The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - #12: Live from Florence, Italy!, Lauryn's Surprise Trip, How to Plan Travel, Keeping the romance alive and how to travel on a budget

Episode Date: May 24, 2016

In this episode we are live from Florence, Italy! We talk about Lauryn's surprise trip to Venice and Florence, How to plan travel in a smart efficient way. We also discuss how to Keep the fire alive in any relationship, and how to travel on a budget.  To learn more about The Skinny Confidential visit the site HERE To connect with Lauryn click HERE To connect with Michael click HERE

Hi everyone, we're back with the Skinny Confidential Him and Her podcast. We are podcasting live from Florence, Italy, which is very exciting. Michael and I are here. Jordan and Taylor are unfortunately back in San Diego. So you'll just have the two of us today, which is kind of different. Oh, damn. Oh, damn. Oh, shucks. We're not going to have any, we're not going to have anybody to jump in. No one to jump in. No, no, um, Taylorisms. No, no bare naked cucumber. You know, this is, I think I'm pretty excited about this one. One, because it's just me and

you. We'll see how we do. We'll see if we actually can get through the whole thing. Two, we are in Italy, which I think is pretty awesome. Taking the podcast on the road. Road trip. Yeah, we're really inspired right now by taking the podcast on the road because it mixes it up. It gives it diversity. And maybe it's something we'll do in the future where we can involve you guys. Well, we didn't account for travel when we launched the podcast, right? I know. Because we travel a pretty good amount.

It's one of our favorite things to do for multiple reasons, which we'll get into. But we didn't realize like, okay, shit, we have a weekly podcast that we have to deliver. Here's the thing too. When we go on vacation, we work the entire time. It may not look like we're working, but I can assure you we are working the entire time. Yeah, we take some time off and we'll explore and like have a drink and have some cheese. But we definitely are working the entire time. And we want to podcast in live time. That's really important to us. A lot of podcasters will film content and then, you know, go on a trip. Yeah. I have no interest in that because I wouldn't even know what to talk about.

Because it's not authentic. And, and, and I think like, maybe it's not the best sound in the world because we're not in San Diego, but like, I think the sound would be pretty good. You do? Yeah. It sounds pretty good. I'm listening to on headphones right now. So I'm too, I'm kind of doing those headphones have been permanently screwed into your ears. Yeah. Well, I love headphones. We, we know, we know we got it. Everyone's got it. They're so tight. They're cutting off your Permanently screwed into your ears. Yeah. Well, I love headphones. We know. We know. We got it. Everyone's got it.

They're so tight. They're cutting off your circulation to your head. If you've been watching our Snapchat, you'll see that I surprised Lauren. I pulled a rabbit out of the hat and surprised her with this trip for her birthday. Yep. It was pretty cute. And now she's even more in love with me than she's ever been before. I would say I was an 8 and now I'm an 8.7. Yeah.

I would say you're like an 80. Well, it was pretty cute how you surprised me. I'm not going to lie. Yeah, do you want to know how I did it? Yeah. So I was sitting around, and I was like, okay, shit, her birthday's coming up. It's a big one, and there's choices. Do I take her out to pastor and put her down like old yeller. Or do I bring her on a

surprise trip? And the first one won out. So congratulations, Lauren, you're on a surprise trip. Thank you, Michael Bostic. I was totally surprised. And it wasn't one of those. It wasn't one of those surprises. Like it wasn't a full surprise because I had to tell you where we're going. No, it was a full surprise. No, but I mean, it was a surprise in the sense like you didn't know where we're going, but you knew you were going somewhere because I had to tell you we were going no it was a full surprise no but I mean it was a surprise in the sense like you didn't know we were going but you knew you were going somewhere because I had to schedule it with you you could have like just kept me asleep and drugged me and just wheelchaired me on the plane Lauren is the most oblivious person in the world we left out of LAX and I said listen we're going on a surprise trip and I'm not going to tell you where and I

didn't tell you where right no you had no idea yeah she had no idea and I was like okay we're gonna go on the surprise trip you know we're going somewhere but I'm not going to tell you where, and I didn't tell you where, right? No, you had no idea. Yeah, she had no idea. And I was like, okay, we're going to go on the surprise ship. You know we're going somewhere, but I'm not going to tell you where. And as far as she knew, it could have been anywhere. The moon. We could have gone to the moon. Yeah. No idea. So we get there and I was like, okay, she'll probably just figure out where we're going

when we get to LA. Just a side note, he told me to pack for San Diego weather, if you guys are wondering how I packed. Yeah, but not San Diego style. Well, you should have told me that because I did pack San Diego style, if you guys are wondering how I packed. Yeah, but not San Diego style. Well, you should have told me that because I did pack San Diego style. Yeah, that's another story. But so we get to the airport and I was like, okay, as soon as they give her her tickets and tell her where we're going, or like she reads a sign or like looks at one piece of information or anything, or here's one word, she's going to know where we're going.

No. But no. Oblivious as ever, as usual, the ticket holder hands us our ticket. She somehow didn't see that and I put them in my bag. So I dodged a bullet there. Then the person said, okay, are we going to check your bags all the way to Venice? And again, I turned thinking she was going to figure it out. Nope, you did not figure it out. Then again, when we got on the plane, you didn't read the sign. It was too early. So again, so I was like, okay, man, I was like, maybe this person, she's like Mr. Magoo out there. Remember Mr. Magoo, the blind guy? Yes. Yeah. Um, so anyways, then we get on the plane and I figured that at that point you would know. No, I idea no idea even after the five announcements like

no idea I had my headphones in I had my computer my champagne I was so happy like I love being on a plane where no one can contact me and there's not really wi-fi so I can just focus on my work and my emails I was listening to a podcast on my earphones. I was sipping champagne and I had my raw almonds. Speaking of earphones, do you want to talk about how pissed those people were that I blasted through in line? Yeah, well, you had your earphones in tight enough. He decided that he was going to get on the flight, but no one was boarding it. So he slammed through a line of like 100 people as fast as he could,

basically pushed down the lady holding tickets. In my defense, I didn't know what... She goes, excuse me, sir. Not right now. We're not boarding yet. I thought they called the name. My headphones were glued in, so I didn't hear,

and I thought that everyone was staying... I didn't know why everyone was standing around not getting on the plane. And listen, in my defense, I've missed flights before by not hearing the boarding bell. It happened once. Okay, well... It happened once, Michael. was staying around, not getting on the plane. And listen, in my defense, I've missed flights before by not hearing the boarding call. It happened once. Okay, well.

It happened once, Michael. Okay, but I've missed in the past. Wait, you've missed one flight. It happened. One flight. Yeah, okay, but. How many flights have I missed by myself? I don't know.

Every flight I've taken on my own. You've actually. The other question is, how many flights have you made on your own? None. Okay. So, yeah. So I cut these people and I felt really bad. And luckily my headphones in.

So I just pretended I was on a call. Literally like, I'm usually a pretty confident guy. You pretended you were on a call? Yeah, I pretended. I was like, shit, this is really bad. I just cut up a whole room full of people. So I was like, I'm just going to pretend that I'm on a call here to make this less awkward. They were disgusted at you.

The looks that they were giving you, it's as if you stole their baby. Whatever. No, no, no. They were disgusted. There was no hero in line that said surrogate in the back. And I apologized on the plane. They could have, you know, we're all going to the same destination.

Who cares? So anyways, we're on the plane and I figure at this point you're going to know where we're going. Still didn't know. So they announced it five times and the first leg was to New York. So I kept waiting for the whole flight

for it to be like, oh, we're going to New York? We're going, but no. 30 minutes to spare. The person, they say they're landing in JFK and she gets, she's like, oh, we're going to New York. we're going but no 30 minutes to spare the person they say they're landing in jfk and she gets like oh we're going to new york and um did you did you think we were staying in new york or what did you think at that point i didn't really think much about it like i just figured like wherever we were going was going to be fun and if we stayed in new york i was cool with that and if we went somewhere else i was fine with that i love new york so much i

could have stayed there you could have yeah but no I had one more trick up my sleeve. We were going to Venice. So then, you know, again, we're in the airport lounge. There's all these movie clips of Venice playing in the background. There's signs everywhere. She still doesn't notice. So we get on the plane and finally she hears the announcement of Venice and her eyes lit up. Yes, I love Venice because when Michael and I first started dating, he took me to Venice, swept me off my feet, and took me to this hotel. It's this quaint little charming hotel called the Hotel Daniele. Basically, you pull up in a boat, and they kind of escort you off, and it's just the most beautiful hotel. And he took me to this restaurant on top of the hotel where they serve lamb ragu and spicy pasta and it was literally the best pasta I've ever had in my life and we had a great bottle of Brunello which is my favorite

red wine you like it too you're not a big red wine fan you like it no I'm not a big red wine fan but I do like me the good Brunello the Brunello is good there do you want to talk about though that the first time we went to Europe and the first time we went to venice my suitcase yeah lauren brought a suitcase back then wait it wasn't like you have you have to like explain this suitcase like it was the biggest most packed suitcase anyone could ever have every expanded expansion you can think of you guys i had i had an airbrush machine, like a makeup airbrush machine in my bag, which was so unnecessary. Ten pairs of shoes. Didn't use it once.

Hats. Who do you think you were? I had tanning oil, like I was going to put some tanning oil on. She thought she was Lady Gaga. I had ten books. I thought it was going to be like setting up my library. You thought you were going to be doing outfit changes. No, I'd never been to Europe.

You thought like three outfit changes were going to be taking place every day. I'd never been to Europe. Like I'd never been when I was younger, so I didn't know how to pack. So the first time we went to Venice, I was also a complete travel rookie. Had no clue what I'm doing. You like weren't that bad though. I was dreadful. I was bad.

I'd been to some places, but not on my own like that. And not so far away. So we get to Venice and I get get a taxi and i was like okay this we gotta get a taxi to take us to the hotel little did i know that you have to get a water taxi so we get in a regular land taxi of course this guy takes us around in circles for 30 minutes charges us however much brings us basically back to the same spot where we find a water taxi i'm trying to lug the goddamn bag onto the water taxi. Nobody's helping me. The bag was literally overweight. Lauren is taking Instagrams.

Wait, selfishly, I was loving the whole experience because I got a lot of content. I mean, this bag was so bad that when we got to the hotel, we had to drop ship half of its contents back to the States via FedEx. Did we really do that? Yeah, we had to.

The guy was like, listen, the porter, he's dead outside. He died by being suffocated from the bag. No, what's the guy that, the bellman. Yeah, the porter. Oh, excuse me.

Is that another word for it? Yeah. Yeah, he was dead. Everyone was dead. That bag was ridiculous. Now we pack together in one bag. We pack super light now, which anybody that's traveling.

We still could pack lighter though no i was having a meltdown today because i was saying remember we were talking i said i think i packed two shirts too many he talked about it for 10 minutes we had to go over it i want when i get back from a trip i want it to be like i used everything and barely made it i don't know why you even think about that because i think it's so cool to pack super light like like an elite team and then listen whenever anybody that's traveling, when you get to a location, if you need something and you direly need it, like go to the store and get it, right?

Like it's not like there's no stores wherever you're going. I mean, in some cases, right? There's no stores. Well, what about that one time that I forgot UTI medication? Okay, well, that's different than I'm talking about like clothes. That's why I bring everything. I had a UTI and I forgot medication. And if anyone's ever had a UTI, it is the most uncomfortable thing on the planet.

And I had to sit on a plane for 10 hours with no medication. And I almost castrated you in the process. I was like squeezing your fist, drinking cranberry juice, miserable. You were like nervous for me. I was sweating. Yeah, that was bad. I was more referencing though like clothing and stuff. Yeah, but that's why I feel like I have to bring everything

because that one time that I forgot UTI medicine, like I'll never forget it. I'm traumatized. Yeah. So yeah, I bring my whole medicine cabinet. But I mean that weighs like what? Nothing? Like it's just a tube.

I'm talking about when girls bring 17 different outfits for three days. Like what are you guys doing? I don't bring nice shoes anymore when I travel because no one cares and you're just walking around. And I just bring like cheap whatever. Yeah, like one jacket, one shoe. Wait, you make a list on a computer of what you need to bring. Yeah, I have the punch list, right? Oh, and also here's another pro travel tip. When you're traveling, the hotel should do laundry. You can get your laundry done. So if you run out of supplies. I know,

but it is expensive. It can get expensive, but I mean, that's if you're doing 50 things. I mean, it's more expensive, I think, to have to deal with all that weight and all that, I mean, carrying all that shit around. Nobody wants to deal with that. I don't really carry it don't like carry it though so yeah I do I know I would rather spend the money on the laundry and be an elite like a seal team no no no so anyways we went to Venice Lauren loves Venice she loves lamb ragu surprisingly I actually don't I love the spicy pasta you were you love the lamb ragu you left your laptop on the plane I did I. I did. I did. I did. And we found it. No, I found it. I'm one of those oblivious people that somehow it kind of just works out. So I left my laptop. Michael was freaking out. You freak out when the plan doesn't go as planned. Like I've never seen anything like it. Your upper

lip starts sweating. Lauren gets so mad at me because i always i always say hey did you bring this did you get this did you get that and she's like yes yes don't have to micromanage me and then i call him the micromanager and then guess what the one time i didn't do because listen i'm gonna let her take care of herself i'm gonna let i'm gonna let you have this one i'm gonna let you go and what did you do i left the charger and the laptop yes yeah so guess what now mr micromanage is back every time you're the mm the old mm so finally we get to venice this time was actually really easy i had it all dialed in this time i had somebody come meet us bring us right to the hotel okay wait can i just tell everyone something about you yeah if you do something wrong the first time you better bet your ass that the next time it's done in the most efficient way possible.

Yeah, no, I'm a quick learner. Okay, me, I'm kind of like, you know, it was bad. I hope for the best. I'll throw it in the air, see what happens. A little more easygoing than you. No, but listen, you know, why do things the hard way? Like, you know, that's the... Sometimes it just works out. Sometimes you leave your laptop on the hard way like you know that's the sometimes it just works out sometimes you leave your laptop on the plane that's the whole reason humans are evolving is

because they've learned from people before them not to do certain things certain ways right so i learned like okay that time the last time was a complete fuck up let's not do that let's do it a different way but you like don't it's not it's not like like you get a little better like you go from zero to if it were up to you we would jump in the canal and swim to the hotel. Okay? So you're welcome. That's true. Yeah.

So finally we get to Venice. We're there. We're checked in. We're having a great time. We're like, okay, let's get some pizza. Right? We went to get some pizza. And we're sitting down, and it was wonderful pizza.

But I swear to God, I think this waiter swam back to the u.s to get our check or i don't know where he was taking a nap he was drinking some brunello taylor eating cheese taylor would be freaking out taylor has an ocd if you guys listened to last episode go listen to it if you haven't and taylor has this weird thing where he can't be sitting at the table like when the check comes like he had like it has to be like paid and done after he eats so taylor would hate italy yeah basically i mean i was i thought that i was just gonna die at the table this guy wasn't was just i don't know where he went he was gone no it took it took literally 45 minutes italy's the only place where while the guy's working,

he will take a lunch break while you're waiting. Yeah, and there's nothing you can do about it. We could have just got up and left. No, no, no. I wanted my pizza. You know how I am about my pizza. Yeah. No, we had the pizza.

I was trying to leave after we got the check, right? I had, but I've been working out so hard. I've been eating a high-fat, high-protein diet, and I wanted my pizza. The people next to us were basically skeletons. They'd been there for two days already before they got out of there. Yeah, but it was worth it. Yeah. So Taylor, I don't think you should ever come to Italy because you'd have a complete nervous breakdown. Yeah, Tay. Maybe go to Japan instead. So while you've been out here, I've been peppering the Snapchat, and I've been asking for questions for people to send to us,

and we've gotten a few. So I'm going to kind of pepper them in as we go because I have a couple. A lot of travel questions. Yeah, a lot of travel questions. This show is mostly going to be about travel. I'm going to weave some business in, but I think we're going to talk mostly travel here. So the first question comes from Katie Cox. It says, how do you plan a trip somewhere you've never been?

How do you find really good places that aren't tourist traps? Well, Katie, I just consult Michael and he kind of just does it. That's a horrible answer, but it's true. You love doing that. Katie, I just know everything in the fucking world. No, you don't. I'm just kidding wait i really don't i'll tell you excuse me i design our house i do the cooking i do i do all

that you can do the travel yeah so it's actually a lot easier than people made out to people will get overwhelmed with trying to plan it's overwhelming yeah so what i do first here's my process i hit the google right and i say okay we're going to venice right then my first move is saying like cool hotels in Venice, right? And that's pretty much all I do in the beginning is I find the hotel. Once I find the hotel, I hit up the concierge, the guy with the gold keys on his shoulder. If you go to your hotel and you see concierge, you see a guy with gold keys, that's the dude that knows what's going on. He loves the gold keys.

Yeah, so I don't fuck around with Google or TripAdvisor or Yelp much. I find the hotel. We book it. the gold keys. Yeah. So I don't fuck around with Google or TripAdvisor or Yelp much. I kind of, I find the hotel, we book it. And then the first thing I do is I email the concierge. What I do is I just go on Instagram and I look at the geo tags and I look, if we're going to Venice, I'll search Venice. And I look at all these pictures and places and restaurants and museums and what I want to see and do. And I just screenshot it and text it to Michael. Yeah, that's good too. I forgot about that. I do use Instagram. Instagram's great. Do you use Snapchat? Not Snapchat. Twitter? No, I use Instagram mostly. I search the hashtags or, you know, they have places now. Oh, the hashtags are good too. Yeah, they have places now too. I don't really look at people. I search like the places and then...

There's a lot of good travel bloggers too that, that, um, but anyway, the concierge is where you want to be. That's who you want to talk to. Like the travel bloggers. Great. You and the concierge are like glad handing by the end of the trip. Like you've exchanged numbers, you know, each other's social security, like your besties. Yeah. Because you know what they do? They set up everything. So all these things where you think like, Oh wow, Michael set all this up. I got the ace in my sleeve and it's the concierge. So before we even leave on the trip, before we even like book the tickets, I email the concierge and I say, hey, what are things to do in places to eat when we're there? And they're the best guys to go through because they're local and they're connected. So instead of dicking around on Google and trying to figure out what other people are saying on Yelp and, you know, Traveloss, whatever the hell these sites are, just ask the source and ask the guy who's connected. He's not going to steer you wrong. I agree with you. I think there's another little tip here that's even deeper than that.

You need to let the concierge know what you're about so for instance when they see michael and i walk in they immediately assume we want some trendy sushi new age food craft cocktails restaurant and we actually don't no i email and i say hey this is michael bostick i'm 75 years old you want wheelchair access i want wheelchair access you'd love an early bird special no No, just kidding. You'd love a whiskey on the rock. No, really. You've got to kind of tell them what vibe you want. I mean, if you can... So what would you say for a vibe?

Listen, if you're doing a girl's trip and you want to go party and party your tits off and go ballistic, like, tell him that. He'll look it up. I would still ask you to plan it. If you want to go on a guy's trip, do that. If you want a romantic getaway, he'll do that. Yeah, but what do you tell them when we travel? I say, look, what are some things to do?

I say we're a couple. We want to do some sites. We want to do some seas. We want to do some foods. We want to do some drinks. Yeah, but how do you tell them what food and drinks we want? Like how do you get us to the kind of vibe we want? Here's what you do, guys.

You email these guys. You kind of give them the vibe you want. And you just have them email you a list of stuff. And they'll email you like 10 restaurants and five options to do or things to do and you just kind of pick from there and then you refine it down so one of the things we did in venice was i had i rented a boat one day that took us around to see some glass blowing it took us to some different islands that are like neighboring venice that was so cute yeah no it was different but we would have never done that without the concierge wait tell about the

the lunch that you took me to on my birthday that was so sweet you thought that was romantic it was romantic so we went to this with the other island that's neighboring venice um where hemingway used to go and live when he was uh living in venice tell him what you ordered and how you copied hemingway well hemingway likes scampi and I realized I'm not a Scampi guy. You thought you were. I thought I was. I was like, look, Michael does this thing where he like tries to adapt to the character of wherever we are. So if he's watching a movie and the character does something like he'll like name the character that he is in the movie and do it. So when we were on Hemingway's Island, he decided that he was going to be like Hemingway and and sip a pinot grigio with um

some scampi i like the pinot grigio the scampi i could have done the scampi was i don't like when they give it ahead with the heads in the in the nails or not the claws but you're he's too polite which you wouldn't believe but he is he's too polite to send it back i have manners no it's not manners if you don't like something you can just say this isn't for me can i please have this no it's the taste was fine i'm just not a big um you weren't crunching into the head no i don't i'm not one of those guys that like sucks the brains out i feel like there was an eye between your teeth when we left so i took her to this romantic lunch got a shitload of brownie points shitload shitload and um shitload we had some pinot grig and then we went back to the hotel and that same night

we had dinner at our favorite rooftop restaurant. And let me just back up about this restaurant. She has not shut up about this restaurant for four or five years. Every time I take her to a restaurant, she compares it to this one. So. Bar's high. Yeah, the bar was high. Oh, that's another thing. Guys, set the bar low

because if you set it high, you're fucked. You're gonna have to hit that bar every time so anyway yes you are we go i get there and they tell me they might not have my table i had a complete panic attack i was sweating i had just flown 17 hours planned a huge surprise trip and if they didn't have my table i was going to fucking lose it were you really yeah i was i was gonna lose it i was fine yeah because you would have gone for pizza you didn't spend weeks trying to plan it no i was i'm just more easygoing than you but luckily they had the table i completely calmed down and coconut oil was a flowing that night and yes i did bring coconut oil in my bag

so yeah i mean so we did that and now we're traveling. I think traveling is one of the most beneficial things you can do for yourself as an individual. I think... Or your kids. For your kids, for yourself, for anyone. I think that there's so many benefits to travel. One, you learn about how the rest of the world works. You get out of your bubble.

I see a lot of people get tunnel vision. I see a lot of people start to think. I see a lot of people start to think that their world's as small as the city they live in. And you got to understand the world is a huge place. Yeah, you've definitely taught me that. I didn't travel a lot when I was younger. I mean, I went to, you know, Mexico and places in the United States, but you've definitely opened my eyes to travel. Yeah, I mean, it's just amazing how some people in the world act compared to others. I mean, if when you get outside of angeles or san diego and you realize how people live in other parts of the world you just realize like you don't know everything i agree i also think it's

important to dress the part yeah oh my god listen you didn't bring any pink pants though i know it's great to have style but don't be the guy that's like pegged. Like, Oh, there's Joe from Indiana. When you're, when you're somewhere else, like, you know, dress the part, like if it's a dressier place, dress up. If it's casual, you can be casual, but like in Paris, I always bring all like all black. Yeah. Don't like, don't show up. Don't show up in your sweatpants to a dressy place or don't show up in Paris in all white with, with like, yeah, just the part, be cultured person you know um it i think it's really important also for uh for realizing like where consumers are trending like in different parts of the world like you can see business wise yeah business wise you can see trends before they

come you know a lot of things take place in europe and then catch on later in the united states if you want to see how people dress by the the way, in other places, again, go on Instagram. Look at the geotag. Look at bloggers from Paris or New York, wherever you're going, and just see what the vibe is there. I'm not saying change your style. I'm just saying have kind of the vibe there and the mood so you're feeling it when you get there. Yeah, and travel is really not as expensive if you do it right as people think. You're so good at this. You are so good at this. uh, you are so good at

this. People, people ask, you know, how do you afford to travel? I think the reason we don't afford to travel is we make it a priority. Like travel is a priority in our life. More so than a car, more so than material goods, more so than houses. Like travel is the thing where we, where we splurge a little. And I think it comes back tenfold because you learn so much when you travel. And you also, I feel like it brings so many different layers to my business, right? It's, it's, it opens so many different doors and you can share experiences and, and what you've learned in different foods and you, you bring kind of multiple layers to whatever business you're in. Yeah. When I say making it a priority, I mean, maybe don't spend the money on that expensive bag. Spend it on a

flight to where, you know, a destination you've never been. Maybe don't spend the money on an expensive rent because... Or Postmates. Yeah, or Postmates. Yeah, don't Postmates Whole Foods like Lauren does. No, I don't do that anymore. That's a formula for bankruptcy. No, I used to do that, and now I don't do it anymore. You did it last week. No, I didn't. I did that to Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's is cheaper. Okay. Anyways, it's my birthday. I think that, um, anything in life, whatever you prioritize is what you can make happen. We prioritize travel. Also manifest, work towards a goal, have a clear vision, have a strategy. Don't just say, I want to do this and don't have any strategy towards it. Right. I've heard people go, I wish I could do that. You can do whatever the fuck you want to do.

You got to make it happen. Yeah, absolutely. We've kind of chosen career paths where we can work on the go. And that's been important because like I said, travel is very important to us. So we kind of picked things that facilitate that. I feel like the more we travel, the more we, we think about and the more ideas we come up with to like enhance our businesses and to... I don't think we've ever gone away and not worked the entire time. No. Name one time. No, we work every time. Yeah, we do. We do work. If people think we're just out here not working, we are working. Yeah, luckily we have a strong team back at home that helps manage the stuff on the ground over there when we're out here and they actually have a problem with disconnecting yeah they recognize

that we're over here working and setting up new opportunities so um i think that's important as well having a solid team behind your back also trying to take like not meetings but like meeting people that that um that work well with your business. Like we've gone to New York and met with people, you know, new people that can, can, we can help each other mutually beneficial in our business. Or we've gone to Texas and we've met certain people like use that time to kind of get out of your shell. Absolutely. Um, I'm going to pepper in another question for you here. Okay. Madeline madeline freeman asks how do you and michael keep the romance alive in your relationship having known each other for so

long lauren michael you can go honey well madeline i've just learned recently that if you work the shit out of your legs this is for men you get a huge testosterone boost this is true and this is not funny you're be serious no i'm dead serious wait you need to like explain that that does wonders for the libido no you need to explain this in detail so um you know a lot of girls ask me this question to say like how do you like get your man fired up still and i said listen tell him to go in the gym and work the shit out of his legs because legs legs upper legs lower legs legs legs your legs your lower your legs count for like 60 so the legs by your penis the legs by your toes like what do you mean i mean the legs are connected okay so the whole leg yes

the legs that are on but like give us a couple leg workouts that like get your testosterone i'm not gonna get into all that are you squatting are you in like a certain doggy style position? Like what's going on? I'm squatting. I'm not in doggy style. What are you doing? Are you doing lunges? And then also, I don't know, to keep the romance alive, I think one of the key components besides working your legs, which is...

Wait, what does working your legs do though? It releases testosterone in your body. What does that mean? It means you get going. You're ready to go more. Oh. You know this. I do.

I get fired up. I go from about an eight to a ten yeah you go you go to like an 80 yes so but besides that me and Lauren were talking about this the other day we always we're always trying to find uh new ways to spice it up we're gonna do this new thing when we're back at home and we're gonna do this is your idea it's my idea alternating uh date nights where one week I plan uh some kind of date night that we're going to do that she doesn't know about and the next week she does one and then so on it could be but i don't want to leave the dogs yeah i know but we're good we have to spice it up can we bring the dogs with

us i think just like anything else in relationship you have to work at it you have to uh oh it's work if anyone thinks that a relationship isn't work it is work you have to work at it it's like anything a business anything you have to constantly work it you have to check in with it You have to work at it. It's like anything, a business, anything. You have to constantly work it. You have to check in with it. You have to take accountability. No one's right. No one's wrong. You have to come to a mutual compromise and an agreement. And it's definitely something you have to work at every day. No. And you know what? I hear a lot of women saying like, oh my God, he doesn't want to like get with me anymore. He's not making any moves on me. I don't feel wanted.

Da-da-da-da-da. Go make a move on him. No guy's going to turn you away when you roll him on his back, rub some coconut oil on him, and get him going. You can make the move. A man wants to feel wanted just as much as a woman. It doesn't always need to be you waiting to receive. It could be you.

I'm a receiver, though. You can be getting after it yourself. I want you to just do all the work well it's not i don't know how that's gonna go it's my birthday month um so yeah so just definitely make sure that you're working at it to keep the romance alive it's something you work at every day. Use a little coconut oil. Throw in a couple love notes. I love when Michael leaves me a love note. You're good at that. Yeah, I leave little love notes. You do a little lemon and water.

Yeah, I think when you travel together, you learn new things about each other. You have more time away from the computer and phone. Yeah, you conquer new things together, right? Champagne helps. Yeah, champagne helps. It makes you fall in love a little bit more when you're, uh, when you're out like experiencing new things together.

Lauren and I have experienced so many things together for the first time, like in terms of travel and life that I think every time that that happens, it makes it a little bit more romantic. I feel like she's asking why you're not bored of me. Why am I not bored of you? Yeah. Because you keep it spicy. I do.

Yeah. I try. you yeah because you keep it spicy i do yeah i try and lauren finds new things like coconut oils and different oils avocado lauren's not a no girl what's a no girl you know a no girl that's like no i don't know what i don't do this or i don't do that and we're like you know the guy then i have my limits the guy's probably gonna be like well then i don't stay with you and i have my limits no well i rally yeah you rally you gotta rally that was in the other podcast if you guys want to hear about what we're talking about rallying episode 11 so yeah that's my that's my answer on that and i think that's you have anything else to say on it no okay so then you know now we're in florence we we bailed out of

venice and we took the train to Florence, which is the first time that I've ever taken a train in Europe. And I think it's obviously the first time Lauren's taken a train too. And that was a unique experience. It was actually really, really easy. I recommend to anybody traveling around Europe to take the train and utilize that. Did you like the train? I was dead asleep the entire time.

I could have gotten everything stolen from me. Like your one friend that got butt naked on the train? I was dead asleep the entire time. I could have gotten everything stolen from me. Like your one friend that got butt naked on the train. Tell that story. Because that was me. I have a friend. Actually, I'm just going to call him out. His name's Bruce. Slash Alex.

Slash Alex. I gave him a nickname Bruce years ago. Hi, Bruce. So he went to Oktoberfest a few years ago in Germany. And he met some girl. And he ended up getting with the girl. And they ended up taking taking a train and they were supposed to just go one city over and she ended up robbing him, taking all of his clothes and money and leaving him on the train butt naked. Is that really true? Yeah, 100% true. He had no Calvin Klein's. He had no money, butt naked. Like

butt. Butt naked. Like his penis was hanging out. He had his shoes, that's it. So, okay, she left the shoes. She left the shoes. Oh, that's the least she could do. And he ended up in like Amsterdam or Austria or somewhere. I don't know. So anyways, if you're going to ride the train, make sure you don't fall asleep drunk.

Yeah, so I fell asleep the entire train ride. Yeah, me. I'm like... No, you're like a vulture. I'm vigilant. No, he couldn't do that. So we get to Florence and once again, I had reached out to the the concierge and let me give you another tip about the concierge make sure the concierge gives you a local map because oh my god they will also mark all the

hot spots on their map you and that map it's so weird what are you talking about it tells you it tells you where everything is no no we can use no. We can use our phones. This is 2016. I just feel like we don't need a map. Do you know what I mean? No. The map gives you locations to everything. It unlocks the keys to the city. No, but why can't you just go off your iPhone? Because the iPhone sucks, and sometimes you don't have service. I like an old physical map. Okay, we know that.

Everyone knows that if they follow us on Snapchat. Everyone's seen the map. Speaking of Snapchat, as we've been out here, I've been watching people. Everyone's on their fucking phones. Everyone. Everyone. I saw a 60-year-old couple using Instagram and Snapchat, which was amazing to me. You just wouldn't have seen that five years ago.

You know what that tells me? That tells me that's where all of consumer attention is going and is. I think the days of desktop are over. I think if you have a business that's online, whether it's content or a product or anything, you should be mobile optimizing. I completely agree. I think that if you have a website or you're a blogger, you need to make sure that your blog is working with mobile. I do think that all the attention is on mobile right now. In fact, I saw this cartoon that's actually legit the other day that it used to be computer neck, you know, where someone's like bent over the computer. And now the new thing is iPhone neck or phone neck. And that's when you're literally

looking down and your chin is to your neck. That's how we are going to look when we are older. It's going to evolve into that neck to the chin look. I'm just going to keep Snapchatting and holding it up. I think you'll be okay because you have your headphones in. Yeah. Yeah, and you Snapchat a lot, so I think you'll be fine. No, but I'm dead serious. If you're being a dinosaur and you're sticking with desktop platforms

and you're not evolving to mobile and getting all of your internet businesses set up to work on mobile platforms you're gonna lose um i think everybody's going that way i mean television's on its way out you can see i can see in the next five years everyone just using their phone for everything even when i'm watching television i'm still on my phone it's like advertisers that still advertise on tv yeah it's out no it's out nobody's paying attention to that anymore it's out yeah so anyways even kind of magazine it's been amazing to see all of that because you're we're talking anything down from 10 year old kid to 85-year-old woman. It's insane. So why did we go to Florence?

I've never been to Florence. Lauren's never been to Florence. I thought it was romantic. It is. Definitely very romantic. I would want to come back here, and I would actually want to stay for longer. I could stay for one more day.

Oh, you're so weird about that. What is up with you in that? You get antsy. No, because, I mean... How could you not stay here for, like, a week? Because I would want to go somewhere else. Like, if I had the luxury of staying here, I would probably hop on the train and go somewhere. Maybe Rome.

Yeah, I want to see Rome. Yeah, so I wouldn't just keep staying here. So, like, let's describe Florence to anyone that's not been here florence is beautiful yeah it's beautiful it really is one of the most spectacular cities i've ever seen it's so charming it's so cute there's gelato at every corner there's pizza and pasta and and bruschetta with melon and and there's like people playing the accordion on the street. It's so chic and cute and fab. I love it. Yeah, it's great. Um, last question. What do you think is the most affordable way to travel? Do you have any tips on booking an amazing trip without

extensive budget, without an extensive budget? And this is from B underscore had, I'm going to let you answer that question. Um, like I said, we make travel a priority. So one area where I definitely splurge a little bit is travel. I try not to cut too many corners, but I understand people are on a budget. So the first thing I would recommend is getting a proper credit card to rack up some points. You know, you're telling this tip, this tip's's good so i used to use american express i don't anymore i use chase ink cards for my business why ink i just like the card but every time you spend you rack up x amount of points i think in my business you know we do some advertising so i think it's like 3x for every dollar you spend what is i don't know what that means like you have

to explain for every one dollar you spend you get three points or how many points get you a flight to say Italy. So that, that requires, it depends like if you're going business or if you're going coach, I don't know. I have to, I think it varies every time depending on where you're going. Is it like a thousand or 10 million? No, it's not 10 million. But anyways, so use the points when you can rack those up. Um, and then in terms of the hotels, so use the points when you can. Rack those up. And then in terms of the

hotels, just get the basic room. Like don't get to a hotel and get the suite or the junior. Tell them the trick about how you get the upgrade. It depends on what credit card you have. Sometimes you'll say that you'll get there and you'll somehow get an upgrade. Oh yeah, I'm a brat. I'll get there and I'll say, you know, this room doesn't work for me. Have you guys seen Joffrey in Game of Thrones? That's Joffrey. No, sometimes this works. Sometimes I'll get there and the room just like, won't be up to par, like where I envisioned it. And I'll, and I'll call down and I'll complain, like, you know, this room's really not working out for me. And nine times out of 10, they'll

just upgrade me to the next best room because you know what? The hotel wants you to be happy and they want you to have a good experience. So if you kind of like act like you're not going to have a good experience most of the time they'll upgrade you okay draw free so i do little tips and tricks like that and then use the hotel concierge to to book you and travel is really i mean once you're in the location it's really not as expensive as people think i mean there's no difference than being here than there is being at home right you're going to go out to dinner sometimes. You're going to get some food. You're going to walk around. You're not going to Postmates Whole Foods. No, I mean, a lot of people get overwhelmed. They think travel is really,

really expensive. What's expensive is getting to the destination and staying in a hotel, but you can find so many reasonably priced hotels. You can find so many reasonably priced flights. Those are good tips. I mean, I would have never known any of those if it weren't for you. So I think those are super valuable. Yeah, I'll do a post on this. But what I do is I get a credit card and one that works with one of my frequent flyer programs. I use Delta a lot. So in this case, I'll use Chase or American Express. And then as I accumulate points, I'll just transfer them to my frequent flyer program. And every time I'm going somewhere, I'll try to book with miles. So they also offer cash with miles. So sometimes maybe you can use half miles and half cash.

And I save a shitload of money that way. Love it. Yeah. So with that, I think we're going to sign out. We are? Yeah. We have a dinner. Why don't you tell everyone where you're taking me tomorrow? Oh, we're going wine tasting in Tuscany. We're going wine tasting. Once again, the concierge set it up. He did? Yeah. I actually don't really know where we're going. I just know that he probably won't lead me astray. Well, what if it's trendy? It's not going to be trendy. What if it is? So we'll just be trendy. I would love to make you nervous. It'll be fine. There's nothing I enjoy more. Okay. Well, on that note, you guys, we're going to sign off. We are going to go to dinner right now and eat more bread. Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. Leave us a good rating

and a nice review. And if you have any questions for our next episode, hashtag ask him and her on Twitter, Instagram. And of course you can always snap message us. That's kind of the quickest way to get ahold of us because it's kind of like texting you guys. So keep snapping at Lauren Everett and at Michael Bostic. And we will see you next time.