Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 182 | regaining sanity as a parent with Justin Whitmel and Lauren Earley

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

Today we sat down with writer, author and lawyer, Justin Whitmel Earley, to chat all about the impact of friendship. Deep friendships have the power to change your life but because of today’s “hustle culture,” busyness, and the fear of vulnerability many people have, these deep friendships are harder to come by. Justin’s newest book, “Made For People” is all about how we are made for community and connection yet in today’s world, people are lonelier than ever. This episode will inspire you to deepen your friendships, fight loneliness, prioritize friendships in a faced-pace world and more!  Order Justin’s book “Made For People” below! https://www.zondervan.com/p/made-for-people/ For more FamilyMade shows ▶https://www.familymade.com/podcasts Follow Shawn’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Shawn’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Love you guys! Shawn and Andrew Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. c a slash ymx what's up everybody welcome back to a couple things with john and andrew a podcast all about couples and the things they go through andrew said this is probably the best interview we've had yet

listen i don't always fanboy but justin whitmill early is one of my favorite authors he wrote a book called habit to the household which has drastically changed my perspective of parenting and the day to day that is involved with parenting and he recently came out the book called made for people which is about friendships, which is an interesting topic when you're an adult and you have kids and less time to make friends. So him and his wife, Lauren, sit down with us. We talk through habits of the household, how it got started, why they started changing the habits in their life, especially when it, as it pertains to kids. They then talk about made for people. The other book about how to make friends as adults, the importance of it, why our world is so lonely.

and yeah they're great people they're very wise this is actually his third book his first one was the common rule and also Lauren has her own list that she has online called Lauren's list where she's thoughtfully collected different batches whether it be picture books or kids books or materials for adults anyway what strikes me and is so impressive to me about these two is just their thoughtfulness, an ability to provide vocabulary and like a grid of navigating life. So whether it be parenting and habits of the household, they break down each day into 10 different phases and give you very tangible, practical at the end of each chapter, things to try, things to say. And it's like so helpful when you want to be a good parent or

you want to be a better spouse, but you don't know how to. Like where do you start? This is a great starting point. Yeah. It's overwhelming to think. I think. need to change my life or I need to be a better parent or I need to raise good kids. He somehow beautifully writes both of these books in a way. You're like, oh, I can do that today. Yeah. And that tomorrow. And it adds up to the end result that you want.

Anyways, if you don't have his books yet, we will link them all down below. Get them all. Most importantly for him, get made for people. It's his new one. It's out. But I would highly recommend to get them all. Yeah. And he did the same practical takeaways with made for people about,

even having a phone conversation written out of what you could say. And it's really, really important material. So thank you, Justin and Lauren, for joining us. Some of my favorite topics we discussed were when we were discussing hospitality, when we were discussing what it looks like to have friends in a season of having a newborn as well and navigating all these different things. So I'm excited to bring you this conversation. I thought it was one of the most philosophically riveting for me.

and also just it was a treat to meet one of my favorite authors as well so without further ado we bring you Justin Whitmore early and his wife Lauren I'm so excited for this honestly I don't know I don't often fanboy but like I would say you're one of my favorite authors and like the fact that I'm not kidding this is great he also reads a lot of books so I think it's cool because I I somehow along the lines of Lauren's making fun of me not paying enough attention the things going on out there. I think you had messaged me months ago. Yeah, first time I read the book.

Right? And I somehow, like, missed it, unfortunately. And I was, like, following you guys. These guys are so cool, man. I'd love to figure out if I could talk to them about the book. And then you realize. And then somebody was like, hey, they mentioned your book on their podcast. I was like, what?

And then I started fanboying. And we just, you know, we were like at the high school dating. Like, they're just missing each other. Both of our small, like, small groups have read your books. Oh, that's so cool. They've been the center of discussion for quite a while, I feel like. Really? Yeah.

But I'm embarrassed. I mean, it's been a pretty sloppy first meeting on my part. Sean, did Justin tell you about the workout yesterday? Yeah, he was, he was, you appreciated it. I really liked it. I was just, I was glad that I didn't throw up. I made a wise decision. I was like, I'm going to humble myself before the Lord and do 95 on this because I know.

But you did not humble yourself. He did 115, and that's a lot. He didn't, which is not smart for that many reps. And he used a 30-pound wallball. I took a picture of the amount that I sweat, and it was appalling. But usually it's like a couple of bros. We work out. It's like a nice camaraderie moment.

I was close to passing out. And then he wanted to get in the sauna afterwards. I was not, anyway. And then I spilled coffee on my shirt, and then we're like, you know, making them wait for an interview. The preface to that story is, when we started dating, we started working out together, very quickly learned we can never work out together but then wait why it just does we don't work out well

together okay I correct him too much he is terrible for him until I correct him and he gets mad yes that's like me trying to write yeah it was the start of a lot of brutal fights our first few years like a lot he said he said you were his most savage editor I'm silly

so good all caps he said he said he's saddage consuming but then he would still ask me to program for him and I'd program and then he would still get mad and then probably a couple years into marriage you just kind of were like I don't need it anymore and yesterday he was like will you program I was like wow

it was a good bonding moment for all of us yeah I mean we bonded in some vulnerability but like it was too hard but I am still I'm like wondering what's in your head because I don't like a games athlete might be able to do all that in an hour and I'm like who do you think we are

it was really hard yeah do you do crossfit too no sadly i wish maybe someday yeah i'm still recovering from a lot of injuries you're an athlete you did a couple sports i told me you did basketball yeah yeah i would love to like really get in there with my boys and coach soccer that would be awesome i tore my Achilles in the fall so i'm still recovering from that in october oh yeah yeah and the four our four boys came in like a eight years yeah i have post part of memories still that i'm like yeah yeah Yeah, yeah. And then she tore Achilles last fall, wait for it. Yeah.

Dancing at a church retreat. Yeah. She tore Achilles. She was a really good dancer. What type of, we were doing like the, you know, the Roomba or what? Well, it was a dance off. Oh, my gosh. It was a big group game.

And, like, with our kids, we were trying to win. That's awesome. I just stepped back. We're pretty sure I stepped on my son with all my weight on my heel of one foot. So kind of like, because like he fell down. I fell down. Later, we were like, he's six. were like, did I step on you?

He was fine. Lauren didn't walk for those three months. And then like a month later he was like, you did step on me. Snapping your Achilles is rough and it's like a minimum of a year. Yeah, I'm not at a year yet. Yeah. Like two months ago I could like do like everything I need to do

but I still like I can't run yet. Yeah, I can't like lift myself up on my left leg. Yeah, that kind of thing. So I'm still like doing a million like calf races. Well you're eight months out, nine months out? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a lot better but it's still like, am I going to be a little? Like my legs are noticeably different.

sizes still oh that'll come back don't worry i've done full knee reconstructions multiple times okay well that's that's good you'll come back this is my most significant injury and it was like that was just starting to be athletic again yeah that is the worst feeling though the the setback of it yeah humbling how did you guys meet all right in college playing ultimate frisbee i noticed her across the field just was like she's cute and she can catch and i was like i don't think i got i don't think we met or got your name then but then later at like a cookout that night. I started talking to her,

only to found out she was dating one of my high school friends. Oh. But then I think a month later, I heard that you guys were sort of on the rocks, and I called him, and I was like, can I take her out? Oh, that's huge.

This guy's a gentleman, dude. I was going to say, that is huge. I would not have done that. We were all on the same campus ministry. It was a small world. It wasn't a high school acquaintance. It was like a fairly close high school. We weren't super close,

but it was enough to be like. He married one of my college roommates. So, they go to church with us now. So it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. And so I asked if she would come to see my band play. I was in a screamo band, like a punk rock, emo, hardcore band.

It was awesome. And she came. Didn't really fit in. Yeah. But that was the beginning of it all. I cannot picture you in a screamo band. I'm trying to figure out if you. He was a drummer, but he was a screamer.

Oh, my gosh. A lot of versions of myself. So if you guys are familiar with the enneagram, everyone is surprised at Justin's a four. They're like, well, you didn't know him in college. Yeah. A four is a... Is like the individualist, like the unique.

Like, sometimes like the romantic or the artist types. Which I get as an author, writer. Yeah, yeah, it's coming around. But like when he became a business lawyer, people are like, what? How is that possible? I'm a one, which is like the perfectionist. which makes sense she likes to be done right

correctly if the sentence is not correct I care more about it being done than I Justin has really helped soften that edge for me now I know you have to like romance someone into

correction like woo them versus like he's like if you smile everything's different and you critique someone I'm like wow why did it take me 10 years to learn that life lesson we can take notes of that marriage

oh man okay I want to talk well actually no no I need to learn more about this relationship because given all the facts that we've shared so far I bet the engagement

was epic or is that a little bit it was well the cool thing about our engagement was so he was a year ahead of me in college so he graduated and part of our early early 20 stories we lived in China and so he went ahead and did an intern year as a missionary

in China my senior year of college so we were dating long distance like and those were in the days of like Skype like breaking up yes he's in China 12 hours ahead it's an intern year so the only reason you get to come home to the states because it's only a nine-month thing is if one of your immediate family members has a wedding or funeral and so his sister his older sister Rachel gets married and so he gets to come home for five days and he knows I like surprises and so like you know it's like he gets there the wedding's like three days

after he's in the wedding there's one day and so we have like this epic day date and then surprise proposal at the end yeah and then he flies out the next morning and then I fly out the next morning to go back to China for six months yeah we didn't see each other for the next that yeah it's amazing and brutal at the same

I actually thought doing engagement separate was a nice way to do it because you couldn't pretend that you were married it was just like we came home and got married it was four months and then we got married like six weeks after you got home oh my gosh so I planned the wedding like my last semester of college and I have said that before I engagement is not fun no and it's not easy because you're more than dating less than married which is awful doesn't make any sense no it's such a no man's land yeah which is why it was kind of nice to be separate but for me this story on my end was

it was really spiritually helpful for me because in college when we were dating I was just like falling hard in love with Lauren but I had this hang up of like the more I get to know the more I was oh she's still a flawed person she's not perfect and I had this idea of a wife in my head that would like always make me happy like never have any problems and so I actually broke up with her once

because I was like it's not perfect there must be something wrong not a soulmate and and then I realized oh this is horrible but she wouldn't talk to me because we were broken up she's like if we're broken up I'm not talking to you at all so then we got back together I told him this is the wrong decision and if you do this I'm not gonna be friends with you when he broke up in the conversation we're bringing up

one of my clearest like moments of inspiration I think from the Holy Spirit no literally we're talking like outside our college house and like I'm talking about like we need to break up and I was like I didn't know like the conversation was not going well and then it was finally like this good night she goes I love you it was the first time she'd ever said it. After you broke up with her?

At the moment I was breaking up with her. Because I was like, this is the wrong decision. And I walked away. I was just like, at the point of the story is I had a lot of stuff to figure out internally. There was no question. I loved her and wanted to marry her in retrospect. But I had to get comfortable with the idea that like marriage wasn't supposed to just always make me happy. It was supposed to make me holy.

And like the hard parts were there for a reason. And so it was in China when I was like reading Ephesians one morning about how God, you know, where the bride of the church and he washes us with the word. It's this idea of like, oh, marriage is supposed to have trouble and washing and, you know, you fix things and you work on it. And that's when I was like, oh, all right, if I'm going to have trouble with anybody I date or marry, I wanted to be Lauren. Like, she's my favorite trouble.

So then I was like, I'm proposing. And it was like within a month, I was like, I'm going to go home for my sister's wedding. I'm going to propose. And from that moment on, like I never, I don't know, 16 years now. right almost best decision ever made yeah yeah yeah wow yeah share more about that it's not supposed to make you happy marriage is supposed to make you holy I mean this would get into some of the the parenting stuff yeah I was gonna say I think becoming a parent it's the similar process I think yeah one of the things that I've learned ever probably ever since

college was that life is not actually easy like a lot of things are hard there's a lot of of suffering that will happen and the best things in life will ask probably the most of you like marriage and children and whether it's like the physicality of it like you know you get pregnant and it's like oh my gosh my body hurts this is hard i'm exhausted um children wake up whenever they want in the night they don't they don't ask permission they fight we fight there's all this stuff where I'm like, oh, this is hard. And I think I just always had this idea that, you know, the marriage and kids was supposed to give you that happy life that you're looking forward to.

But the more I learn about it and the more like, you know, I read things like Ephesians or experience it. I realize, oh, the difficulty of it is designed to make us less selfish people. And this is why it's hard. I mean, it's just like a workout. Like you're going to hurt and you do it on purpose. So you're literally like, I'm going to put myself through suffering. What was that sign?

we were working out in your garage yesterday you had seek discomfort yeah yeah yeah because like in some places of life like exercise we realize that the goodness is on the other side of pain but i think we often don't think about marriage and family like that and but the reality is that marriage and family it's a lot of centers in one house so you're going to have conflict you're going to have problems but as you learn to forgive and as you learn to compromise and you have to practice and work on it. That's where I see us 16 years later we're much softer people we're much happier people and I think we're much holier. Well I think there's a difference between joy and happiness that I didn't appreciate until maybe like two years ago. That takes a

while. Joy and happiness. Yeah like you don't joy is a deeper it's partly a choice but it's also born through perseverance and endurance like you become a joyful person when you let the circumstances of your life soften you rather than make you brittle and bitter

because I think I spent a lot of my first 20 years of my life running from anything hard because a lot of things came easy to me that worked so I would just do things that were like I was good at and then once

marriage but it was really more becoming a mom that I was like I'm not that it is and this is asking and I can't escape it's literally in my body you know that I was like whoa I didn't realize how much of and I think our American culture this is a sneaky thing about America is like we sort of all I think believe we can escape hard things but actually you can't but if you like get to the end of yourself and ask for God to meet you and then you can like become a stronger person and then be joyful in the midst of hard things and so that

yeah and joy is like I'm not happy all the time summer has been hard like four boys at home hasn't been a lot of happiness for me but I think

like when I get some time to reflect and especially being away I'm like okay there's a lot of joy how old are your boys all right I got it wrong

the problem is it keeps changing every year there's four of them they are right now four six nine and eleven wow so lots of wrestling i can't imagine four boys we have one who's two and he's wild he does seem wild i love watching i can't imagine four of him yeah there's an exponential effect um when there's not a girl to sort of level things out yeah or set a different like track um they just become

more boyish together yeah which is really fun yeah but it's also really chaotic very messy and a little bit scary. As I say, our sister-in-law has four boys, and she came over and stayed with us over the weekend a couple weekends ago, and she was watching our daughter just sit at a table in color, and she's like, I don't understand this. And I was like, what do you mean?

I never experienced it. I was like, all she wants to do is paint in color all day. Justin met Drew yesterday, and she brought him her Barbie. And he was like, I'm not used to this sweetness. She was showing it to me. And I was like, what's this, Barbie's name? And she's like, Barbie. Oh, sorry.

I knew her. You didn't know that was the name. I didn't know Barbies that didn't have, do they not have names? There's one specific. The one you think of, that's her name. There's other ones that have different names. We haven't seen the movie yet. We haven't seen that.

She's also three. And so our imagination is still building. Yeah. But the point was this sweet, soft presence. And I was, I'll be honest. Sometimes we wish, you know, that we did have a girl in the mix, but God has given us poor boys.

I think he's calling us to learn how to raise men. So we'll lean into that call. We still haven't gotten to the stage where the crayons aren't just broken. We were 11 and a half years end. I was like, okay. They do art at school. We can't do it at home.

Justin was sharing that their date nights are best when it's philosophical deep conversations. That's when I knew we were going to get along. But to your point about happiness versus joy, you're saying like one of two things is compounding you're either compounding and growing your ability to like do good habits and like build good habits or you're compounding this negative you're trying to delay the pain but that's really just compounding the size of what ultimately that pain will look like yeah yeah and i think what being willing to accept grace like part of that

is saying like if you get if you if you think it's in your control to either escape or overcome the hard things on your own strength then you're going to get better yes but if you're you say like I need help from others from God and I'm going to fail and I'm going to have to like deal with that failure then there can be like freedom and that so I think that's where it I would I would add like we're told in the scriptures that have joy and suffering so there's sort of a basic understanding that we're not going to avoid suffering it's out there so you can choose your suffering and choose to endure it well or you can try to avoid it and it will just come find you but I look at you know the the example of Jesus is that he suffered so that our

life could be could flourish and I think particularly in parenting you start to realize oh my gosh that is the way of a parent like I don't want to get up right now I don't want to give birth right now I don't want to work through this fight right now but my call is not hey kid you're going to make me happy and then my call is like let's be like Christ I will suffer in this moment so you can flourish. You know, sometimes that's, I'll say no, I'll break up the argument or I'll take the pain, I'll get up. But that, for me, that helps move it out of the, oh my gosh, I didn't expect parenting to be this hard. I wish I could just have a break to, oh, this is becoming more like Jesus. These are the habits of the household, the rhythms, if you lean into them,

their opportunities to become more like Christ. And that is where we actually find happiness in choosing to suffer on someone else's behalf. Can I just say, look, like we're on social media, YouTube, I love, and Instagram, and it's all these, like, you know, David Gagins, Jocko type personalities where it's, wake up and run an ultramarathon or whatever it is. And it's like, I honestly think you guys are doing a fantastic job, but like have so much insight and awareness and communicative skills that can change our generation. It's changed Sean and I's household and lives. but like it's so important because what you're talking about is like hey the physical pain

of a workout is the most surface level example of this and it is like hey you do something hard and then like you have those endorphins afterwards physically right but what if you extrapolate that to marriage over 40 years and that pain looks like months or years of a tough season yeah or raising it's like that's that's a really long workout you know That's an endurance. But the joy on the other side of that, the endorphins on the other side of it's like, anyway, and I think you guys are uniquely qualified to share that. Well, thanks for saying so. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and I think that's one of the gifts of becoming a parent is it's both the hardest thing we both of us have ever done. Absolutely. There's a lot of media joy built into parenting and like marriage too. But that's why like you can be joyful because, you know, you're still like, you know, at the end of a hard day where I've been wrung out by the boys. And I'm like, I can't, you know, make a coherent sentence. Justin will still be like, do you remember when Coulter said this yesterday? And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I love them so much.

And, you know, there's that built-in, like, you know, just the way we're made that, you know, when you see your own child, you're just happy. So, you know, they make, they both drive you crazy. But there's a lot of those, like, and to see that as, like, the gifts of it in the season. And practicing gratitude is a lot of this, too. But I will say, though, I mean, I haven't really been an athlete in forever because of, lifestyle but I do feel like actually you do build those muscles of endurance you know your body does matter and like practicing it in athletics does start to build those like grit and perseverance and endurance that carry over and other things so I don't it may be surface level but it's not

it's legitimate yeah 100% I think that's like the starting point though yeah everyone can do a whatever it is five minute or 15 minute or whatever your threshold is to push them to a point the discomfort but like that's just the entry level of oh yeah yeah of painful experiences of life that's right that's right anyway well and i just want to add to i think that the opposite side of this is like the happiness and i feel like we have seen so many people honestly today's world they strive for immediate happiness and they don't know joy because every single moment is what can i do right now to make me happy and not angry mad just wanting to deal with a situation And that is a very, very scary path to go down because if you keep doing that over and over and over again for a long time, you have no depth in your life.

You have no meaning in your life. You have no joy. But a lot of people are really afraid of change or sacrifice because they think if you are angry, mad, sad, depressed in a moment because it's difficult, it can't possibly be right. yes yeah it's really hard to not believe that yeah yeah every day I'm like wait this still means I'm supposed to do this well I even remember last night

I had a rough night with like feeding the kids getting him down it was just one of those where I felt like I was just the bad guy all night and we're going to bed and I was like just get our kids to sleep whatever and our son who's wild and he's only two he's not like a cuddly guy

He's just always moving. He probably gave me a 10-minute hug. Rare. Rare. Just sat on the floor. And I was just like, okay, this is cool. Which turns everything around. But if you aren't willing to do the hard stuff, which is really, I don't know how you get people to buy into that.

It's hard to convince people to even start. Because it seems like such a monumental sacrifice that they're doing. Like you want me to give up being happy. for a possibility. Yeah, totally. This episode is brought to you by Defender. With its 626 horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine, the Defender Octa is taking on the Dakar rally.

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With 800 points after registration, activation, and first purchase of a dollar or more. See the Tim's app for details at participating in restaurants in Canada for a limited time. How did you guys start to discover these topics? You've written now three books, right? common rule habits of the household and made for people like why what started this journey yeah i'll give you the attempt at a short story and you interrupt whenever so we we started our marriage as missionaries in china which was awesome um until i i actually felt the lord in china calling me to go back to the states to be missional in law and business which is a super loaded

statement on calling we can come back to it but I really did feel called to go to law school and so I ran at it with all the fervor of a man on a call just trying to do the best I could and it did go well graduated toward the top of my class in Georgetown got my dream job in international mergers and acquisitions casual but yeah yeah a big law firm in Richmond um but I didn't really realize at the time that while my head was full of these Christian thoughts of I'm a man on a call my everyday habits had totally assimilated to the usual practices of, you know, top law school students and young ambitious lawyering. And my life cratered my first year of lawyering.

I started to have, like, all of a sudden one night, really bad panic attacks. I didn't even know what that word was then. But I started to not be able to sleep. I was, like, scared all the time. My body was kind of going haywire. And it was a really dark period for about 18 months. because we had two boys at the time

and I'm worried about like can I keep my job, can I pay back my student debt can I be a husband and a father what the Lord did during that time and this was not easy this is like on the conversation of like the Lord uses hard things and suffering to show you the best things

I started to realize that I actually your habits can go one way and your head can go the other way so I believe this but I'm acting like this and your heart's going to follow the habit So I've started to get converted to this nervousness and anxiety that my routines were worshipping. And there was one night where I sat down with two close friends and asked them to keep me accountable to this program of daily rhythms.

And I didn't think it was going to matter at all. But Lauren and I had come up with some of these daily practices to sort of like rain in my chaos. And I was just with my two best friends, Matt and Steve, and asking them to keep me accountable to like living a little bit differently because medication wasn't working, counseling wasn't working. and within a couple months of living according to some careful daily rhythms my life started to completely change not like all better all at once but it was totally moving in a different direction and i started to realize that habits are your life is full of habits they will form who you are spiritually mentally physically and if you don't pick them on purpose then someone else is going to choose them for you you're just going to go along with the normal cultural habits and so there was

little stuff like turning my phone off an hour each evening to actually be present with my family doing a practice of scripture before phone where actually read the Bible for a bit in the morning before I like opened my law emails and this so reshaped my life that I started to be like oh my gosh these habits are everywhere why don't I start living like it um and it yeah changed my life and then I then I started to realize I wrote my first book the common rule on these spiritual rhythms for everyday life. And then I realized I was managing my technology well, I was managing my busyness better,

I was resting more, but I was still yelling at my kids every evening. I was like, I should start thinking about how these habits of the household matter, and that led to this second book. So this book, The Habits of the Household, is all about looking at the family rhythms and realizing that we become our habits

and our kids become us. So the habits of the household are one of the most, central parts of their spiritual formation so let's let's pay attention let's lean in let's pick them on purpose mm that's good and this is I mean this is shaped over your now 11 years of parenting what's worked well yeah well I mean we like talk about this and write from the trenches not as experts right like our oldest is 11 we're not like parents we've had tons of experience but we are just trying to be honest about like what we're tinkering with what we're working on yeah what we're

trying I mean this this whole book was initially born out of a night trying to put my four boys to bed actually it was three at the time you were pregnant with the fourth and just you know bathwater on the floor fighting over toothbrushes and everything and i finally get them into bed and tell them god loves them i do too say a quick prayer and like shut the door and i'm like whoa i just yelled them and muscled them into bed with like many threats of bodily harm and then i was like i love you god does do And I'm like, what do they think that means? Yeah. And it's just, it was just this humble moment of realizing that the things I talked about did not match how I acted at all.

And so this book is an exploration of how could we align the practices to what we actually believe? Yeah. And I think it was like a lot around like, hey, we want to be intentional with our kids. But when you're a parent, you have no brain space to do that on the fly. Like you have to like take some time and be like, how do we like make a rhythm and a habit of the most important? things and then once it's a habit actually it becomes a default it's the autopilot right and so like that's like a lot of these things we have some of them in the haps of the household that really are autopilot that really have like sunk in there's others we're always trying to restart because like

we believe in that and we know there's so much fruit in life in that but it's like you just your kids are changing and adapting you're having hard seasons you get sick and everything goes out the window but if you have a few things that like actually you put the time into like pick a habit do like one for us is like we do morning for every morning and that um is not something we have to like our kids know like he's about to leave for work take the kids to school we gather at the front it's like 25 seconds but i feel like that for me is so like great to be like wait this day is not my own belongs to god like and he's going to meet me in it and we're going to ask for his help and like do our kids know what that means no but like that's something we just do and it's like at least we had that today and it's not

something we have to tell them do they just gather because we've done it for two years and so that like it's not like we're spending time thinking of the prayer we have one that it's like 10 seconds everyone has it memorized you know and so that just like okay we had a horrible week I had to apologize to my kids for losing my temper but at least every morning we're gathering and being like we're going to do this and we don't have to come up with it and I think a lot of this book is just and half of these were like oh we need to school starting we need to like restart a bunch of those Those are life-giving. Those are fruitful.

But to have a few things that your family can return to. And it's going to look different in every season. And so this was like our, we found like a lot of parenting books weren't practical enough. I was like, we need some ideas. I need to see how other people are doing it. And a lot of this book is, we've been surrounded and blessed by so many amazing parents and our friends and both of our parents that we were like, God's given us all this wisdom from these amazing people that he put us around. So we got to share that with the world.

So it's not just things we came up with. A lot of this is like our parents, like Justin's older sister and her husband have kids who are just two years older than us and it's just like, you know, that's a gift. Those kind of mentors are like amazing to have. I don't know about your group, but we do a women's group.

It's like the wives and the husbands. And we've both read this book at like in our group separately. Oh, you didn't coordinate? Well, they read it first And Andrews always kind of like her I got such raving reviews I said the wives I sent you a picture

But a game night We'll have like 50 people over I have stacks of that book To like hand out But this is probably been the book That hit all of the wives and moms The hardest I have the oldest kids of our group

Everybody has like Newborns and like little ones And every mom is just terrified of what their kids are going to look like in six years because they're so, they're drowning in new parenthood of like, how do I raise a human? And how do I raise a human well?

And what do I need to be doing? And they read this book and they're like, wait, what? This makes sense and it's easy, but I didn't know that my habits for me and for my children. And it's a terrifying thought, but it is, it's spelled out so practically that it made everyone kind of like,

breathe the breath of fresh air and be like it's that exact like bath water moment that we all felt human over and we're like oh yeah yeah I screamed up my kid tonight and then I was like love you see in the morning

I think the most powerful like message that I've heard from I think it's a Christian psychologist who said you know the thing that should be common is reconciliation like that is actually going to be healing to your kids like you can't there's always going to be rupture

but if reconciliation is a habit your kids will be whole people they won't come out flawed you know like they're going to be have that like wow and i just yeah i'm every day i'm like oh my gosh i can't believe i lost my temper again and it's like okay i have a chance to either like beat myself above that which is my temptation or i have a chance to like humble myself and be like i'm sorry mom lost her temper again will you forgive me and that's what they're going to remember yeah and like believing that's actually true because other parents have told me so and because like i mean one of justin's the most strong memories of like being

adolescent is his parents forgiving him and that has shaped him so much so. I think it's important to be honest about all the difficulty and the messiness up front because when you talk about habits people can start to think about productivity and streamlining life and

creating a nice orderly household and I just try to be really up front at the very beginning of this book this is not what I'm talking about I mean like in that messy bath time bedtime moment that I was that's what sparked me, this journey for me, because I realized how difficult this actually is. And so we started doing this bedtime liturgy shortly after that

as a way to sort of rain in the chaos of that evening. Like, just like I had a couple years before, I've been like, I needed some patterns to rain in the chaos of my lawyering. I was like, how can we rain in the chaos of these bedtime moments? And so we started this little back and forth question and answer where I asked them, can you see my eyes? And they say, yes. And I say, can you see that I see your?

eyes, and they say yes, and I say, do you know that I love you? I say, do you know that I love you no matter what bad things you do? Yes. Do you know that I love you no matter what good things you do? Yes. And then I say, who else loves you like that? God does. And then rest in that love is the end. And there's this like little pattern that we made up. And at first it was awful. Like when I was like, can you see my eyes? And they were like, poke me in the eyes like those eyes. And the first time I ask them, you know that I love you no matter what bad things you do they're like no um you don't because i was like oh this is really bad but but i kept practicing because i knew enough about habits at that point to know that nothing's normal until it is and there was it was just like two weeks later

like after that first bath time episode that there was an evening where it was still messy there was definitely still bathwater on the floor and i was still struggling with my own temper but ashur i think it was our second oldest was laying in bed and was like can we have our bedtime blessing now And we went through this same exchange, and it was this moment of me realizing the words I was getting them to say were true for me too, that God loves me and them, no matter how misbehaved we all were on that evening. And that's when I remember shutting the door that night and having another hallway epiphany of realizing that working on these kind of habits of the household is not because they're easier, not because they make it all clean, but they actually changed the way I approached my children. And suddenly, I was like, oh, this is changing my knee-jerk reaction to the difficulties. It's not going to change the circumstances or the difficulties. It's just going to change my reaction to them.

And that's why I was like, oh, this is grace. This is grace everywhere. It just means that I don't have to respond to this moment like I usually respond. There's another option. And so I always try to remind people when we're talking about habits of the household, habits are not going to change God's love for you. Like, he loves you no matter what. He loves your children, no matter what. it's just that God's love for us should change our habits and that's where you enter this realm of

you can do this out of grace not out of earning and that makes a huge difference right there it's amazing you've done this in both of these books um take a pretty ambiguous like random highly varying thing like household habits or friendship and made you've broken it down into practical tangible like oh i can digest that and for me like that's what that book did even breaking it down into the 10 phases of the day i was like oh man that's so helpful yeah that is so like okay this is this little meal phase that lasts a half hour for dinner right now the kids sit down for maybe five minutes but it's like okay that's normal right yeah but hey that's really test me something is better than nothing you know you guys are right

there and we're done okay but it's like just even breaking it down into those different compartments of the day like it allows me to walk into them be like okay I got you know this small portion of the day there's an opportunity to do something unique or like going to bed there's an opportunity and it's like you know I guess I studied calculus in college and the big thing is like taking an integration which is like break one big thing you already lost me I you're a lawyer bro I don't do math you take like one big overwhelming problem and you break it down until little smaller parts is how you conquer that and it's like wow I'd never thought because when the baby when you have like a two month old and they're supposed to be napping but they wake up and like

you know you had chores to do but then you don't it's like can feel so overwhelming it is just trying to keep it and it's like no okay there's little we can break these down into smaller parts and like make it through this well which is amazing anyway um so thank you for that no thank you I mean it's a good point it's kind of like what you were saying earlier Sean you people get scared of a big, hard thing. Like, I don't want to make myself dissatisfied. But most of life is tiny little decisions, and a lot of it is habit. And the good news about this stuff is you don't have to change all your life at once.

You can't, actually, but you can practice little things. And these habits aggregate. I think it was Annie Dillard, who said, our days become our lives. And what I like about this stuff is just humbling yourself and realizing, let's just try a thing or two today, not try to change my whole life tomorrow. but they stack they aggregate yeah and i just can't emphasize enough it's not easy when we start to have it or restart it no i mean the the family prayer thing like everybody was like punching each other for like six months in family prayer like no i'm not exaggerating like we have four boys they're always fighting and just like just to encourage you like it's not anything like worth doing is

going to be hard with your kids at first and so like don't feel like well my kids are not just cut out for this like of course pick things that are developmentally appropriate like we're not going to have it in our conversation with our six and four year old they eat and then they run around the house yeah but our 11 year old can stay and talk with us now so we do that you know but if you've picked something that you think is doable it's still going to like be pulling teeth for a month that makes me feel better because i've been expecting my three and two year old to sit and talk with us so no so maybe your girl i don't know i don't know about girls i have no idea she's still good and done she doesn't have like a two-minute conversation and then she's like mommy can i go and i'm like sure

yes yes I cannot emphasize enough if you if you listening have small kids check out habits of the household they break the the day down into different phases and then at the end of the chapter they'll go through and give you like prompts of things to try things to say how to think about it and it's so helpful and at the at the very least for us it's it takes a bit of courage as like a man or you know like a husband or wife to say you know you got a 11 year old son and you're trying to enforce new habits it's it's like, it takes a kind of some amount of courage to say, hey, we're going to do this prayer that we haven't done before. But now it's like, hey, I read this book, let's try this out.

You know, it's almost like a third party to say, this is their fault. We're trying this. You know what I'm saying? I'll raise me. I'm happy for people to blame me. Just barely, hey, I read this guy. We should try it out. If you're a wife listening to this, you know, just send this to your husband. Justin said so. Just try it out. They don't like it. then comes out to me. I think that's a real thing. So you've incredibly practical guide to household habits with that book. I'm not going to lie. When we were talking about made for people, I was like, okay, friendship. How do you talk about friendship in a meaningful way? It's like, I'm a human. I have friends. I know how to do this thing. And then I read this, bro. And I was like, oh my gosh,

same experience where it was like, two for two. You provided vocabulary and like, literally there's a roadmap in here i don't know where it there it is yeah yeah a roadmap of like hey here's how you break down here's how you progress through a friendship um and i was convicted though because i was like i'm i've been doing it wrong i've been doing friendship wrong man we're friendship floaters that's what we are i came up with that term last night and i think we're i've to some degree we've been like uh disloyal to some of our friends but i will say one of my favorite things about this book is just the concept we post on social media a lot that we host these game nights and it's basically like a community builder for people yes to make friends and to like meet

other people as adults but we get questions all the time of like how do you make friends yeah as an adult that's not superficial right that's not surface level that's not just like you see him once and you never talk to him again but how do you actually create um meaningful friendships when you're our age. And it's so difficult. It's really hard. It's really hard. And it's so shocking how many people, like you say, are so lonely because they don't

know where to begin. Yeah. I mean, and this is where the impetus for this book came because when you get to this phase of life, you know, it's really just a couple years after college, if you're paying attention, you start to realize that the current of a moment. American life is flowing hard and fast towards loneliness. Like nobody is pushing you into friendship anymore. And the drift of American life is to become busier, wealthier people who used to have friends. And so many people look up in

their 30s and they're like, I've got a job, I got kids, I'm married, and I am totally alone. And it's one thing just like that discomfort. But the other, if you look at the stats right now, like the Surgeon General of the United States released a huge report in June of 23, about like six weeks. We're talking in August here. Just detailing how we're dying younger because of loneliness. A stat in there is that chronic loneliness reduces your life expectancy to the tune of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. So it's like it's a health problem on the level of obesity or or tobacco. But, you know, a lot of us think that loneliness is someone else out there like somebody locked away an apartment. But really,

This is just regular life. Like most Americans are lonely. They might not name it that, but they're living a life where they see people, they're around other people, but they're not known by them anymore. And that's what I'm talking about in this book, is how to create relationships where you are known fully and yet loved fully by someone else. And that's actually called friendship. We've like forgotten the significance of that word,

but real friendship is a deep relationship with somebody who sticks with you. and surprise surprise that's a reflection of the gospel like that's how jesus loves us he knows us fully and sticks with us anyway and so i'm trying to help people see that this is actually a deep physical and spiritual hunger in your life and no one's going to help you do it you have to live intentionally to do it what was this book rooted in like was this a personal experience that you guys went through or well my i'm curious for your answer my answer would be I actually since high school have had really close friends

praise God who have kept me in my walk with the Lord the way that I would not be who I am today without them and I'm seeing that blessing alongside the world's crisis if oh my gosh our culture needs this really badly

but I know for us we have close friends Lauren does too but it's this is a hard phase of life to actually do it so I think part of it we're looking at all the stuff we just talked about in parenting and saying you can't do this stuff alone you need other people in your life to be a good spouse

to be a good husband or wife to be a good parent um so it's something we're also working on it's not easy what would yeah i would say like i think this book is born out of like something that we've seen in our life that has saved us that has been life saving and how did what were the choices we made to like keep friends and and fight for friendship in a time of the past 10 years when it's felt like we should that was impossible And, you know, I think it comes a lot out of just, we've had this incredible gift of having people in our life and how, what were the things we did and they did that allowed that. And I can, and just like people that have shaped us, like, I remember like nine years ago

there was a speaker, James Hay Smith at our church, and he just shared that this one other couple, him and his wife were like, we're going to have wine on Tuesday nights. And the other couple had older kids, so they always came to them. And he was like, and we canceled it half the time because of sick kids, but these were our people and we just like shared life with them and just and are like we need a standing for them like it's never going to happen you know just like that person they they spoke that into us and we were like okay and so for a while we tried with our you know our best friends who are married and to do it together and then that didn't really you know that faded and then it was like how does Justin have a

standing in time he's going to meet with his two guy friends and that gets canceled a lot but just having that rhythm and realizing that there's like arts and habits to friendship that Allow it to be possible, but you actually have to make it like something that this is a make or break thing. And I think that's that's like my key message is like I felt like I had no time for friends. I still do. I feel like that. But I need to make time for my friends. And I need to like when I'm tired and feel like I can't form coherent thoughts still be vulnerable or find a time or get up early, whatever. Yes. And like I've sacrificed other things. Like I was saying the other day to someone like, I there was a mom's group that met in the morning and it was I had two mornings of preschool my older kids are in school finally but my little one still in preschool so I had two hours and forty five minutes two mornings a week I desperately wanted to use about time to get stuff done yeah and I was like you know what no I'm going to go to this Bible say with my five other friends and I'm going to actually show up and I'm glad I made that decision it was also really hard to be like I'm going to use that time that way because my house is a mess you know and I don't like that and There's so many things. So just like to say like, okay, what does it mean to choose relationship over like what seems like essential sometimes? But I think Justin has made an amazing case in this book that this is essential. Like friendship is essential to her life in this stage, especially like to everyone, but especially as a young parent.

You need to be seen by other people and to have them. I know I keep sharing stories. last night I had women's group and we had Bible study and at the very end of it I've missed the past probably three or four

that we've times we've met which has been my fault and I apologize no no no no that had nothing to do with you should we talk about this no no no I had nothing to do with them but one of the girls my tendency is like when I get really busy when I get really overwhelmed I retreat

yes I don't tend to like lean into friendships nothing and it was really refreshing one of the girls called me out and she said i just want to ask yeah she's like you haven't been here good for her and she's like we miss you and we need you to be a part of this group and it was it was this like i felt guilt but i also felt so seen oh wow different than you feel with a spouse different than you feel with family that's awesome and i was like thank you i've missed you v obviously yeah but it was such a like I was like it was that feeling like this is what friends are and like you get so wrapped up in life that you forget that it's more than just this like surface level

thing but it was so powerful I was really excited there's like a a gentle but like honest yeah they're like uh yeah that's what true friends are like I mean I feel like that the best single piece of advice I have is to make friends in your 30s is to be awkward to be awkward to be honest yes yeah and she you know that's a little It is. But it was so good. I think there's a reason that's so significant. So in the book, I start in Genesis with this idea that God in Genesis chapter 2 looks at Adam

and says it's not good that you're alone, which is a really wild statement if you think about it because God's talking to him and it's like, you're lonely. And if you're Adam, aren't you looking back? I'm like, but I got you. Can you imagine like being on a date with your spouse and you're like, this is a great dinner except I'm so lonely. You'd be like, what? So it's actually a jarring sentence

because it's this idea that God is saying to Adam, you can't experience me the way that you were made to experience me until you experience me alongside other people. Which is like, oh, that's a theologically interesting statement. And then just a couple verses later, you get this beautiful moment at the end of Genesis 2 where Adam and Eve are naked and unashamed,

which means they're fully known to each other, but there's nothing to. hide and God God is there too he's like there's they're known but yet fully loved so like those two things fully known and fully loved and then

write a couple verses later this paradise falls apart because right after sin enters the garden the first thing Adam and Eve do is fig leaves and bushes so they hide from each other and then they hide from God so and the reason I'm gonna try to make this connect to what you just said

is life after the fault like the world that we live in we are built to hide. Like we try to hide our mistakes, the fig leaves from other people, and we try to hide our mistakes from God. But one of the coolest things about that same passage of Genesis 3

is that God comes out and says, where are you? Like, he is already a friend. He's like, where are you? He knows they're hiding, but it's like our toddler under the bedsheets. Like, we know where you are you? I'm looking for you.

And God comes out and he looks for us. And that theme we could spend all day time continues through the Bible, like through the whole story of Jesus coming to find us and telling us in John 15 that we are actually his friends and that is to say a good friend is somebody who knows you and loves you anyway and will come find you and be like hey you haven't been here or you're not telling me the whole like are you not sharing something and those are the people you need in your life to pull you out of from behind the bushes from

behind the fig leaves and say I know you and I love you anyway and suddenly you're like in a friend you see Jesus. And that's why it's so important. Giving people a practical takeaway if they're listening. Where's a place adults can find friends? All right. The practices do get hard here.

You've got to realize that it's important to care about it. But it is a really good question. So how do we do this now? And I'll give you one example. I think there's a ton of ways, but I'll give you one example that's been really true for me.

so if you're going to do anything significant like we've been talking about you've got to figure out how to make it a rhythm in your life and one of the reasons i love you guys game night idea is because you're trying to create a countercultural routine that says instead of just being people who are always doing other things and too busy to do anything let's come together right so you need to look at your life and say like what is a rhythm i can put in place that's actually possible even if we mess up a lot that will actually pull us together and so for me my best friends matt and steve these are the two who almost saved my life through helping me create these habits and the common rule that I talked about. We've set up a rhythm right now where every other Tuesday night, we just meet on one of our porches and talk. And yes, we all have young kids. And yes, then we travel. And then we miss some and we approximate the rhythm. But that's okay because rhythms aren't rules. They're just, they're guidelines. They help you out. And in doing this for years now, like this incredible thing has happened. we just we sit together on the porch every other Tuesday night ish and we talk and we laugh we share about our wives and our kids and our jobs and our internet history and everything else that

we're worried about and mental health problems blah blah blah blah and over the course of that small rhythm I have become a person without secrets which is really important for any guy or any girl but I mean it's so easy to hide behind the fig leaves but setting up a little rhythm like that where you do this radical thing called actually just telling the truth to each other week after week, that one hour will fundamentally change your life. And anything else that is really that important in life, you have to do all the time, sleeping, all the time, parenting, all the time, working all the time. But one hour of friendship every week or so will completely change everything else.

So whether it's a rhythm like that, a game night, a small group, a Friday night bonfire that you just like do every once in a while, those things are way more powerful than you think. I would just encourage people to say pick one little rhythm and just try to hold to it and become over time a person without secrets it will change your life to your point about a rhythm not being a rule it's like every Tuesday night there or every other Tuesday night there is this expectation that we will meet together which can make a big difference like if I'm going through something bad yeah it's like okay well I can share this on Tuesday right or like there's this expectation of like there some amount of this weight can be lifted at this point, right? It's like a point on the calendar that you can look towards. That is a huge, I want to tell you,

that I'm actually getting like a little goosebumps right now you're saying that because seriously, in my life, I think anybody who lives a normal life, like we're all sinners, right? We are all broken people. You live one regular week

and you've got a couple things you're ashamed of. Really, you live one regular day. Yeah. And you've got a couple things that you're like, oh. But when I know, like Andrew just what you said when i know that i've got a friend who will hear me out on that yeah and then tell me

hey god loves you anyway and so do i the character of my week like it's not i don't carry it like a shameful secret that i have to hide it's just like the burden is like lifted like david writes in the psalms when i did not cry out to you my bones burned within me when i did not confess and you're like your bones will burn unless you have people to talk to like this and so i just like what you said it's like it's totally different to live your life knowing that you can tell this to somebody but to Lauren's point creating those rhythms like there's an opportunity cost to everything right like hey to meet with the women's Bible study the opportunity cost is a dirtier household or less organized right or like hey to have that Tuesday night hang out with

the boys you're not going to watch your favorite Netflix series so it's like but that now I have to do bedtime yeah it's an opportunity cost for each other yeah and that's key too and you your relationships would be like this is worth it and I've I've seen it prove that it's worth it but you're on the front end it's like yeah especially when you're trying to go from someone who's a friend who you know well who you jive with to a deep friend where like you take that next up of vulnerability that takes time and you know he's had the gift of these people being friends forever but they had to go through the awkward stage of like so we're like friends for like years right you know like they had to have these like awkward conversations and you know that takes the time

to build the trust. And so you got to put in the time in the early years of a friendship or the early stage to be like, okay, like this is a sacrifice. It's worth it. It's going to take a while. And the trade-off, I mean, I do think it's really important to name the trade-offs. Because I'm not saying it's easy. Like, anything important is hard.

It's just worth it. I mean, I would rather live a life without secrets than I would have, I would rather live a life without secrets than have, like, an Instagram-worthy house. I would rather be known by friends than have. have an enormous net worth. It is a trade-off. And that's why we have to help each other. I have to take care of the kids and put them to bed

so that Lauren can go to this book club that she loves, that there's great conversation and ask her to cover for me when I meet with Matt and Steve. So we have to help each other do this. But it comes from that understanding that this is worth the dishes still being in the sink for.

Because I need to order my interior life before I need to order this kitchen. Well, and I think a lot of people have a really hard time understanding that and seeing that because I even have friends who have I have tried to convince to join women's group or whatever or let their husbands join men's group or whatever and they're like oh I could never I could never take that time away and not be with my kids or not have help to put the kids to sleep or whatever it is and it's it's really interesting to see how people are so tight-gripped around life

Interesting. And they think that their happiness lives that way when I've noticed a huge difference like in Andrew even when he is able every other week to meet with his guys. Talk to them about whatever he needs to talk to them about. It's not meant for me.

You can't bear that burden. You shouldn't have to. And that's like when we send our spouses out to go find friendship, we do so with this great confidence that they're going to come back a better husband, a better wife, better parent. So I would tell people, if your spouse is your only friend, you're being a very

bad friend to them because you need other like really deep same sex relationships to help you be the husband you ought to be, help you be the wife you ought to be. And if you don't get away from your kids, I want to tell us to all the moms out there. And I think you'd agree. If you don't get away from your kids and have some adult time with other moms, you're not going to be a good mom. Like your kids need you to have friends. And they need to see you have friends. Well, it also teaches them how to have friends. And that friends are important. Yeah. One of our favorite things is that both of our kids are always up for game night for at least an hour before they go to bed. Yeah.

Because people come home at six. And I just keep thinking, like, in my mind, they will always know that mom and dad opened their house to people. And I think that's really, really fun. Justin talks about that in habits of the household, but hospitality has been, like, born out in the research is one of the things that helps kids, like, stick to their faith. Mm-hmm. Because, like, hospitality is, like, so key to, like, God welcoming us into his family. and like when we welcome others even into our mess in hospitality is you know messy house yeah opening your home yep that's like i mean that's important like that will help them

one one thing that caused a bit of uh conflict when it was written about in the book was let your guests help with the dishes i think oh yeah and there was i mean we're in the south here right and like there was quite a bit of like i would never ever do that this was a discussion Tell us the heart behind that. I think there's just an honesty to realizing if you're going to have people in your life, actually they're going to have to come into the mess of your life. And this is one of my friends.

I think Drew was the first one to say this to us, that hospitality, entertaining is when you bring people into a clean house with no problems. Hospitality is when you invite people into your mess. and it's just like if our house had to be perfect and we had to do all the work then we would never actually do real hospitality

we'd never actually bring people in so letting them help with it is the only way it can actually happen like when our friend Drew comes over and has family dinner with us he stays in helps with the dishes and the rhythm wouldn't be possible if he didn't do that so shared work equals shared community

I think it's part of both the humility to admit the life stage and the opportunity cost of like the only way you can meaningfully have friends when you have small children is for that work to be part of and like likewise like if we go over to someone's house like we're gonna um you know yeah there's just a work trade off i i did want to nuance your point earlier about the like the moms who are like i don't because i do think it's different when you first become a mom yes um i think it takes a little longer we do need to call first time moms out of it

if it's too long but it's it's different for everyone because it's just if you're nursing it's just you need to as other mom friends you need to go be with that person you need to bring them food they don't ask for it just bring them food and you need to go like sit with him because they can't muster and it takes a long time to get out of that phase

so I feel like there's a lot of grace the key here is is it a rhythm like is friendship something that is not having friends the unusual season for you or is it the usual season and so like for me he got a lot more time with guy friends when my kids were zero to five and that was something I had to grieve honestly because I was

like I want to see my friends too but I don't get to as much but now I do because our oldest skin leaves it. That's awesome. Yeah we're transitioning to that but yeah it's just a lot easier when I'm not nursing to make things happen and just to be like what is the everyone's different but how do I go come alongside other women in that time and how do I push my myself to do the like, okay, it's been four months with my second. It's time. I don't feel ready and I don't feel cute and I don't, you know, and I'm tired. But like I got to. Yeah. I got to just show up. Yeah. And so like that. And a good friend will come pull you out. And Justin said this to the men will like step up. Help your wife do that. You know, is really important. But also like

wife be understanding that there's going to be some imbalance there. And that's still good for him. Pumpkin is here at Starbucks, and we're making it just the way you like. Handcrafted with real ingredients like our real pumpkin sauce and rich espresso, sprinkled with pumpkin spice. It's full of real flavors you'll keep coming back for. Made just for you at Starbucks. Oh, hi, buddy. Who's the best you are?

I wish I could spend all day with you instead. Uh, Dave, you're off mute. Hey, happens to the best of us. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers. Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. Well, and I would even say to like husbands, because I know a lot of all of our friends,

our brand new parents, there are so many of those moms who are like, oh, I promise I'm good. I want to stay home. No, they're very lonely. Justin has pushed me out of the house so many times. Yeah. He's been like, you need to leave.

Yeah. He was like, I have this. Yeah. And also when I come back, the dishes have to, like, if he's going to have it, it has to be really, like, you've got to finish. You know? And so it's like, that was some learning curve too. Like, if you've got this and I come home and the next morning, it's like a disaster, that's not getting it. That's just postponing the work for you to do.

Yeah. So like, but he would be like, nope, I'm sorry here. You know, and I couldn't even do the thinking. He would be like go to this, you know, juice place and get a juice and just like sit there. I don't care. But also go see your friends. And that is, you got to do that. Let's take a break.

What is happening? What did you do to your mic? It just... What happened, dude? It literally fell off. I saw you twisting it and now I realized... Sorry, I didn't even realize that. It's okay.

One thing I found challenging about this, you broke down what it means to share versus what it means to be vulnerable. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And I actually realized, like, I don't know how to be... It's really hard. It's hard. You have to have self-awareness and there needs to, like, to have self-awareness, you need time to reflect on like, well, how do I actually feel? and what are my emotions on this and what is going wrong because you broke you even made a chart of like this is sharing this is right vulnerability right I was like I'm a big chart yeah I was like oh my gosh

I this does not come naturally to me yeah but I know this I am aware of that well a good spouse or a good friend will like pull you out and help you with this but I think it is important to know this is not easy, right? In fact, theme, everything we're talking about, nothing of it is easy. It's just all important. Important things are generally hard. Being vulnerable is one of them. And I just say maybe two things

about it. It does take practice. So sharing is sort of giving people the abstract overview of your life. But I was an English major, and you learn as a writer that high level overviews are boring. People want character details, like in the shows and

movies we watch. And so saying, You know, Lauren and I are in a rough patch is different than saying we almost woke the kids up with our shouting last night and somebody threw something. Because that was a detail that's like, oh, you're actually human like us. Or saying, you know, work was really stressful. My first year as a lawyer is different than saying I couldn't go to sleep unless I drank or took pills. And I'm saying both of these are like real examples from our lives. So like real. And those, I think the important thing to note about being not just a person who shares, but a person who's vulnerable and gives

details is that that is what actually moves the figlies to let other people know you fully they you can't be fully known until you're vulnerable but that means you can you can't be fully loved either because people can't really love you until they know the whole you and so yes it's hard and actually the root of the latin and vulnerable is to be made capable of being wounded so it is literally like to give somebody else the weapon your secrets with which to hurt you but it is worth it because that's where you're actually known and it takes practice but it is it is worth it I would say this is like a something is better than nothing example for being like in the mom years where you like can't find the time for the two of you to meet face-to-face I've had

like a lot of my vulnerability with other some of my key mom friends in the stage of life is like us texting like I just yelled at my kids worse than I ever have like five minutes ago and I need you to know that and I and usually there's so much guilt with that and it's like me being like yeah that's not okay but the most important thing is did you say you're sorry did you and like us like texting live back and forth and being like whoa yeah I didn't just have a hard day with the kids I actually like shared like I need you to pray for me now because I really am mad still and I want to forgive them but I'm having trouble you know that kind of like actual real time like I think technology is a gift there it's not always a gift but like when I can't see someone for like a

month because we're playing phone tag with like the dates at least we can text and that's not with everyone that's with a couple people but like we already had that and then and then the most important thing that a friend can do is to say you're forgiven let it go you loved anyway you know and I can't say that to myself in those moments I don't feel forgiven I don't feel like I can move on for my day I feel guilty and I need my friend to be like no they're not going to forget this they're going to remember that you said you're sorry and move on and that's where like okay I'm so glad we have a phone in that moment. I want to keep it away for me mostly when I'm parenting, but on those days, I need to like go have a minute with my friend. And just encourage people in that,

just real quick, what feels like scary vulnerability to you is going to look like bravery to the other person, which is actually, like, when my friends tell the truth about their life, I'm always like, thank you so much for sharing. You know, so what, it's just, you know, encouragement. It's going to feel scary to you, but to the person sitting on the other side of the table, they're going to be, think, oh, that was courageous. and they're also going to be inspired to share their life too. So vulnerability catalyzes vulnerability

and that's the soil where real friendship begins to grow. You even gave a script of a phone call for what you do with your buddies. Hey, you can't give out all this thing. No, I know, I know. I'm not going to say the script,

but this is what I'm saying. There's so many practical, like, charts or scripts of like, hey, honestly, I think I'm, I thought I was good at connecting people with people. Like I thought I had friendships, but it's really convicting to see, to see the words define. Yeah. You're a very intentional human. But check this out. Like, well, one, I think the other hard part about me being vulnerable is I like to think I'm an optimist. Like, I like to stay positive.

And it's like, hey, what's going on in your life? Oh, it's all good. Like, no, you know, I always try to fast forward to that good season that I know is coming. Like, oh, you know, I'm not going to talk about the hard part because I know something good's coming so let me just glaze over it and that's me not being vulnerable but then on top of that the difference between being vulnerable and venting it turns it turns into like a sloppy mud you know like if I was going to do that with the kids it would probably not come out hey I just yelled at my kids it would probably come out as my kids are being well I've been there too there's a difference of like hey this is there this is me venting and it's pointing the finger at the outside

people versus I just did something wrong. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Which part are you sharing about? We're still practicing our way out of that. Especially with each other. I feel like I've vent less to my friends that I've meant to him. And that is not good for our relationship. He's like, why are you doing this? That's what dads and husbands are here for. We take the pain. We're punching back. We'll make it. I feel like there's a thing though because you don't want to be around the,

you know the friend that just complains all the time too. And it's like, I don't want to become that so I want to be the guy that's a great I hadn't actually thought about that but that is a great point and I think um I think about this I think my my friends will call me out when they're like sounds like you're complaining about Lauren but actually why did you respond that way to her yeah and I they often I think Lauren knows and loves this they often take her aside so like I'm sitting with Matt and Steve on the porch being like this is with a fight we had and they're like sounds like you messed up here. Yeah, but did you hear what I said that she said?

Let's go back to it. It sounds like you messed up here. I think good friends will help you move from venting the vulnerability, but that's a great distinction to make. Yeah. I'm so excited for this book. So it's August 15th,

is a release date. It's coming out. Less than a week now. It'll be out. It'll be out. Yeah. The book is out. It's out.

It is out. Go get it. This thing is out. Get all of them. Amazon, on wherever. Amazon and wherever. It's so good.

And thank you for the effort you put into writing this book. I'm really excited. I'm challenged. So my big takeaway, one of them about vulnerability specifically, is to share specific stories. I think actually Simon Seneck,

as I was preparing for this interview, he's talking about how he made friends, which is so funny. That's cool. We're adults, dude. And like friendship, I think what's challenging about this is we're all humans.

We all think we know how to do friendships because like it's embedded in who we were made to be yes yes yeah and so it's like I don't need to be I don't need to learn how to do that but I think that's the whole point is like we really kind of do we need to relearn yeah the encouragement you're made for people that's why the book is called made for people but the current of American life is taking you into isolation so you got to you got to practice you got to fight you need other people to help well and even more so I hate to like bring it back up but like a pandemic isolated the world so much and took everything virtual that we rarely have the opportunity anymore to even form connections right

because you're not in an office you're not going places you're not going to events it's i think it's just shown that there's a massive issue it's true i mean and you got to fight for i mean it's the subtitle this book is why we drift into loneliness and how to fight for a life of friendship so we're all drifting we're all on this together but we got to fight yeah and it's made for people it's not made for popularity or made for you know followers it's like there you go there's something about you're not made for likes yeah you're made for people a covenant friendship where it's like hey there will be really fun times together but also really difficult times where we're not where we're not you know lucy goosey bros like there's going to be some tough head budding going on and that's the way it should be so

amen anyway Justin oh shoot my bad just throw it around my I like it when my books get beat up Dog made to be thrown around. Thank you guys. Yeah, thanks for having us. This is a really fun conversation. This has been awesome. And thanks for everything y'all are doing out there. Game nights, being vulnerable, talking about your marriage.

Y'all are the best. So cool to be here. I'm curious, what's your best piece of marriage advice? You've either been given or would give based off experience. I'm going to make sure that is the last question. No, I want to keep going on, babe. No, you're not. I know mine, but I'll wait.

It's yours. You go first. Practice praying together. we do a short 30 second prayer before we go to bed every night it's so small but it's so important it just keeps us in the rhythm of actually talking to the Lord together especially after you've had a fight or you're kind of mad like we still need to pray I think it's really changed it's just given us like a continual current of knowing each other and talking to the Lord um yeah I think that's that's a good one yeah because we talked about

our goal was to pray together for like the first eight years of our marriage we're like we should really pray together then we like actually let's actually just do it it took us a while um i think i would say like every time you've been apart you know work every day like when you come back together like greet them acknowledge them smile at them she's so good that i love that always comes to the door when i come home yeah that was his that was his mom's advice to ask when we were engaged And I think that that's been really, to be like you are special to me even in the midst of like whatever I'm doing. We interviewed a couple of the marshes and they talk about this idea of hospitality and defining it as thinking of someone before they arrive and that God was hospitable to us. So you think about the story of like Abraham and him looking at the stars and, you know, you could interpret it as like, hey, that star is Andrew in 2023 and that one's Justin and, you know, whatever.

but like he was hospitable to us and then what does it mean to be hospitable to your spouse of like I thought of you before you came like I greeted you at the door that's awesome here's a whatever a glass of water it's it's so easy to not do that yeah um anyway all right that's all right that's all we got no can I say no she's like no no it's it I'm gonna close in the book he says a buddy that he was in a bridal party or a groomsman party with gave him a bottle of whiskey with like 2035 written on it yeah got you a bottle of honey with 2028 written on it for when you write two more books together we're going to have you come back on the show just it's an investment in our future friendship this is awesome all right this was worth the one more thing we'll be back

love it all right thank you guys