
We've got each other's attentionwhere we're in the place where
we're willing to give andreceive feedback.
I think trying to set up that,that safe space to raise any
issues or conflicts, has been agame changer for us too.
Yeah.
And I think just kind of knowingyou'll have the space because I,
(40:07):
my take, it's like, and what youtwo were talking about, I don't
want to rock the boat and it'ssometimes a dilemma.
And I think for us some of uskind of like avoidant type,
right?
It's like, do I want to bringthis up now?
Do I want to rock the bow?
Is this legitimate?
I don't want to stuff things.
Right.
But just having that check inset, I think can be really
(40:28):
important.
I think for both partners, youknow, right now I want to tell
you how bad you suck, but I'mgoing to get a little
perspective, slow down, take adeep breath, and then we'll talk
about it in our check inmeeting.
And that's great.
I really like to coach coupleson having that.
Yeah.
And there's nothing worse than,like we were talking about
before, like sitting in the car,driving to a friend's place or
something and, and having aconflict when you're, when
(40:52):
you're sitting next to eachother, not eye to eye and things
like that.
And you're getting all heated upand, you get to the other end
and you sit in the car and go,we're going to go in now.
And, you know, Uh, and then yougo inside and you're playing all
happy families and yet you giveeach other daggers across the
room, like, nobody wants to bedoing that.
So if, there is the opportunity,it robs you, it robs you of the,
(41:13):
where you are and the, yeah.
Yeah.
So if there is the opportunityto be able to maybe just park
the conflict, knowing thatyou've got the safe space in a
day or two to be able to bringit up, and maybe you're no
longer in the heat of the momentand you can, reflect on your
part in that conflict as well,or whether there's anything you
could do better.
(41:33):
we've definitely learned sometricks around dealing with
conflict along the way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think one of my biggest,,insights about, like, fighting
with you, Nath, is, like, youprocess things a lot slower than
I do, like, I, I'm, like, move,move quite quickly.
Into solution space.
(41:54):
Yeah, whereas, like, and I'velearned that that's not helpful,
and recognizing that if we are,leaving each other in the middle
of a conflict or an argument,like setting up the parameters
of I need to take a walk or Ineed to step away or whatever.
And that like giving.
One another permission for thatto be okay and not have that
(42:18):
trigger like any kind ofabandonment of like, oh, my God,
they're leaving and justrecognizing that we do do
conflict differently.
And we do have different needsin that conflict.
Like, I think, nate's primarylove language is touch, so like,
if he feels me like, physically,put space between us, that's
actually,, quite hurtful andquite harmful, more so than
(42:40):
maybe it would affect some otherpeople, but even just those
little things about like, okay,I, I don't want to touch you
right now.
I'm in a,, fight or flight orflood stage.
the last thing I feel like, butthat I've learned just how
that's not helping me or us, toreally resolve it.
and I think one of our corelearnings, like particularly
(43:02):
that we've, we've talked aboutthis on date forever podcast
quite a bit is that theGottman's, For horsemen of the
apocalypse, like criticism,contempt, defensiveness and
stonewalling and recognizinglike, which one is our, our go
to, which one was our parents goto, like, how has that been
modeled to us?
What would we like to dodifferently?, And it's not like
(43:24):
you're trying to rewire yourbrain to have different patterns
and neural pathways.
It's not necessarily easy andit's not going to happen,, with
like one attempt.
But yeah, I think having theawareness of, of what is
happening,, is really, reallyhelpful.
You to have an understanding Andempathy for each other, right?
(43:46):
and I think that's importantlike understanding how you two
are wired so we don't takethings personally, right?
But I also want to pause Do youtwo like coach couples?
Like do you I mean, I know likeyour podcast does but do you
like?
coaching or things like that,how can, if someone wants to get
(44:06):
your advice, your relationshipadvice, like follow the podcast
or, you know, what's, yeah.
so I do some one on one coachingand you can get access to, to
me., Sammy Jaeger.
com, is my home on the internet.
And you'll find, one on onecoaching services listed there.
I like to,, have conversationswith people about creating a
(44:26):
really beautiful, intentionalfueled up life around those
eight fuel tanks with yourromantic relationship being one
of them.
I'll definitely put a link inthe show notes for that and a
link to your podcast as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jason, thank you so much forhaving us.
It's been such a cool chat.
It's sometimes nice to reflecton our own relationship and what
we're doing.
(44:47):
yeah, we normally, we are,asking the questions, so it's
nice to be on the receiving end.
Yeah.
Well, great.
Well, you two are lovely, youknow, like, I'm not trying to
sound weird, but you two are alovely couple.
Um, keep it up.
Thank you.
We got the stamp of approvalfrom a relationship therapist.
That's good.
Like I sit in this chair all dayand I see some, uh, People not
(45:08):
doing so hot.
Um, and they're in pain.
Dysfunction, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But also just want to highlightthe opposite of it too.
That's why I asked, you know,relationship and happiness too.
If you work on that, it's justdividends, right?
Like you feel better in a waylike you're, you're happier.
Yeah, so much so.
And if you do have children,isn't that one of the best gifts
(45:31):
that you can give your childrenis to model to them a healthy,
happy relationship.
And that won't happen if it's atthe bottom of the list.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, um, quick question.
I mentioned this, you know,being passive aggressive.
That's, you know, my old style,right?
Would you ever throw out, um,Hey, you know, maybe you should
listen to episode number 41because you're doing that thing.
(45:54):
Do you ever use that with eachother?
Uh, maybe not too much with eachother, but, uh, sometimes we'll
be walking around like in thestreet and observe other people
in our environment.
And we'll be like, Oh, they needto listen to this episode.
No, but we do maybe, maybe not,um, specifics to like, go back
(46:15):
and listen to this one, but wedo.
reference things that we'velearned a lot.
Like Adam Lane Smith taught usabout vasopressin.
And what happens when youproblem solve together as a
couple.
And it really helped us realizelike, Oh, wow.
When we were traveling so muchin our early twenties, we were
(46:37):
creating this beautiful newshared experience, but we were
also building.
this incredible problem solvingskills and trust and
vasopressin.
And I had, I never heard aboutthat.
So now we sometimes when we'retackling something hard, it's
like, okay, vasopressin buildingopportunity.
And nice, right.
(46:58):
So again, it's approaching itfrom a collaborative standpoint.
And I think really important.
Sammy and Nathan, this isawesome.
Thank you so much for taking thetime, especially from Sydney and
enjoy the rest of your summer.
Um, and again, thank you somuch.
I really appreciate this.
You're so welcome.
No worries.
Thank you, Jason.
Um, Jason, if I can just shareone other resource that couples
(47:19):
might find helpful is, wedocumented our agenda for our
annual game plan.
So if a couple wants to go andhave that sort of one or two day
deep dive into their goalsetting and things, feel free to
grab it.
It's totally free.
Um, so it's at sammyjager.
com forward slash AGP., it'sjust like a guide.
It's got some questions inthere.
It's got some agenda,, topicpoints., And it'll help you,
(47:42):
yeah, set up, um, for asuccessful conversation.
So cool.
I am so glad you heard thatinterview with the lovely couple
Sammy and Nathan.
And if this podcast has beenhelpful for you, please give us
a review And Sherif with someonewho may benefit.
Thank you so much for listening.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.