Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 29 Jeremy + Audrey Roloff

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

Today in episode 29 of Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew, we chat with special guests Jeremy and Audrey Roloff. You might remember them from “Little People, Big World,” but they’re up to so much more these days! They’re parents, accomplished authors, successful Podcast hosts, and entrepreneurs, to name a few. Here, we talk about all those things and more – pursuing intentional relationships even after you’re married, maintaining a loving marriage, and everything family and parenting (the Roloffs have a daughter, Ember, and welcomed a son, Bode, earlier this year). This is a great episode, and our conversation applies no matter where you are in your love story: single, dating, or married. So we’ll let the Roloffs take it from here. If you haven’t yet, please rate Couple Things and subscribe to hear more. And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, send us your ideas in a video format – we might just choose yours! Email us at [e-mail]. Last but not least, learn more about Jeremy, Audrey, and their incredible work at the links below. ––– The Roloff Company ▶ https://theroloffs.com “The Marriage Journal” – book ▶ https://theroloffs.com/products/themarriagejournal “A Love Letter Life” – book ▶ https://theroloffs.com/products/aloveletterlife Behind the Scenes Podcast ▶ https://theroloffs.com/blogs/behindthescenespodcast Follow @audreyroloff on IG ▶ https://www.instagram.com/audreyroloff/ Follow @jeremyroloff on IG ▶ https://www.instagram.com/jeremyroloff/ ––– We’re supported by the following companies we love! Make sure to check them out using our links below. Glossier! New customers get 10% off their first order ▶ https://glossier.com/podcast/EASTFAM Best Fiends! Download Best Fiends FREE on the Apple App Store or Google Play. Learn more ▶ https://bestfiends.com/games/best-fiends/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. A podcast all about couples and the things they go through. Don't like that at all. Hope you're having a great day. Today we sit down with Jeremy and Audrey Roloff. You may recognize the roll-offs from the reality TV show called Little People Big World.

Since leaving that show, they have gone on to do huge things, including being New York Times bestselling author. Did I say that right? Yes. New York Times bestselling. something author of a book called The Love Letter Life. Yes. We talk a lot about their kind of roller coaster of their relationship going from reality

television to then social media to then becoming parents in the public eye. We talk about all the different kind of job opportunities and there are a so-called work plate over the past few years. They talk a lot about how they're actually slowing down right now because they got so overwhelmed with all of it and reprioritizing. life. Yeah, this is a really impressive couple. I think we kind of have a similar kind of niche that we're in as far as what things we talk about on our podcast and YouTube. But I really respect these two. We actually were able to join them on their podcast show called Behind the Scenes a couple months ago. Really

enjoyed getting to know them and this was a great continuation of that. Also, recently, it is worth noting that they came out with a marriage journal, which is quote unquote, the best, the word world's best communication tool for marriage and it's designed to do once a week with your spouse and it's just a cool communication tool for husband and wife to do together yes um i think you guys are going to like this podcast they have a lot of great insights and opinions and just tips and tricks for relationships that we even took away from and thought you know it would better our relationship before we jump into it please subscribe to the show and give it a rating on whatever platform you're listening. And let's jump into this one with Jeremy and Audrey Roloff.

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What a pleasure. Thanks for having us. I know you guys are on vacation, so thanks for making the sacrifice. Yeah. You guys know, never really on vacation when we do it. Podcasting. I know. And you're always kind of on vacation, too.

Yeah. Podcasting is one of those beautiful things. You can kind of do it wherever. Yeah, it's pretty great. Wait, so didn't you guys just take a break from your podcast? We are. Yes, we are. Officially, this is the first week, technically, that we are in break mode.

So we're taking the summer off. Well, we're into that decision. A lot. A lot. We've kind of been in this season. A lot of our listeners know we've been in this season of just starting to choose and focus on specific things. things and we love the podcast but as you guys know it takes a lot of energy and we just we needed

to reserve as much energy as possible to make some other decisions in our life right now and we just figured let's uh let's call it a season so we're not like quitting our podcast we're just ending season four so we've done this we're our fourth season and uh giving it at least a summer break so i really respect that i have been really thinking especially during the quarantine where like at first we're like oh my gosh we got to create all this content because people like need optimism and positivity and then i feel like about a month and a half into that i we hit rock bottom shot at rock bottom that's it's not rock bottom wow i wasn't aware no yeah it was like we got a slot yeah uh yeah uh but it's it's it's it's tough and it takes a toll on like my whenever we have a podcast interview or we're about to film content it's like oh my gosh

like we got to prepare and then it's like did I prepare enough oh did I miss this am I going like there's just it takes a lot of mental space it does and so I respect that also in light of I don't know how you guys feel about this if you've thought about this but like Rachel and Dave Hollis that whole situation of of them getting divorced and really and I, they were doing a lot of things that Sean and I wanted to do with the marriage conferences and the books all about like having healthy relationships and what it's like working with your spouse. And it really made me pause when they hit their thing. It's like, hey, I never want to touch that ever. So what can we do to protect that? So I respect your decision.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you guys. That did come as a bit of a shock. And I personally, Audrey and I have felt, we felt this for a couple months now, or really maybe a year. We've been like, holy smokes, we got to start pumping the brakes and start evaluating because four years ago we quit the family television show in effort to do all this, podcasting and online and write books and encourage and inspire it. And it's been nothing but fun, but it's come at a cost for sure, as everything does. And so we're definitely evaluating right now, and we shut down always more, which was a company that it was based on Audrey's, you know, life mantra. Always believe in the more that it's within you from the verse of Ephesians 320.

We shut, we canceled our book contract and and just trying to lean back. Yeah, wean back and slow down because it all, it catches up really quickly. And, and it's so easy to paint pictures online and with what we, with what we, with what, we do and oj and i want to as you just said stay so far away from that we want to stay as true to us and as healthy as possible so saying no to some things is definitely a requirement for us right now i was going to ask we were looking at the uh you know the big news of you releasing or submitting the second manuscript for the book but um sean and i went through the phase of saying no not too long ago and in my mind i was like i'm saying no to these things or shutting the door to these

things so I can open more doors and I realize that's the wrong mentality like that's the wrong mentality I just got to say no and just there's something to be said about being content and happy with dude the internet just makes us it just shows you everything you're not everything you could do everyone you should be everywhere you could go it's just all of these anxious feelings and we're being bombard. And then the news, I mean, I mean, that's a whole another element of the anxiety problem. And it's like all day, every day, we're consuming a billion reasons of how we're less than. It's really a fascinating emotional problem. A lot of our youth, as we know, is facing. And we're facing the ones that are like in it, you know. And no of this

is to say bad. We love what we do. It's awesome. I just feel like, pacing ourselves. We're 30 starting our family, two kids. I'm not 30 yet. Yeah. We don't need to take over the world by 35. And that's something we kind of like really embraced in the last couple months and made some hard decisions. Well, I mean, I don't want to, you know, linger on a topic too long, but I feel like we could dive into this very deep because Andrew and I've had a lot of conversations like this. I feel like when you're within, like when you're in this industry within entertainment or social media your job is to create so whether you're off work and you're not you know on your computer and you turn your cell phones off at five o'clock you never turn work off

you can't as soon as you turn it off your career stops and it's such this over-consuming career where you're constantly trying to think of what image you're portraying what you're saying who you are when you go out to the grocery store because it goes with your brand. And Andrew and I have talked a lot about when it comes to a podcast, what do we want to divulge? What do we want to talk about? Because we're also putting ourselves on the line and we're being vulnerable. And it's almost like marital therapy, but yet there might still be open wounds. Like, I didn't know we hit rock bottom.

But I do think, I think it's a really complicated, it's a complicated. you know time and career to be in like you guys said you're taking a step back to have perspective on the priorities it's so easy to get lost that way and it's so easy to be like oh i want to take over the world by 35 i have to do more we have to make more we have to create more we have to what was if you don't mind us asking the turning point for you guys where you said we can't continue to do more. We need to take a step back for us. Baby number one. And then it doubled with baby number two. I think that's a simple way to put it. But obviously, I think like for us, we made a lot of big commitments and we sort of were like, let's dip our toes in all waters before we had kids and we had

all the energy in the world and all the time in the world. And we were very ambitious and we were like, okay, yeah, let's sign the book contracts and start the ministries and start a podcast and start all these clothing line and all these different things and kind of see which thing takes off or see which thing we decide that we want to be the most committed to or the most passionate about or focus on. And they all sort of not took off at the same time, but took off in their own way. And then we added a kid to that and we were like, whoa, we like committed to, we didn't think that all of these things were going to, it sounds weird, but like work in the way that they did. And we never intended to do all of them. We just intended to kind of try and see like

what we wanted to do the most. And so we had to go through this process of like, okay, we started all these things sort of at the same time. We need to slowly one by one decide which things need to go so that we can better focus on the things that we really feel like this is our sweet spot. This is like what the Lord made us to do. And this is the thing that we equally love and is going to give us the lifestyle that we want and the family dynamic that we want. And so, I mean, I think just having kids, you guys know, changes your perspective on so many things. I feel like that was a really big turning point. But yeah, it was kind of a gradual, I feel like it was a little bit of a gradual process for us. We just kept getting in bed at night. And you just said it's so great. You

can't like the second you turn off your phone you turn off your career in some sense as far as what we're supposed to do which is create and we just kept getting in bed at night going like this is kind of working but I don't like it anymore and so that was we woke up like that maybe I don't know half a dozen times before we were like we this is supposed to create a lifestyle we wanted but now we're not living the lifestyle we wanted that we set out to do in the first place so something's going to change so it's kind of that gradual realization for us and we're really excited for our next steps but saying no is andro as you just says such it is an art so hard yeah i uh it's it's also just last thought on this in our line

of work the time where you can say yes to the most amount of things and you have the most opportunities is when you have a massive life event like another child you know what I'm saying yeah and so we did that we launched our podcast a week after we had a kid because I thought that was a great idea and then being like you're blasting me today I was a week home from the hospital and he's like babe we got to film a podcast and I was like what and then now in retrospect it's like no that's not the priority like that is not the priority Yeah, but it's great, and it's probably working, and it's fun, but there's the pros and cons. Anyway, one thing we have in common, Jeremy, I don't know if the girls could attest to this is we both look better with short hair, so.

Dude. Hey, you had short hair last time we talked, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I could cut it by then. I think, like, the day before is when we cut it. Dude, yeah, it was fun. It was a good experiment, but there's nothing like getting out of the pool. or waking up and just knowing I can go.

I can cruise or not anything. Dude, and you had like those Frodo Baggins curls, too, like the whole thing, man. Unmanageable. I didn't see it, but now I look back. It's funny because I always thought in the moment, like, I'm going to look back on this and think something, but now I'm not like, yeah, this is like the cover of our book. What was I doing? Andrew has looked back on some pictures with his long hair.

and he's like, why didn't you make me cut my hair? And I'm like, well, I tried for like three years. Because one thing I wasn't. Oh, you wanted it. Oh, you wanted it. I did. I love the curls. And I was really sad.

I would have cut mine if it wasn't for audio. I loved the curls. But also just like everything. I like change, you know? Yeah. I feel like, you know, he had his hair long for three or four years, a long time. Three and a half years. And I feel like it was just kind of like time, you know?

but I loved I like I don't know I can swing both ways it was the point at which I saw like a little receding hairline and then you like you walked down the street and you see like an old dude with the ponytail that's like super it's when you start yeah it's when you start like a lot of people that don't do it really well or you start to like is this me is this me maybe I'm going walking around yeah and I was like Bibb, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. I have to say, I haven't, this is my favorite when you laugh like that. And you've done that three times. Oh, thanks. I haven't made her laugh like that in. Okay. So I am curious. How did you guys meet? We have to take it back. Yeah, take it back. Well, we. TD Bank knows that running a small business is a journey from startup to growing and managing your business.

That's why they have a dedicated small business advice hub on their website to provide tips and insights on business banking to entrepreneurs. No matter the stage of business you're in, visit td.com slash small business advice to find out more or to match with a TD small business banking account manager. Met on a blind date before church essentially. It was a blind, yeah, it was a blind date before church. We had mutual friends that one grew up with Jeremy and one grew up with me and they started dating one of his best friends that he grew up with transferred to my high school and started dating one of my best friends. So they were my friends and they were like, you guys would be perfect together and neither of us were really looking to date. Neither rest had ever been on a blind day before. We both almost bailed last minute. Jeremy showed up at my door.

I answered the door soaking wet and covered in mud in my running buns and sports rocks. I just got back from like an eight mile run. I was a runner in college. I was fashionably early. And Jared was like, who heck is this girl? I hope this is your sister. And it wasn't. But we had our first date.

It was not like love at first sight. We were definitely interested in each other, but it wasn't like. It was interest at first sight for sure. Like I was I was totally intrigued. Like, who in the world? I should probably know more about her. Wait. I have some questions first.

Can we? As a girl, like the logistics have. of this. I started sweating at the idea that he showed up early enough that you had just gotten out of the shower. Listen. No, no, no. I wasn't. I didn't shower. I didn't get out of the shower. I got back. How did we pull this off? She hadn't even showered yet. And that hasn't... How early were you? Six, five years of marriage and that hasn't even changed. I'm always running late. Literally She's getting out of the shower and I'm like, babe, kids are loaded cars on. But anyways, yeah, no, I had literally just, I mean, he could have answered the door and no one could have been there.

My family was all out of town and I had like literally just gotten back. And I literally answered the door and I was like, hey, I'm not ready. Yeah, like go inside and make yourself at home. I'm going to go get ready. And then I just like left him in my parents' kitchen. So I walked to the kitchen. Yeah, make yourself at home. Yeah, literally.

I'm walking around the kitchen like, what in the world? 100% by myself, blind date. The whole thing was just not how to do it. friends met us so it was like a double blind date so they made it last yeah yeah and then we had the blind date it's actually one of my favorite stories in the book because we obviously tell the whole the whole meat and it's a it's a laugh i read it still and i'm like man babe that was a funny meat but yeah so it was a it was a we kept i kept that i mean really i was i was my i just that was my I started pursuing her and I was kind of my, you know, it was her that, what am I saying?

Audrey was not into me, is what I'm saying. That's not true. I wasn't not into Jeremy, but I wasn't really like in a place in my life where I was like trying to find, I like kind of over spiritualized dating a little bit. And I like put a lot of pressure on the next person that I dated. And I was like, this next person I day is going to be my spouse. And so I just had like this like really stubborn, like kind of prideful attitude and hence, Hence, Jeremy pursuing me for two years. We were friends before I even was like, I kind of like you.

And then we finally started dating after two years of friendship. And then we did three years long distance and graduated college and got married. The month after. I feel like a lot of people over spiritualized dating. Yeah. Especially you get over that. It's great. We learned through it.

I don't think we really got out like during it. It was a problem for me. Not so much for Jeremy, but like into our dating relationship was definitely the thing for me. Yeah, I think a lot of its perspective. Yeah, I think, yeah, we do talk about that exact concept, actually, but in our book, but I think a lot of it is perspective. And what I mean by that is, you know, the over spiritualization of dating is we should take it somewhat seriously. And we should be somewhat careful and critical and not go, you know, but also you have to, like,

meet people and know people and the difficulties of it and the dangers, I think, specifically in a sexual-based culture has totally outweighed the risks. So a lot of people in the Christian circle are looking at the risks and then taking the act of going on a date so serious because we see this huge pile of risks involved. And that's something I see at least just recently. And really just because, I mean, everything is just so sexualized. Well, I mean, I even have a friend who is in the dating world.

And she does the same thing. Someone will ask her out. She's like, oh, I can't. Like he's not, I know he's not the one. I'm like, she just overhypes it so much. And like there's nothing wrong with going and meeting a human being. Yeah, totally. Like no strings attached.

Yeah. We're forgetting how to do that though. Yeah. But I think, I think as long as you're going to meet another human being with the expectation that you're just going to meet another human being. And like, it's not for like, oh, let me go. hook up with this rando. Yeah, for friendship.

Which I feel like it's kind of a mixed bag. It's like that's kind of the expectation is, hey, we're going to hook up because whatever it's fun. But it's just way more actually enjoyable if it's like, like coffee dates. That was my jam back in the day. That was your jam? Wow. Okay.

The covenator. I do feel like though, if more people set the expectations, of going to meet another human being, they would end up in relationships. Yeah. Because if you go in thinking, oh, this is going to be my husband someday or something. I mean, yeah, I would, I'd have a heart attack.

Too many people are looking for a husband and wife. They're not looking for a friend. And we all know friends are the foundation of relationship. So if you go out looking for a friend, pressures off and you might find yourself with a husband or wife that your best friends with I know it might sound a little like okay but seriously we're going we won't go coffee dates because we're like they're not husband and wife material it's like well first you have no idea why you insta stalked them for a quick second go hang out for a minute and see what comes of it then you

might find yourself in love and again that goes back to the classic you can't choose who you fall in love with but you can spend who you can choose who you spend time with. Audrey says that a lot and I think it's so true. Right. All right. Audrey, true or false? I want you to answer this question first and Jeremy, you answer it. Yeah. A male and female can platonically be friends. In general. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay, wait, how can I refine that? I don't think that if I don't think that I don't. I know I think, yeah. So we actually, we also talk about this in our book just because it's relevant to our own story and our own dating relationship. So it's something that we've shared vulnerably in our book. But I think it's just something that you have to be careful with. Like I have a lot of guy friends. And to be honest, like my personality, I tend to almost like connect with guys better than girls sometimes. And same. That's like a thing for me. Yeah.

And then family has a lot of girlfriends, too. And even in marriage and dating all the way through. But I think what gets tricky is when you just don't have any sort of boundaries for those types of relationships. And not to specify it to like me having relationships with my male friends, but like also boundaries for me with my female friends. Like if I'm spending more time with my girlfriends than I am with Jare or Jers, you know, sacrificing date night every week to go play poker with his friends like there needs to be boundaries

on those relationships too so i think like what it really comes down to is just like boundaries in general for your relationships outside of your own marriage to in order to protect and prioritize your most important relationship which is your marriage yeah i like that a lot i like that too you guys have mentioned your book a couple of times book is for those listening a love letter life uh i would love for you guys to talk about that but i do have to say we were watching the for the book you guys are on I don't know where what beach that was shot at oh dude oh yeah that's Oregon Coast really beautiful it's like 40 minutes from where we live yeah yeah the Oregon guys have never visited it's a coast it's a coast so it's like Oregon sucks don't

move here yeah you guys are just laughing the whole time Audrey's hanging out the side of a freaking moving vehicle she's in you remember that shot i was like oh my gosh this is her brother her brother shot that he's an incredible filmmaker but um yeah back to we'll get in the book in a second but the back to the you know platonic relationship thing i think oj and i really are heart behind even telling that whole story in our book we spent an entire chapter kind of really trying to address the topic because we noticed that so many people when they get on the other side of fidelity or they get on the other side of problems in their relationship or they're falling out of love 90 plus percent I want to say 99 percent but just to be conservative 90

percent plus of them don't really know how it happened it's just like how did I end up here you know accidental seemingly insignificant choices. built a friendship or built up decisions over the course of years and then you find yourself in an affair or in problems or being closer friends and connect and just you find yourself growing away from your spouse because that's what you've chosen in the micro moments year after year after year after year so our heart was just to say like hey if you're not consciously aware that you fall in love with those you spend the most time with like there's nothing there's no obligation to stay in love with your spouse there's no obligation there's no

like required like your heart doesn't just choose your spouse your decisions do and so we were just trying to say like hey the insignificant decisions that you make do add up over time and nobody sets out to intentionally have an affair it's an accident it's not an accident's choice but because of all the small little micro choices you make that that add up to it sorry for the little soap box but I feel like that's an important it's an important point to get across because that was our heart behind it is just to say like hey be friends with whoever you want but like also just think about it like just think about who you're spending all your time with and whatnot what it could end up you know to be I want to be 55 with my best friend here love and life because I've we

guarded our relationship and we put boundaries and our kids are all and grandkids and all the stuff like we have this vision for what we want to create and so we're going to try to be as intentional as possible without being religious about it you know so that's our heart behind that but man i like that a lot uh i've been feeling that a lot with i mean having a kid changes a ton but especially within within a marriage where you just have less energy generally and so when sean and i get into a conflict there's always like that one moment where i'm either going to be all right we're going to work through this in a healthy way or uh part of me wants to say no you don't like you don't have the energy for this, don't do it. And like, it is such a battle every single time to make myself realize that

if I don't have this healthy conflict, it's a little wedge that I'm putting in our relationship. So, like, again, they're healthy conflicts, but like they need to be bad and I need to respect Sean. And hey, Andrew, I didn't like how you did that. I can either be like, all right, well, let's talk about it or not, not right now, babe. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't have the energy so yeah who's the person that like wants to talk about the conflict and process it through and who's the one that's like i need time i always want to talk about it i want to like be a dead horse i want to make sure it's solved it's never coming up again we love each other we're going to like cry it out we're going to laugh it out it's going to go on way too long but i want to talk

about it the only way that's you oh 1,000 percent i one of the things i have to tell myself I want to hide it under a bushel. Don't ever talk about it. Jeremy, we joke like, Jeremy blinks forgiveness. He's like, done, over it. If me forgiving you means I never have to think about it again, done. He doesn't want to.

I know that, like, deep down, like, that's the best thing that's not going to be good later. So I have to, like, pry it out of him. But then also, like, on the flip side, like, when we do have a conflict, I'm a, I don't invite, me into the conversation. I demand the conversation. So I'm like, we're having this conversation. And I think this is one thing that's been like really, really helpful for us with that in our own specific marriages, our marriage journal, because every week we have a time that's like,

we've invited each other to this time where like we're not emotionally charged. It's outside of the moment of conflict. And we have an opportunity to address things that maybe didn't have the time to fully resolve during the week because of Jeremy's personality or because of just life and kids and i know i know that every week there's a set aside time where i'm going to engage in where he has to engage yeah but it's but i'm choosing to do it too like i'm going to give because i love audrey i am not good at this i don't want to do it but i will do it because i know healthy relationships on the other side so the marriage journal yeah for conflict resolution's really been huge for us but you know you guys have any tips on one thing sean and i are terrible at is

all right we have the conflict like the issues we've addressed it we've discussed it how the heck do we land the plane and like get back to watching netflix or making a meal you know what I'm saying like we always just like it's always a crash like there's tears and then there's hugs and then it's like okay let's continue watching Netflix yeah yeah yeah I don't know man if you guys know yeah yeah we yeah we yeah we i and I we have totally different styles of um of resolving and landing the plane i would say yeah i think that's a that's the hard part of relationships i mean summed up right there is you have two separate people two separate styles two separate hearts ways of communicating things that anger you things that frustrate you

things that you love trying to live together so it's i mean there's no perfect way to do any of it. It's messy and rough, but if you fight your way through it, it's beautiful. Totally. And I think that's like a really good perspective because, you know, that's, I mean, that's the whole idea is my way isn't right. Her way isn't right. I need to become, you know, less of me and less of her as far as like a selfish desire, like me and my way. And the collision of the two is kind of the whole idea. Okay. So big. question. You guys have been together during a TV show where your lives have been shown to the world. You put your lives out there on social media. You talk about it on a podcast. You have

had babies. You have done long distance. You have written books together. You've done pretty much all of it. What are, what's the, the takeaway of all of it? What's the big like relationship advice you have summed up through all of your experiences so far? And if that's not hard enough, you can only use one single word. Yeah. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I put that on you guys on dog podcast, didn't I? Uh-huh. One word. Got.

Okay. Like, what's one thing we've learned about our own marriage through all that? Yeah. Either. Oh, that's like lofty. That is lofty. That's a huge question. Well, you guys think.

I just think it's really important because you guys have lived. Yeah. I feel like within one relationship, if someone has to overcome long distance, they've overcome this massive obstacle within, you know, their marriage or dating. You guys have gone through a lot of it. Having a relationship on a reality TV show is very difficult. Yeah. Having a relationship on a podcast on social media.

Having babies, getting married, writing a book, all of it is. Speaking of babies. You hear the little guy? I know. He's, I can hear. I think one, this is just a thought. This is what is the most fresh on my brain. So I'll just share it.

I don't know if it's answering the question, right? But I think one thing that Jerry and I was talk about is like, we, that life that we've lived has presented a lot of opportunities for making decisions. And I think how you make decisions as a couple is important and like how you make decisions together. And we've just like through the years of even our friendship relationship and our dating relationship like I feel like we've been presented with a lot of decisions like just it seems like our friends joke about it like we're always making some massive decision like whether it's

stop something or to start something or to to do something or to move or to whatever and jeremy's hair yeah like there there and i just feel like there's something about like making big decisions together because it's not just been like me making my own decisions and jeremy's own decisions Like all those things that you just listed were decisions ultimately that we need together to either pursue a thing or stop a thing. And I think like, Chase a dream. I think that those,

ultimately the process of making that decision has brought us closer together. And there's been conflict that's come through the making of the decision. But like we've learned how to make decisions together. Like we've gotten better at our process for making decisions over the years. And it's become something that has been less conflict-inducing more like unity, building in our relationship um and it's i don't know i feel like it's just been a way that's allowed us to see our dreams as together dreams and like through the process of making decisions that align with those dreams and like align with the vision that we have for the future i don't know

just a thought now i love that some deep thoughts right there audrey crush that babe you have Jeremy, match that, dude. I was like trying to play off like, yes, good, babe. Yeah, we should wrap it up. Next question. No, I would just, I would go off of that and say, you know, one thing Audrey and I are, I would say, good at,

and we try to encourage, and I say that humbly, but something I think that the Lord has just given us is the ability to dream together really well. I have my own dreams, Audrey has her own dreams, but we have like our two or three, we have our two, like, big goals as 100% collective as, you know, we both aspire to those two, our two main goals. And that has allowed us to filter process and make decisions really collaboratively because we're chasing the same thing. You steer where your eyes are. you stare where you stare you steer where you stare audrey and i are staring at the same goal we're going to we're going to constantly be growing bumping into each other on our way to that goal there's

nothing about our two main goals that are going to drive us apart because we want the same thing on our life because it's our life not my life not her life i think dreaming together as a couple is something not a lot of people think about you think oh like i want maybe like a happy family or you think like i'm giving up my dream for your dream or you're giving up your dream for my dream but like some one person's dream has to bend and you got to come up with something to chase for together because you you steer where you stare and uh i think that's something that's that's you know helped us kind of do what we've done and um yeah so take that it's just been important to us i think it's been important for us and maybe it's not important but now i mean to shan's

now though we're standing you know we've known each other for 10 years we're now standing 10 years because we we first met something we bonded on is a dream was a dream together. We've literally been dreaming 10 years, and now we're seeing, like, holy smokes, because we were chasing the same thing, like, look at all the things we've been able to do and accomplish. Like, what an incredible story so far, and we're really excited to write the rest of it. Is it a finite dream that you guys first bonded over and are still chasing? Or is it, like, ambiguous, like, that's a good question. Yeah. You don't have to answer what the dream is if you don't want to.

Yeah, one of the big two is, is to own private. property and raise our family on a farm like that's it yeah that's what we that's what we want to do so a lot of our decisions year one since year one a lot of our decisions have been does this first of all honor our relationship with the lord does it honor our relationship together and three does it get us closer to that goal that dream and two years a year ago when we were realizing like this is too much how do we say no to things that became a serious way we would start to say no to things no to opportunities and filter out what we're really doing and realize like we don't need to achieve this dream now you might achieve it in a few years and that's okay if it's slower if we're

healthier on the road to it yeah I love that I've had it just you made me think of a couple things one I remember being like 20 years old and and looking up at like a like some of my mentors and be like, oh my gosh, I can't believe they know that much or have these many connections or have built all this stuff. Yeah. I need to, I need to do what they're doing and be where they are right now. Yeah. Dude. And then it's like, no, no, like it comes with time.

You're freaking 30 years old. I'm 28. Like the farm will come, you know? Yeah. Totally. And then the second thing is in regards to marriage, I've been thinking about why are couples sometimes able to make it through like, you know, living in a trailer together, like a tiny apartment and they don't have anything and they're living on a small budget.

But then they get divorced when the husband sells his billion dollar company or whatever. And I was thinking it was like, I wonder if part of it is because the dream is there. Like, oh, like someday we're going to be living in a house like there to be driving a car like that and and when they when they're both actively chasing that it's good like it's a bonding experience and they're both on the same page but then once it's that once they're there you kind reflect on what it took to get there as far as time and and decisions and the groups of people that you you're now surrounded with who may or may not be healthy and it's like just always dude it's always you got to keep it in check you always just got to be asked yourself like is this

in line with what my priorities are, which totally. Yeah. You guys are setting a standard for keeping priorities in order and keeping your family and stuff in front of work, which is awesome. Yeah. I'm sure we'll have conversations tonight about what we need to say no to now, which has been that's encouraging. That's, you know, back to what you guys kind of briefly mentioned before. I think that the Dave and Rachel Hollis situation as unfortunately. as it is should be a serious wake-up call to a lot of us in this space so absolutely well this it's been a deep this has been like a deeper conversation guys are they this is like biggest we're always deemed like the too serious guys we're just too

serious believe it or not we're like we're we're trying to keep it somewhat No, we love it. Are you kidding? We're not a, it's, it's harder for us to like. Well, we joke about this. Our friends joke with us about this. Well, not for me because like the goofy, I guess sometimes you are more. Sometimes I am, yeah.

In certain elements, but like, when you're having the conversation, like, we go deep. I'm a hundred percent like. I was always the guy where it's like, Ed, you don't want to talk to Andrew if you're looking for like a lighthearted, you know. Yeah. You get stuck talking to him for five. hours and by the end of it you'll be questioning everything just I need therapy but you guys are awesome it's great to talk to you guys again please if you haven't yet go purchase their book right

and their marriage journal yeah I love your I love your journal we're just looking at it before this we're we're ordering we've already ordered we'll send you guys one we'd love to but yeah the marriage journal just real quick for those I don't know is just it's really communication tool you can talk about the week ahead you just go through six simple questions but it covers a lot of the bases and it's just a way to connect communicate and grow in love with your spouse and we have thousands of people are doing it now and it's been a phenomenal tool for communication so that's just the marriage journal dot com that's super cool we'll link that down below are you ending the conversation i feel like i mean i feel like we could talk to them for hours but it has already

even 45 minutes and we're yeah yeah guys and the the whole the timing of podcast would you do do guess is is such a funny thing is a i always like we always only keep talking always like okay let's be 30 knowing it'll be 45 but like could probably go longer but does our audience want that what's how is it and again it's like seven decisions you only have so many yeah seriously right like you only have so many brain calories a day to spend this is why all i wear is white and black shirts. I read Essentialism by Greg McOwen and McAwn. I don't know. Have you read that? Yeah. Super good book. After that book, I was like, I'm not wasting another calorie the rest of my life. I'm deciding what to wear.

We have enough decisions to make. And like, I just laid out seven decisions in the silly podcast. Well, we're, we do the same thing because we're always in the middle of interviews and we're trying to like gauge there's body language of like, I could still, I could still ask more questions. but is it, is it time to wrap it? I don't know. But seriously, you guys are awesome. We're going to do like a series together where we just talk about marital therapy.

Yeah, over the summer now that it keeps us fresh on. They just shut down their podcast. You can't throw them into another series. You're saying no to things over here. Yeah, yeah. Let's think that's the next thing, right? Yeah. By the way.

I was going to say that? Yeah, what's up? Dude, my bad, bro. I just cut you off how many times. We had Rachel and Harold, girls on the show. Oh, cool. He mentioned something about a fly fishing trip, which yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I want to do that right now. Dude, it is incredible. We could throw a trip together. Jared literally at the time of his life. But I'm like, where's the girl trip happening? Because I feel like there's all these rad guy trips, but I want to go fly fishing.

There's so many guy trips. Let Jeremy talk. I cut them off too many times. Well, I was just going to say that trip got canceled, which is a bummer because of all the COVID stuff. but hopefully next year I'll get picked back up. Oh, one thing I was going to say, Gary V, you know, he's another one of those guys where it's like, okay, you say a lot of good stuff, but if you listen to him for two weeks, you pretty much know everything.

Yeah, I have to say. But it says like one thing he says that I, there's a lot of stuff he says that I'm also like, I don't think so. But like the whole hustle mentality, I mean, like the whole host is like they really adopted that hustle mentality and hustle leads to her. no two ways about it because it's unregulated if you adopt the hustle mentality you're unregulating the design for rest we're designed to rest it's how we enjoy pace and so if you're not resting how can you enjoy the speed of oh we got a baby here oh let's up dude that's something

gary v said or one thing gary v says that i do enjoy is he's always harping on the journey you got to really enjoy it back to what you were saying earlier and your the journey is like because like the farm sure like we would love to have a farm one day but if that's the ultimate goal then what you said earlier was so good once we achieve it it's like you know well then what it can't be like the goal it just has to be a goal for you know for the relationship but I think that's just an important point to make because you know it's the same thing that happens with a lot of marriages with like kids they make kids the goal and then when it becomes the glue of the relationship then when the kids move out so does the

relationship lose out and they're stuck going who the heck are you and well I think the goal just has to be aligned to a deeper purpose like the goal can't just the goal like it has your goal has to have a purpose so like your goal might be to have kids for what purpose your goal might be to buy a farm but what's the purpose like for what why you know and those are like is it to honor God, is it to protect and build your relationship, and B, or C, is it to achieve the goal, which if the goal is achieved, it should support the first two, you know. But now we're getting all crazy.

This is, welcome to the second half of today's podcast. Hey, we're talking to the episode, broken into two parts. I appreciate you guys taking time out of your vacation to join us today. I really enjoyed this conversation. I know, me too. We'll link all the stuff down below, the marriage. journal link the love letter life and all your social media but i hope to talk to you guys soon appreciate the time yeah always a pleasure thank you guys so much for having us