The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - #23: Alex & Gene Ciccolo - Instagram stories vs. Snapchat, Saint Tropez, Travel Tips, and Jealousy

Episode Date: August 9, 2016

Alex & Gene Ciccolo, join Lauryn & Michael during their stay in France to discuss Travel, Saint-Tropez, why you don't get a hangover drinking French Wine, the benefits of studying abroad, Air France going on strike, traveling on a budget, Instagram stories vs. Snapchat, and jealousy. To connect with Lauryn click HERE To connect with Michael click HERE This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential Bombshell Body Guide and Meal plan.  tired of combating inflammation & bloat? Want to feel lighter and sexier? Check out lauryn’s latest 7 day meal plan. In this simple & super effective plan you’ll find: + tsc grocery list with every ingredient you need for the 7 days. + what the f*ck to do when you love carbs guide. + quick and delicious recipes: breakfast, snacks, lunch, dinner and dessert. You will also find 28 weeks worth of fat burning, muscle toning, 27 minute long, effective workouts you can do at home with no equipment. USE PROMO CODE: HIMANDHER at Checkout for 20% Off

The following program is a podcast one.com presentation. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her.

Hi guys. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Podcast. We are podcasting from France. We have Alex, our friend here. Alex, say hi. Hey everyone. He's also known on Snapchat as Moose Knuckle. If you've followed along on our vacation, we'll get into that later though.

Welcome back to the show. To the show. I'm Michael Bostic, your main host and number one podcaster. I hate when he does this voice. He does this weird look and this weird voice. No, listen, it's been a whirlwind of days. And first of all, we both want to apologize in advance if the sound quality is not good. We're in the middle of Provence, France with my friend Alex.

Tell us where we are specifically, though. Where the hell are we? So we're in the middle of the Cote d'Orone, which is of Provence, France with my friend Alex. Tell us where we are specifically, though. Where the hell are we? So we're in the middle of the Cote d'Aron, which is in Provence. The Cote d'Aron is a wine region here in France. We're at my house, and we're in our kitchen. But it's been a whirlwind of a couple days, which we'll get into. You don't say. You don't say. Yeah, you don't say once again.

But before we get into it, I just want to say and thank everyone. Take a moment for, you know, listening to the show. We both really appreciate it. If you like the show and it's entertained you, please tell your friends about it and podcasting in general. It's what keeps our show growing so that we're able to bring you free content on a weekly basis. And Lauren and I have had a shitload of fun doing this. We never thought that we would be hosting a podcast together.

Alex, did you ever think you were going to be podcasting with me? Alex has known me and Lauren both for, what, 20 years almost? Yeah, when we were getting in trouble in seventh grade and eighth grade, I definitely didn't see me being on a podcast show with you. Before we get into the show, though, I just want everyone to know, yes, Alex has two names, Alex and Moose Knuckle, but he also has another name, too, named Bruce.

You know, he's so happy because now you've started nicknaming me Susan. Nothing's made me happier than karma. When we were kids, we started calling him Bruce. How many years have you been trying to escape that name? 20. Ever since I've known you? Explain Bruce. About 20 years. I just started calling Alex Bruce. How many years have you been trying to escape that name? 20? Ever since I've known you. Explain Bruce.

About 20 years. I just started calling Alex Bruce one day in middle school, and it just stuck with him. Even when we moved to different cities, people just continued to call him it. So when I saw him and he heard about Susan, he had this big grin on his face. He's like, I'm so happy. He's like, nothing's made me happier. That's finally my revenge. If we call him Bruce, that's why.

I call him Bruce all the time. Now I call him Moose Knuckle this trip. So if you guys follow along on Snapchat, you see for the last few days that we've just been... It started out fine. Lauren and I decided to come to Saint-Tropez in France. I said, Alex, why don't you meet us there? It was smooth sailing until you got here. As soon as you got here, things really escalated.

Well, I had a rocky start. Yeah, let's talk. Well, I think we both had rocky starts. So we're out here. Air France is on strike. And basically what that means is the wind blew the wrong way the one day. And the guy in the pencil sharpening department decided, hey, let's just go on strike. And the whole company shut down michael decided that he was going to try to flirt with the ticket

counter girl to get us a ticket which worked unbelievably i don't understand it's not unbelievable no you were he was like winking at her and like pointing at her with like his thumb up and like she was like no well jock san claire or whoever that first guy was, he was being a real dickhead, and he was not having it. Oh, you're starting a little early. Oh, Gene. Gene, Alex's dad just came into the podcast. Gene, why don't you sit down? No, Gene can sit down.

Yeah, have a sit down. So, Gene, we're doing our podcast. Gene is Alex's dad, Bruce's dad. He's a character. Alex is so embarrassed right now. He's dying. He doesn't want him on the show, but we do. This is going to be amazing.

So yeah, back to the Air France. We get there and the guy was saying, listen, there's no way you're coming. There's no way you're getting through this airport. We're on strike. It's not happening. And I flirted with a girl. She was susceptible to my charms. You didn't flirt with her, though.

You have no idea how to flirt. It's dreadful the way you flirt. Well, it works. We're here. It doesn't work. Look it, she's drinking rosé and she's still complaining what else is new so so yeah we finally arrived um very sweaty after 26 hours it was pretty gross i needed a glass of rosé asap and a little burrata um got to the hotel and the hotel was amazing you guys probably saw that on

snapchat um so stunning like a san Tropez is definitely my favorite place. It's amazing. Where we are now is a close second. But they're different. Different. Jean, how are they different? How would you say the difference between San Tropez and Provence? Well, San Tropez is Provence.

But all the way down to Italy. But the difference here is that this is more working people. Whereas Saint-Tropez isn't. People come to visit and it's a vacation spot. Whereas this area of the Cote d'Aron are working people.

Whether they work in the vines or making wine. It's authentic in a different way. It's charming here. Very charming. I don't think I've ever seen prettier views in my life. Can we talk about how Bruce packed all his linens

and took them to the linen store and had them pressed in plastic bags, ready to go, and his suitcase got lost. Alex and I were talking about these linen shirts for weeks in advance. They had a full-blown group text message over these linen shirts. I mean, they were asking if they should do a pastel moment, a linen moment, a striped moment. You took it a step further though and went to the, what'd you go to the

laundromat or the dry cleaner? Yeah, I was very prepared. I thought I was very prepared heading into my flights. I had all my linens picked out. I was super excited. I had them all pressed and I packed them in my luggage and then I had some serious complications getting picked out. I was super excited. I had them all pressed. And I packed them in my luggage. And then I had some serious complications getting to Saint-Tropez, which screwed everything up. My favorite part is you told Jonna, Jonna is Alex's girlfriend, that she was not allowed to carry on her carry-on with all her mother's jewelry, some of her extra clothes and her shoes because you would have to carry it, right? Well, yeah. Basically, we get to the airport. And then what happens?

We get to the airport and she goes, she's like, I want to take this carry-on bag with me. I was like, no, definitely not. You definitely need to check that bag. It's too big. And because I know I'm going to be the one who ends up carrying this bag around the entire time. And I definitely want to avoid that.

So long story short, we end up missing a couple of flights because of Air France's strike. We finally get the Saint-Tropez without our bags. And of course she was super pissed because she wanted to carry on her bag with all the important things that she needed in it. And I had made her check it because I knew I was going to end up carrying it. Okay, but wait, his girlfriend is always super pissed at him. One of my favorite things is to watch her get mad at you. Me and Lauren would just sit back and laugh the entire time. Yeah, she's pretty funny to you.

They've got a good banter going on. He kind of just takes it and she sits there and yells at him. And then you got there. Similar to you guys. Yeah, similar. Then you got there. Theme going on. And of course, the first thing you do is get yourself an outfit.

And you didn't get her anything. Yeah, she was pissed. She threw in a couple bathing suits with that. So he got there. Lauren and I had been relaxing for a few days, which was nice. I'm like, okay, Sandra Pegg, calm place. But then, of course, Alex shows up and decides to take us out, and everything really escalated from there.

He set the theme when he said that he wanted an IV of Don Julio injected into his vein the second that he arrived at the hotel, so there was that. Well, let me put it this way. I had a really long travel time getting there. A lot of canceled flight, a lot of disappointment. I was disappointed for a lot of reasons. A, I love Saint-Tropez.

I wanted to be there. And B, I was coming to see two of my best friends. So I was disappointed to not be able to be there when I did sooner. So when I got there, I was pretty much ready to go. And as Michael put it, we went ballistic. Yeah, you guys went ballistic. I was like the sober driver. I wasn't driving, but I was the sober one.

I don't know about that. I was pretty sober. When Michael and Alex get together, it's catastrophe. Catastrophe. Well, even here, like last night, all four of us were drinking wine and like, we just can't take it easy. We got to stay till four or five in the morning. I fell asleep on the couch.

I know. I felt like a babysitter last night. But anyway, San Tropez was very fun. They coordinated their pastels. I had to deal with that the entire time. My lemons finally did arrive arrive by the way. And you know, what's funny is Lauren and I tried to do this podcast from San Tropez, but there was just like, there was no way our head was like mashed potatoes. Cause we were

partying way too much. I had literally the worst personality you guys have ever seen. I just looked at Michael to just take the mic from me. I just couldn't do it. So here we are. So that was a fight. You don't say. So now we're here. We are staying at Alex and Jean's home. So nice of them to give us hospitality and gallons of rosé. Gallons.

Gallons. We're working into gallons. I love that. Jean, I saw you with a video of you using like a gasoline pump to pump rosé into jugs. But you don't get hung over from the rosé here

because there's no sulfites in it? Can you explain why that? I was trying to talk about that earlier. Like why you don't get a bad hangover out here? Well, for one thing, we don't put, the biggest thing for hangovers is sulfites. And you have to put sulfites in wine

so it travels. Because it's on planes, it's on here, it's on trucks. So to keep the wine stable, you put sulfites in it. And by the time you have a few glasses of wine in the United States, you're pretty

gone. I mean, you just you're not drinking anymore. Here, it doesn't affect you the same way. It absolutely I can't remember ever being drunk here, no matter what we drink. You know what's funny is I never drink wine in the States purely because I get massive headaches. I didn't

wake up with a headache today at all. No. Everybody says the same thing. Especially white wine. If you drink white wine, it's really bad. And you drank the whole gasoline jug. Oh, that's gone. You guys were doing keg stands. Yeah, I forgot about the champagne.

Alex was keg standing the rosé gallon in the back. Who knows what was going on? He wasn't hungover at all because he had to wake up at 4 a.m. to take his girlfriend to the airport two hours away. Yeah, hell was that. Yeah, that was rough. We went to bed really late,

probably around 2, 2.30. We had had a great night and then had to wake up two hours later and drive an hour and a half each way to drop her off at the airport. It was not

the finest moment. No. So here we are. We're out here. We're drinking rosé. We're trying to keep it together to provide a good show before we drink another gallon. I'm excited, though, that Gene's here now because Gene can take the lead and tell us what he cooked for us last night because that was really interesting and those beans, I need the recipe.

What was that? What was that? We did a margarita canada, which is a duck breast. Okay. And then we pan fried some white cannellini beans. So ready, right, the beans. And thyme and onion and garlic. And then when I got them really the way I'd like them,

I put them in the bottom of the pan and put the duck breast over it so all the juice and all the fat of the duck breast over it so all the juice and all the all the fat of the duck breast go into the go into the um the cannellini beans which is great it's a great great way to do it next time you should do a side pate of moose knuckle oh yeah i don't know if that exists we've been calling alex moose knuckle the whole trip because pastels really make the Moose Knuckle stand out. So this whole trip, him and Michael have just had an ongoing erect Moose Knuckle that I've had to look at. Okay.

Well, I'm not sure exactly how I was coined the term Moose Knuckle because I think Michael's have been just as prominent the entire trip. Totally. Totally. Plus, Michael packs his phone in there. There's other stuff going on. I don't know what you guys. This show started as a combination of business management, social media marketing, and I

don't know how it took a turn to Jugs of Rose and Moose Knuckles. You know, you've got to go with what you're doing. Here we are. We're going to provide content this show. Stay with us. Yeah, stay with us. It's going to be about travel. We don't really have a general question, but we've been getting a lot of travel questions.

How do you travel? What are your tips? What do you think is best? What do you do when you go to different cultures? So we kind of want to touch on that. Alex actually did something that I regret not doing. One of the biggest regrets of my life, and I don't have many,

which was you actually moved over here during your college years and studied abroad. Yeah, so I didn't just study abroad here. I actually did my entire college career in schooling here. So it wasn't like I went for a semester. I went and graduated my entire four years. I studied in Paris at the American University. So I lived here for four years in Paris.

And then after I graduated, I also lived in the south of France, lived in Switzerland. I stayed over here for four years in Paris. And then, um, after I graduated, I also, you know, lived in the South of France, lived in Switzerland and I stayed over here as long as I could. And then I eventually went back to the States, um, to, you know, start a career. And you speak now close to fluent French, which we use to our advantage on multiple occasions. Yes. Because if not, we would have just been the two dumb Americans trying to. No, that was great.

It was so cool to hear you speak French. And I'd love to know how you say mousse knuckle again in French. C'est la mousse knuckle. Yeah, perfect. So when you first came over here, did you take French classes or how did you learn? Yeah, so when I first, when I was touched down in Paris, basically as a freshman coming student, I didn't speak a word of French. We had to take you know take french in

school so it's kind of forced upon you because you're a you're living living in france and you and you want to learn it and you want to be able to communicate um with everybody and also you know they made a mistake in school yeah so would you recommend traveling abroad for people in in college or did you did you like the experience was it difficult hard was it easy um it was the best thing i ever did it's the best decision i ever made for a lot of different reasons because i think you know you learn so much more than you do in a classroom when you um live in another another country it really gives you a different perspective on the entire world and different cultures how other people live as opposed to just kind of being in a similar bubble maybe even with the friends you went to high school with, you know, continuing on to college,

you kind of opens up your entire horizon and point of view on life. All right. If I can recommend to the Skinny Confidential readers or listeners, you guys go abroad. If you're in college, go explore, go have fun. You don't have any obligations. If you do, like, I feel like you can get away for a couple months. When I was in college, I had a dog, so I couldn't do that. I wish I had gotten the dog later in life and then gone to other places.

You made the mistake of not going abroad as well. No, it's crazy. And you know what? I have a lot of people know about Jordan. She's on the show sometimes. My middle sister. She's three years younger than me. But I also have Tara, who's my youngest sister. She's nine years younger than me. But I also have Tara, who's my youngest sister.

She's nine years younger than me. She's spicy. She's really spicy, which gives me a heart attack. But I told her when I, you know, one of my biggest regrets was not doing this. And what she did, which, I mean, the balls on this girl are probably huge. That's weird to say about your sister. Well, you know what I'm saying. She decided her sophomore year of high school to move to Spain, which was crazy because everybody

in high school is like never leaving high school. They're not, they don't want to, you know, they're caught up so much in the drama. She decided to leave to Spain. She now speaks fluent Spanish. Then her senior year, she decided to move to Paris, speaks fluent French. She's actually here right now and possibly going to meet us in the next couple of days in Paris. She's studying again. And I just think it's wonderful because, you know, you learn, you learn certain things in college, but they don't teach you culture. They don't teach you travel. They don't teach you how to get around in the world. So when you do something like that, when you actually take the time to study abroad and learn about other cultures and learn other languages. Those skills are so useful and practical in the real world. I mean, those skills you'll never forget.

And the other thing, what happens when you travel and you live in other places, you actually live in other places, is I think the biggest thing is that your playground becomes very big instead of your own hometown or your own home state. You get out of the bubble. You get out of the bubble and you start to see that there are other people in the world having a good time, enjoying themselves, and people that you can relate to. And you say, wow, I never thought of it. I never thought of it this way.

The world then becomes your playground instead of some small little bubble that you're always in. And I think that's, there's lots of ways to look at education. And I think that there's books and you learn how to do one and one is two and two and two is four. That's great.

But there's also the education of living other places in the world. And that's a great education. The education that Michael and Alex got last night from the quote that you shared about the man and the woman. Can you share the quote? Because they really needed that. Yeah. What did you say?

You said it. You say it. Which one? Oh, it's the one he said. When a woman meets a man, she thinks. No, let him do it. He's so good at it. I said, when a man meets a woman, he's hoping, oh my goodness, I hope she never changes.

And then when a woman meets a man, she looks and says, he's somebody I can work with. Exactly. And Michael's also learning a lot of other things, like our new phrase that we're working on, yes, dear. Tell us about what you said about, what's the guy, Mickey Rooney? Mickey Rooney. He was married eight times, and he says it took his eighth marriage for him to work, to understand

how to be happy with one person in a marriage. And he said he learned the phrase, Yes Dear. Michael learned that, you guys. He just learned that after eight years. Yes Dear. Last night I asked him something and he said yes dear amazing what you can learn

it's amazing like talking about travel the whole reason that we're sitting at this table right now is you Gene you decided I don't know how many years ago now 20 years ago that you were going to leave the United States and move here and I thought that was so incredible.

We were talking about it in the car. You know, Gene's run businesses. He's worked for companies. He's worked for himself. And at what point did you start to say, like, okay, I'm just going to up and go to France? Well, I think for me, which was really important, there was a couple of things that I noticed psychologically that some of my friends thought I was rejecting our culture.

I was rejecting the United States. And actually, that wasn't true. And the people that were really close to me and my family, they came here. So I added, it was like an added plus. Instead of them looking at me like I was rejecting the United States and the way they lived. It was just different. And I thought, well, you do something for 40 years in your life.

Wouldn't it be interesting to do something different just for a while? And there can never be a mistake, even if you only lasted six months and you went back. There's no, you didn't back. There's no, there's no, you didn't fail. There's no failure. It's something new that you learned. I love, because I say the same thing. I love what you say about failure. There is no such thing as failure. They're all

lessons. They're all lessons. They should look at all of those things as lessons and you shouldn't, you should try not to repeat them because you know the red flags. I mean, all of us have dated somebody, whether it be in high school or college, and you see the red flags.

And as my friend always used to say to me, your problem is that you always drove through the red flags. You're supposed to stop, you know, and say, well, I can't work with this. I can't deal with this kind of behavior. And I don't think, I really believe that they're just lessons and they're trying to teach you something and

you should learn from them. You shouldn't repeat it. Was it difficult when you first moved here? It was very difficult because you felt like it was very exciting because there was so much to learn and so new. And so the first year or two, it's so exciting as far as you have so much to learn. Whether it be just how to register a car or rent a house or speak the language.

So there's an excitement to it. Then that kind of wears off. And then you know the infrastructure very well and you know how to get around here and everything else and what to do. And so you go into that mode, whereas you're questioning what you did. But there's no failures.

It's just lessons. I mean, I look back and say, okay, if I stayed where I did and made the money and had all those things, then I wouldn't have had, honestly,

moments like this. Yeah. So what's more important? The people that you met along the way, the interesting people from all over the world? That's gold

in so many ways. No, I agree. I think the moral of the story is you and I need to move to France for a couple years and you need to buy me some beautiful chateau in the middle of nowhere.

Is that what you got out of that story? That's totally what I got out of it. So, you know, we were talking, we got a lot of questions and we have a lot of listeners, young listeners, people on a budget

and everybody thinks it's so expensive to come over here. It's so cheap. It's half the price. It's so cheap to live here. I can't live back in the United States because I couldn't afford to live in the United States. Did you guys hear that?

And it's funny because I wanted to talk to both of you about this because we travel. Sometimes we do it on a budget. Sometimes we stay in hotels. But I think there's a misconception that it's so expensive. So cheap. I noticed a lot of people don't want to figure it out like they don't want to take the time to do the research and figure it out that's a very very smart thing what you just said that's very important and they don't want to figure it

out i'm thinking here like my sister tara she's here she has a very very limited budget alex when you first came here to study you had you were student. You had a very good book. What did you do? It was unbelievable. I went to his apartment before he says anything, and I think he was seriously eating pasta morning, noon, and night. There was nothing in this. I'm sure he had enough money for alcohol, though. So, Alex, what did you do when you were on this budget? Because I want people to understand that they can travel to places like this on a budget. So being a student, I did have some time.

I had some free weekends and so forth. And when I would travel, I would just take trains. It wouldn't be the most luxurious or quickest way to get somewhere. But, you know, instead of being, you know, in the States or staying where you would, I'd be traveling from Paris to Spain or to Germany or to the Netherlands or to the south of France or Switzerland. Trains are a cheaper way to get around. Once you start living in a place, obviously not everyone in the world is rich,

so you learn from the people that you've become friends with that live there, and you see how they travel, and you'll understand how you can do it inexpensively. You don't always have to be flying and taking the nicest luxury accommodations. So was it like hotels or Airbnb? Yeah, it was often. Well, Airbnb wasn't quite around when I was in school. However, nowadays when I'm traveling on a budget, yeah, I absolutely use Airbnb.

I mean, when I was traveling, there was a lot of hostels. There was a lot of trains. And if we were a group, we'd often, you know, get and rent a car cheaply. Good idea. Good tips. Well, you know, there's another thing that I wanted to say about what he's saying and what you asked me before about living here. There's another thing about living in Europe is that our priorities are different. I'm not saying they're better, and I'm not saying

they're, but they're different. So the priorities here is that one of the things is that we care about conversation, food, wine, of all which we can do inexpensively. We really don't care about what you're driving, what you're wearing, and all the things that we care about in the United States. So all of a sudden I say it's cheap living here because you stop having the wants. And you've done it all. Yeah. You've done it all. Exactly. So you don't, you stop having the wants.

It's like Alex figured out that it was better to live in Paris and take a bus somewhere than having to go a certain way or the train or something. And that's important. You put your priorities and say it's more important to do it this way because I am here. Also, you know, like I said to you before, all of a sudden things don't become as important to you as they did in the United States. It sounds like here it's more about experiences. Oh, yeah. And in the United States, there's different priorities.

Well, we care more what people think of us, where we live, what we look like, what we dress like. We care a great deal about that. So we're always trying to keep up with all of those luxuries. Here, I say this story over and over again. One of my, one of our best friends here was the ambassador to Afghanistan. He also was running the worst civil rights cases for the United Nations. His name is Najib. He's a great guy. He has a house in Nairobi and he lives here and after about 7 or 8 years

you know I said to John Louis one night when we were having dinner I said oh by the way is Najeeb coming tonight and I said what does he drive and this was after 7 years as one of our best friends John Louis looked at me

and said I don't know what he drives. Do you know what he drives? We didn't care what he did. It didn't matter. Yeah. Lauren and I talk about this all the time about how important it is to kind of, we say, stay in your own lane. Don't worry about what everyone else is doing. Do your own thing.

Exactly. Don't get caught up in what everyone else has or whatever. Well, and everyone's different. Some people like to put an emphasis on the nice things in the United States and that's totally fine. They should do them. But I mean, coming over here and having experiences is really rich and it's like you said, you'll take it to the grave.

It's memories. It's friendships. Look, look how fun this is. We're podcasting from your kitchen, drinking Rose with no sulfites, having an iced coffee that you made. I mean, it's amazing. Well, the other thing about it is, is that I don't want to give anybody the wrong impression with no sulfites, having an iced coffee that you made. I mean, it's amazing. Well, the other thing about it is that I don't want to give anybody the wrong impression about all four of us.

We all like nice things. But there's a certain amount that we're not going to pay some exorbitant price for it. And that means a price of life in some ways. We understand that. We understand that. Sure, I like nice clothes, and I like all the same of life in some ways. We understand that. We understand that. Sure, I like nice clothes. And I like all the same things that you guys like.

But I know that if I can't go to Spain, and if I don't have the money that month, and I can get a hotel room for, you know, a nice little hostel or place to party, it's more important that I'm in Spain than having to stay in a $300 a night room. Some people don't. The room is more important.

Yeah, you know what's funny is like Lauren and I, we spend a large amount of our budget on travel. So when we travel and like with what Lauren does, you know, she's on social media, people say, oh, how do you guys travel? We put a priority and an emphasis on experiences like this, on travel. So maybe if you want to travel and you and you, you know, you have finances and other places, you should look at where everything is and put the priority on travel, on experiences, on memories.

And we were, me and Jean were talking earlier about just, you know, the things you sacrifice if you want to be an entrepreneur, if you want to run a business, those that's fine. If that's what you want to do, but you need to have an honest conversation with yourself and understand what you give up when you do something like that. If you want to run the next huge multi-business business, whatever it is, you're going to give up things like this. You're going to not have as much freedom. You're not going to have as much time. And that's 100% fine if you have the honest conversation with yourself and say, okay, that's the life I want. But if you want the life where you can kind of up and leave, relax, take it easy, you have to make that decision. It needs to be-

Don't get me wrong though. I'm not taking it easy the whole time I'm here. I'm definitely putting the work in. I'm working the entire time I'm here. Well, this is our business. Non-stop. This is our business. This is what we've chosen to do. Yeah, but we've chosen to do this because we want to do stuff like this. You know, there was a great quote that is directly, can be directly. He loves quotes. I hope you can take it.

It's directly for you too. And someone once said, and I'm sorry I can't remember who said it, somebody, he said, adventure, as you two are, you run an adventure, and it's difficult, and at times it has to be figured out.

And like Lawrence said before, you've got to take the time to figure out how you can do this. Because adventure, it's difficult. But the mundane will kill you i agree too and you know alex it's even bigger adventure planning all this definitely not mundane yeah no i wouldn't call it mundane that's not what i would call it i i think that you just need to see where your priorities are i mean the reason that i like to travel is because i don't like to be to the tune of anyone's drum, as we all know in this room. I like to beat to my own drum and I feel like travel is very liberating and gives you a lot of freedom to kind of be who you are. And it gives me, I feel creative when I get back to the United States, my business in a way flourishes because

I'm inspired and I feel more creative. So you just, I feel like you just have to figure out who you are and what you want out of life and really make sure that travel is a priority if it's something that fits with your trajectory. And with that, we're going to take a quick break to regroup, and we'll be right back. This is The Skinny Confidential, him and her. So we're back from the break, and I'm sitting here with Gene and Alex.

We're in Provence. What is the village here called again? Segure. Segure. This place, this was like an old, it was like a battle village? No, they all were like that. They all were fortified. They were all medieval.

And so that when they shut the doors to the village and if they were under siege they'd go up to the top of the village so they could defend it better and they all had an old castle or own ruins or anything and they and who they were fighting with was each other basically it's funny because you can from your terrace here you can see the neighboring village I was talking to Alex I'm like what the hell happened I know you, you know, they were getting into battle. Jacques was out there in the wine fields and said, hey, Jacques,

Frank over here, he's fucking my wife. I saw him, so we're going to attack the village. Pretty much how it happened. Pretty much how it happened. So they came over here, a bunch of people battled

and they went back and started the police. Okay, so the way, Gene and Alex, the way our show works is we get questions from the listenership, from the viewers. On the second half of the show, Lauren and I like to answer those questions and get into them. So, Lauren, do you want to get into a couple questions?

Yeah, Michael, let's get into it. Usually we have my sister Jordan answering or asking the questions. Michael's going to play Vanna White today. I don't know what that means. Okay, so the first question, and question and Gina, this might be a little outside of your realm, but it'd be interesting to hear your take on it. What do you guys think about the new Instagram stories update? Will you stay on Snapchat? I will a hundred percent stay on Snapchat. However, I will flirt with Instagram stories. There's nothing wrong with a little flirting.

I think that you need to evolve as things are evolving. So I think it's, in a way, I think it's not smart to be like, I'm not doing Instagram stories. I'm just doing Snapchat. I think you have to constantly evolve, but I also think you have to really, really run your medium. And I've said this before. I love Snapchat.

It works for me. It works for my audience. So I'm going to put 90% of my energy into Snapchat, but that's not to say that I won't still explore Instagram stories and play with it, but I'm not going to choose one or the other. And guess what? I don't have to, I don't have to choose one or the other. I think another smart thing, if you're really great on Snapchat is to growth hack your Instagram stories and tell people about your Snapchat, explain what your Snapchat's about on Instagram stories.

So bring people from your Instagram onto your Snapchat. People were freaking out when this happened. I looked at this as a very positive thing. You can utilize your Instagram stories to literally blow the fuck out of your snapchat i mean i think that i have a big bigger audience on on instagram and i can now bring that audience over to snapchat which i like snapchat better so you need to use whatever works for you to your advantage and you can use both who cares well here's here's here's the long and short of it like everyone's saying oh instagram stories is the new snapchat killer and buzzkill

don't look at things negative well the point is is it doesn't really matter because it's the same type of content creation meaning it's short video content that you're creating whether it's on the instagram platform vine chat or it's the same thing with vine like vine died as a company but video content creation didn't die and move to Snapchat. And let me just tell you, a lot of people are very famous and been very successful on Vine because there was a lot of white noise on Vine. Everyone jumped ship off Vine and people kept riding it and putting in the work and the consistency and the persistency. And now there's a lot of people that are extremely successful with Vine. So I don't, I think that right now,

while everyone's looking left towards Instagram video, I'm going to look right. And I'm going to be positive about it. And I'm going to focus a lot of my energy towards Snapchat, but that's not to say that I won't put a little energy into the Instagram thing. We did. I was talking about this yesterday on Snapchat and somebody messaged me and said, you're going to leave Snapchat. Don't forget that the people that view, like the reason that you're on Snapchat is because we are viewing you. And I said, listen, this isn't about leaving an audience or going somewhere else. It's about going where the audience goes.

If they decide to stay on Snapchat, then great. Stay on Snapchat. If you're a content creator on Snapchat, stay there if the audience is there. If the audience says, hey, you know what? We like the platform of Instagram better. We're going to view there. Then take your story content and place it there. You've got to pivot. You've got to pivot.

You've got to move. And that's with anything in life. And I think this even ties back to the whole traveling thing, Gene. You have to constantly be evolving and moving. You can't just sit there for your whole life. You can't just sit there. I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah.

Because as you, as we for, no, because we've experienced it, not because we're smarter than anybody else, because we've experienced it, not because we're smarter than anybody else, because we've experienced it. How many times have you sat someplace and had a preconceived notion of what that country or people were like, only to get there and be nothing like you thought it was just because you watch CNN a couple of times a week? You've got to explore. You've got to explore. Keep exploring.

And it's like you were saying between Instagram and Snapshot, whatever you're comfortable with. I mean, whatever you're exploring. Whatever works for you. Whatever works. Stay in your own lane. It's all about where consumer attention goes. It's not about abandoning audiences or picking one platform or the other. It's the same thing.

Look at MySpace and Facebook. The reason MySpace ended up failing and becoming a nightmare is because they decided that they were going to ruin their platform by making it very, very ad heavy. And what happened when Facebook came around is people said, you know what? We like this platform better. It's the same type of thing. Profile, meeting friends, talking to friends from different places. And Facebook ended up becoming the more powerful platform. It ended up doing a better job. That's the same thing that's happening here.

Competition is good. There's nothing wrong with competition. If Snapchat does a better job and updates their platform and makes their users happier, then people will stay there. If Instagram does a better job, they'll move there. And when it comes to content creators like Lauren, the content creation is the same thing. It's just a matter of which content platform is better.

And, or what works for you. I mean, and again, I'm going to just keep saying this. I noticed that so many people in our generation take things as a negative. How about spinning into a positive? How are you going to make this new thing with Instagram work for you and work to your advantage? And like I said, I'm going to use it to growth, growth, hack my new thing with Instagram work for you and work to your advantage? And like I said, I'm going to use it to growth hack my Snapchat. Do what works for you.

Maybe you use your Snapchat to direct your Snapchat followers to your Instagram because you like that platform better. Just move with it, go with it, flow with it. Yeah, exactly. Okay, this is the final question of the show. We only have two? We only have two. I'm assuming that everyone here has a lot to say on this subject. We hope.

I feel like we need a baton, and we can hold a baton when it's someone's turn to talk. Or a glass of rosé. Okay, so... Exactly. Yeah, I'm going to give the baton first to Alex, and then we can go around to... Or an hourglass. An hourglass, something. Yeah, I mean, geez, we'll be here all night. You guys will have dinner with us. We'll wine tasting together i mean shit okay so here's

the question can you please please please answer a question on your podcast or do a post about jealousy and relationships and how to combat it the bell's going off in the town which is pretty cool it's kind of c-y. So, jealousy. Alex, what do you think of this? Here, Alex. Here's the baton. Jealousy and relationship. You've been in a relationship now for how long?

Almost three years. I'm so glad Alex has to go first. The moose knuckle is going to have his debut on this. Yeah. Go ahead. You're going to take the dive and all of us will fall. Yeah. So, if there's jealousy in a relationship,

I feel that there's a reason for it, whether the person is insecure, whether their partner is making them insecure, or there's – you have to find what I guess the root of the problem is first. Trust. Yeah, that's a great point. Some of it could be based on trust, but I just believe that it's stemming from something, and it could be a lot of different reasons, and maybe the first step would be to find out where the root of the problem is, because they're jealous because of a particular reason. They're not just jealous because they're jealous. You've made them jealous.

They feel jealous because of something, and you have to find out why that is yeah i think you know my take on jealousy is i think it's one of the most unhealthy things in a relationship because like alex said there's probably some underlying reason whether it's somebody's being dishonest you don't trust somebody maybe your own insecurities their insecurities i don't think it can ever help or enhance a relationship. And I'm going to let Lauren go last. Usually women go first. I'm going to let her go last.

But, Jean, you've lived a long, fruitful life. I'm sure you've had a couple of jealous women. Do you agree with that? Are you a jealous person? Have you been with jealous people? The first thing that I notice in a relationship or a first thing that people don't want to admit ever is that they're jealous. Almost the first words out of someone's mouth at the beginning of a relationship is the one you have to watch out for because it's just that. And the first time someone says, don't worry about me, I'm not jealous, then that's what you have to worry about.

You have to worry about it, they're jealous. When I first met Lauren, she said, I'm a fucking psycho. Don't fuck with me. Perfect. I love it. Thanks, Steve. I love it. Do I need to be concerned about this?

No. Because in my estimation, the only people that ever stuck in my life, really stuck in my life, were crazy. I like crazy people. I like people that are coming from different places. But the question was jealousy. And I'll tell you my experience. I'm not telling you it's my opinion. I'll tell you my experience. I went out with two very attractive women. And one liked to go out with her girlfriends a couple of times a week. And the other one liked to go out with their girlfriends a couple of times a week and the other one liked to go out with their girlfriends a couple of times a week. Now, where did the jealousy come in? I'm not a stupid guy. I hope to think I'm not. One would get dressed up and you couldn't believe what she looked like as far as

sexy and this and that. And lo and behold, is it a coincidence she went to the hottest dating bars, whatever they were, because she was just going to have a drink with her girlfriends. I'm not really buying that. My other girlfriend, who is just as pretty and just as provocative and everything else, when she went out with her girlfriends, she couldn't wait to go to a museum or a cafe because she really wanted to talk to the person. One is really wanting to see who she's missing even if she doesn't do

anything because that could be a mental thing. If someone is unfaithful to you mentally, it doesn't matter about the physical part. I mean, it really doesn't. If they're mentally looking for someone else,

they're eventually someday going to find it. And so when they're out, and the only place they go to is the hottest dating bars, whether it be Miami, California, and this person used to do that. And I remember getting a phone call once saying to, I said, she went to Florida, and to Florida and she went to Naples. And lo and behold, she didn't know that I knew Naples really well.

So I, let me get this straight. You're in Fleming's tonight. How'd you know that? I said, because it's the hottest dating bar down there. Now, my other, my other, the relationship afterwards, this girl was wonderful. She was absolutely wonderful. But I knew if she was going out with her girlfriends, I never worried about it. If she went out at night

with her girlfriend, I never worried about it. She gave me no reason to make me believe she was looking. Or she was mentally cheating. And I agree with everything you said. That's kind of how Lauren is with me. Lauren can say, I am actually more concerned that I might have to go out with all the girls with Lauren.

I'm like, listen, if you've got to go, go. I can't deal with all that. I couldn't agree more. You go out with your girls and I don't try to drag along. I'm not a jealous person. Here's the thing that I think about jealousy, and this is the honest to God truth. This is going to sound a little harsh. I feel I don't put any energy towards jealousy. So there's no reason why I have to be jealous.

I am. I make myself busy with reading and work and family and experiences that I don't have fucking time to be jealous. And when you, when you don't have time to be jealous, you aren't jealous. And at the end of the day, and I've told you guys this before, if Michael wants to go fuck another girl, then bye. I don't want to be with someone that's going to go fuck another girl. So it's like, it's almost like I'm just not going to worry about it. Cause if he wants to do it or he's going to do it or he's going to mentally have this or physically have that, then I don't want to be with him anyway. We're talking about the Dalai Lama. This is somewhat related and somewhat. You're going to about the Dalai Lama. This is somewhat related.

You're going to relate the Dalai Lama to what I just said? I don't know how the Dalai Lama would be happy about me relating him to a jealous thing. It was all about worry. And he said, when it comes to worry, either you can do something about it, in which case, there's nothing to worry about. Or you can't do anything about it,

in which case, also, there's nothing to worry about. And I think the same thing with jealousy. If somebody's going to step out on you or go somewhere. So you just copied what I just said. Yeah. There are no bits. I'm just. Let me,

let me. If someone's going to do that, I guarantee you in 85 to 90% of the time, they've thought about it. Yeah. So why do you want to be with someone like that?'ve thought about it. Yeah, so who wants to be with someone like that? They thought about it, so they give you that. Now, I had a very good friend of mine who's a writer,

and he wrote some of the most interesting mystery books in the world. And I can tell you who his name is, but it doesn't matter. And he wrote about this detective. And one night, he got a phone call one day and he had to go to L.A. to take care of a very beautiful actress who thought she was being killed. That's almost trying to kill her. And he had to stay in the hotel room with her and everything else and take care of her. And they had a couple of drinks after about a week of her taking care of her.

And it was a beautiful night in LA and the place was great and everything else. And this is the way he presented if he was going to be unfaithful. He was thinking about it and he said about his girlfriend, Jane, you know, Jane might understand this scenario. A beautiful night. We've had too much to drink. We've overstepped our boundaries. She may forgive me for that, but she's not going to forgive me if it's premeditated. That's not going to happen.

You can understand the weak moment and it happened. Let it go. Anybody can forgive mistakes. It's the same thing with honesty. Anybody can forgive a mistake. I can forgive a mistake. You can forgive. I can forgive. I can forgive Alex. I'm going to go cheat with Leonardo DiCaprio on his yacht if you can forgive a mistake. I can forgive a mistake. You can forgive. You can forgive Alex. Okay, so I'm going to go cheat with Leonardo DiCaprio on his yacht if you can forgive a mistake. Not if I do it first.

And with that, I think we'll get back to the roast. It gets weird, you guys. What can I say? This is what I have to deal with. Three men. Well. So we're going to get back to Rosé. Thank you guys again for listening. Like I said before, we really appreciate it.

If you've had any entertainment out of this show, please tell your friends. It's what keeps us delivering free content on a weekly basis. And follow us on Instagram and Snapchat at LaurenEverett's at MichaelBostick and use the hashtag AskHimAndHer to ask us any questions. There's also a page on my website where you can ask us anything you want anonymously, whatever. Give us your name. And we will see you next week. Cheers, guys.

Cheers. And Gene and Alex, thanks for sitting in on us. It's my pleasure. It was a fun surprise. Thank you, guys. Cheers. Yeah. I don't have anything.

I'll have more. There you go. Thanks for listening to The Skinny Confidential, Him and Her, with Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic. Download new episodes every Tuesday at PodcastOne.com or subscribe now on the Podcast One app.