Podcasts about aaron yeah

In this episode of Building Texas Business, I learned how a missed home run sparked the creation of Rivalry Tech from co-founder Aaron Canopy. He conveyed the early challenges of building their platform from the ground up and initial launches at Rice University football games. Aaron discussed their pivotal strategic partnership with Aramark, which led to expansion into major league venues like the Mets, setting them up for scalable growth. I also discovered how the company used the COVID-19 pandemic to refine its software and form industry relationships. Additionally, the importance of building a dynamic culture centered around transparency, open communication, and employee empowerment was highlighted. Strategic collaborations with Comcast Business assisted in entering new verticals. Aaron provides insightful entrepreneurial lessons through strategic partnerships on values like self-funding phases, team building, and innovation. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In this episode, I interview Aaron Knape, CEO and co-founder of Rivalry Tech, about his journey from a missed World Series home run to founding a successful food delivery technology company for sports and entertainment venues. Aaron discusses the initial inspiration for Rivalry Tech, which came when his partner, Marshall Law, missed a crucial home run while waiting in line for food during a 2017 World Series game. Aaron and Marshall, neither of whom were tech experts, navigated numerous challenges in the early days, including finding the right tech talent and building a minimum viable product with the help of Craig Zekonty, a former Rice MBA classmate. The episode explores how Rivalry Tech started at Rice University football games and eventually expanded to other venues, including a significant partnership with the New York Mets. Aaron shares how the COVID-19 pandemic allowed Rivalry Tech to focus on fortifying their software and establishing key industry relationships, ultimately positioning themselves for scalable growth. The importance of strategic partnerships is highlighted, including collaborations with Aramark and Comcast Business, which have helped Rivalry Tech expand into new verticals like healthcare and hospitality. Aaron emphasizes the significance of company culture at Rivalry Tech, which includes transparency, open communication, and fostering an environment where employees feel empowered to voice their ideas and criticisms. The episode delves into the lessons learned from strategic partnerships, including the necessity of validating customer needs before development and anticipating market trends. Aaron discusses his philosophy on hiring, emphasizing the "hire slow, fire medium fast" approach and the value of team loyalty during tough times. The episode concludes with a glimpse into Aaron's personal life, including his preference for Tex-Mex over barbecue and what he would do on a 30-day sabbatical. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About Rivalry Tech GUESTS Aaron KnapeAbout Aaron TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In this episode, you will meet Aaron Canopy, CEO and co-founder of Rivalry Tech. Aaron tells a fascinating story about how missing a home run during the World Series led to he and his partner creating a successful technology company in the food delivery industry. Aaron, thanks again for taking time. Welcome to Building Texas Business. Aaron: Yeah, great to be here. Thanks for having me, Chris so let's talk about Rival would use to order the food. And it's our software and it's our hardware that's back in the kitchen, that lets the people back there get that food out faster. So, known for sports and entertainment, we're now in healthcare, fast food, restaurants, hotels, resorts, casinos, wow. Chris: So kind of like the Amazon Prime of food delivery. I think so yeah, it is, I like that. So what was the inspiration to start the company? Aaron: Yeah, so my partner Marshall Law. Actually his full name is Jesse James Marshall Law no way, no joke. Chris: Yeah, that's his real name. Aaron: Parents are comedians. They must have been. Yeah, they're awesome. But he was at Astros-Dodgers World Series back in 2017, sitting out in the left field and ran up to get a hot dog and a Coke with his two boys, and while he was up there waiting in line for 20, 25 minutes, yuli Gurriel just hits a bomb and it's right over his seats and you can go back to the highlight reel and you can see Marshall's empty seats. So he's crushed, right, he's devastated, and that's the whole reason you go to an Astros game to see moments like that. But it was even worse that it was right over his seats. So he texts me that night and says man, we've got to fix this. We've got to like why is there no app for food delivery in a stadium? And so that's when Rivalry Tech was born. Back then we called it seats, but that's when it was born. Chris: Oh, we don't, yeah. So a lot of people start companies where they see gaps in a process or something. Aaron: Yeah. Chris: But that was pretty remarkable. I mean literally leaving the stadium. He sends you a text about this. Aaron: He did and he was adamant. You know my being, you know, skeptic in general. I was like, well, either it's already being done or it's not efficient to do in a stadium. And he said, well, it's got to be done somewhere, so we're going to do it. It's going to be you and me, and he's very charismatic. So he convinced me to join up with him and we started the company a couple months later, Wow so walk us through that then what was it? Chris: you know what was it like and kind of what were the missteps taken to kind of start from scratch on this kind of idea that born out of frustration. Aaron: Yeah, yeah, you know that neither of us are tech founders, right? Neither of us are tech guys. So we had another hurdle to cross. You know, marshall had done some internet research and found you could build an app for $3,000. And we laugh to this day we look at the millions of dollars we've spent on the platform. So we might have been a little fooled into thinking it was going to be easier than it has been. But we started by, you know, trying to understand what the real need was, trying to just kind of map it out. And then we had to find a tech guy who was going to build this for us, right, because Houston's got a lot of tech talent now, a lot more than it did seven years ago when we started the company. But seven years ago it was tough and all the tech talent was being utilized by oil and gas and healthcare. You know, it's not like the West Coast where you've got a lot of talent. So we set out to find tech talent and that's where I went to. One of my old rice MBA classmates got in Craig's a canty who I knew had been a developer in his past life. He had his own successful company called Pino's Palate that he had built and grown and scaled, and so I said, hey, help me find a tech guy. And so we looked for two, three months and finally Craig comes to me and he says I found him, it's me. So great. Aaron: So Craig got back into startup life and that was probably one of the best things that happened to us, because he's very organized, very methodical and he's not just a coder, he's an architect, and so we got really lucky early on that we weren't like a typical tech startup where we're just writing code and it's kind of all thrown together. We were building enterprise grade, minimum viable product in the early days, right. So we kind of had a leg up in those early days and Craig is also co-founder, so he joined the company, really helped us get it off the ground. And then we went to work. We went to work and started out at Rice University football with our wives handing out flyers, our kids and brothers and friends were delivering the food into the stands and I was running a laptop just manually assigning orders and it was definitely a minimum viable product back at the time. But Rice had faith in us and we did them right and delivered a good first product and we learned a lot from that experience. Wow. Chris: So yeah, and it's grown from there. Aaron: We've grown from there. We then went, we got the Skeeters now the Space Cowboys to sign up with us, right, and then we had our big break. Then we got really lucky. We're building software the whole time, we're learning from Rice and Skeeters. And we had really good opportunity to be put in front of one of our old mutual friends, jamie Roots oh, sure, and president of the Texans at the time, and it was at a pitch event and it was funny. I'd never met Jamie. I didn't know him prior to this and he was sitting in my chair at my table at some point and I didn't recognize him. And I walked up to grab my bottle of water and Marshall's wife, melissa, knows him and she said, hey, aaron, this is Jamie. And I'm like, hey, what's up man? And she goes no, this is Jamie Roots. And I'm like, oh. And so we had a great 15-minute conversation and he said, man, I really like what I'm hearing. I like your ethos, I like the aggressiveness. We have an issue with the fan experience at NRG Stadium. I want you to come down and meet with Aramark and let's give it a go. So he got us into the stadium and I remember walking in and meeting with Aramark and Jamie and I won't name names. But the Aramark guy walks in the in the boardroom and he sits down and he goes mobile ordering is BS. It'll never work at scale and in stadiums. And I thought, man, we're done, yeah, we're toast. And Marshall leans across the table and says, well, that's because you're doing it wrong. So we got a kick out of that. They gave us a shot and we did well. We had a few thousand seats we were serving. We showed them that it could be done logistically, we could make money off of it and that we had a good product. So from there we started to scale and and built a really good relationship with Aramark, one we maintain to this day. And you know the sports side. We work with them at other pro stadiums. We work with them at Minute Maid. Right now we work with them at Fenway Park. The Boston Red Sox, the New York Mets. Those are some key Aramark partnerships with us. Chris: Wow, that's a great story, fortuitous, like most, if you're working hard and you get that lucky break and take advantage of it. The combination of hard work and luck sometimes is a really good thing. Aaron: It is. It helps, and we were astute enough at the time to understand that there is a bigger problem. The bigger problem wasn't that a fan wanted a beer or a hot dog in their seat their seat. It's that the operators the arrow marks of the world were having trouble keeping up with that unfettered convenience. We'll call it right, okay. All of a sudden, you go from lines, which naturally throttle your demand, to cell phones and everybody can order as much as they want, whenever they want, and they all expect it to show up in two minutes. So we learned that the operational challenges were the real problem and that's where we turned our focus. So now, when you look at our platform, it's not just about delivering food, it's about streamlining that entire process. Yeah, if the kitchen can't keep up, then it doesn't matter. Right? That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. So building in the controls, the throttles, the reporting, the communication, all that stuff's baked into our platform. Chris: So a couple of things that come to mind as you talk about what sounds like a lot of focus in Energy One on product development, software and then trying to prove the concept. What did you all do to try to finance that? Did you have to go out and raise money? Were you doing it yourself? Because most startups and entrepreneurs face that conundrum and there's a number of different ways to handle it. Aaron: What did y'all do at Robbery, at the beginning we were self-funded, we were self-financed, we were bootstrapping it. I had a good job. I was president of a manufacturing company. Marshall has like three, four other companies, he's a serial entrepreneur and Craig was running Pino's Pallet. So we all had good jobs and we were able to fund the beginning parts of the company and ultimately it got to a point where really two things happened. One, I was spending more than 40, 50 hours a week on rivalry tech, and we saw that we were getting enough traction that it needed full-time focus, and so as a group we decided, okay, it was time for one of us to leave, and that was me. So I left my job and we financed a salary to get it going and do some fundraising, and we raised our first round of funding from Venture Capital probably about a year into operations, when we really wanted to start scaling, and that was interesting as well. That was a fun experience, but now that's how we got it started Just a lot of sweat, blood, tears and a lot of our own money. Chris: Yeah, that's a common theme for anyone kind of starting something from the ground up. Aaron: Yeah it is, and it's interesting when you do it that way, and I'll give credit to know when you have an idea and you want to start a company. You've got about a thousand ideas. Here's what it should be, and Craig was really good at saying, ok, but we can only afford to build three of those things out of the thousand things. What are the three things we really need to prove? What's going to help us get to that next round of funding or what's going to help us get that next customer? And it's not all the super convenient stuff right. It's not about sending you a text message when you're within a mile of the stadium. That's not going to generate revenue. So we really had to spend time and figure out what are the most most important things to build, and that's how we got the first version of the platform out right. We just wanted to prove that, a people would use it. B people would spend money to use it. And C we could help the customers make more money. And that was it right. So that's how you get to a platform where you have to have your kids deliver food. Chris: I'm sure that was great. Yeah, they enjoyed that a bit. They did, they had a blast. So then you know, the next, I guess, issue you face, I'm guessing is, as that success is coming, you've got to start building your team to service the customers that you're bringing in. Yeah, how did y'all go about doing that and kind of going through adding key people in the right spots at the right time? Aaron: You know that was a really interesting journey for us. You know, at the beginning we knew it was mostly about tech, like we had to build the technology and the software. We did hire an operations guy in January of 2020. It was a great time to hire a field ops guy, no-transcript. And so you know, at that stage we were really trying to figure out where we scale and how we scale, and we got to go hire all these operations, people et cetera. But then something happened in March of 2020 that changed the course of live sports and entertainment. Just a little bit. Chris: Right. Well, our good friend Jamie. I remember him saying at the time it's a terrible time to be in the mass gathering business. Aaron: That's exactly right. So you know, when COVID shut everything down, it was really funny we were actually in an investor meeting. It was, I think it was March 11th, 2020. And we're talking about raising a series A and we're going to raise some more money, and then the phones kind of start buzzing and vibrating and everyone's looking down and they're like, oh man, the rodeo just canceled and or just shut down. And then a few minutes later it was like, oh, the Rockets have postponed, you know, their season already. And or no, it was the Astros. I'm sorry, the Astros postponed their season, start dating all of this. And so we said, okay, well, maybe we shouldn't have this investment meeting right now. And that really kind of set the stage for, quite honestly, was a better growth phase for us, and I actually give COVID not that it deserves any, but I give it credit for turning us into the company we are today. We took COVID and took that time to build the software we really wanted to build, if that makes sense. So, rather than splitting resources you know we had precious resources at the time rather than splitting it between operations and marketing and all the other things you're normally spending money on, we put it all into tech and by then we had established a good relationship with Aramark. We had established a good relationship with the teams like the Texans, like the Astros, and we had established a good relationship with Major League Baseball through some of our other connections at Aramark. And so we just spent all that time in isolation talking to these other people who were in isolation. So, mlb, they became really good, almost friends, and said here's what hasn't been built, here's why you don't see it at every stadium. And we listened, and so we somehow managed to raise almost $2 million during COVID throughout 2020 and just put it all towards the software Wow. And so we were able to come out of 2020 better funded, but also with a product that MLB signed off on it we launched at the New York Mets in 2021, coming out of COVID. So that really helped us allocate those tech resources and then we could start. And, if you think about it, covid also gave us a really nice kind of gradual increase in activity with operations. So we hired one ops guy, because ballparks are only at 10% capacity, sure, and they were at 30, then 50, and then 100. So we were able to scale. It was a lot better runway than just getting hit with it all at once yeah, I guess it makes sense right. Chris: You were able to kind of that hiring process that we kind of started talking about you were able to ease into that right and not have to throw a lot of investment at it because of exactly the ramp up exactly and we were able to take our time and find good people. Aaron: You know, culture is huge for us. Startup life is a grind. Startup life in live sports and entertainment is probably worse because it's a lot of nights, it's a lot of weekends. It's going to happen, whether you want it to or not, you know. I mean, the schedule is the schedule and so we had to find those people who, you know, kind of thrive on that life. They like going and the insanity and the chaos around. You know, trying to serve food to 80,000 people, you know, on any given Sunday. Chris: Oh, I can't imagine right. The other thing, though, that you know, I hear from your lessons and the advantages you took during, you know, kind of the COVID shutdown, if you will, was you really and this applies at any time but the importance and value that you gain by listening to your customer? And we have what were the issues, what did they like, what would they change if they could? And then you were one listening and you took that back to the developers or maybe they were in the meeting too to make those adaptations and modifications. Aaron: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It really helped highlight a lot of those bigger challenges right, where we got to understand, okay, well, we did have the good fortune of working through Texan season in 2019 and we saw the issues, and then COVID just allowed us to sit face-to-face from the customer when they weren't distracted, when Aramark and the Texans weren't distracted by the season. They're just sitting at home literally and let's talk through it and we're going to build it for you guys. So, yeah, it really helped put a magnifying glass in without the chaos, and that made all the difference, right, because we have a lot of competitors who just build on the fly and they're just trying to build and learn and they're getting beat up every day and that, and they're getting beat up every day and that's the advantage we have. Chris: That's great. Advert Hello friends, this is Chris Hanslick, your Building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders? Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm at boyermiller.com, and thanks for listening to the show. Chris: Well, you mentioned culture, and I definitely don't want to gloss over that. Couldn't agree more. I mean, culture is everything. What have you done at Robbery to build the culture that you appear to be proud of, and how would you describe that culture? Aaron: with grit. I mean a lot of people use that term as part of their core values, but for us it's. We really make sure, whoever sitting across the table, they know that this isn't an eight-to-five job, that this is going to be some nights and weekends and you may have a thought at 2 am and you know Marshall and I talk at 2 am all the time. We don't expect that from everybody, but hey, just know that you don't have to answer that 2 you in text, but if you want to, that's okay. But we've got a really fun culture. I mean, look, first of all, we're doing a lot of fun things. I mean whether we're at sports or, you know, I mean resorts. We do the Margaritaville up in Conroe. I mean there's worse places to go to have to do work, right. I mean we even enjoy going down to the hospitals. We're at Methodist in the Med Center. We've got some robotics stuff. It's just a lot of fun. And it's really fun to go into areas where, you know, people aren't using a lot of technology on the food and beverage side, and so we really focus just on people who are creative and they like to question and they like to come up with answers or solutions, you know we don't have. We try not to have any of those barriers where they feel like they can't approach me with an idea or criticism or feedback. You know, I think part of our success has been allowing everybody in the company to have a voice and there's no such thing as a stupid idea or a bad idea. You never know where it's going to go right, and so you know we like that everybody can feel safe just throwing it out there, right, I mean? And we've had some crazy ideas come across the come across the whiteboard, and some of them have gone on to become parts of the product and some we've tucked away and some we've giggled at and erased, you know yeah. And then we've got definitely a culture of you know, just a very candid culture, right? I'm trying to think of what the phrase is, but our candor is very important. So, you know, we have a lot of meetings where we'll share ideas and opinions and then we'll fight about those ideas and opinions and voices will get raised and pulses will increase and language will be thrown around. But at the end of the day, everybody does it respectfully and you can scream and yell at your partner all you want, but we always make up and we realize it's coming from a place of trying to better the company. Chris: Yeah, Sounds like transparency, but also in a safe environment, right. Aaron: It is. Chris: Yeah, the other thing that sounds like you've created within that culture is one that fosters innovation you talked about. People are encouraged to bring their ideas to the table. Yeah, their ideas to the table? Yeah, how? I mean? Are there things that are meetings you have to, or challenges you present to people so that they know that innovation is respected and welcomed? Aaron: Yeah, we do. I mean we have weekly meetings where we kind of go through everything from the tech roadmap to the operational roadmap to sales and marketing, and we just talk through what we're seeing in the market, try to identify the gaps, right. So we're really trying to teach everybody in the company look for those gaps. Where are we seeing, you know, areas where there's no solutions? And so I mean we love whiteboards. I mean if I could have every surface in the office be whiteboard, it would be whiteboard. I mean, put it up on the whiteboard and go and let's start playing with it. And we've gone through some sessions where we've covered a whole room and come up with new ideas or better ways to execute. Right, I mean we're dealing with, you know, a stadium or a hospital. They're not simple organisms, they're very complex. And then when you get back into the food and beverage service side and fragmented technology stacks that they're using in the back and how do you tie it all together? And then you got to pull in the different stakeholders the hospitals, the aramarks, the employees. It becomes a lot of moving pieces and within that is opportunity, yeah, and so we spend a lot of time just talking through you know where and how can we do this? Chris: so let's let's talk a little bit about you. Know you start in sports missing the home run of the World Series. You mentioned this and alluded to it earlier. You've grown in sports. While you still do. That's not your primary area. Tell us a little bit about you. Know how you moved into health care, as an example. Aaron: And what are some? Chris: of the innovative things that you're actually doing, that when people show up, you know hopefully not at a hospital, but at a resort or or something that they could see to know that this is your technology in play. Aaron: Yeah, so sports and entertainment was our focus market for a very long time and we realized that the needs existed everywhere. Right, the problem that we were solving wasn't just at large stadiums, so large operators like Aramark, they operate in a whole host of other industries, right, like we talked about hospitality or leisure hospitals, etc. And so we knew we wanted to expand into those other verticals at some point. And we got really lucky again where and you can obviously tell Aramark's been a great partner throughout all this Right, they called us out of the headquarters up in Philly and it was really funny. I'd gotten to know the guy well and he says, hey, great job in sports, you've solved a lot of issues for us. You've built a great platform. Can you do it in other business verticals? Could you do it in health care? And we said, absolutely, yeah, we've been wanting to for a long time. What are you looking for? And he goes well, we've got a customer down in Houston and you can hear the papers kind of flipping through. You ever heard of MD Anderson? Yeah, yes, I've heard of MD Anderson. He goes. Yeah, they have a need down there. We want you to go look at it, and so worked through some of that. But what ended up happening is we actually got in front of Houston Methodist and their innovation team is really great, really employee focused, really patient focused. But they wanted us to focus on putting in our mobile platform for the employees because you think about it a doctor or a nurse, 30-minute lunch breaks you don't want them waiting in line for 15, 20 minutes, right. So we saw that as our opening. We knew we wanted to expand here. We have a customer pulling us into this other market, right. So that's how we got started. We built the platform for hospitals at first, but the really cool thing about it is that that same platform applies to every other market in the world, right? Sports is unique. It's a four-hour event, five-hour event. You turn it on, you turn it off. A day or two, a couple days a week, depending on a baseball home stand football once a week, exactly, but a hospital, a hotel, fast food, I mean 365 days a year, sometimes 24 hours a day. So we built this new platform for them. And let's use Houston Methodist as an example. So we've got our mobile at all. And let's use Houston Methodist as an example. So we've got our mobile at all eight of their locations in Houston. We have our kiosks at all eight of their locations, so you can walk up to a coffee shop, order a coffee at one of our kiosks and the barista will make it. You don't have to wait in line and then we're doing some really fun stuff. So, like in the Med Center, we are integrated with a big robot made by ABB Robotics, and this thing makes your food from fresh ingredients to. It actually cooks it, it puts it in a bowl and puts it in a locker for you. That robot didn't have any way to communicate with the guest or for the guest to communicate with the food preparation system, right, which normally is a person behind a counter you talk to Right, and it didn't have any way to communicate with Aramark in the back. Hey, here's the reporting for the day. Here's what I've made. Well, we do all of that, and so we essentially said look, just let's and to oversimplify, just run a line from the robot into our platform and we'll take care of the rest. And that's what we we did. So you can order food from our app and the robot will make your food. It'll tell you when it's ready. It'll tell you what locker it's in. You walk up and you scan a little code we give you, and your locker just opens up, and then we do all the reporting for the customer at the end of the night as well, so they can see what you know delivery or make times were, etc. Now we're getting into delivery. Robotics have the just, so we're controlling that order fulfillment process again from the very beginning to the very end, right, Whether it's a human or a robot. So it's pretty fascinating. Chris: Sounds like I'm still trying to wrap my head around a robot cooking in the kitchen. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Aaron: It's their induction cookers. They look like concrete mixers and so it's tossing these, this pasta or this chicken, and like a concrete mixer and it's cooking it. So it's pretty neat. That's amazing. Chris: So you know clearly. You mentioned AeroMark several times and, based on the story, I can see that they're a key strategic partner for you, as are some others. What are some of the advice you could give others about how to cultivate those relationships that are so central to your business? Aaron: So I mean, Aramark was an obvious one for us in the early days because they were the gatekeeper to a lot of our stadiums. And the other part of that is we knew we didn't want to go door to door knocking on different stadiums' doors. They are in hundreds of stadiums, so build for one major customer, make them happy and they'll sell for you and they'll take you along right, and they'll take us along. That's exactly right. So we were very intent and strategic on a relationship like that and we've worked with Aramark's competitors as well. We work with a lot of them and it's that same mentality, right. But then, you know, we started looking for other partnerships and this was a really interesting one where Comcast Business, comcast Sports Tech, has, or Comcast Business has, a sports tech accelerator and we were asked to join a couple of years ago and we thought we might have been a little too big. We said, well, we've grown, we don't know that we need a tech accelerator. But they said, look, we're trying to give our partners in the space some more developed platforms and their partners are like PGA Tour, wwe, nascar, and so we signed up with. But we were very upfront with them. We said sports is not our focus market anymore. We want to work with Comcast business and they came back to us and said absolutely We'll intro you to the mothership big Comcast, join our sports tech accelerator. So we did, and great relationships out of that right We've. We now work with PGA Tour. We've got some agreements with them, working with them in a few locations, but Comcast Sports Tech did exactly what they said they would and I'll respect them forever for this, because you never know, right, like, do they really have any pull with the mothership Whatever? And so we are now fully ingrained in the Comcast business and what's called Comcast Smart Solutions, where they sell internet right, they sell connectivity and it's a commodity, but what they're using us for and a few other companies are where the value add wrappers right. So we're working with an NHL team. Right now Comcast is going to provide the Wi-Fi, the access points, but hey, guess what NHL team? We also provide mobile kiosk back of house software. There's other companies doing digital signage, iot, and so now they've got this whole ecosystem that they're taking out to their customers and we work with them, not just pro sports, but major franchise chains with 30,000 restaurants, more major hospitals, hotel chains with thousands of hotels, and so now we start going in and we've got this really strong partnership with a major player. And they had a lot of people knocking on the door and we just took the same approach Build, listen to them first, build what they want, build what their customers want, and they'll take you wherever you want to go. So that's great. It's not without its challenges, right. It's a slow process. You're building something for a multi-billion dollar company like a Comcast or an Aramark. You don't get sales overnight. You've got to dig in and you've got to understand that it's going to take time and investment. But when that flywheel gets spinning it's sure hard to slow down. Chris: Yeah, that's great, yeah, but you're right. I mean we talk about it. It doesn't happen overnight. You've talked maybe a little bit about it, but I think we also learned. I'm sure there were some mistakes made, setbacks that you and your team learned from. That also helped you later become as successful as you have been 100%. Anything that comes to mind that stands out as one of the bigger ones. Yeah. Aaron: You know, in software it can be challenging because people, customers, will just say, hey, I want this, I want it to do this, and the proper answer is do you really need it? Do you really need it to do that Other than a? Chris: programmer going sure, I can do that, yeah, and they will right. Aaron: And you could spend all the money you want. And I remember this isn't a major mistake, fortunately. But I remember we were at an NFL team and it was a customer and they said we want the ability for the app to, or the users to, pay with cash. And we're like why do you want to pay with cash? We're digital, we don't need, and they're like we have to have it. You have to have the ability to say this was a cash payment and then reconcile the end of the night. And we were like and this was a week before the season, and so we hired a couple of extra developers, we spent I don't know 50 grand to add this cache functionality. And we go back a week later and we're proud of it and we're like check it out, and you know what the team said oh man, we decided afterwards we didn't need it anyway. I wanted to strangle them. Aaron: I was going man, we jumped through hoops. You could have told us, right, yeah, you could have told us, like, when you decided you made the decision, but here we go and we built it. So you know, in the early days of a company you're really eager to please and you do have to kind of take a step back and say, look, we can't build it all, you'll go broke or you'll build need and you'll never use. That goofy function is still sitting out there somewhere attached to our platform, right just turned off, yeah like an appendix right. We don't need it and it's just there forever. That's probably one of the biggest things we learned in the early days. You know we've learned as well that I mean you've got to keep your head on a swivel for new developments in the market. You've always got to be looking at what's coming down the pipeline. You know we probably erred a little bit and not getting into kiosks earlier. When COVID hit, we thought no one's going to, no one wants a kiosk, they don't want to touch anything. Right, remember the early days we were fogging everything and the reality is kiosks are probably the biggest thing out there right now and it's a natural extension of our platform. We had the time to do it and we're getting in the game and getting in the game a good way and you know, to be fair, it's we're not worried about that first mover advantage. We've got a lot of mistakes from our competitors that we're learning from and gaining ground very quickly. But you do learn to start looking farther down the road. Right, we were maybe looking a year down the road. You've got to be looking two years down the road. What's really coming down? So now, if you look at what we're focused on biometrics, computer vision there's a lot of components that are on our roadmap or on our current integrations that we're building, that you won't even recognize our platform six months from now. Chris: Wow, that sounds pretty cool. Yeah, it's fun. So while we have some time, let's turn and talk a little bit about leadership. As you said, you kind of were the first to really step in full time. You were running a company before. How would you describe your leadership style and why do you think that style has been successful in helping Ravelry grow to the company? It's been. Aaron: Yeah, we like to hire people who take a lot of initiative on their own, who aren't afraid to go out and do something and maybe make a mistake and try it again. So you know, in the startup world or in the tech world there's a and this applies to a lot of places but you know it's hire slow and fire fast. And we hire slow and we'll fire like medium fast. You can't make everybody think they're going to get fired for making a mistake. My leadership style I'm not a micromanager. I very much. When we hire people, I say look, I'm not going to give you a book to tell you how to do your job. We're going to write this book together because we're breaking new ground every day and we're learning something new every day and I'm not going to pretend to know everything. So I'm hiring you because you're smarter than me. Hopefully. You're known for what you do and do it well. And if I'm going to teach you anything, it's going to be how this company operates and where you can find your best fit and your best purpose. You know, if it's a salesperson, where and how do they make their best fit as a salesperson. You know, if it's a salesperson, where and how do they make their best fit as a salesperson. So you know, that's been my style it's give them some autonomy, give them some ability to go out and make it their own and if you hire slow, you've got a good feel for the person, you know what they're going to be capable of and if you're comfortable with them. So that's how I've tried to lead the company. We've got you know, it hasn't always worked we've had people come and we've had people go. And then we've got some people who, just, you know, they grind it out every day for this company and they're always thinking of new ideas and their days. You go, man. You know when is this guy going to leave me? He's so good, he's bound to go find something better. And they don't and they stay and and I think that speaks to the culture and the loyalty and the environment that we've built- Well, that's certainly true, especially for those high performers. Chris: If they're staying, the reason they're staying is because of the team that they feel like they're a part of, which goes to the culture. Aaron: It does. Yeah, it does, and I'll share a little bit more on the intimate side. We're a tech company, right, and you have your ups and your downs you always do and teams come, teams go, covid happens, covid goes away. We've been through times in our history where we, you know, you're strapped for resources, you're strapped for capital, right, because you're raising venture dollars, sure, and we've let people go who have said can we work for free, like, can we still keep doing our job? We know you can't, you know, afford to have this big team. And you know, I mean I get emotional when I think about that. Sure, that we have people and it's been multiple people who've done that and you bring them back. And the goal is to bring them back. And I mean you can't buy loyalty like that. No, that's not something money buys. And so, you know, if we, as we grow, you know I know that would get harder to keep that part of the culture, but man, it's the early days. If you can just capture that magic of the stress and the trenches and have responses like that from all your employees, you know you can go out and teach a pretty good course. Chris: Yeah, yeah, absolutely Well, and get to your point. I think you know one of the goals of a company should be hire really good people, give them good opportunities, autonomy, training so that they become really good so good that they're marketable anywhere else in your industry or others, but also have a culture that's so good they don't want to leave. Yeah, Right, and if you can hit on those two things, man, it's like the key to the kingdom. Aaron: It is, it is and those people are priceless and you know our goal is down the road. If there's a big exit or something like that, I mean loyalty gets rewarded right, and you don't forget those times, because those are meaningful for business owners. Chris: Very good. That's great, man. It's great. What a cool story. I mean like seven years, yeah, it has been. So let's, we'll turn it a little bit on the lighter side. What you know growing up, what was your first job? Aaron: My dad's a large animal vet and so I was shoving the proverbial you know what. So, yeah, I worked at his vet clinic quite a bit, so it was a lot of painting, a lot of fence building a lot of you know cutting hay out in the pasture. Chris: So I was a farm boy. That's funny. So my dad was a primarily large animal and there was a big pile behind the stalls and that was one of the jobs and his partner's sons and I, yeah, I could totally relate. Exactly, that's too funny. Well, you know, not necessarily the best segue from shoveling that stuff, but I'm going to ask you do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Aaron: oh, tex-mex. All right, tex-mex. Yeah, you know it's. I've lived around the world and I you know, I know it's not exactly true, but I mean, it seems like you can find barbecue or barbecue adjacent foods almost everywhere, man, tex-mex, you just cannot find it. I mean, it's just you. There's tex-mex everywhere, but it's not Tex-Mex unless it's here. Chris: I think that's a pretty true statement. Yeah, and then the last question. I'm curious to know if you could take a sabbatical for 30 days, where would you go and what would you? Aaron: do. Oh man, if I could take a sabbatical for 30 days, you know I would go back. So we spent a lot of time as a family over in Europe and in France and in small towns. So you know there's just a, it's a part of that world. You know, if you asked me where I would go you ask a lot of people where they would go in France they'd say Paris. Paris is okay. I like the small towns, I like the history, the quietness that you get in a lot of those places. You know rivers and streams running through it. So I just found that part of the world to be especially peaceful. And if it's a sabbatical, you know that's where I prefer to be. Good food yeah, can't beat it. Good wine yeah, really good wine yeah, can't leave that part out. Chris: No, not at all. Well, aaron, this has been an amazing conversation, love and your story that you and Marshall and others have created. So thanks again for taking the time. Yeah, appreciate it, chris. Thank you, Special Guest: Aaron Knape.

Table of contentsNote: links take you to the corresponding section below; links to the original episode can be found there.* Laura Duffy solves housing, ethics, and more [00:01:16]* Arjun Panickssery solves books, hobbies, and blogging, but fails to solve the Sleeping Beauty problem because he's wrong on that one [00:10:47]* Nathan Barnard on how financial regulation can inform AI regulation [00:17:16]* Winston Oswald-Drummond on the tractability of reducing s-risk, ethics, and more [00:27:48]* Nathan Barnard (again!) on why general intelligence is basically fake [00:34:10]* Daniel Filan on why I'm wrong about ethics (+ Oppenheimer and what names mean in like a hardcore phil of language sense) [00:56:54]* Holly Elmore on AI pause, wild animal welfare, and some cool biology things I couldn't fully follow but maybe you can [01:04:00]* Max Alexander and I solve ethics, philosophy of mind, and cancel culture once and for all [01:24:43]* Sarah Woodhouse on discovering AI x-risk, Twitter, and more [01:30:56] * Pigeon Hour x Consistently Candid pod-crossover: I debate moral realism with Max Alexander and Sarah Hastings-Woodhouse [01:41:08]Intro [00:00:00]To wrap up the year of Pigeon Hour, the podcast, I put together some clips from each episode to create a best-of compilation. This was inspired by 80,000 Hours, a podcast that did the same with their episodes, and I thought it was pretty cool and tractable enough.It's important to note that the clips I chose range in length significantly. This does not represent the quality or amount of interesting content in the episode. Sometimes there was a natural place to break the episode into a five-minute chunk, and other times it wouldn't have made sense to take a five-minute chunk out of what really needed to be a 20-minute segment. I promise I'm not just saying that.So without further ado, please enjoy.#1: Laura Duffy solves housing, ethics, and more [00:01:16]In this first segment, Laura, Duffy, and I discuss the significance and interpretation of Aristotle's philosophical works in relation to modern ethics and virtue theory.AARON: Econ is like more interesting. I don't know. I don't even remember of all the things. I don't know, it seems like kind of cool. Philosophy. Probably would have majored in philosophy if signaling wasn't an issue. Actually, maybe I'm not sure if that's true. Okay. I didn't want to do the old stuff though, so I'm actually not sure. But if I could aristotle it's all wrong. Didn't you say you got a lot out of Nicomachi or however you pronounce that?LAURA: Nicomachian ethics guide to how you should live your life. About ethics as applied to your life because you can't be perfect. Utilitarians. There's no way to be that.AARON: But he wasn't even responding to utilitarianism. I'm sure it was a good work given the time, but like, there's like no other discipline in which we care. So people care so much about like, what people thought 2000 years ago because like the presumption, I think the justified presumption is that things have iterated and improved since then. And I think that's true. It's like not just a presumption.LAURA: Humans are still rather the same and what our needs are for living amongst each other in political society are kind of the same. I think America's founding is very influenced by what people thought 2000 years ago.AARON: Yeah, descriptively that's probably true. But I don't know, it seems like all the whole body of philosophers have they've already done the work of, like, compressing the good stuff. Like the entire academy since like, 1400 or whatever has like, compressed the good stuff and like, gotten rid of the bad stuff. Not in like a high fidelity way, but like a better than chance way. And so the stuff that remains if you just take the state of I don't know if you read the Oxford Handbook of whatever it is, like ethics or something, the takeaways you're going to get from that are just better than the takeaways you're going to get from a summary of the state of the knowledge in any prior year. At least. Unless something weird happened. And I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense.LAURA: I think we're talking about two different things, though. Okay. In terms of knowledge about logic or something or, I don't know, argumentation about trying to derive the correct moral theory or something, versus how should we think about our own lives. I don't see any reason as to why the framework of virtue theory is incorrect and just because it's old. There's many virtue theorists now who are like, oh yeah, they were really on to something and we need to adapt it for the times in which we live and the kind of societies we live in now. But it's still like there was a huge kernel of truth in at least the way of thinking that Aristotle put forth in terms of balancing the different virtues that you care about and trying to find. I think this is true. Right? Like take one virtue of his humor. You don't want to be on one extreme where you're just basically a meme your entire life. Everybody thinks you're funny, but that's just not very serious. But you don't want to be a boar and so you want to find somewhere in the middle where it's like you have a good sense of humor, but you can still function and be respected by other people.AARON: Yeah. Once again, I agree. Well, I don't agree with everything. I agree with a lot of what you just said. I think there was like two main points of either confusion or disagreement. And like, the first one is that I definitely think, no, Aristotle shouldn't be discounted or like his ideas or virtue ethics or anything like that shouldn't be discounted because they were canonical texts or something were written a long time ago. I guess it's just like a presumption that I have a pretty strong presumption that conditional on them being good, they would also be written about today. And so you don't actually need to go back to the founding texts and then in fact, you probably shouldn't because the good stuff will be explained better and not in weird it looks like weird terms. The terms are used differently and they're like translations from Aramaic or whatever. Probably not Aramaic, probably something else. And yeah, I'm not sure if you.LAURA: Agree with this because we have certain assumptions about what words like purpose mean now that we're probably a bit richer in the old conception of them like telos or happiness. Right. Udaimnia is much better concept and to read the original text and see how those different concepts work together is actually quite enriching compared to how do people use these words now. And it would take like I don't know, I think there just is a lot of value of looking at how these were originally conceived because popularizers of the works now or people who are seriously doing philosophy using these concepts. You just don't have the background knowledge that's necessary to understand them fully if you don't read the canonical text.AARON: Yeah, I think that would be true. If you are a native speaker. Do you know Greek? If you know Greek, this is like dumb because then you're just right.LAURA: I did take a quarter of it.AARON: Oh God. Oh my God. I don't know if that counts, but that's like more than anybody should ever take. No, I'm just kidding. That's very cool. No, because I was going to say if you're a native speaker of Greek and you have the connotations of the word eudaimonia and you were like living in the temper shuttle, I would say. Yeah, that's true actually. That's a lot of nuanced, connotation and context that definitely gets lost with translation. But once you take the jump of reading English translations of the texts, not you may as well but there's nothing super special. You're not getting any privileged knowledge from saying the word eudaimonia as opposed to just saying some other term as a reference to that concept or something. You're absorbing the connotation in the context via English, I guess, via the mind of literally the translators who have like.LAURA: Yeah, well see, I tried to learn virtue theory by any other route than reading Aristotle.AARON: Oh God.LAURA: I took a course specifically on Plato and Aristotle.AARON: Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just like the opposite type of philosophy person.LAURA: But keep going. Fair. But she had us read his physics before we read Nicomachi.AARON: Think he was wrong about all that.LAURA: Stuff, but it made you understand what he meant by his teleology theory so much better in a way that I could not get if I was reading some modern thing.AARON: I don't know, I feel like you probably could. No, sorry, that's not true. I don't think you could get what Aristotle the man truly believed as well via a modern text. But is that what you? Depends. If you're trying to be a scholar of Aristotle, maybe that's important. If you're trying to find the best or truest ethics and learn the lessons of how to live, that's like a different type of task. I don't think Aristotle the man should be all that privileged in that.LAURA: If all of the modern people who are talking about virtue theory are basically Aristotle, then I don't see the difference.AARON: Oh, yeah, I guess. Fair enough. And then I would say, like, oh, well, they should probably start. Is that in fact the state of the things in virtue theory? I don't even know.LAURA: I don't know either.#2 Arjun Panickssery solves books, hobbies, and blogging, but fails to solve the Sleeping Beauty problem because he's wrong on that one [00:10:47]All right, next, Arjun Panixery and I explore the effectiveness of reading books in retaining and incorporating knowledge, discussing the value of long form content and the impact of great literary works on understanding and shaping personal worldviews.ARJUN: Oh, you were in the book chat, though. The book rant group chat, right?AARON: Yeah, I think I might have just not read any of it. So do you want to fill me in on what I should have read?ARJUN: Yeah, it's group chat of a bunch of people where we were arguing about a bunch of claims related to books. One of them is that most people don't remember pretty much anything from books that they read, right? They read a book and then, like, a few months later, if you ask them about it, they'll just say one page's worth of information or maybe like, a few paragraphs. The other is that what is it exactly? It's that if you read a lot of books, it could be that you just incorporate the information that's important into your existing models and then just forget the information. So it's actually fine. Isn't this what you wrote in your blog post or whatever? I think that's why I added you to that.AARON: Oh, thank you. I'm sorry I'm such a bad group chat participant. Yeah, honestly, I wrote that a while ago. I don't fully remember exactly what it says, but at least one of the things that it said was and that I still basically stand by, is that it's basically just like it's increasing the salience of a set of ideas more so than just filling your brain with more facts. And I think this is probably true insofar as the facts support a set of common themes or ideas that are kind of like the intellectual core of it. It would be really hard. Okay, so this is not a book, but okay. I've talked about how much I love an 80,000 hours podcast, and I've listened to, I don't think every episode, but at least 100 of the episodes. And no, you're just, like, not going to definitely I've forgotten most of the actual almost all of the actual propositional pieces of information said, but you're just not going to convince me that it's completely not affecting either model of the world or stuff that I know or whatever. I mean, there are facts that I could list. I think maybe I should try.ARJUN: Sure.AARON: Yeah. So what's your take on book other long form?ARJUN: Oh, I don't know. I'm still quite confused or I think the impetus for the group chat's creation was actually Hanania's post where he wrote the case against most books or most was in parentheses or something. I mean, there's a lot of things going on in that post. He just goes off against a bunch of different categories of books that are sort of not closely related. Like, he goes off against great. I mean, this is not the exact take he gives, but it's something like the books that are considered great are considered great literature for some sort of contingent reason, not because they're the best at getting you information that you want.AARON: This is, like, another topic. But I'm, like, anti great books. In fact, I'm anti great usually just means old and famous. So insofar as that's what we mean by I'm like, I think this is a bad thing, or, like, I don't know, aristotle is basically wrong about everything and stuff like that.ARJUN: Right, yeah. Wait, we could return to this. I guess this could also be divided into its component categories. He spends more time, though, I think, attacking a certain kind of nonfiction book that he describes as the kind of book that somebody pitches to a publisher and basically expands a single essay's worth of content into with a bunch of anecdotes and stuff. He's like, most of these books are just not very useful to read, I guess. I agree with that.AARON: Yeah. Is there one that comes to mind as, like, an? Mean, I think of Malcolm Gladwell as, like, the kind of I haven't actually read any of his stuff in a while, but I did, I think, when I started reading nonfiction or with any sort of intent, I read. A bunch of his stuff or whatever and vaguely remember that this is basically what he like for better or.ARJUN: Um yeah, I guess so. But he's almost, like, trying to do it on purpose. This is the experience that you're getting by reading a Malcolm Gladwell book. It's like talib. Right? It's just him just ranting. I'm thinking, I guess, of books that are about something. So, like, if you have a book that's know negotiation or something, it'll be filled with a bunch of anecdotes that are of dubious usefulness. Or if you get a book that's just about some sort of topic, there'll be historical trivia that's irrelevant. Maybe I can think of an example.AARON: Yeah. So the last thing I tried to read, maybe I am but haven't in a couple of weeks or whatever, is like, the Derek Parfit biography. And part of this is motivated because I don't even like biographies in general for some reason, I don't know. But I don't know. He's, like, an important guy. Some of the anecdotes that I heard were shockingly close to home for me, or not close to home, but close to my brain or something. So I was like, okay, maybe I'll see if this guy's like the smarter version of Aaron Bergman. And it's not totally true.ARJUN: Sure, I haven't read the book, but I saw tweet threads about it, as one does, and I saw things that are obviously false. Right. It's the claims that he read, like, a certain number of pages while brushing his teeth. That's, like, anatomically impossible or whatever. Did you get to that part? Or I assumed no, I also saw.AARON: That tweet and this is not something that I do, but I don't know if it's anatomically impossible. Yeah, it takes a little bit of effort to figure out how to do that, I guess. I don't think that's necessarily false or whatever, but this is probably not the most important.ARJUN: Maybe it takes long time to brush his teeth.#3: Nathan Barnard on how financial regulation can inform AI regulation [00:17:16]In this next segment, Nathan Barnard and I dive into the complexities of AI regulation, including potential challenges and outcomes of governing AI in relation to economic growth and existential security. And we compare it to banking regulation as well.AARON: Yeah, I don't know. I just get gloomy for, I think justified reasons when people talk about, oh yeah, here's the nine step process that has to take place and then maybe there's like a 20% chance that we'll be able to regulate AI effectively. I'm being facetious or exaggerating, something like that, but not by a gigantic amount.NATHAN: I think this is pretty radically different to my mainline expectation.AARON: What's your mainline expectation?NATHAN: I suppose I expect like AI to come with an increasing importance past economy and to come up to really like a very large fraction of the economy before really crazy stuff starts happening and this world is going very anonymous. Anonymous, anonymous, anonymous. I know the word is it'd be very unusual if this extremely large sector economy which was impacted like a very large number of people's lives remains like broadly unregulated.AARON: It'll be regulated, but just maybe in a stupid way.NATHAN: Sure, yes, maybe in a stupid way. I suppose critically, do you expect the stupid way to be like too conservative or too like the specific question of AI accenture it's basically too conservative or too lenient or I just won't be able to interact with this.AARON: I guess generally too lenient, but also mostly on a different axis where just like I don't actually know enough. I don't feel like I've read learned about various governance proposals to have a good object level take on this. But my broad prior is that there are just a lot of ways to for anything. There's a lot of ways to regulate something poorly. And the reason insofar as anything isn't regulated poorly it's because of a lot of trial and error.NATHAN: Maybe.AARON: I mean, there's probably exceptions, right? I don't know. Tax Americana is like maybe we didn't just kept winning wars starting with World War II. I guess just like maybe like a counterexample or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah, I think I still mostly disagree with this. Oh, cool. Yeah. I suppose I see a much like broader spectrum between bad regulation and good regulation. I agree it's like very small amount. The space of optimal regulation is very small. But I think we have to hit that space for regulation to be helpful. Especially in this especially if you consider that if you sort of buy the AI extension safety risk then the downsides of it's not this quite fine balancing act between too much whether consumer protection and siphoning competition and cycling innovation too much. It's like trying to end this quite specific, very bad outcome which is maybe much worse than going somewhat slowering economic growth, at least somewhat particularly if we think we're going to get something. This is very explosive rates for economic growth really quite soon. And the cost of slowing down economic growth by weather even by quite a large percentage, very small compared to the cost of sort of an accidental catastrophe. I sort of think of Sony iconic growth as the main cost of main way regulation goes wrong currently.AARON: I think in an actual sense that is correct. There's the question of like okay, Congress in the states like it's better than nothing. I'm glad it's not anarchy in terms of like I'm glad we have a legislature.NATHAN: I'm also glad the United States.AARON: How reasons responsive is Congress? I don't think reasons responsive enough to make it so that the first big law that gets passed insofar as there is one or if there is one is on the pareto frontier trading off between economic growth and existential security. It's going to be way inside of that production frontier or whatever. It's going to suck on every action, maybe not every act but at least like some relevant actions.NATHAN: Yeah that doesn't seem like obviously true to me. I think Dodge Frank was quite a good law.AARON: That came after 2008, right?NATHAN: Yeah correct. Yeah there you go. No, I agree. I'm not especially confident about doing regulation before there's some quite bad before there's a quite bad warning shot and yes, if we're in world where we have no warning shots and we're just like blindsided by everyone getting turned into everyone getting stripped their Athens within 3 seconds, this is not good. Both in law we do have one of those shots and I think Glass Seagull is good law. Not good law is a technical term. I think Glass Steagall was a good piece of legislation. I think DoD Frank was a good piece of legislation. I think the 2008 Seamless Bill was good piece of legislation. I think the Troubled Assets Relief Program is a good piece of piece of legislation.AARON: I recognize these terms and I know some of them and others I do not know the contents of.NATHAN: Yeah so Glass Eagle was the financial regulation passed in 1933 after Great Depression. The Tropical Asset Relief Program was passed in I think 2008, moved 2009 to help recapitalize banks. Dodge Frank was the sort of landmark post financial cris piece of legislation passed in 2011. I think these are all good pieces of legislation now. I think like financial regulation is probably unusually good amongst US legislation. This is like a quite weak take, I guess. It's unusually.AARON: So. I don't actually know the pre depression financial history at all but I feel like the more relevant comparison to the 21st century era is what was the regulatory regime in 1925 or something? I just don't know.NATHAN: Yeah, I know a bit. I haven't read this stuff especially deeply and so I don't want to don't want to be so overcompensant here but sort of the core pieces which were sort of important for the sort of the Great Depression going very badly was yeah, no distinction between commercial banks and investment banks. Yes, such a bank could take much riskier. Much riskier. Things with like custom deposits than they could from 1933 until the Peel Glass Eagle. And combine that with no deposit insurance and if you sort of have the combination of banks being able to do quite risky things with depositors money and no deposit insurance, this is quite dangerously known. And glassy repeal.AARON: I'm an expert in the sense that I have the Wikipedia page up. Well, yeah, there was a bunch of things. Basically. There's the first bank of the United States. There's the second bank of the United States. There's the free banking era. There was the era of national banks. Yada, yada, yada. It looks like 19. Seven was there was some panic. I vaguely remember this from like, AP US history, like seven years ago or.NATHAN: Yes, I suppose in short, I sort of agree that the record of sort of non post Cris legislation is like, not very good, but I think record of post Cris legislation really, at least in the financial sector, really is quite good. I'm sure lots of people disagree with this, but this is my take.#4 Winston Oswald-Drummond on the tractability of reducing s-risk, ethics, and more [00:27:48]Up next, Winston Oswald Drummond and I talk about the effectiveness and impact of donating to various research organizations, such as suffering-focused S-risk organizations. We discuss tractability, expected value, and essentially where we should give our money.AARON: Okay, nice. Yeah. Where to go from here? I feel like largely we're on the same page, I feel like.WINSTON: Yeah. Is your disagreement mostly tractability? Then? Maybe we should get into the disagreement.AARON: Yeah. I don't even know if I've specified, but insofar as I have one, yes, it's trapped ability. This is the reason why I haven't donated very much to anywhere for money reasons. But insofar as I have, I have not donated to Clrcrs because I don't see a theory of change that connects the research currently being done to actually reducing s risks. And I feel like there must be something because there's a lot of extremely smart people at both of these orgs or whatever, and clearly they thought about this and maybe the answer is it's very general and the outcome is just so big in magnitude that anything kind.WINSTON: Of that is part of it, I think. Yeah, part of it is like an expected value thing and also it's just very neglected. So it's like you want some people working on this, I think, at least. Even if it's unlikely to work. Yeah, even that might be underselling it, though. I mean, I do think there's people at CRS and Clr, like talking to people at AI labs and some people in politics and these types of things. And hopefully the research is a way to know what to try to get done at these places. You want to have some concrete recommendations and I think obviously people have to also be willing to listen to you, but I think there is some work being done on that and research is partially just like a community building thing as well. It's a credible signal that you were smart and have thought about this, and so it gives people reason to listen to you and maybe that mostly pays off later on in the future.AARON: Yeah, that all sounds like reasonable. And I guess one thing is that I just don't there's definitely things I mean, first of all, I haven't really stayed up to date on what's going on, so I haven't even done I've done zero research for this podcast episode, for example. Very responsible and insofar as I've know things about these. Orgs. It's just based on what's on their website at some given time. So insofar as there's outreach going on, not like behind the scenes, but just not in a super public way, or I guess you could call that behind the scenes. I just don't have reason to, I guess, know about that. And I guess, yeah, I'm pretty comfortable. I don't even know if this is considered biting a bullet for the crowd that will be listening to this, if that's anybody but with just like yeah, saying a very small change for a very large magnitude, just, like, checks out. You can just do expected value reasoning and that's basically correct, like a correct way of thinking about ethics. But even I don't know how much you know specifically or, like, how much you're allowed want to reveal, but if there was a particular alignment agenda that I guess you in a broad sense, like the suffering focused research community thought was particularly promising and relative to other tractable, I guess, generic alignment recommendations. And you were doing research on that and trying to push that into the alignment mainstream, which is not very mainstream. And then with the hope that that jumps into the AI mainstream. Even if that's kind of a long chain of events. I think I would be a lot more enthusiastic about I don't know that type of agenda, because it feels like there's like a particular story you're telling where it cashes out in the end. You know what I mean?WINSTON: Yeah, I'm not the expert on this stuff, but I do think you just mean I think there's some things about influencing alignment and powerful AI for sure. Maybe not like a full on, like, this is our alignment proposal and it also handles Sris. But some things we could ask AI labs that are already building, like AGI, we could say, can you also implement these sort of, like, safeguards so if you failed alignment, you fail sort of gracefully and don't cause lots of suffering.AARON: Right?WINSTON: Yeah. Or maybe there are other things too, which also seem potentially more tractable. Even if you solve alignment in some sense, like aligning with whatever the human operator tells the AI to do, then you can also get the issue that malevolent actors can take control of the AI and then what they want also causes lots of suffering that type of alignment wouldn't. Yeah, and I guess I tend to be somewhat skeptical of coherent extrapolated volition and things like this, where the idea is sort of like it'll just figure out our values and do the right thing. So, yeah, there's some ways to push on this without having a full alignment plan, but I'm not sure if that counts as what you were saying.AARON: No, I guess it does. Yeah, it sounds like it does. And it could be that I'm just kind of mistaken about the degree to which that type of research and outreach is going on. That sounds like it's at least partially true.#5: Nathan Barnard (again!) on why general intelligence is basically fake [00:34:10]Up next, Nathan Barnard is back for his second episode. And we talked about the nature of general intelligence, its relationship with language and the implications of specialized brain functions on the understanding of human cognitive abilities.NATHAN: Yes. This like symbolic like symbolic, symbolic reasoning stuff. Yeah. So I think if I was, like, making the if I was, like, making the case for general intelligence being real, I wouldn't have symbolic reasoning, but I would have language stuff. I'd have this hierarchical structure thing, which.AARON: I would probably so I think of at least most uses of language and central examples as a type of symbolic reasoning because words mean things. They're like yeah. Pointers to objects or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah, I think it's like, pretty confidence isn't where this isn't a good enough description of general intelligence. So, for instance so if you bit in your brain called, I'm using a checklist, I don't fuck this up vernacular, I'm not making this cool. Lots of connects to use words like pointers as these arbitrary signs happens mostly in this area of the brain called Berkeley's area. But very famously, you can have Berkeley's epaxics who lose the ability to do language comprehension and use the ability to consistently use words as pointers, as signs to point to things, but still have perfect good spatial reasoning abilities. And so, conversely, people with brokers of fascia who fuck up, who have the broker's reason their brain fucks up will not be able to form fluent sentences and have some problems like unsigned syntax, and they'll still be able to have very good spatial reasoning. It could still, for instance, be like, good engineers. Would you like many problems which, like, cost engineering?AARON: Yeah, I totally buy that. I don't think language is the central thing. I think it's like an outgrowth of, like I don't know, there's like a simplified model I could make, which is like it's like an outgrowth of whatever general intelligence really is. But whatever the best spatial or graphical model is, I don't think language is cognition.NATHAN: Yes, this is a really big debate in psycholinguistics as to whether language is like an outgrowth of other abilities like the brain has, whether language whether there's very specialized language modules. Yeah, this is just like a very live debate in psycholinguistics moments. I actually do lean towards the reason I've been talking about this actually just going to explain this hierarchical structure thing? Yeah, I keep talking about it. So one theory for how you can comprehend new sentences, like, the dominant theory in linguistics, how you can comprehend new sentences, um, is you break them up into, like you break them up into, like, chunks, and you form these chunks together in this, like, tree structure. So something like, if you hear, like, a totally novel sentence like the pit bull mastiff flopped around deliciously or something, you can comprehend what the sentence means despite the fact you've never heard it. Theory behind this is you saw yes, this can be broken up into this tree structure, where the different, like, ah, like like bits of the sentence. So, like like the mastiff would be like, one bit, and then you have, like, another bit, which is like, the mastiff I can't remember I said rolled around, so that'd be like, another bit, and then you'd have connectors to our heart.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: So the massive rolling around one theory of one of the sort of distinctive things that humans have disabilities is like, this quite general ability to break things up into these these tree structures. This is controversial within psycholinguistics, but it's broadly an area which I broadly buy it because we do see harms to other areas of intelligence. You get much worse at, like, Ravens Progressive Matrices, for instance, when you have, like, an injury to brokers area, but, like, not worse at, like, tests like tests of space, of, like, spatial reasoning, for instance.AARON: So what is like, is there, like, a main alternative to, like, how humans.NATHAN: Understand language as far as this specificity of how we pass completely novel sentences, as far as where this is just like this is just like the the academic consensus. Okay.AARON: I mean, it sounds totally like right? I don't know.NATHAN: Yeah. But yeah, I suppose going back to saying, how far is language like an outgrowth of general intelligence? An outgrowth like general intelligence versus having much more specialized language modules? Yeah, I lean towards the latter, despite yeah, I still don't want to give too strong of a personal opinion here because I'm not a linguistic this is a podcast.AARON: You're allowed to give takes. No one's going to say this is like the academic we want takes.NATHAN: We want takes. Well, gone to my head is.AARON: I.NATHAN: Think language is not growth of other abilities. I think the main justification for this, I think, is that the loss of other abilities we see when you have damage to broker's area and verca's area.AARON: Okay, cool. So I think we basically agree on that. And also, I guess one thing to highlight is I think outgrowth can mean a couple of different things. I definitely think it's plausible. I haven't read about this. I think I did at some point, but not in a while. But outgrowth could mean temporarily or whatever. I think I'm kind of inclined to think it's not that straightforward. You could have coevolution where language per se encourages both its own development and the development of some general underlying trait or something.NATHAN: Yeah. Which seems likely.AARON: Okay, cool. So why don't humans have general intelligence?NATHAN: Right. Yeah. As I was sort of talking about previously.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: I think I think I'd like to use go back to like a high level like a high level argument is there appears to be very surprised, like, much higher levels of functional specialization in brains than you expect. You can lose much more specific abilities than you expect to be able to lose. You can lose specifically the ability a famous example is like facebindness, actually. You probably lose the ability to specifically recognize things which you're, like, an expert in.AARON: Who does it or who loses this ability.NATHAN: If you've damaged your fuse inform area, you'll lose the ability to recognize faces, but nothing else.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: And there's this general pattern that your brain is much more you can lose much more specific abilities than you expect. So, for instance, if you sort of have damage to your ventral, medial, prefrontal cortex, you can say the reasoning for why you shouldn't compulsively gamble but still compulsively gamble.AARON: For instance okay, I understand this not gambling per se, but like executive function stuff at a visceral level. Okay, keep going.NATHAN: Yeah. Some other nice examples of this. I think memory is quite intuitive. So there's like, a very famous patient called patient HM who had his hippocampus removed and so as a result, lost all declarative memory. So all memory of specific facts and things which happened in his life. He just couldn't remember any of these things, but still perfectly functioning otherwise. I think at a really high level, I think this functional specialization is probably the strongest piece of evidence against the general intelligence hypothesis. I think fundamentally, general intelligence hypothesis implies that, like, if you, like yeah, if you was, like, harm a piece of your brain, if you have some brain injury, you might like generically get worse at tasks you like, generically get worse at, like at like all task groups use general intelligence. But I think suggesting people, including general intelligence, like the ability to write, the ability to speak, maybe not speak, the ability to do math, you do have.AARON: This it's just not as easy to analyze in a Cogsy paper which IQ or whatever. So there is something where if somebody has a particular cubic centimeter of their brain taken out, that's really excellent evidence about what that cubic centimeter does or whatever, but that non spatial modification is just harder to study and analyze. I guess we'll give people drugs, right? Suppose that set aside the psychometric stuff. But suppose that general intelligence is mostly a thing or whatever and you actually can ratchet it up and down. This is probably just true, right? You can probably give somebody different doses of, like, various drugs. I don't know, like laughing gas, like like, yeah, like probably, probably weed. Like I don't know.NATHAN: So I think this just probably isn't true. Your working memory corrects quite strongly with G and having better working memory generic can make you much better at lots of tasks if you have like.AARON: Yeah.NATHAN: Sorry, but this is just like a specific ability. It's like just specifically your working memory, which is improved if you go memory to a drugs. Improved working memory. I think it's like a few things like memory attention, maybe something like decision making, which are all like extremely useful abilities and improve how well other cognitive abilities work. But they're all separate things. If you improved your attention abilities, your working memory, but you sort of had some brain injury, which sort of meant you sort of had lost ability to pass syntax, you would not get better at passing syntax. And you can also use things separately. You can also improve attention and improve working memory separately, which just it's not just this one dial which you can turn up.AARON: There's good reason to expect that we can't turn it up because evolution is already sort of like maximizing, given the relevant constraints. Right. So you would need to be looking just like injuries. Maybe there are studies where they try to increase people's, they try to add a cubic centimeter to someone's brain, but normally it's like the opposite. You start from some high baseline and then see what faculties you lose. Just to clarify, I guess.NATHAN: Yeah, sorry, I think I've lost the you still think there probably is some general intelligence ability to turn up?AARON: Honestly, I think I haven't thought about this nearly as much as you. I kind of don't know what I think at some level. If I could just write down all of the different components and there are like 74 of them and what I think of a general intelligence consists of does that make it I guess in some sense, yeah, that does make it less of an ontologically legit thing or something. I think I think the thing I want to get the motivating thing here is that with humans yet you can like we know humans range in IQ, and there's, like, setting aside a very tiny subset of people with severe brain injuries or development disorders or whatever. Almost everybody has some sort of symbolic reasoning that they can do to some degree. Whereas the smartest maybe I'm wrong about this, but as far as I know, the smartest squirrel is not going to be able to have something semantically represent something else. And that's what I intuitively want to appeal to, you know what I mean?NATHAN: Yeah, I know what you're guessing at. So I think there's like two interesting things here. So I think one is, could a squirrel do this? I'm guessing a squirrel couldn't do this, but a dog can, or like a dog probably can. A chimpanzee definitely can.AARON: Do what?NATHAN: Chimpanzees can definitely learn to associate arbitrary signs, things in the world with arbitrary signs.AARON: Yes, but maybe I'm just adding on epicentercles here, but I feel like correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that maybe I'm just wrong about this, but I would assume that Chicken Tees cannot use that sign in a domain that is qualitatively different from the ones they've been in. Right. So, like, a dog will know that a certain sign means sit or whatever, but maybe that's not a good I.NATHAN: Don'T know think this is basically not true.AARON: Okay.NATHAN: And we sort of know this from teaching.AARON: Teaching.NATHAN: There's like a famously cocoa de guerrilla. Also a bonobo whose name I can't remember were taught sign language. And the thing they were consistently bad at was, like, putting together sentences they could learn quite large vocabularies learning to associate by large, I mean in the hundreds of words, in the low hundreds of words which they could consistently use consistently use correctly.AARON: What do you mean by, like, in what sense? What is bonobo using?NATHAN: A very famous and quite controversial example is like, coco gorilla was like, saw a swan outside and signed water bird. That's like, a controversial example. But other things, I think, which are controversial here is like, the syntax part of putting water and bird together is the controversial part, but it's not the controversial part that she could see a swan and call that a bird.AARON: Yeah, I mean, this is kind of just making me think, okay, maybe the threshold for D is just like at the chimp level or something. We are like or whatever the most like that. Sure. If a species really can generate from a prefix and a suffix or whatever, a concept that they hadn't learned before.NATHAN: Yeah, this is a controversial this is like a controversial example of that the addition to is the controversial part. Yeah, I suppose maybe brings back to why I think this matters is will there be this threshold which AIS cross such that their reasoning after this is qualitatively different to their reasoning previously? And this is like two things. One, like a much faster increase in AI capabilities and two, alignment techniques which worked on systems which didn't have g will no longer work. Systems which do have g. Brings back to why I think this actually matters. But I think if we're sort of accepting it, I think elephants probably also if you think that if we're saying, like, g is like a level of chimpanzees, chimpanzees just, like, don't don't look like quantitatively different to, like, don't look like that qualitatively different to, like, other animals. Now, lots of other animals live in similar complex social groups. Lots of other animals use tools.AARON: Yeah, sure. For one thing, I don't think there's not going to be a discontinuity in the same way that there wasn't a discontinuity at any point between humans evolution from the first prokaryotic cells or whatever are eukaryotic one of those two or both, I guess. My train of thought. Yes, I know it's controversial, but let's just suppose that the sign language thing was legit with the waterbird and that's not like a random one off fluke or something. Then maybe this is just some sort of weird vestigial evolutionary accident that actually isn't very beneficial for chimpanzees and they just stumbled their way into and then it just enabled them to it enables evolution to bootstrap Shimp genomes into human genomes. Because at some the smartest or whatever actually, I don't know. Honestly, I don't have a great grasp of evolutionary biology or evolution at all. But, yeah, it could just be not that helpful for chimps and helpful for an extremely smart chimp that looks kind of different or something like that.NATHAN: Yeah. So I suppose just like the other thing she's going on here, I don't want to keep banging on about this, but you can lose the language. You can lose linguistic ability. And it's just, like, happens this happens in stroke victims, for instance. It's not that rare. Just, like, lose linguistic ability, but still have all the other abilities which we sort of think of as like, general intelligence, which I think would be including the general intelligence, like, hypothesis.AARON: I agree that's, like, evidence against it. I just don't think it's very strong evidence, partially because I think there is a real school of thought that says that language is fundamental. Like, language drives thought. Language is, like, primary to thought or something. And I don't buy that. If you did buy that, I think this would be, like, more damning evidence.#6 Daniel Filan on why I'm wrong about ethics (+ Oppenheimer and what names mean in like a hardcore phil of language sense) [00:56:54][Note: I forgot to record an intro segment here. Sorry!]AARON: Yeah. Yes. I'm also anti scam. Right, thank you. Okay, so I think that thing that we were talking about last time we talked, which is like the thing I think we actually both know stuff about instead of just like, repeating New York Times articles is my nuanced ethics takes and why you think about talk about that and then we can just also branch off from there.DANIEL: Yeah, we can talk about that.AARON: Maybe see where that did. I luckily I have a split screen up, so I can pull up things. Maybe this is kind of like egotistical or something to center my particular view, but you've definitely given me some of the better pushback or whatever that I haven't gotten that much feedback of any kind, I guess, but it's still interesting to hear your take. So basically my ethical position or the thing that I think is true is that which I think is not the default view. I think most people think this is wrong is that total utilitarianism does not imply that for some amount of suffering that could be created there exists some other extremely large arbitrarily, large amount of happiness that could also be created which would morally justify the former. Basically.DANIEL: So you think that even under total utilitarianism there can be big amounts of suffering such that there's no way to morally tip the calculus. However much pleasure you can create, it's just not going to outweigh the fact that you inflicted that much suffering on some people.AARON: Yeah, and I'd highlight the word inflicted if something's already there and you can't do anything about it, that's kind of neither here nor there as it pertains to your actions or something. So it's really about you increasing, you creating suffering that wouldn't have otherwise been created. Yeah. It's also been a couple of months since I've thought about this in extreme detail, although I thought about it quite a bit. Yeah.DANIEL: Maybe I should say my contrary view, I guess, when you say that, I don't know, does total utilitarianism imply something or not? I'm like, well, presumably it depends on what we mean by total utilitarianism. Right. So setting that aside, I think that thesis is probably false. I think that yeah. You can offset great amounts of suffering with great amounts of pleasure, even for arbitrary amounts of suffering.AARON: Okay. I do think that position is like the much more common and even, I'd say default view. Do you agree with that? It's sort of like the implicit position of people who are of self described total utilitarians who haven't thought a ton about this particular question.DANIEL: Yeah, I think it's probably the implicit default. I think it's the implicit default in ethical theory or something. I think that in practice, when you're being a utilitarian, I don't know, normally, if you're trying to be a utilitarian and you see yourself inflicting a large amount of suffering, I don't know. I do think there's some instinct to be like, is there any way we can get around this?AARON: Yeah, for sure. And to be clear, I don't think this would look like a thought experiment. I think what it looks like in practice and also I will throw in caveats as I see necessary, but I think what it looks like in practice is like, spreading either wild animals or humans or even sentient digital life through the universe. That's in a non as risky way, but that's still just maybe like, say, making the earth, making multiple copies of humanity or something like that. That would be an example that's probably not like an example of what an example of creating suffering would be. For example, just creating another duplicate of earth. Okay.DANIEL: Anything that would be like so much suffering that we shouldn't even the pleasures of earth outweighs.AARON: Not necessarily, which is kind of a cop out. But my inclination is that if you include wild animals, the answer is yes, that creating another earth especially. Yeah, but I'm much more committed to some amount. It's like some amount than this particular time and place in human industry is like that or whatever.DANIEL: Okay, can I get a feel of some other concrete cases to see?AARON: Yeah.DANIEL: So one example that's on my mind is, like, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, right? So the standard case for this is, like, yeah, what? A hundred OD thousand people died? Like, quite terrible, quite awful. And a lot of them died, I guess a lot of them were sort of some people were sort of instantly vaporized, but a lot of people died in extremely painful ways. But the countercase is like, well, the alternative to that would have been like, an incredibly grueling land invasion of Japan, where many more people would have died or know regardless of what the actual alternatives were. If you think about the atomic bombings, do you think that's like the kind of infliction of suffering where there's just not an offsetting amount of pleasure that could make that okay?AARON: My intuition is no, that it is offsettable, but I would also emphasize that given the actual historical contingencies, the alternative, the implicit case for the bombing includes reducing suffering elsewhere rather than merely creating happiness. There can definitely be two bad choices that you have to make or something. And my claim doesn't really pertain to that, at least not directly.#7: Holly Elmore on AI pause, wild animal welfare, and some cool biology things I couldn't fully follow but maybe you can [01:04:00]Up next, Holly Elmore and I discuss the complexities and implications of AI development and open sourcing. We talk about protests and ethical considerations around her, um, uh, campaign to pause the development of frontier AI systems until, until we can tell that they're safe.AARON: So what's the plan? Do you have a plan? You don't have to have a plan. I don't have plans very much.HOLLY: Well, right now I'm hopeful about the UK AI summit. Pause AI and I have planned a multi city protest on the 21 October to encourage the UK AI Safety Summit to focus on safety first and to have as a topic arranging a pause or that of negotiation. There's a lot of a little bit upsetting advertising for that thing that's like, we need to keep up capabilities too. And I just think that's really a secondary objective. And that's how I wanted to be focused on safety. So I'm hopeful about the level of global coordination that we're already seeing. It's going so much faster than we thought. Already the UN Secretary General has been talking about this and there have been meetings about this. It's happened so much faster at the beginning of this year. Nobody thought we could talk about nobody was thinking we'd be talking about this as a mainstream topic. And then actually governments have been very receptive anyway. So right now I'm focused on other than just influencing opinion, the targets I'm focused on, or things like encouraging these international like, I have a protest on Friday, my first protest that I'm leading and kind of nervous that's against Meta. It's at the Meta building in San Francisco about their sharing of model weights. They call it open source. It's like not exactly open source, but I'm probably not going to repeat that message because it's pretty complicated to explain. I really love the pause message because it's just so hard to misinterpret and it conveys pretty clearly what we want very quickly. And you don't have a lot of bandwidth and advocacy. You write a lot of materials for a protest, but mostly what people see is the title.AARON: That's interesting because I sort of have the opposite sense. I agree that in terms of how many informational bits you're conveying in a particular phrase, pause AI is simpler, but in some sense it's not nearly as obvious. At least maybe I'm more of a tech brain person or whatever. But why that is good, as opposed to don't give extremely powerful thing to the worst people in the world. That's like a longer everyone.HOLLY: Maybe I'm just weird. I've gotten the feedback from open source ML people is the number one thing is like, it's too late, there's already super powerful models. There's nothing you can do to stop us, which sounds so villainous, I don't know if that's what they mean. Well, actually the number one message is you're stupid, you're not an ML engineer. Which like, okay, number two is like, it's too late, there's nothing you can do. There's all of these other and Meta is not even the most powerful generator of models that it share of open source models. I was like, okay, fine. And I don't know, I don't think that protesting too much is really the best in these situations. I just mostly kind of let that lie. I could give my theory of change on this and why I'm focusing on Meta. Meta is a large company I'm hoping to have influence on. There is a Meta building in San Francisco near where yeah, Meta is the biggest company that is doing this and I think there should be a norm against model weight sharing. I was hoping it would be something that other employees of other labs would be comfortable attending and that is a policy that is not shared across the labs. Obviously the biggest labs don't do it. So OpenAI is called OpenAI but very quickly decided not to do that. Yeah, I kind of wanted to start in a way that made it more clear than pause AI. Does that anybody's welcome something? I thought a one off issue like this that a lot of people could agree and form a coalition around would be good. A lot of people think that this is like a lot of the open source ML people think know this is like a secret. What I'm saying is secretly an argument for tyranny. I just want centralization of power. I just think that there are elites that are better qualified to run everything. It was even suggested I didn't mention China. It even suggested that I was racist because I didn't think that foreign people could make better AIS than Meta.AARON: I'm grimacing here. The intellectual disagreeableness, if that's an appropriate term or something like that. Good on you for standing up to some pretty bad arguments.HOLLY: Yeah, it's not like that worth it. I'm lucky that I truly am curious about what people think about stuff like that. I just find it really interesting. I spent way too much time understanding the alt. Right. For instance, I'm kind of like sure I'm on list somewhere because of the forums I was on just because I was interested and it is something that serves me well with my adversaries. I've enjoyed some conversations with people where I kind of like because my position on all this is that look, I need to be convinced and the public needs to be convinced that this is safe before we go ahead. So I kind of like not having to be the smart person making the arguments. I kind of like being like, can you explain like I'm five. I still don't get it. How does this work?AARON: Yeah, no, I was thinking actually not long ago about open source. Like the phrase has such a positive connotation and in a lot of contexts it really is good. I don't know. I'm glad that random tech I don't know, things from 2004 or whatever, like the reddit source code is like all right, seems cool that it's open source. I don't actually know if that was how that right. But yeah, I feel like maybe even just breaking down what the positive connotation comes from and why it's in people's self. This is really what I was thinking about, is like, why is it in people's self interest to open source things that they made and that might break apart the allure or sort of ethical halo that it has around it? And I was thinking it probably has something to do with, oh, this is like how if you're a tech person who makes some cool product, you could try to put a gate around it by keeping it closed source and maybe trying to get intellectual property or something. But probably you're extremely talented already, or pretty wealthy. Definitely can be hired in the future. And if you're not wealthy yet I don't mean to put things in just materialist terms, but basically it could easily be just like in a yeah, I think I'll probably take that bit out because I didn't mean to put it in strictly like monetary terms, but basically it just seems like pretty plausibly in an arbitrary tech person's self interest, broadly construed to, in fact, open source their thing, which is totally fine and normal.HOLLY: I think that's like 99 it's like a way of showing magnanimity showing, but.AARON: I don't make this sound so like, I think 99.9% of human behavior is like this. I'm not saying it's like, oh, it's some secret, terrible self interested thing, but just making it more mechanistic. Okay, it's like it's like a status thing. It's like an advertising thing. It's like, okay, you're not really in need of direct economic rewards, or sort of makes sense to play the long game in some sense, and this is totally normal and fine, but at the end of the day, there's reasons why it makes sense, why it's in people's self interest to open source.HOLLY: Literally, the culture of open source has been able to bully people into, like, oh, it's immoral to keep it for yourself. You have to release those. So it's just, like, set the norms in a lot of ways, I'm not the bully. Sounds bad, but I mean, it's just like there is a lot of pressure. It looks bad if something is closed source.AARON: Yeah, it's kind of weird that Meta I don't know, does Meta really think it's in their I don't know. Most economic take on this would be like, oh, they somehow think it's in their shareholders interest to open source.HOLLY: There are a lot of speculations on why they're doing this. One is that? Yeah, their models aren't as good as the top labs, but if it's open source, then open source quote, unquote then people will integrate it llama Two into their apps. Or People Will Use It And Become I don't know, it's a little weird because I don't know why using llama Two commits you to using llama Three or something, but it just ways for their models to get in in places where if you just had to pay for their models too, people would go for better ones. That's one thing. Another is, yeah, I guess these are too speculative. I don't want to be seen repeating them since I'm about to do this purchase. But there's speculation that it's in best interests in various ways to do this. I think it's possible also that just like so what happened with the release of Llama One is they were going to allow approved people to download the weights, but then within four days somebody had leaked Llama One on four chan and then they just were like, well, whatever, we'll just release the weights. And then they released Llama Two with the weights from the beginning. And it's not like 100% clear that they intended to do full open source or what they call Open source. And I keep saying it's not open source because this is like a little bit of a tricky point to make. So I'm not emphasizing it too much. So they say that they're open source, but they're not. The algorithms are not open source. There are open source ML models that have everything open sourced and I don't think that that's good. I think that's worse. So I don't want to criticize them for that. But they're saying it's open source because there's all this goodwill associated with open source. But actually what they're doing is releasing the product for free or like trade secrets even you could say like things that should be trade secrets. And yeah, they're telling people how to make it themselves. So it's like a little bit of a they're intentionally using this label that has a lot of positive connotations but probably according to Open Source Initiative, which makes the open Source license, it should be called something else or there should just be like a new category for LLMs being but I don't want things to be more open. It could easily sound like a rebuke that it should be more open to make that point. But I also don't want to call it Open source because I think Open source software should probably does deserve a lot of its positive connotation, but they're not releasing the part, that the software part because that would cut into their business. I think it would be much worse. I think they shouldn't do it. But I also am not clear on this because the Open Source ML critics say that everyone does have access to the same data set as Llama Two. But I don't know. Llama Two had 7 billion tokens and that's more than GPT Four. And I don't understand all of the details here. It's possible that the tokenization process was different or something and that's why there were more. But Meta didn't say what was in the longitude data set and usually there's some description given of what's in the data set that led some people to speculate that maybe they're using private data. They do have access to a lot of private data that shouldn't be. It's not just like the common crawl backup of the Internet. Everybody's basing their training on that and then maybe some works of literature they're not supposed to. There's like a data set there that is in question, but metas is bigger than bigger than I think well, sorry, I don't have a list in front of me. I'm not going to get stuff wrong, but it's bigger than kind of similar models and I thought that they have access to extra stuff that's not public. And it seems like people are asking if maybe that's part of the training set. But yeah, the ML people would have or the open source ML people that I've been talking to would have believed that anybody who's decent can just access all of the training sets that they've all used.AARON: Aside, I tried to download in case I'm guessing, I don't know, it depends how many people listen to this. But in one sense, for a competent ML engineer, I'm sure open source really does mean that. But then there's people like me. I don't know. I knew a little bit of R, I think. I feel like I caught on the very last boat where I could know just barely enough programming to try to learn more, I guess. Coming out of college, I don't know, a couple of months ago, I tried to do the thing where you download Llama too, but I tried it all and now I just have like it didn't work. I have like a bunch of empty folders and I forget got some error message or whatever. Then I tried to train my own tried to train my own model on my MacBook. It just printed. That's like the only thing that a language model would do because that was like the most common token in the training set. So anyway, I'm just like, sorry, this is not important whatsoever.HOLLY: Yeah, I feel like torn about this because I used to be a genomicist and I used to do computational biology and it was not machine learning, but I used a highly parallel GPU cluster. And so I know some stuff about it and part of me wants to mess around with it, but part of me feels like I shouldn't get seduced by this. I am kind of worried that this has happened in the AI safety community. It's always been people who are interested in from the beginning, it was people who are interested in singularity and then realized there was this problem. And so it's always been like people really interested in tech and wanting to be close to it. And I think we've been really influenced by our direction, has been really influenced by wanting to be where the action is with AI development. And I don't know that that was right.AARON: Not personal, but I guess individual level I'm not super worried about people like you and me losing the plot by learning more about ML on their personal.HOLLY: You know what I mean? But it does just feel sort of like I guess, yeah, this is maybe more of like a confession than, like a point. But it does feel a little bit like it's hard for me to enjoy in good conscience, like, the cool stuff.AARON: Okay. Yeah.HOLLY: I just see people be so attached to this as their identity. They really don't want to go in a direction of not pursuing tech because this is kind of their whole thing. And what would they do if we weren't working toward AI? This is a big fear that people express to me with they don't say it in so many words usually, but they say things like, well, I don't want AI to never get built about a pause. Which, by the way, just to clear up, my assumption is that a pause would be unless society ends for some other reason, that a pause would eventually be lifted. It couldn't be forever. But some people are worried that if you stop the momentum now, people are just so luddite in their insides that we would just never pick it up again. Or something like that. And, yeah, there's some identity stuff that's been expressed. Again, not in so many words to me about who will we be if we're just sort of like activists instead of working on.AARON: Maybe one thing that we might actually disagree on. It's kind of important is whether so I think we both agree that Aipause is better than the status quo, at least broadly, whatever. I know that can mean different things, but yeah, maybe I'm not super convinced, actually, that if I could just, like what am I trying to say? Maybe at least right now, if I could just imagine the world where open eye and Anthropic had a couple more years to do stuff and nobody else did, that would be better. I kind of think that they are reasonably responsible actors. And so I don't k

IntroAt the gracious invitation of AI Safety Twitter-fluencer Sarah Hastings-Woodhouse, I appeared on the very first episode of her new podcast “Consistently Candid” to debate moral realism (or something kinda like that, I guess; see below) with fellow philosophy nerd and EA Twitter aficionado Max Alexander, alongside Sarah as moderator and judge of sorts.What I believeIn spite of the name of the episode and the best of my knowledge/understanding a few days ago, it turns out my stance may not be ~genuine~ moral realism. Here's my basic meta-ethical take:* Descriptive statements that concern objective relative goodness or badness (e.g., "it is objectively for Sam to donate $20 than to buy an expensive meal that costs $20 more than a similar, less fancy meal”) can be and sometimes are true; but* Genuinely normative claims like “Sam should (!) donate $20 and should not buy that fancy meal” are never objectively true.Of course the label per se doesn't really matter. But for a bunch of reasons it still seems wise to figure out which label really does work best.Some definitionsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Moral realists are those who think that, in these respects, things should be taken at face value—moral claims do purport to report facts and are true if they get the facts right. Moreover, they hold, at least some moral claims actually are true. That much is the common and more or less defining ground of moral realism (although some accounts of moral realism see it as involving additional commitments, say to the independence of the moral facts from human thought and practice, or to those facts being objective in some specified way).Wikipedia:The robust model of moral realism commits moral realists to three theses:* The semantic thesis: The primary semantic role of moral predicates (such as "right" and "wrong") is to refer to moral properties (such as rightness and wrongness), so that moral statements (such as "honesty is good" and "slavery is unjust") purport to represent moral facts, and express propositions that are true or false (or approximately true, largely false, and so on).* The alethic thesis: Some moral propositions are in fact true.* The metaphysical thesis: Moral propositions are true when actions and other objects of moral assessment have the relevant moral properties (so that the relevant moral facts obtain), where these facts and properties are robust: their metaphysical status, whatever it is, is not relevantly different from that of (certain types of) ordinary non-moral facts and properties.And to settle the matter, here's what some LLM have to say.My prompt:Suppose a person believes the following:1: Descriptive statements that concern objective relative goodness or badness (e.g., "it is objectively for Sam to donate $20 than to buy an expensive meal that costs $20 more than a similar, less fancy meal”) can be and sometimes are true; but 2: Genuinely normative claims like “Sam should donate $20 and should not buy that fancy meal” are never objectively true.Is this person best categorized as a moral realist?ChatGPTGiven these two beliefs, the person's stance doesn't align completely with traditional moral realism, which typically asserts that there are objective truths about both moral facts (like the goodness or badness of actions) and moral duties (what one should or should not do). However, it also doesn't fully align with moral anti-realism, since the person believes in some form of objective truth regarding moral value.One possible categorization for this stance could be a form of "value realism" combined with "normative anti-realism" or "normative subjectivism." This would mean that the person believes in objective truths about what is better or worse (value realism) but thinks that what one ought to do (normative claims) is not a matter of objective truth but perhaps of subjective judgment or societal conventions.This position is quite sophisticated and might be best understood as a hybrid or intermediate position in the landscape of moral philosophy, rather than fitting neatly into the category of moral realism or its standard alternatives.Great, so much for trying to fit things into nice little buckets.Claude, fortunately, is more definitive:No, the view described is not best categorized as moral realism. Here's why:Moral realism is the view that there are objective moral facts or truths. A moral realist believes that some moral claims, including normative claims about what one should or shouldn't do, can be objectively and mind-independently true.The view in the example accepts that there can be objective truths about relative degrees of goodness or badness (claim 1). However, it denies that there are objective normative truths about what one should or shouldn't do (claim 2). By rejecting that genuine normative 'should/shouldn't' claims can be objectively true, the view denies a key commitment of moral realism - namely that moral claims can state objective normative facts. At best it allows for objective evaluative facts about goodness/badness, not prescriptive facts about obligations.So this view would be more accurately categorized as a form of moral anti-realism like non-cognitivism or error theory. It does not qualify as moral realism because of its rejection of the existence of objective normative truths that could make strong normative claims justified or true. The commitment to objective evaluative facts alone does not sufficiently qualify the view as realist in the metaethical sense.In summary, the view accepts objective "good/bad" facts but denies objective "should/shouldn't" facts. This combination puts it at odds with core commitments of moral realism, so it is better seen as an anti-realist view.I'm gonna disagree with Claude here, at least in that the bolded claim above (objective normative facts are a key part of moral realism) just seems…wrong? Like all the definitions could replace the term “moral fact” or “moral claim” with “normative fact” and “normative claim” but they do not!So I really don't have a great answer to which label works best. One of two ~human level chatbots giving me a definitive-sounding “anti-realism” answer is too much evidence for me, whose only formal philosophy training is an undergrad minor, to rule that one out. There are also good arguments, I think, for the “realist label,” as well as for “neither” (i.e., ‘secret third thing'). In fact all of these seem pretty similar in terms of argument convincingness/correctness. So, in sum,

Note: I can't seem to edit or remove the “transcript” tab. I recommend you ignore that and just look at the much higher quality, slightly cleaned up one below. Most importantly, follow Sarah on Twitter! Summary (Written by chatGPT, as you can probably tell)In this episode of Pigeon Hour host Aaron delves deep into the world of AI safety with his guest, Sarah Woodhouse. Sarah shares her unexpected journey from fearing job automation to becoming a recognized voice on AI safety Twitter. Her story starts with a simple Google search that led her down a rabbit hole of existential dread and unexpected fame on social media. As she narrates her path from lurker to influencer, Sarah reflects on the quirky dynamics of the AI safety community, her own existential crisis, and the serendipitous tweet that resonated with thousands.Aaron and Sarah's conversation takes unexpected turns, discussing everything from the peculiarities of EA rationalists to the surprisingly serious topic of shrimp welfare. They also explore the nuances of AI doom probabilities, the social dynamics of tech Twitter, and Sarah's unexpected viral fame as a tween. This episode is a rollercoaster of insights and anecdotes, perfect for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, society, and the unpredictable journey of internet fame.Topics discussedDiscussion on AI Safety and Personal Journeys:* Aaron and Sarah discuss her path to AI safety, triggered by concerns about job automation and the realization that AI could potentially replace her work.* Sarah's deep dive into AI safety started with a simple Google search, leading her to Geoffrey Hinton's alarming statements, and eventually to a broader exploration without finding reassuring consensus.* Sarah's Twitter engagement began with lurking, later evolving into active participation and gaining an audience, especially after a relatable tweet thread about an existential crisis.* Aaron remarks on the rarity of people like Sarah, who follow the AI safety rabbit hole to its depths, considering its obvious implications for various industries.AI Safety and Public Perception:* Sarah discusses her surprise at discovering the AI safety conversation happening mostly in niche circles, often with a tongue-in-cheek attitude that could seem dismissive of the serious implications of AI risks.* The discussion touches on the paradox of AI safety: it's a critically important topic, yet it often remains confined within certain intellectual circles, leading to a lack of broader public engagement and awareness.Cultural Differences and Personal Interests:* The conversation shifts to cultural differences between the UK and the US, particularly in terms of sincerity and communication styles.* Personal interests, such as theater and musicals (like "Glee"), are also discussed, revealing Sarah's background and hobbies.Effective Altruism (EA) and Rationalist Communities:* Sarah points out certain quirks of the EA and rationalist communities, such as their penchant for detailed analysis, hedging statements, and the use of probabilities in discussions.* The debate around the use of "P(Doom)" (probability of doom) in AI safety discussions is critiqued, highlighting how it can be both a serious analytical tool and a potentially alienating jargon for outsiders.Shrimp Welfare and Ethical Considerations:* A detailed discussion on shrimp welfare as an ethical consideration in effective altruism unfolds, examining the moral implications and effectiveness of focusing on animal welfare at a large scale.* Aaron defends his position on prioritizing shrimp welfare in charitable giving, based on the principles of importance, tractability, and neglectedness.Personal Decision-Making in Charitable Giving:* Strategies for personal charitable giving are explored, including setting a donation cutoff point to balance moral obligations with personal needs and aspirations.TranscriptAARON: Whatever you want. Okay. Yeah, I feel like you said this on Twitter. The obvious thing is, how did you learn about AI safety? But maybe you've already covered that. That's boring. First of all, do you want to talk about that? Because we don't have to.SARAH: I don't mind talking about that.AARON: But it's sort of your call, so whatever. I don't know. Maybe briefly, and then we can branch out?SARAH: I have a preference for people asking me things and me answering them rather than me setting the agenda. So don't ever feel bad about just asking me stuff because I prefer that.AARON: Okay, cool. But also, it feels like the kind of thing where, of course, we have AI. Everyone already knows that this is just like the voice version of these four tweets or whatever. But regardless. Yes. So, Sarah, as Pigeon Hour guest, what was your path through life to AI safety Twitter?SARAH: Well, I realized that a chatbot could very easily do my job and that my employers either hadn't noticed this or they had noticed, but they were just being polite about it and they didn't want to fire me because they're too nice. And I was like, I should find out what AI development is going to be like over the next few years so that I know if I should go and get good at some other stuff.SARAH: I just had a little innocent Google. And then within a few clicks, I'd completely doom pilled myself. I was like, we're all going to die. I think I found Geoffrey Hinton because he was on the news at the time, because he just quit his job at Google. And he was there saying things that sounded very uncertain, very alarming. And I was like, well, he's probably the pessimist, but I'm sure that there are loads of optimists to counteract that because that's how it usually goes. You find a doomer and then you find a bunch of more moderate people, and then there's some consensus in the middle that everything's basically fine.SARAH: I was like, if I just keep looking, I'll find the consensus because it's there. I'm sure it's there. So I just kept looking and looking for it. I looked for it for weeks. I just didn't find it. And then I was like, nobody knows what's going on. This seems really concerning. So then I started lurking on Twitter, and then I got familiar with all the different accounts, whatever. And then at some point, I was like, I'm going to start contributing to this conversation, but I didn't think that anybody would talk back to me. And then at some point, they started talking back to me and I was like, this is kind of weird.SARAH: And then at some point, I was having an existential crisis and I had a couple of glasses of wine or something, and I just decided to type this big, long thread. And then I went to bed. I woke up the next morning slightly grouchy and hungover. I checked my phone and there were all these people messaging me and all these people replying to my thread being like, this is so relatable. This really resonated with me. And I was like, what is going on?AARON: You were there on Twitter before that thread right? I'm pretty sure I was following you.SARAH: I think, yeah, I was there before, but no one ever really gave me any attention prior to that. I think I had a couple of tweets that blew up before that, but not to the same extent. And then after that, I think I was like, okay, so now I have an audience. When I say an audience, like, obviously a small one, but more of an audience than I've ever had before in my life. And I was like, how far can I take this?SARAH: I was a bit like, people obviously started following me because I'm freFreaking out about AI, but if I post an outfit, what's going to happen? How far can I push this posting, these fit checks? I started posting random stuff about things that were completely unrelated. I was like, oh, people are kind of here for this, too. Okay, this is weird. So now I'm just milking it for all its worth, and I really don't know why anybody's listening to me. I'm basically very confused about the whole thing.AARON: I mean, I think it's kind of weird from your perspective, or it's weird in general because there aren't that many people who just do that extremely logical thing at the beginning. I don't know, maybe it's not obvious to people in every industry or whatever that AI is potentially a big deal, but there's lots of truckers or whatever. Maybe they're not the best demographic or the most conducive demographic, like, getting on Twitter or whatever, but there's other jobs that it would make sense to look into that. It's kind of weird to me that only you followed the rabbit hole all the way down.SARAH: I know! This is what I…Because it's not that hard to complete the circle. It probably took me like a day, it took me like an afternoon to get from, I'm worried about job automation to I should stop saving for retirement. It didn't take me that long. Do you know what I mean? No one ever looks. I literally don't get it. I was talking to some people. I was talking to one of my coworkers about this the other day, and I think I came up in conversation. She was like, yeah, I'm a bit worried about AI because I heard on the radio that taxi drivers might be out of a job. That's bad. And I was like, yeah, that is bad. But do you know what else? She was like, what are the AI companies up to that we don't know about? And I was like, I mean, you can go on their website. You can just go on their website and read about how they think that their technology is an extinction risk. It's not like they're hiding. It's literally just on there and no one ever looks. It's just crazy.AARON: Yeah. Honestly, I don't even know if I was in your situation, if I would have done that. It's like, in some sense, I am surprised. It's very few people maybe like one, but at another level, it's more rationality than most humans have or something. Yeah. You regret going down that rabbit hole?SARAH: Yeah, kind of. Although I'm enjoying the Twitter thing and it's kind of fun, and it turns out there's endless comedic material that you can get out of impending doom. The whole thing is quite funny. It's not funny, but you can make it funny if you try hard enough. But, yeah, what was I going to say? I think maybe I was more primed for doom pilling than your average person because I already knew what EA was and I already knew, you know what I mean. That stuff was on my radar.AARON: That's interesting.SARAH: I think had it not been on my radar, I don't think I would have followed the pipeline all the way.AARON: Yeah. I don't know what browser you use, but it would be. And you should definitely not only do this if you actually think it would be cool or whatever, but this could be in your browser history from that day and that would be hilarious. You could remove anything you didn't want to show, but if it's like Google Chrome, they package everything into sessions. It's one browsing session and it'll have like 10,000 links.SARAH: Yeah, I think for non-sketchy reasons, I delete my Google history more regularly than that. I don't think I'd be able to find that. But I can remember the day and I can remember my anxiety levels just going up and up somewhere between 01:00 p.m. and 07:00 p.m. And by the evening I'm like, oh, my God.AARON: Oh, damn, that's wild.SARAH: It was really stressful.AARON: Yeah, I guess props for, I don't know if props…Is the right word, I guess, impressed? I'm actually somewhat surprised to hear that you said you regret it. I mean, that sucks though, I guess. I'm sorry.SARAH: If you could unknow this, would you?AARON: No, because I think it's worth maybe selfishly, but not overall because. Okay, yeah, I think that would plausibly be the selfish thing to do. Actually. No, actually, hold on. No, I actually don't think that's true. I actually think there's enough an individual can do selfishly such that it makes sense. Even the emotional turmoil.SARAH: It would depend how much you thought that you were going to personally move the needle by knowing about it. I personally don't think that I'm going to be able to do very much. I was going to tip the scales. I wouldn't selfishly unknow it and sacrifice the world. But me being not particularly informed or intelligent and not having any power, I feel like if I forgot that AI was going to end the world, it would not make much difference.AARON: You know what I mean? I agree that it's like, yes, it is unlikely for either of us to tip the scales, but.SARAH: Maybe you can't.AARON: No, actually, in terms of, yeah, I'm probably somewhat more technically knowledgeable just based on what I know about you. Maybe I'm wrong.SARAH: No, you're definitely right.AARON: It's sort of just like a probabilities thing. I do think that ‘doom' - that word - is too simplified, often too simple to capture what people really care about. But if you just want to say doom versus no doom or whatever, AI doom versus no AI doom. Maybe there's like a one in 100,000 chance that one of us tips the scales. And that's important. Maybe even, like, one in 10,000. Probably not. Probably not.SARAH: One in 10,000. Wow.AARON: But that's what people do. People vote, even though this is old 80k material I'm regurgitating because they basically want to make the case for why even if you're not. Or in some article they had from a while ago, they made a case for why doing things that are unlikely to counterfactually matter can still be amazingly good. And the classic example, just voting if you're in a tight race, say, in a swing state in the United States, and it could go either way. Yeah. It might be pretty unlikely that you are the single swing vote, but it could be one in 100,000. And that's not crazy.SARAH: It doesn't take very much effort to vote, though.AARON: Yeah, sure. But I think the core justification, also, the stakes are proportionally higher here, so maybe that accounts for some. But, yes, you're absolutely right. Definitely different amounts of effort.SARAH: Putting in any effort to saving the world from AI. I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say that I'm sacrificing.AARON: I don't even know if I like. No. Maybe it doesn't feel like a sacrifice. Maybe it isn't. But I do think there's, like, a lot. There's at least something to be. I don't know if this really checks out, but I would, like, bet that it does, which is that more reasonably, at least calibrated. I wanted to say reasonably well informed. But really what it is is, like, some level of being informed and, like, some level of knowing what you don't know or whatever, and more just like, normal. Sorry. I hope normal is not like a bat. I'm saying not like tech Bros, I guess so more like non tech bros. People who are not coded as tech bros. Talking about this on a public platform just seems actually, in fact, pretty good.SARAH: As long as we like, literally just people that aren't men as well. No offense.AARON: Oh, no, totally. Yeah.SARAH: Where are all the women? There's a few.AARON: There's a few that are super. I don't know, like, leaders in some sense, like Ajeya Cotra and Katja Grace. But I think the last EA survey was a third. Or I could be butchering this or whatever. And maybe even within that category, there's some variation. I don't think it's 2%.SARAH: Okay. All right. Yeah.AARON: Like 15 or 20% which is still pretty low.SARAH: No, but that's actually better than I would have thought, I think.AARON: Also, Twitter is, of all the social media platforms, especially mail. I don't really know.SARAH: Um.AARON: I don't like Instagram, I think.SARAH: I wonder, it would be interesting to see whether or not that's much, if it's become more male dominated since Elon Musk took.AARON: It's not a huge difference, but who knows?SARAH: I don't know. I have no idea. I have no idea. We'll just be interesting to know.AARON: Okay. Wait. Also, there's no scheduled time. I'm very happy to keep talking or whatever, but as soon as you want to take a break or hop off, just like. Yeah.SARAH: Oh, yeah. I'm in no rush.AARON: Okay, well, I don't know. We've talked about the two obvious candidates. Do you have a take or something? Want to get out to the world? It's not about AI or obesity or just a story you want to share.SARAH: These are my two pet subjects. I don't know anything else.AARON: I don't believe you. I know you know about house plants.SARAH: I do. A secret, which you can't tell anyone, is that I actually only know about house plants that are hard to kill, and I'm actually not very good at taking care of them.AARON: Well, I'm glad it's house plants in that case, rather than pets. Whatever.SARAH: Yeah. I mean, I have killed some sea monkeys, too, but that was a long time ago.AARON: Yes. So did I, actually.SARAH: Did you? I feel like everyone has. Everyone's got a little sea monkey graveyard in their past.AARON: New cause area.SARAH: Are there more shrimp or more sea monkeys? That's the question.AARON: I don't even know what even. I mean, are they just plankton?SARAH: No, they're not plankton.AARON: I know what sea monkeys are.SARAH: There's definitely a lot of them because they're small and insignificant.AARON: Yeah, but I also think we don't. It depends if you're talking about in the world, which I guess probably like sea monkeys or farmed for food, which is basically like. I doubt these are farmed either for food or for anything.SARAH: Yeah, no, you're probably right.AARON: Or they probably are farmed a tiny bit for this niche little.SARAH: Or they're farmed to sell in aquariums for kids.AARON: Apparently. They are a kind of shrimp, but they were bred specifically to, I don't know, be tiny or something. I'm just skimming that, Wikipedia. Here.SARAH: Sea monkeys are tiny shrimp. That is crazy.AARON: Until we get answers, tell me your life story in whatever way you want. It doesn't have to be like. I mean, hopefully not. Don't straight up lie, but wherever you want to take that.SARAH: I'm not going to lie. I'm just trying to think of ways to make it spicier because it's so average. I don't know what to say about it.AARON: Well, it's probably not that average, right? I mean, it might be average among people you happen to know.SARAH: Do you have any more specific questions?AARON: Okay, no. Yeah, hold on. I have a meta point, which is like, I think the people who are they have a thing on the top of their mind, and if I give any sort of open ended question whatsoever, they'll take it there and immediately just start giving slinging hot takes. But thenOther people, I think, this category is very EA. People who aren't, especially my sister, they're like, “No, I have nothing to talk about. I don't believe that.” But they're not, I guess, as comfortable.SARAH: No, I mean, I have. Something needs to trigger them in me. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I need an in.AARON: Well, okay, here's one. Is there anything you're like, “Maybe I'll cut this. This is kind of, like narcissistic. I don't know. But is there anything you want or curious to ask?” This does sound kind of weird. I don't know. But we can cut it if need be.SARAH: What does the looking glass in your Twitter name mean? Because I've seen a bunch of people have this, and I actually don't know what it means, but I was like, no.AARON: People ask this. I respond to a tweet that's like, “What does that like?” At least, I don't know, once every month or two. Or know basically, like Spencer Greenberg. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's like a sort of.SARAH: I know the know.AARON: He literally just tweeted, like a couple years ago. Put this in your bio to show that you really care about finding the truth or whatever and are interested in good faith conversations. Are you familiar with the scout mindset?SARAH: Yeah.AARON: Julia Galef. Yeah. That's basically, like the short version.SARAH: Okay.AARON: I'm like, yeah, all right. And there's at least three of us who have both a magnifying glass. Yeah. And a pause thing, which is like, my tightest knit online community I guess.SARAH: I think I've followed all the pause people now. I just searched the emoji on Twitter, and I just followed everyone. Now I can't find. And I also noticed when I was doing this, that some people, if they've suspended their account or they're taking time off, then they put a pause in their thing. So I was, like, looking, and I was like, oh, these are, like, AI people. But then they were just, like, in their bio, they were, like, not tweeting until X date. This is a suspended account. And I was like, I see we have a messaging problem here. Nice. I don't know how common that actually.AARON: Was. I'm glad. That was, like, a very straightforward question. Educated the masses. Max Alexander said Glee. Is that, like, the show? You can also keep asking me questions, but again, this is like.SARAH: Wait, what did he say? Is that it? Did he just say glee? No.AARON: Not even a question mark. Just the word glee.SARAH: Oh, right. He just wants me to go off about Glee.AARON: Okay. Go off about. Wait, what kind of Glee are we? Vaguely. This is like a show or a movie or something.SARAH: Oh, my God. Have you not seen it?AARON: No. I mean, I vaguely remember, I think, watching some TV, but maybe, like, twelve years ago or something. I don't know.SARAH: I think it stopped airing in, like, maybe 2015?AARON: 16. So go off about it. I don't know what I. Yeah, I.SARAH: Don't know what to say about this.AARON: Well, why does Max think you might have a take about Glee?SARAH: I mean, I don't have a take about. Just see the thing. See? No, not even, like, I am just transparently extremely lame. And I really like cheesy. I'm like. I'm like a musical theater kid. Not even ironically. I just like show tunes. And Glee is just a show about a glee club at a high school where they sing show tunes and there's, like, petty drama, and people burst into song in the hallways, and I just think it's just the most glorious thing on Earth. That's it. There are no hot takes.AARON: Okay, well, that's cool. I don't have a lot to say, unfortunately, but.SARAH: No, that's totally fine. I feel like this is not a spicy topic for us to discuss. It's just a good time.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: Wait.AARON: Okay. Yeah. So I do listen to Hamilton on Spotify.SARAH: Okay.AARON: Yeah, that's about it.SARAH: I like Hamilton. I've seen it three times. Oh.AARON: Live or ever. Wow. Cool. Yeah, no, that's okay. Well, what do people get right or wrong about theater kids?SARAH: Oh, I don't know. I think all the stereotypes are true.AARON: I mean, that's generally true, but usually, it's either over moralized, there's like a descriptive thing that's true, but it's over moralized, or it's just exaggerated.SARAH: I mean, to put this in more context, I used to be in choir. I went every Sunday for twelve years. And then every summer we do a little summer school and we go away and put on a production. So we do a musical or something. So I have been. What have I been? I was in Guys and Dolls. I think I was just in the chorus for that. I was the reverend in Anything Goes. But he does unfortunately get kidnapped in like the first five minutes. So he's not a big presence. Oh, I've been Tweedle dumb in Alice in Wonderland. I could go on, but right now as I'm saying this, I'm looking at my notice board and I have two playbills from when I went to Broadway in April where I saw Funny Girl and Hadestown.SARAH: I went to New York.AARON: Oh, cool. Oh yeah. We can talk about when you're moving to the United States. However.SARAH: I'm not going to do that. Okay.AARON: I know. I'm joking. I mean, I don't know.SARAH: I don't think I'm going to do that. I don't know. It just seems like you guys have got a lot going on over there. It seems like things aren't quite right with you guys. Things aren't quite right with us either.AARON: No, I totally get this. I think it would be cool. But also I completely relate to not wanting to. I've lived within 10 miles of one. Not even 10 miles, 8 miles in one location. Obviously gone outside of that. But my entire life.SARAH: You've just always lived in DC.AARON: Yeah, either in DC or. Sorry. But right now in Maryland, it's like right next to DC on the Metro or at Georgia University, which is in the trying to think would I move to the UK. Like I could imagine situations that would make me move to the UK. But it would still be annoying. Kind of.SARAH: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's like they're two very similar places, but there are all these little cultural things which I feel like kind of trip you up.AARON: I don't to. Do you want to say what?SARAH: Like I think people, I just like, I don't know. I don't have that much experience because I've only been to America twice. But people seem a lot more sincere in a way that you don't really get that. Like people are just never really being upfront. And in America, I just got the impression that people just have less of a veneer up, which is probably a good thing. But it's really hard to navigate if you're not used to it or something. I don't know how to describe that.AARON: Yeah, I've definitely heard this at least. And yeah, I think it's for better and for worse.SARAH: Yeah, I think it's generally a good thing.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: But it's like there's this layer of cynicism or irony or something that is removed and then when it's not there, it's just everything feels weak. I can't describe it.AARON: This is definitely, I think, also like an EA rationalist thing. I feel like I'm pretty far on the spectrum. Towards the end of surgical niceties are fine, but I don't know, don't obscure what you really think unless it's a really good reason to or something. But it can definitely come across as being rude.SARAH: Yeah. No, but I think it's actually a good rule of thumb to obscure what you. It's good to try not to obscure what you think most of the time, probably.Ably, I don't know, but I would love to go over temporarily for like six months or something and just hang out for a bit. I think that'd be fun. I don't know if I would go back to New York again. Maybe. I like the bagels there.AARON: I should have a place. Oh yeah. Remember, I think we talked at some point. We can cut this out if you like. Don't if either of us doesn't want it in. But we discussed, oh yeah, I should be having a place. You can. I emailed the landlord like an hour before this. Hopefully, probably more than 50%. That is still an offer. Yeah, probably not for all six months, but I don't know.SARAH: I would not come and sleep on your sofa for six months. That would be definitely impolite and very weird.AARON: Yeah. I mean, my roommates would probably grumble.SARAH: Yeah. They would be like.AARON: Although I don't know. Who knows? I wouldn't be shocked if people were actually like, whatever somebody asked for as a question. This is what he said. I might also be interested in hearing how different backgrounds. Wait, sorry. This is not good grammar. Let me try to parse this. Not having a super hardcore EA AI rationalist background shape how you think or how you view AI as rationality?SARAH: Oh, that's a good question. I think it's more happening the other way around, the more I hang around in these circles. You guys are impacting how I think.AARON: It's definitely true for me as well.SARAH: Seeping into my brain and my language as well. I've started talking differently. I don't know. That's a good question, though. Yeah. One thing that I will say is that there are certain things that I find irritating about the EA way of style of doing things. I think one specific, I don't know, the kind of like hand ring about everything. And I know that this is kind of the point, right? But it's kind of like, you know, when someone's like, I want to take a stance on something, but then whenever they want to take a stance on something, they feel the need to write like a 10,000 word blog post where they're thinking about the second and order and third and fifth order effects of this thing. And maybe this thing that seems good is actually bad for this really convoluted reason. That's just so annoying.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: Also understand that maybe that is a good thing to do sometimes, but it just seems like, I don't know how anyone ever gets anywhere. It seems like everyone must be paralyzed by indecision all the time because they just can't commit to ever actually just saying anything.AARON: I think this kind of thing is really good if you're trying to give away a billion dollars. Oh yes, I do want the billion dollar grantor to be thinking through second and third order effects of how they give away their billion dollars. But also, no, I am super. The words on the tip of my tongue, not overwhelmed but intimidated when I go on the EA forum because the posts, none of them are like normal, like five paragraph essays. Some of them are like, I think one of them I looked up for fun because I was going to make a meme about it and still will. Probably was like 30,000 words or something. And even the short form posts, which really gets me kind of not even annoyed. I don't know, maybe kind of annoyed is that the short form posts, which is sort of the EA forum version of Twitter, are way too high quality, way too intimidating. And so maybe I should just suck it up and post stuff anyway more often. It just feels weird. I totally agree.SARAH: I was also talking to someone recently about how I lurked on the EA forum and less wrong for months and months and I couldn't figure out the upvoting system and I was like, am I being stupid or why are there four buttons? And I was like, well, eventually I had to ask someone because I couldn't figure it out. And then he explained it to me and I was like, that is just so unnecessary. Like, just do it.AARON: No, I do know what you mean.SARAH: I just tI think it's annoying. It pisses me off. I just feel like sometimes you don't need to add more things. Sometimes less is good. Yeah, that's my hot take. Nice things.AARON: Yeah, that's interesting.SARAH: But actually, a thing that I like that EA's do is the constant hedging and caveatting. I do find it kind of adorable. I love that because it's like you're having to constantly acknowledge that you probably didn't quite articulate what you really meant and that you're not quite making contact with reality when you're talking. So you have to clarify that you probably were imprecise when you said this thing. It's unnecessary, but it's kind of amazing.AARON: No, it's definitely. I am super guilty of this because I'll give an example in a second. I think I've been basically trained to try pretty hard, even in normal conversation with anybody, to just never say anything that's literally wrong. Or at least if I do caveat it.AARON: I was driving home, me and my parents and I, unless visited, our grandparents were driving back, and we were driving back past a cruise ship that was in a harbor. And my mom, who was driving at the time, said, “Oh, Aaron, can you see if there's anyone on there?” And I immediately responded like, “Well, there's probably at least one person.” Obviously, that's not what she meant. But that was my technical best guess. It's like, yes, there probably are people on there, even though I couldn't see anybody on the decks or in the rooms. Yeah, there's probably a maintenance guy. Felt kind of bad.SARAH: You can't technically exclude that there are, in fact, no people.AARON: Then I corrected myself. But I guess I've been trained into giving that as my first reaction.SARAH: Yeah, I love that. I think it's a waste of words, but I find it delightful.AARON: It does go too far. People should be more confident. I wish that, at least sometimes, people would say, “Epistemic status: Want to bet?” or “I am definitely right about this.” Too rarely do we hear, "I'm actually pretty confident here.SARAH: Another thing is, people are too liberal with using probabilities. The meaning of saying there is an X percent chance of something happening is getting watered down by people constantly saying things like, “I would put 30% on this claim.” Obviously, there's no rigorous method that's gone into determining why it's 30 and not 35. That's a problem and people shouldn't do that. But I kind of love it.AARON: I can defend that. People are saying upfront, “This is my best guess. But there's no rigorous methodology.” People should take their word for that. In some parts of society, it's seen as implying that a numeric probability came from a rigorous model. But if you say, “This is my best guess, but it's not formed from anything,” people should take their word for that and not refuse to accept them at face value.SARAH: But why do you have to put a number on it?AARON: It depends on what you're talking about. Sometimes probabilities are relevant and if you don't use numbers, it's easy to misinterpret. People would say, “It seems quite likely,” but what does that mean? One person might think “quite reasonably likely” means 70%, the other person thinks it means 30%. Even though it's weird to use a single number, it's less confusing.SARAH: To be fair, I get that. I've disagreed with people about what the word “unlikely” means. Someone's pulled out a scale that the government uses, or intelligence services use to determine what “unlikely” means. But everyone interprets those words differently. I see what you're saying. But then again, I think people in AI safety talking about P Doom was making people take us less seriously, especially because people's probabilities are so vibey.AARON: Some people are, but I take Paul Cristiano's word seriously.SARAH: He's a 50/50 kind of guy.AARON: Yeah, I take that pretty seriously.Obviously, it's not as simple as him having a perfect understanding of the world, even after another 10,000 hours of investigation. But it's definitely not just vibes, either.SARAH: No, I came off wrong there. I don't mean that everyone's understanding is just vibes.AARON: Yeah.SARAH: If you were looking at it from the outside, it would be really difficult to distinguish between the ones that are vibes and the ones that are rigorous, unless you carefully parsed all of it and evaluated everyone's background, or looked at the model yourself. If you're one step removed, it looks like people just spitting out random, arbitrary numbers everywhere.AARON: Yeah. There's also the question of whether P doom is too weird or silly, or if it could be easily dismissed as such.SARAH: Exactly, the moment anyone unfamiliar with this discussion sees it, they're almost definitely going to dismiss it. They won't see it as something they need to engage with.AARON: That's a very fair point. Aside from the social aspect, it's also a large oversimplification. There's a spectrum of outcomes that we lump into doom and not doom. While this binary approach can be useful at times, it's probably overdone.SARAH: Yeah, because when some people say doom, they mean everyone dies, while others mean everyone dies plus everything is terrible. And no one specifies what they mean. It is silly. But, I also find it kind of funny and I kind of love it.AARON: I'm glad there's something like that. So it's not perfect. The more straightforward thing would be to say P existential risk from AI comes to pass. That's the long version, whatever.SARAH: If I was in charge, I would probably make people stop using PDOOm. I think it's better to say it the long way around. But obviously I'm not in charge. And I think it's funny and kind of cute, so I'll keep using it.AARON: Maybe I'm willing to go along and try to start a new norm. Not spend my whole life on it, but say, I think this is bad for X, Y, and Z reasons. I'll use this other phrase instead and clarify when people ask.SARAH: You're going to need Twitter premium because you're going to need a lot more characters.AARON: I think there's a shorthand which is like PX risk or P AiX risk.SARAH: Maybe it's just the word doom that's a bit stupid.AARON: Yeah, that's a term out of the Bay Area rationalists.SARAH: But then I also think it kind of makes the whole thing seem less serious. People should be indignant to hear that this meme is being used to trade probabilities about the likelihood that they're going to die and their families are going to die. This has been an in-joke in this weird niche circle for years and they didn't know about it. I'm not saying that in a way to morally condemn people, but if you explain this to people…People just go to dinner parties in Silicon Valley and talk about this weird meme thing, and what they really mean is the ODs know everyone's going to prematurely die. People should be outraged by that, I think.AARON: I disagree that it's a joke. It is a funny phrase, but the actual thing is people really do stand by their belief.SARAH: No, I totally agree with that part. I'm not saying that people are not being serious when they give their numbers, but I feel like there's something. I don't know how to put this in words. There's something outrageous about the fact that for outsiders, this conversation has been happening for years and people have been using this tongue-in-cheek phrase to describe it, and 99.9% of people don't know that's happening. I'm not articulating this very well.AARON: I see what you're saying. I don't actually think it's like. I don't know a lot of jargon.SARAH: But when I first found out about this, I was outraged.AARON: I honestly just don't share that intuition. But that's really good.SARAH: No, I don't know how to describe this.AARON: I think I was just a little bit indignant, perhaps.SARAH: Yeah, I was indignant about it. I was like, you guys have been at social events making small talk by discussing the probability of human extinction all this time, and I didn't even know. I was like, oh, that's really messed up, guys.AARON: I feel like I'm standing by the rational tier because, it was always on. No one was stopping you from going on less wrong or whatever. It wasn't behind closed.SARAH: Yeah, but no one ever told me about it.AARON: Yeah, that's like a failure of outreach, I suppose.SARAH: Yeah. I think maybe I'm talking more about. Maybe the people that I'm mad at is the people who are actually working on capabilities and using this kind of jargon. Maybe I'm mad at those people. They're fine.AARON: Do we have more questions? I think we might have more questions. We have one more. Okay, sorry, but keep going.SARAH: No, I'm going to stop making that point now because I don't really know what I'm trying to say and I don't want to be controversial.AARON: Controversy is good for views. Not necessarily for you. No, thank you for that. Yes, that was a good point. I think it was. Maybe it was wrong. I think it seems right.SARAH: It was probably wrong.Shrimp Welfare: A Serious DiscussionAARON: I don't know what she thinks about shrimp welfare. Oh, yeah. I think it's a general question, but let's start with that. What do you think about shrimp? Well, today.SARAH: Okay. Is this an actual cause area or is this a joke about how if you extrapolate utilitarianism to its natural conclusion, you would really care about shrimp?AARON: No, there's a charity called the Shrimp Welfare Initiative or project. I think it's Shrimp Welfare Initiative. I can actually have a rant here about how it's a meme that people find amusing. It is a serious thing, but I think people like the meme more than they're willing to transfer their donations in light of it. This is kind of wrong and at least distasteful.No, but there's an actual, if you Google, Shrimp Welfare Project. Yeah, it's definitely a thing, but it's only a couple of years old. And it's also kind of a meme because it does work in both ways. It sort of shows how we're weird, but in the sense that we are willing to care about things that are very different from us. Not like we're threatening other people. That's not a good description.SARAH: Is the extreme version of this position that we should put more resources into improving the lives of shrimp than into improving the lives of people just because there are so many more shrimp? Are there people that actually believe that?AARON: Well, I believe some version of that, but it really depends on who the ‘we' is there.SARAH: Should humanity be putting more resources?AARON: No one believes that as far as I know.SARAH: Okay. Right. So what is the most extreme manifestation of the shrimp welfare position?AARON: Well, I feel like my position is kind of extreme, and I'm happy to discuss it. It's easier than speculating about what the more extreme ones are. I don't think any of them are that extreme, I guess, from my perspective, because I think I'm right.SARAH: Okay, so what do you believe?AARON: I think that most people who have already decided to donate, say $20, if they are considering where to donate it and they are better morally, it would be better if they gave it to the shrimp welfare project than if they gave it to any of the commonly cited EA organizations.SARAH: Malaria nets or whatever.AARON: Yes. I think $20 of malaria nets versus $20 of shrimp. I can easily imagine a world where it would go the other way. But given the actual situation, the $20 of shrimp is much better.SARAH: Okay. Is it just purely because there's just more shrimp? How do we know how much shrimp suffering there is in the world?AARON: No, this is an excellent question. The numbers are a key factor, but no, it's not as simple. I definitely don't think one shrimp is worth one human.SARAH: I'm assuming that it's based on the fact that there are so many more shrimp than there are people that I don't know how many shrimp there are.AARON: Yeah, that's important, but at some level, it's just the margin. What I think is that when you're donating money, you should give to wherever it does the most good, whatever that means, whatever you think that means. But let's just leave it at that. The most good is morally best at the margin, which means you're not donating where you think the world should or how you think the world should expend its trillion dollar wealth. All you're doing is adding $20 at this current level, given the actual world. And so part of it is what you just said, and also including some new research from Rethink Priorities.Measuring suffering in reasonable ranges is extremely hard to do. But I believe it's difficult to do a better job than raising priorities on that, given what I've seen. I can provide some links. There are a few things to consider here: numbers, times, and the enormity of suffering. I think there are a couple of key elements, including tractability.Are you familiar with the three-pronged concept people sometimes discuss, which encompasses tractability, and neglectedness?SARAH: Okay.AARON: Importance is essentially what we just mentioned. Huge numbers and plausible amounts of suffering. When you try to do the comparison, it seems like they're a significant concern. Tractability is another factor. I think the best estimates suggest that a one-dollar donation could save around 10,000 shrimp from a very painful death.SARAH: In that sense…AARON: You could imagine that even if there were a hundred times more shrimp than there actually are, we have direct control over how they live and die because we're farming them. The industry is not dominated by wealthy players in the United States. Many individual farmers in developing nations, if educated and provided with a more humane way of killing the shrimp, would use it. There's a lot of potential for improvement here. This is partly due to the last prong, neglectedness, which is really my focus.SARAH: You're saying no one cares about the shrimp.AARON: I'm frustrated that it's not taken seriously enough. One of the reasons why the marginal cost-effectiveness is so high is because large amounts of money are donated to well-approved organizations. But individual donors often overlook this. They ignore their marginal impact. If you want to see even a 1% shift towards shrimp welfare, the thing to do is to donate to shrimp welfare. Not donate $19 to human welfare and one dollar to shrimp welfare, which is perhaps what they think the overall portfolio should be.SARAH: Interesting. I don't have a good reason why you're wrong. It seems like you're probably right.AARON: Let me put the website in the chat. This isn't a fair comparison since it's something I know more about.SARAH: Okay.AARON: On the topic of obesity, neither of us were more informed than the other. But I could have just made stuff up or said something logically fallacious.SARAH: You could have told me that there were like 50 times the number of shrimp in the world than there really are. And I would have been like, sure, seems right.AARON: Yeah. And I don't know, if I…If I were in your position, I would say, “Oh, yeah, that sounds right.” But maybe there are other people who have looked into this way more than me that disagree, and I can get into why I think it's less true than you'd expect in some sense.SARAH: I just wonder if there's like… This is like a deeply non-EA thing to say. So I don't know, maybe I shouldn't say it, but are there not any moral reasons? Is there not any good moral philosophy behind just caring more about your own species than other species? If you're sorry, but that's probably not right, is it? There's probably no way to actually morally justify that, but it seems like it feels intuitively wrong. If you've got $20 to be donating 19 of them to shrimp and one to children with malaria, that feels like there should be something wrong with that, but I can't tell you what it is.AARON: Yeah, no, there is something wrong, which is that you should donate all 20 because they're acting on the margin, for one thing. I do think that doesn't check out morally, but I think basically me and everybody I know in terms of real life or whatever, I do just care way more about humans. I don't know, for at least the people that it's hard to formalize or specify what you mean by caring about or something. But, yeah, I think you can definitely basically just be a normal human who basically cares a lot about other humans. And still that's not like, negated by changing your $20 donation or whatever. Especially because there's nothing else that I do for shrimp. I think you should be like a kind person or something. I'm like an honest person, I think. Yeah, people should be nice to other humans. I mean, you should be nice in the sense of not beating them. But if you see a pigeon on the street, you don't need to say hi or whatever, give it a pet, because. I don't know. But yeah, you should be basically like, nice.SARAH: You don't stop to say hi to every pigeon that you see on the way to anywhere.AARON: I do, but I know most normal people don't.SARAH: This is why I'm so late to everything, because I have to do it. I have to stop for every single one. No exceptions.AARON: Yeah. Or how I think about it is sort of like a little bit of compartmentalization, which I think is like… Which is just sort of like a way to function normally and also sort of do what you think really checks out at the end of the day, just like, okay, 99% of the time I'm going to just be like a normal person who doesn't care about shrimp. Maybe I'll refrain from eating them. But actually, even that is like, I could totally see a person just still eating them and then doing this. But then during the 1% of the time where you're deciding how to give money away and none of those, the beneficiaries are going to be totally out of sight either way. This is like a neutral point, I guess, but it's still worth saying, yeah, then you can be like a hardcore effective altruist or whatever and then give your money to the shrimp people.SARAH: Do you have this set up as like a recurring donation?AARON: Oh, no. Everybody should call me out as a hypocrite because I haven't donated much money, but I'm trying to figure out actually, given that I haven't had a stable income ever. And maybe, hopefully I will soon, actually. But even then, it's still a part-time thing. I haven't been able to do sort of standard 10% or more thing, and I'm trying to figure out what the best thing to do or how to balance, I guess, not luxury, not like consumption on things that I… Well, to some extent, yeah. Maybe I'm just selfish by sometimes getting an Uber. That's totally true. I think I'm just a hypocrite in that respect. But mostly I think the trade-off is between saving, investing, and giving. Beast of the money that I have saved up and past things. So this is all sort of a defense of why I don't have a recurring donation going on.SARAH: I'm not asking you to defend yourself because I do not do that either.AARON: I think if I was making enough money that I could give away $10,000 a year and plan on doing that indefinitely, I would be unlikely to set up a recurring donation. What I would really want to do is once or twice a year, really try to prioritize deciding on how to give it away rather than making it the default. This has a real cost for charities. If you set up a recurring donation, they have more certainty in some sense of their future cash flow. But that's only good to do if you're really confident that you're going to want to keep giving there in the future. I could learn new information that says something else is better. So I don't think I would do that.SARAH: Now I'm just thinking about how many shrimp did you say it was per dollar?AARON: Don't quote me. I didn't say an actual thing.SARAH: It was like some big number. Right. Because I just feel like that's such a brainworm. Imagine if you let that actually get in your head and then every time you spend some unnecessary amount of money on something you don't really need, you think about how many shrimp you just killed by getting an Uber or buying lunch out. That is so stressful. I think I'm going to try not to think about that.AARON: I don't mean to belittle this. This is like a core, I think you're new to EA type of thinking. It's super natural and also troubling when you first come upon it. Do you want me to talk about how I, or other people deal with that or take action?SARAH: Yeah, tell me how to get the shrimp off my conscience.AARON: Well, for one thing, you don't want to totally do that. But I think the main thing is that the salience of things like this just decreases over time. I would be very surprised if, even if you're still very engaged in the EA adjacent communities or EA itself in five years, that it would be as emotionally potent. Brains make things less important over time. But I think the thing to do is basically to compartmentalize in a sort of weird sense. Decide how much you're willing to donate. And it might be hard to do that, but that is sort of a process. Then you have that chunk of money and you try to give it away the best you can under whatever you think the best ethics are. But then on the daily, you have this other set pot of money. You just are a normal person. You spend it as you wish. You don't think about it unless you try not to. And maybe if you notice that you might even have leftover money, then you can donate the rest of it. But I really do think picking how much to give should sort of be its own project. And then you have a pile of money you can be a hardcore EA about.SARAH: So you pick a cut off point and then you don't agonize over anything over and above that.AARON: Yeah. And then people, I mean, the hard part is that if somebody says their cut off point is like 1% of their income and they're making like $200,000, I don't know. Maybe their cut off point should be higher. So there is a debate. It depends on that person's specific situation. Maybe if they have a kid or some super expensive disease, it's a different story. If you're just a random guy making $200,000, I think you should give more.SARAH: Maybe you should be giving away enough to feel the pinch. Well, not even that. I don't think I'm going to do that. This is something that I do actually want to do at some point, but I need to think about it more and maybe get a better job.AARON: Another thing is, if you're wanting to earn to give as a path to impact, you could think and strive pretty hard. Maybe talk to people and choose your education or professional development opportunities carefully to see if you can get a better paying job. That's just much more important than changing how much you give from 10% to 11% or something. You should have this macro level optimization. How can I have more money to spend? Let me spend, like, I don't know, depends what life stage you are, but if you had just graduated college or maybe say you're a junior in college or something. It could make sense to spend a good amount of time figuring out what that path might look like.AARON: I'm a huge hypocrite because I definitely haven't done all this nearly as much as I should, but I still endorse it.SARAH: Yeah, I think it's fine to say what you endorse doing in an ideal world, even if you're not doing that, that's fine.AARON: For anybody listening, I tweeted a while ago, asking if anyone has resources on how to think about giving away wealth. I'm not very wealthy but have some amount of savings. It's more than I really need. At the same time, maybe I should be investing it because EA orgs don't feel like, or they think they can't invest it because there's potentially a lot of blowback if they make poor investments, even though it would be higher expected value.There's also the question of, okay, having some amount of savings allows me to take higher, potentially somewhat higher risk, but higher value opportunities because I have a cushion. But I'm very confused about how to give away what I should do here. People should DM me on Twitter or anywhere they have ideas.SARAH: I think you should calculate how much you need to cover your very basic needs. Maybe you should work out, say, if you were working 40 hours a week in a minimum wage job, like how much would you make then? And then you should keep that for yourself. And then the rest should definitely all go to the shrimp. Every single penny. All of it.AARON: This is pretty plausible. Just to make it more complicated, there's also the thing that I feel like my estimates or my best guesses of the best charities to give to over time has changed. And so there's like two competing forces. One is that I might get wiser and more knowledgeable as time goes on. The other one is that in general, giving now is better than giving later. All else equal, because I think for a couple of reasons, the main one just being that the charities don't know that you're going to give later.AARON: So it's like they can plan for the future much better if they get money now. And also there's just higher leverage opportunities or higher value per dollar opportunities now in general than there will be later for a couple of reasons I don't really need to. This is what makes it really complicated. So I've donated in the past to places that I don't think, or I don't think even at the time were the best to. So then there's a question of like, okay, how long do I save this money? Do I sit on it for months until I'm pretty confident, like a year.AARON: I do think that probably over the course of zero to five years or something, becoming more confident or changing your mind is like the stronger effect than how much good you give to the, or how much better it is for the charities to give now instead of later. But also that's weird because you're never committing at all.Sometimes you might decide to give it away, and maybe you won't. Maybe at that time you're like, “Oh, that's what I want. A car, I have a house, whatever.” It's less salient or something. Maybe something bad happened with EA and you no longer identify that way. Yeah, there's a lot of really thorny considerations. Sorry, I'm talking way too much.SARAH: Long, are you factoring AI timelines into this?AARON: That makes it even more sketchy. But that could also go both ways. On one hand, you have the fact that if you don't give away your money now and you die with it, it's never going to do any good. The other thing is that it might be that especially high leverage opportunities come in the future or something potentially you need, I don't know, whatever I can imagine I could make something up about. OpenPhil needs as much money as it can get to do X, Y and Z. It's really important right now, but I won't know that until a few years down the line. So just like everything else, it doesn't neatly wash out.SARAH: What do you think the AGI is going to do to the shrimp? I reckon it's probably pretty neat, like one shrimp per paperclip. Maybe you could get more. I wonder what the sort of shrimp to paperclip conversion rate is.AARON: Has anyone looked into that morally? I think like one to zero. I don't think in terms of money. You could definitely price that. I have no idea.SARAH: I don't know. Maybe I'm not taking this as seriously as I should be because I'm.AARON: No, I mean, humor is good. When people are giving away money or deciding what to do, they should be serious. But joking and humor is good. Sorry, go ahead.SARAH: No, you go ahead.AARON: I had a half-baked idea. At EA Global, they should have a comedy show where people roast everybody, but it's a fundraiser. You have to pay to get 100 people to attend. They have a bidding contest to get into the comedy show. That was my original idea. Or they could just have a normal comedy show. I think that'd be cool.SARAH: Actually, I think that's a good idea because you guys are funny. There is a lot of wit on this side of Twitter. I'm impressed.AARON: I agree.SARAH: So I think that's a very good idea.AARON: Okay. Dear Events team: hire Aaron Bergman, professional comedian.SARAH: You can just give them your Twitter as a source for how funny you are, and that clearly qualifies you to set this up. I love it.AARON: This is not important or related to anything, but I used to be a good juggler for entertainment purposes. I have this video. Maybe I should make sure the world can see it. It's like a talent show. So maybe I can do that instead.SARAH: Juggling. You definitely should make sure the world has access to this footage.AARON: It had more views than I expected. It wasn't five views. It was 90 or something, which is still nothing.SARAH: I can tell you a secret right now if you want. That relates to Max asking in the chat about glee.AARON: Yes.SARAH: This bit will also have to edit out, but me having a public meltdown over AI was the second time that I've ever blown up on the Internet. The first time being. I can't believe I'm telling you this. I think I'm delirious right now. Were you ever in any fandoms, as a teenager?AARON: No.SARAH: Okay. Were you ever on Tumblr?AARON: No. I sort of know what the cultural vibes were. I sort of know what you're referring to. There are people who like Harry Potter stuff and bands, like Kpop stuff like that.SARAH: So people would make these fan videos where they'd take clips from TV shows and then they edit them together to music. Sometimes people would edit the clips to make it look like something had happened in the plot of the show that hadn't actually happened. For example, say, what if X character had died? And then you edit the clips together to try and make it look like they've died. And you put a sad song, how to save a life by the fray or something, over the top. And then you put it on YouTube.AARON: Sorry, tell me what…"Hat I should search or just send the link here. I'm sending my link.SARAH: Oh, no, this doesn't exist anymore. It does not exist anymore. Right? So, say if you're, like, eleven or twelve years old and you do this, and you don't even have a mechanism to download videos because you don't know how to do technology. Instead, you take your little iPod touch and you just play a YouTube video on your screen, and you literally just film the screen with your iPod touch, and that's how you're getting the clips. It's kind of shaky because you're holding the camera anyway.SARAH: Then you edit together on the iMovie app of your iPod touch, and then you put it on the Internet, and then you just forget about it. You forget about it. Two years later, you're like, oh, I wonder what happened to that YouTube account? And you log in and this little video that you've made with edited clips that you've filmed off the screen of your laptop to ‘How To Save Life' by The Fray with clips from Glee in it, has nearly half a million views.AARON: Nice. Love it.SARAH: Embarrassing because this is like, two years later. And then all the comments were like, oh, my God, this was so moving. This made me cry. And then obviously, some of them were hating and being like, do you not even know how to download video clips? Like, what? And then you're so embarrassed.AARON: I could totally seem it. Creative, but only a reasonable solution. Yeah.SARAH: So that's my story of how I went viral when I was like, twelve.AARON: It must have been kind of overwhelming.SARAH: Yeah, it was a bit. And you can tell that my time, it's like 20 to eleven at night, and now I'm starting to really go off on one and talk about weird things.AARON: Like an hour. So, yeah, we can wrap up. And I always say this, but it's actually true. Which is that low standard, like, low stakes or low threshold. Low bar for doing that in recording some of the time.SARAH: Yeah, probably. We'll have to get rid of the part about how I went viral on YouTube when I was twelve. I'll sleep on that.AARON: Don't worry. I'll send the transcription at some point soon.SARAH: Yeah, cool.AARON: Okay, lovely. Thank you for staying up late into the night for this.SARAH: It's not that late into the night. I'm just like, lame and go to bed early.AARON: Okay, cool. Yeah, I know. Yeah, for sure. All right, bye. Get full access to Aaron's Blog at www.aaronbergman.net/subscribe

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Aaron Torres and Ala Shiban are from Klotho, which powers Infrastructure Copilot, the most advanced infrastructure design tool that understands how to define, connect, and scale your infrastructure-as-code. Victoria talks to Aaron and Ala about the Klotho engine, Klotho the CLI tool, and InfraCopilot and how they work together to help enable developer teams to iterate on applications and features quickly. Klotho (https://klo.dev/) Infrastructure Copilot (https://infracopilot.io/) Follow Klotho on Github (https://github.com/klothoplatform/klotho), Discord (https://discord.com/invite/4wwBRqqysY), Twitter (https://twitter.com/GetKlotho), or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/klothoplatform/). Follow Aaron Torres on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/torresaaron/), or Twitter (https://twitter.com/aarontorres). Follow Ala Shiban on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alashiban/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/AlaShiban). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Aaron Torres and Ala Shiban from Klotho, which powers Infrastructure Copilot, the most advanced infrastructure design tool that understands how to define, connect, and scale your infrastructure-as-code. Aaron and Ala, thank you for joining me. ALA: Thank you for having us. AARON: Yeah, thank you very much. VICTORIA: Well, great. I wanted to just start with a little bit of a icebreaker; maybe tell me a little bit more about what the weather is like where you're currently at. AARON: So I'm in St. Louis, Missouri. Right now, it is definitely...it feels like summer finally. So we're getting some nice, warm days and clear skies. ALA: And I'm in LA. And it's gloomier than I would like compared to what it's been in the last few years. But I'll take it if this means we're getting closer to summer. VICTORIA: Right. And I'm not too far from you, Ala, in San Diego, and it's a little chillier than I would prefer as well. But that's what we get for living close to the beach. So there's always trade-offs. Well, wonderful. I'm so excited to talk to you about your product here today. Let me start with a question about, let's say, I'm a non-technical founder, and I've just heard about your product. What's your pitch to someone in that position on the value of your tool? ALA: For somebody who isn't technical, I would say you can enable your team, your developer team, to quickly iterate on their applications or features and let InfraCopilot and Klotho take care of taking that application or features and deploy them and getting them running on the cloud. VICTORIA: Okay. So maybe I've been thinking about having to hire an AWS engineer or someone who's an infrastructure engineer. I could consider getting a tool like Klotho and Infrastructure Copilot to allow my developers to take on more of that responsibility themselves. ALA: Absolutely. VICTORIA: Gotcha. Okay, well, great. So let me ask about how did it all get started? What was the impetus that set you on this journey ALA: Both Aaron and I used to work at Riot Games, and I used to lead the cloud services org at Riot. I had about 50 people, 40 engineers, as part of a larger 120-person org, infrastructure platform org, which was tasked with building the platform that runs League of Legends, VALORANT, for 200 million people all around the world, in China. Full DevOps mode for Riot developers and full ops mode for running in China. It took us three years, a lot of effort. And by the time we were done, it was already legacy, and that seemed broken to me. We were already getting started to do another round of upgrades and iterations. At that point, I decided to leave. But I couldn't let go of this feeling that we shouldn't have had to spend so many years solving a problem only for it not to be solved. And based on research and conversations, it was clear that this was an industry-wide phenomena. And so I went about trying to figure out why that happens and then how we can solve it, and that's how Klotho came about. VICTORIA: That's so interesting. And I've certainly been a part of similar situations where you spend so much time solving a big problem and infrastructure only to get to the end of it and realize now you have a whole nother set of problems. [laughs] And you get upgrade. And they've also invented new ways of doing things in the cloud that you want to be able to take advantage of. So you had that time with Riot Games and League of Legends and building this globally responsive infrastructure. What lessons learned did you take from that into building Klotho and building your product, Infrastructure Copilot? AARON: We learned a bunch of things. One of the more difficult problems to solve isn't technical at all; it's organizational and understanding how the organization flows and how the different teams interact with each other. So we really endeavor to solve that problem. I mean, our product is a technical product, but it is meant to help bridge that gulf and make that problem a little bit easier as well. Otherwise, yeah, exactly to your point, part of the problem with these migrations is that new technology comes along. And there's definitely a feeling of when you hire new developers, they are excited about the new thing, and there's other reasons as well. But you get this kind of natural, eternal migration going to the newer technology. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And you bring up a great point on some of the issues, not being technical but organizational. And when I look at a lot of infrastructure-as-code tools, when we get to security, I wonder how it fits in with the organizational requirements for security, right? Like, you have to have defined groups who have defined access to different levels and have the tools in place to be able to manage identities in your organization. So I'm curious how that fits into what you built with Klotho and the Infrastructure Copilot. ALA: The way we think about infrastructure is as a set of intents or things that developers, and operators, cloud engineers, infrastructure engineers are trying to satisfy or to do. So you have tasks. You're trying to build a solution. You're trying to build an architecture or add something to it. And organizations have constraints, whether it's their own Terraform, or their own ruleset, or security expectations, or compliance expectations. And the way we look at this dynamic is those rules are encoded in a way that Klotho, which is a cloud compiler, it has the ability to reason about both the application and the infrastructure-as-code and enforce or at least warn about mismatches between the constraints that the organization sets, and what the developer or operator are trying to do, or the intent that is being described high level or low level within the tools. And then that is reflected both visually and in code and in the infrastructure-as-code, one or more. And so it's very much rooted in how the entire set of technologies and product and tools are designed. VICTORIA: Got it. So do you see the tool will be more fit for the market of larger development shops who maybe have existing infrastructure but want to experiment with a different way of managing it for their developers? ALA: It depends. So because we went about solving the problem rather than just building a specific vertical or a specific stack piece, we try to only play in this space of intelligent editing and intelligent understanding of the alignment between infrastructure and code. And so you could, as a developer, effectively with Klotho, write a plain application and have it be running in the cloud without knowing anything in the underlying cloud systems. It will set up storage, and persistence, and security, and secrets. All those elements are easily accessible within the code itself. It can also work in the context of a company where the infrastructure or platform team have set those rules and guidance within the tools. And then, developers can continue working the way they expect to work, either in code or in the infrastructure-as-code layer. And it would still allow them to do the same intents that they want only within that sandbox. Or if they can't be satisfied because they're trying to do something that isn't allowed, they have a mechanism of, one, knowing that but also asking, in our case, InfraCopilot to help it reshape what it's doing, what they're doing into the sandbox and the trade-offs that that brings in. VICTORIA: Got it. So you can both start from scratch and start a brand new application using it, or you can integrate it with your existing rules and systems and everything that already exists. ALA: Exactly. VICTORIA: Gotcha. Yeah, I think one interesting thing we've found with very new founders who are building their application for the first time is that there are some essential things, like, they don't even have an identity store like a Google [laughs] or Microsoft Azure Directory. So starting to work in the cloud, there are some basic elements you have to set up first that's a little bit of a barrier. So it sounds like what you're saying with Klotho is that you wouldn't necessarily have those same issues. Or how would you get that initial, like, cloud accounts set up? AARON: Yeah. So, for the situation where you're bootstrapping everything from scratch, you've done nothing; we haven't invested much in setting up the initial accounts. But assuming you get to the point where you have AWS credentials, and you're able to hit the AWS API using the CLI, that's sort of where we can take over. So, yeah, like, I would say right now, as a business, it's definitely where the value is coming is going to be these mid-sized companies. But for that scenario specifically, bootstrapping and starting something from scratch, if you have that initial setup in place, it's one of the fastest ways to go from a concept to something running in the cloud. ALA: And if you think about the two tools that we're building, there's Klotho, which InfraCopilot...or the Klotho engine, which Klotho the CLI tool uses and InfraCopilot uses. The Klotho engine is responsible for the intelligence. It knows how to translate things like I want a web API that talks to DynamoDB. And it will literally create everything or modify everything that is needed to give you that and plug in your code. You can also say things in a much higher level degree, which things like I want a lambda which handles 10,000 users. And I want it to be lowest latency talking to an RDS Instance or to a Postgres database. And what that would do is, in our side, in the Klotho engine, we understand that there needs to be a VPC and subnets, and spin up RDS, and connect an RDS proxy. Because for connection pooling with lambda specifically, you need one to scale to that degree of scale. And so that is the intelligence that is built into the Klotho engine if you want to start from the infrastructure. If you want to start from code, all you have to do is bring in the Redis instance, the Redis SDK, and, let's say, your favorite web framework, and just add the annotations or the metadata that says, I want this web framework to be exposed to the internet, and I want this Redis to be persisted in the cloud. And you run Klotho. And what comes out the other end is the cloud version that does that for you. And it's one command away from getting it to run. VICTORIA: So that's interesting how the two tools work together and how a developer might be able to get things spun up quickly on the cloud without having to know the details of each particular AWS service. And reading through your docs, it sounds like once you have something working in the cloud, then you'll also get automated recommendations on how to improve it for cost and reliability. Is that right? ALA: That's where we're headed. VICTORIA: Gotcha. I'm curious; for Aaron, it sounds like there is more in that organizational challenges that you alluded to earlier. So you want to be able to deliver this capability to developers. But what barriers have you found organizationally to getting this done? AARON: So I'm going to speak specifically on infrastructure here because I think this is one of the biggest ones we've seen. But typically, when you get to a larger-sized company, we'll call it a mid-sized company with, you know, a couple hundred engineers or more, you get to the point where it doesn't make sense for every team to own their entire vertical. And so you want to really put the cloud knowledge into a central team. And so you tend to build either a platform team, or an infrastructure team, or a cloud team who sort of owns how cloud resources are provisioned, which ones they support, et cetera. And so, really, some of the friction I'm talking about is the friction between that team and developer teams who really just want to write their application and get going quickly. But you don't have to fall within the boundaries set by that central team. To give, like, a real concrete example of that, if you wanted to prototype a new technology, like, let's say that some new database technology came out and you wanted to use it, it's a very coordinated effort between both teams in terms of the roadmap. Like, the infrastructure team needs to get on that roadmap, that they need to make a sandbox and how that's going to work. The code team needs to make an application to test it. And the whole thing requires a lot more communication than just tech. VICTORIA: Yeah, no, I've been part of kind of one of those classic DevOps problems. It's where now you've built the ops team and the dev team, [laughs] and now you're back to those coordination issues that you had before. So, if I were a dev using Klotho or the infrastructure-as-code copilot, I would theoretically have access to any AWS sandbox account. And I could just spin up whatever I wanted [laughs] within the limits that could be defined by your security team or by your, you know, I'm sure there's someone who's setting a limit on the size of databases you could spin up for fun. Does that sound right? AARON: Yeah, that's totally right. And in addition to just limits, it's also policies. So a good example is maybe in production for databases, you have a data retention policy. And you have something like we need to keep three months of backups for this amount of time. We want to make sure that if someone spins up a production database from any of those app teams, that they will follow their company policy there and not accidentally, like, lose data where it has to be maintained for some reason. ALA: That's an important distinction where we have our own set of, you know, best practice or rules that are followed roughly in the industry. But also, the key here is that the infrastructure central teams in every company can describe the different rulesets and guidelines, guardrails within the company on what developers can do, not only in low-level descriptions like instance sizes or how much something is, whether it's Spot Instances always or not in production versus dev. But also be able to teach the system when a developer says, "I want a database," spin up a Postgres database with this configuration that is wired to the larger application that they have. Or, if I want to run a service, then it spins up the correct elements and configures them to work, let's say, Kubernetes pods, or lambdas, or a combination based on what the company has described as the right way for that company to do things. And so it gives flexibility to not know the specific details but still get the company's specific way of doing them. And the key here is that we're trying to codify the communication patterns that do happen, and they need to happen if there's no tools to facilitate it between the infrastructure platform team and the feature teams. Only in this case, we try and capture that in a way that the central teams can define it. And the developers on feature teams can consume it without having as much friction. VICTORIA: So that will be different than, like, an infrastructure team that's putting out everything in Terraform and doing pull requests based off GitHub repository to that. It makes it a little more easier to read, and understand, and share the updates and changes. AARON: Right. And also, I mean, so, like, the thing you're describing of, like, the central team, having Terraform tends to be, like, these golden templates. Like they say, "If you want to make a database, here's your database template." And then you get a lot of interesting issues like drift, where maybe some teams are using the old versions of the templates, and they're not picking up the new changes. And how do you kind of reconcile all that? So it is meant to help with all of those things. VICTORIA: That makes a lot of sense. And I'm curious, what questions came up in the customer discovery process for this product that surprised you? ALA: I think there's one...I don't know that it was a question, but I think there was...So, when we started with Klotho, Klotho has the ability to enable a code-first approach, which means that you give the tool to developers as the infrastructure or platform team, or if you're a smaller shop, then you can just use Klotho directly. You set the rules on what's allowed or what's not allowed, and then developers can work very freely. They can describe very succinctly how to turn a plain object, SDK, et cetera, how to build larger architectures very quickly with a few annotations that we describe and that give cloud powers. We had always thought that some teams will feel that this encroaches on their jobs. We've heard from people on infra, you know, platform teams, "This is amazing. But this is my job." And so, one of our hypotheses was that we are encroaching into what they see as their responsibility. And we built more and more mechanisms that would clean up that interface and give them the ability to control more so they can free themselves up, just like most automations that happen in the world, to do more things. What happened later surprised us. And by having a few or several more discoveries, we found out that the feeling isn't a fear of the tool replacing their job. The fear or worry is that the tool will make their jobs boring, what is left of the job be boring, and nobody wants to go to work and not have cool and fun things to do. And because I think we all, on a certain degree, believe that, you know, if we take away some of the work that we're doing, we'll find something higher level and harder to solve, but until that exists in people's minds, there's nothing there. And therefore, they're left with whatever they don't want to do or didn't want to do. And so that's where we tried to take a step back from all the intelligence the Klotho engine provides through that code-first Klotho. And we built out focusing on one of the pillars in the tech to create InfraCopilot, which helps with keeping or making the things that we already do much simpler but also in a way that maintains and does it in a fun way. VICTORIA: That makes sense because my understanding of where to use AI and where to use machine learning for best purposes is to automate those, like, repetitive, boring tasks and allow people to focus on the creative and more interesting work, right? ALA: Yes and no. The interesting bit about our approach to ML is that we don't actually use machine learning or ChatGPT for any of the intelligence layers, meaning we don't ask ChatGPT to generate Terraform or any kind of GPT model to analyze a certain aspect of the infrastructure. That is all deterministic and happens in the Klotho engine. That is the uniqueness of why this always works rather than if GPT happened to get it right. What we use ML for is the ability to parse the intent. So we actually use it as a language model to parse the intent from what the user is trying to convey, meaning I want a lambda with an API gateway. What we get back from our use of ML is the user has asked for a lambda, an AWS lambda, and API gateway and that they be connected. That is the only thing we get back. And that is fed into the Klotho engine. And then, we do the intelligence to translate that to an actual architecture. VICTORIA: That's a really cool way to use natural language processing to build cloud infrastructure. MID-ROLL AD: Are you an entrepreneur or start-up founder looking to gain confidence in the way forward for your idea? At thoughtbot, we know you're tight on time and investment, which is why we've created targeted 1-hour remote workshops to help you develop a concrete plan for your product's next steps. Over four interactive sessions, we work with you on research, product design sprint, critical path, and presentation prep so that you and your team are better equipped with the skills and knowledge for success. Find out how we can help you move the needle at: tbot.io/entrepreneurs. VICTORIA: I'm curious; you said you're already working on some issues about being able to suggest improvements for cost reduction and efficiencies. What else is on your roadmap for what's coming up next? AARON: So there's a bunch of things in the long-term roadmap. And I'll say that, like, in the short term, it's much more about just expanding the breadth of what we support. If you think about just generating all the different permutations and types of infrastructure, it's, like, a huge matrix problem. Like, there's many, many dimensions that you could go in. And if you add an extra cloud or you add an extra capability, it expands everything. So you can imagine, like, testing it to make sure things work, and everything becomes very complicated. So, really, a lot of what we're doing is still foundational and trying to just increase the breadth, make the intent processing more intelligent, make the other bits work. And then one of the areas right now is for our initial release of the product; we chose to use Discord as our interface for the chatbot. And the reason for that is because it gives us a lot of benefits of having sort of the community built in and the engagement built in where we can actually talk with users and try and understand what they're doing. However, we really have a lot of UI changes and expansions that we'd like to do. And even from some of our early demo material, we have things like being able to right-click and being able to configure your lambda directly from the UI. So there's a lot of areas there that we can expand into an intent, too, once we get sort of the foundational stuff done, as an example. The intelligence bit is a much bigger process, like, there's a lot of things to unpack there. So I won't talk about it too much. But if we were to just talk about the most simple things, it'd be setting up alerts somehow and then feeding into our system that, like, we're hitting those alerts, and we have to make modifications. A good example of that would be, like, configuring auto scaling on an instance for [inaudible 22:17]. So we can get some of those benefits now. The bigger vision of what we want to do with optimization requires a lot more exploration and also the ability to look at what's happening to your application while it's running in the cloud. ALA: Let me maybe shed a bit more light on the problems we're trying to solve and where we're headed. When it comes to optimization, to truly optimize a cloud application, you have to reason about it on the application level rather than on the one service level. To do that, we have to be able to look at the application as an application. And today, there's a multi-repo approach to building cloud applications. So one of the future work that we're going to do is be able to reason about existing infrastructure-as-code from different portions of the teams or organization or even multiple services that the same team works and link them together. So, when we look at reasoning about an architecture, it is within the entire context of the application rather than just the smaller bits and pieces. That's one layer. Another layer is being able to ingest the real runtime application metrics and infrastructure metrics, let's say, from AWS or Azure into the optimizer system to be able to not only say, oh well, I want low latency. Then this is hard-coded to use a Fargate instance instead of a lambda. But more realistically, being able to see what that means in lambda world and maybe increase the concurrency count. Because we know that within the confines of cost limitations or constraints that the company wants to have, it is more feasible and cost-effective to raise the minimum concurrency rate of that lambda instead of using Fargate. You can only do that by having real-time data, or aggregated data come from the performance characteristics of the applications. And so that's another layer that we're going to be focusing on. The third one is, just like Aaron said, being able to approach that editing experience and operational experience, not just through one system like InfraCopilot but also through a web UI, or an app, or even as an extension to other systems that want to integrate with Klotho's engine. The last thing that I think is key is that we're still holding on to the vision that infrastructure should be invisible to most developers. Infrastructure definition is similar to how we approach assembly code. It's the bits and pieces. It's the underlying components, the CPUs, the storage. And as long as we're building microservices in that level of fidelity, of like, thinking about the wiring and how things interconnect, then we're not going to get the gains of 10x productivity building cloud applications. We have to enable developers and operators to work on a higher abstraction. And so our end game, where we're headed, is still what we want to build with Klotho, which is the ability to write code and have it be translated into what's allowed in the infrastructure within the constraints of the underlying platforms that infrastructure or platform teams set for the rest of the organization. It can be one set or multiple sets, but it's still that type of developers develop, and the infrastructure teams set them up to be able to develop, and there's separation. VICTORIA: Those are all really interesting problems to be solving. I also saw on your roadmap that you have published on Klotho that you're thinking of open-sourcing Klotho on GitHub. AARON: So, at this point, we already have the core engine of Klotho open-sourced, so the same engine that's powering InfraCopilot and Klotho, the tool itself is open source today. So, if anyone wants to take a look, it is on github.com/klothoplatform/klotho. VICTORIA: Super interesting. And it sounds like you mentioned you have a Discord. So that's where you're also getting feedback from developers on how to do this. And I think that challenge you mentioned about creating abstractions so that developers don't have to worry as much about the infrastructure and platform teams can just enable them to get their work done; I'm curious what you think is the biggest challenge with that. It seems like a problem that a lot of companies are trying to solve. So, what's the biggest challenge? And I think what do you think is unique about Klotho and solving that challenge? AARON: I guess what I would say the biggest challenge today is that every company is different enough that they all saw this in a slightly different way. So it's like, right now, the tools that are available are the building blocks to make the solution but not the solution itself. So, like, every cloud team approaches it on, let's build our own platform. We're building our own platform that every one of our developers is going to use. In some cases, we're building, like, frameworks and SDKs that everyone's going to use. But then the problem is that you're effectively saying my company is entering the platform management business. And there's no way the economies of scale will make sense forever in that world. So I think that's the biggest issue. And I think the reason it hasn't been solved is it's just a very hard problem. There's many approaches, but there's not a clear solution that kind of brings it all together. And I think our product is positioned better than most to solve some of the higher-level abstractions. It still doesn't solve the whole problem. There's still some things that are going to be tricky. But the idea is, if you can get to the point where you're using some of our abstractions, then you've guaranteed yourself portability into the future, like, your architecture will be able to evolve, even in technologies that don't exist yet once they become available. ALA: To tack on to what Aaron said, a key difference, and to our knowledge, this doesn't exist in any other tool or technology, is a fundamentally new architecture we call adaptive architecture. It is not microservices. It is not monoliths. It's a superset that combines all the benefits from monoliths, microservices, and serverless if you consider it a different platform or paradigm. What that means is that you get the benefits without the drawbacks. And the reason we can do it is because of the compiler approach that we're taking, where everything in the architecture that we produce is interchangeable. The team has decided to use Kubernetes, a specific version of Kubernetes with Istio. That works great. And, a year later, it turns out that that choice no longer scales well for the use. And we need to use Linkerd. The problem in today's world and what companies have to do is retrofit everything and not only the technology itself, but it's the ripple effects of changing it into everything else that all the other choices that were made that depended on it. In the Klotho world, because of the compilation step or the compilation approach and its extensibility, you could say, I want to take out Istio and replace it with Linkerd. And it would percolate all the changes that need to happen everywhere for that to maintain its semantic behavior. To our knowledge, that doesn't exist anywhere today. VICTORIA: So it would do, maybe not, like, would do migrations for you as well? ALA: I think migrations are a special case. When it comes to stateless things, yes. When it comes to data, we are much more conservative. Again, bringing what we've learned in different companies in, a lot of solutions try to solve all the things versus we're trying to play in a very specific niche, which is the adaptive architecture of it all. But if you want to move data, there's fantastic tools for it, and we will guide you through getting the access to the actual underlying services and, say, great, write a migration system, or we can generate for you. But you will run it to move the data from, let's say, Postgres to MySQL or from being able to drain a unit on Kubernetes to a lambda. Some of those things are much more automatic. And the transition happened through the underlying technologies like Terraform or Pulumi. Others will require you to take a step, not because we can't do it for you but we want to be conservative with the choices. AARON: I would also add that another aspect of this is that we don't position ourselves as being the center of the universe for these teams. Like a lot of products, you kind of have to adopt the platform, and everything has to plug into it, and if you don't adhere, it doesn't work. We're trying very, very hard with our design to make it so that existing apps will continue to function like they've always functioned. If app developers want to continue using direct SDKs and managing config themselves, they can absolutely do that. And then they'll interact well with Klotho apps that are also in that same company. So we're trying to make it so that you can adopt incrementally without having to go all in. VICTORIA: So that makes a lot of sense. So it's really helpful if you're trying to swap out those stateless parts of your infrastructure and you want to make some changes there. And then, if you were going to do a data migration, it would help you and guide you to where additional tools might be needed to do that. And at your market segment, you're really focusing on having it be an additional tool, as opposed to, like, an all-encompassing platform. Did I get it all right? [crosstalk 31:07] ALA: Exactly. VICTORIA: [laughs] Cool. All right. Well, that's exciting. That's a lot of cool things that you all are working on. I'm curious how overall the workload is for you two. How big of a team do you have so far? How are you balancing out this work of creating something new and exciting that has such a broad potential scope? AARON: Yeah. So, right now, the team is currently six people. So it's Ala and I, plus four additional engineers is the current team. And in terms of, like, where we're focusing, the real answer is that it's somewhat reactive, and it's very fast. So, like, it could be, like...in fact, Copilot went from ideation to us acting on it extremely quickly. And it wasn't even in the pipeline before that. So I'd actually say the biggest challenge has been where do we sort of focus our energy to get the best results? And a lot of where we spend our time is sort of meta-process of, like, making sure we're investing in the right things. ALA: And I think that comes from both Aaron and I have been in the industry for over 15 years. We don't, you know, drop everything and now switch to something new. We're very both tactical and strategic with the pace and when we pivot. But the idea is when we decide to change and focus on something that we think will be higher value, and it's almost always rooted in the signals and hypotheses that we set out to kind of learn from, from every iteration that we go after. We are not the type that would say, "Oh, we saw this. Let's drop everything, and let's go do it." I think we've seen enough in the industry that there's a measure of knowing when to switch, and when to refocus, and what to do when these higher tidbits come, and then being able to execute aggressively when that choice or decision happens. VICTORIA: Are there any trends that you're watching right now that the outcome would influence a change in direction for you? ALA: Not technically. I think what we're seeing in the industry is there's no real approaches to solving the problem. I would say most of the solutions and trends that we're seeing are...I call them streamlined complexity. We choose a set of technologies, and we make that easy. We make the SaaS version, and it can do these workloads, and it makes that easy. But the minute you step out of the comfort zone of those tools, you're back into the nightmare that building distributed systems brings with it, and then you're back to, you know, square one. What we're trying to do is fundamentally solve the problem. And we haven't seen many at least make a lot of headway there. We are seeing a few of the startups that are starting to think in the same vein, which is the zeitgeist. And that's fantastic. We actually work with them closely to try and broaden the category. VICTORIA: Right. Do you feel that other companies who are working in a similar problem space that there is...is it competitive between each other? Or do you think it's actually more collaborative? ALA: It depends on the companies and what they're trying to achieve. Every set of companies have different incentives. So Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have, you know, are incentivized to keep you on their clouds. They may care less about what they have in there as long as you are happy to stay. So you'll see more open source being adopted. You will see Amazon trying to copy or operationalize a lot of open-source tools. Microsoft will give their...because they are working with larger companies to have more vertical solutions. Google is trying to catch up. If you look at startups, you will see some focus more on developers. You'll see others focus on infra team. So it really depends on the intersection of the companies, and then they either collaborate or they compete, depending on how it affects their strategy. In our case, we recognize that our competition is the incumbents and the current way of doing things. And so we are happy to collaborate with all the startups that are doing something in the vicinity of what we're doing, startups like Ampt, and Encore, and Winglang. And there's several others. We have our own Slack channel where we talk about, like, where we're headed or at least what we can do to support one another. VICTORIA: Great. And I wonder if that's part of your business decision to open source your product as well or if there are other factors involved. ALA: I think the biggest factor that we've seen, realistically, is the expectation in the developer community to have a core that is open source, not even the source available model but to have an open-source core that they can rely on always existing and referencing when, you know if the company disappears or Oracle buys them. And so I would say that that was the biggest determining factor in the end to open-sourcing the Klotho engine. It's a very pragmatic view. VICTORIA: That makes sense. Well, I wanted to make sure we had time to ask one of my favorite questions that I ask on the podcast, and you can both answer. But if you could go back in time to when you first started this project, what advice would you give yourself? ALA: I guess the advice that I would give is keep selling and start selling as early as you can, even before the vision is realized. Or let's say you're making kind of headway towards what you'll wind up sharing and giving companies, the lead time to creating the opportunities and the belief and the faith that you can solve problems for companies, and the entire machinery of doing that is a lot more complex than most founders, I think, or at least first-time founders or, honestly, myself have found it to be. AARON: Yeah. If I try and answer that same question, it's very challenging. I guess my perspective now is there's nothing I could tell myself that would make me go any faster because a lot of it really is the journey. Like, the amount of stuff that we've learned in the last year of working on this and exploring and talking with people and everything else has been so vast that there's nothing I can communicate to past me that would prepare me any better. So [laughs] I think I would try just my best to be encouraging to just stick with it. VICTORIA: Well, that's good. And who knows what you're going to learn in the next year that [laughs] probably might not help you in the past either? That's wonderful. Do you have any final takeaways for our listeners today or anything you'd like to promote? ALA: So, from my lens, I've always wanted to do a startup but felt that the life setting wasn't quite ready. And a lot of the startup culture is talking about younger, earlier founders. I think having had the industry experience and understanding both the organizational and technical challenges, knowing more people, and engineers, and founders, potential founders, has been vastly more helpful than what I would have been able to pull off ten years ago. So, if you are thinking maybe it's too late, it is not. It's probably easier in some regards now. And yeah, check out InfraCopilot. It's on infracopilot.io. We would love to have you try it out and go on this journey with us. AARON: Yeah, I would definitely echo that. I mean, sort of the same thing on the journey. Like, it's never too late to start. And yeah, like, I would say being in the industry and actually seeing these problems first-hand makes it so much more fulfilling to actually try and solve them. VICTORIA: That's [inaudible 38:15]. I'm excited to see what you all accomplish. And I appreciate you coming on the show. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, you can email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you could find me on Twitter @victori_ousg or on Mastodon @vguido@thoughtbot.social. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guests: Aaron Torres and Ala Shiban.

Are you aware of how much money you would need to protect and potentially replace all of the assets in the properties you manage? Join Jason as he chats with Aaron Lombardo from North Star Reserves about what a reserve study is, and how having one completed can benefit your property management business. You'll Learn... [01:21] Who is Aaron from North Star Reserves? [05:09] What is a Reserve Study? [16:30] What is the Difference Between a Reserve Study and an Inspection? [20:14] A New Concept: the “LIL Effect” [33:50] How to Stop Your Clients from Micromanaging You Tweetables “Property's easy to manage. People are tough to manage.” “Retaining a client, you're continually selling them on why they should be with you. It involves trust.” “One thing that property managers incur too much is blame.” “Each property is a business and it needs to be able to be maintained.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] Aaron: what the reserve study really does is creates kind of an internal bank of their own funds and we help them manage a threshold so they can have a zero base threshold where they're just managing just enough in contributions to maintain those assets over long term or they can increase that threshold so that there's a nest egg if you will, a buffer or padding [00:00:21] Jason Hull: Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the # DoorGrowShow. So if you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not bebecause you realize that property management is the ultimate, high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the bs, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. [00:01:21] Aaron: I went in and got my undergrad, my bachelor's in psychology. So I majored in family and marriage therapy and kind of the end of that I realized I didn't want to be in psych. I love it. I love people, but I migrated very quickly into the construction industry. And I worked for the third largest builder in the country and managed multimillion dollar budgets as far as from the building side and construction. Was recruited by the largest builder in the state of Utah and spent quite a bit of time with them working through kind of their ranks, managing, again, oversight on millions of dollars in purchasing materials, actually building the structures from the ground up. That experience led me into the general manager position with them on their custom home division quietly running this custom home division. They were really a track builder and they had all sorts of, different styles, designs and levels of building from commercial to residential, and they had this quiet custom home division that was really exciting. It allowed me to really apply my psych trade into sales, dealing really with high-end buyers and executors buying properties and interacting with those properties as investments and so forth. [00:02:33] And ultimately that kind of landed quite a bit of interaction with building the actual communities themselves, HOAs, working with those HOAs. And then I had an opportunity to really jump ship and partner with a friend of mine in rental management. The short version is that he had a deal to buy a pump company fell out from underneath him after he'd literally moved across the country. And he kind of started by default just managing a rental property, a family's rental property. Anyway, long story short is he needed somebody to come along and help out with that, both on the HOA management and just generally the business. So, We ran this business, we expanded it over two states, Idaho and Utah. In the end, we separated. He took the rental management, I took HOA management. We both have grown those. I really enjoyed the HOA management side of it. It provided a lot of opportunities to interact with property managers as their competitors, but also with the boards. And so it was really by forced majeure that I had to take a deep dive into kind of the rental management, interacting again with real estate, which is where maybe my education wasn't, but my passion certainly was. And then I had an opportunity to buy this little mom and pop reserve study company out of Emmett, Idaho, and this was just a retiring couple that I had actually used their services several times in the rental and hoa management industry. And I just loved the idea of getting back into the budgets, but it afforded me the opportunity as well to get into the field doing site inspections for these properties while managing these budgets. [00:04:08] And so I did, we sold the HOA management company. We bought this little mom and pop. We've grown it to eight states, and then we consult in several others. We're in multiple markets within, kind of these states and subsets of these states, destination stops and so forth. And I'll tell you what a reserve study is here in just a second, which is why I'm here with you, I suppose, Jason, but we do, reserve studies and site inspections for golf courses and country clubs high rises. We do commercial properties and strip malls. We do a lot of homeowners associations that have clubhouses and buildings that they have to maintain in streets. We've done some really cool townships where we've done entire, small cities or small towns, airports And and then water treatment facilities. So we, we feel like we've got a real, broad gamut of these things. These properties of different sorts. Some are owned, by a governing body like an hoa, and some are owned by real estate investors or owners that are looking to track their costs. And that's where the reserve study comes in itself. [00:05:09] Jason: Got it. Cool. So tell us what is a reserve study? [00:05:14] Aaron: Right. The magic question. So a reserve study is really just a 30 year outlay of all income and expenses and using that contribution is what we call it, a contribution of that revenue to reserves or savings to maintain and repair all their physical assets over the course of 30 years. So it takes in a lot of aspects of that, right? You have the revenue that comes in and we call that the contribution. And it's just a piece of maybe the property's total revenue and then that contribution will fund the future maturation of all of those assets from the replacement of the roof to the maintenance of the plaster in the pool ceiling on the streets, et cetera, et cetera. And so it really takes, the full gamut. It includes inflation and the cost of inflation that compounds over time. It includes the useful life is what we call it in the industry for each individual item, right? Not everything wears the same and not everything wears the same in different. Locations. Our California clients have properties, in Spokane and in Spokane. It's just a harsher climate. And so their properties weather different, and if they don't take that into account and really understand the nuances of that it catches them off guard because of the weathering that occurs in a different, in different places. [00:06:29] Jason: Right. Just like cars in winter areas with the salted roads, the undercarriage gets rusted out. California no issue with that. So, That's right. At least not in SoCal. All right. So, cool. All right, I get that. So how do you go about doing these reserve studies and how does this relate to property management? I really haven't heard of any property managers doing this. I'm sure some do or should be. So tell us about that. [00:06:58] Aaron: Well, so the truth of it is there's not a lot of well, let me rephrase that, a lot of property managers do that if they're, if they have oversight in an HOA or some sort of governing body. We break our service down into two pieces. There's the actual physical creation of the reserve study, and then there's the consulting on how to use the reserve study, our other kind of group of clients, aside from just HOA property managers. Are, owners and business owners. So, typically when we're working with a property manager on a rental property or a multi-unit property, it's usually the owner or, sometimes it's the CFO or CEO that's looking at this property from a strictly, revenue generation standpoint. And they're looking at their total expense load and we build that expense load. So it comes in two parts. The first part is really just the physical creation of the reserve study that involves a site inspection. So we perform a physical site inspection where we comb through every piece of this property. Let's use a high-rise as an example. A high-rise might have everything from a generator tucked into the parking garage to, common area, boiler units that are serving all of the rental units above, and the roof and the windows, and all of the pieces. [00:08:07] In a typical high-rise, there might be 80 to a hundred components. That all have a varying degree of cost. Some of them need to be touched or maintained on an annual basis, and some of them you don't need to really worry about but every 30 or 40 years and those, long-term items usually have a significant cost that we're trying to help our owners avoid loans on. [00:08:29] Right. They can essentially, Jason, what the reserve study really does is creates kind of an internal bank of their own funds and we help them manage a threshold so they can have a zero base threshold where they're just managing just enough in contributions to maintain those assets over long term or they can increase that threshold so that there's a nest egg, if you will, a buffer or padding that allows, far more flexibility on how to use those funds for the improvement of those physical assets. [00:09:02] So the first part of that is just performing the site inspection, converting those physical assets into usable data, right? So we'll document every aspect of, the pool as an example, right down to the pool pumps. Pool pumps and pool plaster and the pool deck and the pool cover. I mean, there's a dozen components that maintain what we would, you and I would just call a pool, right? Yeah, there's a dozen components that would maintain that. We break those down, they all get a useful life. We convert that into data that has a useful life, a term for its expiration, and then a cost associated with that. In the process of that, we're contacting vendors, usually local vendors to that state or maybe that destination stop that town and city. So that we're finding out the local pricing and we plug that in commensurate to, their actual costs. And then we produce what we call a reserve study. [00:09:55] And it's a lengthy report. It'd be a hundred page report. Half of that is usually a very detailed page over page breakdown of every component, what we discovered, what our actual site inspection uncovered. And oftentimes we uncover problems that they don't, and sometimes that their management or their maintenance men don't see. Their maintenance men have a tendency to look at certain high visual items where we're in the process of discovering from a construction standpoint. What are the forthcoming or future problems that they might incur? A great but terrible example, and this has brought the whole industry kind of forefront. Everybody at this point has heard about the Florida condo that literally fell, and it was a horrible tragedy. You've heard of that? [00:10:38] Jason: I didn't hear that. [00:10:39] Aaron: You didn't hear about that? All right. [00:10:41] Jason: No. So when I was in Mexico and there was a hotel, or like a condo building next to one of the resorts we stayed at, and it won all these awards for design, but it like started sinking and collapsing. [00:10:52] Aaron: Oh yeah that's a different one. So, so this Florida compound really a preventable tragedy and a terrible tragedy. So this had a pool on an upper deck. So it was like a parking garage and imagined large concrete with rebar columns underneath upholding that pool and the structure above it. And over the course of probably decades, there was corrosion from the pool. Now pool chemicals are just brutal on everything that they touch right, even the concrete. And over time they noticed some corroding that had leaked into cracks and fissures in the concrete and had corroded, the rebar, which is kind of the structural integrity of the columns themselves. Long story short is they didn't have the funds or reserves, right. They didn't have the savings, just interchangeable word with reserves. They didn't have the reserves to fund repairs. And after decades of that type of corrosion, the columns gave way and the whole pool inside of the structure gave. And once the structure started to give, it was a cascading effect. And multiple stories of this condo complex fell and killed people, and it was just a horrible, preventable-- [00:12:05] Jason: wow. [00:12:06] Aaron: --Problem. Now that's about as dramatic as these circumstances get mind you. Right. Most of the time what we see is we see, gutters, for example, that are leaking off into the the wall and we know the cues and the primers that are kind of indicating that there's probably a leak behind the stucco itself. Right. Stucco's a permeable material. Yeah. But if it gets beyond the paper, behind the stucco, then you have wall issues and we see that. Pretty often where rain gutters are not skirting all of the snow, ice, and rain away from the building. So all of that's preventable If number one, there's funds to do it and if number two, there's eyes that can pick it up. So we help discover both of those. We help outline, highlight those potential problems and sometimes those problems in live. And then we help ensure that they have a plan of how and when those funds will occur in order to maintain and replace and repair all of those assets. [00:13:07] Ultimately the purpose of any property is to maintain and increase the value of that property, right? No investor wants to get in... [00:13:15] Jason: yeah. [00:13:15] Aaron: ...and not come out on the back end, however many years that might be, and not earn a profit at some level or another, either from the sale of the property or for the ongoing rental of the property. And that can only occur if you're maintaining the property in a condition that it can do so, in my opinion, in optimal condition. [00:13:33] Jason: So one of the things that comes to mind, so my wife and I like taking trips to Mexico and we've gone to some resorts in Mexico that have been around a long time, like decades. Yeah. And we didn't realize it because the rooms seemed new, the paint, but we saw maintenance people on this building. All day long, every day there were just people doing the grounds, doing painting, like everything. And it looked great. And then we just took a trip to Puerto Rico and we stayed at this modern kind of new sort of looking resort. I don't know how long it's been around, but it's already has rust coming down the white sides of the building from the top. They had some nets to capture, I don't know, maybe bird stuff or, I have no idea. Yeah. But they were torn and the room was mildewey and like, it just wasn't what it looked like in the pictures. It was just starting to show some wear and tear, and we were just kind of like, why don't they maintain it? Which was interesting. [00:14:27] Aaron: Well, and this is the second piece of what we do, the consulting piece of this because we have conversations like this all the time. 'Well, I've got this property that behaves very differently than this property. Right? And how do we appropriate these funds commensurate to the type of building?' It really is dependent on the purpose. Like people, not any property is really identical. They're not used the same way. They're not used the same frequency. Yeah. They're not in the same climate zone, et cetera, et cetera. And I think of a similar building that you just described in Montana. So we did recently did a site inspection on this architecturally really fascinating building. And they kind of jammed it into the corner of two main intersections. Okay. And the whole building architecturally is steel. It's intentionally rusting, and it's intentionally that way to keep the maintenance low. That steel on the outside will outlive all of us. And so the maintenance won't be going into the exterior of this building. It was designed for a very low maintenance exterior. Now, the interior finishes are different. The interior, it's got this high end deck and you've got this neat garden area and, you get into the inside, it's got this, really nice elevator and all of these things require a high level of maintenance in order to keep functionality optimal for that particular property. [00:15:42] We do some properties for investors that really intentionally just want to strip out and, for lack of a better term, it sounds bad the way I say it, but, we treat it a little bit differently. They want to strip out every dollar that they can because it's just not a high valued property to them, wherever it might be or however they might be using it. In which case we can put together a plan that. Creates basically what we call a baseline funding. It's a zero funding. It's just setting aside just enough to fund the needed maintenance to meet those financial goals. Again, being very intentional, right? I think most investors and executors fail when you have multiple properties and they start using funds from other properties to carry another or they're not intentional about the monies they're setting aside for maintenance. [00:16:29] Jason: So let me ask a question. So I recently bought a house. I'm here in it right now. Right? And it's over a decade old and we had a home inspection and most people connected to real estate are very familiar with a home inspection. How does a reserve study differ from a home inspection, maybe on like a single family residential property? [00:16:51] Aaron: Yeah, I'll be real candid with you, Jason. I think that the home inspection is very similar. Matter of fact, I have seen some really great home inspections where they will outline potential problems, right? That's the difference between maybe a typical inspector and a home inspector. An inspector might come in and they're going to say, 'okay, these are the things you need to do. These are the things that are really obvious.' A home inspector has a tendency like we do, to really get their hands dirty. They're looking for the little primers, the little cues that indicate that you have a leaking water heater, that the roof shingles are coming up on the ends and, stuff like that. And so I've been really impressed with some home inspections. The only real difference is taking that home inspection and converting it into datas, dollars, and timelines. So that's the difference. So when bought your home, you get a home inspection and it's left to you, buyer, to say, 'okay, well how do I feel about the fact that there's this, that and the other?' And you have to figure out a way to now negotiate that home inspection with your seller on what it means to you. What's the financial, consequence of that home inspection? We take it a pretty major step, but one step further where we say, 'okay, how long is that problem going to endure? When does it need to be replaced? And how much is it going to cost?' And then we build a report that actually puts numbers, dollars, and timelines to that. There's no more guesswork. The math now has a voice. [00:18:17] Jason: Got it. Got it. Okay, cool. Now I can see how this would be useful for rental properties, which are not just a home to live in, but they are a long-term investment and they're basically, each property is a business and it needs to be able to be maintained. It needs to run well, especially if their goal is to have it accrue in value over time, or for it to be making them a certain amount of money each month. Et cetera. So, okay. [00:18:47] Aaron: Now there's two pieces of that though, right? All right, so you've got, I mentioned in the beginning that you've got this kind of physical aspect the site inspection and then the data, and the vast majority, mind you, we don't shy away from data, but we also know how to read it. So when we produce a report, it's usually a lot to digest. And the second piece of that is, well, now what do we do with this data? How do I actually use this data and apply, and this kind of gets into the human element. So this is where it speaks to my psych degree, my salesmanship, if you will, which I just really love people. I think as much as we love properties and I do people, it's really what makes everything work. So now you've got to know, well, how do we take this data? And apply it to a property and in some cases apply it to manage the owner themselves. I'm not a hundred percent clear on your audience, for example. But if we just take a property manager that's managing to an investor, and I've been, in this circumstance, I've been that property manager managing to a CEO of a home builder that had multiple properties we were managing and they have certain expectations and sometimes those expectations are based on their feel, their gut feel. [00:19:59] And it was always better to manage that executor, that owner, that CEO with actual math, with the actual numbers where I can push back without it being a gut feel on my end. So I have what I call the LIL effect, like coin that myself, LIL, like little, the little effect. So one thing that property managers incur too much is blame. When there's stressors, when there's misunderstanding, when maybe the profitability is not there. Yeah. Property managers inadvertently end up being the scapegoat for owners that have left the management to the property, but shouldn't be leaving maybe the profitability to the property manager. Right? So we have what we call the LIL effect. So, and the LIL effect simply is the first L is listen more to your clients. You'd be shocked Jason. How often as a vendor... so I'm usually brought in as kind of a vendor to augment what the property manager might be doing for the owner. And you'd be surprised how many times the vendor or the owner may call and want some specific details that the property manager, doesn't know or is fine deferring to us because we do some consulting. [00:21:14] And then they open up about all sorts of problems and complaints and I'm constantly on the defence. I want to focus on the data and, not necessarily the complaints, but I'm a fly on the wall all the time. And one of the biggest complaints is that they're I think is that they're just not being heard enough. So property managers do a great job managing properties, but sometimes there's a pivot point that they miss with their owners, their clients, their executors. And so the first L is just listening more to the client. The 'I' that we have in the LIL effect is Intention, so being very intentional about building trust. I know a lot of property managers that are really good in the industry because they just, are honest and they just naturally build trust. But if they're not intentional, they leave so much of that trust on the table and they can build a lot of trust by being intentional. So the first L is for listening more to your clients. The 'I' is for intentionally building trust. In fact, an interesting story to go along with that. When I worked for a builder I was told at the very outset that there was an architect, very difficult to work with. We'll call him Brian. And Brian was impossible. [00:22:26] Brian did things his way and he was just difficult to work with. He was the head architect, so everything had to run through him, and if you couldn't get it through him, you couldn't get it done. And I had to get stuff done through him as a fairly new employee with this builder. And I determined right in the beginning that I would figure out a way to earn his trust. And I decided early on that I would just believe everything Brian told me. I would just take it at face value, trust, the fact that he knew what he was doing. Now everybody knew that he was emotionally driven, right? And a fascinating thing came out of this, Jason, I learned over the course of, less than a year, took some time, but I learned over the course o of that year that number one, I earned Brian's trust by hearing him out, asking questions strategically, and being very intentional about building that trust. The other thing that actually was quite fascinating to me is that I learned to really respect Brian. I gained a relationship with him and I could get things done through Brian that nobody else could, simply because I'd been intentional and at the time it was kind of accidental intention. Yeah. And it was a phenomenal relationship that he and I had. He was pretty rough around the edges, had his way, but I had, I could bend his ear, unlike most people could because I'd spent a significant amount of time building that trust. [00:23:48] Jason: That's interesting. I had a job working at HP and there were two of us on a team. We managed this software called Concentra, which was this workflow for all of their PDFs and documents for all their computers, printers, at everything to move through to make sure that there was some sort of quality. And it, it went through legal and it went through everything else. And so there were us two nerds and our boss was in, we were in Boise and our boss was in Texas. And I noticed he didn't trust us. He was always like trying to micromanage us and distrustful of us, and so I just started setting-- we used an instant message tool to communicate most of the time, so I just started changing my status. I'm like, how can I make him feel safer and trust me? So I had the intention. To build trust. And so, and the way I did that is I just communicated through my messenger status, showing what I was working on all the time, so he didn't have to ask me and say, 'Hey, did you guys doing stuff? Or what are you doing?' It just said, 'I'm working on this and I'm working on that'. And I would just update it throughout the day. He started to trust me and then he started to ask me about my coworker, what's he doing? Is he getting stuff done? I thought that was really funny. Yeah. Like acting like he'd-- this guy like didn't even know our names though. He like, eventually he just couldn't even remember our names, which is sad. [00:25:02] Aaron: But that level of transparency, solves all so many problems before they occur. [00:25:07] Jason: Yeah. So I like that. Yeah. Property managers need to listen more to their clients and they need to focus on the intention of building trust because really, I tell my clients sales and deals happen at the speed of trust. Yeah. In order to get clients, but keeping clients. Same thing, retaining a client, you're continually selling them on why they should be with you. It involves trust. Yeah. Trust goes, they go. [00:25:33] Aaron: It does. And it really is about being intentional, right? Because again, I know property managers who are quite good at it, but they're, there's a difference with being intentional. Yeah. Being strategic. [00:25:44] Jason: Yeah. because if their intention is just to do their job, that's not going to necessarily create trust. But if their intention is to create trust, then they're far more likely to do it. Yeah. This is interesting too becausewe have a tool we use with our clients so they can get more out of their day and we call it DoorGrow's Daily Planning. We have this daily planning exercise, and the goal is to map out, part of the daily planning exercise is to figure out what are all the appointments you have for the day, and then what intention do you have for each of those? Because we find just by having an intention and being clear on what your intention is with a particular outcome, you're far more likely to get the result ironically. So, if your intention is to go into a conversation and win, or create a win-win or to benefit them or whatever, you're far more likely if you're clear on that intention, then you just go into it and go, 'well, I have a meeting.' Right. Yeah. So, yeah. [00:26:36] Aaron: Well, I couldn't agree with you more. It's so we've got listen more to the clients, right? So to finish the LIL effect, intentionally build trust. And the last one, Is really one of the most undervalued, and that's, listen to your trades. And I'm not talking about just hearing them out, I'm talking about like understanding, understanding their perspective. You'd be shocked how many, so I talk to trades a lot. [00:27:00] Jason: Define trades. Are you talking about vendors that'll do work on property? [00:27:03] Aaron: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Your concrete guys, your maintenance guy. The, these are invaluable people that, sometimes I think property managers don't reach out to these trades. At the level they could because they see a guy that, you know, just for lack of a better term, just eats concrete for breakfast. He knows concrete. He loves concrete, he's really good at it, and they want him to solve a problem concrete related. But I can't tell you how many times I've talked to vendors, I'm usually gathering price and I can speak their language and I know all things construction from the ground up. So I can get into those conversations and as I do that, I've been shocked. At how many things they keep close to the chest because they've learned, and this goes back to kind of the psych days learned helplessness. They've learned that nobody really wants their opinion. They just want them to solve a problem. 'Solve this concrete problem, fix this tree,' whatever it might be. And so they have learned over the years to just keep those things close to the chest. But what they have close to the chest is often little golden nuggets of understanding of both property and profitability. They have ideas on how to turn a property more profitable in their little, bucket of trade, right? They're concrete or they're trees and, property managers are leaving some profits on the table, in my opinion, because they're not getting those vendors, not building the trust with those vendors to glean the little pieces and it goes back to, I forget the name of the book, 1% Better, where if you're gathering 1% better and you talk to 15 different, vendors and they all can provide you, you know even half a percent profitability better, suddenly you have a property that's 7% more profitable. That's incredible. [00:28:46] Jason: Yeah. That's interesting. The last place I was in, we were renting and it wasn't managed by a property manager and the owner took two weeks to replace water heater because he was just being super anal and trying to figure out the best one. Basically a problem property managers can solve for people. And one of the plumbers came out and. He like was badmouthing the owner saying that he was being cheap and then he like, but the level of detail this guy was because I was just curious in asking questions because that's just my nature. He was telling me like, 'these type of water heaters, they last this long, this other one's going to go out soon. And if we put in one like this, I recommend it be this capacity because it's going to last this much longer or do this' like the level of detail he knew about water heaters. Brands of water heaters and how much, putting the right one in and what it could save you in the long term and doing the long term. I was like really impressed. Yeah, so this rings very true to me. Everybody that is really an expert in their craft. And this guy ran his company, so we were lucky that he was the one that came out, I guess. The level of expertise that some of these vendors or trades, or not sure they call them tradies, yeah. That they have is really yeah, it, I can see how it could be a huge asset. [00:30:04] Aaron: Huge asset. So that's the LIL effect. They really are a huge asset. So you've got, listen more to your clients, the intentional of building trust, and listening to your trades and vendors and anyway, that LIL effect will produce positive consequences every day of the week. There's really no negative and it's kind of rare that you can apply a strategy and not have, some downside of it. But it's pretty easy to apply. Maybe a more listening and intentional ear. Yeah. Something that we're noticing, that kind of goes along with this, and I think everybody's probably feeling this at this point. I've been waiting for everybody to feel like the pinch of what's going on, right. So, one thing that we're trying to do here for our business is just constantly be on the pivot where, well, what are our clients feeling? Yeah. What are they experiencing? What are their hardships and challenges? What other problems can we solve? And we've been doing that since inception, but I've been waiting since kind of some of the overall damage from where it started with Covid. When is this downstream damage going to really start affecting just masses, right? And profitability and properties and so forth? And over the last four to six months we're seeing more of it. And on our end, we're ready for that pivot. And what that pivot looks like is when people are pinched financially and emotionally. And additionally, right now politically, when people feel pinched in corner like this, yeah they have a tendency to retreat into corners, right? It's the old adage, that we retreat into our shell. And as people do that, unfortunately trades and property managers, when they're feeling kind of this trifecta of pinch, they have a lack of control. This goes back to the psychology. They have a lack of control. So what do people do when they're losing control of one thing? They go and gain control of another, right? [00:31:51] Jason: Yeah. They start micromanaging other stuff. [00:31:54] Aaron: Yes. And asking all the wrong questions in that micromanagement, right? And so they start micromanaging, they start trying to regain control. And I see sometimes property managers pushing back because again, the client's asking the wrong group of questions, seeking for some semblance of balance of control. And as they push back, then they're usually again scapegoated into some failure, some misunderstanding, some reason that the client needs to retake or re grab control. Yeah. And when they're insecure and out of control, we often coach our clients to tell them, 'look, let them. Give them a moment. They don't want to drive the car. They don't really want to drive the car. Yeah. They want to know that they can drive the car.' Right. And so clients come, they feel uncomfortable, they want to regain control. And so we'll tell our property managers many times, ' let them sit in the driver's seat. It's like taking a teen, and you remember the old driving the cars, they had a brake pedal in the passenger seat where the instructor could sit and slam on the brakes and-- [00:33:04] Jason: Yeah. [00:33:04] Aaron: --Scare the teen right out of his gourd. I mean, that's how I learned to drive from a instructor. But it's kind of-- [00:33:10] Jason: sounds like a mean instructor. [00:33:12] It's sometimes though it's like that the property [00:33:14] Aaron: manager would be wise to step aside for a moment and let them get in. Actually a lot like you did with, telegraphing. Almost over transparency. This is what I'm doing, this is what I'm doing. Let them see how you're driving. Let them see every turn you're making. And eventually they get to a point where they're like, yeah, he's driving fine. I don't, they don't want to drive. And property managers hold that close to the chest. I can't let them get in. I can't let them, do X, Y, and Z because that's my job. That's my responsibility. And they guard that tenaciously and that actually leads to more distrust in the moment than trust. [00:33:48] Yeah, I actually [00:33:49] Jason: teach. And I've had a podcast episode on this subject before, but I actually teach clients that the one thing that people want to buy from a property manager is not property management. What they want to buy is safety and certainty. Yeah. They want to buy peace of mind. That's really what you're selling as a property manager. And so if you're not using LIL and that framework, And you're not going to get those positive consequences. And if you're not making them feel safe, you're actually going to have a higher operational cost in your business because you're going to have a whole bunch of owners that are micromanaging you because yes, if they don't feel safe, they're going to create safety. Yes. In the form of leading and micromanaging you. And if the only positive way to push back on that is to let them know that you know what you're doing to showcase the expertise and let them know that you are better at this than them. Yes. Based on proven history and results. Yes. [00:34:44] Aaron: I, that is such a great point, Jason. Matter of fact, that's really, really kind of the key, if they'll filter everything through what you just said, if they'll filter everything through this idea. Building that trust and managing that relationship that way and not the property. The property's easy to manage. People are tough to manage. True. And if you'll manage to those, like you said, those, those expectations with their end goal then you can manage the property kind of on, on the side. In fact, it's interesting. I would also say that anytime, That they see Anytime that, our clients see micromanagement from their clientele, that should be the first cue that they're on their way out. Yeah. You know that they're, they don't trust you, that they're not trusting and that eight, eight out of 10 times 80% of the time, I would say that when you have an owner or property manager or an executive body that's frustrated or micromanaging they don't know it yet sometimes, but they're already beginning the process of finding somebody who they feel that can do a better job and they never do. [00:35:50] They only find somebody to solve a problem for a minute. But the problem is really, like you said, trust, expectation, those relationships, because the property is not the challenge. [00:36:01] Jason: Yeah. I mean, there might be one counter to this. So one thing that's I think is really interesting is we'll have clients in our coaching program and sometimes they're just like grumpy and they complain about everything and they're frustrated, but they stay. And then sometimes they're really happy and they're getting great results and then they leave. And so what we've learned to pay attention to, In the realm of client success is that it's not even necessarily connected to whether or not they are happy or you're getting them great results or not. Which is really weird, but client retention is based on whether or not they still see a future with you or not. And that there's a future plan. And so as long as they have a future goal, a future roadmap, they might be miserable as they do all of it, but they'll still stick with you because they see a future that includes you, and so they'll stay with you, but it's very easy for them to start creating a new future the second they start not having a good experience with you, they start to imagine, man, it might be better with somebody else. Yeah. [00:37:00] Aaron: And with that, you can't discount the 80 20 rule either, right? There's a, there's the law of averages and statistically speaking, it's been proven, a thousand times that. 20% of your clientele is going to be 80% of your time expenditure. Right. [00:37:13] Jason: Which is why you should probably fire 20% of your clients. [00:37:17] Aaron: I knew you were going to say that. I set you up, Jason. I knew you were going to say that. I the truth is I've actually watched property managers do that very thing and they just end up with the different 20%. Right? Right. Yeah. So better, the better way to do it is if you're going to fire, because I don't think. I don't think the idea is lost. I think you got to look at profitability and Yeah. Which ones are really not making you money, right? And those are the ones to let go because you're going to end up with the same 20% of kind of high maintenance clientele. And if they're profitable, then maintain it. And if they're not, then call it and get to the 20% of higher profitability clients. Right. That's again, coming back to intention. [00:37:58] Jason: I would agree related, if you're focused just on the currency of cash, but if you're focused on the currency of like your peace of mind and time and other things, then it might not be worth it. [00:38:10] Aaron: Some. That's a great point. That's so true. [00:38:12] Jason: So it might not be worth it because it really, the goal of a business isn't just money. The goal of a business is to give us more freedom, more fulfillment as a business owner, more of a sense of contribution and more support. That's why we build a business, why we build a team. And so some owners are stealing that from people, and I think a lot of times it's easily solved by just setting really good boundaries, expectations. And like you were talking about communication. Yeah. And that most owners, when they're micromanaging like that, they just want to know you're actually holding the steering wheel. That's it. As soon as they recognize that, they're like, oh, okay, I'm fine. And so a lot of times it's just a matter of being stronger towards them. Like some of my clients, I teach them to say, 'No, Mr. Owner, we're not going to do that and here's why.' And then suddenly that owner disarms. But a lot of times if they say, okay, I'll do that for you, the owner then goes, 'oh, I now need to lead them through everything to get the results that I want.' [00:39:08] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. So that's great. [00:39:12] Jason: Interesting stuff. All right, so, now a lot a lot of my clients are managing small multi-family units, single family residential, maybe some condos. There might be some association management. When does it make sense to reach out to North Star? [00:39:28] Aaron: When they want to use and empower the actual math is what I call it, when they want to use and empower the actual revenue versus expense load for decision making processes. Okay. It's really, there's a balance between the revenue and the expense load, and in almost all cases, the expense load is higher. So when I call it a balance, it's not like it's an equal balance. The expense load over time is higher when you factor in the revenue with profitability, et cetera. So how do we empower the math to make decisions based on the actual dollars and cents and not just aesthetics? [00:40:08] Jason: Okay, so let's take an example. Should they reach out to North Star if they have an owner that they can tell is not doing things mathematically effectively so that they can actually leverage your data in insight to say to this owner, you're being an idiot. You need to do it this way. Is that a good case example. [00:40:28] Aaron: It's a great example. In fact, in downtown Boise there's a highrise, I won't mention it. And very nice, very, kind of high end highrise. And the property manager called us, this is actually just a couple years ago, but I still play this one out because it changed everything. And they were ready to spend $50,000 just on a furniture rehab. And long story short is the furniture was already nice. I mean, high end from the lobby to the rooftop. And in the end we ran through reserve study, helped them see that a $50,000 was not only not in the budget, but a gross overspend. They still spent 15 grand, but that other 35 went to a future roof project that they were not only not prepared for, but didn't have properly funded. So the answer is yes, to I would say anytime that a property manager wants to help mitigate or remove the emotion from the pushback that they might get with their owners or executive body and using the math to make those financial decisions, that's an appropriate time to call North Star. Another great aspect of having a reserve study and having the proper financial is creating continuity. So once you start that decision making process, owners and property managers get really good at creating continuity for that decision making process, and that reduces the time expenditure on a property that reduces the discussion, meeting time, expenditure with their owners. And so we call it continuity. In fact, we have a continuity program, which is really a consulting program that we use the existing study to take them through a year long process of decision making and preparation where we are basically on retainer by the course of the year to interact and help create that continuity. Directly, it's actually always designed for the property manager. So that's create continuity for the property manager to use the financials to manage those long-term decisions. [00:42:20] Jason: So I imagine another use case would be they're about to take on a rough property and I get questions like this, should I take it on? Yeah. I mean, often the answer is no. But if the owner is amenable to like fixing it up, making the changes necessary, but a lot of times there's a lot of emotion in it for them. Yeah. And so if they can connect them to the math and to reality through something like working with North Star then, and they're willing to do this, then they could end up being a good client and it could be a good scenario. [00:42:51] Aaron: That's correct. And we resist all things boiler plate, right? We like to tailor it to the real circumstance. We do use some boiler plate numbers to help owners get to a basic understanding of profitability and whether or not to buy a property. More often than not, Jason the questions usually: I want to make an improvement on an existing property, and should I? What's the downstream cost and the downstream cost of maintaining that improvement? Yeah. Right. We want to resurface the streets and, or we want to we want to add in a bar to this, to this, mini restaurant or a bar area. And so you, we've got to look at, where the cost expenditure is and the long-term maintenance of that improvement. [00:43:33] Jason: I would imagine that property managers, if they've even done a few of these situations or scenarios with you, learn an immense amount of insight and knowledge just by through association with what you're doing. [00:43:48] Aaron: Yes. In fact, that's, I didn't start this business doing the consulting side of this. I started with just, reserve studies, right? We just produce a reserve study, we produce the math, and it's my nature to kind of help people through that. And I don't push back on people with meeting and the time expense of meeting. [00:44:05] I help them through it. But that has evolved over years into really a full consulting program because you're exactly right, property managers when they really know how to use it They need less of my expertise on the reserve study and more of my expertise on using the reserve study to manage again, people right, to manage expectations of people, to manage tough conversations with people. Property managers have more longevity in managing a property. I find when one, they have that trust, and two, they do have some profitability because you're right, it is about those people. But their investors want to see good financials. And when the property manager can focus on intentional trust while at the same time producing transparent and profitable financials, I mean, I don't know why anybody would want to leave a property manager that is performing at that level. [00:45:00] Jason: Yeah. So I think the next question somebody would have is, this has to be really expensive. Would it make sense? Like say I get an investor and he's got like, a hundred unit building, or I get a different investor and he's got a hundred single family units and I'm going to bring in this portfolio. Is this something that. Is financially going to make sense? Is there a way for this property manager to convince the owner to do this, and for the property manager to be able to afford to do this in a way that it's going to make them money? [00:45:32] Aaron: Yeah. In a very rare circumstance, has it not really and I'm just being very candid, in a very rare circumstance, has it not financially made sense. In fact, in 2019, and it just happened to be a good timing in late 2019, we created what we call a virtual site inspection for those properties were financially, they just don't maybe have the volume of assets to merit a 30 year full reserve study in the consulting. Yeah. And and so we do a virtual site inspection, which is a little bit more boiler plate, but we'll go on. As long as I have satellite images, I'll do a virtual site inspection from satellite imagery. I can usually get some really great street view images and I can build a reserve study without ever leaving the office. We have staff here and I've got one guy and that's all he does. He just looks at those virtual studies. He builds these virtual studies so we don't ever have to mobilize. We did that because that got the price, the mobilization costs down and therefore it got the price of the reserve study commensurate to producing well, just a profitable report, so it didn't make sense. Yeah, it's not cheap to to, again, to be candid with you, there's a lot that goes into it. Sure. On a high rise, we might have, 80 hours into a full study with the site inspection and all the data gathering. So it's generally not cheap. And so we do try to find balance in that. [00:46:49] Jason: Got it. Well, this is interesting. I think we've gotten a lot of info from you. I appreciate you being here on the show. [00:46:57] For those that are curious or interested in maybe doing their first, reserve study or in connecting with you, how can they get ahold of north Star Reserve? [00:47:10] Aaron: Well, for your customers and clients, Jason, I'd give my personal information out. So they can contact me directly at aaron@northstarreserves.com. [00:47:21] aaron@northstarreserves.com, all spelled out northstarreserves.com is our website. They can call our office at (208) 365-0977 and we'd be happy to help out, put a quote. I don't charge for any upfront consulting. We'll take anybody through their property, their needs just to make sense and vet out whether or not it even makes sense. And I I feel that's just ought to be industry standard, and help people make sure it makes sense in the first place. Right. [00:47:52] Jason: Awesome. Well then hopefully everybody reaches out. Right? I appreciate you. All right, awesome. Well, we appreciate you being on the show, Aaron. This was really insightful and yeah, I'm really, I'm going to be curious to see how this could help benefit some of our clients as well. So thanks for coming on. [00:48:09] Aaron: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you, Jason. All right, so check out northstarreserves.com. Now, if you are a property management entrepreneur and you are wanting to grow your business, add doors, reach out to DoorGrow. We can help you do this if you're wanting to scale your operations, you just feel like you're banging your head against the wall. You're frustrated. You're trying to deal with all these different tools and software and trying to figure out what's the best way to scale my business. And to make a business that's infinitely scalable? You're going to need a lot of systems. And we've developed what we call the Super System. So you're going to need a people system for hiring and vetting candidates. You're going to need a system for operations in an operating system for planning that motivates your team instead of it's top down pushing your team all the time. We have DoorGrow OS. We have DoorGrow Hiring. You're going to need a system for documenting processes. We have DoorGrow Flow, which is a flow chart based software for mapping out processes and having your team run processes through. So if you're wanting to grow your property management and you're wanting to scale it, you're wanting to get a really good coaching for your operator or operations person. You're wanting to get really good coaching for your BDM or your salesperson to grow and scale and add doors. We are the best at this, so reach out to my team. We have a plethora of coaches and resources. [00:49:32] We've been doing this for over a decade. We love growing and scaling property management companies, and we know that we can help you. If you're willing to just do what we tell you to do, so reach out to DoorGrow. We would love to help you out. And if you want to test just something, test your website, go to DoorGrow.com/quiz test your property management website and see how effective it is. Usually this is enough to get people to wake up and go, 'Hey, I've got some leaks in my business people.' So most of you have leaky websites that you've gotten from people that are not DoorGrow, and your website is leaking you leads, deals, and money every single week. You could potentially be getting twice as many leads in deals if you're scoring an A on this DoorGrow Quiz. But most are scoring a D, C, or sometimes an F, right? So take this quiz, check it out, DoorGrow.com/quiz and grade your website. And that's it for today. Until next time to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. [00:50:30] Jason Hull: You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay-per-lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow! [00:50:57] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

All of us on some level, desire a transformation in our marriage. Whether that transformation is a small change or a complete overhaul, We want to experience more joy, more peace, more love and more purpose. The truth is….we are always going through some form of transformation, for there is no such thing as staying the same. The question is, are we transforming into what God desires or something else?--This episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team, who have chosen to help financially support this show monthly. Here is a shout-out to some of our most recent patrons. Nicole MitchellDawn GKimberly SKatharine CCandice GRegena JWe thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing 10's of thousands of couples with free daily prayer emails and this weekly podcast.If you have been blessed by the free marriage after god content, wed love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit marriageaftergod.com/patron TRANSCRIPTAaron:Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God Podcast. All of us on some level desire a transformation in our marriage. Whether the transformation is a small change or a complete overhaul, we want to experience more joy, more peace, more love, and more purpose. Jennifer:The truth is, we are always going through some form of transformation, for there is no such thing as staying the same. The question is, are we transforming into what God desires, or something else? Aaron:This episode is brought to you by our faithful patron team who have chosen to help financially support this show. Here's a shout to some of the most recent patrons: Nicole M, Don G, Kimberly S, Katherine C, Candace, G, and Regina J. We thank you so much for choosing to partner with us in blessing tens of thousands of couples, with free daily prayer emails, and this weekly podcast.If you've been blessed by this free Marriage After God content, we'd love to invite you to join our patron team. Please visit Marriageaftergod.com/patron. Jennifer:Well, this has been a whole month now of the podcast. Aaron:We're doing it. Jennifer:It's awesome. Aaron:We are doing it. Jennifer:Welcome to 2023. How's January been for you? Aaron:Well, it feels like we've been doing better because we're better as in, we've talked about, we're getting into routines. The routines look different than they used to, but we're getting some routines and I like it. Jennifer:Yeah, sometimes you just got to reset. Sometimes life forces you to reset. Aaron:Yeah, hence 2020, 2021, 2022. Jennifer:Every year there's been new reset. Yeah, so what's been happening lately since last week? Aaron:Well, just before ... Jennifer:Oh, yeah, I was going to say that. Aaron:Yeah. I walk in, and I wanted to Jennifer look at the notes and she's like, "What notes?" I'm like, "Oh my goodness. Was one of the kids in here?" Jennifer:There was just two sentences and a bunch of gibberish. Aaron:Garbly. Yeah. Jennifer:Did you say garbly? Aaron:Garbly goop. It was, all the notes were deleted, literally. Jennifer:Who was the culprit? That's what I want to know. Aaron:I'm wondering what else happened in our room. Luckily, I was able to restore the notes so we weren't out of luck, but something that is awesome that happened this week is I got to start Jiu-Jitsu. Jennifer:Nice. The kids have been doing it for a year. Did you know that? Aaron:It's been a whole year? Jennifer:I know. Crazy. Went by fast. Aaron:They're getting really good and I was getting jealous, and I'm like, "I got to get good at Jiu-Jitsu so that I can wrestle with them and them not win me every time." I started this week and I think you're a little jealous, because I think you want to start too. Jennifer:I've been wanting to start for seven months. I feel like out of everyone in the family, Mom gets to make those kind of choices last because everyone's got to be okay if I'm going to step out of the house. Aaron:It is true. We need you a lot. Jennifer:Timing was off, but who knows? Aaron:I think we might try it this week though together, on a date night or something. Jennifer:I think we're going to try it on a date night. Aaron:We should do it. Jennifer:It's just a fundamentals class, so there it'll be easy for me, I think. Not easy, but I'm not going to do what you're doing. Aaron:Straightforward. Yeah. To be honest, it was one of the most rewarding and intense workouts I've had in a very long time. I walk out drenched, soaking. It's disgusting. I'm so wet. I was getting in the van and I had to look for something to sit on so I wouldn't get the seat all wet. Jennifer:That's gross. Aaron:It was really gross, and I'm also really sore. To be honest, I felt really good after the first class. I was like, "Dang, I'm not that bad. I did awesome." Then the second class, I realized everyone was probably being really nice to me because I'm not good at all. That was awesome, actually. Jennifer:Does that make you want to go back? Aaron:Yeah. It was still a lot of fun. No one was mean about it. Everyone's so nice and they want, everyone wants to get good together. Yeah, it just made me excited. Jennifer:That's good for this episode. Get good together. That's what we should call it. Aaron:Get good together. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to growing in it. Jennifer:Cool. Well, something that's been interesting for me was a little bit unexpected, just because we've had conversations about it, but ... Aaron:Privately. Jennifer:The kids started praying for me crazy ... Aaron:Out of nowhere. Jennifer:... that I would have another baby, and it really warms my heart. Aaron and I have talked about this in the past. We're like, we look at Edith, she's two, almost three, and she's been our baby for so long that it's like ... Aaron:Is this the longest gap we've had so far? Yeah. Jennifer:WI think to myself, okay, well if this is all the kids that we have, I'm totally content and happy with where our family is at. Then there's this piece of my heart that I'm like, but if I did have another, that'd be awesome. Aaron:Our hands are always open in that sense. We want God's will. At the same time, we're praying and asking God to bring us along with them. Our kids started praying for it. Jennifer:Every day. Aaron:At Bible time, I'm like, "Who would anyone like to pray?" First prayer, God give mommy a baby. Then Elliot just came up randomly, me and you were talking this morning, just about the day, and I can't remember what we were talking about. He just comes over and puts his hands on both of us and looks at us and starts praying for a baby. We're like, okay, I guess you guys want a baby. Jennifer:That's just been going on a week. Aaron:We will see if you guys get an announcement at some point this year about a baby. Jennifer:Stick around if you want to hear it announced on the podcast. Aaron:You will hear about it if that happens. Jennifer:We shall see. Aaron:For this topic, transforming your marriage, it's hard to say that. Transforming. Jennifer:No, it's get better together, or what'd you say? Aaron:Yeah, let's do this together. Get better together. Transforming your marriage together. We wanted to bring up some ideas, and we actually have seven of them for you. What inspired this idea for you, Jennifer? You kind of wrote down some of these ideas that we've been building off of. Jennifer:Yeah. Well, the initial just idea of, hey, let's talk about transformation for a minute. Marriage came because of a conversation that we had back in December. I was having a hard time dealing with desiring change and wanting change, and being frustrated over things not changing, Aaron:Which also has been the theme for this whole month. Jennifer:Yeah, yeah. I remember calling you, and we were having a conversation about, well, I was letting my emotions out and you, you're being a good listener. Then you said, "Let's transform together. Let's be transformed together," or something like that. Aaron:Yeah. Well, because you felt like you couldn't. I don't know how to do this. I can't do this. That's why we've been talking about this in various aspects throughout this month, but we all feel that way. That's why I shared it. I feel like there's things in my life that I can't break out of either, that I can't change. Then I was just saying, "Well, we have to be transformed."That's the only way we have true change in our life is if there's a transformation. We can't be the same person but act differently. We can't be the same in the same place and yet be in a different place. We have to change. We have to move. Jennifer:I think the tension of the agony in all of our lives when it comes to transformation is we're on one side where we desire the change, because we're frustrated over the results and things happening because of where we're at ... Aaron:The consequences of where we're at. Jennifer:We also know that to get to the other side of change, it just requires a lot. Aaron:It's painful. Jennifer:It's painful, and it's hard to make those changes and those habits, and redefining rhythms and routines, and things that will help make all of that happen. Aaron:I think an encouragement also about transformation, because it's easy to say, we got to be transformed. It's like, well, yeah. How? I think the first step, and it's something that we've been trying to reiterate, is that first of all, we can change. If there's areas in our lives that we don't like, or that we know God wants change in us, we have the ability to, because God's putting his spirit. He's put his spirit in us. It's not impossible, and they feel that way, but the reality is we, are being transformed.Like we said in the beginning of this episode, all of us are being transformed into something. Either we're being lazy or we're being lax, and we're being transformed into something that we don't want because we're just letting it happen, or we're following God, we're putting our eyes on him. We're seeking first his kingdom. We're letting his spirit work in us. We're not fighting it, and we're being transformed into his likeness. Jennifer:The lie is that we're stuck. Aaron:The lie is that we can't change the lies is that there, that we are what we are. Jennifer:We're here in our heads. We'll never change. That's what I was getting stuck in, is like, no, I'm never going to change. You see yourself one way, and it gets really hard to see yourself in a new way. Aaron:Yeah. Believing that we can, like you said, but then also believing what God says and believing that he has something for us. Jennifer:The reason why we wanted to bring this up to you today for those listening is because we kind of had this conversation going on in our marriage, and we know that we're not the only ones who have struggled with desiring change in marriage, or in parenting, or in life, in so many different areas of life. We want to encourage you guys, if you're in that place of desiring change and transformation, we hope that today encourages you.Maybe what we share, not every single bit of it will stick with you or be something that you feel like you need to work on, but I'm sure there's at least one or two. Aaron:Well, and the point is, there's this saying that it says, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Well, if you think about the whole thing, you're like, it can. The goal is taking that next step, just moving forward, asking God, saying, "God, help me get to the whatever the next footprint is." Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:Not trying to look at the goal a thousand miles away and saying, "I can never get there." Just realize there's a journey that we're all on. We hope you feel the grace and the mercy that God's been showing us is that it's okay that we're on this journey, and that we sometimes don't know what we're doing. Transformation and change feels hard because it is, actually. We all can do it because we have Christ. Jennifer:We're going to share seven ways that you can transform your marriage with your spouse. Some of these are practical, some of them are just good old fashioned truth from the Bible. We hope that these stick with you guys and encourage you toward that change you've been yearning for. Aaron:A lot of these things are things that we ourselves have recognized helped us or will help us as we have been trying to implement them more. It's not like we've just came up with these for you. This is things that work for us too. Jennifer:Our experience. Aaron:This first one, I've mentioned it so many times in other episodes, but it works so well for you, Jennifer, but it also works really well for me. Jennifer:For us. Aaron:For us. Jennifer:We get to see it together. Aaron:What is it? It's write it out. It's very practical. The idea is write it out. This first one ... Jennifer:Not ride, write it out. Aaron:Not ride it out. That is a good tip, actually. Just get through. No, write it out, W-R-I-T-E. There's something really powerful about writing things down. Jennifer:We've kind of been doing it all week with the growth spurt, if people have been following along. Aaron:We got our own cards out. The fact that I wrote it down and put it on the refrigerator ... Jennifer:Makes you think about it every day. Aaron:I see it, and I realize I'm like, oh man, I'm not following through with that thing that I said I'm going to do. I'm looking at the clock right now actually. The thing I wrote down was I'm going to be in bed by nine, and I did it last night just about. Jennifer:You're not supposed to talk about it yet. Aaron:Sorry. Jennifer:That's the notes on there for later. Aaron:Yeah. Okay. Jennifer:You guys have to listen to the rest of the episode today to hear more. Yeah, I'm going to cut you off. Aaron:The idea behind this is meet together to write down some goals you have for your marriage. Jennifer:Sometimes we don't even know what it is that we want to change into or be transformed in unless we get it out of our hearts, get it out of our heads and see it on a piece of paper. You go, "Oh yeah, that's what it is. That's what I want." Aaron:These actually, they could be large goals, but something things that are practical, especially when you start talking together, you start realizing like, oh, there's some disparaging thing. Well, you have this goal and I have this goal. How can we meet in the middle? How can we figure that out? What's awesome about that is you figure that out. Jennifer:Compromising. Aaron:Yeah, compromising. Then also finding out, well, what are some large goals we have that we can write down and shoot for that might take years? What are some short term or smaller goals that we can start focusing on now? Jennifer:It sounds like more though, that's more for a couple who wants to dream together. If this whole episode is about transforming your marriage, we're talking more relational goals here. Aaron:Relationship, home life, spiritual walk goals. Goals. You can also break them up, goals for your walk with God, maybe individually and together; goals for your marriage. What do you want your marriage to look like? What do you want to represent? What do you want people to say about your marriage? What do you want to show to your kids in your marriage?Then the next one would be goals for your family. What do you want your family to look like? Represent? How do you want it to operate? For us, we've talked about this. We used to do bible time very consistently every day. A goal for us would be like, "Hey, let's get back to that consistency of doing Bible time every day throughout the week." Jennifer:Then asking each other, "What's the best time to do that?" That's where that compromise comes in of like, okay, well, for me, it'd be this time and let's work that out. I also want to just add right here that my encouragement would be, don't go list 25 ways you want your marriage to improve.Pick one or two, because you want something that you can work towards and feel good about when you're actually feeling the success of it, when you're feeling the change coming and you're making those decisions. If you overwhelm yourself with a lofty list, then your mind and heart's going to freak out because it's going to be hard. Aaron:Yeah. Some of the ways, I just want to mention one more thing. When we write these things down, you kind of said a second ago, it gets things that we may not know how to verbalize them in the moment, or they're things that just have dwelled in our hearts. Maybe those things have turned into anxiety or frustration or bitterness, because we don't see them happening, but they're also never being voiced in a real tangible way.It gives it a place to live. It makes it from this internal secret thing to a real life thing that can be looked at, evaluated, calculated, remembered, and even held accountable to, because it exists. Jennifer:Also just to add to that list, a repetition of seeing it helps you remember about it. There's so many things that we've talked about, and then it's like, once we've talked about it's gone and you forget so easily. Yet if you write it down and you see it constantly, in that repetition, you're forming that memory in your brain to be on it. Aaron:A couple of things this does for you in your marriage. If you guys plan a night to sit down, maybe it's at a date night, which is often when Jennifer and I do it, or after the kids go to bed, or in the morning after breakfast. I don't know, whatever works for you guys. You guys start getting into a habit of planning things together. Hey, we're going to do this together now. It's like, it's not just, oh, let's hang out and talk. It's a let's be specific and focused. It also gives you an opportunity to figure out life together.Now, you're building this bond of like, hey, let's talk about things that are important to us and what that looks like. The third thing is it brings accountability. Like we said, Bible time. Jennifer, you look at me, you're like, "Hey, remember we decided we're going to do bible time?" Jennifer:Oh yeah. Aaron:I'm like, "Yes." Then I stop what I'm doing because she knows that's the moment that we would do it. I sit down. Now we can help each other because we made that agreement together. We wrote these things down together. Now that bond and that commitment is all really good stuff that happens in your marriage. Jennifer:Let me ask this question, if that's all really good, especially if you're on the same page and there's unity and oneness toward working towards some of these things. Let's say you are listening right now, but Aaron, I'm posing this to you. If you're as a listener and you're thinking, okay, well me and my spouse, we're not quite there yet, and I don't know if we'll be able to have that conversation. Is it something you could do individually, separate? Aaron:Well, if ... Jennifer:For a time while the Lord's working on both of you. Aaron:Yah, maybe there's a relationship where it's not as tight and maybe that wouldn't be this season right now, they're not going to be sitting down and writing goals together. Yeah, absolutely. Again, we believe in the Holy Spirit. We believe in what God tells us. A wife or husband, if you're the one wanting to do this, I would say start, your planning and goal setting should be a regular prayer for your spouse.Lord, help me to grow in my love for them. Lord, help them transform into the man or the woman that you have made them to be. Seeing look more like these prayer goals for your spouse who maybe not be on the same page with you to be drawn into it more. Jennifer:That's good. Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:All right. This next one, we're on number two. We're only on number two. Number two, how to transform your marriage. We're going to take it back to Sunday school. Okay, guys. It's because, if we're honest, we don't always operate this way. Aaron:No. We want others to, but we don't. Jennifer:Okay. Number two is the golden rule. Aaron:Yeah. If we can incorporate the golden rule into our marriage, into our life, oh, man. It would literally would change everything. Jennifer:You're saying. Intentionally do it like it. Well, because we do probably generally think about this at some point, but maybe not. I don't know. Aaron:The golden rule. If you don't know it, Matthew seven 12, Jesus says, "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them for this is the law and prophets." Jennifer:Okay, so question. Do you operate in this with me? Aaron:I would say I try to on a regular basis, but I would say the times that I don't is not good. Jennifer:Yeah. That's kind of where I land. We need to be better at this. Okay. Aaron:Often, the way my kids put it, because the way they hear this is I'm going to do to them as they do to me. I'm like, "That's not what it says." Often that's what we do. We do. You did this, so I'm going to do it. Jennifer:We just mirror everybody. Aaron:Instead of breaking that cycle and saying, "Oh, I'm not going to do that thing because I wouldn't want it done to me." If we just applied this rule more regularly, if we looked at our life and said, "I'm going to commit, Lord, you helping me to do unto my wife as I would wish her to do unto me," man, it would change everything. If I treated you the way I wanted to be treated, if I don't want you to be harsh to me, then I should be gentle to you, right?I'm going to treat you. I want you to be gentle. I'm going to be gentle. If I wouldn't want you to lie to me, which I don't know anyone who would want someone to lie to them, then I shouldn't lie to you even about little things. It keeps going. If I'm going to want to be pursued by you ... Jennifer:You were going to see by someone else. Aaron:I know. I don't know why I was going to say that. If I want to be pursued by you, then I should pursue you. Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:If I want to be encouraged, then I should be encouraging. I should encourage you as much as I would want to be encouraged by you. The point is, whether or not you do it to me, that's what I would want, so I should treat you that way. Jennifer:Galatians five 13 through 14 says, "For you're called to freedom brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Aaron:If we love each other the way we want to be loved, if I love you as myself, which in marriage you are myself, that's what the Bible teaches, we're one. I'm actually fulfilling the law and it continues on, and it says, "I would never steal from you if I love you. I would never lie to you if I love you. I would never murder you if I love you." You don't break the law. When you love someone, you're actually fulfilling all of the law in it.If we treat each other, golden rule, the way we want to be treated, there'll be so much more joy and peace and power and forgiveness in all the things that we want because we're doing it. Even if only one person's doing it, you're getting 50% more of it than you were before. Jennifer:Right. All right, moving on to number three. Should we say it together? Aaron:Okay. One, two, three. Jennifer:If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Aaron:If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. That's really funny, because it's been our whole life here, right? Jennifer:Yeah. I'm sure everybody. Aaron:My parents always saying that. We always said something not nice. Jennifer:Even still, there's times we want to speak our minds. Aaron:Often, we get angry, we're hurt, and we think that gives us the right to say angry and hurtful things to our spouse. Maybe some of you don't, but we have when we feel justified. Jennifer:I was going to say, because the things that I don't mean to hurt you or be mean, I think I'm just stating the obvious or observing something, or saying something that's true. The way that I'm saying it or ... Aaron:Well, it's the heart and the intention and then the purpose behind it is what's not nice. I was saying critiques are good, this note I put here. When they're brought constructively, so like you said ... Jennifer:Well, not in the middle of an argument. Aaron:Well, and with the purpose of constructive criticism and love, and like you said, not in the middle of I'm mad at you, and therefore, boom. Jennifer:Right. Here's another one. Aaron:We've done it and we do it. If we can practice holding our tongues, meaning being quiet, not saying the thing that comes to our top of our mind when we're in the middle of a heated argument, or we're hurt or frustrated, is so much more fruitful than just letting it out. Jennifer:This is a really big one for making transformation happen in your marriage, because you listed a practical and an action, where it is how you treat each other, but the tongue, you hear that over and over and over again. The things that you say to your spouse, they are not easily forgotten, and they bring up ... Aaron:Especially if your spouse repeats them often, because that could happen. Becoming an echo chamber, here's things that I'm going to continue to say. Sometimes it comes from a heart of I just want, and you've said this, I have to say something because I feel like if I don't, they're not going to change. They won't ... Jennifer:You won't know. Yeah. Aaron:... Deceive that thing. Jennifer:Yeah. All I'm saying is even though it's a small part of our body, our tongues are so powerful. What's that proverb where it talks about the tongue brings life or death? It builds up a home or tears it down. Aaron:He who loves it, eats it, eats up its fruit or something like that. Jennifer:Yeah. We should have put that note in here, but seriously, we could have a great day. We could be treating each other well. We could be hitting our goals, but if we don't practice self-control with our tongues, or thinking before we speak ... Aaron:Well, and to be honest, silence is often better than saying the thing that you want to say. Jennifer:Not the silent treatment, that's different. Aaron:Not the silent treatment. Yeah. Not saying silent as a weapon, but holding your tongue as a form of love. Jennifer:Being slow to speak love. Aaron:Yes, slow to speak and quick to listen is what the Bible says. There's a verse that should put some fear in us about how we talk to each other. It's in Galatians five 15. It's actually the continuation of verse you just read. It says, "But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another."This idea of are we walking in the flesh so much with each other, the way we communicate with each other, the way we talk to each other, and we're not loving our neighbors ourself, we're not loving our spouse as we love ourself, we're not doing unto others as we'd have them do unto us, that it turns into this biting and devouring of one another. Jennifer:Like a cycle of just going back and forth. Aaron:I feel like we've brought this up before, but when we are talking this way, even in an argument, we're chipping away at ourselves, because we're one. We're chipping away our teammanship, our unity, our oneness, and our love. Being quiet is so much better than letting it out. Okay, number four. Stop being easily offended. Jennifer:This was a huge one for us. We started out this list by telling you guys this list was based off of our own experience and what we walk through. Aaron:Things that we're actually trying to walk through, yeah. Jennifer:When we came to this realization that, "Hey, we're actually being really easily offended. We need to stop doing this," it was a game changer. Aaron:Really was. This is actually one of the attributes of love. Love is patient, love is kind, and then it says, "Love is not irritable or resentful." Irritable means easily frustrated, easily offended, like bothered. It's like this. It's an oversensitivity. Jennifer:You walk past me, and you've done something that I disagree with or it's frustrating, or you do something differently than how I would do it, and I just respond. I just snap. Aaron:You snap. Yeah. Jennifer:I huff under my breath and I'm just irritated by you. Aaron:A good way of looking at this is when we make people feel like they have to walk on eggshells, that old idiom that says like, oh, I have to tippy toe. If I just slightly crack that little egg over there, you're going to like freak out on me. Jennifer:Another way this happens is by, if one of us wants to share something, and we say it the wrong way, or our intention is well, and we feel like it needs to be said, but the other person is just easily offended, they can't even hear what's being said, because they're just resistant to hearing. That's happened before. Aaron:I think we become easily offended when we get stuck in a place of loving ourselves more than we love our spouse. Jennifer:That's good. Yeah. Aaron:What that means is I love myself so much that I don't want you to step on my toe, or hurt my feelings, or say something that's going to bother me, or do something that I'm embarrassed by, or anything that's going to make me feel uncomfortable or inconvenienced or you name it. Jennifer:Yeah. The question in the head goes, why aren't you doing X or Y or Z? Aaron:For me. Jennifer:For me, yeah. Aaron:You did this thing against me, and now I am feeling this way, or it comes from a place of insecurity. You're ashamed or guilty, or you feel a certain way about yourself. We take that out on our spouse. We make them want them to be at fault for how we feel. Jennifer:Like projecting our feelings. Aaron:Yeah. There could be so many other reasons for this. We're not psychologists, but ... Jennifer:I could say one thing. When you're not abiding in the word and you're not walking with Christ, our flesh gets irritated. Aaron:Easily, yeah. Jennifer:Bothered. We get selfish. We get all kinds of pride. That's just another way. Sorry, go ahead. Aaron:No, but if we truly love, we will not be irritable or resentful. Always having it out for our spouse, like, "Oh, they always are this way with me." A good place to start with this is again, going back to that, writing it down, maybe having, writing down, "Hey, we're going to work on not being easily offended," and then reminding each other in those moments of a quick irritation, a quick offense.Why'd you do that? Why'd you say that to me? Reminding each other that we're working on it? "Hey, remember, we're working on not being easily offended?" Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:If I bothered you, let's talk about it, but let's not be easily offended, and then going back and forth. I think that's a really good place to start. Jennifer:I just want to add, if you're listening right now and there's been tension in your marriage for any reason, start here. Make this one your number one. Aaron:That's good. Jennifer:Yep. Aaron:Number five. This is going to be a hard one for some people and a really good one for some people: more romance and more sex. Jennifer:Okay, Aaron. Aaron:Okay. I could have said more intimacy. That's what I originally wrote. Then I wanted to be more specific because the wife's going to see intimacy one way and the husband's going to see it another way. Really ... Jennifer:I think we all get it though. Aaron:We need both romance and sex. We need the blessing of what both of those bring to our marriage, both the physical and the emotional. That's kind of how I categorize this. Romance is more of the emotional intimacy, that connection, and then the physical is that sex. It's the physical connection where two are becoming one and the bodies are connecting. They're both necessary, both needed, and we shouldn't do one and not the other. Jennifer:Yeah. Anytime we've intentionally focused on this area of our life and just made it kind of a focus for us, it's blessed us. It's helped us. Aaron:Always. Yeah. Jennifer:It's made our relationship feel more full. We feel more unified. We feel more connected. We feel more interested in each other. Don't you feel like that? Aaron:Well, the desire grows the more we work on these areas, the more we want them in our life. I don't know if you've noticed, but the order I put these in is for a reason. They're writing it down. You could take each one of these things and start putting these down as relational goals. Jennifer:That's good. Aaron:Then they're visible. The doing into others, so treating your spouse the way you'd want to be treated. If I want my wife to be more physical and more in interested in me in that way, then I'm going to do things that would be loving to her, massages and other types of physical intimacy that she appreciates and desires. Jennifer:I see. Not being easily offended has to be taken care of before you jump into this next one. Aaron:Exactly. Jennifer:Got it. You should have corrected me when I said you should make number three, your number one. I didn't know you put these in order like that. Aaron:Well, I did because this is actually an area where being easily offended always gets in the way. If we have easy offenses ... Jennifer:Makes it so much harder to get there. Aaron:If I'm desiring one thing, and you can't give that to me for whatever reason, you're tired, long day, sore, painful, whatever, and I'm easily offended by that, rather than loving you and being patient and it messes things up and vice versa. Yeah, I did put these in an order because they matter on some sense to work on each one of these areas in little ways. They will all benefit each other. Romance, I just wanted to pull out some ideas for this section that the ... Jennifer:You're going to give them ideas? Aaron:Emotional intimacy. It's this feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love. That's the definition, in search of romance. It's a quality or a feeling of mystery, excitement, a remoteness from everyday life. Jennifer:I like that. It's cool. Aaron:It doesn't have to be this big extravagant thing. How can you just make the moment with your spouse special? Jennifer:Special. Yeah. Aaron:Different. Take them away from that ordinary just for a moment. That could be a going on a walk. It could be bringing something home that's like, "Hey, I thought about you today." That's an excitement. You actually like that when I, like a simple thing, I call you up and I say, "Do you want an iced tea?" Jennifer:I love it. That's awesome. Aaron:You're like, "Oh," awesome because that's out of the ordinary. I'm not always grabbing an iced tea, but you felt thought of. Then you get a special treat out of it. It kind of breaks up the day. Jennifer:I do love that so much, and it makes me feel so good to feel thought of in a special way that you know me, that you know what I would like, and it just affirms my heart and my love, and makes me feel like you're thinking of me, which is good. It's good for us to recognize those times that our spouse goes out of the box. Aaron:Goes out of their way to ... Jennifer:Go out of their way to ... Aaron:To try these things. Try be more romantic and exciting and different. Jennifer:When they do it to affirm them and use your words and say, "I really appreciated that," or, "I really love that." The more we affirm each other in those ways of being that we want to see more of, they'll continue to happen. Aaron:Yeah. Jordan Peterson as a quote says, "Don't ever punish behavior you want repeated." Even if I don't follow through with or do something in the way that you might want, there's been times I've brought you iced tea that you don't like, because you have a taste for certain types of teas, but I didn't know that. Then I learned it. You could have taken the opportunity to punish me for and be like, "This is what you got me. I hate this." Jennifer:Oh, got you. Aaron:You could be like, "What? This was so thoughtful. Just for future, this isn't my favorite tea, but I'm so happy that you did that for me." Jennifer:I think that's what I did. Aaron:That's what you did. I thought, oh, thank you. I didn't know that, because I actually didn't. Now when I get you tea or do something, I think, oh, where would she like me to get tea? Jennifer:That's awesome. Aaron:It also has taught me to ask you for future, "Hey, where's your favorite place to get this?" Jennifer:It's like a get to know me. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Aaron:Don't punish those behaviors you want repeated, even if it doesn't happen the way you want, the way you expect, but affirm it and encourage it, so that it happens more from your spouse on both sides. Jennifer:I like that you kind of broke romance and physical intimacy into separate kind of categories here, because romance is so much more of that connectedness and ... Aaron:That emotional connection. Jennifer:It's so important. It's an important part of marriage, but so is physical intimacy. I think it's really important for us to remember that our spouses need us. It's weird that I put that in the plural, just ... Aaron:Our spouses. Jennifer:Our spouse needs us and we have needs. Being there for one another and being willing to make the effort and put our hearts and our minds toward that is ... Aaron:Oh, we're talking about the physical side now. Jennifer:Yeah, yeah. In the physical, just as much as the romance are connected side of things. Aaron:Yeah. I wanted to bring up on the physical side of things, because I know that this is a huge area of struggle in a lot of marriages. It was a huge one for us for many years. It's only been in the last handful of years that it's been getting so much better. We've been growing and getting excited about these things and praying about it more. First and foremost, it's a powerful gift. Physical intimacy, sex is a powerful gift from God given to husbands and wives. It really is.We have to change our minds about that. Talking about transformation, we need our minds changed for true transformation to happen. If we can change our mind that sex is a good thing, because I know many people see sex as a bad thing, or a hurtful thing, or something that they don't enjoy. Jennifer:Stressful thing. Aaron:Yeah. It can be all of those things. If we start reminding ourselves and thinking, no, this is a good thing. This is a gift, that'll change a lot of things. Also, it's a command. First Corinthians seven, three, the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. On both sides, it doesn't just say the wife to her husband only, as if every situation is always, the husband needs it more than the wife, because that's not true. There's some situations where it's totally different with the wife and the husband, but it says to both.In other places, it says that her body is not her own. It is yours. Your body is not your own, it is hers. Just reiterating this, the power and the truth behind your oneness. You are one body and you cannot control it and use it and as a weapon. Not only is it a gift, but it's also a command. There's some actual really awesome benefits to sex.If you didn't know this, it helps relieve stress and anxiety. I know sex might gift some people anxiety, and I pray for you that you would, like we said, have a transformation in your mind about this. It does biologically relieve stress and anxiety. The hormones that get released in your body do that. Jennifer:It also helps your immune system. Aaron:It does. Those same hormones that help with relieving stress and anxiety helps boost your immune system. Also, when you have less cortisol in your body, that's the stress hormone, you get sick less because cortisol can actually make you, it weakens your immune system. It helps your immune system. It also brings pleasure and excitement. That's just such a good thing. Jennifer:Joy, yeah. Aaron:We need that in our marriage. We need that connection and that pleasure more. Most importantly, sex reinforces closeness and oneness. Jennifer:Yeah. Speaking of oneness, you brought up earlier, just briefly not using sex as a tool or a weapon, and then you kind of just kept on going. I just want to go back to that really quick. I think sometimes, we don't even realize when we are withholding our bodies from each other because of being easily offended, or thinking that they're not thinking of us. Aaron:Well, they haven't given me what I want yet. Jennifer:There is a list of things that could possibly motivate someone to kind of close themselves off and be guarded. When you say weaponize, and you say using your body as a tool, that's what you're talking about, right? Yeah. Aaron:If you use it in a negative way, it becomes a weapon. Jennifer:It also becomes a roadblock to moving forward, to experience reconciliation and connectedness. Aaron:This is not the kind of transformation we want when we do this, but when we are more free with each other and open with each other in this way. It's good. Now, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be any times that you're like, "Hey, can we forego tonight?" Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:Again, that goes back to the communication, and that goes back to goal setting together and also ... Jennifer:Considering one another. Aaron:Yeah, considering one another, treating each other as we'd like to be treated. Again, there's an order. Okay. Jennifer:What's next in your order, Aaron? Aaron:Invest in your marriage. Okay. I think this sounds obvious, but ... Jennifer:How much money do you have to ... Aaron:Exactly. Well, just having it's almost like if you were to invest in your education, invest in this business, taking one of the most important things in your entire life, and are we ... Jennifer:You're elevating it. Aaron:Are we investing in it? Jennifer:You're saying this is a priority. This is what I'm going to put my effort and my energy and my resources and everything I've got towards, because this matters. Aaron:Investment means I'm going to spend time and money and energy. I'm going to invest. When you invest in your marriage, you're going to get some of the greatest returns you can ever think of. Jennifer:Generational. Aaron:Yeah. You're going to get returns for a long time with your children, because they're going to look back on your marriage and be like, "Wow, my parents, they invested in each other. They loved each other. They weren't perfect, but man, they tried hard." Jennifer:Because of that kind of example, when they get married, they will have the same fortitude and excitement around investing in their marriage. Aaron:At least that's the goal, right? Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:I want my kids to have the same desire. Jennifer:What are some ways we can invest? Aaron:Something we did a long time ago when we were going through some of our hardships, actually, wasn't it right at that end point of things changing for us? Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:We went to a marriage retreat, and there's marriage retreats all over the country. Jennifer:We went to Family Lives Weekend to Remember ... Aaron:Which are awesome. Jennifer:It was actually really cool, because we kind of rededicated our marriage, and our purpose, and everything that we had been walking through just submitted it to God and said, "We're going to keep going." Aaron:You could try Weekend to Remember. That's a family life event. That's a good one. There might be one going on at your church and you don't even know about it. Just look at if you have a pamphlet or a website, or you can Google it. There's a lot of, we'd suggest a Christian marriage retreat, but marriage retreats, that's one really good way to invest in your marriage. What's another one? Jennifer:Reading books together or individually, and just kind of sifting through the notes. Aaron:Talking about them. Jennifer:Talking about them, but there are a lot of marriage books out there. Aaron:Yeah. Do we know any marriage books specifically? Jennifer:No, actually. Marriage After God is one that I would recommend. We have a couple of marriage books if you want to look on our store. Aaron:A few more than a couple, but ... Jennifer:Some devotionals, some prayer books that you guys could do together, which is awesome. Aaron:You can go to shop.marriageaftergod.com to look at everything we have to offer. Jennifer:There's a lot of other good books too, Meeting a Marriage, See Through Marriage, by [inaudible 00:41:35]. Aaron:Sacred Marriage was a really good one. Jennifer:By Gary Thomas. Aaron:Get into books. If you're like me, I like audiobooks. I can consume them quicker, I can also retain them better. Jennifer:I am not an audio person. I have to have the tangible, I can't even do digital. I have to have the book that I can curl the pages back. Aaron:I know. I love something to read too, but also this creates another thing to talk about and to share with each other in growing your marriage, so you're not just investing in what you're consuming, but also what you're discussing with each other. Gives you things to talk about also, which is really good. Regularly planned date nights. Jennifer:Or even double date nights. Go out with another couple, and you'll notice you guys can start talking about marriage. All of a sudden, you don't feel so alone in some of the things you're wrestling in, because ... Aaron:I think we've brought this up in 80 episodes, talking about date night. We say it so often because it's something that we dedicated it to several years ago, how many? Maybe five or six years ago? Jennifer:It was after we had Wyatt, Oliver Wyatt. Aaron:We realized there was a while that had gone by and we're like, "Man, when's the last time we went on a date with each other?" We just put it on the calendar every week, and we figure out a babysitter, and we planned it. Now, that didn't mean we went every week, but just the fact that it was on the calendar, again, the fact that we wrote it down, meant it happened way more often than it would've if we didn't.Investing in that way. Since this is under investing in your marriage, we've talked about in the past that it doesn't have to be something where you go out or spend money. I would say make this an intentional investment of I want to go do something special, even if it's not every time. Jennifer:Catch each other by surprise. Aaron:Yeah. Set a reservation at a restaurant you guys don't go to often. Go throw axes at your local ax throwing place if you have one. Jennifer:Get fast food and go do an activity like some, I don't know, ride bikes or something. Aaron:Invest in a way that's different than normal, if you can. Maybe you have to save for it a little bit, and that's okay. That actually makes it more special. Jennifer:Another way that you can invest in your marriage is find out if your church has a marriage group. Something that really, really affected our marriage in a positive way was the church. Aaron:Probably, I think we often attributed it to saving our marriage. Jennifer:Yeah. We were going to a church back in, I think this is our third year of marriage? We were in California, and they had a marriage group. You came to me and you were like, "Hey, we're going to go. It's on Wednesday night." Aaron:It was terrifying. Jennifer:You need to be there. You need to show up. That was a really dark time for me, and I was resistant toward going and didn't want to do it, but you encouraged us and said, "This is what we need to try." We showed up, and it was scary. There was a lot of people there. When we sat at the table and we started hearing the marriage stories coming up, it was actually really beautiful. Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:Very eye-opening and it had a lot of purpose. You just got to do it. If your church has one, go for it. Aaron:If they don't have one ... Jennifer:Go find one. Aaron:... You should ask them to start one. Jennifer:Yeah. Aaron:You never know. There might be 20 other couples that have asked, and they'll finally be like, "Oh, we should start a marriage ministry." Jennifer:Number seven is, is this the last one? Aaron:This is the last one. Jennifer:See your spouse and yourself through Christ's eyes. I mentioned this in a previous episode, I think one or two back. It's really important that we are able to do this. The only way we can do it is if we know Christ. Aaron:Yeah. It also, again, this changes everything. Going back to what you talked about earlier also of what if there's a couple that aren't on the same page? Maybe one's not a believer. Maybe they're going through some really hard things and it's hard to connect. When we can look at our spouse through Christ and say, "Wow, okay, Lord," like we talked about, I think an episode or two ago about them having a brotherly love, a sisterly love, of seeing them in that way. Maybe it doesn't feel like they're my spouse right now because of this or that, because of this pain, because of that hurt.Man, I'm going to try and see them the way Christ does. I'm going to try and love them the way Christ loves them, and stop looking at them from an earthly fleshly point of view of all of the things that you did wrong. Jennifer:Critical. Aaron:All of the things that need to change. Jennifer:I feel like when you look through Christ's eyes, there's like this lens of grace that you could just see not who they are in their sin, but who they are because of the blood of Christ, and what he's done, and become a a new creation in him, and to hope for transformation in their life. Aaron:Yeah. Here's what it says in two Corinthians five 16 through 19. It says, "From now on, therefore we regard no one according to the flesh." This is essentially what we're talking about here. Let's stop regarding each other according to flesh, and let's start regarding each other according to the Spirit, according to what Christ did and who Christ is. Then it says, "Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold the new has come."All this is from God, who through Christ, reconciled us to himself, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Instead of seeing only the flesh, only the sin and the mistakes, and the shortcomings, and the frustrations, and the hurts, we see the one who Christ died for. We see the one Christ shed his blood for. We see the one Christ as reconciling to the Father through his life, death, and resurrection. Jennifer:In our, it's 16 years, right? Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:16 years of marriage. Aaron:We just had that. Jennifer:There have been many times that we've had to intentionally see each other through Christ's eyes, because it's not something we tend to do on a daily basis, although we should, right? Aaron:Yeah. It's usually in those really hard times that we're like, ugh. Jennifer:Then everything just kind of falls flat on the floor and you're like, "Well, grace." That's what he is given to us. Aaron:In our testimony that you share in the Unbuild Wife book, that's essentially what happened. We were on the verge of just being done, calling it quits. I felt the Lord telling me, "Are you going to forgive your wife? Are you going to love her as I did?" He just reminded me of who he is.It made it impossible for me to, because I was either going to say, "No, I'm not going to look at her like that, and I'm over it," or I was going to say, "No, Lord, I love you and I'm going to try and see her that way." Jennifer:Yeah. Some of you listening right now, I just want to encourage you, you may be in a place where you need to pray and ask God to give you those eyes to see through Christ's lens. You might need to pray for that because ... Aaron:We have to. Jennifer:We have to. Aaron:I would say, because I can't do it without him. Jennifer:Yeah. We can't do it in our flesh. Yeah, all of us listening right now, we need to do that. Then I just wanted to ... we kind of summed up all the important stuff, right? Aaron:Yeah. Jennifer:I can move on. Aaron:You can. Jennifer:You guys know if you've been listening for a long time, I bring up memes from time to time, and I get stuck on social media in that way. I love those transformation videos where they show you the reel of pictures, where it's like, "This is who I was, but this is who I am." Aaron:Yeah, they're really powerful. Jennifer:A really huge weight change. That's what I'm thinking of right now is just like ... Aaron:Well, we've even seen ones of people that are being changed because of Christ, and they had how they were before, this party, and then all of a sudden, they're totally different. You're like, "Whoa." Jennifer:Yeah. The ones that I'm thinking of specifically are the weight ones and just how dramatic it is. They'll usually show bits and pieces of what it took to get there. Aaron:The progress. Jennifer:The progress, the working out. It just moves me, because I think you don't just get to be transformed. You have to be willing to put in the work. I just wanted to remind all of us that change can happen in us, like you mentioned earlier, through being passive and allowing influences in our life that change us, but we're not going to say that's for the positive. Aaron:Rarely. Jennifer:Rarely it is. Aaron:Accidentally change for the positive. Jennifer:Yeah. The powerful transformation that we are all eager to see in our lives and in our marriages comes from putting in the time, putting in the work, putting in the energy. It's being selfless, it's being sacrificial. It requires much, just like someone going through a weight loss journey and having to do muscle toning. You know that they did everything that they possibly could to get there. Aaron:Yeah. Well, the Lord puts it this way. We got to put to death our flesh. That's essentially what this process is putting behind us our flesh, and designing to walk in his spirit. The things that we brought up in this episode were hopefully just some practical things, but some things that we can actually do and try to do. We hope you enjoyed those. This is the last episode of this month. Jennifer:The last week of the month, where we're talking about this specific growth spurt. Is that what you're going to say? Aaron:Yes. Jennifer:This section of the podcast, we want to encourage you guys to take time to invest, like Aaron mentioned earlier ... Aaron:Write down. Jennifer:... In a personal way. Basically, this one covers everything. No. The goal here is to build trust with your spouse by doing what you say you will. Whatever commitments you've made, we want you to stick to them so that this is our encouragement. The way that we are encouraging that is by taking a post-it note, or a sheet of paper, or a three by five card, and just start with one.If you have more on there, that's great, but you still got a week left to do this. If you want to keep doing this past January, keep doing it. It's just one way that you can experience a maturity and transformation in your marriage. Aaron:Mine is, like I said ... Jennifer:Oh, yeah, we were going to talk about it. Aaron:... Mine's supposed to be in bed by nine. Jennifer:Look, the effort was there, and I just want to let it ... Aaron:It was on the refrigerator, and I even mentioned because we thought this was only going to take us 30 minutes to record. We're wrong. It's 10:19, and so I'm going to forgive myself today, and I'm going to try and be in bed by nine tomorrow. Jennifer:You've been doing great. I put on mine affirm the kids, and it's because as a mom and homeschooling, they're in the home all the time. They're with me all the time. I do a lot of correction and critique, and helping them in their life. Aaron:Yeah, mature. Jennifer:Figuring what mature and what's right and stuff. I just wanted to make sure that I was affirming them. It's like, I don't know. I don't know how things have been, so I just wanted to make sure that I was doing that. I put on mine, affirm the kids, and so I've been doing that. It's actually been really beautiful. I love seeing their eyes light up. It just feels good. Aaron:All right. I'm going to pray. Dear Lord, thank you for the change we have already experienced in marriage. We pray we would continue to see positive transformation on our relationship. We pray for more love, more peace, and more joy. Please help us to be intentional in the way we choose to interact in marriage every day. Holy Spirit, we ask you to help us to not be easily offended by each other. Show us areas of our marriage we can invest in and put the time and energy into making what we have even better.Please help us to see each other as you see us, and help us to hope for the change we desire to see. Thank you for our marriage, and thank you for the opportunities you've given us to make changes in our lives. We pray our marriages continue to mature and that it honors you. In Jesus' name, amen.    

In this final episode with Aaron Chapman, we discuss how adversity can shape your legacy. In this current market environment, many investors will be challenged, but that does not mean they must fail. Your mindset, work ethic, and ability to learn from the external forces that turn your world upside-down will be the deciding factor of your long-term success. Aaron Chapman is a veteran in the finance industry with 25 years of experience helping clients better understand, source, and finance cash-flow positive investment properties. He advises over 100 clients a month in the acquisition and financing of their investment properties and primary residences. Aaron is ranked in the top 1% of mortgage loan processors in the country, in an industry of over 300,000 licensed loan originators, closing in excess of 100 transactions per month. Episode links: https://apps.apple.com/uy/app/qjo-investment-tool/id1533823468 https://www.aaronbchapman.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor Podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the remote real estate investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have for our third and final episode of this series, Aaron Chapman and Aaron's a lender, and he's gonna be talking to us today about how well you take a beating determines your legacy. So let's get right into it.   Aaron, what's going on, man? Welcome back for part three of our conversation. How are you?   Aaron: What's up, brother. Man, it's looking forward to this one.   Michael: Me too our last few conversations. If you didn't catch them, I highly recommend you go back and give them a listen to Aaron drop some amazing wisdom and knowledge. Today we're talking about how well you take a beating determines your legacy as a theme. But for anyone who didn't catch the first two episodes, give us a quick and dirty who you are. And what is it that you do, Aaron?   Aaron: So I am in the Real Estate Investment Finance space. I'm one of the few conventional lenders that focuses on real estate investments. And I do about 1300 transactions a year for investors, I've been doing that since 1997. Got a great big team of 30 plus people, and we're into heavy into the education and helping people build a business while at the same time getting financing done. And it cost them nothing to have all the experience and the the wisdom, we're trying to give them the guidance while it is getting their financing done like they would do anywhere else.   Michael: Yeah, I love it. And so many lenders, especially conventional lenders, I've come across and you might have shared experience are just trying to push the biggest loan that someone qualifies for on them. And they don't really care what that's gonna be used for. They don't really care what how it's gonna affect the end user. But it sounds like you take a little bit of a different approach.   Aaron: It does bother. Well, there's two things about this industry. You know, I think I may have even referenced it, maybe not among the last two episodes is that humans are the apex predator, we fall prey to no other species except other humans. And I found that our industry is just full of predators. They don't care what you do, as long as you close, they will use every sales technique, everything they've ever been taught to try and find a way to get you to close on that transaction.   Myself, I'm of the mindset is I'm gonna do everything I can to ensure that you close and are successful in that transaction. Because if you're unsuccessful and what you end up doing, you're not going to do deal number 2-3-4-5, I don't care about deal number one I care about deal number 10. Why do I care about deal number 10. Because if you made it to deal number 10, you're a badass, you're getting stuff done, you're achieving your goals, if you get to deal with and pretend that I'm a badass, because I'm getting more deals done, right?   But one, if you have that bad experience, man, I'm never gonna see 10. So we don't when people come to us, and they've got questions that they've never had before. They've got decisions they got to make that they've never had to make before. There's a good chance they've never had to really experience what it's like to make that kind of decision. Well, what I do 1300 transactions a year and I've been doing it as long as I have, I don't answer the question with an answer. I give them stories, what I've seen people do in that same scenario, and then give them the outcome of those decisions. So they're making decisions based on practical data, not speculation, in theory.   And then I also if they're questioning a deal, like, I'm not sure if this is right, if it's wrong is like Well, let's take a look at some things I tell them what to look at, and what questions to ask and who to go get the answers from. Take notes and bring them back to me. And we'll evaluate those answers together. And what I'm doing is helping them to determine whether they move forward or they walk away. And they also got to education about it at it. And they also learned about the other people they're working with are these people that are in it for the closing, or they're in it for them and the longevity of their business. And we get to find that out. And you get to talk to people really, really quickly.   And sometimes it takes time you have to investigate things. You have to spend money on appraisals, you have to spend money on on inspections, and things like that. And it could be costly, but you never stay in the deal because you spent money that you spent the money to walk away from it. And we help them understand that they're their CEO, their real estate investment business, and we're here to support it.   Michael: Yeah, no, I love it. Sunk cost was definitely something I got exposure to early on in his business. And it's could be a very tough concept to wrap your head around. If you're not familiar with it, you know, don't throw good money after bad.   Aaron: And that's a heavy duty sales tactic to get people to follow the sunk cost, thought process and process and get really, really caught up a man have already spent this money. If you understand why you're spending the money. There's never a sunk cost. Yeah.   Michael: Yeah, no, it's so true. It's so true. So let's talk about I mean, where we are today is very different than we were six months ago, a year ago, 18 months ago. And I think people might be in for a little bit of a whirlwind. So let's kind of talked through this concept of determining how well someone takes a beating really determines your legacy, which I think is a really great theme. So why do you think it's pertinent to talk about today, Aaron?   Aaron: Well, we're going into what could be a rarity A very big beating. And the fact that, like you just said, we're coming into something we were this different than what we experienced the last little while. It's different. It's something we've ever experienced. When you go back into the market and started researching what's happened in history of these markets that we that we've been following all the way back in the 1800s, we don't have any data to tell us how the economy and how the market or the world is going to react to the last What is it 12 years, 13 years, since 2009, January 1 2009, we started the quantitative easing, and it's continued to keep going $8.9 trillion $8.9 trillion that put into the market. And now we don't know we have no idea how the markets can respond to that as they're, as they're trying to back off of that 40% of the of the world's currency, or I guess the US currency has been produced in the last 18 months. So for people to tell me, Hey, markets go in cycles, and we can get this particular loan, and we'll just refi later, like, Dude, you can't think that way. Because we're not in any cycle we've ever seen.   The last cycle last tilt since 2009, was really the cycle. Sure, there are some little mini cycles in there. But for the most part, we had extremely low interest rates, never seen before we had a housing market has just been on a tear for 13 years. And now you're thinking that some cycle is gonna come along the next five that you can risk getting a five year loan, and do that. No, I think weren't, it was. And I just know, I think Warren Buffett said the 30 year fix is one of the greatest instruments in the world, because it's a one way bet. If you bet on the 30 year fixed and you're wrong. Worst case scenario is you refinance the house. But if you bet on the 30 year fix, and you're right, you're save yourself 1000s and 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of dollars, depending upon the size of your portfolio. So don't get suckered into these short term loans on a long term investment.   So now going into what we're going to be experiencing here, one, I don't know what it's going to be. But if we go back to 2008, here's my own personal story in 2008. You know, I shared my story about coming into the industry and the beatings that I took getting into it, right, and now we're getting into what happened in 2008. Everything starts crashing, everything's falling apart. I at that time, was still doing pretty well. I was making a good six figure income. I had decent clients coming in in 2008. And I was doing kind of a night thing for two throughout two months. I had a buddy of mine I I'm a former fabricator, I've worked on vehicles, I built a hot rods, all kinds of stuff, build jeeps, a lot of things and I have that kind of a background. Well, a buddy of mine says hey, we need you in on this deal. I need another fabricator on this and what we were doing was taking a double decker Bristol bus an English bus. We cut the top off of it, turned it into basically a mobile strip club is what we did. And we did this for a guy that wanted to take it to Burning Man, you guys can look it up. It's called shaggileic. Rapping it's this white bus wrapped in for a cruise ship horn on the front. I mean, it's just it's one of the craziest things you've ever seen. What a trip, I was fabricating everything up top building in the DJ booth. There's a bed going up there places for the poles, all that and that's what I was building.   While I was doing this thing where I was sleeping maybe three hours a night I go to the office, keep working on my lending business. And at night I was fabricating all night long for these guys. Because they were doing during the day and I was doing my part at night. Well then August 8 rolls around am I lucky numbers always been eight. And so as a result that this is August 8 of 2008. I was jumping on the bike, heading out of town for a three day ride through New Mexico just to clear my head. So it's a crazy time in my life and mind that my head was not in the right place. I'll guarantee I just tell you that. Cruising down the highway and right next to this guy is in a black truck and I've been by him for a while so I knew he knew I was there. But Donald suddenly flips on his blinker and he starts coming over to me. Well, I quickly looked over to my right, nobody was there. So I hit my throttle, I leaned that bike. What I didn't realize is somebody just then started to pass me and I clipped her front bumper, and I went flipping. So I don't remember the accident self except for my bike kicking sideways. And then I remember waking up in the hospital and we're looking around and this this really bright light and really quiet area and I remember sitting up and I noticed kind of fuzzy there's somebody sitting in a chair and my lapse my vision got clear is my wife. So I asked her where am I at and what seemed like was kind of an exasperated going to tell me for the 40th time you're in the hospital. You had an accident, and she started explaining things.   Well, what what ended up happening is when I went flipping, I used to race mountain bike so I would instinctively talk I realized this because I had such a massive bruise. This is where I initially hit my my my helmet had big ol crack in it. When I hit it just obliterated my collarbone and a bunch of ribs. It collapsed my right lung when I flipped my legs hit and I shattered my legs and ended up skidding to a stop. So if you've ever been to Arizona in August, but the pavements not nice to lay on in August so I had a lot of burns. A lot of road rash And so I was in there for a couple of weeks in the hospital that a bolt me back together my memory at that point because the head injury we had pinwheel would basically flip every three minutes. I could only remember every three minutes and never reset, but little things would would stand out.   So there's some things I do remember, but a lot of it's gone. And then there's actually some stuff in my history that's gotten my I was with my sister and brother in law, and they showed me some pictures from their wedding. I'm like, I don't remember this. And they showed me pictures of me being there. And then they played the video Like, I have no idea about this night. So there's certain things in my history that are gone because of that accident. So kind of the point behind all that is, I wheeled into that hospital I was I was a mountain climber. I was a marathoner. I was in phenomenal shape, best shape of my life at the time, I weighed in at190 pounds, maybe 12% body fat, worse about on paper, because of my investments worth about three ish million dollars. When I wheeled out of that hospital weeks later, I was 156 pounds at six foot one, and I had a negative net worth of 1.5 million everything was taken from me.   So I had to start over from there. So I had to learn how to walk again. I had to train my memory back. And then I had to negotiate with everybody who is foreclosing on all my rental houses, they're coming after me for all the other debts. And because if it wasn't for the fact now, to me, it was a blessing. There's a lot of people that went through the crash. And they lost everything I know of people that ate bullets, they went back to their office and they shot themselves. I know people who did that. But I had the blessing of being able to negotiate with these creditors, and I'd send them my first week's medical bill for $1.7 million, and then immediately back off. And what I have is a certain amount of money left in the bank, that was all I had to my name. And it was about I think it was like five grand or something I don't remember exactly.   Well I called every creditor up that I owed money to that was calling me and I said here, here's how much I have in my account, you look at my credit report and how many people I owe, I will give you that if you agree to that and wipe the credit clean. So I negotiated that with every single person. And what I did then is then I had an underinsured motorist thing finally kick in months later. And I was able to use that to pay off everybody that one negotiated amount. So I got clear of the whole world and they let me do that because the nature of my accident. Not a lot of people had that. So they didn't have the blessing getting their *** kicked, and be able to leverage an *** whoopin to be able to get out of that right.   The other thing that was real tough about this *** whoopin was I came back to an obliterated business. The lending industry was not doing well and I got back on my feet about eight months later. And all the people I was doing business with before the realtors and people like that they were out of business. They were doing something else. There was two left in the industry, my mom and a gal by the name of Carolyn Irby with Coldwell Banker, they at that point, they were still doing business, they're getting deals done. And they call me up say, Hey, I got a client for you need to call this person, they would got to the point that they'd call me back five minutes later say, Hey, did you call that person like what person they said, Get your pad and write this down. So I got to I was carrying a notepad with me all the time, I'd write down what I do all day long. And the calls are supposed to make the outcomes of those calls. And then if it was crossed off, that means I did it. If it wasn't crossed off, then I would have to make this call. I can't tell you how many people I called that weren't crossed office. We just talked on the phone. Right? It's like well, can you can you tell me what we said.   So talk about earning trust, right? That's a real hard way to earn trust with somebody when five minutes before you don't even remember the conversation by explain the scenario. And people were very, very, very kind to me. Now. There were some saying, Hey, I can't do business with that does have a memory. There's a lot of people that were that did. And I rebuilt my business on that. And because of that notepad, I rebuilt my memory and I read, I was able to reconnect those wires in my head by the grace of God. And by just being very, very religious about maintaining my my pad, I wished I had my stack of pads, I throw them away, oh, I don't know why throw them away. But that was how I lived my life at that point. And I recovered back to a business that I built back up from zero to now. I get I start the the real estate investors coming into Arizona, and they're buying these houses that are undervalued. And so I started to do those loans. They were really little loans. There's like 50,000, or loans. Nobody's making a bunch of money on 50,000 our loans by doing a ton of them. And then I went from there to doing more and more they went from from Arizona to Indiana, Indiana, Missouri, Missouri, to Texas, and then over to Tennessee. And so I started doing more and more loans.   Well, then I had one of my biggest competitors, who was also a guy call and he'll give me pointers on how to do some of these loans are a little bit tougher. He decided in 2015 that we should merge our businesses. So when he flipped, they flew me out to Utah, I sat down with him and some of the executives in the company. Let's do that. So I merged the business with him. But you can only do the loans under one person's name. Well, since we're merging into his company, well, the company he worked for as a loan originator was put on to his name. Six months later, he pulled it all apart, took it off himself and left me at zero again. And it took my entire database.   Well, the executives called me up to say, um, we're probably at the fire your staff, and you're just gonna have to start over like, No, give me 90 days. So me and my staff have two or three, we sat down and we said, what are we going to do when the phone rings is going to ring in 10 minutes? What are we going to do with these deals, now, you don't have our big team anymore. And we mapped out a plan. And within six months, I was ranked number nine in the company. And within a year, I taken over the number one spot within the company. And now years later, that guy's out of the business. Because he I mean, that's what happens when you become selfish you and it's all about you, everybody leaves you he ended up all by himself, he end up not having a business anymore. He's completely out. I haven't heard anything from him, he got away from doing investor loans like three, four years ago. And I would venture to say I'm the number one guy in conventional lending for real estate investors. And last I saw by statistical numbers that was just published in a mortgage originator magazine, if you look at how many trends looking at by how many transactions closed per year, I think I'm right, number six or seven, the United States.   Michael: That's wild Aaron. That's so insane.   Aaron: And to me, a lot of people is like, how did you do all that and I'm like, you just every single day you have an objective and you keep moving forward. And it was actually, to me the noise of the world getting turned down around me and I was stuck to my own thoughts. You have to decide whether or not you agree with the person that you were and I would did not like the person I was at that time. I was a really arrogant, cocky prick before that accident. You know, I was dressing the part and acting department being the man. Now it's like, you know, I decided I'm just gonna be me. And if people don't like me, then then that's fine. I don't need to we don't need to do business. It's not about that I would do whatever I need to do to close a deal before. Now. I just want to make sure I get along with a person. And like one guy told me this last week, I thought it was really interesting. He says, Do you you just collect people? Like what do you mean I collect people because you collect relationships, because that's that's your investment, you invest you invest in things, but you spend money to make sure you have more relationships with people. And that's the truth.   And that came up because we talked about flying first class, one guy said he's really really cheap. The other guy said no, I love first class, I got pampered by it. They say you fly first class all the time. So yeah, I'm Executive Platinum with American Airlines, I spend more time in seat 3D and I do at my house. But it's not for the seat, or for the free drinks. It's for the person next to me. Because you'd be amazed at the kind of people you sit with in that environment and the kind of conversation you get to have. And they're all very, very memorable. If you'll just reach out and say hi.   Michael: Yeah, that's such a different way of approaching it. You know, so many people are going for the drinks or going for the big seat. Sounds like you could care less about that. Aaron: No, I mean, it's comfortable being a sibling I hate sitting in the back, because because of how much Americans have the room. Let me I'm not I'm not a fan. I do have to I do fly Allegiant from Arizona to to Missouri. So it's only one one stop to go to my place out in Missouri. So I still do it. I'm not a fan of it. I don't love it. We in fact, my family is dubbed at low rider of the sky. But when we go to kind of fly American, I'm, it's gonna be a long flight. I need to be comfortable. For two reasons. One, I've just gotten used to it. And I like sitting next to people I sit next to number two, I've lived the last What is it now? 12 years, 14 years in pretty heavy pain. And because of that pain, when we hit the sky, and they start pressurizing. I was doing a lot of pain in my shoulders, a lot of pain in my legs, my ankles are just both my feet were snapped off in that in that accident. So the extreme pain I was dealing with that. It's now gotten a lot less because I really took the time to rehab this last year, I went to rehab to physical therapists like crazy and we had loss and I got back to working out I got in a lot better shape than I've been in a long time in 14 years, honestly. And I feel awesome. But now the reasons I sit up there is not for the same reasons. It's for the it's for the relationships and like yourself, right? Well, I'm collecting people right here now. And now wherever I go. I see you as there's my guy. There's Mike.   Michael: Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. So Aaron, I mean, you've been like literally to hell and back again and came out on top. So for people that have maybe been never been through a downturn or a market cycle, if that's what we're headed into. And it sounds like that might not even be the case. I mean, what should people be doing to prepare, if they do find themselves with those shorter term loans coming due now?   Aaron: Well, and they're gonna come to at some point, even if it's not now, I think they need to be on the watch for any opportunity to put themselves into a longer term loan and have to bite the bullet or whatever that expense is. Do I believe, I mean, I think interest rates going to keep climbing to an extent they're gonna have to taper off because I can't see us continuing down this path. Interest rates are just, you know, mortgage backed securities are getting slaughtered, but I also can't see why anybody, anybody want to invest money in the mortgage backed security. Honestly, I don't understand why that money is flowing in there. Because if inflation is as high as it is, and you're going to lend somebody money, potential for 30 years risking it for 30 years, you're not getting your money back, you're losing money. But the marketing engine that is the real estate, the mortgage lending world, for the banking world, the marketing engine has convinced people, if you drop it 1%, you should refinance. And so the majority of people will refi, within the first four to five years, you're looking at an amortization, amortization table, the first four to five years, they're taking advantage of you, because you're all you're doing is paying an interest and then you put you back into a heavy interest period, they're gonna continue to keep them just just sucking money from you is what they're doing.   So they're, I believe, there's going to come a point that we're going to taper off, things might get a little bit better. And if it does that, within the next year or two, I'm going to highly encourage you, if you got suckered into a short term loan on a long term hold, get into a long term loan, get yourself comfortable. I always say control what you can control for as long as you can control it. And you can't do that in a short term loan. It's just not going to work that way. Michael: Yeah. No, I love it. And from a mindset perspective, I mean, it, I could see it so easily where you could have given up when you lost everything in a weight when you woke up from when you came out of the hospital, you know, went from a positive network to several millions and negative net worth overnight, seemingly? I mean, how do you get out of that? Because I think, again, it's so easy to go into despair and poor me. What kind of mindset does it take to lift yourself up from that?   Aaron: Yeah, that that was an interesting question to have to answer. Because not only do you have when you stack it all up, and I have to ask myself several times, how did I get where I'm at? Now, when I look back on that particular thing? It it was, like you said, you get your *** whooped that heavily. You're the everything's taken from you, you can't get you can't walk, you can't think you can't pay for anything. And they're giving you free drugs. And it wasn't just, it wasn't just weak drugs. This was good, good stuff. I don't know if you've ever had a lot of bad stuff. Is that amazing?   Michael: It's not Advil.   Aaron: No, it is definitely not Advil, and they were just willingly handing it to whatever you wanted, I had to get off of that. And I had to point myself in the right way. And I was still in a wheelchair, I was still having to deal with all this intense pain, I still had a lot of rods and stuff, multiple surgeries still being done. And I threw the stuff away and like, I don't want it, I gotta get my mind, right, I gotta get focused on where I needed to go. And what it was, as I've never sat still I just never had in my entire existence. So it was the drive to get up and get moving again. It was also that I always had an objective and a goal and where I was heading in life, even if it was just it was never really defined, but it was just kind of floating out there. I decided I was going to go after that I was going to continue after that. But I don't like to do is what was in front of me that day is day after day after day, day after day after day. But I think to the biggest driver at that point was I did not like the person I was before that accident. So I want to do everything I can to be anything but that man. And I am grateful that he was there to show me the way you shouldn't be doing things. But he was the biggest driver to continue to become something different.   And then after that the next big driver was I had a good friend of mine. His name's Joel. He's like a brother of mine. And it's it's a really long story to tell you how we met because we hate each other first. But now he's basically like my brother. And we went out one night with our wives. And at the end of dinner or after the event, we went to walk into our cars we have the opposite direction goes, Hey, by the way, I'm making a big deal happen right now me and my business partner, and it's going to change your life. Like how's it going to change my life? If you're making a deal, he goes, I can't tell you, he goes, but it's going to close here real soon. But it's going to change your life, believe me, I'm gonna change your life.   And as we parted ways, give him a hug. He turns around and walk in his car with both his hands and he goes, I'm going to change your life. And he yells out to me from like, 50 yards away, not knowing what that is. My colon changed my life, dude. Well, let's see what this is. Well, then, short time after that I found out he closed on the second largest. It's now the second largest real estate brokerage in the state of Arizona. And they'd made a deal with another lender to be their premier lender inside. What he wanted me to do is contact that lender and he told them call this guy, I want this guy in your company to work with us. So they called me and we talked about me coming over there. And to go over and meet with them and went through all the back contracts and everything. I'm like, Okay, well see how this goes. And they said we want you to come meet the CEO of the company, but you can't meet the CEO until you do this exercise and they hand me this five year vision that the CEO had for himself, you know, his five year plan and then they told me gave me the elements of the five year plan.   Cool. So I wrote this out like this is all bullcrap. Nobody does this. None of this crap works as goal setting stuff is stupid. But Fine, I'll do it. Just so I can meet the CEO, Joel opened up the door on going to do a jewel asked me to do like sat down. I wrote out this audacious freaking plan, right? The best month I've had before that was 18 Maybe 18 transaction that due in a month. And I think I closed maybe 20 Some million a year or 25 million, maybe 30 million year my best year. Well, I wrote this thing I was going to do 100 million a year and my staff is gonna grow by this and that in that net over the five year window, no ideas, I set it up as a story. I'm sitting on along Rubicon Trail in my chair with a fire gun. My wife's next to me, we got the Jeep parked there were searing steaks on the on the trail grill, and I'm thinking back on my life or last five years, and I'm writing a letter to myself of everything that happened.   So then I went forward, I met the CEO, he's like, this is the most unique five year plan I've ever seen written, we would love to have you come work for us. Now, incidentally, I didn't go work for those guys. It didn't work out. But I stuck with that five year plan. And I continue to follow that five year plan to go back and look at it look at it. I blew through everything on there and doubled it. Because I wrote it down. And then I discovered a few write things down things happen. So one of the next things that I'm doing, I have a book out there shows people I'm working on another book with Robert Allen, if you know who Robert Allen is, but we're working together on a book. So he wrote the book, no money down in the 80s. The guy was basically   Michael: Oh, yeah. Okay.   Aaron: So he's an absolute bad***. I mean, Robert is awesome. And we're writing this book as if me sitting there talking to an eight year old about how life or 18 year old about how life works. And it's taking a beating. So it's how to take a beating. And that beating is actually how you learn. And explain why believe that. And so on and on be teaching people within the first chapter, then all the way through the book on how to write this out, and then help people come to me will sit you down, I'll take it in an environment. And there's more stories about how that got done. And other ways I've used writing it down to become successful, and show people you write this stuff down. It's amazing how the universe starts to line up to get things done for you.   Now, when it comes to a beating, right, the one thing is that we have noticed that we as humans learn better by getting our butts kicked. And I believe that there's this Bigfoot that wakes up at about 7:30 Every day, this big, ominous invisible foot to kick your *** all day long if you let it. If you so think about this, I wake up at 4:30 in the morning, I get up way before the foot does and I do what I want to do, right I sit down, I send a message to my team, every single morning, I read, I write, I do the stuff that I need to do I have prayer before I get started all that and then I go and I work out every single day. So but if you're a person who wakes up at 7:45, and you got to be the office by eight, the foots already up, right, it's already kicking your *** the second you put your foot on the ground from from the from your bed to try and get to the bathroom, you stumble into this, you stumble into that your day is just wrong from the very beginning.   Get up before the foot does, you got to figure out where your personal foot wakes up. That's out there to kick your butt. And you got to get up before the foot doesn't plan your day and start executing on that. The other things that I've noticed with people, you know, how we learn, we do have to take a beating learn so you need to dissect every beat you've got so what am I learning from this? And how do I need to take from that, and let me illustrate how I know that. That's how that's true. I was six years old. And my parents put me in a Pentecostal school for my first grade year. I didn't go to kindergarten straight to first grade. And it was this Pentecostal church in this small town. And they had everything from first to high school senior all in one church and everybody had their own little thing and you had different teachers for all of it. And I segmented us first graders off for the first three months and we're meeting in the little room and they were teaching us the alphabet and numbers. And as they're going through the alphabet every letter was had a nursery rhyme style Limerick to it and a filmstrip. Now you may be a little too young to remember filmstrips. But it's up…   Michael: No I got it, I got it.   Aaron: Okay, so you got the film strips got the little thing. You'll play the music and here's the beep and you flip it to the next next slide, right? It's basically slides. Well, it was a it was the we got to the letter M. And the letter M was about this mule named Milton. And the way the nursery rhyme when it says Milton the mule he made a mistake as you read a map, you walked in a lake. And as it's going through those filmstrips, you've got this cartoon mule walking down the road, in a suit holding this map, and then you see him falling in this lake. Well me being me, even at six years old, I redid the limerick, and I said it out loud. So instead of having Milton falling out falling in a lake, I had him ******* in a bucket. I know it's stupid. Right? The six year old stuff. The little girl sitting next to me did what you just did, she laughed about it. That didn't go over well with the teacher. Now the teacher happened to be the wife of Noah, who was also the pastor. She heard all this so she grabbed both of your ear lobes. Walk the straight to the principal's office and sat us down in these chairs.   This guy was not a small guy. He was a big man. So he's the pastor. He's the principal. He made me repeat exactly what I said. When I was done. He turns around he picks up this old aircraft aluminum style briefcase, sets it on his desk, puts in the code opens it and very ceremoniously turns it so I can see the contents had a padded interior cut out to houses pattern. So then he pulls the paddle out makes us both stand up and turn around and put our hands on the on the chairs. She got one swap I got two because I'm the one that came up with the limerick. Now it wasn't that hard. My dad's Irish my mom was Spanish Believe me I that way harder buttons for a lot less than what that guy gave me. But it was The gravity of the situation that caused the tears to flow. And then I also knew I had to face my dad that night. He always told me if you go to the principal's office, you're getting an *** whoppin. Well, I did. I got a pretty good one. But ultimately, the main reason I bring that story up is there's how many letters in the English language?   Michael: There's 24   Aaron It's 26?   Michael: That's so embarrassing.   Aaron: I know. I googled that I thought it was 24 as well very recently, and I go, so yeah, there's 26. So 26 letters, which we just established. How many guy remember the limerick for?   Michael: How many did you remember the limerick for? You probably remembered him for all of them. But for sure M.   Aaron; Just one. That's the only one I remember. I remember the letter M. I don't know anything about the other ones. That was 42 years ago, I can only recite the one for letter M I don't remember what the other ones were about. I can't remember you even articulate what the letter A would have said for it be what it stood for. But remember what M step four? Why do I remember it because I got my *** beat. That's why.   So we as humans learn very well through a beating. So what I tell people don't take, don't take a beating is something that's bad, learn whatever you got to do, just don't take the same beating. There's nothing wrong with making mistakes, just make new mistakes. Because you're making new mistakes, you're still advancing. There's nobody, that people who fail to get ahead in life make the same mistake over again. The other there's another thing that they say is there's two types of people never amount to anything. A person that can't do it, they're told, and a person that can do nothing but. I would say take the time, and analyze that to people that will never amount to anything, a person that can't do what they're told, and a person that could do nothing but.   Those are some very, very powerful words to sit and think about. And you have to figure out who am I? What am I getting done? What kind of *** whopping am I taken on a daily basis? And I said the same one over and over again. What do I got to do to make adjustments so I could advance myself and get away from this beating I keep taking.   Michael: Man Mike drop exit stage left Aaron Chapman, everybody. This was so much fun, man. How do people get in touch with you if they need you?   Aaron: Best way is Aaron chapman.com Or just go to Google and type in Aaron chat and you see a bald bearded redneck lender you got the guy.   Michael: That's you awesome, man. This was so much fun. Aaron thank you again for coming on for the third time. This was definitely the one that did it. We'll do it. We'll be in touch man.   Aaron: Thanks, brother. Appreciate you man.   Michael: Likewise, you got it.   Okay, everyone that was our episode A big thank you to Aaron for coming on today and the other two episodes as well. If you didn't catch those, I highly recommend you give those listened to Aaron dropped some really fantastic wisdom, knowledge and thought perspective on where we're headed in the next couple of months and yours with the market.   As always, if you enjoyed the episode, we'd love to hear from you with a rating or review wherever it is get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing

In this second episode with Aaron Chapman, we discuss how much interest rates actually matter. Over the past couple of years, low interest rates have allowed people to get into a deal and see immediate cashflow. But with interest rates rising, many are concerned that they are not seeing immediate positive cash flow. Is that a deal breaker? Should investors sit on the sidelines and wait for rates to drop once again? Or should investors be thinking about real estate like other business models and be willing to put their capital into a deal and expect to see profits occur over a longer time horizon? Tune in to hear Aaron's unique take on these questions.    Aaron Chapman is a veteran in the finance industry with 25 years of experience helping clients better understand, source, and finance cash-flow positive investment properties. He advises over 100 clients a month in the acquisition and financing of their investment properties and primary residences. Aaron is ranked in the top 1% of mortgage loan processors in the country, in an industry of over 300,000 licensed loan originators, closing in excess of 100 transactions per month. Episode links: https://apps.apple.com/uy/app/qjo-investment-tool/id1533823468 https://www.aaronbchapman.com/ --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the remote real estate investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today joining me again, I got Aaron Chapman. And in case you missed, here's prior episodes, definitely go back and give that a listen. But Aaron is a lender in the residential mortgage industry. And he's got a wealth of knowledge and experience under his belt. And today we're talking about how much interest rates actually matter to doing our deals. So let's get into it.   Aaron Chapman, welcome back, man. Good to see you.   Aaron: Good to see you too, man. It's good to be back. In fact, it hasn't been long.   Michael: For those of you that caught our prior episode with Aaron, we are recording this back to back so we figured we just knock it out.   Aaron: I don't I don't have a dozen of these specific shirts for those who are wondering.   Michael: Like, yeah, he bearded his braid exactly the same and wearing the exact same hat and funny, he's in the exact same location. So Aaron, today we're talking about how much rates really matter. And you've been in the mortgage business since 97. For those folks that didn't catch your bio and background go and get that first episode listen to let's talk about like how much rates matter, man, like rates are creeping up, not keeping up but seem to be running up as to where they were previously. And I'm hearing a lot of folks kind of get scared and spooked and want to hang on the sidelines until rates come down. So give us a little bit insight is that right thinking? Is that the wrong thinking help drop some knowledge?   Aaron: Well, it's I like to tell everybody so level of your everything has to do with a level your comfort, right? Your ability to get in there and, and slug it out and make things work? Because it all has to be about interest rate. And are you really a real estate investor, because that's why I work with as a real estate investor, opportunity is only sitting in front of you at the time that it's in front of you. And often people are trying to get the market to line up and I look at that kind of like watching a star football player sitting on the bench on the sidelines, waiting for the perfect time to jump on the field to get on the highlight reel. Well,   Michael: That's such a good analogy.   Aaron: We're on the field at the time the game is being played, right? They're not sitting on the sidelines at all. It's amazing how often people think that they have the capability to time something and most people trying to time it have never time the damn thing in their life. Right. In fact, most of them are fairly new new investors or investors with maybe you've had five or six houses. So you feel like you're a seasoned investor. I've been doing this for 24 years I've been at this since 1997. I'm barely seasoned in what I do. And the reason I feel that I'm barely seasons, because I do over 1300 transactions a year for real estate investors, I get to see where a lot of people are making decisions, or a lot of people are making mistakes and where a lot of people are doing it right where a lot of people failing or a lot of people are succeeding.   What I tell all my all the people I work with is there's this old saying good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment, great way to learn on the grade school playground of very, very tough way to learn in real estate. So don't go about trying to figure out things that way yourself. Reach out to me, I got to see for 1000s of people have made decisions. I'll guide you through that telling you stories. I don't answer questions. I tell stories as to what I've seen other people do. So you will have practical data, not speculation in theory, and then hopefully, hopefully, we're able to guide you in a way that makes you successful now is it going to be successful every time you make a decision? No, you're going to hit a brick wall between those brick walls, that just means you got to change your direction and keep moving and keep moving and keep moving.   So then you eventually find success because you become nimble enough become successful, it does not benefit me to close a deal and you fail, because that's only one deal. I need your 100th deal. That's what makes my business work is to do this dozens of time with you not just one time and walk away. That's not the business I built. So when it comes to interest rates, you need to get comfortable with it and understand that you're never the price of money is always going to move. But what we also have is the price of housing is always moving. You know, we talked about in last episode, the average rent is going up by 12%. Year over year. I don't expect that to be sustainable. I think it's probably a go up, you know, maybe seven, but it's going to keep going right? We have we're short how many houses right now in the United States,   Michael: I think like 5.2 million or something of that effect.   Aaron: 5.2 million and what's the building looking like right now people are not there's not a lot of construction going on, compared to what the demand is. We've got a hurricane, they just wiped out on how many houses we don't even know that the full total that devastation and then the ability of the supply chain to be able catch up with that. And then of course there's talk of another pandemic coming which we saw the effects of that one, and how well handled that mess was. You start stacking all these things up rents and quarterly rental increases are here to stay. So when you're on that end of it, and you get to continue to increase your rents effect, let's do the math real quick here. Let's say, let's say you got $100,000. House, you're renting it for $1,000 a month. Right. And now you get to raise the rent by 3%. Well, they're saying you're only getting say 60 bucks a month in cash flow. That's not sexy. You're not getting excited, right?   Michael: That's a couple of Chipotle is with guacamole.   Aaron: Exactly. So 60 bucks right now, not a big deal. So you raise the rents by 3%? What's 3% of 1030 bucks, 30 bucks, nothing. It's actually nobody's excited. Again, what's really cool about is your tenant won't get excited. And I can just up and move and know the night and dump concrete down the toilet. Right? So it went up by 30 bucks. But you're making $60 a month cash flow, you're one now you're making 90. So what percentage did your cashflow go up by?   Michael: 50%.   Aaron: That's a 50% compound growth in your cash flow. So what you start to see here is over time, it's not going to happen right away. You know, it's not, it's not Swift, but it is certain that you will continue to get this compound growth in the double digits a year over year over year. But as we talked about, in the last episode, go back and listen and get my get my my tool, the QJO investment tool, and run these numbers, you're gonna find that you're paying back less and less and less for that set mortgage you have, even if the rates go eight, nine, 10%, you're paying back less, because inflation is eroding the dollar. But yet you're increasing at double digits. As far as your cash flow, there will come a point that one catches the other and you surpass it. It's much like any investment that a person does. It's amazing how we can talk ourselves into getting into other types of investment vehicles, like all but if you stick with it for three, four years, you're gonna see it really grow or 10 years or whatever. But yet you get into a house. And also we think of it as an expense. When it comes to real estate. It's not you're not spending money and going into debt. You're a business owner, that is now the pass through for this capital, you get to increase.   Michael: I love that. I love that. Aaron answer me this because I think it's something that I've been hearing from a lot of people I know for sure, in the Roofstock Academy is folks saying, Michael, five months ago, I could go buy a house for 150 grand and make 100 bucks cash flow at three and a half 4%. Now that same have that same price, the same purchase price is still 150 grand, but now I'm paying seven and a half percent that eroded all my cash flow. Does that mean I should still go buy that deal? And hang on for those first couple of years? Because I'm going to get that double digit compound growth with the rental increase? Or do I just need to go find a new deal? Or potentially a different market?   Aaron: I've got I've got a few answers that I would give right. And I sometimes depends on the individual, right? Because I do ask them Okay, so what do you think right? Now let them tell me, because I want to find out what's going on your head, right? So tell me what your first instinct is. But if they're asked me exactly what I would do, I mean, again, I might get cut out here, guys, when I was gonna have your balls attached or are they there for decoration, right? Nobody has ever made a fortune because they they want out of the gate. Nothing is ever has ever paid what a few things are paid off out of the gate, right. But most times they don't. We had a history of people making this amazing cash on cash return for the last, what 10 years, it was the easiest thing in the world to sell cash on cash return for the real estate sales side of it. I think my personal belief is the real estate sales side of it has actually put themselves in a corner, and they're trying to claw their way out of it. Because we spent so much time talking cash on cash. We never talked about the rest of the ways people made money. It never got discussed.   For the last eight, nine years. I've talked about everything but cash on cash return, if they take that metric and throw it away, take their performance somebody gave you because that's that's Greek for bullcrap. It doesn't mean anything. They made those numbers up. Right? So let's talk about reality. Right? And reality is business is going to cost you something nobody has ever opened up a shoe store was profitable in the first five years, right, you have to have a certain amount of capital to get started, everything needs a certain amount of capital to get started. You're the CEO, the CEO of your startup real estate investment firm, that means you are going to be a lot more discerning about what kind of property you buy, when you're not making $200 a month cash flow out of the gate than you would be when your before making cash no matter what happened because of interest rates are so low, they softened all the blows.   But now, because of things the way they are, you're going to become a better CEO, you're going to sink more, you're going to take more time to understand what you're buying, you're going to buy the right property. And that's what it's all about. What can you keep reasonably rented for the entire time you own it, and what can you raise rents on that's it. If you can get that to line up and that alone, you will continue you will see that compound increase we were talking about. You may have to nurse that that investment along for the first couple of years. But then you're going to get that compound set and forget it kind of growth. And that's where I tell people it's going to teach you to be a real estate investor now. The people that are not real estate investors, they're out we're not gonna have to deal with them anymore. You're not gonna have to fight with the masses of people try To get in on that one deal and bidding at too high, what you're going to have is people gonna be very, very discerning, and you're become a smarter person as a result.   Michael: Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. And I was just going to ask you, but I think you kind of beat me to it, do you think we're going to see the investment investor pool thin out, because folks are looking at deals and saying, the numbers don't work, I can't invest in this, or they bought deals two months ago, and are now getting burned by it?   Aaron: Yeah, I think we're going to see people get out of it. And we're gonna have some of the true investors be able to capitalize on it, that people understand what they're getting into, they're gonna jump in there, and they're gonna be able to weather this properly. Because it's about the it's about the real estate itself. It's not about the loan, it never was about the loan, you know, we had the loan was a way of getting a lot of people involved. And probably a lot of people shouldn't have been involved with, they got involved anyway, right. And so they're still going to do well, because what's really cool about that, if you got that in that loan, that 3%, or 4%, or 5%, loan, that is an, that's an asset in itself. That's a massive asset. In fact, any loan for 30 years is a massive asset. But that's even even bigger assets. So now you have a tradable commodity, if you will, because now it's like hey, I can I can hold this house, and I can literally kind of sell this into with a with an owner financing kind of deal or something to that effect.   Now how that will play out, don't say Aaron Chapman said it's okay to do this. You got to check with your lender, make sure you're not putting yourself in a bad spot, talk to an attorney, all that kind of thing. There's instruments to make that happen. I'm not your guy to guide you through that. I'm just saying that that's a valuable thing to lock money up in single digits. Think about that single digits, because if you go back to 1971, all the way till 2009, the average interest rate for somebody living in a house was 9.1%. If you take that 1971 Till now, the average interest rate was 7.76%. For somebody living in the house, that was not real estate investors. The only reason it went down from 9.1 to 7.76. Is because of quantitative easing. When did quantitative easing start, Michael?   Michael: Man, I didn't know I thought it was just gonna be an interview. I didn't know it was gonna be a frickin test. When did it start?   Aaron: I'd love to quiz everybody. Because here's why your mind starts thinking and now you're gonna remember the answer. We're gonna give it to you.   Michael: That's true.   Aaron: Hopefully, because I'm gonna ask you next time. So quantitative easing didn't start till after the crash crash happened in 2008 2008. We'll talk about that in our next time we come together because that right there had to teach resiliency to a lot of people. Well, then the government decided, Okay, we're gonna start this quantitative easing thing, we're gonna take US Treasury capital flowing through the Fed. And we're going to start buying into mortgage backed securities and into treasuries in was a corporate bonds and all of these other things. And as a result to doing that started January 1, 2009, till the end of March 2010, the Fed dumped $1.25 trillion into the market, just in that short window of time to bring interest rates down and start getting the economy going again. But now, they couldn't stop it, and they kept it going and kept going kept going, then you get to the pandemic of 2020. Now, we just talked about 1.25 trillion between March January 2009, to end of March 2010. Now you get to March 20, 2020. From March 20 to march 30. They dumped in another trillion in 10 days to basically bring the market off of where it was because the market crashed. Right. We had a massive meltdown in the in stocks.   What happens? What happens if people have more? Have stocks on margin when stocks dropped that far?   Michael: Oh big problem.   Aaron: Yeah, massive, I've got a margin call, right? Well, banks don't take our money that we deposit and just stick it in the vault, right? They invest it places, they need to make money on that money, they're gonna pay us our little pittance of whatever, right? They're gonna continue to make money on it? Well, a lot of times, they're gonna have that money into the markets and stocks and other equities. And as a result of that, they may have no margin, they did have no margin, they gotta pay a margin call. They can't just go back to the coffers. Because the the vaults empty, they have it all on investment. So they have to sell assets, what assets did they sell, they sold mortgage backed securities. Interest rates spiked during that window of time. It was it was amazing how much they spiked. The fact got to the point, I couldn't lock rates now. Now and again, the rates will be published might have five people on my team all ready to go. And I just kept refreshing the rates all day. As soon as there's ready to go, we could we'd lock 50 loans at a time. And they were ugly rates, but people needed to lock.   And so we had this message that we're going to continue to keep business flowing during that window of time. But then they got that trillion dollars dumped in there, they got seeing semi stable, they're dumping 30 to $40 billion a month in the market, sometimes more hundreds of billions of dollars a month in the market, trying to keep this money flowing. And that's how we got our interest rates down into the threes and fours.   So because of that, all that capital going in there, we had this this run on lower interest rates. So from January 2009. Up until just this last year, we had all this capital dumped into the keep the rate so that's what gave our average that a little bit lower point. But you know, some people are saying well, can we just get an ARM and wait for the rates to go back down? What makes you think they're going back down? The only time they went down from that average of 9.1 was when they dumped eight Point $9 trillion into the markets? Are they doing that again? I think they've learned their lesson not to do that. Michael: Yeah.   Aaron: So if that's the case, and let's just say that's the case, let's say, somebody's actually going to learn from history, and we're not going to erase history, we're not going to call it you know, whatever, whatever make up whatever we want to make up about it and say we're triggered by it, we're actually gonna remember this move was a bad move. I don't see interest rates getting back anything lower than what we have right now, this might be the lowest interest rates that we see in our lifetimes.   Michael: Interesting. Over the last 30-40 years, when we've seen interest rates spike like they have hasn't there been a pretty sharp decline after the fact?   Aaron: We have seen that a lot in our lifetime, just because of what I was just talking about with the Fed manipulating it. But prior to that, we didn't see that very much. We saw interest rates, hovering in fact, I got in the industry in 1997, the interest rates are in the sevens. And then that was for owner occupied. And then when they went down, like 6.875, I got this refi boom going on. In fact, you know, I was working two jobs, I was running heavy equipment in the morning, from 3am till noon, they go to the office from two till 10pm, I sleep four hours a day, for for a full year. But for the until those rates dropped below 7%, I was able to replace my income of 50, whatever, thousand a year at the time, and got full time into this industry. Well, as a result of that, you know, we got this 6% thing going on. And it never really got much lower than that we saw a window where the during the mid 2000s, that I was able to get an adjustable rate loan, like a five year ARM don't like 5.75. But that was it. It wasn't until quantitative easing do we start seeing these enormously low rates.   So we're not seeing these massive swings, like we see now, then the swings happen to be because we have a global market that everybody's tapped in, we get to see everything that's going on in real time, all the time. That's one of the really, really bad things of social media in the way our, our our technology is, what it's done for us has brought us to where we see the slightest thing happened. But on the other side of the world, it kills markets overnight. So that's why I see such massive swings. So some people think, well, if it goes down as we come right back up. We don't know that because there's another black swan waiting right around the corner. Why do we know that because we know what's going to happen in the other country when it happens.   It'd  be one thing we were just a an economy to ourselves. And it was not such a big big market mover. Now we're a global economy. And we have we have crazy people out there running countries, including our own doing stupid things that's causing such a massive swings and so much so much emotion in the market that I can't say it's going to improve. Now it's going to have to I mean, there will be some but to the extent we've seen I don't believe so.   Michael: Yeah. Interesting.   Aaron: Let me just say I pray I'm wrong.   Michael: Yeah. That makes two of us man.   Aaron: You're wrong. We're back in the season. We're good because I'm making another couple million dollars a year.   Michael: I love it. Someone if they didn't have the wisdom of hearing this show five years ago, three years ago, when they got their five, one ARM and now they got two years left on it and they got a 5% They got the ability to lock in a 6% for 30 years say? Or do they roll the dice and let it roll for another two years? See where interest rates land? What are you doing?   Aaron: I think goes back to that are your balls attached situation, just see, see what you're willing to do? Right, you're the ones guy put your head on the pillow at night, you got to be able to understand how you feel about. Me, I love to control things for as long as I can control it. I'll take my lumps. And I'll take that 6% all day long. Because I would much rather allow inflation to erode the dollar over a long period of time. Rather than forcing me in a situation like that. I've had too many people that I've talked to that did the ARM thing in somebody else's request even at my own. I mean, I did the there's something out there right now called the all in one. This is a big deal. Back in the early 2000s. We sold something very, very similar to this. It just wasn't called the all in one.   And when the market freaked out in 2008. And they started freezing these people's credit lines, I got numerous calls saying What did you put me in? Because I didn't know what was going to happen. Now I do know. And everybody says, well, they're not going to do that. What makes you think I'm not going to do that? The banking industry will do whatever the heck they want to do. They'll shut down. They will kill product, they will not honor locks. They'll wipe anything out that makes it work for them on the next day. They don't care about what they committed to today. They care about what it keeps them in existence tomorrow. As a result of that. I know that's what they do. I've seen them do it. I can't in good conscience do anything but tell person Hey, the 30 year fix so far is the only one with a proven track record.   Michael: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. How did you think about the interest? I know you said it's not all about the interest rate. But let's put that on the shelf for a minute. If someone's got a property that they're not thrilled with its performance, but they've got this outrageously low rate and a 30 year fixed. Do you think time is going to heal that wound or do you think they should maybe look to move into something else at a higher rate, but that they might be a little bit happier with?   Aaron: I think it really, really depends upon the scenario what's making them so unhappy about it, is there a possibility to try to change whatever is making them happy unhappy about that there's something about the property, this specific thing that's creating a difficulty with it, is it just not being rented because of this or because of that, you know, it may be one of those times, we have to spend some time understanding what's happening in the market that's causing that property to be what it is, right? People coming by either I don't want to rent this thing. Because of this, or because of that, it could be a very simple thing. You know, when we own something we don't see with our lens very, very well, we see, hey, this is what the possibility is because we can only see from one angle, but when you get the whole market's angle on a multiple people are willing to come through a look at it, sit them down and ask them, Hey, can you tell me what what about this place? What would have to happen to that make it something so yes, I do want to rent this, or yes, this I can make my home for five years?   Understand that is sometimes you might have to bite the bullet, put a few bucks into it. And next thing, you know, now you have a very low interest rate, which again, that right there is, is is a very, very valuable piece in itself. And then you have whatever changed on this house that now makes it what it needs to be. And its location that might be something's completely, you know, one of these things you can't fix, right? You have to find the one person in the world that wants that and carry a note for them and see if you can swing something like that. But if it's something that's changeable because of aesthetics, or or usability, or it's just whatever that might be, you might have to bite the bullet and fix that one thing.   But investigate it first, before you try and make a very, very big decision. Like leave it as is and suck it up and write it out or dump it and move because I've seen I've got a very good friend of mine, named Joel, he owns a lot of shopping centers. I don't understand shopping centers. This guy's like the walking talking Stephen Hawking of shopping center this guy, just look at it, tell you what's wrong with it, and make it make money overnight. And the guy's amazing at what he's able to do. And because one person can't make it work, you have a guy like Joel come in, he looks at it makes an offer, they sell it cheap. He spends a few bucks. And now that thing's fully rented, and it's worth 10 times what he paid for it. It's just a matter of getting the right perspective. Take the time, understand the market, get the perspective.   Michael: I love that. I love that. Aaron, I want to get you out of here until next time, but in the meantime, where can folks if they didn't catch on the first episode, reach out to learn more about you or get a hold of one of your loans?   Aaron: Just go to aaronchapman.com And if that one doesn't work, go to aaronbchapman.com. Another good place to just Google Aaron Chapman. There's like five of us out there that pop up on Google there's only one bearded redneck lender there is a pastor there's a there's a English soccer player there is a an author and then camera with the other guy is but yeah, there's five and I'm an author as well so you can go to you can look me up on Amazon that kind of stuff. I'm working on another book got a few things cooking.   Michael: Right on man love it. Well hey, this was awesome as always and until next time, looking forward to it be well.   Aaron: Thanks, buddy. Good to see you again.   Michael: Likewise.    Alright everyone that was our episode A big thank you to Aaron for coming on again dropping some fantastic wisdom, insights and knowledge. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review and we look forward to seeing the next one. Happy investing

Aaron Chapman is a veteran in the finance industry with 25 years of experience helping clients better understand, source, and finance cash-flow positive investment properties. He advises over 100 clients a month in the acquisition and financing of their investment properties and primary residences. Aaron is ranked in the top 1% of mortgage loan processors in the country, in an industry of over 300,000 licensed loan originators, closing in excess of 100 transactions per month. In today's episode Aaron gives us his take on the current interest rate and inflationary environment, where he sees things going, and his thoughts on what investors should be doing in a time like this. Episode link: https://www.aaronbchapman.com/ https://apps.apple.com/uy/app/qjo-investment-tool/id1533823468 --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor Podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the remote real estate investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today I'm joined by Aaron Chapman, who's a lender, investor, bearded man and entrepreneur as well as an author and he's going to be talking to us about inflation and using long term debt as your battle ax against it. So let's get into it.   Aaron Chapman, what's going on, man? Thanks for taking the time to come hang out with me. I appreciate it.   Aaron: What's happening brother thanks for the invite. I think I kind of pushed my way in a little bit but I just   Michael: Invite, forced invite.   Aaron: Let's put that way.   Michael: Ya, no happy to happy to and it's been a minute since since we saw each other over think Realty in Tampa. How you bee?   Aaron: Been very good man. Think Realty in Tampa seems like so long ago, because I've been to Tampa two times since then. Miami a couple of times. Literally, I don't get to see very much of anything. But seats 3d of American Airlines is what it seems like.   Michael: And that's pretty close up to the front of that first class?   Aaron: It's always first it's what I've discovered in my career, it used to be you know, you got to you got to hang on to your capital is really kind of dumb to spend money unnecessarily. But then I got to thinking. So like I said first a few times, and I sat next to some amazing people. So it's not about the seat. It's about the person next to you. And more often than not, it's often enough, let's put that I sat next to some people, just some amazing conversations that end up doing business with some people when they didn't want to talk to me. And then it wasn't long, they were talking to me. And then they're giving me pointers, one guy who was like one of the executives over at the Business Journal. And I was finally DC next year, he's telling me all the cool places to go in DC. And now I've seen him pop up online. And I'll check in with him to see what's going on just a really cool guy that I recognized him by couldn't place who he was, until I got in talking. And then I found figured out who he was. So it's just, that's the kind of person that I ended up sitting with. And it's more the conversation than anything.   Michael: What a different way of thinking about things like so many people see the price of the ticket. They're like, Oh, I don't want to pay that or like the experience. But you're you're approaching with a whole different lens. I love it, man.   Aaron: Well, it's kind of how I approach going out for an expensive dinner paying a big tip, things like that. It's like, we know what's happening with the dollar right? It's not doing a whole lot sitting in our bank account. And believe me, I agree with holding on to cash, I believe I agree with investing wisely. But I also agree with taking that capital and putting it someplace where you're building relationships and building up somebody else. And so there's times when somebody does a great job, man throwing $100 tip on a on $100 Dinner is not an uncommon thing in my world. And that's not me beating my chest. It's that person earned it and what's that 100 bucks going to do in my world? My wife will ---- it away on somebody Amazon, right? So it's really not going to, it's not going to enhance our lives that much. But you'd be amazed at what it does to that person. And you walk back in there to that place you think that person forgot you? Well, they definitely don't forget me with the braids.   Michael: I was gonna say yeah, with a look like that. Yeah,   Aaron: Yeah, that's remembered. But then they remember that. And then it's there's this, I talked about the economy of gratitude a lot, and that autonomy kicks in. And they will do more and go above and beyond. Of course, now you're kind of stuck to $100   Michael: That's the minimum, yeah, the bar has been set.   Aaron: So you got to be careful of how often you do go back or when you go back, you'd be amazed at the interaction you have with this person. It's a life changing experience. Because our like our lives are changed by the people that we interact with. And not necessarily what what we what we grow in it or what we amass in it is the relationships that we have.   Michael: I love it. I love it. Let's give people the quick and dirty of who you are and where you come from and what is it you're doing in real estate and then we'll jump into kind of the meat what I wanted to cover today.   Aaron: Very cool. So the quick and dirty is not so quick and but it's kind of dirty. So the interesting thing I was sitting in an event happen to be in Tampa, we were just talking about Tampa. This was years ago and one of the main speakers there talked about the lending industry that being a loan officer and he said the reason people become a loan officers because they can't get a job doing anything else. And it rang really, really true to me because that was my story. You go back to you know, I grew up on a cattle ranch in high school and from there to work in the oil fields in Wyoming drove truck ran heavy equipment, found myself in the mines in northern New Mexico in the late 90s. And they started to shut down the project and so I got laid off and I thought no big deal. I'll find a job easy and I had a wife and kid back in Arizona and I was up in northern New Mexico I go back and forth, went back and I couldn't find a job for nothing. I tried like crazy everything I applied for I got this this statement of being overqualified. I kept getting turned down.   And things were getting dire at that point, I needed to make something happen. And as I left to go apply for a $10 an hour truck driving job to me, it was like the worst thing I could possibly do, but it was gonna put, bring money so I can at least feed my family. My wife as I left gave me a coupon for free diapers. So I drove over to this place, I applied the general manager turned me down again said I was overqualified. So I'm 23 years old, I feel broken, and walking down to my truck up coming from the type one of those job site type trailers go down the stairs. Get on my truck, said a quick prayer. I was really just I was trying to hold back the tears started up my truck and I started pointing myself to this grocery store. Well, as I'm headed to the grocery store, my gas light comes on in my truck. I had never ran that thing long enough to find out how long ago on a gas light. So I quickly found a store that had a groat a gas station on the corner. I pulled up that pump, got my debit card out, I said a quick prayer, prayer, I swiped it and I got declined.   So I rifle through my truck looking for a lost dollar, found a few coins, I closed it lock the door, I started walking that grocery store pocket parking lot. And as I'm looking around, you know, I would find something on the ground look, make sure nobody's looking, reach out quickly pick it up, put in my pocket. This went on for what seemed like a couple hours. And then I got enough change that I thought would give me a couple gallons of gas. Luckily, it was 97 were Yeah, 1997 I think gallon, a gallon, a gallon gas, like 89 cents. So I went and exchanged my change, which was a couple hours of my life for two gallons of gas, went into the grocery store with my coupon, found those diapers hurried up and went to the checkout counter. I don't know if you've ever been this position, but nothing feels worse to, in my opinion, to have one item and your coupon for that one item. Right. And now it was just another just another crappy feeling to the day. So I got my stuff put in the bag, and I'm screaming either as fast as I can. And somebody recognized me.   He called me over and I didn't want to talk to anybody. But he asked me how things were. And I told him what I just told you. He goes, Let's go to dinner. I'm like, Dude, I can't afford dinner. And I hated saying that. He was no, no, no, I got a gift certificate to Red Lobster. I'll take you your wife out. So we went to Red Lobster a couple of nights later. And that's where he told me about the mortgage industry. He explained to me what happened in it? And I'm like, Dude, how can I do this? I know nothing about that. I think there's numbers involved, and I cheated my butt off to get that C in high school. If it wasn't for the fact that could pick a lock, I would not have graduated.   So I went in, I cut a foot off of my hair, I shaved. My mom bought me some business likes clothes, and I wouldn't do an interview. And they started me as a telemarketer in 1997. So that's how I got going. So going from a telemarketer to working actually some of my own leads to building this up and going through the crash and all kinds of stuff. And there's a bunch of stories in there. To now, you know, I was just called by an outfit by modex. And they recognize me I think is the number six guy in the United States. For transactions closed. I was number one guy in Arizona, I didn't even realize that I didn't really pay attention to the statistics, there's 1.6 million people in United States that do what I do. And from what I can tell, I'm ranked number six for how many deals I closed last year. So it's kind of an interesting dynamic to consider that swing.   Michael: Yeah, I'll say, Well, you know, congratulations on how you've come clearly a long way. That's really exciting.   Aaron: Well, thank you. And there is campfire story after a campfire story of of the different things we'll probably talk about this in the series of stuff we talking about the beatings that a person takes to become successful. And you don't what's really interesting is people say, How do you get there? How do you how do you achieve success? Mike, I'll let you know when I do. Because you just don't feel like it all the time. It's a consistent grind. You're always trying to be ahead of the head of everybody else. And once you achieve something, it's way harder to keep it.   Michael: Yeah, I think people think it's like this just flat curve, you know, flat line once you've achieved something, but really, it's very sinusoidal. It's up and down and valleys and troughs. And you're like, man, some days suck. And some days are great, but the like, I think it's about the end destination right? Where you're trying to get to   Aaron: 100%. So I look at it like Everest, right? You get up there. And I don't know, if you've ever really paid attention. Maybe you've climbed the same for all I know, but how long a person sits on top of Everest, it's a matter of minutes, and they're getting back down because that sucker will kill you. You know, and so it's it's just like any other achievement, we get the second you sit back and you relax and put your feet up. It's gonna kill you. You need to keep moving, you got to get down, you got to get to the next Everest. And it can be debilitating to think that we're constantly hunting the next goal. The next goal, the next goal, instead of just finding the happiness, you know, and you our viewers know who Larry Yatch is he says, you know, success is a optimized daily experience consistently achievable, right, something to that effect there are and so and it's sustainable over time. Yeah. I gotta find that optimized daily experience. Here's what I got to do. I don't think I've achieved finding that yet.   Michael: I'm right there with you, man. We're in the hunt together.   Aaron: Yes. And we'll keep hunting and maybe we'll keep communicating about one of these days. You're like, Dude, I found it.   Michael: Yes. let me show you. So, let's shift gears here a little bit and talk about a topic that I think is on everyone's mind. And that's inflation. And you're working in the mortgage industry for a long time, you've seen a lot of ups and downs, sideways lifts, REITs give us a little bit of insight into why is inflation being talked about so much? And what do we as investors need to be cognizant of, and either using it or being abused by it.   Aaron: So inflation is definitely an interesting animal. And it's talked about a lot, everybody is talking about this constantly. And what I point a lot of people to just even understand inflation is go to a place called Shadowstats.com. When you go to shadow stats, you're gonna go to, and I always encourage everybody to get log into it get to pay for the 100 bucks for the year, whatever, you're gonna go over to alternate data, you're gonna scroll down to inflation, you're going to find this chart, and what this chart has, it's going to be going to show you from 19, from the early 1980s, up until now, and it's going to have two different lines, a blue line and a red line. And they're going to be, they're going to be diverging at some point, they're gonna stay together at one point, they're gonna go down to when they show inflation started work its way down, and then they start to kind of break apart. And what you're watching there is the federal funds rate itself, or not the federal funds rate, but the CPI that the Fed tends to track, and it's what they have changed the index to contain. Right?   So you're familiar with the Dow and the NYSC. And the and the NASDAQ, right? s&p, right, the s&p, none of them have the exact same value Correct. They're all different because they have things in them. Well, if you didn't get into, if you look at the the CPI, the Consumer Price Index, they will stack certain things in there that they can manipulate with monetary policy. And that's what they'll go off of. And you can see in this chart, that it's going to show that that that red line is skipping across the bottom right around their 2% Mark quite a bit, and then it spikes up to about eight and a half 9%, which is where we've been at recently. But if you look at the real rate of inflation, which is the shadow statline, it's going to be pushing up closer to 17. Why is that?   Well, because back in the 80s, they took everything into account, what is the person really literally spending money on to on their day to day life, and they're going to track it so they can see how much their life is changing year over year as far as their expenses. But then they wait a minute, it's getting out of hand, because what we do to pass the law for will increase their their benefits or their social security and the retirement benefits to the rate of inflation. Well, we need to keep this to 2%. Right. So we don't want to raise that really, really quick. That's where you start seeing this particular manipulation? Well, if we're looking at 17%, people should really, really, really be concerned about what's happening with their dollar, because what's the dollar value doing with inflation?   Michael: Decreasing.   Aaron: Decreasing, right? It doesn't spend as far. So what I like to do is talk about this in the sense that it's always been that way. And when we're talking about real estate investing, you know, the, in my opinion, where a person does best when it comes to real estate investing is leveraging the property, you know, the way to leverage the properties, get some sort of financing instrument on it, if you're gonna get financing on it, you want to get it for as long as you possibly can. Because at that point, the longer you take a pay, the less you actually pay, because the dollar you're paying it with is worth less and less and less every year.   So I know in today's higher rate environment, we're talking about inflation is pushing interest rates up. And if you look back at the history of inflation, last time, we saw inflation of this, this magnitude, you'll see in some charts that will show the history of inflation, and how it's somewhere right around 20%. But then you can see the history of the interest rates and the interest rates were closer to the same 17-18% for a 30 year fixed. Well, if we're where we are, as far as inflation is concerned, actually inflation was right around this 13 to 15%, where we are today. And then we're talking to interest rates at 19%. Well, the federal funds rate achieved over 20% at that timeframe. We're not there right now. So explain to people is the gap that we have there as a gift.   Right now we're seeing somewhere in the sevens for 30 year fixed interest rates. And that's, you know, we're talking about this in October, the 2022. Do I expect it to get higher that I really do because of all the uncertainty within the market. But if you've locked it in and that interest rate for 30 years, and inflation stays consistently higher than that, you're never even going to pay back what you borrowed. In fact, I have an app to prove that, you know, people want to go to just go to my website, shoot me a message, I'll get you the app. And you can download this thing on your phone. And you can calculate your amortization table and then see what inflation did and how you paid less than what you borrowed over a 30 year window even though you're paying higher interest in what you hoped.   Michael: We have to come back to that point because that's so counterintuitive and the exact opposite of what everyone tells you. When you look at the sum total you paid over a mortgage. But before we get there, I want to ask is it appropriate to look purely at The rate of inflation against interest rates? Or do we also have to take into account just the pure purchase price that we're seeing today? Or is it become irrelevant?   Aaron: I think they're all a factor. Because sometimes when you're let's look back at interest rates go backwards a year, right? Interest rates were in the threes and fours were people buying investment properties. Unbelievable, we'd never actually seen that, and never thought that I would ever see that. But what's happened to the prices of houses, what what you're doing is you're opening up where they were, they say the affordability index had a right how that worked in and more people could afford houses. Well, the more people that could afford houses, the more people bidding on those houses, right, the more of those houses got bid up beyond their real value, price does not equal value in an environment like that people are just willing to pay an enormous amount of money.   Well, because of that, all that affordability, it was so so called built into it because of lower interest rate was getting eroded by the fact that pushing the price so high. So now we're at this really interesting point where the prices are still fairly high compared to, to the, I'd say the real value of real estate because of what people are willing to pay. But our interest rates have increased to not quite to the highest it could and it's really not as high as the national as the average has been since 1971. But it's going to slow that down, I think an equilibrium equilibrium is going to kick in here at some point. And you might see those prices start to decrease a bit. And then of course, it's going to make a little bit more sense. So there's going to be people sitting on the side and waiting and watching. But then again, are they going to increase or decrease that much this begs the other question, were five point I think 5.2 million units short to fulfill the needs of that for housing United States. And then you're we're already short on that. We don't have as many building permits happening. We don't have the supply chain we used to, and now we have how many houses just got wiped out in Florida, you start compounding all this out, man. I'm telling people if you're in a contract, you probably want to stay in that thing. Because if you're backing out of a contract, because you don't like the price, you don't like the rates. Expect, just imagine what you're gonna like and a year from now, I don't think it's gonna get prettier.   Michael: Yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting perspective. Let's come back to what you said before about, when you look at the total amount you've paid. Over time, it actually ends up being less than the original amount you borrowed because of inflation. Walk us through that again,   Aaron: Gladly. And you're probably have to say that a lot to our conversation. Let's go back. You start with a topic. And now I go 100 different ways, because my mind is one, obviously, beautiful mind. There's a dude in here.. just just see it. So you've got. So when you think about our inflation, right, now, let's just take the BS metric that the feds throwing out there eight point, I think we're at 8.63%, if I remember correctly, right. So 8.3%, that means the dollar is losing 8.3% of its value every year. So if you take 8.3%, I'm gonna get my calculator out here on my phone. And we're going to divide that by 12. That means we're losing .691 percent of the value every single month. Is that not alarming .619% of the value every single month. So that's pretty well. So what I have here, and I'm just going to launch my launch my my app here, and anybody can get it is to QJO investment tool, you can go right to the app store and get the QJO investment tool. They may bleep me out here, guys, but it stands for the quit ------- off investment tool, because I think that's all a person does when they're so worried about interest rates.    So if we're doing say, a 20%, down on a $200,000 property, and you're putting, let's say it's a seven half percent interest rate, you're gonna have a payment of a principal and interest of $1,118.74. Not real bad, right? But now you're gonna pay over that period of time on that interest, you're gonna pay $402,747.56, right? 402K. You got a $200,000 house, you put 20% down, that's $160,000 loan. Right? And then you're going to pay $400,000 In principal and interest people like there's no way in hell, I'm going to do that. But when you recalculate, every time you make a payment, that payment is worth what did we say? Point six 9%? Less? So I'll write $6.90 per dollar. Last, is that right? Or is that? No, that's not quite right. It's eight, it'd be eight cents per dollar per year. So it's point 06 cents per mile. Right? Right. But when you per dollar when you recalculate that every time for 360 months, the actual inflation adjusted payment over 360 months is $152,466. That's less than what you borrowed and that's based on 8% inflation, just 8%   Because you think about that the dollar you're borrowing is seven and a half percent. You're paying a Back at an 8% decline, right now it's bigger than it's 8.3 8.4%. In fact, if you want to look at shadow stats, if you look all the way back, when you look how they track it, it's been over 8% since 2012. So in reality, you're never paying back what you borrowed because you're paying less them what they're getting in the form of interest. You're paying, you're literally getting paid to hold their money. And what's really, really cool about this is where it gets awesome. Because of inflation, we get to raise rents, how much are rents going up year over year right now in the United States?   Michael: Like seven to 10%.   Aaron: Last time I saw it was 12. Right? When you average it all out? Dang. Yeah. To a fact,   Michael: I haven't looked for a while. Clearly,   Aaron: Property manager in Kansas City. I had him check it out. They ran their books, they figured they said there was like 14.2, we looked at the last year, Mike, wow, this is crazy. I'm looking at what my kids are paying right there. They're in these apartments, and they're bumping up two to $300 every year. To me, it's kind of immoral. Now I get there's costs go up, taxes go up, upkeep goes up, because you got you got supply chain issues, right? You've got workers, the man ain't fixing anything over there really fast. So it's not like I think that they're, they're hurting themselves. From what I'm hearing, right? They're staying in my house now. And again, because of the darn AC has out for a couple of days.   Those kinds of things. So when you think about that, what's going on in that type of environment, they're raising it like that? Well, let's see what I always tell people, we get to raise rents, even at just 5%. That's every time you raise rents, that's a compound on the previous year's rent, and then you compound it again and compounded again. So as you're compounding the increase in your income, you're compounding the decrease in what the lender makes, because they don't get to raise the payment because of inflation.   So eventually, it may suck for the first 2-3-4 years because of your start rate. And because of all that, and you know, people always like to use cash on cash return is their metric. I think it's a BS metric. Guys, that's not that's not ratio, focus. There's other places to focus, we'll talk about it. But when you start adding that up, and really, really working out the math on it over time, you start killing it at about years 5-6-7 And just compounds huge. Those who don't want to be able to hang for the first three to four years of the ones going to be off on the sidelines. And they're the ones going to say that real estate's not the place to be because of interest rates will they're the they're the the people in the crowd. They're the ones that are the spectators, that people on the field, know where it's supposed to be at and they understand it. And those are the ones going to take opportunity.   Michael: Love it. Aaron, let me ask you this, the Fed has tried to maintain inflation at around two to 3% annually. Right now we're up in that eight plus range. And so we did the math behind if inflation stays there for the duration of the 30 years that you're holding that loan. But if they get things under control, and it drops back down at 3%. I mean, did all of that benefit just get eroded?   Aaron: Well, we also have to look at what they're dropping by 3% They're dropping their index by 3%. And that's dropping the real rate of inflation by India by 3%. So I don't see that as being eroded because you look back at you know, go back to shadow stats, start looking at what they were they calculate real rate of inflation. We've been over 8% Since what since 2012. You have a consistent increase in inflation, it's going consistently up cost of living has not gotten cheaper. Now, I don't know when you were born, but in 19 in the 1980s I could jump on my, it was the late 80s I could jump on my skateboard my mom gave me $1 Literally $1 Bill, I could go down to the corner store, get a gallon of milk, buy some candy for me and bring change to her. how possible is that right now?   Michael: Um no, can't even buy the candy for the dollar right now? No, I just bought a KitKat for a buck. 75 Check it out. That's ridiculous. Dude, it's this dark chocolate and mint. KitKat I'm like such a sucker for dark chocolate. It was amazing. But yeah, Buck 75.   Aaron: Well, it's probably probably an extra 10 cents for the blend, right? But, but again, kefir dollar 75. So that's what I'm saying a gallon of milk and I could get into it. It wasn't like the big jumbo candy bar, nut it was something. And I brought that change. But that was possible in like 1986, I think is when that was okay. It feels like a little while ago, but it shouldn't have changed that much. But it did. So if you look back at that's not a 2% inflation increase. That's common. That's some serious increase, especially the price of milk today. Right. So we started looking at that the Fed has never really kept it under 2% control.   The other thing is, is our inflation today, I don't know if we're really know the full outcome of what's going to happen with what they did with those printed dollars. They have put $8.9 trillion into the markets that they never were in before. If you look at their holdings with respect to mortgage backed securities and treasuries, $8.9 trillion. Then we have they backed off by point zero 2 trillion. And now we have interest rates more than double what happens when they back off by half. Right? So when you start thinking about what they did, and what we're that we're the the amount of money that's in circulation, there's got to be some really massive moves here to get this under control and One of the things that really kind of stands out to me and if you heard this conversation were Powell, the chairman of the Fed was speaking. One of the things he said, I don't remember the exact words. He says one thing we've learned about inflation is we know very little about inflation. That's alarming.   Michael: Yeah, big time.   Aaron: And that was said within the last 45 days, I think 45 to 60 days. So what I am taking by that is inflation. There's this big loaded oil tanker, right, and it's headed towards ground right now. And they didn't get off the throttle early enough with all the stuff they're doing. Now. They're dropping all these anchors, they're hooking up tugboats. They're doing everything think everything they can, but it's too, it's too late. It's going to run aground. And what that happens when it runs aground, I don't know. But it's going to be pretty ugly. And so that's why I tell everybody I'm dealing with, you need to control what you can control for as long as you can control it. And the one thing we can control right now is a 30 year fixed loan. An ARM, Are these things they call, what did they call this thing be all in one loans, it's an adjustable rate, just a single adjustable rate, kind of a credit line? Yeah, great concept. But we have no idea how it's going to react in an environment like this. So for me, it's like whatever you can do to maintain it and keep control of it. And then when you know, we know for a fact that sense right now to close on this 30 year fixed and pay the points and get the rate.   But what I do know is you're not going to pay it back, you're gonna pay less than what you borrowed. When you go with what the bank say, let's go with a five year or seven year, you have to do something with that loan, at some point. What did you just become a new client for the banks, that's what they want. That's what they say in the background, sell the arm because you're insuring your business for the future, the business for who the loan originator, not the person buying houses to rent out and to maintain a business, you are now become somebody's servant, you become a business, somebody else's future, you're a commodity. And I try and tell her but don't become somebody else's commodity control it for as long as you can. Only pull refinances, you can pull the money back out and reinvest into other things. Other than that, let that sucker sit there as long as you can run that out and let somebody else pay the freight.   Michael: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Aaron, I know you deal exclusively in residential mortgages. But can you give any insight into why the commercial markets only have 5- 7-10 year options on their mortgages, as opposed to the 30? year fixed? I mean, I have seen a 30 year fixed, but it's not the Colt 45, like it is in the residential space?   Aaron: Yes, you're right. It's it's very, very uncommon. Well, because most your commercial mortgages have to be made up by by investor capital or by banks, right. And so banks are going to take depositor capital, and they're going to create this or they're going to create their own type of security. And they're going to be able to get investors come into most investors don't want to let their money sit for 30 years. Most people don't know that when you're letting your money sit for 30 years in an inflationary environment, you're not getting your money, right, we all expect a certain rate of return on if you do any sort of hard money lending. Or if you've ever done anything to that effect, or fix and flips, you're going to calculate your return on investment annually. And I searched for a 12 plus. Right. And I don't know if you listen to Warren Buffett, Warren Buffett was talking about where, you know, some lady came to him. And, you know, she was trying to figure out how to how to invest her money, and it was a lot of money to her, but not to him. And he said, we have any credit cards? And she goes well, yeah. And he goes, we'll pay that off first. Because why would I do that? I'm not making any money. He goes, What are you paying your interest? 18 20% Because I can't make 18%. So I was I don't know how to do that. So get rid of the debt, you know, then I can show you how to make at least 12 to 13. So that's what we all are wanting is get that 12 13%.   You're not going to make that in a 30 year fixed, you just aren't. So what we've had we've we've created a way to kind of subsidized by the system. And we've got this Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. And what they did was they created the mortgage backed securities, luminary did that for anybody who watched the The Big Short. And if you haven't actually watch it. I know this is a family family show. So don't let the kids in there when you watch it, but it explains the history of the mortgage back series security, where it came from. And now what you have is now a tradable piece of paper that people keep just trading around. That's where its value is. Its value is in its trade ability in its liquid tradability as well as the fact that it the performance of the note people making the payments on time. That's what makes that's a valuable piece of paper, not to sit and hold it for 30 years. It's not valuable at all, you're losing money on that paper.   So that's why I think in the commercial world because they have not had this initiative from the from the government say we need to create housing or we need to create people's businesses, right. They didn't have that initiative. They had the initiative when you create housing, when you give people opportunity to live in a home when you give them the best opportunity and mortgage financing. So they created a 30 year fixed and a 30 year fixed has caught hold and become kind of the gold standard is now the the the Qualified Mortgage, if you will, when you get into anything else. So those where you're not really a qualified loan, you don't have safe harbor from the government or do anything outside of that. So that's about my best guess is you can't get anybody to want to put money up for that long for so cheap and lose it, and just and not make a return is really what it boils down to. They probably just rather own the building.   Michael: Yep. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Aaron, one final question before you before I let you out of here 15 year fixed versus 30 year fixed, you'll often see a pretty big spread on the interest rate. Does it ever make sense?   Aaron: We're not seeing as big a spread now as we used to. But here's where I look, it used to be a bigger spread. It's not real big right now, if there is a spread at all. So and one, two reasons we're not seeing as big a spread as we used to, we have a lot of uncertainty in the labor market right now. And as a result, that uncertainty lenders like I don't know, if I want to saddle somebody with a bigger payment, when they may have a an issue with their income in the near future. And if they do have an issue with their income, what is their ability to pay this higher payment versus a 30 year fixed, so we're gonna price it in a way that kind of leads them back to good old fashioned 30 year fixed, because our value in our portfolio is them being able to make their payment. So then when you do compare them side by side, even if it's a lower payment, you can use my, you can't use my calculator, I don't have that feature in this, we will in a future iteration, by run the numbers, when you're paying off a 15 year fixed, even at a three eighths of a percent lower interest rate or even a half, I have found you actually pay more in actual dollars. The reason being you're paying those dollars while they're worth more, rather than stretching out over time when they're worth less, because in 15 years, they're going to be worth a hell of a lot less than they are within the first 15 years.   So those who pay that off quick like that, yeah, feels good. You're getting equity in your house and all that kind of stuff. I'm of the mindset pay the 30 year fixed stretch as far as I can take the extra money I would have paid for 15 and reinvested somewhere else. And as a result of being able to do that multiple different properties and compound it that way I'll generate a lot more wealth. Because when you have when you have a home and I tell people if you're gonna buy real estate investments and get those those single families, duplex, triplex, fourplex, you have two jobs, right, you have to pick the right people to work with on the real estate side. And on the lending side to understand what you're trying to do and will guide you not try and lead you to make them money but lead you to make you money, and then pick the right asset to buy the stays reasonably rent it for the entire time you own it, you can raise rents, if you have that, who pays off the mortgage?   Michael: The tenants,   Aaron: the tenant, so if the tenant pays it off, and it's easy to do the math, guys just take 100,000, let's say it's 100? Well, you have to say it's an 80,000, or only about 100,000, our house with 20%, down, you got an $80,000 loan, you divide that up by 30, which is how many years are taken to pay it off, you'll find that it pays off. They're all they're basically giving you $2,666.67 per year, they're giving that to you, right, and that's what you're paying off the mortgage with? Well, you divide that into your investment, which is the money you invested 20,000 plus a 6000 in closing costs as 26,000 your investments grown by 10.25%, every year, do the math, you figure it out yourself. If they're paying it off, you did your job. And that's all you made was done paying off the loan, you made no more cash flow, you put no more out of your pocket, that's 10.25%, predictable, you still have the tax benefits, you still have the appreciation on the home.   So that's before all, all cash flow. So what I tell everybody is let that drag out, it doesn't matter what you do, if you do it on a 15 year note, you're more than likely have to go to your pocket, you're more than likely have to try and maintain that in other ways. And if you're out of a tenant for a month or two, that's really going to hurt your pocket, stretch that thing out. If you really feel like you want to get it paid off 10 years you can all in 15 years, you can always pay a 30 like a 15 You can never pay a 15 like a 30.   Michael: Yeah, it's very I always tell people to there you have the optionality with 30 year and that you don't have the 15. Arron: Options or everything. You know, that's all people want is to be able to make a decision for themselves. But when you pitch and you back yourself in the corner, and you're not allowed to decide for yourself, that's when you're frustrated, that's when you get angry, leave yourself out. It's a good business move to leave yourself out. The other thing of it is going back to the to the arms these other stuff, man, we're going off of hope. And hope is not a good business strategy. You need to go off of what you know and stick with what you know and control for long as you possibly can.   Michael: Love it. And this is an awesome place to put us pause until our next conversation. Until then, where can people find out more about you reach out to you if they have questions or want to reach out to you for your services?   Aaron: Best Places go to AaronChapman.com If you can't find me there because sometimes there are some some browsers don't like it you have to type in Aaron B chapman.com. Just type in Aaron Chapman a Google if you find a bearded redneck lender you found him.   Michael: Right on. Right on. Well, hey, thanks a lot, man for hanging out with me and walking us through this really kind of tumultuous time appreciate you. And we'll definitely be chatting again soon.   Aaron: It was my pleasure brother. And again, thanks for letting me under to poke some holes in in people's heads out there.   Michael: All right, everyone. That was our episode A big thank you to Aaron for coming on and dropping some really interesting Insights for us on where we're headed in the market. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a rating or review and we look forward to seeing the next one. Happy investing

In this episode, we cover: Aaron talks about starting out as a developer and the early stages of cloud development at RBC (1:05) Aaron discusses transitioning to developer advocacy (12:25) Aaron identifies successes he had in his early days of developer advocacy (20:35) Jason asks what it looks like to assist developers in achieving completion with long term maintenance projects, or “sustainable development” (25:40)  Jason and Aaron discuss what “innersource” is and why it's valuable in an organization (29:29) Aaron answers the question “how do you keep skills and knowledge up to date?” (33:55) Aaron talks about job opportunities at RBC (38:55) Links Referenced: Royal Bank of Canada: https://www.rbcroyalbank.com Opportunities at RBC: https://jobs.rbc.com/ca/en TranscriptAaron: And I guess some PM asked my boss, “So, Aaron doesn't come to our platform status meetings, he doesn't really take tickets, and he doesn't take support rotation. What does Aaron do for the Cloud Platform Team?”Jason: [laugh].Jason: Welcome to Break Things on Purpose, a podcast about reliability, learning, and building better systems. In this episode, we talk with Aaron Clark, Director of Developer Advocacy at the Royal Bank of Canada. We chat with him about his journey from developer to advocate, the power of applying open-source principles within organizations—known as innersource—and his advice to keep learning.Jason: Welcome to the show, Aaron.Aaron: Thanks for having me, Jason. My name is Aaron Clark. I'm a developer advocate for cloud at RBC. That is the Royal Bank of Canada. And I've been at the bank for… well, since February 2010.Jason: So, when you first joined the bank, you were not a developer advocate, though?Aaron: Right. So, I have been in my current role since 2019. I've been part of the cloud program since 2017. Way back in 2010, I joined as a Java developer. So, my background in terms of being a developer is pretty much heavy on Java. Java and Spring Boot, now.I joined working on a bunch of Java applications within one of the many functions areas within the Royal Bank. The bank is gigantic. That's kind of one of the things people sometimes struggle to grasp. It's such a large organization. We're something like 100,000… yeah, 100,000 employees, around 10,000 of that is in technology, so developers, developer adjacent roles like business analysts, and QE, and operations and support, and all of those roles.It's a big organization. And that's one of the interesting things to kind of grapple with when you join the organization. So, I joined in a group called Risk IT. We built solely internal-facing applications. I worked on a bunch of stuff in there.I'm kind of a generalist, where I have interest in all the DevOps things. I set up one of the very first Hudson servers in Risk—well, in the bank, but specifically in Risk—and I admin'ed it on the side because nobody else was doing it and it needed doing. After a few years of doing that and working on a bunch of different projects, I was occasionally just, “We need this project to succeed, to have a good foundation at the start, so Aaron, you're on this project for six months and then you're doing something different.” Which was really interesting. At the same time, I always worry about the problem where if you don't stay on something for very long, you never learn the consequences of the poor decisions you may have made because you don't have to deal with it.Jason: [laugh].Aaron: And that was like the flip side of, I hope I'm making good decisions here. It seemed to be pretty good, people seemed happy with it, but I always worry about that. Like, being in a role for a few years where you build something, and then it's in production, and you're running it and you're dealing with, “Oh, I made this decision that seems like a good idea at the time. Turns out that's a bad idea. Don't do that next time.” You never learned that if you don't stay in a role.When I was overall in Risk IT for four, almost five years, so I would work with a bunch of the teams who maybe stayed on this project, they'd come ask me questions. It's like, I'm not gone gone. I'm just not working on that project for the next few months or whatever. And then I moved into another part of the organization, like, a sister group called Finance IT that runs kind of the—builds and runs the general ledger for the bank. Or at least for a part of capital markets.It gets fuzzy as the organization moves around. And groups combine and disperse and things like that. That group, I actually had some interesting stuff that was when I started working on more things like cloud, looking at cloud, the bank was starting to bring in cloud. So, I was still on the application development side, but I was interested in it. I had been to some conferences like OSCON, and started to hear about and learn about things like Docker, things like Kubernetes, things like Spring Boot, and I was like this is some really neat stuff.I was working on a Spark-based ETL system, on one of the early Hadoop clusters at the bank. So, I've been I'm like, super, super lucky that I got to do a lot of this stuff, work on all of these new things when they were really nascent within the organization. I've also had really supportive leadership. So, like, I was doing—that continuous integration server, that was totally on the side; I got involved in a bunch of reuse ideas of, we have this larger group; we're doing a lot of similar things; let's share some of the libraries and things like that. That was before being any, like, developer advocate or anything like that I was working on these.And I was actually funded for a year to promote and work on reuse activities, basically. And that was—I learned a lot, I made a lot of mistakes that I now, like, inform some of the decisions I make in my current role, but I was doing all of this, and I almost described it as I kind of taxed my existing project because I'm working on this team, but I have this side thing that I have to do. And I might need to take a morning and not work on your project because I have to, like, maintain this build machine for somebody. And I had really supportive leadership. They were great.They recognize the value of these activities, and didn't really argue about the fact that I was taking time away from whatever the budget said I was supposed to be doing, which was really good. So, I started doing that, and I was working in finance as the Cloud Team was starting to go through a revamp—the initial nascent Cloud Team at the bank—and I was doing cloud things from the app dev side, but at the same time within my group, anytime something surprising became broken, somebody had some emergency that they needed somebody to drop in and be clever and solve things, that person became me. And I was running into a lot of distractions in that sense. And it's nice to be the person who gets to work on, “Oh, this thing needs rescuing. Help us, Aaron.”That's fantastic; it feels really good, right, up until you're spending a lot of your time doing it and you can't do the things that you're really interested in. So, I actually decided to move over to the Cloud Team and work on kind of defining how we build applications for the cloud, which was really—it was a really good time. It was a really early time in the bank, so nobody really knew how we were going to build applications, how we were going to put them on the cloud, what does that structure look like? I got to do a lot of reading and research and learning from other people. One of the key things about, like, a really large organization that's a little slow-moving like the bank and is a little bit risk-averse in terms of technology choices, people always act like that's always a bad thing.And sometimes it is because we're sometimes not adopting things that we would really get a lot of benefit out of, but the other side of it is, by the time we get to a lot of these technologies and platforms, a bunch of the sharp edges have kind of been sanded off. Like, the Facebooks and the Twitters of the world, they've adopted it and they've discovered all of these problems and been, like, duct-taping them together. And they've kind of found, “Oh, we need to have actual, like, security built into this system,” or things like that, and they've dealt with it. So, by the time we get to it, some of those issues are just not there anymore. We don't have to deal with them.Which is an underrated positive of being in a more conservative organization around that. So, we were figuring there's a lot of things we could learn from. When we were looking at microservices and, kind of, Spring Boot Spring Cloud, the initial cloud parts that had been brought into the organization were mainly around Cloud Foundry. And we were helping some initial app teams build their applications, which we probably over-engineered some of those applications, in the sense that we were proving out patterns that you didn't desperately need for building those applications. Like, you could have probably just done it with a web app and relational database and it would have been fine.But we were proving out some of the patterns of how do you build something for broader scale with microservices and things like that. We learned a bunch about the complexities of doing that too early, but we also learned a bunch about how to do this so we could teach other application teams. And that's kind of the group that I became part of, where I wasn't a platform operator on the cloud, but I was working with dev teams, building things with dev teams to help them learn how to build stuff for cloud. And this was my first real exposure to that scope and scale of the bank. I'd been in the smaller groups and one of the things that you start to encounter when you start to interact with the larger parts of the bank is just, kind of, how many silos there are, how diverse the tech stacks are in an organization of that size.Like, we have areas that do things with Java, we have areas doing things with .NET Framework, we have areas doing lots of Python, we have areas doing lots of Node, especially as the organization started building more web applications. While you're building things with Angular and using npm for the front-end, so you're building stuff on the back-end with Node as well. Whether that is a good technology choice, a lot of the time you're building with what you have. Even within Java, we'd have teams building with Spring Boot, and lots of groups doing that, but someone else is interested in Google Guice, so they're building—instead of Spring, they're using Google Guice as their dependency injection framework.Or they have a… like, there's the mainframe, right? You have this huge technology stack where lots of people are building Java EE applications still and trying to evolve that from the old grungy days of Java EE to the much nicer modern ways of it. And some of the technology conversations are things like, “Well, you can use this other technology; that's fine, but if you're using that, and we're using something else over here, we can't help each other. When I solve a problem, I can't really help solve it for you as well. You have to solve it for yourself with your framework.”I talked to a team once using Vertex in Java, and I asked them, “Why are you using Vertex?” And they said, “Well, that's what our team knew.” I was like, “That's a good technology choice in the sense that we have to deliver. This is what we know, so this is the thing we know we can succeed with rather than actually learning something new on the job while trying to deliver something.” That's often a recipe for challenges if not outright failure.Jason: Yeah. So, it sounds like that's kind of where you come in; if all these teams are doing very disparate things, right—Aaron: Mm-hm.Jason: That's both good and bad, right? That's the whole point of microservices is independent teams, everyone's decoupled, more velocity. But also, there's huge advantages—especially in an org the size of RBC—to leverage some of the learnings from one team to another, and really, like, start to share these best practices. I'm guessing that's where you come into play now in your current role.Aaron: Yeah. And that's the part where how do we have the flexibility for people to make their own choices while standardizing so we don't have this enormous sprawl, so we can build on things? And this is starting to kind of where I started really getting involved in community stuff and doing developer advocacy. And part of how this actually happened—and this is another one of those cases where I've been very fortunate and I've had great leaders—I was working as part of the Cloud Platform Team, the Special Projects group that I was, a couple of people left; I was the last one left. It's like, “Well, you can't be your own department, so you're part of Cloud Platform.” But I'm not an operator. I don't take a support rotation.And I'm ostensibly building tooling, but I'm mostly doing innersource. This is where the innersource community started to spin up at RBC. I was one of the, kind of, founding members of the innersource community and getting that going. We had built a bunch of libraries for cloud, so those were some of the first projects into innersource where I was maintaining the library for Java and Spring using OIDC. And this is kind of predating Spring Security's native support for OIDC—so Open ID Connect—And I was doing a lot of that, I was supporting app teams who were trying to adopt that library, I was involved in some of the other early developer experience things around, you complain this thing is bad as the developer; why do we have to do this? You get invited to one of the VP's regular weekly meetings to discuss, and now you're busy trying to fix, kind of, parts of the developer experience. I was doing this, and I guess some PM asked my boss, “So, Aaron doesn't come to our platform status meetings, he doesn't really take tickets, and he doesn't take support rotation. What does Aaron do for the Cloud Platform Team?”Jason: [laugh].Aaron: And my boss was like, “Well, Aaron's got a lot of these other things that he's involved with that are really valuable.” One of the other things I was doing at this point was I was hosting the Tech Talk speaking series, which is kind of an internal conference-style talks where we get an expert from within the organization and we try to cross those silos where we find someone who's a machine-learning expert; come and explain how TensorFlow works. Come and explain how Spark works, why it's awesome. And we get those experts to come and do presentations internally for RBC-ers. And I was doing that and doing all of the support work for running that event series with the co-organizers that we had.And at the end of the year, when they were starting up a new initiative to really focus on how do we start promoting cloud adoption rather than just people arrive at the platform and start using it and figure it out for themselves—you can only get so far with that—my boss sits me down. He says. “So, we really like all the things that you've been doing, all of these community things and things like that, so we're going to make that your job now.” And this is how I arrived at there. It's not like I applied to be a developer advocate. I was doing all of these things on the side and all of a sudden, 75% of my time was all of these side projects, and that became my job.So, it's not really the most replicable, like, career path, but it is one of those things where, like, getting involved in stuff is a great way to find a niche that is the things that you're passionate about. So, I changed my title. You can do that in some of our systems as long as your manager approves it, so I changed my title from the very generic ‘Senior Technical Systems Analyst—which, who knows what I actually do when that's my title—and I changed that to ‘Developer Advocate.' And that was when I started doing more research learning about what do actual developer advocates do because I want to be a developer advocate. I want to say I'm a developer advocate.For the longest time in the organization, I'm the only person in the company with that title, which is interesting because then nobody knows what to do with me because I'm not like—am I, like—I'm not a director, I'm not a VP. Like… but I'm not just a regular developer, either. Where—I don't fit in the hierarchy. Which is good because then people stop getting worried about what what are titles and things like that, and they just listen to what I say. So, I do, like, design consultations with dev teams, making sure that they knew what they were doing, or were aware of a bunch of the pitfalls when they started to get onto the cloud.I would build a lot of samples, a lot of docs, do a lot of the community engagement, so going to events internally that we'd have, doing a lot of those kinds of things. A lot of the innersource stuff I was already doing—the speaking series—but now it was my job formally, and it helped me cross a lot of those silos and work very horizontally. That's one of the different parts about my job versus a regular developer, is it's my job to cover anything to do with cloud—that at least, that I find interesting, or that my boss tells me I need to work at—and anything anywhere in the organization that touches. So, a dev team doing something with Kubernetes, I can go and talk to them. If they're building something in capital markets that might be useful, I can say, “Hey, can you share this into innersource so that other people can build on this work as well?”And that was really great because I develop all of these relationships with all of these other groups. And that was, to a degree, what the cloud program needed from me as well at that beginning. I explained that this was now my job to one of my friends. And they're like, “That sounds like the perfect job for you because you are technical, but you're really good with people.” I was like, “Am I? I guess I am now that I've been doing it for this amount of time.”And the other part of it as we've gone on more and more is because I talk to all of these development teams, I am not siloed in, I'm not as tunneled on the specific thing I'm working with, and now I can talk to the platform teams and really represent the application developer perspective. Because I'm not building the platform. And they have their priorities, and they have things that they have to worry about; I don't have to deal with that. My job is to bring the perspective of an application developer. That's my background.I'm not an operator; I don't care about the support rotation, I don't care about a bunch of the niggly things and toil of the platform. It's my job, sometimes, to say, hey, this documentation is well-intentioned. I understand how you arrived at this documentation from the perspective of being the platform team and the things that you prioritize and want to explain to people, but as an application developer, none of the information that I need to build something to run on your platform is presented in a manner that I am able to consume. So, I do, like, that side as well of providing customer feedback to the platform saying, “This thing is hard,” or, “This thing that you are asking the application teams to work on, they don't want to care about that. They shouldn't have to care about this thing.” And that sort of stuff.So, I ended up being this human router are sometimes where platform teams will say, “Do you know anybody who's doing this, who's using this thing?” Or finding one app team and say, “You should talk to that group over there because they are also doing the same thing, or they're struggling with the same thing, and you should collaborate.” Or, “They have solved this problem.” Because I don't know every single programming language we use, I don't know all of the frameworks, but I know who I asked for Python questions, and I will send teams to that person. And part of that, then, as I started doing this community work was actually building community.One of the great successes was, we have a Slack channel called ‘Cloud Adoption.' And that was the place where everybody goes to ask their questions about how do I do this thing to put something on Cloud Foundry, put it on Kubernetes? How do I do this? I don't understand. And that was sometimes my whole day was just going onto that Slack channel, answering questions, and being very helpful and trying to document things, trying to get a feel for what people were doing.It was my whole day, sometimes. It took a while to get used to that was actually, like, a successful day coming from a developer background. I'm used to building things, so I feel like success because I built something I can show you, that I did this today. And then I'd have days where I talked to a bunch of people and I don't have anything I can show you. That was, like, the hard part of taking on this role.But one of the big successes was we built this community where it wasn't just me. Other people who wanted to help people, who were just developers on different dev teams, they'd see me ask questions or answer questions, and they would then know the answers and they'd chime in. And as I started being tasked with more and more other activities, I would then get to go—I'd come back to Slack and see oh, there's a bunch of questions. Oh, it turns out, people are able to help themselves. And that was—like that's success from that standpoint of building community.And now that I've done that a couple times with Tech Talks, with some of the developer experience work, some of the cloud adoption work, I get asked internally how do you build community when we're starting up new communities around things like Site Reliability Engineering. How are we going to do that? So, I get—and that feels weird, but that's one of the things that I have been doing now. And as—like, this is a gigantic role because of all of the scope. I can touch anything with anyone in cloud.One of the scope things with the role, but also with the bank is not only do we have all these tech stacks, but we also have this really, really diverse set of technical acumen, where you have people who are experts already on Kubernetes. They will succeed no matter what I do. They'll figure it out because they're that type of personality, they're going to find all the information. If anything, some of the restrictions that we put in place to manage our environments and secure them because of the risk requirements and compliance requirements of being a regulated bank, those will get in the way. Sometimes I'm explaining why those things are there. Sometimes I'm agreeing with people. “Yeah, it sucks. I don't want to have to do this.”But at the same time, you'll have people who they just want to come in, write their code, go home. They don't want to think about technology other than that. They're not going to go and learn things on their own necessarily. And that's not the end of the world. As strange as that sounds to people who are the personality to be constantly learning and constantly getting into everything and tinkering, like, that's me too, but you still need people to keep the lights on, to do all of the other work as well. And people who are happy just doing that, that's also valuable.Because if I was in that role, I would not be happy. And someone who is happy, like, this is good for the overall organization. But the things that they need to learn, the things they need explained to them, the help they need for success is different. So, that's one of the challenges is figuring out how do you address all of those customers? And sometimes even the answer for those customers is—and this is one of the things about my role—it's like the definition is customer success.If the application you're trying to put on cloud should not go on cloud, it is my job to tell you not to put it on cloud. It is not my job to put you on cloud. I want you to succeed, not just to get there. I can get your thing on the cloud in an afternoon, probably, but if I then walk away and it breaks, like, you don't know what to do. So, a lot of the things around how do we teach people to self-serve, how do we make our internal systems more self-serve, those are kind of the things that I look at now.How do I manage my own time because the scope is so big? It's like, I need to figure out where I'm not moving a thousand things forward an inch, but I'm moving things to their completion. And I am learning to, while not managing people, still delegate and work with the community, work with the broader cloud platform group around how do I let go and help other people do things?Jason: So, you mentioned something in there that I think is really interesting, right, the goal of helping people get to completion, right? And I think that's such an interesting thing because I think as—in that advocacy role, there's often a notion of just, like, I'm going to help you get unstuck and then you can keep going, without a clear idea of where they're ultimately heading. And that kind of ties back into something that you said earlier about starting out as a developer where you build things and you kind of just, like, set it free, [laugh] and you don't think about, you know, that day two, sort of, operations, the maintenance, the ongoing kind of stuff. So, I'm curious, as you've progressed in your career, as you've gotten more wisdom from helping people out, what does that look like when you're helping people get to completion, also with the mindset of this is an application that's going to be running for quite some time. Even in the short term, you know, if it's a short-term thing, but I feel like with the bank, most things probably are somewhat long-lived. How do you balance that out? How do you approach that, helping people get to done but also keeping in mind that they have to—this app has to keep living and it has to be maintained?Aaron: Yeah, a lot of it is—like, the term we use is sustainable development. And part of that is kind of removing friction, trying to get the developers to a point where they can focus on, I guess, the term that's often used in the industry is their inner loop. And it should come as no surprise, the bank often has a lot of processes that are high in friction. There's a lot of open a ticket, wait for things. This is the part that I take my conversations with dev teams, and I ask them, “What are the things that are hard? What are the things you don't like? What are the things you wish you didn't have to do or care about?”And some of this is reading between the lines when you talk to them; it's not so much interviewing them. Like, any kind of requirements gathering, usually, it's not what they say, it's what they talk about that then you look at, oh, this is the problem; how do we unstuck that problem so that people can get to where they need to be going? And this kind of informs some of my feedback to the systems we put in place, the processes we put in place around the platform, some of the tooling we look at. I really, really love the philosophy from Docker and Solomon Hykes around, “Batteries included but removable.” I want developers to have a high baseline as a starting point.And this comes partly from my experience with Cloud Foundry. Cloud Foundry has a really great out-of-the-box dev experience for lots of things where, “I just have a web app. Just run it. It's Nginx; it's some HTML pages; I don't need to know all the details. Just make it go and give me the URL.”And I want more of that for app teams where they have a high baseline of things to work with as a starting point. And kind of every organization ends up building this, where they have—like, Netflix: Netflix OSS or Twitter with Finagle—where they have, “Here's the surrounding pieces that I want to plug in that everybody gets as a starting point. And how do we provide security? How do we provide all of these pieces that are major concerns for an app team, that they have to do, we know they have to do?” Some of these are things that only start coming up when they're on the cloud and trying to provide a lot more of that for app teams so they can focus on the business stuff and only get into the weeds when they need to.Jason: As you're talking about these frameworks that, you know, having this high quality or this high baseline of tools that people can just have, right, equipping them with a nice toolbox, I'm guessing that the innersource stuff that you're working on also helps contribute to that.Aaron: Oh, immensely. And as we've gone on and as we've matured, our innersource organization, a huge part of that is other groups as well, where they're finding things that—we need this. And they'll put—it originally it was, “We built this. We'll put it into innersource.” But what you get with that is something that is very targeted and specific to their group and maybe someone else can use it, but they can't use it without bending it a little bit.And I hate bending software to fit it. That's one of the things—it's a very common thing in the corporate environment where we have our existing processes and rather than adopting the standard approach that some tool uses, we need to take it and then bend it until it fits our existing process because we don't want to change our processes. And that gets hard because you run into weird edge cases where this is doing something strange because we bent it. And it's like, well, that's not its fault at that point. As we've started doing more innersource, a lot more things have really become innersource first, where groups realize we need to solve this together.Let's start working on it together and let's design the API as a group. And API design is really, really hard. And how do we do things with shared libraries or services. And working through that as a group, we're seeing more of that, and more commonly things where, “Well, this is a thing we're going to need. We're going to start it in innersource, we'll get some people to use it and they'll be our beta customers. And we'll inform it without really specifically targeting an application and an app team's needs.”Because they're all going to have specific needs. And that's where the, like, ‘included but removable' part comes in. How do we build things extensibly where we have the general solution and you can plug in your specifics? And we're still—like, this is not an easy problem. We're still solving it, we're still working through it, we're getting better at it.A lot of it's just how can we improve day-over-day, year-over-year, to make some of these things better? Even our, like, continuous integration and delivery pipelines to our to clouds, all of these things are in constant flux and constant evolution. We're supporting multiple languages; we're supporting multiple versions of different languages; we're talking about, hey, we need to get started adopting Java 17. None of our libraries or pipelines do that yet, but we should probably get on that since it's been out for—what—almost a year? And really working on kind of decomposing some of these things where we built it for what we needed at the time, but now it feels a bit rigid. How do we pull out the pieces?One of the big pushes in the organization after the log4j CVE and things like that broad impact on the industry is we need to do a much more thorough job around software supply chain, around knowing what we have, making sure we have scans happening and everything. And that's where, like, the pipeline work comes in. I'm consulting on the pipeline stuff where I provide a lot of customer feedback; we have a team that is working on that all full time. But doing a lot of those things and trying to build for what we need, but not cut ourselves off from the broader industry, as well. Like, my nightmare situation, from a tooling standpoint, is that we restrict things, we make decisions around security, or policy or something like that, and we cut ourselves off from the broader CNCF tooling ecosystem, we can't use any of those tools. It's like, well, now we have to build something ourselves, or—which we're never going to do it as well as the external community. Or we're going to just kind of have bad processes and no one's going to be happy so figuring out all of that.Jason: Yeah. One of the things that you mentioned about staying up to speed and having those standards reminds me of, you know, similar to that previous experience that I had was, basically, I was at an org where we said that we'd like to open-source and we used open-source and that basically meant that we forked things and then made our own weird modifications to it. And that meant, like, now, it wasn't really open-source; it was like this weird, hacked thing that you had to keep maintaining and trying to keep it up to date with the latest stuff. Sounds like you're in a better spot, but I am curious, in terms of keeping up with the latest stuff, how do you do that, right? Because you mentioned that the bank, obviously a bit slower, adopting more established software, but then there's you, right, where you're out there at the forefront and you're trying to gather best practices and new technologies that you can use at the bank, how do you do that as someone that's not building with the latest, greatest stuff? How do you keep that skills and that knowledge up to date?Aaron: I try to do reading, I try to set time aside to read things like The New Stack, listen to podcasts about technologies. It's a really broad industry; there's only so much I can keep up with. This was always one of the conversations going way back where I would have the conversation with my boss around the business proposition for me going to conferences, and explaining, like, what's the cost to acquire knowledge in an organization? And while we can bring in consultants, or we can hire people in, like, when you hire new people in, they bring in their pre-existing experiences. So, if someone comes in and they know Hadoop, they can provide information and ideas around is this a good problem to solve with Hadoop? Maybe, maybe not.I don't want to bet a project on that if I don't know anything about Hadoop or Kubernetes or… like, using something like Tilt or Skaffold with my tooling. That's one of the things I got from going to conferences, and I actually need to set more time aside to watch the videos now that everything's virtual. Like, not having that dedicated week is a problem where I'm just disconnected and I'm not dealing with anything. When you're at work, even if KubeCon's going on or Microsoft Build, I'm still doing my day-to-day, I'm getting Slack messages, and I'm not feeling like I can just ignore people. I should probably block out more time, but part of how I stay up to date with it.It's really doing a lot of that reading and research, doing conversations like this, like, the DX Buzz that we invited you to where… I explained that event—it's adjacent to internal speakers—I explained that as I was had a backlog of videos from conferences I was not watching, and secretly if I make everybody else come to lunch with me to watch these videos, I have to watch the video because I'm hosting the session to discuss it, and now I will at least watch one a month. And that's turned out to be a really successful thing internally within the organization to spread knowledge, to have conversations with people. And the other part I do, especially on the tooling side, is I still build stuff. As much as, like, I don't code nearly as much as I used to, I bring an application developer perspective, but I'm not writing code every day anymore.Which I always said was going to be the thing that would make me miserable. It's not. I still think about it, and when I do get to write code, I'm always looking for how can I improve this setup? How can I use this tool? Can I try it out? Is this better? Is this smoother for me so I'm not worrying about this thing?And then spreading that information more broadly within the developer experience group, our DevOps teams, our platform teams, talking to those teams about the things that they use. Like, we use Argo CD within one group and I haven't touched it much, but I know they've got lots of expertise, so talking to them. “How do you use this? How is this good for me? How do I make this work? How can I use it, too?”Jason: I think it's been an incredible, [laugh] as you've been chatting, there are so many different tools and technologies that you've mentioned having used or being used at the bank. Which is both—it's interesting as a, like, there's so much going on in the bank; how do you manage it all? But it's also super interesting, I think, because it shows that there's a lot of interest in just finding the right solutions and finding the right tools, and not really being super-strongly married to one particular tool or one set way to do things, which I think is pretty cool. We're coming up towards the end of our time here, so I did want to ask you, before we sign off, Aaron, do you have anything that you'd like to plug, anything you want to promote?Aaron: Yeah, the Cloud Program is hiring a ton. There's lots of job openings on all of our platform teams. There's probably job openings on my Cloud Adoption Team. So, if you think the bank sounds interesting—the bank is very stable; that's always one of the nice things—but the bank… the thing about the bank, I originally joined the bank saying, “Oh, I'll be here two years, and I'll get bored and I'll leave,” and now it's been 12 years and I'm still at the bank. Because I mentioned, like, that scope and scale of the organization, there's always something interesting happening somewhere.So, if you're interested in cloud platform stuff, we've got a huge cloud platform. If you're in—like, you want to do machine-learning, we've got an entire organization. It should come as no surprise, we have lots of data at a bank, and there's a whole organization for all sorts of different things with machine-learning, deep learning, data analytics, big data, stuff like that. Like, if you think that's interesting, and even if you're not specifically in Toronto, Canada, you can probably find an interesting role within the organization if that's something that turns your crank.Jason: Awesome. We'll post links to everything that we've mentioned, which is a ton. But go check us out, gremlin.com/podcast is where you can find the show note for this episode, and we'll have links to everything. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure to have you.Aaron: Thanks so much for having me, Jason. I'm so happy that we got to do this.Jason: For links to all the information mentioned, visit our website at gremlin.com/podcast. If you liked this episode, subscribe to the Break Things on Purpose podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast platform. Our theme song is called, “Battle of Pogs” by Komiku, and it's available on loyaltyfreakmusic.com.

00:44 - Pandemic Life * Politics * Healthcare * Society * Work 13:58 - Jay, Happiness, and Fulfillment * Personal Development and Self-Discovery * Brené Brown (https://brenebrown.com/) * Glennon Doyle (https://momastery.com/) * Elizabeth Gilbert (https://www.elizabethgilbert.com/) * Nihilism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism) * Manifestation * Gratitude & Daily Journaling * Morning Pages (https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/) * EarlyWords (https://earlywords.io) 29:09 - Witchcraft & Magic * Intention and Ritual * Terry Pratchett (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett) * Franz Anton Mesmer (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Franz-Anton-Mesmer) * The Placebo Effect (https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/what-is-the-placebo-effect) * Zenify Stress Relief Drink (https://zenifydrinks.com/) * Effort and Intention Reflections: Mandy: Everyone should journal. Reflect on the past and bring it to the present. Damien: Bringing magic into non-magical environments. Aaron: Ritual, intention, reflection, alignment. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: DAMIEN: Welcome to Episode 277 of Greater Than Code. I am Damien Burke and I'm joined with Aaron Aldrich. AARON: Hi, I am Aaron and I am here with Mandy. MANDY: Hello, everybody. I'm Mandy Moore and today, it's just the three of us! So if you came expecting more than that, I'm sorry. [laughter] We're what you get today, but hopefully, we can have a great conversation and we were thinking that we would talk about all the things. I'm doing big hand gestures right now because there's been so many things happening since 2020 that are still happening and how our perspectives have changed. For one, I, myself, can tell you I have grown so much as a person in 2 years. And I'm curious to hear how the two of you have been living your lives since the pandemic. DAMIEN: [chuckles] Where to begin. AARON: I know. It's such a good topic because I feel like everyone's had so much to change, but at the same time, it's like, okay, so 2 million years ago at the beginning of this pandemic. I'm now my third place, third job since the beginning of the pandemic as well and wow, I came out as non-binary in the middle of the pandemic [laughs]. So that was a whole thing, too. I think the question I asked earlier is how much have you radicalized your politics over the course of the past 2 years? [laughs] DAMIEN: Yeah, yeah. That's been bouncing around in my head since you said it off mic. Every time I hear the word pandemic now, I think about, “Oh man,” I hesitate on how far to go into this. [laughs] Because I look at the techno-anarchist crypto bros and I can I say that disparagingly and I will say that disparagingly because I was like them. [laughs] I filled out a survey today and they asked like, “How do you rate yourself as on a conservative and liberal scale?” I'm like, “Well, I think I'm super conservative.” And I still do and every time I align with any political policy, it's always an alignment with people who call themselves socialists and leftists and why is that? [laughs] Hmm. [laughter] But anyway, that was the part I was trying not to go back into. [laughs] One of the big realizations in living in a pandemic is that healthcare is not an exclusive good. MANDY: What? [laughter] DAMIEN: That is to say that I cannot, as an individual, take care of my own health outside of the health of the community and society I live in. Didn't know that. In my defense, I hadn't thought about it, [laughs] but that was an amazing realization. AARON: No, I think that was a big thing. I think so much of the pandemic exposed the way our systems are all interconnected. Exposed the societal things. Like so much we rely on is part of the society that we've built and when things don't work, it's like, well, now what? I don't have any mechanism to do anything on my own. What do we do? DAMIEN: Yeah. It's so fundamental in humanity that we are in society. We are in community. We only survive as a group. That's a fundamental aspect of the species and as much as we would like to stake our own claim and move out to a homestead and depend on no one other than ourselves, that is not a viable option for human beings. AARON: Right, yeah. Even out here in rural Vermont with animals and things, we're still pretty dependent on all of the services that are [chuckles] provided around. I'm still on municipal electric service and everything else. There's still dependence and we still rely on our neighbors and everyone else to keep us sane in other ways. DAMIEN: Yeah, and I feel like people in rural areas—and correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't lived in a rural area in maybe ever—have a better understanding of their independence. You know your neighbors because you need to depend on them. In the city—I live in Los Angeles—we depend on faceless institutions and systems. AARON: Yeah. DAMIEN: And so, we can easily be blind to them. AARON: Yeah. I think it mixes in other ways. I get to travel a bit for work and visit cities, and then I end up coming back out into the rural America to live. So I enjoy seeing both of it because in what I've seen in city spaces is so much has to be formalized because it's such a big deal. There are so many people involved in the system. We need a formal system with someone in charge to run it so that the average everyday person doesn't have to figure out how do I move trash from inside the city outside the city. [laughter] We can make that a group of people's job to deal with. Here, it's much more like, “Well, you can pay this service to do it, or that's where the dump is so can just take care of it yourself if you want.” “Well, this farm will take your food scraps for you so you can just bring this stuff over there if you want.” It's just very funny. It just pops up in these individual pockets and things that need group answers are sometimes like pushed to the town. You get small town drama because like everyone gets to know about what's happening with the road and have an opinion on the town budget as opposed to like, I don't know, isn't that why we hire a whole department to deal with this? [laughs] DAMIEN: Yeah, but small town drama is way better than big town drama. The fact that half of LA's budget goes to policing is a secret. People don't know that. AARON: Yeah. DAMIEN: Between the LA Police Department and LA Sheriff's Department, they have a larger budget than the military of Ukraine. That's the sort of thing that wouldn't happen – [overtalk] AARON: Don't look at the NYPD budget then. DAMIEN: Which is bigger still, yeah. [laughter] That's not the sort thing that would happen in a small town where everybody's involved and in that business. AARON: Yeah. It happens in other weird ways, but it's interesting. This is stuff that I don't know how has, if it's changed during pandemic times. Although, I guess I've started to pay attention more to local politics and trying to be like, “Oh, this is where real people affecting decisions get made every day are at the municipal levels, the city level.” These are things that if we pass a policy to take care of unhoused, or to change police budget, this affects people right now. It's not like, “Oh, wow, that takes time to go into effect and set up a department to eventually go do things.” It's like, “No, we're going to go change something materially.” It's hard to compare the two because the town I'm in rents a police officer part-time from the next [laughs] municipality over. So the comparison to doesn't really work. [laughter] DAMIEN: Everybody knows exactly how much that costs, too. AARON: We do. I just had to vote on it a couple Tuesdays ago. [laughter] DAMIEN: So then I think back to how that has impacted – I'm always trying to bring this podcast more into tech because I feel guilty about that. [laughs] About just wandering off into other things. But I think about how that impacts how I work in the organizations I work in. Hmm. I recognize I'm learning more about myself and how much I can love just sitting down with an editor and churn out awesome code, awesome features, and awesome products. That brings me so much joy and I don't want to do anything else. And what we do has impact and so, it's so beneficial to be aware of the organization I'm in what it's doing, what the product is doing, how that's impacting people. Sometimes, that involves a lot of management—I do a lot of product management with my main client now. But also, in other places, you would look at, “Well, okay, I don't need to manage the client's finances”. Not because that's not as important, it's because other people are doing it and I trust how they're doing it. That's something I haven't had elsewhere. The advantage of being with a very small organization is that I have these personal relationships and this personal trust that I couldn't get at one of the vampire companies. What'd they call them? FAANG? AARON: Yeah, FAANG. We've been talking about this because FAANG, but Facebook and Google changed their name. So now, is it just MAAN? DAMIEN: Yeah. AARON: I mean Meta, Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, right? DAMIEN: I'm all for the right of individuals to choose what they're called; I don't know if I'm willing to extend that to Facebook and Google. AARON: [laughs] Yeah. DAMIEN: Remember, was it Altria? AARON: Oh, Philip Morris. DAMIEN: Philip Morris, right? AARON: Yeah. DAMIEN: They were just like, “Oh, everything we've been doing is so horrible and harming to society for the past several decades, we'll just change our names and people will forget about it.” AARON: That was Philip Morris. Altria didn't do any of that. DAMIEN: Yeah. Altria didn't do any of that. [chuckles] Yeah, I remember that. AARON: Yeah. I'm curious because I think it's changed for me a bit over this time, too. But I'm curious for folks that have had a sensitivity change to the types of company, not necessarily types of companies, but like, I'm more sensitive to who I'm working for. I think my list of no, I won't work for the X company [chuckles] has probably grown throughout the pandemic and I'm definitely much more critical. Part of it's probably because as in tech we're sort of at an advantage, it is high demand right now and we can be a bit picky about where we work, but I definitely have been [laughs] lately. Much more careful about I'm not just willing to work with anyone. I want someone that's got reasonable values. I interview other companies a lot more and I want to make sure product is not causing harm generally speaking and make sure I get a lot more value alignment out of leadership team and things like that. I don't know if other people have had a similar experience. MANDY: Unfortunately, I haven't had that experience. I'm still working for whoever will give me money. [laughter] But I wish I could do that and I'm currently looking. I mean, I've been trying to break into a full-time DevRel career for I guess, 2 years now and I guess, I'm actively looking. Oh, here we go. If you're hiring, let me know. [laughter] I guess I am. I'm looking for that job that I'm really feeling fulfilled in is right now I'm not feeling that and I think it's because of the pandemic, I've really stopped to think about what I want in my life and how I want to feel. I want to be happy, I want to be passionate about my job, and I want to wake up and not feel scared to open my computer because – [overtalk] DAMIEN: Wow. MANDY: Are they going to tell me they no longer need my service? DAMIEN: Right. MANDY: And it's been demoralizing really, for me recently, especially because I tried to join a developer relations Slack group just a few months ago and they rejected me flat out and they're like, “You do not work in dev full time. You cannot be a part of our group,” and I'm like, “Oh.” So now I'm like, “Hmm, what do I do in tech?” [laughter] I thought I'd been doing DevRel before DevRel was cool. I'm going to humble brag for a minute, but I have single-handedly put this podcast together and put you people together that you didn't even know and you love each other. You get that vibe. I can tell who's going to get – you're going to love this person and you're going to like – [overtalk] DAMIEN: Oh man, you not only put this podcast together, but you are the sustaining force. You are the heart of it. You are the thing where that all the panelists that are connected to. You are one who gets all of the mechanical, everything besides talking in mics. You do everything else and you're maintaining all these relations with these developers. [laughter] MANDY: I never even wanted to be on mic. I just started doing it because everybody was busy and I was like, “I guess I have to step up.” [laughs] DAMIEN: Whatever it takes to get it done, right? MANDY: Well, yeah. I feel like the topics on this show that we talk about are important and they're even important outside of tech that hence, the whole name: Greater Than Code. There are more things out there than our jobs and our work and I just want to be happy. I want to be fulfilled and I want to be passionate about something and so does my dog. AARON: That was a shift for me, too. That was definitely one of the roles I was in during the pandemic and realized my struggle with it so much was it was clashing with that. It wasn't fulfilling for me, it was clashing with my core values, and it was just like, “You know what, I can't do this anymore.” [chuckles] I'm no longer in a place where I have the energy to do a thing I don't like doing, or don't have some care for. There's always something you don't like doing. There's always some crap around every job that like don't like to do or you have to deal with something, but I'm no longer at a place where I can have a whole job that rubs me the wrong way. MANDY: Yeah. It's hard for me. I should feel great about this, but I'm known as the podcast girl. If you have a tech podcast, you should talk to Mandy, but I'm not just a podcast editor! I do so much more than that. I do operation, I do product management, I do writing; there's so much more that encompasses who I am in tech than the podcast girl. I feel like not a lot of people know that and maybe that's my fault because I guess, I haven't really done a good job of putting myself out there to be like, “Hey wait. But I'm –” because for me, it's still a hustle as a single mom. I have to pay the bills. So it's like, I wish I could be more discerning with the jobs that I take and who I work for, but I don't know. I'm just one of those people of the universe. What will be, will be and if it's meant to be, it'll come to me. [laughs] So I don't ever really actively seek and that's probably half of my problem. DAMIEN: Mm. That's funny because I didn't know all those things about you. I pitch you as a podcast producer and again, I live in a LA, I'm involved in the entertainment industry at a slight level, and the word producer there is very, very powerful and very important. A producer is an executive. A producer is person who gets things done, who makes it happen. I'm not entirely sure what a producer does, even though I've done it. MANDY: I'm not even sure what a – [laughs] DAMIEN: Right, because it's never the same thing. MANDY: No. DAMIEN: It's whatever it takes and that skill. AARON: Yeah. DAMIEN: That being able to be know enough about a movie, or theatrical production, or a podcast, to know what it takes, to be able to manage, and sustain and get it done. That's really what it comes down to: get it done. MANDY: That's why it's so hard for me. Everyone's like, “Do you have a resume?” And I'm like, “I don't know what to put on it!” Like, you tell me you need this done, I'll get it done. If I don't know how to do it, I'll figure it out because that's what I've done for 13 years. Like I got hired as Avdi Grimm's virtual assistant because an Indeed.com ad came out and was like, “I need somebody to answer emails for me,” and I'm like, “Don't know why you can't do that yourself, but sure.” [laughter] And then from there, he had a podcast and was like, “Can you edit my podcast?” And I was like, “Sure,” and then I'm Googling what is a podcast. [laughter] I had no clue. So I got here, I think a lot out of luck from being at the right place and talking to the right person at the right time. But I have busted my ass to just learn what people need me to learn and do what people need me to do. I guess, that's maybe what I should just put on the resume. I'll do what you need me to do. I make it happen. DAMIEN: No, no, no. You put on the resume what your next job is going to be doing. MANDY: [laughs] Yeah, so, it's hard when people ask me for my resume. I have like three resumes and I'm like, “This does not, no.” AARON: It's almost more a portfolio at this point, right. I made this thing happen. I made this thing happen. Here's this other thing that I did. Here's another thing I made happen. DAMIEN: Resumes are horrific. They're not good for anybody and the only people who use them are people who need to filter quickly out of large groups and they're not even good for that. I've long aspired to be at a place in my career where I don't need a resume and I might be there. Steve Jobs didn't have a resume. Didn't need a resume. He didn't send his resume to the board to get that job at Apple back. It's ridiculous. MANDY: Well, that's the thing for me. I get most of my work from word to mouth. DAMIEN: Right. MANDY: So until I really lost a big client and I was like, “Oh, I don't have a resume. Don't you know who I am?” [laughter] DAMIEN: But like, they should. [laughter] AARON: Just say the portfolios level. I mean, it's kind of the same thing, right? This is... MANDY: Yeah. AARON: [laughs] Kind of the same thing. It's sort of how my resume is morphed in DevRel proper. It's gone from I still kind of have the resume that's like, “Yeah, I worked into these things internally that might not surface otherwise, but also, here's my speaking portfolio and all the things that I have done over the past 3 years. [laughs] You might know me from all of this stuff instead of what's on this resume.” [laughter] MANDY: Yeah. Of course, once I was getting comfortable enough to want to speak, that's when the whole world shut down. DAMIEN: Yeah. MANDY: So I have no videos of myself speaking anywhere whatsoever. DAMIEN: Well, I think there might be a few podcasts that you appear on. MANDY: There's a few episodes as of late that I have ventured to be on out of keeping the show alive. DAMIEN: And every episode of this podcast, and I think several others, are shits near portfolio, right? [laughter] MANDY: Then I'd have a really wrong resume. [laughs] AARON: We'll figure it out. DAMIEN: Yeah. AARON: You just need the highlights. MANDY: But I don't know, a lot of other things have changed for me over the course of the past 2 years. Just in my personal life, I've gotten sober and that was a really hard thing to do during a pandemic. AARON: Yeah. MANDY: When everybody else was out hoarding toilet paper, I was like, “Oh my God, I need beer,” [laughs] and actually, I did. While everybody was stocking up on those other necessities, I was buying cases of beer and putting them in my garage because I was like, “Oh great, the world's ending and I guess, if that's going to happen, I might as well be drunk.” And then – [overtalk] AARON: I mean, it's a fair argument in your defense. MANDY: But then it became a bad problem because when you're home all day and I was home, I worked from home before this. But everything is so damn depressing and you keep the news on the television and next thing you know, it's lunch time and cracking a beer and I'm like, “Whoa, this is… [laughs] where did this come from?” So no, I got sober and I don't drink anymore and honestly, I have never felt better. I've also become a runner. I got a treadmill and I run a 4, or 5 miles a day and I've lost a good amount of weight, probably a lot from alcohol bloat. DAMIEN: [chuckles] Yeah. MANDY: But it's more for me. It's not even about losing a weight because I don't even own a scale because it's more about how I feel. DAMIEN: Yeah. MANDY: It's what is about how I feel. So when I went to the doctor's office for my yearly checkup on Monday and I got on the scale because they make you, I said, “Whoa,” [laughs] because I didn't even know. For me, it's about how I feel and I think that that's really, what's brought a lot of things into perspective for me is that at our time here on earth is fine. I want to be here for my daughter especially. She's 13 and I want to be healthy for her. I want to be here for my friends. I ask myself why I'm still in York, Pennsylvania and I haven't left because I do have people around here that I care about. DAMIEN: Yeah. MANDY: And other than that, I could take it, or leave it. But because the people who I love are here, that's why I haven't left. DAMIEN: Yeah. MANDY: So that's another thing, the things like the pandemic has just really set me into a lot of personal development work and self-discovery. I journal every day. I read self-help books, which is so weird to me because I was one of those people that were like, “Who are those people that read self-help books?” and now I'm one of them. [chuckles] I want to be Brené Brown and Glennon Doyle's best friend. [laughter] Those two women are my people. Elizabeth Gilbert. I can give you so many names of people and great authors that just inspire the hell out of me and 2 years ago, I was not that at all. AARON: Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said for getting at our time on earth is finite and so, in refocusing on what matters to us. Another way I had a friend put it to me, it's like optimistic nihilism. Look, at the end of the day, we're all going to be dead and none of this matters. So you might as well do what makes you happy, right? [laughs] You might as well do the things that are fulfilling and meaningful and try to make other people have a good time, too. You might as well. DAMIEN: I always thought it was ridiculous that nihilism had such a negative connotation. It was like, “No. Okay. I can believe that and be –” [overtalk] AARON: No pressure. At the end of the day, we're all going to die so, no pressure. Do what do what you need to do. Doesn't matter if you succeed, or fail. MANDY: That's like, I'm one of those people that would rather spend their money on experiences. AARON: Yeah. MANDY: Because I don't care how much money I die with. [laughter] I'd rather use it now and take my kid Disney world, which I did 3 years ago. DAMIEN: Nice. MANDY: And enjoy those experiences rather than have a bank account full of dollars that I can't use. DAMIEN: High score. MANDY: Yeah, high score. DAMIEN: Shout out to thriving in hand wavy. I feel embarrassed about this and I don't talk about it much because so many people are suffering. People I love are suffering. People I work with and deal with on a daily basis are suffering, and bad things are happening. This is the best year of my life. This is better than last year and last year was better than the year before. I just keep getting better and my life just keeps getting more awesome. I don't know if I was going anywhere with that, but solidarity with Mandy, I guess. You bought a treadmill. I bought a rower. MANDY: I feel like honestly, the universe gives back what you put out and I guess, I've become real – a lot of people are like, “You're like, woo-woo witchy now,” and I'm like, “Aha, yeah.” I kind of like that. So I feel like if you manifest things, you can make that happen and yes, there's things happening. Yes, yes, there are so many bad things happening, but sometimes out of self-preservation, you just have to tune all of that out and just be in your immediate dwell. For me, sometimes I'll go a week without watching news and I feel guilty about that a lot, but it's just like, you know what, if something's going to happen, it's going to happen. AARON: I think the best way someone put that to me was anxiety is not activism. MANDY: Yeah. DAMIEN: Yeah. AARON: Right, so just sitting around making yourself anxious and stressed out about everything and whatever emotion you have, making yourself feel bad doesn't improve the situation, it just also makes you feel bad. So it's okay to take a step back and do the self-care that you need to do because just feeling bad isn't fixing the problem either. So step back, find what you can do. Maybe there's stuff you can do here, in your immediate space that you can take action on. MANDY: Exactly. And also, for drinking other people's problems away, – [overtalk] [laughter] AARON: You can't drink other people's – disassociating from other people's problems isn't effective. [laughter] MANDY: No. Let me tell you, I tried. [laughter] DAMIEN: That's such a great statement. Anxiety is not activism, but also the opposite is true. Joy is activism, rest is activism, thriving in a world that doesn't want you to thrive is an act of resistance and activism. Shout out, living a good life. AARON: That's been a good conversation. I think that's easy to forget and I've seen it come up a couple times over the past couple years of what they have been of taking those moments for joy are really important. They can be radical in and of themselves. MANDY: Keep a gratitude journal. There are so many great apps that every day before I go to sleep, I just write one sentence and it gives you an option even to have a picture. So you can snap a picture. Even if it's just like this candle, this candle is burning right here and it smells so good and it's making me happy today. So I'm grateful for the candle. DAMIEN: Yeah, I'm up to approximately 2 years of daily journaling. A buddy of mine got together. We built a daily journaling app based on Morning Pages from The Artist's Way. It's called Early Words. Shout out earlywords.io if you want to join and journal with me. But every day, 750 words. I do it first thing in the morning most days. Stream of consciousness. It has absolutely changed my life. It makes me feel good. It made me a better writer. Not because the writing is good, but because it's taught me to turn off the editor. Writing does have to be good for me to write it. MANDY: Yeah. Big proponent of journaling. AARON: I believe in it. I just don't remember to do it. But that's my own problem. [laughter] DAMIEN: Can we go back? Can we talk about witchcraft? AARON: All right, I'm in. DAMIEN: A friend of mine asked me oh my God, maybe it was a year ago. Maybe it was several months ago. I have no idea. She asked me like, “Do you actually believe in witchcraft? Those magic woo-woo stuff?” It's like, “Well, let me tell you something. Every morning when I wake up in the morning, I make a potion with dried leaves that energizes me. At night, I make a different potion with dried flowers that calm me down and helps me sleep. My literal job is making sand think. Do I believe in witchcraft? I mean, yeah.” [chuckles] MANDY: I mean, it's a full moon today so I have a whole jug of water out charging. I do. I literally have a jug of water on my deck charging for full moon water energy and I use it like, I'll put a little bit in my bath water. I'll put it a little bit of it – I'll cook with it. When I boil some water, put it in there. Does it help? I don't know, but it makes me feel better! DAMIEN: Okay. Wait. It makes you feel better? AARON: Sounds like it's helping. DAMIEN: Doesn't that means it helps? MANDY: Yeah. It does. AARON: Yeah. I think that's a good point. I believe in the power of intention and ritual. There's a reason why humans developed rituals over time and sometimes, it's just for us to feel the right thing. But like, feelings are important? DAMIEN: [laughs] But like, feelings are important. AARON: I don't want to say something controversial on the Greater Than Code podcast such as feelings are important. But they are. Sometimes, while you go through a certain step and it centers you, or you go through a certain set of steps and it makes you feel better, or it helps you process the anxiety you're feeling, or it's like, nope, I need to get centered in my five senses again so I can come back into my body and be here instead of going off on an anxiety spiral. MANDY: Absolutely. AARON: What is witchcraft? I actually love this from Terry Pratchett, one of my all-time favorite authors who does the Discworld series of novels, as a very specific approach to witchcraft, which is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, magic and whatever. But their daily thing is checking on all the people of the village and doing all the work that nobody wants to do. So it's like, how are the elderly doing? Do they need help with anything? Making sure and so takes their bath, making sure this person's animals are taken care of, making sure this sort of thing. Sometimes, it's about appearances and going through the ritual to make sure the community is coming along. Sitting with the dead, all that kind of stuff. And that's witchcraft, that's the bread and butter of witchcraft is knowing the right herbs and poultices to put together, being the heart and soul of the community and being able to get people and helping each other, and move the resources around as needed and that sort of thing. So yeah, I believe in that. [laughs] DAMIEN: Yeah. There was there's a great story and about Anton Mesmer, I learned this shout out to Mary Elizabeth Raines who taught me hypnosis. I learned this when she told me this story when I was doing my hypnosis training about Anton Mesmer, who's considered the [31:10] of hypnotism. He introduced hypnotism to the to the white people. The word mesmerism and magnetic person, magnetic personality, all this comes from Mesmer. He had salons where people would hold onto metal rod that he had “magnetized” and be healed and fall out and screaming have spirit and all that. But Mesmer was very popular and very powerful and the king of France did not like this. The king of France put together a blue-ribbon commission. I don't know if he called it a blue-ribbon commission. Probably not because he spoke French, but put together a commission of scientists to discredit Mesmer. One of these scientists was Ben Franklin, by the way. So they did a double-blind study. They did a proper double-blind test. They had Mesmer come out and magnetize a tree. That was a thing he did. He would magnetize trees, people would come out and hug the trees and then they'd be healed. So they did a study. They had to magnetize the tree and they brought people out who were sick and they said, “Hug that tree. That's magnetized and you'll be healed.” Some of the trees Mesmer had magnetized, some he hadn't and it turns out it didn't matter. People were still healed and so, they all came to conclusion, “All right. See, Mesmer's not doing anything. It's all placebo effect.” Mesmer was run out of town and lived in exile for the rest of his days. Nobody bothered to ask why were the people healed? Everybody knows placebo effect is a real effect. Nobody's like, “How do we make it more effective? Why is it working this way? What do we do it? What do we do with that? How can we use that?” MANDY: Yeah. AARON: No, I think it's a super interesting thought. The placebo effect is a powerful and interesting concept overall. We did ourselves a disservice to not understand it. DAMIEN: Yeah. To dismiss it as if it doesn't exist. Not only does it exist, it's increasing. AARON: Hmm. DAMIEN: Because people are getting more powerful. MANDY: Yeah. I'm drinking this Zenify Stress Relief Drink. [chuckles] And does it work? I don't know, but it's delicious and you know what? It makes me happy. You know why? Because it's not alcohol. [laughter] So it's not having a negative effect on me. I'm not getting drunk and doing stupid things. Is it taking away? My stress? Eh. I mean, but I love it. I love it and it makes me feel good. It's a treat. It's a special drink. I have one a day and it's one of those things that instead of missing my case of White Claw Seltzer. I know, I know, I wasn't even a bougie – well, I wasn't even a good drinker. That's what made it a problem. [laughs] AARON: This is far too affordable. MANDY: I was not a discerning drinker, so. [laughs] No, I have my one bougie drink that I have and it makes me feel good. Does it relieve my stress? I don't know, but I don't care either. DAMIEN: Yeah. If it works, it works. One of the great things about placebos is they don't – well, I was going to say they don't have to be expensive, but sometimes it works better when they're expensive. [laughs] MANDY: Moon water is free. DAMIEN: Moon water is, yeah. But, well, it's not free actually. You had to put an effort and intention. MANDY: True. DAMIEN: And I think if you didn't, it wouldn't be as effective. AARON: Effort and intention go a long way. DAMIEN: [laughs] That's a root of magic, isn't it? MANDY: Why can't I just get paid for effort and intention? [laughs] AARON: I mean, if I put my effort and intention into this money tree. [laughter] I've always thought it would be nice if real world jobs worked like Animal Crossing. Like, “Oh, so I can just go pick some stuff up and then you're just going to give money and then we can just move on? Great.” “Now look, I dug up a bag of money. If I just plant this bag of money, I'll get more money. It's fine.” [laughs] DAMIEN: I'm trying to bridge that gap. That's such a great question like when effort and intention is so well, literally magical, why does it seem to not have the impact we want in nonmagical environments, I'll call them? AARON: Mm. DAMIEN: I asked that question because I want to know what to do about that. I want to bring magic to nonmagical environment, to city council, to retail stores. I almost named an online retail store; I don't want to name it. [laughs] But it's a city council to corporate interactions. And there's no reason you can't. Corporations are people. Governments are people. I think requires dealing with them in individually in ways that we're not used to. AARON: Yeah. It's a good question. You've got to be really thinking about… MANDY: My wheels are turning. AARON: Yeah. I mean, I think part of it is effort and intention are always going to make the most effect for you because most of it is about aligning your thought processes. It's about taking the, I don't know, I'm just taking this into making the best decision I can to like, okay, if I can focus on this is my goal and my aim and what I'm after, suddenly all of the patterns emerge around that. Oh, now I'm ready for that opportunity, or oh, now this thing is working out, and oh, now this is what is working out because I've focused on my intentions and where I want to put my efforts. I think there's room for these things in other groups. Gets back to what I was thinking about ritual, about how humans are tuned for ritual to tell themselves story. We're tuned for storytelling and ritual and all this sort of thing. So I think there's room from a tech perspective, I'm thinking about what comes to mind quickly is incident management stuff. Sorry, I'm coming off of SRECon this week so, everything's going to be around that. DAMIEN: Our apologies. [laughter] It's all right. AARON: It was fantastic, but it's a different podcast. [laughs] But think about that, right? When you're coming in and doing instant reports, it's so powerful is it to set the intention of the meeting, or any meeting that you have and say, “We are here for this purpose. This is what we're looking to find. We're not looking to do –” Back when Chef had lots to say about this, they'd have those things like we're not here to determine what could have, or should have happened. We're here to find out what did and move the thing. So it's all about setting the intent of that gathering and what outcomes you're after and it focuses the whole conversation can make that meeting more powerful because you've set the focus right off the bat. I think there's room for that other places, too. DAMIEN: That's such a beautiful way of saying it. You described it as setting an attention. AARON: Yeah. S: Whereas, in corporate speak, I would describe it as setting an agenda. AARON: Right, and an agenda is one thing. It's kind of like, “Hey, here's kind of the stuff we're going to do,” but to be like, “We are gathered for this purpose to [laughs] cover this thing.” DAMIEN: No, no. AARON: Right. DAMIEN: Dearly beloved, dear colleague. AARON: Right? Yeah, right. DAMIEN: We are gathered here for this purpose. AARON: Yeah. I mean, we say it this way in personal stuff, why don't we –? Like, it's useful. [laughs] MANDY: It really is. DAMIEN: Because how are you ever going to get something done if you don't know what you're there for? AARON: Right. DAMIEN: Well, you're going to get something done. If you don't have a destination, any road you take is fine. AARON: If you don't have any intention set, it's a series of meetings that could have been emails. [laughter] And then maybe that's the power of it, in a nonmagical space, is forcing yourself to go through this thought process of why am I doing this? Why are we here? What do we want to accomplish? Can probably trim so much of the cruft from all of our meetings and engagements. DAMIEN: That was my favorite sentence as a product manager: what is it you're trying to accomplish? [chuckles] AARON: I say that a lot, DAMIEN: But it is a very, very powerful question. AARON: Especially when you have children asking to use dangerous tools. [laughter] What is it you're trying to accomplish? Maybe we don't need to bust out razor blades. [laughs] DAMIEN: So from an SRE standpoint, when you get together for – what do you call that meeting? An incident review postmortem? Postmortem is a bit – [overtalk] AARON: Yeah, yeah. Post-incident report. There's a handful of names for that reason, but post-incident review. MANDY: Retrospective. DAMIEN: Retrospective, yeah. So the question is, what is it you are trying to accomplish? AARON: Right. DAMIEN: I'm trying to find somebody to blame. AARON: And not blaming. DAMIEN: I'm trying to find somebody to blame so that I look good in my next performance review. AARON: Well, that's what was so important about doing that because that's the shift we're, largely as an industry, trying to make. Finding a person to blame doesn't learn anything about what happened and will teach us nothing for next time. So if we set the intention of like, we're trying to learn from this incident and how we can improve or what we can do better, or maybe there's nothing. Maybe this was just a fluke and let's find that out. That's what we're here to learn. But we're not here to point fingers, or find a root cause because root causes are for plants. [laughter] AARON: Again, that's a whole other podcast. [laughs] MANDY: At the beginning of the pandemic, I owned zero plants. Now, I think I'm the proud plant mother of 20? [laughs] DAMIEN: Wow. AARON: That's amazing. MANDY: I know. AARON: My problem is I can't keep things alive. MANDY: Well, mostly they're all thriving because I set the intention that I was not going to mess this up. [laughter] DAMIEN: There you go. Do you give them moon water? MANDY: I do. DAMIEN: Apparently, it's working. MANDY: I do. Do we want to do some reflections? DAMIEN: Sure. Let's do it. MANDY: I'll start us off. With this conversation, we were just having about the intention and stuff. This is why I think everybody should journal, including CEOs and leaders. Get out a journal, what do you want, and then look back at some of the stuff. I don't it often, but I go back and I'm like, “Oh yeah.” Just reflecting on what you've written in the past and bringing that to the present can really help you put stock in all the things that you want and should be accomplishing. DAMIEN: Yeah. This bringing magic into nonmagical environments and journaling is part of that. A shout out to journaling. Another plug for earlywords.io that I own. Come journal with me because it is a magical thing. It is a ritual I do daily. That clears my mind. That is a practice of the listening to myself. It is a practice of letting go and not controlling what's coming out. Along with that and all the other sort of ways I know of being that I can call magic, I can call hypnotism, I can call NLP, I can call ontological coaching I've done a lot, bringing that into environments where I haven't because they're so useful there and we talked about some of the ways they are and so, we really confirmed more ways of doing that. AARON: I think the things I'm thinking about after this conversation are ritual, intention, and reflection are the big things that are standing up. I think this pandemic, for instance, and how things have changed is because I've had just so much time to have to sit alone by myself and reflect on what's going on externally and internally. But yeah. Anyway, just about setting intentions, of understanding the directions you want to go before going, making sure you're aligned with your goals, and you're not just accidentally wandering down paths that you don't want to be down and turning around and finding out your miserable 10 months later. I think I've thought a lot about the power of even small rituals just to interrupt our standard thought processes and align ourselves with those kind of things. There's been a lot from basic health stuff of here are the rituals I can go through when I'm feeling anxious and I know they'll calm me down to writing in a journal, or directing a group to [laughs] let's align our thought processes. It can be super useful. DAMIEN: Absolutely. MANDY: Awesome. Well, this has been a really fun conversation. I'm glad we just had a panel only episode and I'd love to do more of these in the future. They're really cool. We didn't come to the show with much of an agenda and hopefully, you dear listener, appreciate it. If you would like to give us some feedback, we'd appreciate it. Tweet at us. Join our Slack. AARON: Hire Mandy. DAMIEN: Tell your friends. MANDY: DM me. [chuckles] Tell your friends. DAMIEN: Tell your enemies. MANDY: Tell your enemies, too! [chuckles] We'll see you all next week.

02:28 - Kerri's Superpower: Having an Iron Butt * The Iron Butt Association (https://www.ironbutt.org/) 06:39 - On The Road Entertainment * FM Radio * Country Music * Community/Local Radio * Roadside Attractions * The World Largest Ball of Twine (http://www.kansastravel.org/balloftwine.htm) * Mystery Spot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Spot) * Mystery Spot Polka (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYHiGQiAPhI) 15:11 - Souvenir Collection & Photography * Fireweed Ice Cream (https://www.wildscoops.com/post/2018/08/28/botany-of-ice-cream-fireweed-chamerion-angustifolium) * Clubvan (https://www.google.com/search?q=clubvan&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjCk7zdiJn2AhXIFFkFHfvjC-kQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=clubvan&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIHCCMQ7wMQJzIHCCMQ7wMQJzIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgYIABAFEB4yBggAEAoQGDIECAAQGDIGCAAQChAYMgYIABAKEBgyBggAEAoQGFCMB1iMB2CUDGgAcAB4AIABS4gBjQGSAQEymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=rNsXYsKNB8ip5NoP-8evyA4&bih=748&biw=906) * Lighthouses * National Parks 25:42 - Working On The Road 27:37 - Rallies, Competitive Scavenger Hunts * Traveling Salesman Problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem) 30:40 - Tracking, Tooling, Databases * Penny Machine Locations (http://209.221.138.252/AreaList.aspx) * Penny Costs 1.76 Cents to Make in 2020 (https://www.coinnews.net/2021/02/23/penny-costs-1-76-cents-to-make-in-2020-nickel-costs-7-42-cents-us-mint-realizes-549-9m-in-seigniorage/#:~:text=Penny%20Costs%201.76%20Cents%20to%20Make%20in%202020%2C%20Nickel%20Costs,Realizes%20%24549.9M%20in%20Seigniorage&text=The%20cost%20for%20manufacturing%20U.S.,in%20its%202020%20Annual%20Report) 35:36 - Community Interaction; Sampling Local Specialties * Cinnamon Rolls * Salem Sue, World's Largest Holstein (https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2716) 38:40 - Recording Adventures * Kerri's Blog: Motozor (http://motozor.com/) * Stationary & Sassy (https://anchor.fm/stationary-and-sassy) (Jamey's Podcast) 41:46 - Focus / Music * Bandcamp (https://bandcamp.com/) * Steely Dan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steely_Dan) * Neil Peart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Peart) (Rush) 42:22 - Directed Riding vs Wandering/Drifting Reflections: Mandy: Taking time to enjoy yourself is SO important. Jamey: Get started! Create a map, now. Coraline: Permission to go down rabbit holes: wander aimlessly, and explore. Aaron: If I'm not having fun, why am I doing this? Resetting expectations to your purpose. Chelsea: Making “it didn't always look like this!” stories accessible to folks. Kerri: It's a marathon. You can't do a lot of things in a single step. We have traveled far from where we began. Greater Than Code Episode 072: Story Time with Kerri Miller (https://www.greaterthancode.com/story-time) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: CORALINE: Hey, everybody and welcome to Episode 273 of Greater Than Code. You may remember me, my name is Coraline and I'm very, very happy to be with y'all today and to be with my friend, Jamey Hampton. JAMEY: Thanks, Coraline. I'm also excited to introduce my good friend, Aaron Aldrich, and it's our first time co-hosting together so I'm excited about that, too. AARON: Oh, Hey, it's me, Aaron Aldrich. I'm also excited. I'm so excited to host with all these people and I will introduce you to Chelsea. CHELSEA: Him folks. I'm Chelsea Troy and I am pleased to introduce Mandy Moore. MANDY: Hey, everybody. It's Mandy. And today, I am here with one of my favorite people! It's Kerri Miller, and you may know Kerri as an engineer, a glass artist, a public speaker, a motorcyclist, and a lackwit gadabout based in the Pacific Northwest. Generally, she's on an epic adventure on her motorcycle somewhere in North America. Will she meet Sasquatch? That's what I want to know and that's why she's here today because we're not going to talk about tech, or code today. We're going to catch up with Kerri. If you're not following Kerri on these epic adventures, you need to be because I live vicariously through her all the time and you need to, too. Kerri is a prime example of living your best life. So without further ado, Kerri, how are you?! KERRI: Oh my gosh. With an intro like that, how can I be anything but amazing today? Can I just hire you, Mandy just to call me every morning and tell me how exciting I am? MANDY: Absolutely. [laughter] KERRI: No. I'm doing really, really well. The sun actually came out today in the Pacific Northwest. I've been telling people lately that if you want to know what living in Seattle is like, first go stand in the shower for about 4 months [laughs] and then get back to me. So to have the sun bright and it's 53 outside, it's amazing. AARON: 53 does sound amazing. It's been like so far below freezing for so long here that I've lost track. Every once in a while, I go outside and it's like 30 and I'm like, “Oh, this is nice!” [laughter] JAMEY: Are we going to ask Kerri the superpower question? Because I feel like she's come on and answered it a bunch of times already. [laughs] We could ask her about Sasquatch instead. MANDY: I mean, I thought her superpowers were having epicly awesome adventures, but maybe she has a different answer. KERRI: Well, in the context of this conversation, I think that my superpower is being able to sit on a motorcycle for ridiculously long amounts of time. CORALINE: Kerri, would you say you have an iron butt? Is that what you call that? KERRI: Yes. I mean, of course, the joke being that I belong to a group called the Iron Butt Association, which is dedicated to promoting the safe and sane practice of long-distance endurance motorcycle riding. So the only requirement to join, besides having the defective gene that makes you want to sit on a motorcycle for hours and hours on end, is to be able to ride a 1,000 miles on a motorcycle in 24 hours, which once you do it once, you very quickly decide if you ever want to do it again and if you do decide you want to do it again, you are one of the ingroup. AARON: What's a reference point for a 1,000 miles? That's a number that I only know conceptually. KERRI: Let's see. It is a 1,000 miles almost exactly from Seattle to Anaheim to the front door of Disneyland. It's a 1,100 miles from Boston to Jacksonville, Florida. CORALINE: Oh, wow. KERRI: It's 2,000 miles from my house in Seattle to Chicago. JAMEY: What made you feel like you wanted to sit on a motorcycle for that long? KERRI: I don't really have a short answer for that, but I'll give you an honest answer. I mean the short answer is the jokey one to say, “Oh, I've got a defective gene. Ha, ha, ha.” But when I was in – I grew up in the country and had a lot of a lot of struggles as a teenager and the way that I escaped from that was to go get in my car and drive around the back roads of New England. Dirt roads, finding old farmsteads and farm fields and abandoned logging roads and that gave me this real sort of sense of freedom. When I moved out to Pacific Northwest—no real friends, no family out here—I spent a lot of time in my car exploring Pacific Northwest. I had a lot of those same vibes of being by myself and listening to my good music and just driving around late nights. When I got into to motorcycling, I rediscovered that joy of being by myself, exploring things, seeing new things, and if I wasn't seeing something new, I was seeing how had changed this week, or since last month, or since last few years since I've been through a particular region. And my motorcycling is basically an extension of that, it's this sort of urge to travel. A desire to be by myself under my own control, my own power, and to learn and discover new stories that I'm not learning just by sitting in my apartment all day. I work from home. I've worked remotely for 8, or 9 years now, so anytime I get to leave the apartment is a joy and adventure, but doing so for longest ended periods of time just lets me see more of the world, expand my own story, and learn the story of others as I travel. Being a single solo lady on a motorcycle, I'm instantly the object of interest wherever I stop and it doesn't help that I have rainbow stickers and all sorts of stuff all over my bikes. My motorcycle helmets are crazy pink, rainbow reflective, got unicorn horns, and things all over my bike, so people see me as being super approachable. Every time I stop for gas, or to get a burger, or a soda, or something, people come up to me and they want to tell me their stories. It's usually about the motorcycle, they're really interested about. It's usually middle aged and old men come up to me to say, “Oh, I had a motorcycle when I was in college and then I got married and had a kid.” You can kind of see them deflate a little bit. Or I've had lots of kids come up because it's covered with stickers and a lot of the stickers, they're all kind of at a kid eye level. They see them and they get really excited, they want to come over and talk to me. With rainbow bandanas and everything, I think I look safe as a biker. I'm not dressed in black and skulls and so, people see me as approachable and they want to come up and talk. So there's a lot of those great interactions that I get to have with people along the way. CORALINE: And you said at the beginning, when you were driving around the Pacific Northwest, you were listening to your good music. Do you also listen to music on the motorcycle and some of those have fancy speakers in the helmet and all that sort of stuff where you just go quiet and just listen to the road? KERRI: Honestly, over the course of the day, because I will ride 18, 20 hours a day if you just let me go and if I'm trying to make distance, I'll do that. It's kind of a mix, but for the most part, I actually do listen to something. The last few years, I've really embraced and tried to understand and integrate into my personal identity, having ADHD and how does that manifest for me and I found that if I'm riding my motorcycle and I'm not listening to something, my mind wanders. But weirdly, if I'm listening to something, then I'm paying attention and focused, patrolling the motorcycle and being safe and then whatnot, which seems paradoxical. But that's just how my brain works. So I pretty much always have something going. Until recently, I had a Spotify playlist with about 1,800 songs on it that was rotating through. I tried to do audiobooks and podcasts, but that's a little tricky with all the wind noise and whatnot. I'm trying to protect my hearing. Other than that, I also listen to a lot of FM radio, which is great. So I have opinions on country music now, which I never thought I was going to have opinions on that at before. Yes, country music is great. It's all over. Even in Seattle, we have country music, bars, and whatnot, but you don't just walk down the street in Seattle and hear country music. You've got to kind of seek it out and so, I haven't been exposed to it. So listen to a lot of FM country as I cross the vast planes of America and I've also used that to discover a lot of this rebirth that's happened in the last decade of community radio. A lot of small communities have their own low power, super local FM radio you can only pick up for 20 miles at a stretch. So if I'm passing through a town and I see a sign for K, B, C, or whatever it is for some small town, I immediately tune to it. it's always somebody who's just like, they're not a trained professional. They never went to broadcasting school. They don't have that trained radio voice. They're just talking about sheep that got out, or here's a problem with the town water supply, or whatever it is, what local road is closed. That's just an amazing way of even as I'm passing through a place, if I'm not stopping, I kind of get a little bit of a flavor for that. AARON: Well, just thinking that FM radios generally got to give you more of a flavor for the local area that you're at. I always thought of that as the frustration of FM radio when traveling, like, “All my radio stations keep changing. I don't know where to tune!” But at the same time, that's pretty cool. I love that as a positive of what do they listen to over here? What do they listen to over this part of the country? I would imagine even just where different musical genres are on the dial would probably shift around. Or maybe not. Maybe that's just my…coming up with things, but. KERRI: Yeah. You do learn that there are some patterns, like all of the NPR stations, they're all down in the 800s and also, a lot of the religious radio and the top end of the dial seems to be a lot of rock. The big rock stations seem like 107, whatever the end, or something. The best ones, though are the ones that have local commercials because you get a lot of the same like, law firms and drugs that I don't know if I have even the condition, but I should really talk to my doctor, see if it's right for me. But then you'll get local car places, or I got one when I was down south, somewhere in Louisiana and it was for a combination, an airboat rental and barbecue joint? It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing and the guy had this amazing regional accent, which I never hear up here in the Northwest. We have our own accent, but I got a little taste of this real Southern accent and it was the owner. It was clearly the owner just reading a little script that he wrote, “Come on down and rent a jet boat, bring your dog and your dog can go on it and then we'll have barbecue waiting for you when we get off the dock,” and I'm like, “I'm sold.” Like, “I'm going to turn around, go see this guy right now. This is amazing,” and I actually have that business. I keep a map of every interesting place I hear about as I travel and I put a pin there I'm like, “Someday, I'm going to be coming back by this place and I'm going to be hungry for lunch and I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop here.” So advertising works, I guess, is what I'm saying. JAMEY: Will you share that map with us? [laughter] KERRI: I really should. I really should. It's a lot of fun actually because you read these websites, or roadside attractions, or you hear about some abandoned theme park, or something and it's like, that's kind of a cool thing. You read the article and you move on your day, but I add it to my maps and those maps are my GPS unit. As I'm writing, I've got this old screen in front of me and if I see a little pin appearing on the map in front of me, I can say, “Oh, there's this old waterpark over here,” or “Oh, there's that resort over there that I always wanted to see,” or a particular weird statue, or the birthplace of James Kirk, or whatever it is. So I don't have to remember if the computer could do it for me. JAMEY: I was going to ask if you go to things like the world's largest ball of twine and like –? KERRI: Every time. JAMEY: Okay, cool. KERRI: Every time. JAMEY: I'm glad that I understand you enough to know that you would do that. [laughter] CORALINE: Kerri, have you been in the Mystery Spot? KERRI: I have been in Mystery Spot. MANDY: What is Mystery Spot?! CORALINE: I remember Mystery Spot is some kind of a place where they say gravity is out of whack and everything feels sideways and you're super disoriented. They have this whole mythology around it. I've never been myself, but I did pretend that I'd been there by putting a bumper sticker on my car 15 years ago. [laughter] There's this amazing song called Mystery Spot Polka. Can't remember where I read that, but I think that's how I learned about it. MANDY: I will put that in the show notes. CORALINE: I will find Mystery Spot Polka. It is incredible. MANDY: So Kerri, what are some of the coolest places you have visited? Can you give us a top three rundown? CORALINE: And I really hope that cracker barrel is in that top three, Kerri. JAMEY: But which cracker barrel? CORALINE: Oh, cracker barrels are the same everywhere you go. I really believe there's only actually one cracker barrel, the canonical cracker barrel, and it's multidimensional, so. JAMEY: Yeah. You teleport into it? CORALINE: Yeah. [laughter] KERRI: Well, interestingly enough, I won't call this a danger, but one of the side effects of traveling as much I have in the last 4, or 5 years is strange, random flashbacks to stretches of road and you can't remember where they are. So you were just asking about this and I'm thinking about, “Okay, two places I could talk about,” and then I suddenly, unbidden, had this memory of a stretch of road. I can't remember where that is. I don't even know what state that's in. It was an amazing piece of pavement that I really enjoyed riding and, in that moment, I had this amazing moment. If I skip way ahead to the end of the conversation where I sum everything up and tell you why I ride, or what I get out of doing this is that it's cemented for me, this concept of the impermanence of everything because if I'm having a great day on the bike, it's beautiful afternoon, the temperature's perfect. It's not going to last. The sun is going to go down, the pavement is going to be bad, traffic is going to pick up, it's going to start raining. So I need to enjoy this moment, this curve, this hour, this half hour, this 5 minutes, whatever it is. Something, conversely, if it's bad, if it's raining, or it's dark, or heck, if it's snowing, it's like, this is not going to last. I'll go through this and everything will be great. But once every six weeks, or so, I make a really bad decision on the motorcycle, for instance, like that rain's probably going to clear up, that's not going to be a rainstorm. Nah, this wind is going to die down, it'll be fine. I'll be riding through something and it makes me just completely miserable. 110 degrees, or sideways rain, or whatever, and I think, “Yes, this is it. This is the moment. This is the thing that I'm going to be remembered for. This is the dumb thing that I did,” but it never lasts. I always survive and I walk away with this just amazing memory and this amazing about that time I rode through a rainstorm, or illegally parked my motorcycle in front of the Alamo to just get a photo, [laughs] things like that if it happened. CHELSEA: Kerri, do you collect souvenirs of any kind from some of these travels, or is it specifically photos? Do you post about them specifically anywhere? Maybe you do a whole bunch of things. I've certainly seen a number of your posts, but I guess I'm wondering, I'm imagining myself in these situations collecting stickers, or something like that. Do you have things like that that you look for in these places? KERRI: One of the neat things that I enjoy about traveling my motorcycle is that I just simply can't, I can't buy anything. It's not any space for it. My gear is all pretty well packed tightly. Souvenirs are kind of out unless I'm willing to pay extra ship from home. So it's kind of rare. Although, I have occasionally gotten, if I know that I'm going to be visiting a friend in a day, or two, I'll stop and pick something up and usually, it's a food item that I haven't seen before. In fact, if you follow me on Twitter, you'll see I'm always posting about weird foods, or energy drinks. 90% of the time it's weird stuff I found in a weird gas station on the side of the road, especially when it comes to energy drinks. And it's much more about having that experience of a place at the end of the day. I don't take as many photos as I'd like, or I think that I should. Although, certainly, I do take more than I used to. I've been working on landscape photography with my iPhone because again, I choose not to travel with a full camera rig. Well, I've got my iPhone, how can I take photos with that? That turns out to be much more about composition and seeing a moment and grabbing it than having the right lens, or light conditions being just right, or whatever. CHELSEA: Ooh. So I'd be very interested to hear some of your tips for phone photography, because this is a thing. We all have our phones on us and I imagine if I just a little more about how to frame my photos sometimes, I could get something a lot better. KERRI: Some of the basic tips are just photography one-on-one, like how do you compose a shot in terms of the rule of three where you break it up, and you'll see in phones, a lot of times you have the option turn on a grid. So you're looking at a grid and then help you understand how much space something is going to take up in the final shot. You want to line up your horizon, for example, if I'm taking a picture of say, like a harbor. I've taken a lot of photos of lighthouses for reasons I can get into later. So I'm trying to take really nice photos of lighthouses, the sea kind of wants to be right around and take up the lower third of the shot and then two-thirds is the sky. It's about how much of the frame gets filled with different elements will psychologically suggest the viewer, what their importance is, or how they relate to the person who's taken the photograph. So just some basic rules around that. I try to do things where, especially when doing landscape photography, because the iPhone lens is just horrible for this. It's really meant to take photos of your friends at parties, or your car in the driveway. It's not meant to take landscaping vistas, but you can do some tricks. Actually, I found that zooming in a little bit, not a lot, but just a little tiny bit just brings it a little bit closer and the final result just feels a little different. And then if also, you continue to follow those rules of composition, you can get some good landscape. Putting something in the foreground is really great. So my motorcycle is in a lot of my shots because of that, because it gives some depth to the photo. It helps to not just be like, especially if you're doing a wide-open plane like you do, it's like, oh yes, here's some bars of color. It's like, oh, now here's something to give me perspective and humanize the scale of a landscape. It's just little things like that and that's all stuff that I've learn just because I'm just a naturally curious person. So I'm like, “Well, how do I take better photos of that?” So I went off and did 4 hours of research and audited a class online somewhere. CORALINE: Have all, or most of your travels been continental US, or have you ever gone on a motorcycle trip on another continent, or? KERRI: It depends. Is New Zealand a continent? JAMEY: Well, it's not in the continental US. [laughs] KERRI: Yes. Starting closer to home, though. North America, I've done. So I've done US, Mexico, and Canada. Right when COVID hit, I was actually in Baja, California down at the Southern tip at the Tropic of Cancer on my motorcycle. I rode there all the way from Long Beach, California and I've been up to Alaska through Canada twice now. JAMEY: I'm sorry. I was going to tell a Jerri Alaska story actually, because I was in Alaska – [overtalk] KERRI: Oh, please. JAMEY: Not too long ago and I posted a landscape photo from our rental car on Twitter and I did not label where I was and Kerri was like, “Where are you in Alaska?!” And then we were talking about this and she recommended that I eat fireweed ice cream, which I did and it was wonderful. KERRI: Oh, was it great? JAMEY: [laughs] It was great. So I was going to suggest that your superpower could be recommendations. KERRI: Oh, thank you. That's super flattering, actually. I sometimes think when I finally get tired of tech, I just want to be a tour guide, or something, or write a travel novel, or something. JAMEY: Oh yeah. You'd be great at that. KERRI: Yeah. I love being a hostess and I love – whenever somebody's like, “Oh, I'm traveling,” or “I'm going here,” or I see somebody post photos from someplace I've been, I'm like, “Wait, here's this restaurant, you should go here and make sure you talk to this person and do this.” A year after I got my first bike, no, not even a year. Oh my gosh, it was 5 months after I got my first motorcycle, I went to New Zealand for a conference and said, “Well, hassle in traveling to New Zealand is actually traveling to New Zealand. So I might as well take some time.” I took two weeks and rented a motorcycle and just did a couple thousand kilometers all over the South Island in New Zealand. So those are the four countries I've ridden in. I was going to rent one – I'd been to Berlin a few times and I thought, “Oh, I'll rent a BMW when I'm in Germany, that'd be cool and ride around.” But unfortunately, I got sick while I was in Germany, the one time I was going to do that. So I stayed my hotel and felt bad. JAMEY: How different is motorcycle on the other side of the road in New Zealand? [chuckles] KERRI: I only rode on the wrong side of the road twice. [laughter] Yeah, the shop I rented from actually, they rent to a lot of Americans, I guess. So they put arrows on the windscreen to say, “Drive pass” to help remind us. But it's funny because every single rental car down there, the left side of the car is the one that's completely trashed because when you're riding, we start driving on the wrong side of the road. The side you're not used to. Now, it's like your entire concept as a driver of the opposite side of the car is now completely inverted and so, it's like trying to do something with your left hand when you're right-handed. It's just like, how do left-handed people survive?! Like, what are you doing? [laughs] CORALINE: I was in South Africa a number of years ago and we drove out to this wildlife preserve and the only car I was able a rental, that was not a stick shift because I don't know how to drive stick shift, [chuckles] was this giant club van. So not only I had driven the wrong side of the road, but I was in the largest vehicle I had ever driven. [laughs] Had no idea where the other side of the car might be was, just terrified of exactly that the whole time. KERRI: See, you called it a Clubvan, but all I can imagine, the image that popped in my brain was a party bus. [laughter] So imagine you driving around South Africa in a party bus. [laughter] CORALINE: That would have been amazing. Yeah. KERRI: Very different trip. AARON: I just want to bring it back to lighthouse pictures because as a native New Englander, I need to know why you're taking pictures of all these lighthouses. KERRI: Well, as another native New Englander, hi. AARON: Hi. KERRI: How are you? [laughter] No. So why am I taking photos of lighthouses? One of the things about the Iron Butt Association, which again, is this group dedicated to promoting this, is not just the pure endurance of can you ride a 1,000 miles in 24 hours? Can you ride 1,500 miles in 24 hours? What are the limits of safe endurance events? We also do a number of collection style things. We call them tours. I'm doing a lighthouse tour. So you go to lighthouses and I've got this little passport, my lighthouse passport I got from the United States Lighthouse Society. When they're open, you can get a little rubberstamp in your book to prove that you were there. When they're not open, I take a photo of my motorcycle next to the lighthouse and that's the proof that I've been there. The challenge is I have to visit 60 in 12 months. AARON: Okay. KERRI: And that's the bare minimum. So there's advancing levels of difficulty and they're merit badges for adults, really. [laughter] 60 in 12 months I'm at 25, or 30 now and I scoured the West Coast. I'm going to also hit the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic next month when I'm down there in Florida. There are other challenges like go to 120, or 180 again, over the course of different time periods. You have different difficulty levels. I've also done one which is visiting national parks because national parks have a similar passports stamp program where you can go get these timestamped little cancellations to say I was in the Redwood National Forest, or I was at Wounded Knee, or not Wounded Knee, Little Bighorn, or Devils Tower, or whatever. The challenge there is to visit say, 50 of them, but now you have to do 25 different states. Of course, I've upped the ante and we have the silver level, which is you also have to combine that visiting one park in Washington, California, Florida, and Maine, in addition to those 50 and 25 states. So I did two of those last year and then year before that, I added Alaska just for fun, which is the gold, or insanity level. So it's just these little different ways of encouraging people to go out and travel and see more in the country on their motorcycle. CORALINE: You work from the road, right? KERRI: Yeah, I do actually. CORALINE: I would love hear about how that works with such an aggressive travel schedule. KERRI: That takes a lot of discipline and balance, which I am surprised I managed to pull off [chuckles] given how much I can normally do it without adding to traveling. Usually, what I do is I have days where I am in one place and days when I'm traveling. So for example, on February 28th, I'm going to be heading out for 2 months on the road and my first stops going to be San Diego. I will take that weekend and ride down to San Diego, which again, only 1,300 miles so that's a day and I've rented a little place down in Ocean Beach, a block from the shore and they have Wi-Fi in this little tiny one-bedroom studio. I'll work there and I'll kind of explore San Diego. I'll work all day and, in the evenings, I'll go over ride on the hills, or go up to Legoland, or whatever I want to do in that part of the world. And then Friday night, Saturday, I'll hit the road again for a couple days. This is actually how I initially started traveling these long, long distances was trying to say like, “Okay, I really want to go to Austin, Texas, but it's going to take me four riding days, or whatever to get to Austin, Texas. How do I manage do that and still work from the road?” So well, 2 days away is Denver, Colorado. So why don't I go to Denver? I'll work there for a few days and then next weekend, then I'll skip on. So it's like setting up a series of base camps as if I was attacking Everest so I can break up these big trips. But as I wanted to travel further and further distances overall, I had to actually physically travel, or do longer distances in the same amount of time. Speeding isn't going to do that safely and it actually really doesn't get you there that much faster in the end. So the only way to do that was to figure out how to ride longer more hours in the day, figure that out. JAMEY: Can you talk about these motorcycle scavenger hunt things that you do? KERRI: Yeah. Thanks for asking. I assume you noticed the trophies on the wall behind me. So these are competitive scavenger hunt style rallies. We call them rallies. A lot of people, when you say motorcycle rally, they think about Bike Week in Daytona, or Sturgis out in South Dakota. That's none of this. It is a scavenger hunt and there's a timer on it say, 36, or 60 hours where the night before you get a list of here's all the different places that you could possibly go, you call them bonus locations and at 4:00 in the morning, everyone's released and you're like, “Okay, go, be back in a day and a half.” You go and you take photos of these different places to prove that you went there and every place gets you a certain number of points. The harder it is to get there, or the further away it is, the more points that you would get for going there. You can do combinations for visiting certain places, visit three clown theme places and get the clown bonus, or whatnot. Like a pinball machine, if you will, where you score the right combination, you get more points. So it's a timed competitive thing to who can the most amount of points because you can't visit all of the – they'll give you 80, or a 100 places you could possibly go. You can't go to all of them in the time allotted. So can you construct an efficient route that is also one that you have that you the physical capability to travel in the allotted time and earn enough points to place well? They typically last, 36 hours is one level. We have a few that do 60. I'm doing one this summer that is 9 days long. So we'll be leaving Cheyenne, Wyoming and four days later, we have to be in State College, Pennsylvania where we'll all stop for 10 hours and then we'll turn around and head back to Cheyenne. I actually just put in my application for the Olympics of the Iron Butt Association is called the Iron Butt Rally, which is an 11-day version of the countrywide scavenger hunt – [overtalk] CORALINE: Oh, wow. KERRI: With locations all over North America and Canada. We call it, it's sort of the Olympics. It happens every 2 years. You actually have to apply to be accepted to enter because otherwise, you'd have a lot of folks that say, “Oh, I could do that,” and they don't really know what they're getting into and it's a little bit unsafe if you haven't done it before and you don't really understand what it takes to do. That's what's coming up my horizon for those and they're very competitive events, although at the end of the day, it's made-up internet points. There are no sponsorships, there's no recognition besides outside of this group of 300, or 400 similarly weirdo people who like riding their motorcycles longways. But no, I've had quite a bit of success competitively in that and that just scratch all the right itches because it's riding a motorcycle. Plus, it's basically a traveling salesman problem. It's a directed graph problem and you work with GitHub all day long and like, “Oh, I understand how to traverse a graph, this is easy.” CORALINE: Speaking of that, Kerri as a long-time software engineer, do you do anything, do you have any software, any kind of tools that you develop for keeping track of all this? KERRI: Yeah, I do a lot with spreadsheets, believe it, or not. The tooling, it's tricky because at the end of the day, you still have to ride the motorcycle and you can't really automate that. So a lot of the stuff I'm able to do with software is really around using software for planning and analysis. For example, there's a number of different databases around you asked about the collection of the lighthouses and one of the things that I'm around the country collecting this year is pressed pennies. Now a pressed penny machine, actually I think they're fascinating because a pressed penny machine is the only machine still in active production that interacts with the penny in any way, shape, or form. There's no vending machines. There's nothing who deals with the penny besides coin counting machine. Besides the penny smasher, you put a penny, 2 quarters and it smashes a little design in. Again, I've got to go collect a 100 of these from 20 states and 5 of them have to be on the other side of the Mississippi, all these weird rules, but how do you find them? There's one at every cracker barrel. There's eight at Disney, one at SeaWorld. There's some obvious things like that, but it turns out, there's almost 4,000 of these machines in the United States and there's a database for these on this weird creaky, old website written in ASP. It's actually an IP address. It doesn't have a domain name. JAMEY: That's legit. CORALINE: Dark web got pennies. That's amazing. [laughter] KERRI: If only there was crypto involved here, it'd be perfect. So I got to break out some scripting the other day and actually write a little script that went into kind of scrape these old web pages and then parse CHTML and kind of strip out, look, here's the address for the place and store them because you want the name of the place and the address so you can find it. You've got to take that and ship it over to Google API, actually get an actual latitude, longitude, and then reform it into the XML format that my GPS device – it's this whole chain of Rube Goldberg machine of how to get this data into a place that I can actually use it. CORALINE: I think the story of the entire internet is made. [laughs] KERRI: Right. CORALINE: Yeah. KERRI: So fast forward to the end of that and now I happen to be the maintainer for a website that maps pressed penny machines across the United States, based on this data that I'm scraping from somebody else's website. AARON: All because you have a DNS name. KERRI: Exactly, exactly. But this actually turned to be really, really crucial because a whole bunch of people in my riding community said, “I really wanted to do that penny collecting hunt and you have 12 months to do it and I'm going to go out to the West Coast.” So I was like, I thought, “I have plenty of places to stop, but I could never find the machines.” It's just like, “Oh, okay. So my putting this information into a format that other people could actually easily digest, that's the value that I'm adding here.” It's inspired at least a dozen people to go out and start collecting smashed pennies. So I've got to be responsible for some uptick in sales on these vending machines. JAMEY: They should sponsor you. AARON: I love the weirdness of these machines that interact with a coin that's so bad at being currency, we just sort of toss them out to the extent that I was at Disney World not too long ago and the machines have their own supply of pennies because people just don't have pennies. So [chuckles] this machine just has a stock of pennies and you can swipe a credit card and be like, “Give me the smashed pennies,” and it charges you a dollar in 1 cent and then goes through and does it. KERRI: God, it's fabulous. A lot of people have heard the story that pennies are actually – it costs more to make a penny than a penny is actually worth in terms of currency. It's wild. But every time I start thinking, “We should get rid of the penny,” I'm like, “That sounds like the craziest, insane conspiracy theory position to ever take.” AARON: But also, the penny is real bad at being currency. [laughs] KERRI: Yeah. Yeah. MID-ROLL: And now a quick word from our sponsor. I hear people say the VPNs have a reputation for slowing down your internet speed, but not with NordVPN, because it's the fastest VPN in the world. I don't have to sacrifice internet speed for better security. With NordVPN, my internet traffic is routed through a secure encrypted tunnel, which protects my data and privacy. I can also have it on up to six devices like my laptop, phone, TV, iPad—all my devices are protected. Grab your exclusive NordVPN deal by going to nordvpn.com/gtc, or use the code GTC to get a huge discount on your NordVPN plan plus one additional month for free. Plus, a bonus gift! It's completely risk-free with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee. KERRI: Way back at the beginning of this conversation, somebody asked me and sorry, I forgot who asked me about some of the best places I've been and the strangest things I've seen. I kind of got derailed on some poet nonsense, but I realize that I really am a sucker for world's largest ball twine kinds of things. I had this great opportunity. So collecting pennies, lighthouses, and national parks, I'm always just getting off the main roads and things. I see a lot of stuff. I found out that I'm a sucker basically for weird local foods like the fireweed ice cream. Anytime I see something advertised on a menu that I've never heard of before, that's the thing I'm going to order. Cinnamon rolls because when you travel up the Alaskan highway from Dawson Creek, BC up to Alaska, every 60 miles, or so, there's a gas station and a little bakery. So you can get your gas, you can get coffee, and you can get a cinnamon roll and they all claim to have the best cinnamon roll on the Alaskan highway. I stop every 60 miles and get a cinnamon rolls. After about 5 hours, I really just want to fall over and vomit because I'm sick of cinnamon rolls. But now when I travel, if I see some place advertising cinnamon rolls, I'm like, “Well, I've got to stop because that's my thing because I like cinnamon rolls because that's reminds me of Alaska.” So I get to go to a lot of these really great small towns and just seeing a lot of how, especially in the central part of the country, so many towns are struggling with just having jobs for people and keeping local economies going that a lot of them will do these sorts of things. They'll have interesting, strange festivals, or hold the film festival about corn, or soy, or they'll paint their water tower, or something. Last year, as I was traveling across North Dakota one time, I saw off on the horizon on a hill—first of all, yes, a hill in North Dakota so that was notable—a giant cow. A giant Holstein cow. This a 100-foot-tall fiberglass cow and so, I said to my riding partner, I'm like, “We're going the cow, right?” And she's like, “Yeah, we're going the cow.” So get off the highway and we rode this little windy dirt road at the top of this hill. It was just this huge giant fiberglass cow that they put on top of the hill 20, 30 years ago and now it's like the 4-H Club with the FFA kids take care of it and repaint it every few years. They collect like, they ask for donations. $5 each and the little two because we're passing through and that's part of our job. That's how I'm interacting with the community and plus man, I got a ton of pictures of this giant cow. It was right at sunset, we were on this hill, and it was actually really beautiful, the prairie, it was spread out for us and it was about an hour east of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. So it's right where the planes start to break up into the what's called Missouri Breaks where the rivers have really broken up the land quite a bit. So it was just gorgeous. It was just absolutely beautiful and I never would've seen that if I didn't stop because there was a giant cow. That's my giant cow story. CORALINE: Kerri, have you ever considered writing down your stories and the stories of the people that you meet along the way and the amazing places you've been? I hate to say the B word, but it would make a pretty interesting book. KERRI: Well, I'll throw back another B word at you, which is blog. I keep a travel blog at motozor.com. Lately, I've been writing more about, because I haven't been doing as much non-directed travel, so a lot of my travel lately has been around these sort of competitive rallies that I've been riding in, which are interesting in themselves because they're like, “Go take your photo with the giant cow,” or “Go to the Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada, or whatnot, take a photo there.” I've been writing quite a bit about those sorts of travels, but I also have a huge backlog of articles that I've written for that over the years of all the different trips I've taken to New Zealand, Alaska down into Baja, and the multiple times I've been across the country. The one that I'm working on, that I haven't finished yet because I'm trying a new thing, which is incorporating a series of interview video interviews with my riding partner, is trying to tell the story in written form of the trip that she and I did last summer, where we rode to all 48 states in 10 days starting in New England ending in Washington. JAMEY: Kerri, I have an important question to ask you, but I'm contractually obligated to ask you. How many miles at a time would you say that you live your life? [laughs] KERRI: Well, I guess, I supposed to say one quarter of a mile at a time. [chuckles] JAMEY: Well, Kerri was also a guest on my Greater Than Code spinoff, fast and furious show, Stationary & Sassy, so. KERRI: Which I love. JAMEY: I had to pull it back. [laughs] KERRI: I'll answer that in an obliviously serious way. [laughter] I can go an entire take of gas without putting my foot down. That's kind of fun. One of my current challenges right now is can I ride through the entire state of Oregon, north to south, without getting gas? Because it's 304 miles from the Washington-Oregon border to the California-Oregon border and Oregon doesn't let you pump your own gas and it irritates me. They usually, if they see you're on a motorcycle, they're like, “You got it?” I'm like, “Yeah, I got it. I'm not from here. I pump gas.” So the challenge right now is can I cross Oregon without having to stop for gas and then actually weirdly, mentally breaks up my day. It's kind of weird motorcycle Pomodoro of like, “Okay, I can go 3 hours before I need to stop.” So my day gets broken up into these chunks of where are the stops that I have to make versus the ones I want to make, or excuse me, the ones I want to make versus the ones I have to make. JAMEY: You heard it here, folks. Kerri lives her life 304 miles at a time. [laughter] KERRI: I live my life a quarter tank at a time. [laughter] CHELSEA: Kerri, you mentioned earlier that you listen to music while you're riding because you find that it helps you focus on riding. I find a similar thing with work, whether it's fulltime job work, or side work, I have a much easier time focusing—for the audience, I'm a programmer as well—if I've got something on. I like to listen to Boston Nova, or I also go on turntable.fm, I'm in a heavy metal room there that's kind of fun. I'm curious as to whether you find that music helps you focus anywhere off the motorcycle as well. KERRI: Yes. I am very susceptible to the emotional resonance of music, if that makes any sense whatsoever. There are kinds of music that I just can't listen to before I go to bed, like heavy metal gets me going, jam music. I'm a really huge Phish fan, which surprise, from Vermont, and I wear a lot of tie dye. Of course, I'm in the Phish. But that's the music I like to listen to when I'm riding and when I'm working. But I do a lot of chill hop stuff now. I've gotten into that and I'm finding my way back to a lot of again, country music. But there's this entire alt Nashville scene that's happened in the last 10 years. I completely missed that. I'm kind of getting caught up on these days. My Bandcamp catalog, I think I'm keeping at least three of their engineers paid for; I buy so much stuff on Bandcamp these days. CORALINE: I definitely get what you said about sensitivity to the emotional music definitely resonates with me as a musician. It's kind of weird to admit, but when I'm doing writing, I listen to Steely Dan [laughs] and I actually learned from a friend of mine that William Gibson listened to Steely Dan while he was writing all the seminal cyberpunk novels and thought that's kind of interesting, maybe good company, right? KERRI: Hey, Fagen and Becker, great albums. It's the stereotypical thing that Rush is this big band in programming circles and fun fact, the drummer for Rush was a huge motorcycle guy to the point that they actually had a trailer on their tour bus that he would carry two bikes on the trailer. So he would ride between concert stops. The band do their show and they'd leave on the bus and he got on his motorcycle and like, “See you in Chicago, guys,” “See you in Milwaukee,” “See you in Madison.” The band went along. He had some personal and his wife passed away and his daughter fairly tragically and he wrote an entire book about it, where he didn't really quit the band. Although, they basically shut Rush down for a period of time so the band could work through that. But he took that time and went on the road just writing his motorcycle around. He wrote several books about dealing with grief through riding his motorcycle. I found that to be a really fascinating book and it's one of those touchstones, the Canada motorcycle riders. What little we read, that's definitely a book that everyone recommends to me at some point like, “Oh, have you read this book?” I'm like, “Yes, I've read that book.” AARON: It's Neil Peart for anyone who needs to look that up. I relate to the music as a distraction preventative [laughs] as someone who also deals with ADHD. It just makes sense to me. It's like, “Oh yeah, without it, there's so many places for my brain to go,” but if you have music on the back and it's like, “Oh, great. All right. That's where my brain is going to go when it gets distracted, it's just going to listen to this, then I'll go back to riding the bike.” [chuckles] KERRI: Exactly. Exactly. CORALINE: Kerri, you said a word earlier when you were contrasting the way you were riding when you started out and being kind of exploratory versus, I think the word you used is directive there, or a sweet spot for you between directed activity, directed riding versus wandering, maybe even drifting—not a car movie reference. But is there a balance that rejuvenates you, or that energizes you? KERRI: Yes. I've talked to other motorcycle riders about this, where you say, “My gosh, there's so many great things that we see along the way,” and we say, “I would love to stop here.” So for example, when we're doing these rallies where we're collecting things, for example, you stop to take a picture, or something, and then you've got to go. You only really stop for 5 minutes because you have this timetable and a schedule that you're trying to execute, or if you're trying to ride 1,500 miles in 24 hours, you can't stop. Your gas stops, you're timed down to like oh, 5 minutes. So you'll see things. You're like, “Man, I wish I could stop,” or “I wish I had come back here and take this in and give something,” the respect that you want to give it, or really, really dive deep and taste a place, if you will. It's a really common thing in the long-distance thing. Other motorcycles will sometimes say like, “Well, you don't see anything that way.” It's like, “Well, actually, I see a lot. I see way lot more in my days than you see,” but you don't get to stop so you have to kind of try and balance that. That's one thing that I really like about these collection things that I do is, collection challenges, I carry satellite tracker, of course so I can plot out everywhere that I've been. I've been looking at the one for my lighthouse trip so far up and down the West Coast. It's just amazing, I'm going out to every little inlet, point, and little peninsula sticks out into the ocean because that's where the lighthouses are and the things that I've gotten to see through doing that. So one of the reasons that I've gotten into those sort of challenges rather than the pure and endurance is just because it does reward that exploration. While, at the same time, being fairly directed because the directed part of it is researching and planning at home, like finding where are the lighthouses, where are the national parks I need to go visit? What are the hours are things open? Making that plan versus executing on the plan and the execution plan, getting to explore things, I think it's really a lot about the framing of the trip for me. In February, I'm going down to San Diego and then I'm going to, what's called a 50cc, which is coast to coast in 50 hours. So I'll be leading San Diego and within 50 hours, I'm going to be in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Aha. Somehow, I'll do that. I'm not going to be able to stop and see anything along the way, but because I know that's the kind ride I'm embarking on, it becomes okay. It's this weird personal permission structure to give a pass to things that I would really like to see along the way versus say, if I'm doing a lighthouse trip – I did one several months ago down to Disneyland, but I went down the California coast and I found myself like, “Oh, I'm not making any miles. This is so slow. Why is this taking me 3 days to get down to Los Angeles when it normally takes me 1 and a half at most?” So I had to stop and I ended up stopping in this little tiny town. I can't even remember the name of the place, but it's somewhere in Northern coast, California, and there's a little tiny coffee shop there. It's like Two Girls Coffee, or something like that. I just stopped, I got a coffee, and I sat outside. They had a table, it was a nice day, and I was just like, “I'm just going to sit here for 30 minutes and I'm just going to recenter myself and really think about what am I doing here? What do I want to be accomplishing and what set of skills do I need to bring to this moment to maximize how much fun I'm going to have? If I'm not having fun, then why am I doing it?” So just being able to sit there in sunshine for a little bit and just say, “The point of what I'm doing here is to explore and it's to have this experience. It's not get someplace fast. It's not to get someplace far away. It's to explore and see things.” I was so much happier after that and I had a great conversation with a hippie in the parking lot so that was pretty great. MANDY: Bonus. [laughs] Well, we usually end this conversation with reflections. I know, for me, I just want to say that everything you described just makes me feel so happy. I've been on a really big journey to improve my life and just what you said in the last few minutes about just taking time to enjoy, not being in a hurry, slowing down, and recentering yourself. That is all just so important to remember the whole cliché of stopping and smelling the roses. Like just enjoying your life even if it's a quarter tank at a time. JAMEY: I keep thinking about this map that Kerri says that she has, which I actually legitimately would really like to see. But a lot of what Kerri was talking about was resonating with me. I also like to explore and I think about keeping track of places, but I don't have a map and I've been thinking about it for a while. I think it's one of these sunk cost things where I'm like, “Well, if I wanted to do a map, I should have been like doing it already,” but that's not how that works in real life. So if I want to have a map, I should start it now and I think that's my call-to-action. [chuckles] KERRI: When people ask my advice like, “Oh, what motorcycle should I get,” or “What's the best motorcycle to do this, or that?” I always say like, “Oh, well the best motorcycle to do the ride you want to do is the one you have.” I think that's really true of so many things in life is that the trick is just to get started and it's not about the fancy equipment. It's not about the gear. You could just do it. If you just give yourself permission to go do a thing, you can just go do it. CORALINE: I was thinking about how that kind of philosophy relates to how my life circumstances, job situation has changed so much for the past year since I retired from software engineering and the relief of not having to be productive, not having to hit goal, not having to have constraints that I'm not in control of, governing things, and permission to go down rabbit holes. So when you were talking about the giant cow, I was liking that to well, if you were in a hurry to get somewhere, you wouldn't have stopped there. But because you weren't, you had a richer experience. You saw something you hadn't seen before. You hadn't experienced before. I really think that's a lesson we can take all over the place and give ourselves permission, like you said, to wander aimlessly and to explore. That's something that I definitely intend to do in my life and your story of doing that is very inspirational so thank you, Kerri. AARON: I was just latching onto two bits that I really liked. First off, if I'm not having fun, then why am I doing this is probably life lessons to live by. [chuckles] But I also appreciated the moment of resetting your expectations to your purpose. Like, why am I doing this thing? Let me remember, because I had a reason I'm doing it and if I'm not enjoying it right now, where's the mismatch? I like that. Because so often, it's easy, for me anyway, to stumble into doing something and finding yourself like, “Why am I doing this?” and then stepping back and be like, “Okay. All right. I chose to do this because of this and if this is my purpose, then I can let go of this other pressure that I'm putting on myself to go further every day when that's not the reason I'm here.” It doesn't make sense to put that pressure on myself then. KERRI: I feel like that chain, that returning to the beginning point is also a good career skill. You have to get serious about it, or bring this into work realm. But as a senior engineer, staff engineer, and principal, blah, blah, blah, so often, it's not how efficient can I make this loop. It's also going back, is this doing the right thing to do? Like, “Why are we doing this? Is there a better way to solve this sort of problem?” So it's that lesson of what I learned on the road coming back into work, but it's also because work is life as well and if work isn't fun and whatever, then why am I doing it? But that skill comes back into my personal life so there's this free flow of influence going back and forth. AARON: Yeah. That purpose revisit thing is something that I've just been thinking about from events standpoint from doing conferences over the past couple years, like so much had to go back to first principles because it was like, okay, well what was the reason for us doing this? Just recreating the same motion in a different environment isn't necessarily going to get us the same results. What is the reason we're doing this? Let's revisit that and make sure we're still in alignment with it all. I think we can do that more often in our lives, too. Like, “What is the reason I'm doing this thing?” [chuckles] “Okay, it's not accomplishing that anymore. Let's get rid of this practice and try something else,” or not. Maybe the answer is to keep it. CHELSEA: Yeah. One of the things that I think about apropos of what a couple of other folks were mentioning about how easy it is to get caught up in the details when trying to start something as opposed to just picking early anything and getting started. Occasionally, folks will ask me questions like that about blogging and one of the things that I like to do is keep some URLs on hand of some of my earlier pieces, just because it makes it really clear that it didn't always look like this. I just started and it wasn't what people see. I think folks sometimes see someone who's several years down the road of having started something and feeling like they can't start because it won't look like that immediately and it won't. [laughs] But I imagine that having those kinds of stories on hand, what I'm thinking about is how to make those sorts of stories more accessible to folks. Because a lot of what we see understandably about how to do something is from the folks who have mastered it to some degree and it's not as clear where to look to find folks who also are just starting and what to expect your journey to look like right at the beginning. MANDY: Kerri, do you want to leave a us with any parting thoughts? KERRI: A lot of people, when I tell them I rode a 1,000 miles in a day, they're like, “You can't do that.” It's like, “I've done it 12 times.” It's like, “What are you talking about?” But to kind of carry on to Aaron and to what Chelsea just said, it's a marathon. You can't do a lot of big things in a single step. You have to make that first step and then the second step and then the third step and then you're walking and you're doing the thing. I don't really talk about motorcycling with people who don't motorcycle and everybody who I motorcycle would talk about this. We all do it and so, it's not remarkable. Sometimes I think it's important to realize that what we do accomplish in our lives is fairly remarkable and magic to a lot of people. As software engineers, what we do is frankly, astounding some days and it's important to remember that we have traveled far from where we began when we first started doing this sort of stuff and we may return to that when we change careers, or jobs, or languages, or technologies. Return to that place of not knowing and that can be uncomfortable, but there is so much joy and discovery you can have if you just take that time, and stop and understand and pay attention to your story of where you started, where you're going, and how far along you've actually come. You can't look up the mountain and be intimidated by that. You should turn around and look back down the mountain to see how far you've come. MANDY: That was lovely. Thank you so much and thank you so much for coming back on the show and telling us yet another few stories. The first time you were on the show, I distinctly remember the title being Story Time with Kerri Miller and you never disappoint. I'm so glad that you took time to join us and talk about your motorcycling adventures with us [chuckles] non-motorcycling people. It is super fascinating and it's definitely an awesome topic outside of – that we can relate a lot of the concepts to the tech field, software engineering, development, and all that. So dear listener, if you have a cool hobby like Kerri that you want to come on the show and talk about, we'd love to talk to you because this has frankly been amazing and I really enjoyed this episode. So thank you again and we'll see you all next week. Special Guest: Kerri Miller.

02:14 - Ashleigh's Superpower: Ability To See “The Vision” * The Queen's Gambit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen%27s_Gambit_(miniseries)) 03:35 - Intentionality: “People First” * Call Me Out: Intention vs Impact * “This Doesn't Make Sense” Log * Emotional Fitness Surveys * “Dare To Lead” Book Club 10:55 - Listen * Digging in to Defensiveness / Uncomfortableness * Little Things Add Up * Building Connections and Relationships 15:10 - Building Trust – Why is vulnerability not professional? * Alleviating Fear * North Star: Being Excellent To Each Other * Self Awareness & Emotional Intelligence * Discernment * Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs) 21:02 - Personal Growth and Development * Brené Brown (https://brenebrown.com/) * Glennon Doyle (https://momastery.com/) * Morning Pages (https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/) * The Holistic Psychologist: Future Self Journaling (https://theholisticpsychologist.com/future-self-journaling/) 27:24 - Intersexuality and Identity: How do you show up? * Privilege * Gender * Somatics * Safety * Solidarity 36:37 - Making and Dealing With Mistakes * Taking Feedback * Lead With Gratitude * Ego Checks 40:05 - Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) * Visibility and Understanding * Health and Wellness Benefits * Sacred vs Safe Spaces / Safe vs Brave Spaces * Dan Price 45:52 - Fundraising & Venture Capital (VC) * The House of Who (https://www.houseofwho.com/) Reflections: Mandy: Eating a shame sandwich in order to learn and grow. Chanté: North Star = Being excellent to each other. Ashleigh: Celebrating intersections of identity. Aaron: The “This Doesn't Make Sense” log. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Transcript: PRE-ROLL: Software is broken, but it can be fixed. Test Double's superpower is improving how the world builds software by building both great software and great teams. And you can help! Test Double is hiring empathetic senior software engineers and DevOps engineers. We work in Ruby, JavaScript, Elixir and a lot more. Test Double trusts developers with autonomy and flexibility at a remote, 100% employee-owned software consulting agency. Looking for more challenges? Enjoy lots of variety while working with the best teams in tech as a developer consultant at Test Double. Find out more and check out remote openings at link.testdouble.com/greater. That's link.testdouble.com/greater. MANDY: Hello, everybody and welcome to Episode 272 of Greater Than Code. My name is Mandy Moore, I use she/her pronouns, and I'm here with our new panelist, Aaron Aldrich. Welcome, Aaron! AARON: Thanks! And hey, I'm Aaron. I use they/them pronouns and I am also here with Chanté Martínez Thurmond. CHANTÉ: Hey, everyone, Chanté here. I use she/her/ella pronouns and I am so glad to introduce our guest today, Ashleigh Wilson. Welcome, Ashleigh. AARON: Thank you for having me! Hello, Ashleigh here and I use she/her pronouns. CHANTÉ: Ashleigh is the Founder and CEO of Auditmate, the world's first elevator and escalator auditing system. After discovering that customers were an afterthought to most companies, Ashleigh left the corporate world and founded Auditmate under a "people first" mentality. Ashleigh knows discrimination first-hand as a queer woman working in the tech industry and she aims to create a space where everyone has permission to be human. What a great bio. ASHLEIGH: Thank you. Thanks for having me. CHANTÉ: It's a pleasure. Ashleigh, the first question we ask our is what is your superpower and how did you acquire it? ASHLEIGH: My superpower is my ability to see the vision and it's a bit of a witchy. I don't know where it comes from, but the best visual representation I've ever seen of it as if anyone has seen The Queen's Gambit and when she can move the chess pieces on the ceiling? When I'm in the zone, and it's often when I'm half sleep, it just connects and I'm like, “Oh, this is how it works,” and I can just see the path forward. I can't force it. [chuckles] I don't get to choose when it happens. It just happens, or it doesn't. But when I get those deep downloads on the vision and the path forward, and then I think the skill that's been learned to couple with that is then how to make a plan to execute it because the vision can be one, but that execution does not work alone. [chuckles] AARON: That's awesome. I like that and I like that you mentioned the skill that gets paired with that. I can relate to a superpower can't exist in a vacuum; it needs some way to be harness and used. [chuckles] ASHLEIGH: Absolutely. CHANTÉ: I love that, too. Aaron, where you're going with that, because what it makes me think about Ashleigh, just reading your bio and kind of getting a preview of some of the things you care about, how have you been intentional about building a people first organization, or a startup in this space and using that superpower and maybe either finding people who compliment you there, or who are distinctly different? But I'd love to hear how you've been intentional about that. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. I think it starts with first of all, when you feel othered in any organization, like coming in and being able to set the culture is like, “Oh, I'm going to do all of these things.” But as Aaron mentioned earlier, it's not in a vacuum and so, I think the intentionality has been, what is the mission? What is the north star? How do we treat each other? And then at every new hire at every new customer acquisition, it then iterates, iterates, iterates, and iterates. You have to be willing to learn, to take feedback, and to eat a shame sandwich every once in a while, when you screw it all up and you have to admit it [chuckles] because it happens every single time. I've been called to the carpet. I think one of the biggest ways that I've been intentional is being communicative about call me out, call me out. I'm never going to know all of the things all the time and I think that my team knows me well enough to know my intentions, but it comes in intentions versus impact conversation. I can only know my intentions unless you tell me how this impacts you. I can't know and so, creating a culture of my team being able to call me out and be like, “Hey, your intention was good. The impact sucked. Let's talk about it.” [chuckles] AARON: What's that like practically to get folks like on that side and able to call you out because I know for – I'm thinking about it and I know I can to jump into any corporate culture, even startup and be like, “Yeah, I feel comfortable calling out my boss on this.” [chuckles] ASHLEIGH: Yeah. I don't think we feel like we have a corporate culture at least yet. AARON: Yeah. ASHLEIGH: But that also took time in creating. So one way that we did it was we have something called that this doesn't make sense log so that people can just document either things in the system, or things in the culture, or things in policies that just are kind of dumb. Like why do we do this this way? This doesn't make sense. This makes my job harder than it should be. The we need to get X done, but you're making us do Y and Z that don't go toward the greater mission. And then also we created an emotional fitness survey for every employee so that each person – and it's left in one place so each person says, “I want to receive praise publicly, or privately,” or “If I need to get feedback, I want to receive it like this,” or these just different questions on how people to be communicated to. I think setting up those conversations as people log in and it's okay to speak up, it's okay to push back, I expect you to push back on me makes people feel more comfortable, but it takes a while. It does. CHANTÉ: I love that. I use something very similar to that for my own consulting business in my firm and it's been something that we really lean into helpful to just make sure that it's transparent and it's a nice reminder as a leader that your answers to questions can change. Giving people permission to say, “You know what, how I'm showing up today is different than how I showed up yesterday, because life.” [chuckles] ASHLEIGH: Totally. CHANTÉ: So I really love that. The other sort of burning thing that I have for you is, because I read that you had been in this business so I'm guessing that you had learned from people and maybe it was a family business. I might have missed that part. I'm curious how doing it your way this time with these sort of principles is different than the way maybe you were mentored to do it, or what you've seen in the past and why that's important. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. I don't know that I had ever seen it modeled before. I was raised in the elevator industry and before that, my stepdad was in the elevator industry and my dad was salesman of any type, door-to-door salesman selling vacuums to cleaners, to cars, to whatever the case may be and I've never fallen in line. I was always the kid in school that was like, “Why do you do it that way? When you can do it this way? Why are we doing this? That doesn't make sense and that doesn't feel good?” And people are like, “Well, we don't really care how you feel,” and I'm like, “But why it doesn't feel good?” Like why do people want to work where it doesn't feel good? This doesn't make sense to me.” That feeling in my tummy has always been so wrong that it's either a hard yes, or a hard no and I'm like, “How do you operate in a hard no all the time?” Why do we expect people to operate in these visceral responses to this? Just watching how teams have responded and how you almost want to beat the individuality out of people to get performance to a certain standard, or something, like that somehow makes it better for everybody to be like that whole homogeny equals happiness saying? It was never true to me and so, I think I always had this if I feel like this, there has to be someone else that feels like this. I cannot be the only one that wants to show up as my true self and talk about feelings in business meetings! I cannot be the only one. This has to exist. I started a Dare to Lead book club at the Elevator office, which [chuckles] I'm sure you can imagine how that went over. Everybody showed up and I was like, “Oh, so y'all want to act like this is okay and that everyone seems okay. But then look at all of these white cis men in my Dare to Lead book club. Huh.” So it just kind of gave me the affirmation that I needed to say, “People do want to feel good. People do want to talk about and this does actually help the bottom line.” CHANTÉ: I personally love it. What I do for my day-to-day is focus on culture and focus on diversity, equity, inclusion accessibility, and organizations, whether it's on teams, products, services, and offerings. I think that people underestimate what it takes to build something that's special, especially there's not a culture budget. There's a budget for recruiting. There's a budget for performance stuff and for growth. But I'm like, “But what is the fascia? What is the stuff that keeps it together?” And it is the culture. I often like to say, as we're thinking about the future of work and building the next iteration of what work should be in decentralized teams working from home, we do need to lean into the sort of the soft skills that are actually aren't that soft, but they're those emotional intelligence stuff. That makes a huge difference. So is there any advice you might have to leaders like you who are like, “Okay, I guess I might read a Dare to Lead book,” or “I might start to prioritize this”? Where can they start, or what are practical things that you've learned along the way in leading your company in this fashion? ASHLEIGH: Listen. Listen is the first one. Listen when you get defensive, because those moments when your team says something to you that seems so small, insignificant, and annoying because you have all of these big things to do and all of the – you're pushing the company forward and there's this little voice that someone was brave enough to say this little thing that you're like, “Ugh.” That defensiveness, that feeling, whatever that small thing is, is probably a big thing, or will become a big thing and being able to own up to whatever it is that's making you defensive, or uncomfortable and truly listening in and digging into what is the root cause of that? Because it's generally, I don't know if you know the saying like something about the wrapper, it's never the wrapper. You get into a fight about the wrapper on the counter, that's never the wrapper. It's not throwing away the wrapper. It's the underlining way of how we are making people feel and for me, it's been about being able to truly dig into those things. The doesn't make sense log came from one of those experiences. My team, we were in these meetings and they would bring up these little things and be like, “Hey Ashleigh, well, what about this?” And I'm like, “It's not the time for that. We're talking about Z. Why are you bringing up A? We're in this super deep meeting about Z and you're talking about A,” and then they were like, “You're not listening to us. You say that you are people first, but you're not hearing us,” which is like a dagger to the heart. It's gutting and I had to sit with it for days because I was like, “I know I'm people first. I know my intention is right. How am I not translating it? How are my actions not matching my intentions?” When I boiled down to it, it was people didn't have an easy way to bring up little things to me and so, those little things would start to get bigger and then they would bring them up in big meetings because my schedule is booked. We don't have water cooler talk. We don't have walking by someone's desk and being like, “Hey, what's happening with blah, blah, blah?” That stuff doesn't exist and so, these little things were starting to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger because there wasn't an easy place to just discuss them. So creating one log alleviated so much pain and made people feel heard about, “Hey, this one email has a misspelling and no one's paid attention to it.” Just little stuff. And then the second thing is that we've been starting is more personal time. We started what I call an AuditMate lounge, which is on Fridays and it's just meant to be logging on and just hanging out with each other. It's water cooler time. You can be working, you can be doing other things, but this is not a business meeting. This is not meant to get things done. It's meant to just hang out. AARON: I like that. I just started working at a new company this month and similar to the team I'm on at least, the DevRel has similar like, “Oh, we're just going to hang out for a bit because I'm around,” [chuckles] and whatever. I've really appreciated it because it's something that I feel like when you're in an office, it's easy to lose track of all the time that you spend just being around those people and building those relationships because it's just rolled into, “Oh, I was getting a coffee,” or “Oh, we went to get lunch,” or “Oh, we went to do this,” and “Oh, I walked by a desk and said ‘Hey' for a few minutes.” But especially with COVID with everyone remote and at home, or remote companies, it's so easy to forget about that stuff and forget about building those connections that are more than just, “Hey, we work on this thing together.” It's like, “Oh yeah, also, we're people. We should hang out and talk about what people do,” [chuckles] which is sometimes just nothing. ASHLEIGH: Absolutely and it's how we build trust! AARON: Hmm. Yeah. I think that's a big thing, too. MANDY: What are your favorite ways to build trust? ASHLEIGH: Oh, well, I never really thought about it like that. I'm a Scorpio moon and rising so I like all of the deep things like, “Hi, I'm Ashleigh. Tell me about your trauma.” So I think the biggest way [chuckles] that I like to build trust is just in deep conversation, really getting to know each other, being vulnerable, and being able to just take the mask off. MANDY: Do you think you can do that too much, though with coworkers? Where do you find that balance? Because I struggle with that myself. Like how do you be open and completely vulnerable, but professional at the same time? ASHLEIGH: Why is vulnerability not professional? MANDY: That's a great question. ASHLEIGH: I think that's where – and I don't have an answer to it. It's kind of what I'm rambling. But why is vulnerability pegged with femininity and why is vulnerability loaded into being unprofessional, or too much, or too whatever? I think that the vulnerability that I don't want to expose too much is if it's loaded with fear because feelings aren't facts and I don't want to unload fear onto my team if there's something that I'm nervous about. I feel like it's my responsibility to hold those things and to alleviate some fear. But I think unpacking with my team that we can be vulnerable and that is actually more professional because it does make us more efficient. It does make us more trusting, I guess, would be the proper word there. The personal things that I don't share as far as vulnerability is there's some personal life stuff that I don't share, but not because it's not professional, but because it's sacred more. AARON: I think you mentioned something interesting about fear that gets at an interesting balance. From a leadership perspective, you have some responsibility about the vulnerability that you share and what you're able to be vulnerable with your team that maybe different than you want from an individual contributor on that team. You probably want to hear the fears of your team like, “Tell me what you're worried about so I can either alleviate those, or we can work to be in a good place.” But at the same time, sounds like you have some responsibility that I can't unload that on you because I'm the one who's supposed to be [laughs] taking care of that. How does that play out me besides just that one generic scenario? Are there ways you find that balance difficult to walk, or? ASHLEIGH: Yeah, like fundraising. My team needs to trust that I'm going to pay the bills. I don't want them to be worried about having money for payroll, or that we're going to be set up for our next raise, or that, right? There's some basic survival stuff that can be so linked to trauma of if we don't feel like we're going to have food on our tables for our family, if we don't feel like we're going to have continual pay, if we don't – those sort of things that are just human nature. We can't think and we can't perform because it is my duty to take care of my family and if I can't take care of my family with this company, I need to go do what I need to go do. So that's where it's my responsibility to those fears – especially when you are rational, if I'm having imposter syndrome about raising money as a queer woman and it's irrational because, maybe not irrational but loaded because of statistics, I shouldn't unload that on them, or I need to have someone, a mentor, someone that I can go to because they need to be expressed, but that could get bigger and bigger and bigger when shared with my team. So I really think about our north star is being excellent to each other. When my vulnerability is serving to them is when I share and not just when it's serving to me, because it'll make me feel better to express that I'm scared about funding, but it will not make my team feel better. It will, in fact, make them feel worse. CHANTÉ: What I hear is this dance we have to do as folks who have founded companies, or leaders of those companies to have what I consider again, that emotional intelligence. It's like – [overtalk] ASHLEIGH: Totally. CHANTÉ: Because self-awareness is huge and when you get a chance to – when you know your traps, or the traumas and the triggers that keep you stuck, or actually help to get you to another place, you can notice them in others and then the regulation is really important as well to really build relationships that are trusting and then discern it. It's like timing is everything to be like, you have to be able to read the room. You have to be able to be perceptive, read people's faces, and understand that they may have disassociation. They might be smiling, but they actually might be scared shitless [laughs] as you're like, “Oh, we're raising around.” I love how you how you kind of introduce this thought around Maslow's hierarchies of needs. People want to be able to put food on the table and be able to take care of their responsibilities whether that's a family, or a spouse, significant other, friend, or community and that is why we work. [chuckles] We need the money because we're in this capitalistic system. So I just love how you're doing that and where my mind takes me is how did you have the wisdom to do that? Who has been either an example that you admire, do you have a coach, do you have a community? Where are you learning these awesome things? Because I feel like you're so in touch with this emotional intelligence piece that so many people are missing. ASHLEIGH: Thank you. I appreciate that. I did not used to be, [chuckles] to be quite honest and I learned about emotions getting freshly sober at like 24 from Brené Brown. I had no idea. I had no idea. I quit drinking and remember starting to read one of her books and saying that an emotionally intelligent person knew 30 emotions and I was like, “Wait, there's more than happy and sad? You're telling me there's 30? That I should be able to name 30 and know what they feel like in my body?” CHANTÉ: Right, and according to her new book, she has even more stuff. ASHLEIGH: [laughs] Yeah. CHANTÉ: I think there's like 80 plus. ASHLEIGH: I'm like, “Wait, what?” [laughter] “This is a thing?” And that's when it kind of dawned on me, when people would say to me, “You don't get it. You don't get it,” and I'm like, “I don't get what?” And then I was like, “Oh, I'm not going to be able to know what you're feeling until I know what I'm feeling. Cool, great. I have a lot of work to do.” [chuckles] So that's when I think I started unpacking and learning. I was raised by an alcoholic and then became one and then getting sober at a young age was like, “Oh, this is mine and that's yours and I didn't know that I ended and you started.” So really learning and starting to place those things for me and then just reading a lot, a lot of Eastern spirituality, I read a lot of Buddhism books, a lot of yoga books, a lot of Brené Brown vulnerability, shame, rumbling type books. And then I think it's just kind of been like I'll take this from that and really, it just leads from what feels good and what doesn't. MANDY: Personal growth is essential. I'm in the same boat almost. I, too, am sober and it has changed my life. Over the past 2 years, I have done so much work on myself that sometimes I'm doing too much, but I learned – [overtalk] ASHLEIGH: Totally. That's a thing. [overtalk] MANDY: Brené Brown is one of my heroes, Glennon Doyle, too. ASHLEIGH: I was just going to mention her. Yes, oh my God! MANDY: I love Glennon. Yeah. So personal growth is, I mean, journaling. Every day, I make it a habit and a practice to sit down and just write out my thoughts and my feelings. I highly, highly suggest to anybody who will listen to me to do the same thing. ASHLEIGH: Same. [chuckles] MANDY: Morning Pages are a wonderful thing. If you can do it in the morning, just get everything out of your head. Even the dumbest little thoughts, “dumbest little thoughts.” I mean, there are no dumb thoughts, but just getting all the, I call it taking the trash out. ASHLEIGH: Oh, I like that. MANDY: And just even snippets of any weird dreams, or just little nagging thoughts that are in the back of my head. Getting all those things out is just so essential. ASHLEIGH: Yeah, absolutely. And do you know The Holistic Psychologist? MANDY: I do. ASHLEIGH: Yeah, and her future self-journaling has also been really helpful at times, like sitting down in the morning and saying, “My future self will feel like this and this is how my future self will take care of me today” has also been really powerful along those same lines. CHANTÉ: Mandy, I loved your question earlier when you were like, “How do you know? Some people are not comfortable in doing that.” So I feel like what's also really true about organizations and teams is just you can have somebody who's kind of the sage, or most wise elder on the team who's like, “I've been through this, I've walked this path,” and then there's people who are like, “Huh, vulnerability.” And then the magic of that leader in the room is finding, or recognizing the spectrum of that and being all these things are actually welcomed and everybody's experience matters. So how do you do that for your team? I'm imagining you have people who are newbies on this journey with you, or people who are like, “This is the best.” Maybe they gravitated and wanted to join you because they recognize parts of themselves in you, but how do you manage that part for your team and kind of carry and make room for the full spectrum of folk? ASHLEIGH: Yeah. I think I'm still learning that one. I think we're always learning that one as our teams constantly change and evolve. The emotional fitness survey helps. I definitely call people out and I'm like, “Okay, how does this feel to everyone? Everyone has to talk, I'm waiting and I will for you to talk,” which I know can be jarring for folks that don't want to share in a group. So really making sure to get everyone's input, that everyone gets used to speaking up in front of the group, and that it is just around Robin mentality, but then also developing those one-on-one relationships so people feel kind being like, “Hey, I'd rather share with you my idea after the call,” or whatever the case may be. But I think it's my job to hold space, it's my job to shut up sometimes and pass the mic, and it's my job to push and to pull. So to really, really look at those levers of who's ready for more and who has the potential to and wants to develop that potential. Maybe it's fear, or maybe it's something that's blocking them that I can help them see. And then for other folks they're like, “Hey, I'm good. I'm chilling. I want to be right here. I don't want to be the big boss. I want to be your right-hand human and let me stay where I'm at.” I'm in my lane. Go away.” So I think it's just really listening to folks and then also help to see what may blocking our views. CHANTÉ: I think I shared that the work I do is diversity, equity, and inclusion accessibility stuff and I often lead a lot and facilitate a lot of conversation around helping leaders and their teams recognize their identities, or intersectionality and recognizing social location and how that plays out with power privilege. One of the things we read about you is that you are a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and I'm guessing that that's a very prominent identity for you because you shared it online openly. Thank you. But I know there's other parts to you. So what are the identities that you lead with? We could start with the most obvious and kind of learn more about you from there. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. So I lead with queer always. Queer is through and through who I am. I realize the privilege I have with the way that I present to the world. In most instances, I will always be safe and I think that it's my responsibility as a VC-backed founder to take that space and I don't really own that for me. I have the privilege of being safe and so, let's make this known and let's make room for more folks while I'm here. I can elbow folks out of the way so that we can keep some more space. But the other parts of me. Gender, I don't really know right now, I'm kind of at the point that I think it's really garbage shit right now. So I don't really know. [laughs] I struggle. I've been in the dance with gender for a while and it's like, I feel like I would be taking up too much space to come out as non-binary and I know that non-binary, you don't have to look a certain way. I realize I have a lot of cis presenting privilege and it's not about that for me. I finally have landed on the conclusion that I don't give a crap about gender at all. It's more genderless and even non-binary feels too boxy for me. I don't know, I'm kind of ambiguous on that right now. [chuckles] AARON: Actually, I'm just generally agnostic you. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. I feel that. [laughter] CHANTÉ: Yeah. And I loved your response. I'm really into somatics and noticing bodies because bodies show up in space. [chuckles] ASHLEIGH: Yeah. CHANTÉ: People are triggered by bodies sometimes and recognizing it could be that your race, your ethnicity, it could be your age, or your ability, or where you grew up and accent. Are there any other parts of you that you feel like are prominent, or that you lead with, or maybe don't lead with? I'm curious just to hear more about it. ASHLEIGH: I'm pretty heavily tattooed and I also dress kind of funky in most instances. You can't tell right now, but half my hair is orange and half my hair is red. I'm loud, I'm vocal, and I'm very little, but I'm big in spaces. [laughs] I think that makes me different because most of the spaces that I operate in, I've been in this. Oh, the elevator world, it is 98% white men and I'm joking kind of about the industry, but I'm not going to shrink myself anymore. You will be uncomfortable by me. Don't let the crop top fool you. I am a CEO [chuckles] and I'm not going to change my crop top. Like, sorry. CHANTÉ: Yes. See, this is why I'm asking. I mean, I love it. You just naturally went to like, “Okay.” So those are the things that that's how you're showing up. ASHLEIGH: Mm hm. CHANTÉ: Right, and what's true for the industry and what you're in and you kind of already went there, I think it's dope and I think the context matters because you're like, “Yeah. Am I in a room with other queer people who are leading tech companies, or am I in a predominantly male, cis, able-bodied, privileged, born and educated in United States industry where I'm blending elevator technology,” whatever? So thank you for that. ASHLEIGH: Yeah, absolutely. [chuckles] A lot of times I walk into the room and it's like, either I'm uncomfortable, or they're uncomfortable. So I'm like, “You're going to be uncomfortable today. I'm sorry. I'm going to make you feel things and I'm going to make you recognize your privilege because guess what, we all must be painfully aware of our privilege and if I am in a room all full of white people, all of able-bodied people, all of privileged people in some sense, let's talk about this. Why are we not? Why are we not talking about the humans that are impacted by the work that we're doing? Hello.” AARON: It sounds like that was a big influence for your people-centric company, too. ASHLEIGH: Mm hm. AARON: I don't want to put that experience on you, [chuckles] but – [overtalk] ASHLEIGH: Totally. AARON: I don't want to ask it from a place of naivety and say like, “Oh, did this affect it?” It sounds very obviously your identity and being counterculture to the elevator and escalator world has influenced your company and where you want to go with that and how you want to show up. ASHLEIGH: Absolutely, a 100% being in that space and being different and just being like, “You know what, if I don't own this, I'm going to feel terrible forever and I don't want to because that's great.” It's great and I can walk into the sun in San Francisco and feel fantastic and so, why do I not feel that same confidence level in this boardroom? AARON: Right. ASHLEIGH: You're not going to make me feel small. I'm sorry, you're not. AARON: I think that's a big – I don't know if I'm seeing so much of a shift. It's a big portion of… I don't know I want to go with that, but I really like that. You're not going to make me feel small. I like the idea of showing up and you know what, this is me and just because you are uncomfortable, I'm not going to diminish myself. ASHLEIGH: Absolutely and the reason that I do that is me doing that shows other people that it's safe. At least if I'm in the room, you're safe to be who you are if I'm here. AARON: Mm. ASHLEIGH: And so that's why I put queer on my LinkedIn, that's why I lead with that because I know I'm safe and so, if I have – I feel responsible to it. AARON: I know you mentioned you can show up and be safe and create that safety in that environment. Has that been something you had, or had modeled for you, or is that something you had to go out and create this space where you could be that beacon of safety? ASHLEIGH: I think it's been modeled in my queer community. I don't think it had been modeled in corporate culture. I'm also not lost on how privileged I am to be safe and I'm not the bearer of safety and realize that there's many more intersections that go into that and that I'm here to listen and to learn and I don't know everything. [chuckles] Absolutely not. So it's important to just be really vulnerable about what we don't know and to say, “Hey, I'm going to fuck it up and there's going to be ways that I am not aware of my unconscious bias yet. So please teach me and if you don't have emotional capacity to teach me, I'm not saying that it's your responsibility, but if you can call me out, please do.” CHANTÉ: Yeah. That's a really important thing. I feel like being in solidarity with others who are othered. For me, it's like oh shit, we have Black history month coming up around the corner and I have some friends who are Black and queer, or Black, queer, and disabled and they're just like, “Oh, which one should I lead with first?” And I'm like, “All of them.” You shouldn't have to choose any of them over the other parts of yourself, because they're all valid and they all inform your lived experience in this particular body that you're in. I want people to see the complexity and the wholeness of others and just be like, “That is dope.” I love how you said when people have the capacity to teach you, you invite it, but you're not demanding it because so many times we've – I think we all can speak to this on this call. We're all in community. But it is, some of us have more resource and more ability to show up for each other at other points in time because we're going through something [chuckles] that the whole world doesn't know. It is likely because of our identity, our social location, our privilege, and the unique things we're kind of going through as we navigate life. It's really important to just constantly communicate that as well, that you're inviting this kind of calling out, or calling in and that people don't have to educate you. But I hear the willingness to want to show up and learn, which I think is literally a key. [laughs] The willingness. Yeah, awesome. AARON: It's at least half of the battle, right? CHANTÉ: Yes. ASHLEIGH: Totally. My friends and I were having a discussion about community here and it was like, you cannot have a community space that never once is going to screw up, or have an issue, or be called out, or called in. How you move through that, or what, I don't know. If you continue to be a safe space, it's not in not getting called out. It's how you deal with it. It's how you take that feedback from someone, or the community group and say, “One, thank you for telling me, let's be grateful that someone had the bravery to even speak up and two, then you get to say, is this mine, or not?” Don't lead with the buts, or the whys I did it, or the here's my intent. Don't lead with that. Lead with gratitude that someone felt safe enough to come forward. Someone felt that you were worth getting their feedback, because guess what, if they didn't believe that you would change, they probably wouldn't even tell you. They would just leave. They would just deem the space as unsafe and go. So that in itself, how you take feedback will determine how your community and your company thrives, both. MANDY: And then apologize and move on. ASHLEIGH: Bingo. Yes. AARON: And make material changes to show that you've learned. [laughter] ASHLEIGH: Oh, yeah. [laughter] ASHLEIGH: Good pointer. And then act also important. But [laughs] yes. AARON: That lesson of taking feedback, I think and understanding the value of that is so huge and it's a hard lesson. This is probably the hardest lesson I'm dealing with my kids for instance, is like, “Hey, that first call out, I wasn't really upset with you, but then when you acted super defensive and flipped out, that's the problem that I have. That's not okay.” ASHLEIGH: Totally. AARON: The initial action was just like, “Hey, we need to change this. Let's alter our behavior. Move on. But all the other stuff, that was not good that. That, we need to work on.” ASHLEIGH: Absolutely. AARON: Yeah. It's a tough lesson. I think it requires an ego check. Like decentering and recognizing oh, this call, it's not about me. [laughs] ASHLEIGH: Absolutely. Yes, and it's not easy work. You've got to eat it. It's not fun. AARON: Right. MANDY: Yeah. I've had to learn not everything's about me. [laughter] MID-ROLL: And now a quick word from our sponsor. I hear people say the VPNs have a reputation for slowing down your internet speed, but not with NordVPN, because it's the fastest VPN in the world. I don't have to sacrifice internet speed for better security. With NordVPN, my internet traffic is routed through a secure encrypted tunnel, which protects my data and privacy. I can also have it on up to six devices like my laptop, phone, TV, iPad—all my devices are protected. Grab your exclusive NordVPN deal by going to nordvpn.com/gtc, or use the code GTC to get a huge discount on your NordVPN plan plus one additional month for free. Plus, a bonus gift! It's completely risk-free with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee. AARON: A thing I wanted to get back to a little bit. I loved when Chanté was talking about folks who said that were Black, queer, and disabled and this multiple identities and leading with all of them. I think especially industry wise, or big corp wise anyway, we create these interest groups of this is the Black community interest group. This is the pride interest group. This is the disabled workers' interest group. I feel like it misses so much of the you of intersectionality. I'm wondering if you've seen that both, in your space and your identity and being able to create that space of vulnerability yourself, if you've noticed a benefit of that. ASHLEIGH: No, I think that's interesting and I like the note here that employee resources groups can be really great and really crappy. I totally agree. AARON: Yeah. ASHLEIGH: Often, it feels to me that the goal is visibility and understanding at the end of the day. We get great visibility in employee resource groups. We feel seen with people that are like us in some way, or another. But really, we want to have this intersectionality so how do we get both? My gosh. How do we have the representation, which is so important? How do we have the understanding, which is so important? And then how do we move past the feelings of not feeling seen so that we can see others? Because if we don't think it's possible to be seen, we're probably not able to see others and we need an on-staff therapist, really. Let's just be honest. [laughter] CHANTÉ: Yes. ASHLEIGH: Put them on payroll. [laughter] CHANTÉ: I've got to get that idea. Now you're talking my language. I'm telling you, I'm telling you if I had it my way, all organizations would offer that as their employee health and wellness benefit is to have somebody who's like on-site and depending on the ratio of people, if you have too many, you got to get several organizational psychologists and folks who are well-versed in trauma. ASHLEIGH: Totally. Yeah. CHANTÉ: But it makes me think of the conversation I often talk about, which is the difference between sacred space and safe space. AARON: Ooh. CHANTÉ: The sacred space is like those ERGs. It's like, yeah, we're going to have our unique identities where we can show up, talk to each other, see each other, and be like, “Oh my God, that really sucked,” or “That was really good. Good job in there.” The places where we're like – the safe spaces are harder because we have to make sure that everyone, when we say psychological safety, they're like, “Yes, I know what that means,” and that people are committed to doing some kind of work, which is why I'm like, “Organizations need to focus more on culture.” ASHLEIGH: Yeah. CHANTÉ: And this is where the like magic can happen, or where it can all fall apart. The sacred versus space is so huge. So, so huge because we can't have enough of people like you, Ashleigh. The world needs so many CEOs like you, then the world would be better and different and I wouldn't mind going to corporate work. [chuckles] But the reality is that you are few and far between. It's based on your identities, based on your lived experience, which is why it is so important to talk about it and to spend time with this episode getting into it. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. No, I completely agree. I also really like the idea of what's the difference between a safe space and a brave space, which plays into that a bit, too. I think in order to be safe, we have to be brave and it's kind of like what comes first vulnerability, or the courage? All the nuance in that, that ends up being this mushy gushy and I completely agree, we need it all and it's possible and I'm a firm believer in it's possible. The people that keep telling me that people first companies can't be profitable. I think it's bullshit. I think it's absolute bullshit. When we focus on people, the profits will come. If we're all safe, if we all believe in the mission, if we're all there because we want to be there, guess what? It will happen in and it will continue to happen and the foundation will be more sturdy and we'll be able to pivot easier because guess what? We move as a pack and I don't know, I guess, I'm just here to prove them all wrong. CHANTÉ: I feel like I love that and I'm also really sad that we have to work really hard to prove that people matter over productivity, [chuckles] that people matter over profits. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. CHANTÉ: My favorite, well, one of my favorite people to follow is Dan Price. He's the CEO of Gravity Payments and he's the guy who went viral when he basically gave up parts of his salary and paid everyone a livable wage. He tweets every day and of brings attention to this. It's just like you're right, Ashleigh that people first companies are rare and I can't believe that that's still happening in 2022, but the ones who are, stick out. There are definitely folks who people fall in line to submit their resume and want to work for you and you have no issue with hiring great talent and probably keeping it. It's the organizations and corporations that are literally extracting people's best parts of themselves in hope of getting a profit for their shareholders. ASHLEIGH: That just sounds so icky, doesn't it? [chuckles] CHANTÉ: Yeah. Yeah. It does. I haven't looked to see who your community is in terms of being venture backed, but when you went out, fundraised, started your company, and you said you were going to be people first, what were the reactions? Did it take you many tries to find folks to fill your cap table who believed in that, too? ASHLEIGH: So our first funding round, it was mostly retired elevator people that want to see the industry turn around, that believe in the industry and feel really crummy about where it's at now and how lost it is. Our entire first round was completely private and then after that, the next round was mostly those people coming in again. I wanted to go non-VC for as long as possible because I know I'm niche, I know I'm different, and if you don't get the vision, I don't want to waste my time trying to explain to you what we're doing, because we're too different. So if you're not with me, I don't have the time to sit here and convince you. The industry is a $100 plus billion a year industry and if you don't see that and don't get it, then bye. But then we ended up taking on some VC funding this round because I got tagged in a LinkedIn post that someone was like, “Where are all the PropTech women?” 98% of the people pitching this VC were all men. We ended up getting a meeting because I've always turned down any VC meeting. We just hit it off and then we went out to lunch and we were very similar. He was a founder himself and so, he understood what I was doing. I was like, “Hey, I'm not building this company to report to venture capitalists and so, if you're someone that expects me to work for you and not to work for my employees, we're not the right fit.” He was like, “No, that's what I expect you to do. Call me if you need me. Otherwise, I'm out of your hair.” I was like, “Great, okay! We can do this.” And then we ended up getting a couple more folks. I think it was really because I got on the phone with them and I was like, “I'm not taking your money,” and they were like, “Excuse me?” I was like, “I'm not taking your money. My round is full. I'll talk to you only because Zane wants me to talk to you. Otherwise, I don't have a conversation with you,” and they were like, “Please extend your round,” and I was like, “Okay, I guess.” So how could this happen? CHANTÉ: Wow, that's – [overtalk] ASHLEIGH: Is it because I'm being a jerk? [laughs] CHANTÉ: No, it sounds like it happened because you were more aware of who you were and you were sticking to your values and principles, actually. That's what it sounds like from my seat. So speaking of that, are your values of the company reflections of your personal values, or are they collective –? [overtalk] ASHLEIGH: Oh, a 100%. CHANTÉ: To the folks who work with you? ASHLEIGH: Yeah, I think both and we found each other. But building out the values and the mission and the vision was something that I spent a lot of money doing with The House of Who, who is a great organization and the East Bay. They're a branding company and they really helped me articulate the vision, the values, and the mission in a really eloquent way right in the beginning. I think everyone probably looked at me like I was bonkers for spending money on branding before I had any sort of software, or [chuckles] any sort of anything. But for me, it was so important that we had a way to articulate this to the team in an eloquent way that got people on board and really said, “This is who we are and this is who we're going to be.” How do we know what we do before we know who we are? It's not possible. So at that point, the people that align and that gravitate to what our values and vision are, I think we just kind of find each other. MANDY: That's awesome. I loved hearing a little bit about your journey, especially when it comes to venture capital, because I think lot of us just get a weird icky feeling from even hearing about venture capital. So it's always good to hear the good stories. ASHLEIGH: Yeah. MANDY: But since we are coming up on the hour, I was hoping that we could go into reflections and this is where we talk about something that stood out to us, maybe a call-to-action for ourselves, or the listeners. I can start. There was something at the beginning of the show that you said, that I had to write down, was just eating a shame sandwich once in a while. I'm not going to try to say that ten times fast. [laughter] You invited people to call you out and I love that. That's something I always try to do and model. It's the best way to learn, when invited, saying, “If we're talking, I'm going to ask you this. If I'm wrong, can you please let me know? Because I want to learn. I want to grow.” I think that's something that's super important and something that I try to do, especially with children that I'm around. My child, other children that are friends with her, just be like, “I was wrong. I was wrong. I'm sorry and it's just such a good thing to do, just to be humble in that ability to say I was wrong and I learned.” Thank you for that. CHANTÉ: The thing I really love that you said, and I haven't really heard this often, is you said your north star is being excellent to each other and I feel like most people have a north star of growing, or making an X number of profit, or whatever. I just love that. It is because it really does, I think eliminate your value of being people first and demonstrates that that's where you're going to put your time and money. Not only if I had the money, I'd be like, “Okay, Ashleigh, when you're having your next route, I want to invest in you.” But I feel like leading with that and saying that often tells people who might be interested in a job what you're about, tells your clients what you're about, and obviously, the communities in what you're serving. I just love that. So thank you for sharing it. ASHLEIGH: Yeah, absolutely. Chanté, my favorite part of today was you talking about the intersections and celebrating the intersections of identity and I've had so many conversations with friends about the different lanes into the intersection, but I really like that you focused on the intersection. So that intersection as a whole was very cool to me. AARON: I think one of the things I'm going to take with me was your this doesn't make sense log. I love this concept. This speaks to me on so many different levels. One is the way to raise all these little things that get missed without having to work up all of the energy to try and give someone feedback in a one-on-one meeting, or whatever else. But also, as someone who deals with ADHD and from an engineering mindset, just this place to be like, “Hey, I ran across this and it makes no sense. Can we revisit this?” Because the answer might be, “Oh, here's this explanation for why we do it that way,” and you're like, “Oh, now it makes sense to me,” or it might be like, “You're right. Let's figure out a different way to do that.” I just love that there's just this running place that anyone can just dump these thoughts as they run across them is really cool. MANDY: Awesome. Well, Chanté, Aaron, Ashleigh, it's been such a great conversation and thank you all so much for showing up and being vulnerable and having this discussion. It's been great. So with that, I just want to thank you again, thank the audience, and we'll see next week. Special Guest: Ashleigh Wilson.

About AaronI am a Cloud Focused Product Management and Technical Product Ownership Consultant. I have worked on several Cloud Products & Services including resale, management & governance, cost optimisation, platform management, SaaS, PaaS. I am also recognised as a AWS Community Builder due to my work building cloud communities cross-government in the UK over the last 3 years. I have extensive commercial experience dealing with Cloud Service Providers including AWS, Azure, GCP & UKCloud. I was the Single Point of Contact for Cloud at the UK Home Office and was the business representative for the Home Office's £120m contract with AWS. I have been involved in contract negotiation, supplier relationship management & financial planning such as business cases & cost management.I run a IT Consultancy called Embue, specialising in Agile, Cloud & DevOps consulting, coaching and training. Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/AaronBoothUK LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronboothuk/ Embue: https://embue.co.uk Publicgood.cloud: https://publicgood.cloud TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: It seems like there is a new security breach every day. Are you confident that an old SSH key, or a shared admin account, isn't going to come back and bite you? 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So, the idea being that you can run stateless things without having to worry about scaling, placement, et cetera, and the rest. They claim significant cost savings, and they're able to wind up taking what you're running as it is in AWS with no changes, and run it inside of their data centers that span multiple regions. I'm somewhat skeptical, but their customers seem to really like them, so that's one of those areas where I really have a hard time being too snarky about it because when you solve a customer's problem and they get out there in public and say, “We're solving a problem,” it's very hard to snark about that. Multus Medical, Construx.ai and Stax have seen significant results by using them. And it's worth exploring. So, if you're looking for a smarter, faster, cheaper alternative to EC2, Lambda, or batch, consider checking them out. Visit risingcloud.com/benefits. That's risingcloud.com/benefits, and be sure to tell them that I said you because watching people wince when you mention my name is one of the guilty pleasures of listening to this podcast.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. So, when I went to re:Invent last year, I discovered a whole bunch of things I honestly was a little surprised to discover. One of those things is my guest today, Aaron Booth, who's a cloud consultant with an emphasis on sustainability. Now, you see a number of consultants at things like re:Invent, but what made Aaron interesting was that this was apparently his first time visiting the United States, and he started with not just Las Vegas, but Las Vegas to attend re:Invent. Aaron, thank you for joining me, and honestly, I'm a little surprised you survived.Aaron: Yeah, I think one of the things about going to Las Vegas or Nevada is no one really prepared me for how dry it was. I ended up walking out of re:Invent with my fingers, like, bleeding, and everything else. And there was so much about America that I didn't expect, but that was one thing I wish somebody had warned me about. But yeah, it was my first time in the US, first time at re:Invent, and I really enjoyed it. It was probably the best investment in myself and my business that I think I've done so far.Corey: It's always strange to look at a place that you live and realize, oh, yeah, this is far away for someone else. What would their experience be of coming and learning about the culture we have here? And then you go to Las Vegas, and it's easy to forget there are people who live there. And even the people who live there do not live on the strip, in the casinos, at loud, obnoxious cloud conferences. So, it feels like it's one of those ideas of oh, I'm going to go to a movie for the first time and then watching something surreal, like Memento or whatnot, that leaves everyone very confused. Like, “Is this what movies are like?” “Well, this one, but no others are quite like that.” And I feel that way about Las Vegas and re:Invent, simultaneously.Aaron: I mean, talking about movies, before it came to the US and before I came to Vegas, I was like, “Oh, how can I prepare myself for this trip?” I ended up watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And I don't know if you ever seen it, with Johnny Depp, but it's probably not the best representation, or the most modern representation what Vegas would be like. And I think halfway through the conference, went down to Fremont Street in the old downtown. And they have this massive, kind of, free block screen in the sky that is lit up and doing all these animations. And you're just thinking, “What world am I on?” And it kind of is interesting as well, from a point of view of, we're at this tech conference; it's in Vegas; what is the reason for that? And there's obviously lots of different things. We want people to have fun, but you know, it is an interesting place to put 30,000 people, especially during a pandemic.Corey: It really is. I imagine it's going to have to stay there because in a couple more years, you're going to need a three block long screen just to list all of the various services that AWS offers because they don't believe in turning anything off. Now, it would be remiss for me not to ask you, what was announced at re:Invent that got you the most, let's call it excited, I guess? What got you enthusiastic? What are you happy to start working with more?Aaron: I think from my perspective, there's a few different announcements. The first one that comes to mind is the stuff of AWS Amplify Studio, and that's taken this, kind of, no-code Figma designs and turn into a working front end. And it's really interesting for me to think about, okay, what is the point of cloud? Why are we moving forward in the world, especially in technology? And, you know, abstracting a lot of stuff we worry about today to simple drag-and-drop tools is probably going to be the next big thing for most of the world.You know, we've come from a privileged position in the West where we follow technology along the whole of the journey, where now we have an opportunity to open this out to many more regions, and many more AWS customers, for example. But for me, as a small business owner—I've run multiple businesses—there's a lot of effort you put into, okay, I need to set up a business, and a website, and newsletter, or whatever else. But the more you can just turn that into, “I've got an idea, and I can give it to people with one click,” you'll enable a lot more business and a lot more future customers as well.Corey: I was very excited about that one, too, just from a perspective of I want to drag and drop something together to make a fairly crappy web app, that sounds like the thing that I could use to do that. No, that feels a lot more like what Honeycode is trying to be, as opposed to the Amplify side of the world, which is still very focused on React. Which, okay, that makes sense. There's a lot of front end developers out there, and if you're trying to get into tech today and are asking what language should I learn, I would be very hard-pressed to advise you pick anything that isn't JavaScript because it is front end, it is back end, it runs slash eats the world. And I've just never understood it. It does not work the way that I think about computers because I'm old and grumpy. I have high hopes of where it might go, but so far I'm looking at it's [sigh] it's not what I want it to be, yet. And maybe that's just because I'm weird.Aaron: Well, I mean, you know, you mentioned part of the problem really is two different competing AWS services themselves, which with a business like AWS and their product strategy being the word, “Yes,” you know, you're never really going to get a lot of focus or forward direction with certain products. And hopefully, there'll be the next, no-code tool announced in re:Invent in a few years' time, which is exactly what we're looking for, and gives startup founders or small businesses drag-and-drop tools. But for now, there's going to be a lot of competing services.Corey: There's so much out there that it's almost impossible to wind up contextualizing re:Invent as a single event. It feels like it's too easy to step back and say, “Oh, okay. I'm here to build websites”—is what we're talking about now in the context of Amplify—and then they start talking about mainframes. And then they start talking about RoboRunner to control 10,000 robots at once. And I'm looking around going, “I don't have problems that feel a lot like that. What's the deal?”Aaron: I think even just, like you said in perspective of re:Invent is like, when you go to an event like this, that you can't experience everything and you probably have a very specific focus of, you know, what am I here to do. And I was really surprised—again, my first time at a big tech conference, as well as Vegas and the US is, how important it was just to meet people and how valuable that was. First time I met you, and you know, going from somebody who's probably very likely interacted with you on Twitter before the event to being on this podcast and having a great conversation now is kind of crazy to think that the value you can get out of it. I mean, in terms of over services, and areas of re:Invent that I found interesting was the announcement of the new sustainability pillar, as part of the well-architected framework. You know, I've tried to use that before in previous workplaces, and it has been useful. You know, I'm hoping it is more useful in the future, and the cynical part of me worries about whether the whole point of putting this as part of a well-architected framework review where the customer is supposed to do it is Amazon passing the buck for sustainability. But it's an interesting way forward for what we care about.Corey: An interesting quirk of re:Invent—to me—has always been that despite there being tens of thousands of people there are always a few folks that you wind up running into again and again and again throughout the week. One year for me it was Ben Kehoe; this trip it was you where we kept finding ourselves at the same events, we kept finding ourselves at the same restaurants, and we had three or four meals together as a result, and it was a blast talking to you. And I was definitely noticing that sustainability was a topic that you kept going back to a bunch of different ways. I mean previously, before starting your current consulting company, you did a lot of work in the government—specifically the UK Government, for those who are having trouble connecting the fact this is the first time in America to the other thing. Like, “Wow, you can be far away and work for the government?” It's like, we have more than one on this planet, as it turns out.Yes, it was a fun series of conversations, and I am honestly a little less cynical about the idea of the sustainability pillar, in no small part due to the conversations that we had together. I initially had the cynical perspective of here's how to make your cloud infrastructure more sustainable. It's, isn't that really a “you” problem? You're the cloud provider. I can't control how you get energy on the markets, how you wind up handling heat issues, how you address water issues from your data center outflows, et cetera. It seems to me that the only thing I can really do is use the services you give me, and then it becomes a “you” problem. You have a more nuanced take on it.Aaron: I think there's a log of different things to think about when it comes to sustainability. One of the main ones is, from my perspective, you know, I worked at the UK Home Office in the UK, and we'd been using cloud for about six or seven years. And just looking at how we use clouds as an enterprise organization, one of the things I really started to see was these different generations of cloud and you've got aspects of legacy infrastructure, almost, that we lifted-and-shifted in the early days, versus maybe stuff would run on serverless now. And you know, that's one element, from a customer is how you control your energy usage is actually the use of servers, how efficient your code is, and there's definitely a difference between stringing together EC2 and S3 buckets compared to using serverless or Lambda functions.Corey: There's also a question of scale. When I'm trying to build something out of Lambda functions, and okay, which region is the most cost effective way to run this thing? The Google search for that will have a larger climate impact than any decision I can make at the scale that I operate at. Whereas if you're a company running tens of thousands of instances at any given point in time and your massive scale, then yeah, the choices you make are going to have significant impact. I think that a problem AWS has always struggled with has been articulating who needs to care about what, when.If you go down the best practices for security and governance and follow the white papers, they put out as a one-person startup trying to build an idea this evening, just to see if it's viable, you're never going to get anywhere. If you ignore all those things, and now you're about to go public as a bank, you're going to have a bad time, but at what point do you have to start caring about these different things in different ways? And I don't think we know the answer yet, from a sustainability perspective.Aaron: I think it's interesting in some senses, that sustainability is only just enter the conversation when it comes to stuff we care about in businesses and enterprises. You know, we all know about risk registers, and security reviews, and all those things, but sustainability, while we've, kind of, maybe said nice public statements, and put things on our website, it's not really been a thing that's, okay, this is how we're going to run our business, and the thing we care about as number one. You know, Amazon always says security is job zero, but maybe one day someone will be saying sustainability is our job zero. And especially when it comes down to, sort of, you know, the ethics of running a business and how you want that to be run, whether it is going to be a capitalistic VC-funded venture to extract wealth from citizens and become a billionaire versus creating something that's a bit more circular, and gives back as sustainability might be a key element of what you care about when you make decisions.Corey: The challenge that I find as well is, I don't know how you can talk about the relative sustainability impact of various cloud services within the AWS umbrella without, effectively, AWS explaining to you what their margins are on different services, in many respects. Power usage is the primary driver of this and that determines the cost of running things. It is very clear that it is less expensive and more efficient to run more modern hardware than older hardware, so we start seeing, okay, wow, if I start seeing those breakdowns, what does that say about the margin on some of these products and services? And I don't think they want to give that level of transparency into their business, just because as soon as someone finds out just how profitable Managed NAT gateways are, my God, everything explodes.Aaron: I think it's interesting from a cloud provider or hyperscaler perspective, as well, is, you know, what is your USP? And I think Amazon is definitely not saying sustainability is their USP right now, and I think you know, there are other cloud providers, like Azure for example, who basically can provide you a Power BI plugin; if you just log in with your Cloud account details, it will show you a sustainability dashboard and give you more of this information that you might be looking for, whereas Amazon currently doesn't offer anything like that automated. And even having conversations with your account team or trying to get hold of the right person, Amazon isn't going to go anywhere at the moment, just because maybe that's the reason why we don't want to talk about it: It's too sensitive. I'm sure that'll change because of the public statements they've made at re:Invent now and previously of, you know, where they're going in terms of energy usage. They want to be carbon neutral by 2025, so maybe it'll change to next re:Invent, we'll get the AWS Sustainability Explorer add-on for [unintelligible 00:15:23] or 12—Corey: Oh no.Aaron: —tools to do the same thing [laugh].Corey: In the Google Cloud Console, you click around, and there are green leafs next to some services and some regions, and it's, on the one hand, okay, I appreciate the attention that is coming from. On the other hand, it feels like you're shaming me for putting things in a region that I've already built things out in when there weren't these green leafs here, and I don't know that I necessarily want to have that conversation with my entire team because we can't necessarily migrate at this point. And let's also be clear, here, I cannot fathom a scenario in which running your own data centers is ever going to be more climate-friendly than picking a hyperscaler.Aaron: And I think that's sort of, you know, we all might think about is, at the end of the day, if your sustainability strategy for your business is to go all-in-on cloud, and bet horse on AWS or another cloud provider, then, at the end of the day, that's going to be viable. I know, from the, sort of, hands-on stuff I've done with our own data centers, you can never get it as efficient as what some of these cloud providers are doing. And I mean, look at Microsoft. The fact that they're putting some of their data centers under the sea to use that as a cooling mechanism, and kind of all the interesting things that they're able to do because they can invest at scale, you're never going to be able to do that with the cupboard beyond the desks in your local office to make it more efficient or sustainable.Corey: There are definite parallels between Cloud economics and sustainability because as mentioned, I worship at the altar of Our Lady of Turn that Shit Off because that's important. If you don't have a workload running and it doesn't exist, it has no climate impact. Mostly. I'm sure there are corner cases. But that does lead to the question then of okay, what is the climate sustainability impact, for example, of storing a petabyte of data and EBS versus in S3?And that has architectural impact as well, and there's also questions of how often does it move because when you move it, Lord knows there is nothing more dear than the price of data transfer for data movement. And in order to answer those questions, they're going to start talking a lot more about their architecture. I believe that is why Peter DeSantis's keynote talked so much about—finally—the admission of what we sort of known for ages now that they use erasure coding to make S3 as durable yet inexpensive, as it is. That was super interesting. Without that disclosure, it would have been pretty clear as soon as they start publishing sustainability numbers around things like that.Aaron: And I think is really interesting, you know, when you look at your business and make decisions like that. I think the first thing to start with is do you need that data at all? What's a petabyte of data are going to do? Unless it's for serious compliance reasons for, you know, the sector or the business that you're doing, the rest of it is, you know, you've got to wonder how long is that relevant for. And you know, even as individuals, we could delete junk mail and take things off our internal emails, it's the same thing of businesses, what you're doing with this data.But it is interesting, when you look at some of the specific services, even just the tiering of S3, for example, put that into Glacier instead of keeping it on S3 general. And I think you've talked about this before, I think cost the same to transfer something in and out of Glacier as just to hold it for a month. So, at the end of the day, you've got to make these decisions in the right way, and you know, with the right goals in mind, and if you're not able to make these decisions or you need help, then that's where, you know, people like us come in to help you do this.Corey: There's also the idea of—when I was growing up, the thing they always told us about being responsible was, “Oh, turn out the lights when you're not in the room.” Great. Well, cloud economics starts to get in that direction, too. If you have a job that fires off once a day at two in the morning and it stops at four in the morning, you should not be running those instances the other 22 hours of the day. What's the deal here?And that becomes an interesting expiratory area just as far as starting to wonder, okay, so you're telling me that if I'm environmentally friendly, I'm also going to save money? Let's be clear people, in many cases—in a corporate sense—care about sustainability only insofar as that don't get yelled out about it. But when it comes to saving money, well, now you've got the power of self-interest working for you. And if you can dress them both up and do the exact same things and have two reasons to do it. That feels like it could in some respects, be an accelerator towards achieving both outcomes.Aaron: Definitely. I think, you know, at the end of the day, we all want to work on things that are going to hopefully make the world a better place. And if you use that as a way of motivating, not just yourself as a business, but the workforce and the people that you want to work for you, then that is a really great goal as well. And I think you just got to look at companies that are in this world and not doing very great things that maybe they end up paying more for engineers. I think I read an interesting article the other day about Facebook is basically offering almost double or 150 percent of over salaries because it feels like a black mark on the soul to work for that company. And if there is anything—maybe it's not greenwashing per se, but if you can just make your business a better place, then that could be something that you can hopefully attract other like-minded people with.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle Cloud. Counting the pennies, but still dreaming of deploying apps instead of, “Hello World” demos? Allow me to introduce you to Oracle's Always Free tier. It provides over 20 free services and infrastructure, networking, databases, observability, management, and security. And let me be clear here, it's actually free. There's no surprise billing until you intentionally and proactively upgrade your account. This means you can provision a virtual machine instance or spin up an autonomous database that manages itself all while gaining the networking, load balancing, and storage resources that somehow never quite make it into most free tiers needed to support the application that you want to build. With Always Free, you can do things like run small-scale applications, or do proof-of-concept testing without spending a dime. You know that I always like to put asterisks next to the word free. This is actually free, no asterisk. Start now. Visit snark.cloud/oci-free that's snark.cloud/oci-free.Corey: One would really like to hope that the challenge, of course, is getting there in such a way that it, well, I guess makes sense, is probably the best way to frame it. These are still early days, and we don't know how things are going to wind up… I guess, it playing out. I have hopes, I have theories, but I just don't know.Aaron: I mean, even looking at Cloud as a concept, how long we've all worked with this now ranges probably from fifteen to five, and for me the last six years, but you got to think looking at the outages at the end of last year at Amazon, that [unintelligible 00:21:57], very close to re:Invent, that impacted a lot of different workloads, not just if you were hosted in us-west or east-1, but actually for a lot of the regional services that actually were [laugh]… discovered to be kind of integral to these regions. You know, one AZ going down can impact single-sign-on logins around the world. And let's see what Amazon looks like in ten years' time as well because it could be very different.Corey: Do you find that as you talk to folks, both in government and in private sector, that there is a legitimate interest in the sustainability story? Or is it the self-serving cynical perspective that I've painted?Aaron: I mean, a lot of my experience is biased towards the public sector, so I'll start with that. In terms of the public sector, over the last few years, especially in the UK, there's been a lot more focus on sustainability as part of your business cases and your project plans for when you're making new services or building new things. And one of the things they've recently asked every government department in the UK to do is come up with a sustainability strategy for their technology. And that's been something that a lot of people have been working on as part of something called the One Gov Cloud Strategy Working Groups—which in the UK, we do love an abbreviation, so [laugh] a bit of a long name—but I think there's definitely more of an interest in it.In terms of the private sector, I'm not too sure if that's something that people are prioritizing. A lot of the focus I kind of come across as either, we want to focus on enterprise customers, so we're going to offer migration professional services, or you're a new business and you're starting to go up and already spending a couple a hundred pounds, or thousands of pounds a month. And at that scale, it's probably not going to be something you need to worry about right now.Corey: I want to talk a little bit about how you got into tech in the first place because you told me elements of this story, and I generally find them to be—how do I put this?—they strain the bounds of credulity. So, how did you wind up in this ridiculous industry?Aaron: I mean, hoping as I explain them, you don't just think I'm a liar. I have got a Scouse accent, so you're probably predisposed towards it. But my journey into tech was quite weird, I guess, in the sense that when I was 16—I was, again, like I said, born in Liverpool and didn't really know what I wanted to do in the world, and had no idea what the hell to do. So, I was at college, and kind of what happened to me there is I joined, like, an entrepreneurship club and was like, “Okay, I'll start my own business and do something interesting.” And I went to a conference at college, and there was a panel with Richard Branson and other few of business leaders, and I stood up and asked the question said, you know, “I'm 16. I want to start a business. Where can I get money to start a business?”And the panel answered with kind of a couple of different things, but one of them was, “Get a job.” The other one was, “Get money off your parents.” And I was kind of like, “Oh, a bit weird. I've got a job already. You know, I would ask my parents put their own benefits.”And asked the woman with the microphone, “Can I say something back?” And she said, “No.” So, being… a young person, I guess, and just I stood back up and said, you know, “You're in Liverpool. You've kind of come to one of the poorest cities in some sense in the UK, and you kind of—I've already got a job. What can I really do?”And that's when Richard Branson turned round and said, “Well, what is it you want to do?” And I said, “I make really good cheesecakes and I want to sell them to people.” And after that sort of exchange, he said he'd give me the money. So, he gave me 200 pounds to start my own business. And that was just, kind of like, this whirlwind of what the hell's going on here?But for me, it's one of those moments in my life, which I think back on, and honestly, it's like one of these ten [left 00:25:15] moments of, you know, I didn't stand back up and say something, if I didn't join the entrepreneurship club, like, I just wouldn't be in the position I am right now. And it was also weird in the sense that I said at the start of the story, I didn't know what I wanted to do in my life. This was the first time that anyone had ever said to me, “I trust you to do something, and here's 200 pounds to do it.” And it was such a small thing, and a small moment that basically got me to where I am today. And kind of a condensed version of that is, you know, after that event, I started volunteering for a charity who—a, sort of, magazine launch, and then applied for the civil service and progressed through six to eight years of the civil service.And it was because of that moment, and that experience, and that confidence boost, where I was like, “Oh, I actually can do something with my life.” And I think tech, and I think a lot of people talk about this is, it can be a bit of a crazy whirlwind, and to go from that background into, you know, working with great people and earning great money is a bit of a crazy thing sometimes.Corey: Is there another path that you might have gone down instead and completely missed out on, for lack of a better term—and not missed out. You probably would have been far happier not working in tech; I know I would have been—but as far as trying to figure out, like, what does the road not taken look like for you?Aaron: I'm not too sure, really. And at the time, I was working in a club. I was like 16, 17 years old, working in a nightclub in Liverpool for five pounds an hour, and was doing that while I was studying, and that was almost like, what was in my mind at the time. When it came to the end of college, I was applying for universities, I got in on, like, a second backup course, and that was the only thing to do was food science. And it was like, I can't imagine coming out of university three years after that, studying something that's not really that relevant to a lot of industries, and trying to find a good job. It could have just been that I was working in a supermarket for minimum wage after I came out for uni trying to find what I wanted to do in the world. And, yeah, I'm really glad that I kind of ended up where I am now.Corey: As you take a look at what you want your career to be about in the broad sweep of things, what is it that drives you? What is it that makes you, for example, decide to spend the previous portion of career working in public service? That is a very, shall we say, atypical path—I say, as someone who lives in San Francisco and is surrounded by people who want to make the world a better place, but all those paths just coincidentally would result in them also becoming billionaires along the way.Aaron: I mean, it is interesting. You know, one of the things that worked for the civil service for so long, is the fact that I did want to do more than just make somebody else more money. And you know, there are not really a lot of ways you can do that and make a good wage for yourself. And I think early on in your career, working for somewhere like the civil service or federal government can be a little bit of that opportunity. And especially with some of the government's focus on tech these days, and investments—you know, I joined through an apprenticeship scheme and then progressed on to a digital leadership scheme, you know, they were guided schemes to help me become a better leader and improve my skills.And I think I would have probably not gone to the same position if I just got the tech job or my first engineering job somewhere else. I think, if I was to look at the future and where do I want to go, what do I care about? And, you know, you ask me, sort of, this question at re:Invent, and it took me a few days to really figure out, but one of the things when I talk about making the world a better place is thinking about how you can start businesses that give back to people in local areas, or kind of solve problems and kind of keep itself running a bit like a trust does, [laugh], if only that keeping rich people running. And a lot of the time, like, you've highlighted is coincidentally these things that we try and solve whether it's, like, a new app or a new thing that does something seems to either be making money for VCs, reinventing things that we already have, or just trying to make people billionaires rather than trying to make everyone rise up and—high tide rise all ships, is the saying. And there are a few people that do this, a few CEOs who take salaries the same as everyone else in the business. And I think that's hopefully you know, as I grow my own business and work on different things in the future, is how can I just help people live better lives?Corey: It's a big question, and it's odd in that I don't find that most people asking it tend to find themselves going toward government work so much as they do NGOs, and nonprofits, and things that are very focused on specific things.Aaron: And it can be frustrating in some sense is that, you know, you look at the landscape of NGOs, and charities, and go, “Why are they involved in solving this problem?” You know, one of the big problems we have in the UK is the use of food banks where people who don't have enough money, whether they receive benefits or not, have to go and get food which is donated just by people of the UK and people who donate to these charities. You know, at the end of the day, I'm really interested in government, and public sector work, and potentially one day, being a bit more involved in policy elements of that, is how can we solve these problems with broad brushstrokes, whether it's technology advancements, or kind of policy decisions? And one of the interesting things that I got close to a few times, but I don't think we've ever really solved is stuff like how can we use Agile to build policy?How can we iterate on what that policy might look like, get customers or citizens of countries involved in those conversations, and measure outcomes, and see whether it's successful afterwards. And a lot of the time, policies and decisions are just things that come out of politicians minds, and it'd be interesting to see how we can solve some of these problems in the world with stuff like Agile methodologies or tech practices.Corey: So, it's easy to sit and talk about these things in the grand sweep of how the world could be or how it should look, but for those of us who think in more, I guess, tactical terms, what's a good first step?Aaron: I think from my point of view, and you know, meeting so many people at re:Invent, and just have my eyes opened of these great conversations we can have a great people and get things changed, one of the things that I'm looking at starting next year is a podcast and a newsletter, around the use of public cloud for public good. And when I say that, it does cover elements of sustainability, but it is other stuff like how do we use Cloud to deliver things in the public sector and NGOs and charities? And I think having more conversations like that would be really interesting. Obviously, that's just the start of a conversation, and I'm sure when I speak to more people in the future, more opportunities and more things might come out of it. But I'd just love to speak to more people about stuff like this.Corey: I want to thank you for spending so much time to speak with me today about… well, the wide variety of things, and of course, spending as much time as you did chatting with me at re:Invent in person. If people want to learn more, where can they find you?Aaron: So yep, got a few social media handles on Twitter, I'm @AaronBoothUK. On LinkedIn is the same, forward slash aaronboothuk, and I've also got the website for my consultancy, which is embue.co.uk—E-M-B-U-E dot co dot uk. And for the newsletter, it's publicgood.cloud.Corey: And we will, of course, include links to that in the [show notes 00:32:11]. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I really do appreciate it.Aaron: Thank you so much for having me.Corey: Aaron Booth, cloud consultant with an emphasis on sustainability. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn with an emphasis on optimizing bills. And this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry comment that you will then kickstart the coal-burning generator under your desk to wind up posting.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

Todd Riccio, Realtor and longtime Investor from California, discusses how he became interested in the Memphis real estate market and offers his experiences over the years of real estate investing and management of rental properties here in Memphis, TN. Find out more about this real estate investing podcast at: https://epmrealestate.com/podcast/california-based-realtor--investor-on-investment-real-estate--property-management-in-memphis-tn   Aaron: Today on the podcast, we have Todd Riccio. He is a longtime investor with Enterprise Property Management and EPM Real Estate, and we're going to talk a little bit about how he has become interested in the Memphis real estate market and maybe even tips and bits of wisdom that Todd has had over the years investing here in Memphis. Todd, you have been an investor with Enterprise Property Management for six years. Is that right? Todd: Yeah, six years.  Aaron: It's been a fast six years, right? Like, you really got in at a great time. Todd: I remember flying out to you, man. Well, I flew out to you and said, look, my goal is to get 40 to 50 properties. I want to get at least one to two a year, and you said right now, when we spoke, you said it's the equivalent of California's 2009, and six years later, you are pretty accurate, man. You know what I mean?  Aaron: Yeah. Todd: Because the prices have gone up and the properties that I first bought on Ross Road and stuff like that, that was like $105,000, probably like 250 right now. Just real estate agent out here in California. Obviously, prices make it extremely hard for me to build a portfolio out here. When the average house in Memphis, that would be 120,000, out there would probably be about 700,000 out here. So I knew that kind of branching outside of California would be the best option for me to accomplish my goals of having a portfolio that brings me $50,000, $60,000 a month when I get older. That's the goal right there. That's my 401K. That's my pension. That's my retirement, all these properties. Aaron: Do you remember what brought your attention to Memphis originally? Like what caused you to look over in our direction? Todd: I always did a bunch of research. I was going to seminars. I'm always looking for passive income, and Memphis was at that time one of the cities that would always pop up in different websites of best cities to buy rental properties, and Memphis popped up. Boise popped up, Indianapolis popped up, and Fort Lauderdale popped up. I think Scottsdale popped up, but Memphis was one that always consistently kind of popped up to me. Personally, I don't like the Panhandle States. I don't like Florida. Every time you turn on the news, Florida is getting a Hurricane. They're getting flooded. All this other stuff. There's Hurricanes. There's tornadoes. So Memphis was super stable. I remember when I spoke to you, you said, look, Memphis is pretty much an established metropolis. It's gone through its growth stage, and it's pulled backstage. You got Amazon headquarters there. You got Nike, it's growing. They're putting money back into the community. You got the Amazon fulfillment center. You got Shelby Farms. You got all this stuff. So it was kind of one of those cities that have already been established. It's not like an up-and-coming one, and I just felt comfortable. I felt comfortable with you guys. I felt comfortable because I actually flew out and me flying out and checking out the different neighborhoods is just one more piece of info gathering and due diligence, and ever since then, I'm comfortable with the knowledge, and I kind of think that that's kind of one of the things that I respect you on is there's times where I've said, hey, Aaron, what about this area, and you're like, look, I don't even think we could get a roofer out there because the neighborhood is not the best or anything like that, and you need that as an investor because it's not just about numbers, oh, this is a quadplex or a fourplex at this price, and the return is good. You need someone that's boots on the ground. That's, like, you probably want to like, from what you're looking for Todd, this isn't the neighborhood that you would express to me that you wanted or anything like that. I appreciate that info, and I think I'm comfortable after the first couple of them to get in my kind of system now, my numbers and my algorithms and everything, you know what I'm looking for and stuff like that. So it just seems to be working, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Aaron: Yeah, well, one of the things about working with you that I wish that other investors and other clients of mine would adopt is you do have a very decisive approach to investment real estate. You understand exactly what it is that you're looking for. I think that you had a really good start to your run. We bought some single-level homes in established neighborhoods that were built in the 90s, I believe, and you and I discussed this. We discussed in Memphis, what generation or what age of construction is really good for investments in an ongoing manner here, and so you and I talked about how, like we here in Memphis, if you live in Memphis, if you've lived in Memphis for a long time, if you do real estate in Memphis, especially, we have a term out here that we use called new construction or newer construction, and so what does that mean to us? Well, new construction basically means anything to me, at least, anything that's the late 80s or newer, and why is that different? Well, it's different because the technologies that we're putting into houses as we were building them back then are more durable. We're not dealing with poisonous building materials such as asbestos or lead. We're not dealing with shoddy electrical lines, like aluminum wiring that you found a lot in the 80s or late 70s all the way up into the early 80s. You're not dealing with things like I don't know… Todd: Asbestos. Aaron: Right, as asbestos. There's a type of plumbing material that the Dow Oil company produced. I think it's called polybutyrol or something like that, which is known to burst. It's like early Pex, and so if anybody knows what PEX is, we improved. We improved code and zoning, and these areas of newer construction are also in neighborhoods that are still highly desired by owner-occupants. And so Memphis being a wonderful town for investment, you can still get in and buy just like you have an investment property, which is right next door to someone who was on their property for anywhere from ten to 30 years, and you want to live next door or an own investment property next door to that guy you don't want to buy in neighborhoods that are all investment properties. You might as well buy a condominium or an apartment if you want to do something like that. But you've been very smart. You're like, where is the value? Right. So I've really appreciated you for that, and then the other thing that I love working with you on is you and I will often get in and we'll talk about a property and it'll get down to $10,000 or $20,000 difference in the price of the negotiation, especially in the last two years. You'll tell me, you'll say, Aaron, I feel like this is overpriced by 20 grand. What do you think, and I'll be like, yeah, I think it is. Your ability to walk away from a contract that's being negotiated and just say, you know what? I didn't like, what I saw, that the deck or the roof looks weird or that skylight looks like it's going to need repair. It's always going to be a problem. I'm just going to walk away. But we know that buyers can use that inspection as an excuse to walk away from something where they don't feel like now that they know the house better, they don't feel like they're getting a good deal, and you're very fast to point that out and say, you know what? I'm just going to pull the plug and walk away, and I love that about you. It's really good. Todd: Yeah, and the thing is, I'm on property number six and all other five of them that I've gone into contract. I've closed on because I'm also, like, a realist too of, like, look, at the end of the day, it's one-time fixes and stuff like that. But I think also having experience with the five other properties becoming more and more anticipatory of, like, I know that I'm going to get a letter from you guys saying, like, hey, the fence is shot or this that and the other thing and being in this industry, being in the real estate industry for so long, too, I'm all about preventative stuff and pro-activeness and stuff. So very rarely do I ever cancel. But this one I think I was like, look, it's probably like 15K, 16K, 17K to get it even rent ready, and after talking to a couple of agents, they think that it might slow down in November. I don't know if that's true or not, but around Thanksgiving time because I'm always hungry, too to get a minimum of one to two a year. So I'm still on the prowl of getting it. But it has to make sense as well, and the thing is, I've narrowed it down to a single story because me and water after being in this industry, water does not do well with houses and having a second floor. I just get nervous about water leaks through the ceiling and stuff. So single-story brick house for the maintenance, two-car garage, because I just value storage and stuff like that a usable yard, all that stuff where I'm sure other properties would do just as good. But this is just what I feel comfortable with, because you and I always have that conversation I'm like, look, Aaron, I know the rental market is very active right now, and properties are renting pretty quick, but I want the properties that no matter what the rental market is, if it's slow, if it's fast, if it's quick, what properties are going to be in the top 10% to rent out? I don't want the black sheep. I don't want the white elephant. I don't want the ones where in the time where the rental market is good, it gets rented out. But then when it's not good, we're sitting there and stuff like that. So I'm going to pay a little bit extra to be like, look, it's cool to have the two-car garage and storage when it's snowing and stuff like that. It's cool to have the brick and single-story because that's desirable and stuff like that. It's cool to have a yard because they barbecue and have their kids play outside and stuff. So that's also something that I value, as well as your opinion of this is going to be a very active one, no matter what the rental market is as opposed to on the lower end of it when the rental market does slow down. Aaron: Which it's funny that you should bring that up. So earlier, Todd, you had briefly touched on the fact that there will eventually be a slowdown in the rental market, and I know that your philosophy is obviously to make sure that you have just operable properties that aren't going to require. They don't require a lot from the renter. For instance, in order to move into their relatively simple, relatively basic layouts. There are all kinds of very specific preferences that you have that I think really head off these larger maintenance costs. That's really smart, and I agree with you. I want to go back and talk about storage for a second, at least a one-car garage man. For years you and I have talked about we'll look at a property. You'll say this one came up, the money looks good, and every single property that you send me has at least a one-car garage, which is very, very smart. In Memphis, Memphis is a very typical city of a million people more or less, and so in an urban setting or even a suburban setting that has urban tendencies or an urban demographic, you're going to have foot traffic, you're going to have petty crime, and so having an open carport in a city like Memphis is not a good idea. You know, like in Memphis, you need a garage for the door that shuts, and so you can keep your outside stuff outside, but also in an enclosed area that's secured. So another point that I would make to any investor that's looking to purchase property in Memphis is this if the house that you're looking for or if the house that you find that doesn't have a garage is $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000 cheaper than the house with a garage by the house with a garage. From a rental standpoint, it will always stand out to the renter. We have a great house on the market right now. It's a three-bedroom, two-bath. It's less than ten years old. It has a beautiful brick and French country facade. It was one of the last French country houses that were built here, and it has no covered parking and that it has no garage, obviously, and that poor house is just sitting out there and nobody wants it because they can't like, where are you going to store your stuff? Todd: Yeah, I kind of base it, even though California and Memphis are different markets, price point-wise. Human psychology, I think, is the same, and I think that after hearing clients out here, garages are huge because even if you're not going to park your car in there, people always have more stuff than they have room and stuff. So it's just having the options. I remember when I first started looking six years ago. There were some properties in central Memphis that have the laundry area outside in the carport area, and I'm like, Look, I don't want that either, because I relate that to the equivalent of houses out here having laundry in the garage, and sometimes when I hear people going when I'm showing buyers around like, oh, I don't want to go to the garage for laundry. I want it in the house. I just associate that with the same thing with Memphis, like, who wants to go out when it's snowing to get clean underwear from your dryer when it's 20 degrees out and stuff like that. So I just basically take my knowledge here and say what's the most desirable and the most desirable is going to be a two-car garage. Its single story is going to cater to not only the younger people that want to, but it's also going to cater to older people that don't want to climb stairs or anything like that. So single story. It's cool because it caters to more people having a yard to just stretch your legs out and stuff and not feel crammed to have kids play around and stuff and then again, the brick facade where there's not wood rot and damage and termites and all that stuff. So I just basically take whatever my knowledge is here and just transferred over to the Memphis properties, because again, at the end of the day, people want the same stuff just as people don't want to go in the garage in California. I'm sure people don't want to go out in the cold in Memphis and stuff, and so we can have an indoor laundry and they could park their car in the garage and walk-in their house with direct access and stuff like that. All that stuff is going to be desirable in my mind for the long term. Aaron: So there was a time when you and I were looking at these possible purchases, and we found several you would find, especially back in 2015 or so, and you would find four or five comparable in a certain area, and you would say, I'm looking at all of these. Which one of these do you think would be the most reliable? You know, which one of these do you feel like is going to bring the highest rent and obviously be the most attractive on the market, and we used to thumb through a Rolodex of houses that were possible purchases. I know that those purchases have probably become limited as you look in the Memphis marketplace right now. Can you kind of compare markets? Let's even say from 2019 to now, like, what is the difference to an investor when you're looking at the marketplace now versus two years ago? Todd: Well, I mean, the one thing that two years ago, I think that the good properties and stuff like that from what I saw two years ago, something would go like maybe 5000 over the asking. So if it's listed at like, 149, because up till last year, it seemed like $150,000 was like the ceiling of what these properties could yield that would fit what I'm looking for. But over the past couple of years, it seemed like 150 now is kind of the minimum, and it's kind of surpassed that. So I saw the prices increase. But another thing I've seen is whereas two years ago where if a property was like 149, it would sell for 156 or 155 and go 50. 00, 60. 00 over, and stuff like that where I just wrote an offer on another property and the highest offer with multiple offers was $30,000 over the asking price, and that just blew my mind because I was like, Are you kidding me? That's 20% over the asking price and stuff like that. So that's something that is new to me that I've seen is buyers in the Memphis market are aggressively going over asking, whereas a couple of years ago, they might go over asking, but it would be five, six grand, seven grand, maybe eight, nine grand, but not 30 grand. That was just unheard of or anything. So that's the one thing I've seen. But given that my background is real estate, I also have strategies that I could separate myself to where I can call the shots. For instance, when I wrote the offer, I was like, look, remove the appraisal contingency. I get it. I understand the terms, and I was like, put an escalation clause in which says I'll pay 33,000 over the highest verifiable offer and stuff like that, and that's where the listing agent came back and said, hey, we haven't offered 30,000 over the asking price, and I said, I'm out, you know what I mean? But it gave me the opportunity to know what I needed to be at as opposed to the listing agent. Just saying, oh, you didn't get it. We chose someone else. So there's different strategies that I use here that I use there that really stand out to the seller. And that escalation clause is great, because why not have a seller get 3000 more dollars with no appraisal contingency and stuff like that? So, again, if I could separate myself and write a more aggressive offer, I'm in the know of the risk and rewards and stuff like that. But it's all little strategies here and there that at least put you in the running to see if you want it at that price.  Aaron: Well, do you put a cap on your escalation clause? Todd: I don't because I could just walk away, like when the person said we had 30,000 over the asking price. I'm like, I'm out. But the thing is, I've seen when you put a cap, they know exactly where you're at, and so they know exactly where your cap is, and you could tell it. Say, I put offer 150 with a 3000 escalation up to 160 if someone comes in at 162, I'll never hear about it. So it's like, I'd rather not put a cap, and if an offer comes in at 161, they might say, hey, we had an offer of 161. You want to come in at 164. So I don't want to lose the house over two or three grand or anything like that. But when you put a cap in, you're kind of putting a ceiling on your place. So I would rather have no ceiling, and that also makes it difficult for the listing agent to know exactly where you're at because if you put a cap on it, the listing agent knows exactly what you're willing to come up to. If you put no cap, he's kind of flying blind to what he's advising the other buyer's agents of where my offers are. Aaron: So how are you financing your deals right now? Todd: I'm financing it with my own cash, 25% down. So $150,000 property probably takes about 30 GS, probably 35 with closing costs and stuff like that. So 35 grand gets another property. Aaron: So you got, I assume, a line of credit, or are you doing individual mortgages on each property, individual mortgages. So having said that and I know you're probably going conventional and not FHA, and so you don't have to deal with all of the federal requirements for houses to close. And then you've got repair addendums, and you've got all these other things that you have to deal with an FHA loan that you don't have to deal with conventional. So now we know you're fantasy game does appraisal matter to you? Todd: It does to a certain point. I think that I'm experienced enough to look at a property, look at what's sold around it, and kind of have a pretty good idea of where this thing is going to appraise that. So like the one that I was just talking about earlier, the one that came in 30,000 over. I'm out of that one. But if they came in 5000 over 6000 over and stuff like that, I'm not too concerned about it. I mean, even if it doesn't appraise by a couple of $1,000, I understand you have to pay to play and stuff like that, and at the end of the day, if it costs me a couple of thousand extra Bucks out of pocket, it's not a scarcity mindset. It's an abundance mindset, and I already know that I'm going to make the money back tenfold with just having another property because my main thing is keeping my momentum going and keep growing the portfolio and pushing myself to keep adding to and keep adding to it. I think I'm a good mix between looking at the numbers and being number conscious and stuff, but then also understanding that this is a good property. It's a good property. It's in a good area. If I have to pay an extra two, three, $4,000 to get it. It's the name of the game. I already know that I'll make it back and stuff like that in the next month with all the other incomes I have coming in and stuff, and it gets me one property closer to my goal of financial freedom and stuff. So it's just taking the abundance mindset and not the scarcity mindset because if you're dealing with the scarcity mindset and anything in life, you're always going to be hesitant and pulling the trigger and stuff, and it's just one of those things were being in this industry has really helped me out making these decisions and stuff, because again, I deal with a bunch of buyers out here where they find the property of their dreams, and they're scared to do a couple of thousand bucks, but they're paying 3,000 bucks a month in rent and it's like, look, just bite the bullet and just take a leap of faith and stuff like that. So if it matches everything and it's single-story with a two-car garage and it's upgraded because then I also look at okay, say, I don't get a house as upgraded. Is this what's the cost of the rent-ready one and that's like the other one I canceled on earlier this year. It's like by the time the fence around the whole perimeter was done cutting back the bushes, getting the wood trim of the deck repair, and stuff like that, as opposed to getting a property that's completely upgraded and spending an extra three or four or $5,000 because it didn't appraise but not really putting any money into because it's completely upgraded. I can quickly do the pros and cons and the risk and reward of that. Aaron: And the one that we were talking about may have only been a month ago. I'm not sure. Todd: Yeah, it was in September. Aaron: Yes, it was Southeast Memphis is where we were looking, and that house had zero updates. It was really disappointing, and you were really smart to pull out of that one. I mean, just updating a home in $2019. You're looking at $10,000-$15,000. We've got delays now we've got supply chain interruptions. I don't think we've necessarily seen the effects of the Hurricanes in the New Orleans area affect us as badly as we thought was going to happen. But we had a Hurricane come through about a month ago and it hit the Glidden paint factory. Hopefully, I can say that on-air and not have any issues. But the Glidden paint factory basically had stockpiled paint, as they always do, and the base paint and primer and things like that. But basically, the Hurricane flooded the entire factory, and they said, look, we can ship out what we've got and we can ship the base solution out to other refineries and paint makers so that they can finish the base product and move that out. But they were talking about a 30 to 45-day retrofit, and so we were going to have paint shortages and all of the lows and all the Home Depot and all these stores, my painters, a lot of my painters. They just stockpiled paint. They just said we're a Glidden company. We're going to buy up this paint and we're going to make sure that we have some in case there's a shortage so that they could continue to work through the winter. So anyway, that's just a random thing that's happening here in the south. We know what you like and we know what you've purchased. How do you foresee the changes in the marketplace if we take the whole foreclosure opportunity out of there, and I think that's something that you and I really need to investigate at a different time. But what are you looking at now? Because we know what was on the market. That was really great. That was rehabbed before. We know what's currently on the market, which really is not upgraded without a huge premium, and to ask and we know that you're not going to overpay and I respect that. I'm not going to overpay either. I'm not going to do it. I'll pay above a little bit for the joy of owning it and operating it and say, okay, I've got my one or my two for this year, but I'm not going to waste 50 grand just for the opportunity cost. That's not a good opportunity cost. Did you buy one this year already? Do we have one under your belt? Todd: Not this year. I'm going to be aggressively looking around November. November and the last two years. I've closed in December of that year. So like last year I closed December 31, and then I think the year before that I closed right around Thanksgiving and stuff like that. So I'm going to be aggressively looking in the next two or three weeks to be looking again, picking up my one for the year and then continuing to just push and push and push and even exploring the multi-units with you and stuff like that. So just always be open to pulling the trigger if the right property comes along. Aaron: That's cool. Just so that, you know, Glenn has got a couple in the bag right now. That just came across today, like in the last 2 hours, and they're both Cordova. Todd: Yeah, for sure, man. Aaron: Yeah, and that's exciting because we don't get Cordova a lot anymore. But these two, they're slightly distressed, just marginally. I would say 2% distressed, and that two to 4%, and of the value of the house itself, I would say, is cosmetic. So that's cool, and that's just proof right there to anybody listening. There's always an opportunity out there. If you're willing to have a conversation, right, you've got to be open to having conversations with people. You cannot do this on your own. When you listen to Todd and me talk right now, you're listening to two Realtors, and so earlier in our conversation, Todd was talking about how not trusting your realtor can get you into a lot of trouble. Realtors go through a lot of education. We go through a lot of continuing education. Being the principal broker of enterprise, property management, and EPM real estate, I have to take so much more education than even my agents. I have to constantly be paying attention to the news that comes down from our local state real estate Association and from the National Association of Realtors, and really know what's going on. Your realtor is being paid a Commission for their performance. Todd is a performer. There's no question, and he looks for a similar performance with us. Even though our markets are completely different. He asks me very high-end questions, high-level questions that he is asked as a realtor every day. He wants to know as the buyer, what am I getting myself into? What's my risk here? What do you think about this? What's your opinion? What would your experience suggest would be the proper course of action at this time? And then he relies on the information, my feedback, and my insight in order to make his decision, and I love the fact that he faces a lot of his decisions based on what I convey to him, not just his gut. So that's just so, so important. Listen to your realtor. There's a reason why you've hired them. So anyway, just to sort of ask you a couple of questions just to kind of wrap up where we are, and it's been a great conversation with you. Your fingers are on the pulse of what's happening in California, and I think California is kind of a leader in what happens in real estate. Really in the rest of the United States. You guys are sort of on the top end of fluctuations in the national real estate market. What happens in California often informs, the rest of the country as to where the real estate market is headed. You got some weird stuff going on over there like you were talking about earlier, very inventive insightful, imaginative solutions to real estate transactions, lots of technology, the rest of the country, though, like, if you stay away from the coasts, we still deal with hands-on. Right. Like, we want to go to the property, Glenn that we were talking about before. A lot of my agents will meet the neighbors. My wife, who just became an agent, by the way, four months ago, was at a property two days ago, and she was with the buyer who had flown in from New Jersey, and they were looking through the property and who would come out except for the neighbor. Right. So they met the neighbor and they got to ask those questions, right? Like, really important questions. What's your experience here? What would you do differently? What do you think about this property that you're next door to, or do you think they're asking too much? What would you do with this as a rental if you were to own it? Is it going to bother you to have a rental next door? What are your expectations of the community and of the tenant that leases here, and so a lot of that's going on? So back to my question again, when you consider your own business next year, and you also consider your investment business, what are the changes that you see happening in 2022 that you are aware of that you're going to be maybe shifting gears a little bit in order to respond to, and then how does that affect your investment outlook for 2022? Todd: I just think that there are so many moving parts right now that's all the statistical previous historical data. I think it goes out the window. We have a pandemic going on. You have inflation talk. You have the stock market talk, interest rate talk, Treasury bond talk, jobless talk. You got the borders that are going crazy around the country. You got other countries that are going crazy. So it's one of those things where I just put my head down. I just put my head down and do everything I can and just do better than the year before that and not really sway. I always think of Warren Buffett, where he said, when everyone scared, you go head first and stuff like that and that's kind of what I've been doing even in the stock market right now, like, all the stock of inflation and this that and the other thing I've just been continuing to buy and just continuing to buy and continuing to buy stock and properties I feel like are going to be in the future very productive and stuff like that. I'm getting into electric vehicle materials, raw materials. I'm getting into cannabis stocks. I'm getting into Carnival Cruise Line and United Airlines and Royal Caribbean and cell phone towers because of the 5G with electric cars and stuff. So it's just basically doing you and not really letting outside factors get in the way because there's times where I've seen time and time again people that I spoke to in my career five years ago, six years ago, two years ago, like, oh, the market is still going to dip. So I'm waiting here and they're trying to time the market, and they said that four years ago, I remember I spoke to a tenant four years ago and I was like, look, man, get in, and he was so Gung-Ho that he was getting a good deal on his rental, whereas just say the market value is like $2,000. He was getting charged, like, 1600, and he felt like he was winning the Lotto because he wasn't paying market rent, and that hindered him to buy a property because he was looking at the perfect property and this and the other thing and that didn't come along, and then all of a sudden, another year goes on and that and then nothing came, and then another year. Before you know it, if you would have bought four years ago, he would have had, like, 200 grand equity in this property and stuff like that, and you fast forward, and he's still been renting, no tax write-offs. So a lot of people look at outside factors of the market is going to dip in this, and the other thing. I just go with my plan, and my plan is at the end of the day, I want to have 50 properties by the time I retire, and if you really look at real estate, it might go down. You know what I mean? Look at 2009 when everyone thought the world was going to end in California, and then you fast forward to 2020 and they're above water again, and all the people that held onto their house and was okay with the 30 years the fixed rate at that number, paid and paid and paid and now have equity and now are above water, and the world didn't end, and all the people that short sell their house and gave up on it and thought that it didn't make sense to pay a mortgage on an $800,000 house when it's only 600 and they ruined their credit and they paid for rentals and this and the other thing and they're letting outside factors screw them up. It impacts you so much. So I have a big ideology of, like, make a goal and just whatever the factors are just making an educated decision and stuff like that. But I'm not slowing down whatsoever, because I already know that even if I buy a property that's 180 or 190 in Memphis and it goes down a little bit by the time I retire and stuff, I'm not looking at it to sell it. I'm looking at it as investment, passive income. I want to have about 50,000 a month when I retire, coming into me from all my rental incomes and stuff like that. If rent is going to go up over the next 20 years and I'm cool with this payment, and it makes sense now, then I do it. I don't try to time stuff. It's just it's one of those things where there's so many factors with Covid numbers, China defaults of Evergreen, you got the chip shortage, you got inflation, you got interest rates. There's so many factors that you could pick one and be like, this is really going to happen. But if I just do me, I've done that all the time and I lead with what my goals are, and it seems to work out because, at the end of the day, I don't let fear get in the way. I just say, you know, what if I pay this and it goes down because I also have that talk with my buyers and they're like, well, what if the market goes down 30K? I'm like, well, let me ask you this. If you buy a house and it goes up 30K, you're going to sell it and they're like, no, don't sell it. If it goes down 30K, I'm like, you understand that if you're cool with the monthly payment, you're fine. Right? It's like a stock. You could buy Tesla stock or go Bitcoin. Even Bitcoin was 40K, 45k. It went down to, I think last week 30K, and now this week, it's at 65K. So did the people really lose 10K or did they really gain 20K or are they still cool with what they got and only makers or lose money when they sell it and stuff like that? And when I'm buying these properties, I'm not looking to flip these things. I'm looking at my future 50-year-old self, and when I'm 50 and it's 2040 or 2041. I really going to care that I spent 170 on a property that the next year was 160, or am I going to be happy that I got 50 properties and stuff like that and they're all paying for each other and stuff. So it's always coming from a place of abundance and not scarcity, and the people that I've seen live their life on scarcity are the people that don't live a good life. I'll tell you that. Aaron: I think you're right. I think that there are a lot of people that make decisions out of fear, and I was reading an article about whether or not we have a balanced economy or an imbalanced economy, and this article that I read gave a lot of different ideas as to whether or not it was an economy that was based on greed or fear, which are the animal spirits which drive the stock market. Basically, it stated that there was more greed than there was fear, which is a good thing. It's a market that's a little out of balance. It's a little look to the positively expecting that things will be even better, and there's a lot of risks that people are taking out there. But at the same time, there's a lot of cash that people have right now, and we've seen that in California real estate, for sure. As I've said previously, that rip effect has gone all the way down to places like Memphis, Tennessee, Indianapolis, Cedar Rapids, other cities that are very popular for real estate investment. I definitely agree with you. Real estate, to me, is a buy-and-hold venture. I think a lot of people watch HDTV and they think I could flip this house. They watch Chip and Joanna Gaines or The Property Brothers or several new shows out there. I obviously don't watch IGTV because I don't know the name of the new shows, but they've got these new shows out there that are like people that are out there flipping houses and they're making money. My favorite shows are the shows where they do show people that lose money, and then they ask them at the end of the episode, they say, does this change your faith in the market or because you lost money on this deal? Some people get their shirts handed to them and they lose that $30,000 or that $40,000 on a venture that was supposed to make them $100,000, whatever because they tried for the fast money, right? I really appreciate your perspective on real estate, and I will say this one last thing. We have had so many houses sell out of the enterprise property management portfolio over the last two years. I would say it's at least 200 houses that have left in my management portfolio. That is a lot for a property manager to lose in two years. Simultaneously, we have had at least 300 houses come on over the last two years. So there are more people getting in similar to you, Todd, than there are people getting out. That's a big deal. I hope our listeners are hearing that I really appreciate you and your perspective on investment, real estate, and your partnership with all of this, and I am looking forward to working with you as the leaves change color and as they fall, things get cold around here. People do not want to buy so much. I think there's going to be an opportunity here this winter, this fall and winter, and then into next year. It's going to be great. So I really appreciate you coming on with us and sort of sharing some of your energy about investment real estate and how you've applied that here in Memphis. We're grateful to you as an investor and as a friend. Todd: Yeah, man, I appreciate all the insight that you give and it's invaluable, too, because again, the big picture is to have this for my retirement and stuff like that, and you really are the last line of pulling the trigger and stuff like that. Even down to a potential tenant where one of your staff was like, hey, Todd, we got these people and I said, hey, if Aaron's cool with it, I am and you came back and you're like, I'm not really comfortable with this. I value all that because again, what your ideal client is completely different than what California ideal client is, and so I could go and kind of base it on what the ideal California landlord is looking for, and it's going to be different than the Memphis landlord, and so I really value your guys ‘opinion and just the raw truth of it and stuff like that. So, that's all stuff that I appreciate you doing, and I think that we got a good system going on. I'm looking forward to many more purchases. Aaron: I'm grateful for that. Thank you for that. Interestingly. We're seeing the quality of the local Memphis and Southern tenant coming up, which is unbelievable. It's a really good sign of the local economy and the local demographics doing better. They're more successful in their own business ventures and with their education. You had mentioned major corporations which have relocated to Memphis and are now employing more people. That, of course, is going to continue. You and I didn't even have a chance to talk about the Ford F-150 Lightning plant that's coming into the Memphis area. It's a really cool concept. We could talk about it later. Basically, Ford had a plant here in Memphis that built Model T's and Model A's and all kinds of Ford vehicles here in the Memphis area all the way up until 1951. I think they sold at that time, and then now here we are, 70 years later, 75 years later, they're breaking ground. I believe next year on the Ford F-150 Lightning platform, which is all-electric.  Todd: Nice.  Aaron: This is just outside of Memphis, and so it's going to mean lots of great jobs and new housing, housing developments, and stuff like that. So anyway, we're going to walk through that together and see what kind of opportunities are out there. But thanks again for coming on, and I appreciate your insight as well. It's always very informative and helps me to even educate other investors as to how to do things based on your knowledge and your experience. So thanks for coming on.  Todd: Thank you for having me.

Whether you are new to real estate investing or you're a seasoned investor, it's likely that you've heard the predictions of a looming housing market crash. In this episode, Brett and Aaron discuss the likelihood of a housing crash and they present some other factors that other industry experts have potentially overlooked. Find out more about this real estate investing podcast at: https://epmrealestate.com/podcast/is-a-housing-market-crash-coming-memphis-california-national-2022   Brett: Housing crash! Number one, Richard said expert. There's no housing or real estate expert. In order to be an expert, you've got to be able to tell me tomorrow what's going to happen. Just like a doctor who's an expert heart surgeon can tell me the symptoms, the problem, and how to correct it. So experts are doing the same thing we did, they're giving their opinion based on what they see in the market. While I hear people talk about a crash, yes, I said many times, this next year we're going to see a dip, we're going to see a slowdown maybe 5, 8 or 10%, but these guys that are running around talking about the housing market crash of 2008, all over again, where the housing market is going to just collapse and you'll be able to buy houses for pennies on the dollar and people will be homeless. We're not heading that direction and that's what I get a little aggravated when I hear these “so-called” experts talk about the crash because what they're doing is they're actually taking people that would be investing today, it's people that should be investing today, and causing them to doubt and to sit and to wait, and then what ends up happening is, the crash doesn't happen and you are now paying more for a property than you could at this year. So, here's my theory. Come January, we're still gonna be rocking and rolling. I think things will have leveled off, coold off. Maybe can get some stuff, a little under market. It'll be more of a buyers' market. As we get into April 2022 it's gonna pick back up again and it's gonna kick right into insanity where we're buying stuff at $8,000, $10,000,  $12,000 of asking. So if you're gonna be an investor do your investing between October and April 1st. Buy then and then soon as the summer craziness hits, take whatever cash you got left, put it in the bank, and sit and wait. Just take your time and take it easy, because as we get through next summer, and a lot of these current policies begin to take place, and inflation hits that record high and ends up creating a small recession and we start getting into harder times and companies start downsizing and people are losing their jobs. Yes, we're gonna have a housing issue but it's not going to be a crash. It's going to be a correction. It's going to be getting us back to the days of sanity of 2017 and 2018, when a house sat on the market for week before you had offers on it, and you didn't pay way over asking. So my opinion is there is no housing market crash coming. There's a correction coming and that's going to be this time next year and, if you're long-term hold investors, who cares? You lose 5% or you lose 10%. Next year you gain 15. Who cares about the correction? We are not headed for a crash. Now, I didn't see COVID coming, nor did I see Joe Biden getting elected, so I could be wrong. Aaron: You know, Brett, obviously you and I have read several articles that opposed the notion of a housing crash, you know. So, for our listeners, we're not just shooting from the hip here, like we read. We read every day, articles from, I've talked earlier about, oh gosh, I'm gonna have to look this up to verify this, it's either housingwire or homewire.com. I like them a lot. I like marketwatch.com. Brett: Well, there's a lot of good articles you can read and if you read into the information they're giving you, you don't have to be a real estate genius to realize we're not headed for some Niagara Falls type of real estate crash. We're heading for a little bit of rapids that we haven't seen in a while and it's gonna be a little bumpy and there's gonna be a little dip in the market here. Places like California are going to get crushed. They will see a housing crisis like they haven't seen since 2008 because of their bubble. Nashville is headed for a housing crisis. If you look at the places where homes are selling for $200, $300, $400 a square foot, there's where your housing crisis are gonna happen because those homes are way over inflated, people are way over mortgaged, and when the economy begins to dip and the value drops, the first people to sell are those folks because they get scared. Aaron: Yeah, let me give a quick statistic on that. So this is some information I got late last week that wages and salaries of all civilian workers, which are defined as workers in the private sector along with workers for state and local governments but not federal workers. So that was a lot of words, but the point that I'm making is those wages increase 3.2% on a year over year basis since June of last year. Inflation as measured by the CPI, which is the consumer price index, was up 5.4% over the same 12 month period. There's a couple of other statistics that we could talk about. Brett: And that gap's only gonna widen, right? Aaron: That's exactly right. Brett: And as that gap widens people become less able to pay. Let me clarify my statement. I wasn't saying that rich people are gonna be in financial crisis. What I'm talking about is you take up a state like California and take Nashville. You can take a home out of Raleigh that you paid $80,000 for and drop it right outside of LA in California, and that house… It costs you $350,000 or more. Now, that same person buying that house, and the only reason why I say that is have a lot of investors that come from California, show up, and they're not wealthy people, they live in a little 3 bedroom, 1 bath house in California, and they happen to sell one of their homes for half a million dollars and then come here and invest it. They're not rich. They live paycheck to paycheck. But, they realize, I can get rid of this $500,000 home and go by five or six rental properties in Memphis and make $3k or $4k a month. I guess my point I'm getting back to, I need to get back to it, is that California, the affordability issue of the average person, as soon as the market changes and unemployment goes up, inflation goes up, that's who's going to get hit. All these policies are in place are not for let's tax the rich. It's basically going to hurt the guy that gets up and goes to work and works 10 hours days, 6 days a week, and lives in a little 3 bed, 1 bath somewhere in California or out on the outskirts of Nashville. You know. Right now you go by 3/1 over there and it's 200 300 400,000 dollars. Aaron: Right. You know, there are some other factors that are here that are going to play a part in the localized housing correction. So I think that's what we both agree on there are going to be localized housing value corrections. Brett: Memphis won't be hit as hard. Aaron: Nearly as hard and so here's a cool distinction. One is, Southern California is, I mean, California is the world's seventh or eighth largest economy as compared to world governments. You know what I'm saying? We hear, and I think statistics prove, that there is a mass exodus out of Southern California, okay? They're moving to Texas, Oregon, all the western states. Tennessee, right? Brett: Quite a few show up here. Aaron: We have, and please come. We encourage. Please raise the intelligence quotient of our state. We love working with Californian's, we love your vision. So, the point that I'm making is this, the localized correction is going to be on changes specific to that region, right? And that geographic location. They're going to have a governor change here very soon. Don't know where that's headed. They may have a change in their labor market. They may have a change in the jobs that are being hosted there. One of the things that I hear from Southern Californians more than any other population is this: Well, thanks to COVID I can work from anywhere. So there has been a ton of people up until COVID, up until the Zoom-Boom, the remote meeting boom, and all that stuff, who were required to live in Southern California. That's changing and that effect is going to have a long-term effect on the value of California housing. We haven't even seen the beginning of that yet. So the cool thing about Memphis, though just to bring it back here locally, is that Memphis is full of people who are in the service industry. In other words, I make my money serving people that live in my same city, right? and they make their money serving me. So, we have a community of people who drive work trucks every day and, you know, offer online services and all of these things. So, Memphis actually has quite a robust service economy. That's what's gonna keep us going and though those needs in those services aren't going to change because of a massive change in the economy. I still need to go to the dry cleaner. I still need to go to the grocery store. I still need my plumber to come out and repair my, you know, whatever. So we love Memphis. That's one of the reasons why Brett is still here. Listener, please understand Brett could work anywhere in the United States and make money. But there's a great opportunity here in Memphis for him to do what he does very well, which is to connect investors with property that they can say, “I'm so glad I purchased that!” in 5, 10, 15 years when they consider what they're going to do next with it. It's a very very vibrant marketplace. Brett: And I've been a real estate in quite a few areas. Predominantly in Louisiana where I did development and buying and selling. One of the unique things about Memphis, which is why I've been here as long as I have after I moved up, was because of uniqueness of the market. Yeah, I could go anywhere and make money. Anywhere and develop a subdivision but, I tell myself and other people all time, yeah I get asked all time, are you ever gonna be back home? I'm like nah, probably not. If I decide to, I can't right now because Memphis is where it's at. I mean, the ability I have here and the amount of volume and work that I have here due to the makeup and the economy of Memphis and its people that live here. It's unmatched anywhere else. I haven't seen that kind of opportunity anywhere else. So, you know, I've built my business here.  Aaron: Yeah. To quote one of our favorite investors who's been with us for five or six years, who at one point had 33 properties, just liquidated 13 in order to offset the cost of another investment where he lives. He's telling us that in 2022 he's coming back to start investing again in Memphis. His words, and I love this guy, he said the reason that he bought in Memphis had nothing to do with you or me. It had everything to do with the statistics, and he said that opportunity, especially back in 2014, for him to get in with cash by either in 50% or 100% cash or on his commercial lineup of credit that we got for him to be able to just acquire, acquire, acquire real estate was unmatched by any other city in America. He measures us against places like Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Brett: Little Rock Arkansas was big for a while.  Aaron: It was. Brett: Nashville. I get a lot of questions about Nashville.  Aaron: It's Little Rock is on one of Yahoo's Top 10 just for housing correction. So, back full circle, back to our question of the housing bust, right? Basically, we don't see it, listeners. We don't see it. We don't see it in the rental market. Brett: Well, but I think we have to differentiate owner-occupancy versus investment. Okay. 2008 was an oddity that'll probably never happen again. As as it did, it will get close but it'll probably never happen like that again. But, in Memphis when you have, I think the latest statistic I looked at was 48, almost 49% of every resident inside the city limits of Memphis, rents and doesn't own. The latest statistics. When you have that kind of a renter base, the rental market's gonna boom. It's gonna continue to boom, because there are always renters looking to rent a house. I've always got an investor wanting to buy a house or an investor trying to sell a house. So that's a constant. What happens in the investment market is people get too tied up in market value instead of rent comps. The only way the housing market on the rental side is going to take a collapse is if we have a massive recession and FedEx has to layoff 5,000 people and Nike and Amazon, they're all starting to layoff distribution people. Yeah. Now we're going to have a crisis, but as long as those companies, stay whole and functioning, the owner-occupant market may have a shift, not a collapse, but a correction, but the rental market is going to stay steady as it did through the collapse in 2008, the average state saw anywhere from 20 to 45% loss in property value. I think at its peak Memphis' highest point it hit was 16 or 17. The lowest in the nation. The value loss of real estate that caused this collapse of the market. Aaron: I think from the top to the bottom. So that would be from early 2007 to about 2012, I think that we maybe saw a loss commensurate with the rest of the nation, but it was on the lightest side of it. So, I think 16% is about is about the maximum that we lost over the course of how many years is that? Four? That's tremendous. Brett: The reason behind that, I believe, is that the renter basis is so massive here that investment real estate kept the housing economy in Memphis from completely going over Niagara Falls, as it did in California, in Texas, and in a bunch of states that got hit really hard. Tennessee got hit really hard. But Memphis, as a city, did not, even Shelby County, did not see that massive crush. So what do you attribute that to? I attribute it to the fact that there are so many people that rent here that the rental market stayed hot, stayed solid, values dropped, guys got better deals on properties, but those properties recovered quickly, why? Because they're cash flow properties. The market value was immaterial at that point. Aaron: So, one of these days we're going to have to get into what inspires investors to invest. Brett: Okay, cash flow. Aaron: Yeah, right now. Right now, that's true. But we're in an atypical marketplace. Brett: In 2008 was equity. I can buy this for $100,000, it was worth $200,000 last year, it's going to be worth $200,000... I have an investor that I worked for that you know, that did that. They made a ton of money buying up properties, pennies on the dollar. Aaron: We had one, in fact, if the listener wants to go back, and I forget which episode it is, 7, 8, or 9. Joe Veramontez made some decisions, a great guy. He bought all of his properties on equity between like, you said, 2000 and 2005, I think is when he stopped because in 2006 and, this is why people liken him, this is why people say, oh, we're headed towards another housing crisis. Look, I'm not trying to make fun of you, but the point is they say that where we arel right now is similar to where we were in 2006, right? Gas prices are going up, housing prices are at an all time high. The difference is, what's the major difference with housing prices? Brett: We did not lend the money to every person that had a pulse to buy $300,000 house on a stated income loan. Aaron: So that's a government, a federally mandated requirement. Okay, so we had federally mandated requirements once over here, guess who picked up on that? It was the banks. If you look back at the interest rates in 2006, they were 6%, and there there were these weird variable-rate loans where people would pay interest only at least 8-8.5%. We're not seeing that right now. Brett: The pin in that grenade finally pulled was in 2005 or 2006 when they expanded the federal loan guarantee program and it all started back with the community reinvestment act and then all of a sudden, I forget the senator's name, but he was on the senate banking…   Aaron: Dodd or Todd?   Brett: One of those two clowns. Dodd! Anyway, they were threatening banks because they weren't lending enough money to minorities, right? So, what did Bank of America do and Citibank? Well, I mean, the government's gonna guarantee it, so guess what? Here's a new non-stated, no-income loan. You just say, I make 10 grand a month. Great, here's a $300,000 mortgage so you can buy your house? So you took people with no financial skills, no money management skills. You tell them, I'll give you a $300,000 loan and you can go buy this beautiful five-bedroom house in Cordova and fill it with furniture. The first thing, they're going to do is think well hell yeah! Okay! Well the rate 6.5%. I don't care. Bank of America doesn't care. Who's backing up the note? The taxpayers. So if that homeowner collapsed or defaults and, we had many that never paid a mortgage payment, when they default, Bank of America then takes that home, forecloses on it, sells it at auction, then the US government, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac then write a check to Bank from America to make them whole, and who walks away? Bank of America. Meanwhile the homeowner lost their house, the taxpayers sucked up the loss, and Bank of America walked away whole. And I'm not using Bank of America as an example; all the banks did that. The stated income loan was the hinge pin they pulled that caused this domino effect. So the economy started sliding, gas prices went up, and we started getting into a recession. So what happened? People started getting laid off, now they couldn't pay their mortgage, and when those people got laid off and couldn't pay their mortgage, then all of a sudden they began to realize, wait a minute, that person we laid off. They can't pay the mortgage. Probably should have never had a mortgage to begin with for $300,000. They only make $30,000 a year. That was it. At that point, the snowball had started down the back of that hill and there was no stopping it.  Aaron: Well then there are two other things that happened then that led to that. One is, I think the philosophy of homeownership was that it was cheap and easy, right? Like everything you just said, it led to the mentality of, it's easy to buy a house, right? Brett: In your application says do you have a pulse? Yes. What's your blood type? A positive. Great, you're approved. Aaron: So when they lost that house, that they couldn't afford, and that's the story we heard from everybody. Well, I mean, and because you were in a completely different industry, we won't go there, we've been there. We're gonna return there. But you know the reality is that people said okay yeah, I got in over my head, I lost my house, not a big deal. I'm gonna rent for a couple of years and I'll go right back to it. What they didn't realize is what was coming. That suname of, you know, changes in the federal government, changes in legislation about what a borrow was allowed to borrow, changes in the strength of banks, the closing of all of these banks. Brett: And the strength of the buyer. Aaron: Well, but the strength of the buyer was never strong. It wasn't strong in 2006. Brett: That's what I'm saying that we're not going to see that kind of class because the strength, the requirements for a buyer today are way more, they're like they were back in the 80s. You really had to have some cash in the bank, or a good credit score, a good job. There are some loans out there that allow you to get away with the lower down payment through FHA, but they're not just giving money away to people that should not be buying a $300,000 house. You know you can't afford a $300,000 house if you make $30,000 a year, the bank knows you can't, but the banks still gave you the money. So those days are gone. This crash that they're talking about, this dip is all it's going to be, we're not going into that crash. If inflation hits and then we roll into a recession and costs keep going up, yeah, there are people around the country, they're going to be laid off from work, and there's going to be a housing crisis locally. But what you don't realize is in Memphis, this is a distribution city. Nike, Amazon, Fedex, all of these major worldwide distribution centers, that are here in Memphis, are going to have to keep operating. So we're not going to see an unemployment issue or crash here in Memphis. So if you have homes here, don't stress. Aaron: So like we talked about. We touched on how the labor market is going to be changing in places like Southern California where they have more of an intellectual property marketplace. They are producing and operating systems and they can produce and operate those systems from anywhere in the world. They don't have to live in Southern California anymore. Corporations are loosening up and they're actually saying look, to go back to COVID, we're not going to make you vaccinate, but you're not coming into the office building.  Brett: One thing COVID taught most big companies is, you know if I'm a CEO of a company, I own a 20-story building to house 5,000 employees, and all of a sudden COVID hits and I have to scale down and run a skeleton crew and have put everybody at home with technology to work from home, and we figure out a system to monitor their work performance and what they're doing on a hourly basis, and we've got all that figured out. The firs thing I would say is this building is gone. I don't need this building anymore. Then the next step of that is, for Bob, who's been working for home, tells his boss, you know what? I'm moving to Houston. I can work from home all day long. I'm just gonna move to Houston. I'm tired of California. So, I think California is in for a rude awakening in the next five to seven years. I think that they have no clue what's coming. What you're gonna end up with in California is, you're gonna end up with a bunch of Hollywood elites in their mansions cutting their own grass. Aaron: Well yeah, and here's what I see. Okay, I see in Southern California more stratification of incomes. Brett: There is no middle class in California anymore. Very, very few spots have a middle class. Aaron: I could see from a hyperbolic standpoint how you would make that statement. But, I met with an investor Monday of last week, they came in and they would be middle class in California. They're considering relocation here because of the cost of living and because of the economic opportunities, in fact, he himself said a week ago, I could work from anywhere, right? I can work for my California company living here in Memphis. So, they're looking to liquidate their assets there, not only their personal home, but also several other investments, and they already own, maybe 5 properties that they bought at between $60,000 and $80,000, which have now already added between 20 and 30% increase value over the course of the last 18 months to 2 years. The point that I'm making is that they are definitely middle class. I see a stratification happening in the California. I see the state, the red aspect, the conservative aspect of that state, dwindling because they're moving away. So with they become removed from the population, what's left are people who are much more focused on, how can we better organize the state? Instead of stay out of my business, the constituents of California are gonna say, how do I join the California government in better organizing my direction? Obviously, what we're talking about is highly, highly controversial. I still think movies are going to be made out of LA. I there's going to be an elite class, like you're talking about, I think the movie industry is the most popular and profitable industry in the world as far as the amount of effort that you put into it and you return on that investment. So I think California is going to be fine. I just think it's going to shift in who's making the decisions. As far as Memphis is concerned just going back to the, you know, for the listener, service-based economy, these are people that get up and probably do something outside of their homes for a living every day, and we all need that stuff. We all need it. You need it? I need it. And so we don't see there being a housing crash, really at all in the country. We also don't see a major housing crash here in Memphis. That just seems absurd. Brett: The worst crash in our recent history we massed 16% loss over 4 years. If you had bought a property in 2005, lost 16% in 2008, by 2012, you'd gained another 5 to 6% over those 16% you'd already lost. Aaron: 16% lost over the course of 4 years and what just happened between August 2020 and the end of July 2021, we increased value 17%. So, that 1 year gain would have offset a 4 year loss.   Brett: That's the key. So, just make sure if you're focused on buying real estate. Actually, if you want to focus on buying a Memphis, go to EPMrealestate.com, go down to the bottom, look for me, Brett Bernard, my cell number is on there. You can give me a call anytime or shoot me a text. I'd be glad to talk to you and educate you on the Memphis market. That's a shameless plug from me, just to try to top Aaron's. Aaron: You know what? you're here, right? Like, you're here recording with me. Nobody else is so dude, you get the plug!  Brett: Yeah. If you're interested in the Memphis market, just give us a call and we'll fill you in on our opinions. But yeah, don't freak out, we're not coming for a crash. We're going to have a correction and that's all it's gonna be. You'll see a dip. It'll come back, you'll be fine. You'll get to see a another day. 

Real estate investor, Ted Huntington, describes himself as a novice investor. Aaron Ivey sits down to ask Ted about his take on the current housing market and if he thinks we'll see a 2021 housing crash, and Ted shares what he's learned through his purchase of 6 single-family rental homes in Memphis, TN. Listen and subscribe at: https://epmrealestate.com/podcast/2021-housing-crash-chat-with-memphis-real-estate-investor-ted-huntington Aaron: So on today's show, we have a special guest. This is somebody who I would consider to be a friend, and he came into investment real estate... How many months ago was it Ted? Ted: I would say, you know, it's been a year at least, so pretty recently. Aaron: Yeah. And the cool thing, you know, hopefully for the listener about Ted as you enjoy our conversation, is that Ted is really smart. Early on in our conversation, Ted called me or we were connected through the realtor that was working with Ted that you've heard on this podcast and he said, hey, you've got to talk to this guy and I'm not going to give away to the listener hat it is that you do for a living, but I find what your line of work just really interesting and our initial conversation, I think lasted at least an hour. And then there was probably a follow-up 30 minute conversation after that and we just immediately clicked, I felt. So this is Ted Huntington. Could you tell the listeners what it is you do for a living? Ted: Yeah, I basically have a bachelor's degree in computer engineering and I work at the University of California, Irvine, in the library's I.T. department. So I do I.T. Aaron: But it's so much more than that, because, to me at least, I've had a lot of friends that worked in IT but they weren't I don't think managing access to the diverse range of information that you are managing. I feel like working inside of the live library information system is completely different than, say, working at a courthouse or working for a corporation. Am I wrong in that? Ted: No, that's accurate. I think the University, I love working in the University setting. There's a lot of intellectuals, a lot of people interested in learning and then in the library, there's just a ton of information and we help people to access that information. I mean, more and more of it is now in the electronic realm, but we still do have actual physical books and journals there. But yeah, we just seem really a massive transition from physical information books and so on to ebooks and electronic information. Everything now is electronic. It's just really an amazing change. Aaron: It has been a tremendous transition. I am married to a bibliophile, I think that is the word. Is that right? And we have several built-in bookcases all over our house and she is constantly acquiring more physical books for her to read, for the children to have access to, and to put down and pick back up again whenever she likes. So we're one of the rare families out there that I think are still purchasing actual, written books from Amazon or Barnes & Noble or whatever. Ted: I don't think you're alone in that. I am also kind of a book collector myself. I especially love old books that are important to the history of science in particular. To me I think that not only are they incredibly good reads and they only are in print, I mean some of them I suppose are now in Ebook, but some of them have been out of print for a long time, but also I think they will be collectors' items that some point because it's a bit of history.  The book and a lot of these more famous books and so some of them are lesser known but important. At least in my thinking. Aaron: Right, and I would agree. It's interesting to watch what it is that my wife will download on an e-reader or on a Kindle. It's almost always fiction or she likes a lot of mystery, like older mysteries, and she's very interested in certain histories. But the books she purchases for us to own are usually about early childhood development or teenager development. It's she wants to actually hold the things in her hands that influence the way that she interacts with the world in her daily life. And so it's been very interesting to see what it is and how she makes that decision and what she wants to hold and then what she wants to download.  Ted: Yeah, I still buy books, even real estate books because I want to have a book for before I go to bed and reading or something. It's nice to have a physical book. I don't want an e-reader, I don't know. It's something about it. A physical book is just a little bit more familiar to me, I guess.  Aaron: Well, do you happen to have a favorite real estate book that really inspired you to get involved more in investment real estate? Ted: I've read a lot of the more famous books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and you know, there's some that Bigger Pockets has produced a few good books. But there's also like, even some older, I can't remember the names, but like just old school real estate investors, even from the 1950s, and so on. I've read one of those books and I found it really fascinating how much cheaper houses were. They're talking about $20,000 and $10,000 houses and doing the fixer-uppers back then and how to find a good fixer-upper. I really don't have anyone in particular, but I tried to read all of them, especially where there are people who are doing their own property management, and their experiences and their hints. They always have helpful hints. Like, some people have found the free version of team viewer and so on, so they can remote desktop to their home computer when they're on the go. Little text tips and techniques about tax auctions - I didn't know that much about those - and dealing with auctions and other avenues. The many ways that people can get deals in real estate. There's just a ton of different techniques and strategies. My strategy of course, is very, very tame and it's kind of a lazy person's technique.  Aaron: What is that? What is your strategy? Ted: My strategy is mostly, I'm a buy and holder of mostly turnkey properties. I don't really do fix and flip or fix and rent, even though there's a lot more money in it. I just kind of like to get into a property and start collecting rent and with minor repairs. I'm willing to pay a little bit more for a nice property. So I'm kind of taking the easy way out, but for me, time is very precious. So I really don't want to be spending a lot of time with contractors and working with rehabs and things like that. I'm a little bit older, so I'm kind of more just hoping for the turnkey, all ready-to-roll type of investment property. Aaron: The amazing thing is you don't sound older. I'm not sure what you would qualify as older. You don't have to tell us your age, but you just come across as very energetic and optimistic about your view of real estate and your involvement and interaction with it, which is very refreshing.  Ted: Yeah. Thanks. I am 52. I won't hide it. But yeah, I think age also is just your perspective. I really am a lover of life and embrace challenges. So yeah, thank you. I try to keep a keen mind and keep my mind active and really interested in history and current events.  Aaron: Can you tell us about the experiences that you've had this far here in Memphis, just in general? How've they been? I would assume they've been positive. Ted: Yeah, let me tell you the story about how I got connected with you. I wanted to start investing in Memphis. I have seen another investor in Memphis who does a lot of stuff. He has a YouTube channel and he does a lot of Memphis investment and I thought, yeah, that really sounds like a good place to invest. I did a lot of research with Zillow data and found that Memphis prices had been appreciating and all the major zip codes there in the last 3 years and that the rent to value property ratio was high, and so it was a good place to invest. Also, I enjoyed the weather. I think Memphis is in the southern tier of the United States, so it's better. So I set about trying to find property managers and, I think I called and talked to every single property manager in Memphis, and I kind of sized them up on their different policies. There's a lot of different things and issues involved with property management. And, you know, they have to have good communication, they have to be on top of things, and I had a lot of different parameters. It's been so long that I don't really remember all of them. But I went through and I ranked EPM way up there. I thought you guys really have a good professional setup. Ultimately, I found Brett, who I enjoy and is basically my real estate agent in Memphis. I'm happy with him and your property managers, and so that really worked out and I'm very happy with you all. That's pretty much how I got started there and just started acquiring properties. Aaron: I really appreciate what you have just said about property management. I was speaking to another investor, who's about to come on with us. She's out of Utah, and we were just chatting about property management and investment real estate, and I was speaking to her about a specific topic, some of the challenges that we've had during covid with this sort of uncertainty as to, whether or not, there is a requirement of a tenant to pay their rent, if they're not able to pay their rent, we talked about the private contract that the landlord has with the tenant and should the CDC be able to step in and interrupt that if the tenant is, for whatever reason, be considered to be at risk for being displaced. We just had this incredibly detailed conversation about, you know, the federal government versus contract laws versus real estate ownership, and I finally just stopped and said, listening to myself, only a landlord would nerd out about this stuff. I think about this all the time, I send myself articles all the time that I find online, and so we really love what we do. And I'm grateful that you've picked up on that. Ted: I think it takes a certain kind of mindset to do what you do there and I think it takes somebody who's really good with management, in particular. Aaron: Thank you. There's definitely a translation that goes on for the homeowner. So for the listeners, I've never met Ted in person. I look forward to it one day, just coming out to Southern California and just kind of seeing what's there and meeting some investors. Ted is definitely at the top of the list just because I like you and I have already talked about meeting at one point. Having a cup of coffee or a beer, and just get to see your work, your world, which I think could be very interesting. Ted: Yeah, absolutely. Or in Memphis. I may find myself in Memphis at some point, please. Aaron: Yeah. I think if we can get through, you know, fall of ‘21 and past the Spring of ‘22 and sort of work our way through this new stage of the pandemic, then, I think we're going to be in a much better place next year. At least my fingers are crossed for that. Ted: Me too. Aaron: Can you tell me a little bit about the properties that you own right now? It sounds like you've worked with Brett before, to acquire them, and I think your financing strategies are actually very interesting. Ted: I pay all cash. I currently have 6 single-family houses. They're all rented out currently in Memphis and I tried to choose areas that I think are good up-and-coming, sort of gentrifying areas. Mostly it's around the Egypt area, kind of where Nike and Amazon are. Just single-family houses and they're all currently rented. I'm sort of a newbie to investing. I have kind of a funny story, I mean, in 2005 I was working in the business office in the library for a very astute business office manager who told me, with housing prices in 2005 going up so much, you should really go and buy a house. I said, well, you know, houses are so super expensive. I can't possibly afford one.  She said, buy a condo. Well what's a condo I asked? I don't even know. This is how clueless I was in 2005. I didn't even know that condos are like an apartment but you own it. That really kind of began my investing career. I bought a condo, and then ultimately years later I rented that one out and bought a house. Then I sold that and bought more rentals and bought my rentals in Memphis. So I'm still really an amateur rookie, newbie investor. But I wish I'd got into real estate in my 20s. I honestly was clueless for so long that now finally, I am starting to realize what a valuable thing investing in real estate is, especially in Memphis. Aaron: Absolutely, I do want to point something out that you've said that I think most people may be in a different place in their investing career than you are, and I'm gonna make this point. We know that the majority of our listeners, even if that majority is just 51%, are people who are considering getting started in real estate and they don't yet own investment properties and they haven't really, you know, that their listening, they're reading some books, they're reading some blogs, maybe they're getting their financing together, but they still haven't taken that leap. So something that you've done actually makes you at least an intermediate in investment real estate, and that you've actually done it. I mean what you've done does take risk and it takes a leap of faith, and the fact that you've actually acquired 6 properties in about a year? That is incredible.  Ted: Yeah, you have to step out of your comfort zone a little bit and I don't think anybody will ever get any gain if they're not willing to step out of their comfort zone a little bit to learn something new. I think that's really the key you have to work, you have to break a sweat, get on the phone, and start feeling it out. That's how. Through talking to the various property managers around Memphis, I started to feel more comfortable about going forward. I think you all answered every one of my questions, no matter how small. So, that's the key. Getting out of that comfort zone and giving it a try, even with just one property, and seeing how it goes. It's really a matter of doing a little bit of work, so you feel comfortable with what you're going to be doing and learning the process. There's a little bit of learning involved, you know, there's a learning curve, but it's I think ultimately worth it because there are so many people who are afraid of even starting up that mountain. Right? Aaron: Absolutely. You know, like it's kind of like what we talked about. No. I was talking to somebody else. Again this was another investor that I was speaking to today, right before speaking to you. Investing in real estate is a lot like something I did recently, which I know tons of people have done, it's not that big of a deal. About 4 weeks ago, my son and I climbed to Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, and the initial part of the climb, which is the first 6 miles from about 5,000 feet above sea level, all the way up to about 8,500 feet above sea level. It was pretty easy. Then as we continued to passed the halfway point, it became kind of difficult until we got to the top. It's 6.5 to 7 hours to do the whole length of it. Ultimately, we were at 14,500 feet above sea level, and the view was incredible. The headache was unbelievable, but it was so totally worth it. But that first step, like you're talking about, that's it. It might even be the most difficult step to take. Ted: Exactly. Aaron: You've said just now that you've even invested in California, you've had a condominium and a house, I don't know if you're in a house right now or not, but we know that you've got some experience there in California. How would you compare owning real estate in California versus owning real estate here in Memphis? Ted: Well, I personally only want to own real estate in California in which I will be living and occupying because I am only going to be investing in other states because there are big differences between California and Tennessee, and a lot of the other Midwest states. California is very sort of more tenant friendly and Tennessee is more landlord friendly just in terms of investing. But then also the ROI in California, well, for one thing, there really isn't one! I mean, the price of real estate in California is just so unbelievably high that it just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to buy investment properties, unless you're really a multi-millionaire. The Midwest is far more of a normal market for somebody with a smaller amount of income looking to get into and start investing in rentals. I far prefer Memphis. I learned a valuable lesson investing in California. I had my condo and the rent coming in could not even cover the property tax and the mortgage payment, and the insurance, and so on. So I was losing, I think, a couple hundred every month and it wasn't cash flowing in any way. It's really the exact opposite in Memphis. You know, you can get into a property without too much and the rent will be enough to make it cash flowing. Property taxes are not outrageous, insurance is not too high, so it's just all around a no-brainer. I tell people, and I have friends, who invest in California, have rentals in California, and I just think it's really a losing battle for most people who are not billionaires.  Aaron: Yeah. So we've found the same here. When I first got started in investment real estate here in Memphis, this would have been around 1997 or 1998 when my ear was to the ground, then I got my license in 2000, and really started assisting investors. One of the things that I really noticed about the Memphis area, is that there were more people from outside of the Memphis, Tennessee area that were investing in Memphis than there were people that lived in my own community, and I began to sort of learn why that was. I think that people from outside, especially and specifically Southern California - at least 40% of all of our investors live in Southern California - and I think that they've realized for a long time and had realized the same thing, which is that the value-to-rent or the rent-to-value is so much better in the Memphis, Tennessee area, even back before the boom. This most recent housing boom that we're in right now, which kind of started around 2015-2016, you were still able to get almost a one-to-one ratio. Let's say that you had a mortgage on the property and it was an 80% mortgage. You were still getting 10 to 20% above the total cost of ownership, and that would have been, your mortgage, your taxes, and any interest that you're paying: 10 to 20% above that. Now, what's happened, of course, here in Memphis, one of the things that's driving rents up all over the country, is that even though interest rates are at an all-time low that normal owner occupant is having such a difficult time, finding affordable property to purchase here in Memphis. So, they're resorting to renting, because they still want to have that homeownership experience. They're renting property instead of being able to purchase it, because they're honestly fighting investors for these same properties. On the rent growth point, I want to make sure that we get to today and have a conversation about tha. Again, homewire.com had an article that was released this morning and it talked about the rent growth capacity for the remainder of 2021. And it's almost exactly like that figure that I gave before about housing value growth being 12%, for the year and how this is the first time that a number like that has been achieved since 1979, and rents are the same way. We are experiencing what you kind of touched on earlier, that sort of inflationary factor. We're seeing nationwide projected rent growths, which will, in essence, put all of our rental properties at an annual rate of about 10 to 12% overall increase from January to December, 2021, which seems small. But as a property manager, here's a neat thing. One of the things I've been doing lately is just asking for more rent. These properties that are coming in the buyers will say, well I think I can get 12 or 13 hundred dollars per month for this property, and I'll say, you know what, why don't we go and ask for 1500, you know. Let's just go for it and see what the market will support. I'm finding that the market for now at least, is supporting these inflated rental amounts. Ted: Yeah. It doesn't surprise me. Absolutely rents are going up. I currently rent right now here in California. My rent just went up. So yeah, it's not strictly in Memphis. It's happening all over. Aaron: Did you say that you own investment properties in other locations other than Memphis?  Ted: No. Only Memphis currently. I am looking maybe to branch out sometime in the future, but pretty much Memphis is it for me right now. Aaron: That's awesome. Do you have a vision for next year? Like you're a well-read person? I know that you're a constant student. Just like me. You've got to have been reading articles projecting, you know what the real estate market is going to look like in 2022. Do you have any read on that personally? Ted: Yes, mostly it's the most important for me in terms of how home prices are going to look here in California...I'm really waiting. Is there going to be a correction or not? I think it will be revealed by 2022 if we are going to see any fallout really from COVID or not, and that's kind of what I'm thinking. I may get into a house or myself and I'm kind of holding off because it's going to be a big house payment and you know, it's going to take all my resources to buy a house at these prices. But yeah, I mean, my plan for 2022 is to buy a house for myself. Most likely, depending on market conditions, if there's no real serious change, I will be going ahead and buying a house. But if we see prices starting to correct, then I will wait and see how far they may go down if they do. But yeah, then probably I'll resume getting back into Memphis rentals. More Memphis rentals. That's kind of my plan for 2022. Aaron: Well, I think it's brilliant. We've had several investors this year that have done very different, more imaginative, financing techniques and strategies to improve their own home, you know, or apartment wherever it is that they're living or that they want to live on the back of the value growth that they've experienced with their Memphis properties.  Ted: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I can see doing, maybe some cash out refinancing on some of my properties. Currently I've only financed one. All the rest, I own, all cash, and they have appreciated. So yeah, that's a great option if you want to generate some cash for maybe another purchase. That's a great way to do that.  Aaron: Yeah, I really have no analogy for it but, for the listeners that don't yet own investment real estate, we've got a little bit of a story to tell you, a secret to tell you. Being in the game of investment real estate. Being in that world is what makes you money. You can't make money off of real estate unless you own it. For instance, a lot of my investors that owned property all the way back, purchasing it all the way back into 2002, 2005. These people who like Ted, purchased and held these properties, during more normal economies, they experienced all the benefits of investment real estate ownership, without seeing this massive value growth. So for investors looking to realize that cash, and take advantage of that value growth, that purchased say around 2014 through 2017. So many of those investors said, you know what, this has been great. I've really enjoyed the last 6 years of owning this real estate and I'm out. They sold, and man, they left the experience with smiles on their faces. They were so pleased that they were able to double their money in 6 years or in 8 years and, for my investors that purchased 20 years ago, of course, they've more than tripled their money. Ted, I totally think you should do that. I think you should cash out refi wherever you want to be, it's great interest rates, you've made great value growth on these things. You gotta do it! Ted: Yeah, absolutely. It's the smartest, smart move. Aaron: Yeah. And you know, that kind of dovetails back to what I said before. I actually said these words, I said investing in real estate is hard. And what I meant by that is, is this. I've got a mutual fund, right? And you probably do too. You've got some sort of employer funded investment because of where you work and they feed that maximum matchable amount into your 401k or your mutual fund, your simple or traditional IRA, whatever it is, and they do that every year. You never see it. They take it out of your paycheck and that's easy, right? I've got to tell you, even in the midst of this amazing economy, I've been looking at the Dow and watching these value growths, and then going over into my portfolio and looking to see how that's benefiting me, and really there's no major year-over-year benefit. It's not as you know, the high highs and the low lows that are possible in real estate. I do think that real estate is definitely an investment worthy of somebody like you, and your intellect, because you're able to engage it, manipulate it, imagine the possibilities of it, reorganize it if you want to, take out the value, infuse more value. So let's try to end on a sort of a visionary note if you will for 2022, 2023, and let me tell you what, I see, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. We do have a coming correction. There are several articles out there from the Washington Post, the New York Times, homewire.com, and politico etc. All kinds of different websites that are out there that are talking about the looming housing crisis. And so, from Memphis Tennessee, which there's only a million people here, what we consider what that housing crisis will look like, here's what we see. We don't necessarily see a correction in pricing. We do see a softening in the contract negotiation capacity of the seller. So basically, the sellers are not going to just be able to ask for whatever they want and get it. Sellers are going to have to have to accept negotiations that are at or around asking price or below asking price. Also, they're going to have to give concessions and maybe even make repairs. So that's new. Right now, what we've been saying nationwide is that sellers just get to ask for whatever they want, and they get it. So, the first thing is that the market is going to soften a little bit. The second thing, of course, is that as these eviction protection laws or whatever we want to call them expire, you're going to see foreclosures. You're going to see houses that are locked up by tenants not paying their rent, refusing to move, not being allowed in the courts to be evicted. They're finally going to be loosened up. There's going to be more liquidity in the courtroom and we're going to see so many more properties available for purchase. That's kind of what we're seeing happening starting in 2022, unless there's some sort of major change that we can't see coming. Ted: That's great to hear. So, do you think there's going to be price reductions? Or do you think prices are just gonna kind of hold and there's just gonna be softening in negotiation? Aaron: So I think real estate is stratified, if you will, right? Like, I can just imagine a property near UC Berkeley that you could be interested in purchasing. I imagine it being like a 1930s built bungalow or some sort of really awesome, older construction type property. I could be wrong. I don't know what Berkeley's like. Ted: Yeah, they have older buildings there that just go for exorbitant prices. Aaron: Right? And I'm sure they're gorgeous. Ted: It's in the eye of the beholder. I think it's older houses. Yeah, I'm sure some of them are. Yeah absolutely. Aaron: Yeah. So, if the same house there that you might be looking to purchase is in sort of the upper middle income to upper income strata, here in Memphis. So you asked if the average prices were going to drop or if there's going to be a softening in pricing, I would say on the lower income strata, absolutely. One of the reasons why. I know some of the properties you purchased. In your price range, sellers are able to get more for those properties than ever before and what I believe is going to end up happening, is that the actual real value of those properties is going to soften to where investors aren't going to be as willing to spend the full asking amount. They're going to go in with home inspections, there's going to be more time for the buyer to be able to get a feel for the property before they make an offer. Right now there's just no time, right? You have just got to jump in, you have to put out that repair contingency, an inspection contingency, and if the house is full of holes, then you say, you know what? I'm not even going to negotiate. I'm just going to walk away because that's the smart thing to do in this kind of market. So I think that the buyer is going to have more time and that's probably the most important thing and I think sellers are going to be willing to wait for the buyer to make decisions, because right now sellers are in a position to where if you don't purchase it and move quickly and have all cash, with no inspection contingency, and you just want to close in one week, that's the kind of buyer that sellers are looking for. So I think they're going to be more sellers that want to say, hey, you know, let me really kick the tires on this house and get a feel for it. I do think, you know, just talking about strata, I think that the upper income housing in Memphis and the surrounding areas, which really start around 750, three quarters of a million, all the way up to 2 and 3 million dollar properties, on average, and of course there are palaces that are so much more expensive. I think that is really where you're gonna see pricing soften because there's just not going to be as much of a demand for that type of construction and, in the middle income housing, it's going to be the same as it always is, just very competitive. So depending on what type of investor you are and how much money you want to spend, and all of that, you're going to  experience something different within that. Here's the good news! I want to end on a high note, and then if there's anything else you'd like to say, I'd love to hear it. The good news is this... History has proven that rent amounts and the amount of money that the average tenant is willing to pay for real estate, and in our case it's single-family income, is a trailing indicator of overall economic condition. Several articles that I've recently read talked about how rents are following the increase in property values, right? Because rent's are speculative; they are so much more speculative than housing value. You know, housing value is based on the recent sales, recent appraisals, recent refinancing, and recent financing, so that's a pretty set figure, how much that property's actually worth. Well, rents are speculative. They've got to either come up or drop based on what the buyer is willing to pay. So what's happening right now in the Memphis area at least, is that there is no product to rent. Basically you can almost ask for whatever you want. As it is a trailing indicator, even when there's a softening in the market 6 months, 12 months, to 18 months from now, rents should remain high for the next, I'm going to speculate, 18 to 30 months if there's a correction. So for people who, like you, own real estate, I would say let's renew that lease, let's increase that rent, let's really take advantage of this great economy. Ted: Yeah. That's the big question. Is this bull market going to continue in 2022? You know, one interesting thing if you look at the numbers, I'm really hoping that we see a lot more inventory coming online on to the MLS and for sale, because I was hearing somewhere that in 2020, a million people, like the number of people who list every year is very kind of constant, and there was sort of a shortage of a million people in 2020 who chose not to list their property and then add that to the number of people who have not been paying their mortgage who are in forbearance, which is maybe another million or something, just for the United States.  What are they going to do when they come out of this forbearance? Are they going to sell? What's going to happen? Are they going to get a loan modification or whatever? I think there's a good chance and I'm really hoping that we're going to see more inventory. Now, can this bull market of buyers absorb that? That's a good question. I mean there's a lot of demand, interest rates are very low and so, it may well be that yes, there's an increase in inventory, a lot of more houses come online, but the demand is so bullish and so high that it really will not even make a dent in housing prices. I think we'll see that in 2022 and 2023, hopefully. Aaron:  Yeah, I think we'll see it. I think when we get into the second quarter especially we're able to look back on Q4 of this year, 2021, and Q1 of next year, we will see a two-quarter trend of more properties on the market. I know you're probably reading this or watching this but listeners, I just want to encourage you to look up the National Association of Realtors data that's out there. It's free for you to get. They release it every quarter. For us realtors, they release it every month. They'll tell  how many new units were put on the market, listed and whether or not that's gone up and down. The same thing for new construction that's also very informative to a buyer for what the climate is right then, and to watch that. I actually agree with you that I think you're gonna see a ton of new property on the market and, on the matter of forbearance, another statistic that I read this morning was that right now anywhere from 0.9 to 1.9%, of all residences are in some form of forbearance. Ted: It's not a small number.  Aaron: No, it's massive. Ted: Yeah. Aaron: And so, just depending on how those people deal with the fact that they're no longer protected from foreclosure or from some sort of debt collection action against them, it will inform the open market very quickly. One last thing before we go. I hope that we can begin to talk about how to take advantage of the upcoming foreclosure acquisition opportunities that are there. You know, they won't be amazing deals with the foreclosures, but they could be 5 to 10, to 15% below market, and that there's a lot of room right there. So that's going to be fun to watch. Ted: Absolutely. Aaron: Well, thank you so much for your time. I know you said it's more or less on your lunch break, which is great. So, I apologize if you're clocking back in late, but, thank you so much for coming on. Ted: Sure, thank you for having me Aaron. Great to chat with you. Aaron:  Always a pleasure here as well and I look forward to talking to you more soon. Ted: For sure. Thank you Aaron. Have a good day.

Aaron Mondry is a journalist and salad maven. PAUSING WITH AARON MONDRY. To offer your own advice, call Zak @ 844-935-BEST TRANSCRIPT: ZAK: It's Food Friday. And today, we're gonna discuss a long held, deeply felt belief of mine. You don't need to buy salad dressing. AARON: I take 2 parts oil, 1 part vinegar and put them in a glass jar. A reused jam jar is a great option. And I shake it up. That's the really, really basic blueprint for a salad dressing. But there's lots of ways you can vary it and mix it up and make it interesting and cater it to a slaw, some greens, Asian radishes. Whatever you want. But that's just the basic blueprint. It's so easy. ZAK: Yeah, I love it. What's the vinaigrette that you make the most frequently. AARON: I'd say I do 2 parts olive oil, 1 part lemon juice, fresh squeezed, of course. Finely mice some garlic. Maybe finely mince a shallot or an onion. Just a little bit. Salt. Pepper. G-d just that is so delicious. It's so good. But you can add a teaspoon of mustard, a little bit of yogurt. If you want to get fancy you can add some black garlic if you have any. It takes 5 maybe 10 minutes. It tastes fantastic. It lasts in the fridge forever and it tastes better than any store-bough dressing you can get your hands on. I guarantee it. ZAK: Yeah. I agree. Before I started making my own dressings my fridge would have like a collection of store-bought dressings that would never get finished. And they would just be all coagulate-y and this frees you from that burden. AARON: Yes. Frees up fridge space and impresses friends, strangely. They're like where'd you get this dressing. Oh, I just made it. Really!? ZAK: Yeah, I feel like you just have to do it once and then you'll be doing it yourself. AARON: Yeah. ZAK: You person at home who hasn't made their own dressing yet. AARON: Yeah you. Why haven't you? ZAK: So you do lemon juice and balsamic vinegar? AARON: I'll typically just do lemon juice but there are tons of great vinegar options including balsamic vinegar, rice wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, sherry. They all have their own unique taste obviously but I just like lemon juice the best, I think. ZAK: Our house dressing of late has been olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey and horseradish mustard. AARON: That sounds really yummy. And thank you for mentioning honey cause it is good to add a little sweetener too cause it can be really sharp without it so some honey or maple syrup will balance it really nicely. ZAK: Yeah. The shaking is also very satisfying I find. AARON: Yeah. Sometimes I'll just take a salad dressing out of the fridge and just shake it and not use it and just put it back. ZAK: Is that true? AARON: No, it's not true. Laughter. But the shaking is satisfying.

FULL SHOW NOTES[INTRO music]0:00:12.0 Aaron: Episode 27: Plan the work, work the plan.0:00:16.2 INTRO: Welcome to the SaaS Venture podcast, sharing the adventure of leading and growing a bootstrap SaaS company. Here are the experiences, challenges, wins, and losses shared in each episode from Aaron Weiche of Leadferno and Darren Shaw of Whitespark. Let's go.[music]0:00:42.3 Aaron: Welcome to the SaaS venture podcast. I'm Aaron.0:00:45.7 Darren: And I'm Darren.0:00:47.7 Aaron: Darren, I wanted to start today with a little bit of an inspirational quote for us in our planning topic. Are you ready? 0:00:55.7 Darren: I'm ready. Let's hear it.0:00:57.0 Aaron: So Eleanor Roosevelt said, "It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan."0:01:05.1 Darren: It's a solid quote.0:01:07.4 Aaron: I like the positivity of wishing and day-dreaming without the work involved, [chuckle] but I get where she's going.0:01:15.2 Darren: Just take your wishes. They're all running around in your brain. Just write them on paper and you're starting to plan.0:01:21.0 Aaron: There you go. One other note. We are also using video recording for this episode. We're gonna test this out and see. When we watch it back we'll [0:01:33.2] ____ if we're cringy or it's just not something that we want or if it's a good second medium for us to distribute our talks.0:01:44.1 Darren: I think our subscribers are gonna go through the roof. You're so handsome. You're gonna have [chuckle] so many people being like, "Well, I wanna see more of that Aaron Weiche."0:01:54.1 Aaron: I'm pretty sure there's not enough of a filter to combat that to make that come true, but it sounds good. All right, well, hey, it's been almost two months since we recorded an episode. I'm definitely to blame on that. I've been super heads down with some things, which we'll talk about my side of planning work and working the plan, but how have things been? Are there any changes in your life in the last two months during the pandemic? 0:02:22.8 Darren: No. Pandemic-wise, it's all the same over here. Nothing really has changed. No one's gotten vaccinated in my immediate family yet, so it's all same stuff here. Busy with work. You're definitely not all to blame. I have been heads down on a bunch of stuff as well, and so I haven't sparked a podcast conversation, but yeah, what's new at Whitespark? Let's see. We launched actually a really big update to our Local Rank Tracker. It's not the kind of thing that has much impact customer-facing, but we've rebuilt the whole thing in our standard tech stack. It used to be on Angular, and now we've switched our front-end JavaScript framework to View, which has many positive impacts for us. We're able to iterate on it much faster. The software is more organized, and so it really opens us up to quicker feature releases on our Rank Tracker, so I'm excited about that.0:03:25.8 Aaron: Nice.0:03:26.8 Darren: We are finally about to pull the trigger on our new account system that I've talked about on the podcast many times, but it's actually happening. And I'm not even gonna say two weeks. It's actually happening in five days on Tuesday. Tuesday is the day that we're gonna pull the trigger, and actually on that day, we've decided we're going to raise the prices of our premier SaaS software, the Local Citation Finder. We're doing a big price increase on that, that I've been talking you a lot about, Aaron. I'm excited about that. I think there's great potential there. I feel like it's long overdue. We've had the same price of that software since we launched it 10 years ago. I've never increased prices, so it's long overdue. I feel like we're just gonna flip the switch and be just all of a sudden, we're making a lot more money, which we should've done a long time ago. So I'm excited about that. And we've got a big new feature to launch. I've talked about this before, I think, on the podcast, which is our citation auditing component that's gonna be integrated into our Local Citation Finder. So that's next on our agenda. That we're gonna be diving deep into that. It's mostly done, but pushing towards launch on that as well, so that's what's new in my world. How is Leadferno going? .0:04:42.9 Aaron: Yeah, well, one, it's great to be public with Leadferno. I think that's the biggest thing in announcing this. Just Monday of this week, I mentioned to you when we were talking before, hitting record earlier today is having this time between leaving GatherUp and just helping wrap up some things there and whatever else and diving head deep into Leadferno, but not really having it in a place where I wanted to promote or talk about it. That was definitely hard. So it was like... In my planning, it's like I had this plan on how I wanted to announce. I wanted to have the marketing website ready, and I wanted to have it to a pretty like, I don't know, full-blown or at a pretty solid part, to be able to build content around and screenshots and specific features. And early in the product and planning, there's a lot of that that you still don't even know how it's gonna end up or come true. You don't have visuals for it, things like that. So that was definitely one part of figuring out how do I make the most out of announcing what it is and driving people to something that actually does a good job of explaining it and all those pieces. So yeah, that was just a huge shift this week in being able to say like, "Here it is. Here's what it's called. Here's the link to it." And be able to socially do that in my professional profiles and my personal profiles. That was awesome.0:06:26.3 Darren: Yeah, I was excited to see the tweet from you and see that you've gone public with it. It's like, "This is the thing. You can check it out now. This is what's coming." So that must be a huge relief and just feel good to get it out there.0:06:41.5 Aaron: Yeah, I was kind of laughing. It checks the boxes on that social high or that dopamine hit you get when your LinkedIn posts and all the congratulations and the comments and the likes and retweets on Twitter and everything else. It's like this fever pitch. I kind of laughed at myself 'cause it's like, "I want that. I need that. I need word to spread on Leadferno and what it is and what it does." But I also felt like one of my teenagers where I'm worried about how many likes are on my TikTok video and things like that. It's like, I was like, "Oh, geez. Don't get caught up in this." But yeah, Monday was definitely just a rush all day long of people reaching out, people I forgot I had in my LinkedIn network where it's like you build these networks of, I don't even know, thousands of people, and then you get something and then you're like, "Oh, who's that? Where did I meet them at?" You go back and recall all of that so.0:07:40.7 Darren: Well, I think you coined the phrase, "LinkedIn is slow Twitter."[chuckle]0:07:46.9 Aaron: Yes. I'm glad you remember that. It totally is.0:07:50.7 Darren: Yeah, it makes some sense. You post something on LinkedIn, it continues to gather likes and comments for weeks, whereas something on Twitter, it disappears within half an hour.0:08:00.9 Aaron: Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. The Twitter steam settled down within 24 hours, and you're exactly like, "I'm still getting messages three days later on everything related to LinkedIn and whatever else." So people can check LinkedIn once a week and feel like they really haven't missed out on too much, where if you're really into Twitter, you're on it every few hours at least, so...0:08:27.2 Darren: Yeah, well, congratulations on going public with your new software, and you got some pilots running too. I'm excited about that. How are those running? 0:08:38.1 Aaron: Yeah, so far so good. I have five pilots up and running. It was definitely hard on me. You have this incomplete product. You know all the things that you want it to do. The vision's there, but you're also rolling out this like, "Hey, it does one-fifth of what it's going to do it in three or four months. Is that good enough for you?" [chuckle]0:09:01.5 Darren: Yeah, you probably get a lot of feedback too where people are like, "Oh, this is great. Can it do this? Can it do that?" And you're like, "Soon, coming. Yeah, we're working on it." [chuckle]0:09:11.3 Aaron: Yeah, so it's great when you get the requests that are in your product road map because that just affirms that the things you thought or what you know to be like feature parity, things like that, are true, but the other part, though, some of the feedback, there's been a handful of things. There's definitely one thing or all the early ones, so it's like, we built it and it's a desktop app only right now and it will be when we launch and then we'll be building our mobile apps right after launch. So with that, really the biggest thing, every time I was doing a demo for a potential pilot user and as they got on it, all had to do with notifications. And it was kind of interesting where it's like, "Yeah, we kinda knew that we built in... We had notifications on our road map, so we fast tracked doing your operating system notifications." You get the little alert that says, "Allow or Block." You allow it. That way, if you just have the window open, you're in a different tab, different browser, whatever else, you're gonna get that notification. But I've learned it's not enough. People have become so dependent on their phone telling them things, so what we're actually looking at doing now is building an SMS notification to fill the gap before we get to apps, so...0:10:35.9 Darren: That's good.0:10:36.5 Aaron: Yeah, yeah. So you'd just be able to drop your own mobile number and your user profile, and it'll just say, "Hey, you have a new lead from Leadferno." That will hopefully be that stop gap until we get an app that has push notifications, and you get your annoying red bubble that you don't want the numbers to go up on.0:10:56.7 Darren: That's perfect. And then at the very least the business owner gets a heads up that there's a new lead, and they can just jump in there and respond to it right away.0:11:03.3 Aaron: Yeah. Absolutely. Other than that, I've been doing Mechanical Turk notifications. I log in to all the pilot accounts, and I see if they have leads in there. And then I send them an email, "You have leads. Do you wanna go in there?" Like, "Oh, we forgot to log in." Working a new piece of software into somebody's routine can be hard and difficult, but yeah, that was one really interesting thing, it was like, "Okay, I just didn't realize how important the notifications were." And that sounds almost silly, but it's like...0:11:37.0 Darren: Makes sense.0:11:38.4 Aaron: My head is around 50 features into V1, but if you don't have this one, then we really... It's just not gonna work for us. We're worried about not meeting customer expectations. We wanna be able to move freely away from our desktop computer. We wanna know these things. So that was definitely a really big win, and then we've just had some other just small things as they're using it like, "Hey, if this expanded when I was typing in, it would be helpful," things like that. So.0:12:10.0 Darren: Can you access the application through a mobile browser? Is it responsive enough that it's functional? 0:12:17.2 Aaron: So we've chosen not to build it responsive, just because we're gonna go straight to mobile apps. The thing that we just didn't feel like a responsive was gonna give us a big enough win for the effort, just for what we talked about, the push notification, just some of the snappiness that you get out of a native app over a responsive site. So we just kinda chose instead of duplicating efforts for something that would maybe get used very little when you have the app as an option, like we're just gonna skip it. And right now, I would love there to be a responsive web design version of it. But six months from now I'll be like, "We have mobile apps. Don't worry about it." So then I won't care, so...0:13:05.4 Darren: Totally. I was only thinking of it as like a temporary stop gap until you actually have mobile versions.0:13:10.7 Aaron: Yeah. And we just looked at it, "Why spend time on that right now when we could just build more features into the core product itself," so...0:13:17.5 Darren: Absolutely. Makes sense. Yeah. Wow, good. It's going well, it sounds like. I know somebody who's running a pilot and they're like, "Man, this thing works too well. I can't keep up with all the leads," So that was great feedback to hear.0:13:31.9 Aaron: Yeah, no, the theory of exposing and marketing that you will text with customers definitely seems to be doing what we thought in opening more conversations. The barrier to starting a conversation for people is so low on text. You're just completely fine texting randomly a new business where having to take the time to make a call and will I get a voicemail or will I get a person or will I get a call tree? Am I gonna ask the right... All of those things is just so much lower, so... Yeah, from what we've seen in our pilots across a very diverse group of business types, and they're all seeing just an increase in conversation starting. It's also just been really interesting, which gets me excited. It's like, "All right, we have these five testers, and we have dozens of conversations happening in a week, but already seeing the differences in how people communicate." And the businesses is what I'm talking about, how the length and their process. Some are using it and immediately jumping into different communication medium. Others are solving it all right in the text conversation. It really gets me excited for the future of like, "Wow, the things that we'll learn as we compile all these conversations for a business to expose what do people care about? What are they asking the most?" Things like that really get me jazzed.0:15:03.8 Darren: Yeah, you think about the sentiment analysis you can do on all that incoming content, that's really interesting.0:15:09.9 Aaron: Yeah, no, totally, for sure. So when I look at that, that gets me excited for planning past the V1. It's like everything right now, I can script for you the next three months to six months, pretty much like almost every move we know we have to make. There's gonna be more things like the notifications that come into play that will be like, "All right, we need to do this, or people are gonna be not happy or frustrated." So we need to solve that, but the fact that there's just so much that has to be in the coming time frame, is just like, holy cow.0:15:53.5 Darren: Yeah, totally. That's almost the way it is with every product. There's just a non-stop stream of things that you can do to make it better. It's a good industry to be in. Speaking of all that stuff and planning that stuff, you wanna get into the topic of the day, planning.0:16:13.8 Aaron: Yeah, absolutely. As it relates to me, this is the first time I had to do planning around a launch of a product. Done plenty of feature launches and things like that, and I already kind of touched a little bit on just planning how to announce it and what was there and what was needed and things like that. But in this too, it was just thinking through like, "Okay, you get the site. You have those elements there. What do you need of those elements? Created some motion graphics for the site, what are all the things that we can round out?" And then after that, it's like, "Okay, putting the site out there, what's kind of our plan? What do we want to have happen? What's the conversion that we want out of it?" So it was mapping out like, "All right, we want people to say, Yeah, send me notifications. We're launching in June, but we'd like to every two or three weeks, send out an email and say, Hey, here's something new that we've just added to it. Here's how things are shaping up. Here's a couple ideas." Like just kind of build that fever pitch so that hopefully there's some people feeling like, "The minute that you will take my money, I will give you my money." That's the hope for sure.0:17:30.9 Darren: You want people to land up at your door with bags of cash.0:17:34.0 Aaron: Yeah, exactly. The next part is we introduced some calls to action for early access. So people who are early adopters who wanna put it to use, we wanna find out who they are and tell us a little bit about you so we can see like, "All right, based on where the product is, would you be a good fit to be a tester? Is it in a business type or a process we haven't served yet where we could learn from it? Will you be a heavy user of features that we already have instead of, Oh, the feature that would really benefit you is one of the last we're gonna build. So I'm not gonna bring you in now and get you frustrated." So that as kind of a pre-launch goal. And then the other one is we're gonna do a partner program with this product. This will probably be one of the most fundamental decisions that I find really interesting, so I decided with Leadferno not to do a white label product, which we had at GatherUp. And a couple of the reasons behind that, the beauty of a white label product is we had a large customer base that are digital marketing agencies and marketers and SEOs, and they resell it. They put their logo on it. They can claim it as their own, and then they can mark it up however they want.0:18:57.0 Aaron: We charge them $50 a month, and they can sell for $100, $200, $300, whatever they want. So those are the pros on it. The cons that I always found that won't be surprising is, one, you're not maintaining double the product, but 25-50%, you're double maintaining a product because how settings work, and how things are accessed, how you name features, you have to keep your brand out of everything, then you have to build materials for your white label people that they can grab and convert to theirs. There's just a whole lot of pieces to it that definitely make it a challenge. And for a lot, it can be worth it. Like for GatherUp, it was definitely worth it for us. We had 400-500 agencies when I left that were reselling our product, and some doing extremely well with it. But I just chose with this one, I wanted to take the route of building a partner program where what our partners, what they have to do is just refer their customers to sign up. They get the benefit of, "Hey, here's a great tool." If we're a web designer, we built you a beautiful site, but let's convert customers to contacting you. That's the ultimate goal.0:20:17.6 Aaron: If we do local search or SEO, we're a digital marketer, we wanna convert that traffic. So this is a great conversion tool. It will allow them... They'll have access so they can see into all of those accounts and see what's happening and grab data and reporting and site conversations so that they can add that to what they're doing on a retainer basis and reporting for that customer. And then also we'll kick them back a percentage of reoccurring revenue. So the downfall is I can't take a $50 product and mark it up to $300, which some have done, but the win is all I have to do is tell them to go look at this. We'll sell them. We'll support them. We'll do all those things. 'Cause the one thing that was probably the most frustrating with a white label product is you build new features, you do all these things, and your resellers just don't know or don't care or don't really have an idea. They don't support the customers as well. It's like you win on the sales side, but you can really lose on the customer experience side.0:21:26.0 Darren: Sure, yeah, actually, I've got two questions about this partner program 'cause it's something that we've been looking at a Whitespark because we currently have some referral partners that send us leads and we don't have a good system. We're currently tracking it manually. Stuff gets lost. It's like someone sends us an email and then we gotta go in and be like, "Oh, make sure that we're giving credit for this person for this referral." And so we've been looking at software solutions, and the more I look at them the more I think, "Wow, they're expensive, and we could easily build our own." So the first question is, are you gonna build your own or are you gonna use some third-party system for managing the referral program? And the second question is, I'm wondering what kind of kick back you're planning to give? 0:22:08.8 Aaron: Yep. So the first one, I'm having a hard enough time building one product. I am not building another product. So [chuckle] I'm gonna use... There's a couple out there. I've watched more than a few Facebook group conversations on things like this. The one that I probably see mentioned the most that I'm probably gonna do the deepest dive in is FirstPromoter. I think based on our needs and what I've read, that's one that I definitely want to investigate. I need to investigate further. I know another founder, Josh Ho. He has a product called Referral Rock. I need to see if that's kind of built the same way as FirstPromoter. I just... I know Josh through online conversations, but I haven't dove into his product as deeply. So I'm gonna find a product that fits the need for us to be able to do that so we can just focus on our core product.0:23:08.5 Darren: Yeah, so I was thinking about this, and it's like, I looked at one called PartnerStack, which Unbounce uses, and it looks really slick, it looks great. But it's $15,000 at the lowest end to $40,000 per year for the high end, and I'm like, "What? That's really expensive." and I don't get the value proposition there because when I think about what my needs are, I need to go into my account system, press a button that says Add New Referral, put in their name, their PayPal email, and it's gonna generate a referral link for them. I give them that link, and then all I have to do is on our website is track the URL parameter, set a cookie, and then on checkout, look for the cookie and record a transaction in our account system if anyone comes through on that cookie. It's actually pretty straight forward, and our team could build it, they're telling me in like... It's a week-ish to build this functionality into our account system.0:24:08.8 Darren: So when I think of it from that perspective, then it's like, "Why wouldn't we just build our own and just have it internally." And then you have to have a page for the referral partner and be able to look how many people came, clicked through on my link, how many people converted, and what is the timeline, what are my kickbacks, what is my next check gonna be. You just need a system like that, so it seems pretty straight forward. And I don't know if it justifies the expense of a third-party tool.0:24:35.3 Aaron: Yeah, my inclination would be I'd do more searching. The pricing on that sounds really steep. Like FirstPromoter, I think is in the $100-a-month range. I think they have some plan variants, but also everything you're describing there and just in building software, like your first blush is like, "Oh yeah, it's just these five things," but then it's like, "Oh, yeah, but these five and these five and these five," and then pretty much then it's a runaway train and I don't know. I'm just hesitant on those. I'm like, "Let's find someone who all they care about is this and let's plug into them, right? They're already plugged into Stripe. They already create the landing pages. They already have all these elements." So like I said, I have enough to do [chuckle] where I'm like, "I'll outsource." If we look at it and like, "Oh, we're only using these three things," then I at least have the experience of using something else and saying, "We could build this better, easier, simpler, that just meets our needs and eliminate that cost," then I'd at least know I'd rather start using something that's there.0:25:45.4 Darren: Sure.0:25:46.5 Aaron: And then head the other route.0:25:47.9 Darren: Yeah, I'll do a little bit more investigating of those two that you mentioned.0:25:51.4 Aaron: Yeah, and then after that, your second question on percentage, I think we'll probably be falling between a 10-15%. This was part of the other thing. Our product most likely, and we're still working completely finalizing, but I would say we're gonna fall between $150 to a $250-a-month product. And in my experience with a lot of agencies, especially the ones that really like the uptake on this product, selling price points is really hard for them. So I looked at it. If we did a white label and say we even discounted the product to, let's say, $100 a month, we could afford to do that for them. They would, because it's already at three figures, I feel like they would price it at $125 anyway. They'd get the same $20 back than if we just did everything else, because they'd be afraid to push those margins higher. Now, some of the really good sales agencies and successful ones like, no, they would probably... They could push it a lot higher and not have a problem with it, but that's just some of the things that I noticed that GatherUp is overwhelmingly a ton of them, just their own price sensitivity and sales.0:27:06.5 Aaron: They're good at their work. They like to do the strategical and tactical things, but selling for a lot of those agencies was really hard. So that's why, I just wanna do it like you make the introduction. We'll make it all happen. You get access. You get data, and you get revenue from it. So I'm hoping that like I said this could be a fatal flaw in my plan. I might be building a white label version of our product six months from now. So...0:27:33.0 Darren: Sure. Yeah, no. I think it sounds like a really good plan to me. I feel the same. Like I'm thinking about our future developments and where we're going, and I don't think we'll ever have a fully white labeled version for many of the challenges that you've already described. It's just so much more to maintain when you do that. I remember white labeling GatherUp and then noticing that the source code references your product. Even some of the class names of your CSS had to be updated, so just so many hassles.0:28:03.4 Aaron: Yeah. No, there is. There is a lot of it that you really have to have in mind when you do it. And it's like when I would talk with our team when we're launching features or things like that. Especially as the brand grew, you worked more like branding things into what you named it and how you created it. And there's just so much where I always looked at... One of our top-three threats all the time was exposing our white label resellers. Like hands down, that was the one thing where I was just always like, "Oh, nothing would be worse than me having 20 emails or 50 emails or 200 emails saying like, You just exposed me as a GatherUp reseller, and I charge four times more than you charge because I'm layering it with a service where like, Oh, what... I'm glad a few times we'd have something small, whatever, and quickly stomp it out or it was only a handful accounts, but that's scary stuff.0:29:03.8 Darren: Yeah. Totally. Well, I like that you're just avoiding that all together, go referral system instead of white label.0:29:09.5 Aaron: Yeah, well, we'll find out. Like I said, that plan might be a bad one. The jury's out on that. We'll see where that one goes. That's one of those, right, where it's like, "I definitely... I feel this way, but I understand this. And it was super successful before, but I don't know, we'll see where I land on that."0:29:31.2 Darren: Yeah, we'll see. I think as a person that has a re-sold product, it's also a lot of work on my end. I would almost prefer the referral system.0:29:41.6 Aaron: Yeah. Yeah, that's my hope. My big question is, is the revenue enough for someone to care because they might not look at your product as like a revenue generator for them. It's like, it's money back in. It adds up. It's worth something, but it's not gonna become a line item on the balance sheet that you really care about unless you have hundreds of customers. I mean, oh man, I hope I have a reseller that's like, "Yeah, sweet. We have 100 accounts that we've brought you." That would be fantastic, so...0:30:15.3 Darren: Yep, and do you pay your resellers... Is your plan, if it's like a percentage, do they get that recurring forever or is it just like for the first six months, the first...0:30:24.0 Aaron: Yeah, we're gonna do recurring for forever, so...0:30:26.4 Darren: Okay.0:30:27.2 Aaron: Yeah, I want it to be a win-win. I actually want it to be a win, win, win. I want the agency to win.0:30:35.4 Darren: Win - win - win.0:30:36.8 Aaron: Yeah, I want the business to win, and I want the consumer to win by loving using our product. When they can text with the business, they win on it. I like this where I was talking to... I was doing a demo with another potential pilot prospect, and he used to be a GatherUp customer and saw what I was doing, and the great thing is he's like, "The beauty of you and Mike... " He's like, "You guys, I never felt like you're out to make money. You were just out to give us a great solution. So I fully trust whatever you're doing on this, and I fully trust whatever price point you set." And I was like, "Oh well, I hope the whole world feels like that, so that sounds good."0:31:14.6 Darren: Yeah, you have implicit trust, everyone that comes over to you.0:31:17.9 Aaron: Yeah. I'm leaving money on the table, but I sleep well at night and I like what the product does, so...0:31:22.6 Darren: Yeah, yeah. Good. What else related to planning? 0:31:27.3 Aaron: Yeah, now that it's like out, now, it's a lot of both planning on the marketing side, how do I keep mentions going and stay in front of people and things like that. Lucky over the years to build contacts. We just had Localogy reached out and did an interview with me. I have a couple of others that lined up, pinging some people and just saying, "Here's an angle. Is it worth mentioning?" To try to keep that going to launch and then use launch as another propulsion. And there's a lot of things that I even joke with our marketing or our product team when they're talking about building something. I'm like, "No, we can wait on that. We can wait. That can come a month after launch." Well, I'm like, "He gives me something newsworthy to talk about and to put out there." So just planning all that out. And then now I'm just starting to focus on the launch plan, and we still have a ton of things to build into the product and just mapping out.0:32:32.2 Aaron: We basically have five sprints to where we wanna hit for our launch date, so it's like we have each of those sprints ratcheted with like, "Here's what we need to do and accomplish in whatever else, and we're really at this point, you're kinda out of room on, "Oh, that can get bumped or at this point, if it falls out of a sprint, it's not gonna be in the product for the V1, which is gonna be a bummer. I look at my list of 20 things right now, and it's like, "I don't wanna live out without any of them at launch, but I'm also... There might be five of them that just aren't gonna make it at launch." So a lot of that planning going on and that plan will probably be re-factored pretty heavily as we move through each sprint, but we'll see what happens.0:33:16.7 Darren: And how do you do the planning? What software systems do you use? How do you communicate this with your team? How do you set up your meetings? How do you lay out this plan and manage to stick to the plan? 0:33:28.9 Aaron: Yeah, so we do all of our sprint planning and development in Clubhouse. My product manager just hates Jira. I think he spent too much of his life in it. So even though Jira is probably the staple that's out there, it's what we used at GatherUp as well, he wanted to use Clubhouse. So that's what we use for that. That's where everything goes into play as far as organizing the sprints and what epics and stories and tasks and everything go into that. For the team, for me, I try to... The less I'm writing things in Clubhouse for me, the better. I try to... That's the weeds for me. I try to stay out of those weeds. I review the stories to keep track of progress. I answer questions when they're needed, but I like to frame things up in just any visual and have done both like Google Slides and also spreadsheets, just to say like, "Here's a high-level view. Here's all of these things." And a lot of times I like to use those and then also match them up for them to understand the business goal side.0:34:39.4 Aaron: I think it's really easy for engineers to be building in a vacuum and not understand the business needs and what goes on publicly and things like that. So helping them understand, "Hey, we need these things done and need to be this far, so we can have pilot testers. And once we have that, we wanna be able to launch and show people the product and have short demo videos and things like that." So it's good to not only have them see the sprints, but like what are the business goals that might be attached to these sprints as far as public launch, how many pilot customers are on the platform, soft launch with some paying customers, all those kind of things with it. So there, I'm pretty, whatever I can pull together fast that is well organized, that shows them and gives them a longer view, helps them see three months out. And how does all this work together? 0:35:39.4 Darren: Yeah, how often do you... Has it been from the genesis of the concept of Leadferno to today. You make these plans, you try to put a structure in place and create the timelines. How often are you sticking to things, or has it been going pretty well? 0:36:00.8 Aaron: No.0:36:00.9 Darren: No.[laughter]0:36:03.5 Aaron: You get all the other challenges in building a team, right, like finding the right people with the right expertise, the right ways to communicate. We can definitely get into this another time, but we hit kind of a road block end of January, February that had to do with our team's expertise with Flutter, and that's what we're using for the front-end SDK format of thing. I don't even know if you can call Flutter a framework or what you call it, but we realized we needed to level up. And so we had to do some changing of our team in relation to Flutter experience, and so that was a big shift that probably just kinda gutted two sprints off us. So we were not only... We weren't moving fast enough to that time because we didn't have the right components, and you're back and forth between, "I'm hopeful this will change," and, "Let's try some of these things and whatever else." And your gut might be telling you something, and then finally, I was just like, "We have to do something, right?"0:37:14.7 Aaron: So yeah, between all that, we just kind of... It's not accurate to say we lost a month. That's how I feel about it, but we had to change guard. We had to hand off information. We had to bring some new people in. Any time you bring new people in, they are also gonna have some ideas, which a lot of times, they're good ones on restructure. "Here's the efficiencies you're missing. Here are some of the things that if I was here from day one, I would have decided different that you're gonna wanna redo this." So it was really hard, and I was super bummed at that point. It would be like, you combine what you're working on isn't public. You can't talk about it at all. You're just in this hole working with development teams and testing and everything else. We weren't at the point of being able to have pilot customers yet. We were trying to do this work to have pilot customers. That was part of it, where it was like, "Man, everything feels like it's just kind of not going right right now, but you just keep working at it and things are getting better."0:38:18.2 Darren: With that big speed bump behind you, are things flowing to plan fairly well since you've kinda caught up from that, that bump? 0:38:28.2 Aaron: Yeah, I feel like it's getting better. We've had to make adjustments. There were things on how we were planning, designing features where we weren't doing a good enough job on it, and so we had to step up our game with how prepared we were ahead of the sprint, how we are creating some of the epics and stories. We're making adjustments there. So yeah, all the stuff is always an evolution, and so you're working hard to how can we constantly be getting better? And you're taking what you feel and what you see and feedback from the team and you're bringing in new expertise. There's just a lot. There's a lot happening at once. And it's like, that's easily the one thing it's like, you come from... I came from a team at GatherUp that our core development team had been together for three years when I left, and there's so much that was in lock step. Things were still hard and difficult and you'd still have misses or holes, whatever else, but so far less just because there's so much trust in the team. They had worked together. They understand the overall direction, a bunch of things like that. And then you jump into something else and you realize you have to rebuild that, and for the first three years at GatherUp, we didn't have it. It took us three years to hit our utopia or our best efficiency within that, and now I'm trying to smash and shrink it into months. [chuckle]0:39:55.2 Darren: Right.0:39:55.8 Aaron: Which is really not possible.0:39:58.8 Darren: No, but I think you are shrinking it, though. It seems like you're moving really fast at Leadferno actually. If you think about how much you've accomplished since you started this, you're progressing pretty zippy, it seems to me.0:40:12.7 Aaron: Yeah, I can tell you personally, the weeks have never flown by faster for me like ever. They are like... I'm like, "What? How is it a weekend?" Then on the weekends, there's no stand-up. I can't see what else got done, [chuckle] anything. It's like, I actually don't want the weekends. I want weekdays. I want stand-ups. I want progress. I wanna test. Man, it's crazy. So anyway, but I threw into our notes. I read a great tweet, and this guy was just sharing something that he had heard. And I reached out to get the pronunciation of his name, and his name is Tobenna Arodiogbu. And he put out this Tweet, and he just said, "Someone once told me it takes about three years to build really great software." And he said, "I kind of agree. The trick is in providing value when your product is merely good and executing every day the right to make it great." And I was just like, "Oh, that's so it." Right? And I'm like, "I'm trying to make great software in six months, and it's not gonna happen. But I need to do well enough where people are like, Yeah, I see where you're going. This is good enough and keep going and we're gonna stay with you."0:41:28.9 Darren: Totally. It's a really good quote. It's like people... You don't wanna take three years to launch your product. Launch it when it's pretty good and it continue to iterate. And actually, this is one of the things that we've actually had a roadblock at Whitespark about is we continue to refine and iterate before, and then we do this massive launch. It took us a year-and-a-half to get this thing out the door, and we're really trying to solve that problem and be like, "No, this is our existing product. We're getting that out of the door." We did it again with our new account system. It's like, "We could have launched this a long time ago if we weren't constantly refining it." And actually the nice thing is that once you get it out the door, all those refinements can come week after week after week, and then you're doing regular updates. You're showing your customers that you're alive and continuing to make the product better, and you have a new marketing push every week. And so that's the cadence that we're trying to get towards where every week we've got some new updates, some new thing that we're pushing live.0:42:35.1 Aaron: Yeah. No, I think you're spot on with that is how can you build and iterate rapidly? I think it's the same thing I was kinda talking about with our team. Like momentum, that's the killer thing. When you have great momentum, it doesn't even matter if it's just constant small steps, but you have momentum. And when we hit our rut, January, February, the momentum was gone. If anything, the momentum was backwards, and that is emotionally tough. It's tactically tough, all of those things. And the same when you get your customers to start feeling that your product has momentum, like, "Hey, every month or every other month or every quarter there's something new," like they feel that momentum. I think that's the key thing to find.0:43:27.9 Darren: Yeah, I see it with ClickUp. So we use ClickUp for some of our project management on our GMB Management Service, and every Friday I get an email from ClickUp. They call it the ClickUpdates 2.75, every time it increments. And they've done, I think, 275 updates. And so every Friday, there is an email that usually covers about three new features in the software, three new things. It's incredible, and that's... I dream of getting to that point, and it doesn't seem impossible. It seems totally within our grasp very soon. As soon as we have new accounts out, we're gonna start iterating on all... 'Cause at Whitespark, we have like five products. So we have so many different things that we're always working on.0:44:14.0 Aaron: Yeah. Well, it gives you a story to tell, and then you can take that story to your customers. That's marketing, and, yeah, ClickUp does a great job. I definitely went on a binge of signing up for any tool with a free trial for researching onboarding processes and things like that. And so I'm still getting a ton of emails, which is great because it helps me understand their messaging, and yeah, ClickUp does... They do a really great job with it.0:44:40.3 Darren: Really good, yeah.0:44:41.0 Aaron: Some of their little animations in their emails and things like that, so yeah, that's definitely a good example.0:44:49.3 Darren: They've got the resources too. I think they got $100 million in funding. [chuckle]0:44:55.2 Aaron: I don't know. It sounds great to have... I would have such a hard... This like Leadferno, we raised a small angel round, so we can scale up a team. And even that still feels hard for me, getting a team of five, six engineers right off the bat. It felt like, "Oh my gosh. That's so much for no income coming in and whatever else." It's like, "Oh, I'm learning, man. I'm baby steps on how to do something that isn't bootstrapped from the start." So...0:45:24.9 Darren: Yeah. [chuckle] Yeah, totally.0:45:28.8 Aaron: Well, cool. I think we've probably worn people out by now. You've worn me out. You just made me answer all the questions today, so...[chuckle]0:45:37.8 Darren: You know what? That's because I'm like the worst planner, so I just basically have to defer to you and be like, "Hey, Aaron, what can you teach me about planning?" So I'm learning as much here as the audience.0:45:48.0 Aaron: Yeah, you're evolving though with it, Shaw, but sooner or later you will be the plan guru, and I'll just take notes from you, so it's all good.0:45:57.9 Darren: Great, well, we'll slate that for March 2022, new episode on planning where I'll lead. I'll give some advice on planning.0:46:06.7 Aaron: You'll hit it before then. I know you will.0:46:08.8 Darren: Okay, great. Great, I appreciate the confidence.0:46:11.3 Aaron: Awesome. Yeah, you bet. All right, well, thanks everyone for joining us. Good to get another episode out. Hopefully we won't let so much time go by until Episode 28, and we'll get back to you. Anything you wanna make note of coming up Darren? 0:46:27.2 Darren: Nah.0:46:28.2 Aaron: Nah? 0:46:28.8 Darren: No. [chuckle] Let's talk about it next time.0:46:30.9 Aaron: Keep doing the things on repeat.0:46:33.1 Darren: Yeah totally.0:46:34.2 Aaron: All right. Well great catching up as always with you Daren, and we'll talk soon. And we'll talk and record soon as well.0:46:41.2 Darren: Yeah within a month. All right thanks, Aaron.0:46:43.7 Aaron: All right thanks take care everybody.0:46:45.7 Darren: Thanks everybody.[OUTRO music]

We want to invite you to take our 31-day parenting prayer challenge. These are made possible in part by our faithful prayer team patrons.  https://marriageaftergod.com/patronjoin today! → Parentingprayerchallenge.com Read The Transcript  [Jennifer] Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast. [Aaron] We're your hosts. I'm Aaron. [Jennifer] And I'm Jennifer. [Aaron] We've been married for 14 years. [Jennifer] And we have five young children. [Aaron] We started blogging over 10 years ago, sharing our marriage story in hopes of encouraging other husbands and wives to draw closer to God and closer to each other. [Jennifer] We have authored over 10 books together including our newest book "Marriage After God," the book that inspired us to start this podcast. [Aaron] Marriage after God is a message to remind all of us that God designed marriage with a purpose. [Jennifer] To reflect his love. [Aaron] To be a light in this world. [Jennifer] to work together as a team. [Aaron] Using what he has given us. [Jennifer] To build his kingdom. [Aaron] Our hope is to encourage you along your marriage journey. [Jennifer] As you boldly chase after God together. [Aaron] This is "Marriage After God." Hey everyone, welcome back to the "Marriage After God" podcast. We're in Jennifer Smith, your host- [Aaron] Yeah, we're excited to be back with another episode. [Jennifer] Do you know that we are more than halfway through the season? [Aaron] I know, crazy. It's going by really fast and it feels good. [Jennifer] Yeah. Hope everyone's enjoying it as much as we are. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] One thing I wanted to share with you guys just starting out the gate here, is took the kids for a walk, we have these really cool parks where we live in central Oregon, and just wide open nature, fresh air flowing river, awesome bridge to walk over, and we got outside. And sometimes it gets hard for me in the wintertime 'cause it's like, I don't know, it's cold. [Aaron] and you did it by yourself, I missed out on it today. [Jennifer] Yeah, usually I make you go along with me, huh? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] More hands- I was impressed. [Aaron] And I missed it, 'cause I like going on those little adventures with you. [Jennifer] Well, a friend invited me, and it was just really good to get out despite it being cold, and the reason that I'm sharing this with you guys is because this friend of mine just is very enthusiastic and passionate about nature and being outside all the time, and so one of her ways of encouraging me is this challenge she gave me, this piece of paper that said the thousand hour challenge, and there's all these little bubbles that you get to mark off for every hour that you're outside with the kids, and I just thought how wonderful, and so it's been a fun little way of kind of keeping ourselves accountable to being outside every day, and the kids have loved being outside. I mean, they ask for it all the time anyways, so if anyone wants to take up that challenge, it's a thousand hour challenge. [Aaron] How many hours have you done outside? [Jennifer] I don't know, since I started it's been about a week. I think we got in I wanna say nine hours that I'm keeping track of. [Aaron] So I'm outside playing all day out back. So like that counts as like the, towards the hours. It doesn't have to be on an adventure just outside- [Jennifer] It could just be outside. [Aaron] That's cool. [Jennifer] Yeah, so anytime they're outside for an hour, I mark it off. [Aaron] I was actually kind of wondering what that thing on the refrigerator. [Jennifer] Yeah it doesn't really explain much. [Aaron] That's awesome. But I will try and go next time, 'cause it looked like you had a lot of fun. [Jennifer] It was a fun little adventure. Also the reason that I was bringing that up is because some of you may have seen me post on Instagram about it, just random pictures of us being out on our nature walk today. But I'm back on Instagram and that's new. [Aaron] So you're saying everyone should message and say hi to you. [Jennifer] Sure, say hi, pop in and say hi. I was off for pretty much all of January, and I had never taken a break like that from a social media. Like, so hands off, like, I mean, I deleted it from my phone and everything, and it felt really good. And then one day I just decided I missed it. So I came back and at first it felt weird to post, like I didn't know really how to, it felt new again. but I'm back. Do you wanna come see me? Come say hi. [Aaron] Awesome, I just want to invite everyone, if you haven't yet to leave a review today, that'd be awesome. Five star rating, actually doesn't have to be five-star you can get, you can start whatever you want. Five star would be appreciated, but yeah leaving a review or a star rating today would be awesome. If you have done that, we're just so appreciative and it helps the algorithms. We always mention it. So if you take a moment today, we'd really appreciate it. [Jennifer] Another thing that we wanted to offer you is very similar to what you may have heard in the last few episodes kicking off the season, but it's a little bit different. So we've been sharing about the marriage prayer challenge, today we wanna remind you and offer you and invite you to the parenting prayer challenge. And it's essentially the same concept. You can go to parentingprayerchallenge.com and sign up, and you'll get 31 days of prayer prompts to pray over your children. [Aaron] And you can actually choose whether to pray for your son or your daughter or both, if you have both, and it's completely free, and we'd love for you to join that and take that challenge. And you could take it even if you're taking the marriage prayer challenge already. So you can be praying for your spouse and you can be praying for your kids. You should do that today. [Jennifer] Again, that's parentingprayerchallenge.com. [Aaron] So Jennifer, why are we talking about... Just real quick, I know this isn't in the notes, but why are we talking about comforting each other during hard times. When we came up with this list of ideas for episodes? [Jennifer] Yeah, I think we already mentioned that the motivation behind the way we created our list this season was just, how we do every season is what have we been learning about? What have we been doing? What have we been walking through? What's God been teaching us? So partly from that just last year, there were times that you hard times that you comforted me and I comforted you. And it was a kind of relearning opportunity for us in our marriage of what it looks like to go through a hard time and be there for one another. And the other reason is just because I think that if you had, you know, a handful of categories that every marriage deals with, this is probably one, of the top ones where every marriage faces challenges and hardship and trials and hard times, and we get the opportunity as husband and wife to be there for one another. And so I think it's good to what we always say check our hearts or evaluate, you know, where we're at and how we're doing. And so we thought talking about how to comfort each other during hard times, would be inappropriate marriage topic for a marriage podcast. [Aaron] I think so. And it's good for everything, not just your marriage, but I'm just thinking about situations in my life where I needed to be comforted by friends, by my parents. [Jennifer] That's true, we are gonna go into more of just comforting others too. [Aaron] But it's good, especially with how the world's going, and things have just been going on. I think there's plenty of opportunities to be comforted into comfort. And personally, this has been something that's very difficult for me to do to others. [Jennifer] Comforting others or having compassion or empathy toward them? [Aaron] All the above. [Jennifer] Okay, I'm like, just clarify. [Aaron] I don't know why. I couldn't tell you why, but emotional sensitivity has been difficult pretty much my whole life. I don't know why. I feel like the last handful of years I've gotten better at it, I feel like I've been like changing that in me. You could probably attest to this, like going from just always, you know, logical and cold to getting a little bit softer and- [Jennifer] Well, let me encourage you, because I wouldn't say the word cold. I don't think you're a cold guy, I don't think you're a mean guy, I think that you're a very strong guy, and so sometimes some of the weaker ways that we humans walk through get overlooked because- [Aaron] Being very gentle to me, thank you. [Jennifer] I'm being honest. I do think that you... There are plenty of times you've been compassionate or have comforted me or others, I just wouldn't say that you're like that kind of tenderhearted always trying to be there. [Aaron] Yes, it's something that I need to work on for 100% sure. [Jennifer] Okay, let's just stick to the notes here. [Aaron] Yeah, okay. It's something that definitely doesn't come natural to me. I don't know why it is, but it just never really has. Comforting someone in hard times, someone who's going through painful situations, suffering- Like what to do in hard times? [Aaron] That, yeah, not knowing how to be that person for someone. [Jennifer] When you have someone in your life that is going through a hard time, do you automatically get challenged with the thought, like, I don't know what to do for them, or is it more just like this is so uncomfortable and I wanna like... I hope they get better and I'm gonna pray for them move on. Or I don't know. [Aaron] Yeah, I'd say there's a couple of things. Especially if someone who's going through something's not in close proximity to me. And like I said, I've been getting better at this, God's definitely shown stuff to me and highlighted this in me. But if they're not like indirect proximity to me, it's hard for me to like put my mind on them and my heart on them. But when I am in proximity to someone, I'm thinking of like deaths in the family, or, you know, friends going through hard things. [Jennifer] Where I see it. [Aaron] Where I see it and I'm present. And yeah, I think I want to, like, there's this, like I know I should do something, I know I should say something, I know should be a certain way, but I, yeah, I think it's both of those things, but I also feel uncomfortable. So it's something I'm wanting to grow in, and get better, which is why I'm glad we're talking about it, because it's been something that God has been teaching us, teaching me. [Jennifer] Me too. [Aaron] He's used you a lot to teach me, which we'll talk about. [Jennifer] I was just gonna say, marriage is awesome in that those moments where you haven't walked with compassion or comfort, I've been able to share with you how I feel in those moments. You know, if I've felt overlooked, or I felt like maybe you didn't respond to me the way I was hoping you would have in the way that I felt, over the years, you have been responsive to those moments that I've shared that with you. So you have grown in these areas. You might see yourself as not being super great at comforting others, but you have grown a lot since I've known you in this. [Aaron] Yeah, and I wanna grow more, I wanna be better for you at that. But I just know that even with you, there's times that I'm not understanding, or I see a situation differently, or I might be it come off as cold or un compassionate, because I'm just like, Hey, like we can get through this. Maybe I there's been times that I'm- [Jennifer] Quick to fix it. [Aaron] Yeah, like I, I just jumped to- [Jennifer] The solution or like- [Aaron] The solution. And I also think- Moving forward. Just now that I'm thinking about it, I think I get, because I'm uncomfortable with someone going through something, I want them to stop going through it. Like, come on- I see what you're saying. Like stamp out of it. Like let's move past it. Maybe because I don't usually get affected too much. [Jennifer] You're the type that if you're near Aaron and you're going through a hard time, he wants to grab you by the arm and go have a good time, like, come on, let's just go, let's move forward. Like that? [Aaron] Yeah, Sort of. It's like I want you to see it from my point of view. I don't know. And then that's not always right, right? Wrong, that's not right. [Jennifer] And this is what God's teaching you. [Aaron] Yeah, this is what God's teaching me. [Jennifer] That's good. Also, when were talking and explaining that just now, I was just thinking the silence. You know that people say the awkward silence. [Aaron] It's too awkward for me. [Jennifer] Well, yeah. But sometimes when people are sharing that they're going through a hard time, or are suffering or need that person, that friend to comfort them. Yeah, you're quick to say something, you're quick to move or quick to be actionable, because- [Aaron] I wanna give some sort of response. [Jennifer] You want to give a response to them. And so would you say that God is teaching you how to just be still in that moment, and kind of be there with that person? [Aaron] Yeah, well, it's something that we'll talk about in this episode, but it's, there's, I think He's showing me, He's been teaching me how to walk with individuals, because every situation isn't the exact same. I could see things like, this is always how I'm supposed to be, or always what I should say. But every situation is different, and I need to love someone enough to understand them and how they will receive love and comfort. So more of a putting myself in their shoes the specific person, I don't know, I feel like I'm- [Aaron] I know, I feel like we've kind of gone on this tangent of like, let's talk about and focus on Aaron, but we didn't kind of mean for it to go that way, but we'll run with it. [Jennifer] Yeah, I just wanted to bring up that this is a hard thing for me. [Jennifer] You're being honest, that's good. I think this is interesting because I get what you're saying, and I've seen what you're saying play out before with me and with others, just having known you for so long. But there's this other side of you that really is gentle and compassionate and comforting, I've seen it. And I've seen you treat people, everybody has as equal, like you don't put people on pedestals where there's like this person over here that's higher, and this person over here that's lower. Like you've always maintained this equal standing of like value with people, which I think is incredible. And you've also always kind of, I don't know how to say at the same time, you've been there for the underdog. At different times in our life, there has been people that are like hard to get along with, or people are struggling with them and you seem to be able to relate to them and be friendly and be there for them. Does that make sense? [Aaron] It goes back to that, seeing everyone the same. I, well, I do tend to not like knowing that there's someone that's being cast out or downcast or put aside. And so I feel like I gravitate towards those people, but at the same time, I don't treat them any different than I would treat someone else. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] I just, yeah, it is interesting. But that has come into play Now that I think about it, with some of the problems I've had, because like I was saying, treating everyone the same, isn't always... It's good to it's good to view everyone the same, but it doesn't mean I'd respond the same to everyone, or interact the same with everyone, if that makes sense. Especially when it comes to things like comforting, things like suffering, things like pain, something that I may not understand, something I've never gone through. So I feel like it's been opened my eyes to like how to, as Paul put it, be all things to all men so that I might win some. Like that idea of seeing where someone's at and being like, okay, good Lord. What do you, how do you want me to respond to this specific situation with this person? [Jennifer] Right. Well, I feel like we went through quite a bit of just how you engage and interact with people just now, And I don't want it for now. I just don't want it to sound super negative. So just as a reminder to you, Aaron, I have seen you in times where people are suffering an uncomfortable or needing comfort, you've been there. And even in the awkwardness, even in the not knowing what to do or how to respond in that moment, I do try. You do try. And you're really, you're a good friend, and you're a good husband. And I just wanted to remind you that. So without going more into me personally, this topic was meant for everyone. [Jennifer] And I think is the launching pad. [Aaron] Yeah, well It made sense, 'cause I was writing this and I had to start with, hey this is something that is hard for me, but I'm sure it's hard for everyone at different times. But it's also something that we desire ourselves that we ourselves want to be comforted, and as believers, we want to be good at being able to comfort because we can comfort the lost, and that could be an opportunity to bring them to Christ. We can comfort our family and our spouse and our children, and so it's a good tool in our tool belt, as we talk about in our book to all to have. And I think it's something that we should, like you said in the beginning of this, examine our hearts and say okay Lord, how can I... Teach me how to be compassionate and have a heart for the hurting? [ Jennifer] Yeah, and no one's exempt from or immune from having hard times, or facing trials, challenges, suffering. Right, it might look different for each of us, but we all experience it on some level, every marriage does, every individual within that marriage does, people we know friends, family, people who, neighbors. Yeah, everybody faces it in different ways. And I think if we keep our hearts tender, I think tender is such a good word when it comes to being able to comfort one another, I think we'll we'll know what the right thing to do is when those opportunities arise. [Aaron] Isn't it James that says that pretty much promises, we will have trials and tribulations in our life. Like it's a given not just for the believer, but for the world. You can't turn on the TV or go outside or drive down the street without seeing it or even experiencing it. Like there's just going to be trials and challenges and things that are hard. So having an eyes for this and I think you said tenderness is a good word, but like like a softness, like a heart that's ready. [Jennifer] Yeah, well that's good. Yeah. I like that. Before we dive into some of the meat of the message today, I thought it would be fun to answer this question, what is the most comforting thing I have ever done for you? [Aaron] There's been times when I've been really sick and you pamper me. [Jennifer] Pamper. [Aaron] I mean like you- [Jennifer] I call it babying, I baby you. [Aaron] Yeah, there was a time when I had a really bad earache, and I thought my brain was gonna explode. [Jennifer] I remember that, I've never seen you in so much pain, actually. [Aaron] I hadn't ever been in so much pain. But you like held me while I was like like crying on the bed, 'cause it was hurting so bad. [Jennifer] I was a little terrified, I didn't know what to do. [Aaron] Neither did I, it was so bad. But I remember you I prayed for you. [Aaron] Yeah I think of those times when I'm, there is nothing to do, but you just held me or, you know, prayed over me, and so that was the first thing I thought of. [Jennifer] And then I think I said, I think you should go to the doctors or had you already been? [Aaron] I did, I went to the doctors and I got a, some sort of antibiotic but it was like, it got worse after I got back. [Aaron] I remember that, that was intense. [Aaron] So what's the most comforting thing that I've ever done for you? [Jennifer] I'd say like you mentioned a very specific time but I think in general, just when you hold me close, when you pull me into you and hug me and yeah, just hold me. [Aaron] Remind you that I'm still here. [Jennifer] Yeah, that you're very close. I think the second thing is just when I hear you pray over me or for us, that's always encouraging. [Aaron] That's good. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Some tips for all those listening. [Jennifer] The only thing you need, physical touch and prayer. [Jennifer] I guess we're done. [Aaron] Yeah, let's move on to the... Yeah, now there's some things in scripture we can look at that can give us some I don't know if they're guidelines, but it's encouragement for us in our walk and comforting, learning to comfort our spouse, others. And I just wanted to go through some of those and hopefully it encourages you listening, it encouraged me when I was writing it. So the first thing is for the believer, we're told to comfort each other. [Jennifer] So do it. [Aaron] Right, so this kind of sounds oversimplified but sometimes I feel like we don't think have that responsibility. Or someone else will do that. That's not my job. And I know we've in various seasons, struggled with this. Like someone's going through something and we think to ourselves, no we shouldn't like maybe someone else will, maybe they don't want anyone over there right now. And just kind of questioning whether it's our role to go comfort someone. [Jennifer] Which the hard thing about that is the moment you justify it, or excuse yourself out of the situation, it only takes a fleeting moment to then forget about it. Like, forget that need, forget that that person needs it right then and there. And then when, by the time it comes back around you remember it, the moment has passed, the opportunity has passed, someone else has stepped in, which is good, and we're so grateful for those people that take over when we don't or choose not to, or forgetful but let's not do that. [Aaron] So yeah, the first thing is that we're told- [Jennifer] You said maybe it's over simplified and I just the next word I heard, but under done. So over simplified, under done. [Aaron] It's true. Yeah, because we do, we disqualify ourselves from that ministry, but we're we're told to comfort each other. And I would imagine, not imagine, I would say that the first person that you should be like prone to comfort is your spouse. Right, they're a part of you, you're one with each other. And so if you're not comforting each other you're not comforting yourself. Like if you look at that- [Jennifer] I would definitely say this, I'm trying not to use double negatives. If you're not comforting your spouse, you better not be comforting anybody else because the moment you show others comfort, and that ability and your spouse is sitting over here going what in the world? [Aaron] That's true. [Jennifer] That's so hurtful. And the other part of that is if you guys... We're gonna talk about this in a minute, but you guys should be comforting people as a team, like your marriage, your one, so you be comforting each other first and then step into that space of like being able to comfort others. Sorry, I had to get out of the way. [Aaron] That's good. So second Corinthians 13:11 is where we get this says: "Finally, brothers rejoice, aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you." So if we look at that os piece the God of love and peace will be with you. Do we want that? [Jennifer] Of course. [Aaron] Okay, then let's rejoice, let's aim for restoration, let's comfort one another, agree with one another and live in peace. This is how the brothers in the church, this is a Christians walk, [Jennifer] But this is such a great marriage verse. Like if you just replaced brothers for spouses. [Aaron] Finally spouse's rejoice, aim for restoration. And well, especially if you and your spouse are both believers like this totally applies. And even if you have a spouse that's not a believer, you can still aim for this on your side of the marriage. But we are to comfort one another. That's a, that's a command to us on how we walk. It's part of our job description, not only as husbands and wives, but as Christians, it's our responsibility to do this. So if you've been looking for permission to comfort someone, comfort your spouse, that you are qualified, that you are called to it, here it is. This is a part of your job. [Jennifer] Okay, so, because we're talking, it's kind of a mixed message or not a mixed, but- [Aaron] I love this note, by the way. [Jennifer] How do I say it's all encompassing message today on how to comfort others. So it is inclusive of your spouse and others, right? We need to- [Aaron] Like there is a caveat. [Jennifer] Yeah, we need to clarify that boundaries matter, And I'm saying this from experience being married to your Aaron for 14 years, that we've communicated and agreed upon boundaries that have, I think protected our marriage and protected our unity and our peace within our marriage. So do you wanna speak to that? [Aaron] And what you're talking about is specifically like so taking all of this advice for your spouse is great, and learning as a couple as an individual individual to comfort others is great, but we shouldn't just take that blanket across the board because it would be very dangerous if I got in the habit of personally and individually comforting other women or other people's wives, right? I mean, that was just, that would be wrong. Now, if someone needs to be comforted, what I can do is bring my wife into it with me, or encourage my wife to do it. [Jennifer] Hey, I noticed so-and-so is hurting over here. Have you reached out to them? Have you had a conversation? You know, things like that. And the reason that we bring this up, you guys is because our marriage matters and our relationship is sacred. Aaron and I's right. You would agree that our marriage is 100% special, special. Yeah. I don't know how else to explain that. And I think when you move into comforting others, there is a level of intimacy involved. And I'm not saying the same intimacy as a husband and wife, but emotional intimacy is something that's truly valued among human beings and how we experience life. And so if you're gonna move into that space where you're comforting someone, regardless of what it is like whether it's meeting a need of theirs, or sitting there and listening to some hardship that they're going through, that's something that we should be willing to look at and say, are we making sure that we are within our boundary, right? Just our boundaries is I don't. [Aaron] Our boundary is that I don't. I won't sit ever alone and comfort a hurting woman. I won't do that. And if I did, my wife would know about it immediately. It wouldn't be a secret thing, but that would be, that has never happened. So the, what would happen is I would call you I'd be like, Hey, I think we need to come up. And it sounded really bad. Like we should go pray for them, or you should go see if she needs to talk. And so we were, and the same with my wife, she wouldn't go and sit and have a really deep intimate conversation with someone listening to all of their hurts and the things they're going through alone, she would invite me, or she would tell me like, hey you should really chat with so-and-so, they really need some comfort, they need some, you know, someone to listen. [Jennifer] And we've actually found a really great blessing and benefit in this, and Aaron, you've had some really great conversations with guys who have needed that comfort from another brother and I've had the opportunity to comfort and be comforted by other Christian women. And it's been a good thing. And then together as a couple, we've been able to step into that and, you know minister to other couples and other people. So I just think that boundaries are important. And, and we kind of wanted to talk about it upfront and get it out of the way, because it'll apply to everything else that we're talking about. [Aaron] So we always want to just encourage boundaries and order and that it also encourages you to encourage your spouse to be a minister, to care for others. So working together helps with that, and it's not worth it. So if someone's going through something, just know that there's someone else that can comfort them, if it's not you. So find another sister, brother, "Hey so-and-so could totally use some comforting right now." And so that we protect our marriages. So I thought that was a really good note. Thank you for that. So I just want to give a quick definition of comfort. So comfort is, first of all, it's a verb. [Jennifer] Action. [Aaron] It's something you do, and you do it actively. And it's defined as a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint. So physically comforting someone helping, you know, if they have a broken arm holding their arm up so that they're not in constant pain as a friend of mine, one time put his back out. And I had to take into the to the hospital and I had to like, hold up his whole torso so that he would put any weight on his lower spine. And it was wow. But that, that's what this is talking about is physical comfort. I'm comforting that physical pain with my body. [Jennifer] I'm thinking about labors. I've had the opportunity to be a part of, where you're just trying to help ease that woman going through, that you just helping in any way. Yeah. [Aaron] The other definition is the easing or alleviation of a person's feelings of grief or distress. So that's one, that's common of they're going through something painful emotionally, and you're there for them. And then another one is ease the grief or distress. [Jennifer] Console. To console someone. So that's essentially what comfort is. There's a physical comfort, which again, should be in a safe way with boundaries, but with your spouse like that, like you said, me being near you, holding you, coming to you, touching you you know, embracing you. And so that's what we're talking about when we talk about comfort. [Jennifer] As you're going through these definitions, the word that stood out to me is the word alleviate. And it reminds me of, you know, lifting up kind of like that illustration that you get so good. And I looked up another, you know, the source of synonyms in it, it means to take the edge off. So it's not just solving a problem or making something not painful ever again, that might be where that uncomfortable feeling comes from for you, that you had mentioned earlier. It's like this expectation to help in a way that that we just can't, you know sometimes some hard things won't ever be fixed, but in them we can help take the edge off by gladdening someone's heart reminding them of the good making them laugh or experience joy amidst what they're going through. So I just thought that word alleviate was I dunno, really cool. In normal times there there's plenty of reasons and seasons we go through that bring us to a point where we need to be comforted. I think everybody listening right now it's just like maybe sitting in that space right now saying I need that, you know hopefully our words bring you comfort today. [Aaron] I think a lot of believers right now look at the stuff going on in the world. Yeah. And we desire to be comforted. Like, is it gonna like, what? Like what's going on Lord? And so as believers, also, something to encourage you with is you can comfort because you're comforted. I know it kind of sounds funny but it's it's why we can comfort. That my next point is we are told to comfort but you can comfort because you yourself have been comforted. In 2nd Corinthians 1:3-5 Paul says this: "Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort." Okay, right there just starts a God of all comfort, "Who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God, for as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort too." This is true for every believer. Because no matter what, you're going through, you have the comfort of God on your life because you know that he has saved you by His son Jesus. [Jennifer] Okay, so just real quick, when we were sharing about the definition just a bit ago, a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint. Oh my goodness. This makes me appreciate and just attend a way to salvation that we have in Christ. [Aaron] Right, 'cause no matter what the world or our happens to our bodies, man, does our bodies or just happens through age or disease, that we are comforted with the knowledge and the truth that this isn't it, that we have a new body coming, that we have a new home, that we have a savior, and we're going to have eternity worshiping our father. [Jennifer] So every single one of us have felt broken, shame, unrighteousness, that sin that he set us free from he's given us freedom from that's the comfort that we're talking about. [Aaron] And on top of that, He sent us his us His Holy Spirit who also comforts us. So when we're in the midst of just life, he reminds us of the truth about us. This is something that we dealt with a lot this year, just us thinking about who we are in Christ. And that we're no longer that old man. And that God was, he reminds us like, no, that's not who you are. Hey yes, it feels this way now, but it's not true. Like the Holy spirit has comfort us many times by bringing to remembrance the truth about us. When the lies are making us sad, and feel broken the spirit isolator, he comforts us. And so I just want to encourage you listening that you have that same comfort. The God of all comfort comforts you in all your affliction. And this is why, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted. So we're not comforting out of our perfect situation, we're not comforting out of the fact that we don't have any afflictions. [Jennifer] We're not even comforting out of our own means. So when we're trying to, you know, help comfort someone by providing them something or, you know fulfilling a need for them. It's like, it's not even out of that physical response. It's literally because we've all been comforted by God himself. [Aaron] Right, so the comfort that we give, the comfort that we offer, the comfort that we attempt to walk in is his comfort, right? That's an incredible encouragement, because we can go sit with someone and know that any comfort we could offer, has come from God already in our life and in their life. I also think this is a good place to just say if we struggle with that awkwardness of or being uncomfortable with seeing someone suffering or going through a trial or something hard and the Lord's given us the opportunity to step into that to comfort them. And we don't know what to do. Like Aaron, you said that you've struggled with that. We can pray and we can ask Him and we can say, God, the God of all comfort, can you show me how you want me to comfort for this person right now? I know how you've comforted me, I know you, how you have set me free, you know, how can I do that for this person? [Aaron] That's a good point when there's times that I'm struggling when you're going through something, and I'm like, I have no idea what to do. I'm like, Lord, what do I do? And he brings to remembrance your words. I wish you would just like, hold me, like just come close to me. Which is you don't say that in the moment but you've said it enough. And I'm like, okay. And then I'm thinking to myself, this is hard. Why is this so hard to go? Just sit down right now. Right? [Jennifer] Our flesh will get in the way sometimes. [Aaron] Yeah, a lot. [Aaron] Especially in marriage, but- [Jennifer] All right, here's your third encouragement, Christian, okay, rise up and go to them to be present. What I was just talking about, like I'm sitting across the room or in the other room or like, I'm like, how do I help my wife right now? How do I fix this situation? And the Holy spirit says, go to her. So this is your call. So it's not just that we're told to do it, it's not just that you have the comfort given to you already to comfort others, but it's also you get up and you go, you, you do it. You don't wait for someone to come to you because we might have this thought, well if someone needs comfort they're going to come and ask for it, they're going to come and knock on my door and say, "Hey, I need to talk, I need to sit down and know that you love me, and that you're my friend. And I need to-" [Jennifer] Yeah, 'cause if, that's... Yeah, 'cause if we sit there and we say, I'm just gonna wait until they tell me exactly what they need, what are you off the hook? [Aaron] Well, I mean, this is, what's funny is like do we even do that? Do we go around and tell every single person exactly what we need? No, we don't. [Jennifer] So I'm going even tell you, I want you to read my mind. [Aaron] That's true. But you're in your marriage. I think there should be a lot more communication about this by the way. So if you need comfort, you should go to your spouse if you have it in you and say, I need to be comforted, or I just need you to listen or will you just sit next to me? Like I think... Now that doesn't get you off the hook, husbands if your wife doesn't do that, or wives if your wife or husband, if your wife doesn't do that. [Jennifer] Yeah, I think our hearts should be tender toward one another, and our eyes should be always scanning and seeing where's my spouse at? [Aaron] Right, but it wouldn't hurt for us to communicate more. [Jennifer] True. [Aaron] But we can't expect everyone outside of our marriage to be that way. So we have to have a willingness to get up and go. It's not easy. Here's some stories of this happening. Okay, Genesis 37:35, "All his sons and all his daughters Rose up to comfort him. But he refused to be comforted and said, no I shall go down a shield to my son mourning. Thus, his father wept for him." This is when Joe Joseph's father thought he was dead. And they all, they all rose up and went to him to comfort him. They didn't just sit back and say, "Oh, he's mourning in the other room." Now they got up and they surrounded him. 1st Chronicles, 7:22 "And Ephraim their father mourned many days and his brothers came to comfort him." They didn't comfort from a distance, they didn't sit back, let him go through what he's going through by himself, they got up and they went. [Jennifer] I was gonna offer to read this next verse, but I think I'm going to let you tackle it. [Aaron] Okay. Job 2:11, "Now when job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place. Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Namathite, they made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him." So this is another really cool thing. Now, if you've read job these friends don't do a great job of comforting, they do actually do a lot of what I would be prone to do saying how would they were wrong or like what they did, but what they do what they did do well is they came together as friends, and they said, "our friend is really going through something bad, we should go." And so this is just a note of sometimes it's appropriate to say, "Hey, we need to get some people together to go comfort this person, so they're not alone, so that they know that we're here for them." Make a little plan about it. Yeah. [Jennifer] That's really cool. The first verse you mentioned it says that he refused to be comforted. And I just had a note that because I think that's very human to reject or to resist comfort. I don't know why we do that, but I think everyone can agree. Maybe everyone that when someone does try to comfort us, sometimes our reaction is to refuse that or to reject it. We shouldn't get upset by this if we're the ones trying to comfort someone or our spouse, we shouldn't let rejection keep us from trying again or even trying with others. Don't let that become an excuse for why you're not continuing on and other opportunities. But I think that it's interesting that it did note that he said that. So I just wanted to make a little- [Aaron] Yeah, but what's awesome is someone can't have the opportunity to reject comfort if someone didn't go to comfort in the first place. [Jennifer] That's true. [ Aaron] I love that, let's not avoid going to someone 'cause we think there's no way they want to right now they wanna be alone, let's just leave them alone. Going to be there even if they reject you, at least- [Jennifer] They know you tried. [Aaron] Yeah, and also you give them the option, rather than they're just alone and there is no option. No one came to them, no one reached out, no one sought to comfort. And so going to comfort is right. And then rejecting it. shouldn't stop us from trying. [Jennifer] And we shouldn't reject comfort when someone's... 'Cause that's an opportunity that someone's trying to act in what God has said we should be doing, right? like the Bible says to comfort. [Aaron] Yeah, but in some cases especially with like mourning it's a process. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's true, that's very compassionate. [Aaron] We should try to receive comfort, but sometimes where you could be in a really deep mournful state. [Jennifer] All good things to talk about. [Aaron] Going to the next thing, what is the appropriate response? Right, so you, you brought up helping someone is like taking off the edge. You can't bring the person back from the dead, you can't take away the cancer, you can't change the circumstance, but you can soften the blow. [Jennifer] Yeah, but that doesn't just mean that when someone's in pain, or going through a trial that you insert a funny joke, or you know what I mean? [Aaron] Are you sure? That's a great way to like someone's hurting really bad, you make a joke and laugh. [Jennifer] Maybe it depends on the person, but you should be mindful of the person, you should be mindful of your spouse. Discerning, yeah. Yeah discerning, that's a good word. [Aaron] Which is what I was talking about at the beginning is... And a lot of people have these responses, when someone gets hurt, I actually used to do this, when someone would get hurt, I would laugh about it. You've talked about that before. And so we have these kind of natural fleshly responses that just for whatever reason how we were raised in our DNA- [Jennifer] What did it do or how to understand it. [ Aaron] But learning and asking the Lord to teach us what is an appropriate response? It's good to go comfort, we want to do that, but we got to ask, we just got to ask for that discernment, because we can have the right heart and bring the wrong response, which is something that I keep going back to. This is how I've been, I might want to, but then I to say the wrong thing. I'm trying to prematurely cheer someone up, like you said, the joke, I'm trying to push someone to move on from where they're, what they're dealing with, which is something that I would tend to do. Like, hey- [Jennifer] When there really is a process. [Aaron] Well, I skipped the whole process, which doesn't care about the other person at all, what it does is it cares more about my discomfort with this person's suffering. Talking too soon, which is something I struggle with, 'cause I want to just fill that, that like, let's just figure it out, let's talk. [Jennifer] I love you still. [Aaron] Romans 12:15 says: "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." This gives a picture of walking with what someone's walking through with them. Someone's weeping for something. If they're weeping over a lost child, over a over sickness over just you name it, there's lots of things to weep over in this life, We don't just come in and be like cheer up buck. And you know, like, we should break.... Our hearts should break with them. When someone's rejoicing, rejoice with them. This is probably another conversation. But this is something that plagues the church I think sometimes is when someone gets some sort of success or something to rejoice in, we might get jealous. [Jennifer] So there's a lack of rejoicing for one- [Aaron] Yeah, I don't wanna rejoice with them 'cause like why didn't I get that? Or why are they being raised up? [Jennifer] So that played the church, but I think that it's more just the worldwide thing, it's a flesh thing. [Aaron] But if someone is winning, someone's successful, or if someone's has a praise report, if someone is having success in an area that you wish you had success in, or is having freedom and an area that you don't have freedom in, or like these things, like rejoice, they're part of the church, rejoice for them like that is so praise God. It also keeps us from that just contentment and Jealousy. [Jennifer] Another verse that we wanted to share with you guys today is Ecclesiastes 3:4 starts, and seven. It says: "A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to tear and a time to sow a time to keep silence, and a time to speak." [Aaron] Yeah, and Ecclesiastes was written by the wisest man that ever lived. And he just talks about this idea of what time is it? Is it a time to weep with someone? Is at a time to laugh with someone? Is it a time to mourn with someone? You know, tear, like, are you pulling up that, you know, the plants are you planting, sowing, the seeds, are you to be quiet, are you to speak? And so there's these... We can look at the situation and say okay, what role can I play right now? How should my heart be in this situation? Proverbs 25:20 puts it this way: "Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day and like vinegar on soda." That idea behind this verse is singing songs is a great thing. But when you go to someone with a heavy heart and you try and seem to like artificially cheer them up, it's doing what I just, what I said a second ago is you're overlooking that person's heart altogether. [Jennifer] Yeah, there's no care. [Aaron] It likens it to taking off a garment on a cold day. So like someone's cold and they've got their coat on and I go rip their court off. And they're like, what? So you, you take away comfort. You don't- [Jennifer] Add to it, yeah. Did anyone else think when you said like vinegar on soda, the volcano experiment? [Aaron] That's what that does, it forms up- [Jennifer] Like they've been doing it that long. [Aaron] The word would be agitate. The last thing someone who's going through something needs is to be agitated. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] I'm sure everyone listening, knows someone like that, that every time you need some comfort they know how perfectly out of agitate. [Jennifer] Okay, so earlier when I had mentioned, you know this idea of taking the edge off of pain and how it means to alleviate, I said that it reminds me of lifting up. What if it's like lifting up a huge stone off their shoulders so that they can breathe a little better? Is that a good picture? [Aaron] Yeah, and that's a great analogy. [Jennifer] It's like lifting the burden of the hard stuff off them which you've done for me plenty of times. [Aaron] Right, and we have this list of the things that you there's times for. Sometimes it's sitting quiet with someone, sometimes it's encouraging what the word of God and advice, sometimes it's listening and not talking. [Jennifer] Sometimes it's giving them a thoughtful gift that comes with a sweet message. Sometimes it's watching a couples, children so that they can go have a date night and talk it out themselves. [Aaron] Yeah, lifting that Like, Hey, there's these responsibilities, how can we take some of these away? So they can go through what they're going through with less. [Jennifer] Sometimes it's offering to drop off groceries for them, so they don't have to worry about that. [Aaron] Sometimes it's cleaning the house for someone for your spouse. I love that you like lifting that load off their shoulders. [Jennifer] Sometimes it's a text reminding them of who they are in Christ or sending them a scripture verse. [Aaron] Sometimes it's a bouquet of flowers sent to their house. Sometimes it's a bag of goodies dropped off at the door. I like that one by the way. [Aaron] It's actually happened to me quite a few times. And I really appreciate all of you. Actually, I mentioned it once in "Wife After God" pure joy, great chapter, go check it out. And it just happened recently. [Aaron] That was a good goody bag. We have some good goodie bag dropper offers. [Jennifer] Maybe we should do an episode of just like how to put together a good goodie bag. [Aaron] That's true. [Jennifer] Okay, I'm so sorry. Sometimes it's a phone call just to hear their voice. [Aaron] And then sometimes it's a prayer. And I would say always a prayer sometimes said out loud [Jennifer] Like sometimes all of these and then always a prayer, always a prayer. [Jennifer] I think they get the idea. You know, at the beginning of this episode, I quickly said marriage is so awesome. It really is you guys, I hope you agree with me that marriage is awesome. But it's such an intimate relationship. What a gift We have to share with someone who can comfort us when we're at our lowest and Aaron, I can attest to this, you have comforted me at my lowest, and I hope that I've been that for you. [Aaron] You have, yeah. At least, I think that this is what marriage was intended for, right? To lift other up and to comfort one another for some. And at times Aaron, we were, this couple were the 'cause of our hard time was, was our marriage and our marriage. It was each other getting in the way. And we had friends that stood by us, friends and family who stood by us and comforted us through it. If this is you listening right now, this is where you are, I just wanted to say that we're truly sorry. And understand that this kind of pain. The pain that comes from a marriage, that's struggling. And we hope you will find comfort in this verse that I'm gonna share. Paul is talking to believers but this is our prayer for you today. And it's Romans 15:1-7, "We who are strong, have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let each of us pleases neighbor for his good to build him up for Christ did not please himself. But as it is written through approaches of those who reproached you fell on me, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord, with Christ Jesus, that together you may, with one voice glorify the God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God." [Aaron] Yeah, I love that verse for couples that are going through this because the reminder is that, the God of endurance and encouragement grants them to live in such harmony with one another in accordance with Christ and so that they can, again like the God of all comfort, we talked about, that they can be comforted knowing that even though they're going through these difficult times, they themselves individually can run to Christ, be comforted by him and know that his heart is that they would walk in harmony. And that is what they should be praying for, Harmony. [Jennifer] And the comfort that we receive from Christ and the comfort that we receive from others does produce within our hearts and our minds this hope that better days will come. Even if circumstances don't change, even if the trials are still hard even if the pain is still prevalent, because of loss or or whatever the reason is, we have hope. Because we talked about this on the first episode of the season, and we have hope in Christ. We have hope for what's coming right? [Aaron] Yeah, and we should keep our eyes on those things. [Jennifer] So as husbands and wives, let us be quick to comfort one another during hard times. Let us lay down our lives and love for each other. Let us be slow to speak, quick to sit, fully present a good listener. [Aaron] Yeah, and let us walk this life out in humbleness. And when those feelings of insecurity and uncertainty or fear of rejection, rise up, be quick to push them away. We need each other. [Jennifer] Wait, I think you need to repeat that last line. We need ourselves know each other. [Jennifer] We need each other in marriage. [Aaron] We do. [Aaron] We need each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. [Aaron] And most importantly, we need each other to point each other back to Christ. like that's the most comforting thing we can do is constantly be praying for the other person in their walk with the Lord, in their mind being reminded of the truth of the gospel. It's the most comfort we can get is pursuing that. [Jennifer] And as we do, our eyes and our hearts need to be open. I'll say this, our eyes need to be open. And our hearts may be tender toward one another and take every opportunity. God gives us to comfort one another especially in our marriage relationship, and as we do this you guys, the greatest part is that God is glorified. [Aaron] Yep, and we can cover it because we've been comforted, so don't forget that. Hope that was encouraging to you. As always, we end the episode as always this season, I should say, we end the episode with what we're grateful for. [Jennifer] It might end up being a permanent thing. [Aaron] It might, yeah. Because we want to encourage you to be grateful for everything. [Jennifer] And we know that you are grateful but to acknowledge it and to vocalize it and to share it with someone that you know, and love. [Aaron] So we'll be grateful people, who know how to comfort each other. [Jennifer] Let them know what you're grateful for. [Aaron] I'm grateful for my children. They're so full of energy and life often more energy than I have. That's probably why I'm so tired. They love to have fun. Especially when we get down on the rug our new rug that we talked about, the one that's comfortable in my knees and wrestle and play with them. They're just awesome. I honestly thank God for them, they're so amazing. [Jennifer] I love them too. I'm grateful for modern technology. I realized that I have a great appreciation for my washing machine and dishwasher and just all the things that I get to use that have just been really awesome in my life. I was sitting on the couch the other day and I had a busy day with the kids doing school and playing and cleaning up after everyone. And I could hear the wash machine going. And I just thought, man I can't fathom everything that we did today and having to hand wash clothes. And so I just was really grateful that I have those ICM is a luxury. Like I, I never want to be blind to the provision that God's given us. And I'm just really grateful for those kinds of inventions. I think they're really cool. [Aaron] Yeah, so thank you to whoever invented the washing machine. [Aaron] As usual, we end our episodes in prayer. So would you pray with us, dear Lord thank you for comforting us in our affliction so that we may comfort others. We pray for the creativity and confidence as we comfort those around us, please us of how you desire to comfort others. Please show us thoughtful ways of showing our compassion. We pray we would be slow to speak and quick to listen. We pray we'd be quick to comfort one another in marriage protect our marriage in this way, that we would be comforters for each other. Help us to alleviate the burdens that bring us pain. May you be glorified as we choose to comfort others in Jesus name? Amen. We love you all. Thank you for joining us on this episode. We just ask if you haven't done so, would you leave us a review? And also would you be our share warriors and prayer warriors? Would you share this episode with a friend send him an email, send a text message share shared on social media. Would you just help spread the word about this podcast with someone, you know we love you and we'll see you next week.

We start season 4 off by sharing the story of our first home birth. READ TRANSCRIPT[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.[Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.[Aaron] And today we're gonna share our first home birth story. Welcome to the marriage after God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.[Jennifer] I am Jennifer, also known as unveiled wife.[Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as husband evolution.[Jennifer] We have been married for over 13 years.[Aaron] And so far we have five children under eight.[Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over nine years through blogging, social media and writing over 10 books.[Aaron] With a desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.[Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life...[Aaron] Love.[Jennifer] And power-[Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God.[Jennifer] Together.[Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together.[Jennifer] This is marriage after God.[Aaron] Hey everyone, welcome back to Marriage After God.[Jennifer] Season four.[Aaron] We're on season four. Yeah, this is crazy.[Jennifer] Awesome.[Aaron] We've had a lot of episodes, but we're back for season four. So if you're tuning in, welcome. If this is your first time, we're so glad that you're here. Listening to the Marriage After God podcasts. We pray that it's an encouragement to you and a blessing, but if you've been listening for a long time, welcome back. We're so excited to have you here.[Jennifer] Hi everyone.[Aaron] Yeah, and we're recording this in our garage as usual and it's still locked down season. And I know that a little interesting for everyone. It's interesting for us. Jennifer, have you had any thoughts about the season we're in with lockdown COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented times.[Jennifer] Yeah, I mean, I've had some thoughts about it. I think what's been really a blessing is that we've been in postpartum season, so we had our baby and so we would have been kind of having a low key life anyways right now. Just with me resting, nursing is always usually an issue with our kids. Baby Edith had a tongue tie like several other of our children. And so the first couple of weeks was just basically me and her figuring that out. And so-[Aaron] I do feel like though we started self quarantine earlier because we were leading up to having the baby and then all of this stuff happened right around the same time as having the baby.[Jennifer] Yeah. I would say this we had a really good distraction from what was happening in the world. And so now we're kind of like coming up out of that we just hit the six week mark after having the baby. And I think the most important thing has been for me has been to communicate with you in navigating this pandemic and what the world looks like these days. And it gives me peace, being able to talk to you. It gives me a bit of relief and just knowing that I can share my thoughts, my concerns, whatever that I'm going through with you. What would you say?[Aaron] Well, same. We've been having a lot of conversations about it. We've also had a lovely conversation with our kids. It's kind of hard to like hide it from them cause why can't we hang out with our friends? Why can't we go out? And we're like, "Well, there's a lot of things going on the world." which is going on.[Jennifer] And as an encouragement to parents, I think it's so important that we really understand that our kids lean on us for security and support, especially in times like these. So when they have these big questions, we should be answering them. If they see us being able to have peace and hope and joy amidst the chaos it will give them guidance on how they can respond in times like these. if they sense in us fear and anxiety over the situation, then that could also influence them. So I think as parents, I think it's really cool to see that God has given us an opportunity with our kids to help them navigate this whole thing. And I think it's good for us to engage in conversation with them. It doesn't mean we have to explain everything, especially we can keep it age appropriate. But just being able to willing to have conversations with them.[Aaron] Well, and also being honest with them and letting them know that sometimes we don't have the answers. Like we don't know the appropriate way to respond to all this. We don't know exactly how this is going to turn out. We don't know... Like we just, there's a lot of answers we don't have.[Jennifer] And then we tell them, but our trust and our hope is in God. And so it's another opportunity to point them back to God and encourage their hearts to be able to trust God and I don't know, just to be able to move forward still in life and know that he has us.[Aaron] Yeah, and it's also been good to, I feel like in America we have a lot of comforts and this has shown us how dependent we might be on some comforts. And also brought us to a point that one of the other benefits to this is reminding us of our need for Christ, our need for his peace, his satisfaction, being satisfied in him alone. So one thing we've been trying to encourage our children, whether we catch it or not, whether we are always healthy, we don't know how this is going to turn out. We encourage them to know that God is good. God has us, he knows his plans for us and that we can't control all of those things, but what we can do is look to God who's in control.[Jennifer] Yeah, Aaron, you brought up comforts and especially living here in America. However this whole thing has also allowed us to see how people might be struggling. So you use the word comfort, but I also want to just mention that there's a lot people who've been greatly impacted by this whole thing in a negative way in a lot of different ways. So, I dunno if you want to speak to that.[Aaron] Well, yeah, we know that there's millions and millions of people that have lost their jobs. Some might not get them back. And so our hearts break for that situation. And we know that there's people that are sick. We know that there's people that are, that have other issues going on, that are not COVID-19 related and are having a hard time dealing with that. There's mental issues, there's abuse, there's a lot of things going on in this world that are being exasperated by this situation. And so-[Jennifer] As Christians, I think that we need to remember all of that especially if maybe we're in a different situation, but no matter what our hearts should be to be in prayer for everyone who's been impacted by it.[Aaron] And also been asking the Lord how we can be used.[Jennifer] Yeah, cause we're his body.[Aaron] We might know someone that needs some love, some reaching out, some help. And so we should be aware of that and ready for that. And we should be praying for each other. Praying for those that are going through hard situations and our prayers should not just be, "God, make their situation better."[Jennifer] Or even, "God let us go just back to normal."[Aaron] Right, because that's a thing that I have is like, "Hey, can we just go back to normal?" Our kids keep praying like God make this go away. They miss normalcy. But our prayer should be that hearts are softened. Hearts are turned towards the Lord, that people are brought back to the Lord, that people that don't know the Lord and find him, that families are healed and mended, that like these deeper things. That even if the body is broken, the spirit can be made whole. And so, yes, we should be praying for healing. Yes, it's good to pray for being taken care of financially and being taken care of in these ways. But right now, this is the time when man, the spirit of God catches hold of people. And so we should be praying that hearts are ready to receive. Hearts are open to hear the word of God are being watered and seeds are being planted. And that's, I mean, I don't know, more than anything. I want people to be saved in this time for eternity, not just for the season. So do you have any last thoughts on, I mean there's gonna be lots of thoughts.[Jennifer] I know we could probably do a whole episode on it. Two things. The first thing I was just thinking, if people are listening to this episode in the future. So like going-Yeah, after the-[Jennifer] After the fact, after all this has kind of settled down a bit. I just wonder what their thoughts would be just being reminded of this time. And then my other thought was just an encouragement and it's just for husbands and wives, it's an encouragement to be communicating with each other because no matter what your situation looks like right now you have someone right next to you who's going through it with you. And sometimes, I don't know those listening are like me, but sometimes I get caught up in my head where I'm having conversations in my head, even with you Aaron, and I'm like answering for you. But, then I realized I haven't actually talked to you in a couple of days about how I'm feeling or about what I'm thinking. So my encouragement is, especially in times like these that we are open and transparent and vulnerable specifically with each other.[Aaron] Yeah, I was also thinking, we are friends and families. Not being afraid to just come straight out and say, "Hey, how are you dealing with all this? "Hey, how's your heart? "Are you going through any sort of depression? "Is there any fears that you're like-[Jennifer] Yeah, are you okey?[Aaron] "that are just getting inside your heart." And just asking so that they can be maybe brought out of that darkness, maybe brought out of their shell and not be afraid to ask those questions. Cause I would imagine there's a lot of people dealing with hidden fears and anxieties right now.[Jennifer] And it's okay if you don't know how to answer them. It's okay if the greatest thing you can even say is I'm going to be praying for you or just stop and pray for them right then and there. But I think it was important that we just spend a little bit of time on that since this is such a huge thing going on in our lives right now. And our hearts go out to everyone. And we know this is just crazy, but God is good, like you said.[Aaron] And God's not surprised by any of this stuff. I just wanted to bring up a verse. James 1:12 says, Blessed is the the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Over and over again the New Testament speaks of steadfastness and continuing on and standing strong and standing firm. And I just want to encourage everyone, you believers out there, that we need to stand strong in the word of God and we need to remember who's got us, whose hand upholds us, who guides our steps and makes our paths and brings light into our life and it's God. And so we need to put our strength, our hope and strengths in him because they're not, and our hopes are not in the government. They're not in a vaccine, they're not in treatments, they're not in the, it just going away or those things are going to come and things happen, but we can't control any of this stuff. We just can't. And if we put our hope in those things that our hope is gonna fail. So let's put our hope in the only thing that's consistent, the only one that is a firm foundation and it's God and his word. And let's look to him for wisdom and guidance on how as believers we are to approach this thing that was going on. Cause he's the only, James also says, "If you lack wisdom, ask. "And we will be given wisdom as long as we do not doubt." And so let's ask him for wisdom. I need wisdom. We've been talking a lot about this man. Like how do we deal with all of these things? And we're definitely don't deal with it in fear, but we don't deal with it on our own strengths, our own wisdom. We lean not on our own understanding, but on every word, on God's wisdom. So that's what I just want to encourage everyone with is remain steadfast in these trials. And let's look to God for answers and our hope and for our courage and our wisdom.[Jennifer] And our peace.[Aaron] Oh, most importantly, our peace. So, that was just a bit of a encouraging word for everyone. We need it ourselves. I mean, he reminded ourselves, but I just want to invite everyone to, if you have children or if you're thinking about having children or if you're pregnant, we have something that we've created for you. It's a free resource and it's called the parenting prayer challenge. You can go to parentingprayerchallenge.com all one word and it's completely free to sign up and we will send you over the next 31 days, email with something to pray for and a reminder to pray for it. And it's pretty awesome. We've had almost a thousand people sign up for it and we would love for you to take advantage of it. We created it just for you. And man, it's an awesome thing and it reminds us as parents to pray for our children and there's awesome prompts in there to pray for all these different areas of your child's life. So yeah, we just, it's parentingprayerchallenge.com it's totally free and become part of the people that are going through that challenge.[Jennifer] All right, so today's topic is our first home birth story. No, it's not our first birth story. Obviously if you've followed us for any amount of time, this was baby number five. And, it's just kind of an interesting story and we're excited to share it with you guys.[Aaron] What's more interesting is that we actually fit every one of our kids and us inside of our explorer.[Jennifer] It's tightly, but it's good.[Aaron] It's tight. But that was just a fun little adventure that we figured out.[Jennifer] Aaron was surprised by that.[Aaron] I was a little surprised. They would fit without car seats. But the trick is as we have five car seats. We have actually we have-Four cars seats.[Aaron] four cars and two boosters or is it three car seats, two boosters.[Jennifer] Right.[Aaron] And just the way it's all arranged, we barely fit. It will be a lot better when some of them are out of their boosters. That'll make a big difference, but-[Jennifer] That's okay. Thanks for sharing. so the first four births were done in the hospital and we were happy with those experiences and we had the same, what's it called? It's not a goal. Same birth plan.[Aaron] Our plan was, we'd love to having children in the hospital, actually really love our local hospital here.[Jennifer] And food is so good.[Aaron] The rooms are just really nice and quite.[Jennifer] The people are so nice.[Aaron] It's been good. So we're not opposed to hospital births by any means.[Jennifer] No, we had that plan held in our hands. My whole pregnancy really, and the word changed that at the finish line.[Aaron] Pretty much, yeah.[Jennifer] And so it was our first home birth and I got gotta be honest, I was nervous. Even in the past I've been nervous to even consider a home birth, even though I know people and I've followed people online that have had them.[Aaron] And even though your pregnancies and labors have all been considerably like easy, not easy and-Easy is a funny word-[Aaron] It's safe, I should say.[Jennifer] Yes. Not emergency or anything.[Aaron] Nothing, you haven't had any big emergencies. It's like it just, it goes as planned usually.[Jennifer] Yeah. So anyways, I don't know. We just, we held our birth plan loosely as we believe people should and we submit it to the Lord. And really the last trimester is when all of the world started falling apart with the pandemic. And even more so in the last few weeks of my pregnancy. Protocols at the hospital started changing.[Aaron] They started limiting the number of people that could be in the rooms.[Jennifer] We started seeing a lot more articles online being shown stories of that happening. And I came home from one of my last appointments and I was sharing with Aaron these changes that had just been made and we were about to have our baby and I, there was a part of me that just was wondering what is the hospital experience going to be like? And we're just sharing some of our thoughts with each other.[Aaron] And we also, because a big part of this conversation is what was going on in the world. It wasn't just like whether or not we wanted to have a home birth. It was what is our, what does this situation look like for us amidst all of like the virus that's going around. And so we were discussing this and I just wanted to let everyone know that our number one discussion was, are we afraid? Are we gonna be in fear? Are we gonna make decisions or are we gonna be going into this with any anxieties? Because those are realities like, "Oh my gosh, we got to go to like the hospital, "which is where everyone goes that has, "that gets the virus." So that was a part of this conversation was. We are not going to be afraid regardless. Like whether we are going to be exposed or not. We want to have no fear. We want to trust the Lord because he does know what's going on, so.[Jennifer] Totally. Yeah, and also so everyone knows Aaron has been an advocate for home birth for several of my pregnancies. You would ask me like, "Hey, are you interested this time?"[Aaron] I've been pushing for a while.[Jennifer] But you've always been supportive too of what we've decided together. And so, when I came home from that appointment, I shared everything with you. And you suggested it again. You're like, "What about a home birth?" And I'm like, I kind of laughed about it. I was like, no, no, no, no. Like if I'm too far in my pregnancy that's crazy talk, I would have to adjust mentally and it just seems-[Aaron] And I would even be able to get a midwife. How is this gonna work?[Jennifer] It seemed impossible. And you were so hopeful and you're like, "Why don't you just call them and just see what's going on? "Cause maybe they've talked to other people about this." And so I made the phone call and no one answered. And I said, "See, okay, so we're not doing that."[Aaron] Did you leave a message?[Jennifer] Yeah. So by the end of that day, I had been praying and it had been on my heart just to consider both a hospital birth or a home birth. And the Lord gave me so much peace and I was okay with either one.[Aaron] And the same, yeah.[Jennifer] So when I said earlier about having an open hand, having my birth plan and an open hand and open heart, it was this piece that I had that was like, no matter what happens or how I give birth, it's the Lord.[Aaron] I actually remember, I think it was a, I don't know the exact date, but it was about a week before this. You posted a picture of the kids or something on Instagram and you wrote this beautiful thing saying, "Hey, here's my birth plan. "We want to do this." And you said, "but open-handed of course."[Jennifer] Yeah, it was an infant story and it was right at the bottom.[Aaron] And I said, but open-handed of course. And you had this whole idea. And it was before everything started getting really crazy. News-wise, but I remember you got someone messaged you and said, "Please don't have it at the hospital." Cause they were so concerned that's where you shouldn't be. And there were, it was so loving and so concerned. And we saw that and we're like, huh. But we didn't like talk about it.[Jennifer] I didn't think about it.[Aaron] But looking back on it, I was like, "Oh, that was kinda cool. "It was like open handed." Someone was like encouraging you in that direction, but.[Jennifer] So anyways, we were praying about it, but we hadn't heard back from the midwife and until the next morning. Give me some questions and I think they were just being really nice given the situation of what was happening in our world and our state. But because I had established care throughout my pregnancy, I didn't have any-[Aaron] There was no flags.[Jennifer] There was, yeah, there was no red flags, there was no problems or issues that I had throughout my pregnancy. My past pregnancies have been healthy and my labors have been fine and I haven't needed interventions or anything like that. And so they said yes and they were willing to meet with me that day.[Aaron] Which is they never do.[Jennifer] I just felt-[Aaron] They were willing to do this in this season for you.[Jennifer] Yeah. It just felt like an impossible situation that God just said, "Here, this is what I want you to walk through." And I got off the phone almost in tears because I then I had to tell Aaron that it was a go and I was, I was like, okay but like, yeah, this is, I didn't know, I was speechless really. I don't know how to explain that.[Aaron] Did you want not to tell me?[Jennifer] No, no, no, no, but I, and there was a part of me that was really excited, like I have never done a home birth before. Like how cool that I get to do this now. And then my next immediate thought was, "Oh my gosh, are we prepared for this?" Because I didn't know. I hadn't been researching about what to have for a home birth. So that, the next thing-[Aaron] I know is a little weird to think about. Like, what am I supposed... Am I supposed to have anything?[Jennifer] Yeah. So the other cool thing is that we didn't really need much. I felt like what I had like in my hospital bag and things at home already we were prepared for. There's just a couple of other things that you went out to get like an extra set of sheets and I don't remember.[Aaron] Some pillows and something like that.[Jennifer] I don't remember.[Aaron] The midwife give you a list of things. We had like 90% of the things on the list already.[Jennifer] Yeah. And they provided-[Aaron] There was only a few things I had to get. So that was pretty cool.[Jennifer] Then I had to wrap my head around it mentally and that just took prayer and me so many into God and saying, okay Lord, help me transition.[Aaron] Yeah, I think you mentioned a little bit ago that I've tried, I've been a proponent for home births and you said you don't know and I was okay with you doing hospital births, but I remember you saying like, "I'll do it when I have to."[Jennifer] Yeah like if something's gonna push me to do it, then I will. Like I'm not opposed to it. I just, I'm not ready for that yet.[Aaron] And I was like, "Maybe this is the thing making you have to," but it was perfect cause it was what you had committed to in your heart was like, "Well, when I have to, I will." And this was kind of one of those situations where I was like, we didn't have to, it would probably would have been totally fine, but we had the opportunity.[Jennifer] Well that's the thing is at the end of that day, I just knew I had peace that, or I'm sorry that the day before I knew that God would help us through no matter what we chose, whether it was home birth or hospital. And I had so much peace about it and I think that's why getting off the phone with the midwife, I was excited and okay and yet nervous about it.[Aaron] Of course yeah.[Jennifer] It was so neat that God provided a way for that. And so we started preparing for that. We started telling the kids we were cleaning the house, we were making a way for that to take place. And it was just a really exciting time for our family. A very short time.[Aaron] Yeah. Though the week prior, I was on maybe five days before we had the baby, I took the, we do have a chalkboard in our kitchen I did a little game with the kids and I said, I want, so who, what day do you think mom is gonna have the baby? And we started doing this voting and I would put down like, do you think it's going to be Monday? And it was like, leading up to the due date. And so everyone put their little dates down, even Truett voted. And I'm just bringing this up because me and Elliot were right. And so, we actually voted for the due date, which was the 20th.[Jennifer] I actually remember coming out and you explaining this whole thing to me and Elliot looking up at me going, "Mom, the reason I chose your due date is because 'you haven't had a baby on your due date yet." And he just thought that would be so cool.[Aaron] Yeah, and that's why we actually voted that because I feel like all the babies have been either right before or right after and it wasn't like way after.[Jennifer] Yeah, well Elliot, our first and Truett our fourth, were both due, were both born a day before their due date. Olive was three days past. And Wyatt was eight days past.[Aaron] Yeah, he was a big baby. But so we voted for the 20th, which is pretty cool because you were having like on the 19th, I remember you were kind of having some contractions but it didn't like go anywhere. And then the 20th, when did they start?[Jennifer] So I didn't have any, like I wasn't feeling any contractions the day before, but I just felt like it was going to happen soon. Like I could just tell my body was getting ready. But contractions started at about 1:30 in the morning, on her due date.[Aaron] Oh, that's what that, okay. It was 1:30 in the morning. That when it was.[Jennifer] Yeah. And they started and they were pretty close together. I mean seven, eight minutes apart, pretty consistently for a few hours. And then we got disrupted. Truett woke up, which he never does with a huge explosion, poop explosion. I'm trying to keep it clean here.[Aaron] It was horrible. It was all over his bed. It was all over him.[Jennifer] I've never had an experience like with having five kids now, I've never had an experience like this. So to be contracting and have that, I'm like, wait a minute.[Aaron] What time was that?[Jennifer] It was like five o'clock in the morning.[Aaron] It was early. So I'm up, like we're putting him in the bath and there's like poop everywhere. It was like, so gross.[Jennifer] So I told Aaron, you go lay in bed with him and since I'm up anyways, I'll do the laundry and-[Aaron] We couldn't put him back in his bed. It was like a war zone.[Jennifer] It was crazy. So now that you guys are all grossed out, I know. I feel like that just distracted my mind and body or maybe that's just the way it was supposed to be. But contractions kind of slowed down and were more sporadic. So it was like 11 to 15 minutes apart for a long time. I mean hours and I have a cute story, another cute story about Truett. This one's cleaner. About 10 o'clock in the morning I came out of the bedroom and Aaron had been hanging out with the kids and you left to go to the bathroom or something. And I started contracting. I had a big contraction and so I threw two pillows down on the living room floor and I was kneeling in front of them because I was gonna kind of try and either lay down or hold them. And Truett comes up and lays down on the pillows looking up at me and I'm just like on my hands and knees looking down at him. But I'm like trying to breathe through this contraction and he's just smiling. It was like a little redemptive moment for us, but it was sweet. So I labored all day at home. And one cool thing that I wanted to share with you guys is, the night before I went into labor, I was doing a little bit of research and just reading people's home birth stories that they've shared on their blogs. And I can't remember exactly who's I read, but she said this, she said, "Through every contraction "I used the opportunity to pray for someone else. "My husband, my children, friends." And I remembered that as soon as I started contracting and I said, "Oh, I'm gonna do that." I was determined. I was like committed to it, to this idea of prayer throughout each contraction. And it was such a beautiful experience. You guys, every time a contraction came, I would quickly think of someone who I would want to pray for my family, friends, really random things that, I kinda just like allowed the Lord to bring to my mind in that moment, whatever he wanted me to pray for. And so I would pray from the beginning of the contraction, throughout to the end. And not only was it a good distraction from the pain, but what a cool experience to use that opportunity to draw closer to the Lord and to lift up others. Like it was just, I recommend that for anyone going through labor. It was so beautiful.[Aaron] Yeah, it was actually beautiful to watch because you told me you're like, I'm using contractions to pray. And I was like, "Oh, that's awesome."[Jennifer] Yeah. What was actually even crazier was there was this one contraction that I was determined to pray for kids who during specifically this pandemic and stay having stay at home orders who have experienced abuse at home. And I had seen something on social media, maybe Facebook about this. And I hadn't thought about it before then. And so it stood out to me. And so, the contraction started and I started praying for these kids who are at home and possibly experiencing abuse. And as I was praying, you guys, the contractions started building up and becoming more intense and more painful. And it hadn't been like this in all the other contractions and it lasted the longest. And I just kept praying for these children. And by the end of it, I remember telling you, Aaron, that I felt like the Lord was showing me like almost like in relation to their pain, how bad my contraction was. It was kind of really interesting, but my heart just broke for that.[Aaron] Yeah, I think I remember you were crying a little bit in that one.[Jennifer] So, anyways, if you guys are pregnant or if you are gonna have a baby and you're thinking about contracting. I don't know, just remember this, pray, use that time to pray for other people. It's really cool.[Aaron] It's a similar experience to fasting. Like the point of fasting is when the hunger pains come on. When your flesh wants to be fed or to be consoled, we pray. It's the trigger point to pray. I wanted to just bring up a verse real quick, just talking about this whole experience because we have so many plans in life, we have this, we set in our mind how we want something to happen, how we want something to go. I mean, I don't think it was in anyone's mind that the world was going to change the way it's changing, but guess what? It changed. And things are changing every day. And, Proverbs 19:21 says, Many are the plans in the mind of a man but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. And so it's awesome. I mean, in this situation, we got circular, whatever your purposes, we want that to stand. We'd get, of course we have plans. We're going to make plans, there's many of them. But are we gonna be irritated when our plans get foiled? When our plans don't come true and we get blinded to see like, well, what is God doing? Like, God apparently wants something else to be happening right now. That's contrary to my own plans. And so when we can say, "Okay, Lord, like yes, we've made plans, "but what we want more is your purposes to be, to stand."[Jennifer] That's really good.[Aaron] So that's kind of what we saw happening here. And there's other things that God had in store for this, but I just wanted to point everyone back to God's purposes.[Jennifer] Awesome. So as my contractions progressed, they got a little bit closer together and, but nothing really was like showing us that delivery was soon. So this was probably around nap time. So I remember Aaron coming in the bedroom after he laid the kids down and, you just started praying for me and you weren't telling God what to do because we don't do that. But you were like, let's get the show on the road. I want to meet my daughter. And you were really excited for things too.[Aaron] Well, I remember you told me, like, you're not, you don't know why it's slowed down. You're like, I feel like we were getting somewhere. Cause we were, it was getting, they were getting closer and closer and closer and consistent. And then it was like, they just totally like tapered off and slowed down. They were still there, but, and you were just like, I don't know. And I was like, "Well, let's pray about it."[Jennifer] Yeah, and it was kind of a sporadic day, like a very, like when I think about my other four and I even told the midwives this, when I first met them that with my other four kids, once contraction started, they would-They don't stop.[ Jennifer] they don't stop and they just keep going. And then I have the baby and they're generally short labors and this was not like that. This was just different and-[Aaron] Maybe being home made you much more relaxed.[Jennifer] I don't know. I don't know what it was, but I do think this, something that was on my mind. And I remember sharing this with you after you prayed for me, was that I love end times, when we think about Christ return and all of that, and there's a verse, people probably know what I'm referring to, but it's in Matthew 24. And one of the disciples asked when the end of the age is going to come and Jesus goes off explaining the Wars and rumors of Wars and famines and all these things that are hard. And then at the very end, he said, all of these are, but the beginning of the birth pains. So they're like contractions and-[Aaron] He points out the world chaos as contractions, just like in labor.[Jennifer] Yeah, until the delivery of our King.[Aaron] Which showed off light and distant and they get more and more aggressive and closer together.[Jennifer] But sometimes they also slow down. It's kind of like, we get these moments of peace and everything's great. And everything in the world seems to be going fine. And then you get this really big contraction or you get this really painful one, or you get this really long one. And you're like, "Wow, this is not stopping." And so I felt like the Lord kind of gave me this picture with what I was physically and experiencing and enduring, with how sporadic the day was with my contractions and showing him a picture of the world and saying, sometimes it feels like you're about to have that baby. And then it slows down and stops. And there's this rest period.[Aaron] Well, and I wanna expound on that encouragement a little bit, because I think as the church at large, would it be valuable for us to continue to remember that we do have? The Lord is returning. And the things that he's shown us in scripture, like what we see going on in the world, the Wars, the rumors of Wars, the pestilence, the massive earthquakes, the volcanoes, all these things, like everything. Like the chaos in the world, there birth pains. And so it could look scary, but for the believer for the one who has our faith in Christ.[Jennifer] We know it's to come.[Aaron] There's something good coming on the other end. The Bible says, that in birth, the woman is in pain, but once the baby comes, she's forgotten the pain. And the point is of course you don't forget the pain, but the thing that you've been waiting for and going through the pain for is now here.[Jennifer] I think there's a version of the Bible that says that she's in anguish. Is not even just pain. It's like emotional and physical and it's draining.[Aaron] So church believers, we can look at the world and these things that we see going on the world shouldn't cause fear in us, it should bring us hope. And that's what even Jesus has. He says, I tell you these things that you might have hope because when we see these things, as the believer, we know what they mean. Just like when I see my wife going into contractions, I don't think, what's happening? I think, "Oh man, the more painful "and the more close these get together, "the sooner I'm gonna meet my daughter." And so even though it's painful and it's a struggle and it's a trial, it's temporary. And we even know that Paul says, "I know that our current struggles "are nothing to be compared with the coming glory." So I just want to encourage you believers out there that, the Bible, Jesus and the Bible gives us this idea of birth pains for a reason, because the example we get in birth of the contraction starting far apart, we get to look at the things going on the world and say, wow, the more that we see these, the closer they get together, it should turn our eyes up to look for our savior.[Jennifer] Yup. That's good. So, I feel like right after you prayed over me during that nap time, the Lord must have heard because things started picking up-[Aaron] Pretty quick.[Jennifer] pretty quickly. The contractions started getting closer together, more painful and just really the signs of labor were just all converging. And what was really cool was Olive's home. And so she got to participate. I remember so many times-[Aaron] Another benefit of having the baby at home.[Jennifer] Yeah, our four year old little daughter, almost five, was so thrilled to be able to participate in it. And she would, I would be on that big, the big bouncing ball, through contractions and she'd be sitting in front of me on my bed and she'd reach out and put her hand on my leg and encourage me. She'd rub my arms.[Aaron] Shoulders.[Jennifer] She'd look up at me and she go, "Mom, you can do this." Or she'd caught pretty much copy Aaron, anything that Aaron did, she'd do five minutes later. So she'd say, mom, she'd see a contraction coming. She goes, "Mom, just breathe." And then she breath with me-[Aaron] Yeah cause I kept reminding you like breathe, open your mouth.[Jennifer] Yeah, so that was really sweet. There was a handful of time. She prayed for me.[Aaron] What was that thing she told you? There was a moment as you got closer and you were just like, I think you said, I can't do this. Or I don't think I could do this. That's what it was. I don't think I could do this. What did she say?[Jennifer] She said, "You could do it, mom." I don't remember.[Aaron] It was really powerful. She was like, "You can do it mom. "And actually you have to do it the baby is coming."[Jennifer] Yeah. She's serious.[Aaron] She was good.[Jennifer] She's so funny, but such an encourager. And actually now she would love to be a midwife when she grows up after realizing what they do, handling mamas and babies all day.[Aaron] She wasn't freaked out by any of it.[Jennifer] No, she was such so strong. So yeah, things started picking up and I knew I was getting closer. So we called the midwife to come check on us and my friend Angie, who was going to be present at the birth. And another thing that I wanted to share with you guys is one of my desires from the beginning of this pregnancy was-[Aaron] Plans.[Jennifer] I mean, yeah. Was to praise my baby out. And I know it sounds kind of weird, but I've heard other phrases of like breathing the baby out or just letting your body kind of push the baby out. But my heart was that I would worship God throughout the whole experience. And I wanted to be like highly aware that I was able to do this during labor and delivery. And not only did Olive remind me to be singing very loudly because she was doing that. We had a specific playlist that we were playing and the songs like Waymaker and I Will Wait For You by Shane and Shane, like just some really great songs.[Aaron] Did you have in Christ alone in there?[Jennifer] In Christ alone, it was my Anthem throughout pregnancy. I just, I played that song every day. I just, I love that song and it was actually the song she was born too, which is really cool.[Aaron] It came on, and then-[Jennifer] She came.she came.[Jennifer] It was so cool you guys. And also Angie, cause I have a really close relationship with her. She knew this was a desire of mine. And towards the end specifically, I remember hearing her voice saying, "Jen remember to praise," like remember to sing, remember to worship and as hard as it was because I was giving birth and it's hard to even breathe at that time to be able to sing. It was like, my flesh was like, I don't want to do that right now. And then I heard the words of the song playing and I would just jump in and start singing. It was such a cool experience.[Aaron] I think you were singing it while you were pushing her out. Like it was that-[Jennifer] I was saying, "God you're good, " I feel so good."[Aaron] Yeah, it was pretty powerful and what's awesome is, another one of your plans and your heart's desire was to be like ministering and you wanted your labor to be a witness and a blessing to the nurses at the hospital.[Jennifer] I was just gonna say to the nurses at the hospital, it was one of my prayers throughout the pregnancy. I was praying for their hearts. I was praying for whoever was present at the birth to see God in it, whether it was in our relationship and the way we were interacting or in the actual birth. But my heart was that God would use this labor and delivery in a purposeful way in the hearts of those who were experiencing it alongside me, but what I didn't know was, I had been praying for the nurses and doctors. And then at the last minute we changed to a home birth.[Aaron] But God knew.[Jennifer] But God knew who was going to be there.[Aaron] And I remember that, I mean, you're singing worship songs. You're like are just the way we were interacting was really peaceful, really strong, really calm. And with our daughter there and just, I feel like the whole experience was very worshipful. It was really peaceful, really cool. And I know that it impacted the midwives that were there.[Jennifer] I hope so.[Aaron] First of all, they were awesome.[Jennifer] They were amazing.[Aaron] Really quiet, really calm like just really in control.[Jennifer] But also attentative.[Aaron] And attentative, yeah. And I remember afterwards, one of the midwives was saying, what did she say? We are truly honored to be a part of this. It almost looked like she's gonna cry. I don't know if she was or not, but it looked like they were truly like blessed if anything, by your labor, babe, like you did such a good job.[Jennifer] I praise God.[Aaron] Yeah it was awesome.[Jennifer] So little Edith joined us at five on the dot.[Aaron] Five o'clock yeah.[Jennifer] 5:00 PM on her due date with bright copper red hair. It's so beautiful.[Aaron] Yeah, we're praying really hard right now. And if you want to pray with us that she keeps that hair.[Jennifer] Oh, it's okay. It's just, all of our kids are blonde, so I'm assuming it'll change, but it's such a sweet color, especially in the side.[Aaron] Olive came out with really dark hair.[Jennifer] Yeah, it wasn't as red, but it was-[Aaron] It wasn't as red, Wyatt came out with like a-[Jennifer] Well, he was bald and so it was Truett.[Aaron] But its cute when it grew and it was a little red.[Jennifer] It was like a strawberry blonde. He's still kind strawberry blonde.[Aaron] But she is like, you were looking at it right now. It's super, she's super red.[Jennifer] She's sleeping. So anyways, all to say this, you guys, it was a really neat experience to be able to have a peaceful home birth. I thank the Lord that my past pregnancies and history was there. They were fine. And there was no interventions or-[Aaron] No complicated ones.[Jennifer] Yeah, there was no complications or anything like that. And that the Lord gave me the confidence to be able to say yes to this and that we were able to lean on each other, Aaron, to be able to do that.[Aaron] Do you feel like it was what God wanted?[Jennifer] I do. I feel like he had a plan from the beginning that he just didn't reveal to me until the end. Maybe he knew that's what I needed. I don't know.[Aaron] And we have no idea what God's doing in the hearts of those ladies that were with us and we need to keep praying for them because we don't know where they're at.[Jennifer] Or a daughter.[Aaron] Or a daughter. Yeah, But I mean-[Jennifer] I mean we know what's going-[Aaron] She's gonna become a midwife nurse.[Jennifer] She had all kinds of questions afterwards, but she just, she was thrilled to be able to participate in that way. I know it made her feel super special.[Aaron] So here's a question, probably all the pregnant ladies are thinking, would you do it again?[Jennifer] I remember texting a friend that later that night and she goes, so how was it? And I'm like, I'm a fan.[Aaron] Cause we have several people be like, "You can do this, you can do this." Cause we have a lot of friends that have done home births, almost all their kids, I think. And so they've been, they were really cheering you on another excited that you're like switched. And we know it's not for everybody.[Jennifer] But here, it's also something that I just keep telling myself as it's open. So like, even if we ever had another baby, I would be okay with having it in the hospital or at home. So it's just really submitting that to the Lord and saying, what do you want? This is for you.[Aaron] So babe I know there's probably a lot of women that are considering a home birth. If they've never had one before, how would you encourage someone who's already considering this?[Jennifer] Well for someone that's already considering it, I would just say again, pray about it and submit it to the Lord. Talk about it with your husband and do what research you need to do. All the questions that you might have surrounding it, go ask them, ask your friends, ask your care providers. Whoever's looking after you. But don't be afraid of it. I had a good friend tell me, like having a baby is not an emergency. It's a natural thing that God built our bodies to do.[Aaron] It's a good encouragement.[Jennifer] And we need to be able to trust that God's design works. Now there's a lot of cases out there where for whatever reason, someone needs to give birth in a hospital or someone needs an intervention and that's okay, too. So even for someone who's already planning a home birth or someone who desires a home birth, even they have to hold that birth plan loosely in their hands and submit it to the Lord and say, "God, what do you want from me?" And he might even change their plans to be a hospital birth. And I think the greatest thing is to just have peace no matter what that plan is and say, God, it's yours.[Aaron] Yeah, something I just want to remind everyone also is, and if you're not having caught it yet, we talk a lot about how our lives are to be ministry. It's not just like we have ministry over here. Like, "Oh, I work at this church "or I have this job over here. "That's some sort of ministry which no, those are bad." But when we realized that when Christ comes into us, when we have the Holy spirit, our life now is a ministry being poured out. We're being poured out into the world. We're lights set up on a hill. And so even in our home birth, we are doing ministry. Our life and the way we present ourselves and the way we react to each other and interact with each other and interact with the midwives and those around us is how the gospel is spread in the world. It's by our words and our actions, it's not by this thing set over here. And that happens once a week or every other week or once a month. It's everything we do. And if you're wondering what that looks like, ask God, say God, "How's my life? How is the things that we're pursuing, our labors, our work, our at home life, our schooling, our jobs, our everything? Our hobbies. How are we representing you everywhere we are? Because we are the body of Christ. Where we go, Christ goes. And so that's what we, our heart was for this labor. And it's what our heart is for this podcast, is what our heart is for our books, for our home, for our neighborhood. And so if you haven't thought that way, our parent hope is that your mind would be changed and that you would start to realize and recognize that every bit of your life is the Lords. And he desires it to be a offering to him. He desired, he calls us to be living sacrifices. And so, that's, what's amazing is we can be at home doing home birth, something that we don't need, didn't plan and say, "Okay, Lord, how are you gonna use this for you? "What do you want from us? "How can we participate in what you're doing "in the lives of those that are going to be here? "And also, what are you gonna do in us?" Cause there's a lot that God did in us, challenging us and changing our minds about things and showing us how to trust him more. So that was a little bit about our home birth story, which we think it's, God's story of course, all of our births. I wouldn't say this birth was any better than any of the other ones. Cause they all were amazing. I love meeting my children, but I did love a lot doing it at home. I really enjoyed it.[Jennifer] I really did too.[Aaron] So husbands out there, it was a pretty awesome experience if your wife is considering it, just know it's pretty awesome. You're home, it's more comfortable you're in your bed. If you have other children, they get to participate and see how it and know what's going on. And it was a really cool thing anyways. Yeah, that was our story, is there any last thing you wanna add?[Jennifer] I feel like, no, I think that what we shared was really cool and I'm, I just want everyone to hear me say that I love you and that I'm really proud of you. You're a really awesome support for me, especially during that time of labor and delivery and managing our other four kids during the whole thing. I just really love doing life with you and I'm excited that the podcast is back up and we're in season four. So I'm excited to be doing this with you.[Aaron] Awesome. Well, that was really nice. Thank you babe. I love you too and ditto and all of that. And bonus baby Edith this year and she is awesome.[Jennifer] She's doing really great.[Aaron] She's starting to smile and she's, I want her to cue a lot more, but she's just barely started.[Jennifer] She likes open's her mouth like she's gonna and then she just sit there and wait, she doesn't do it.[Aaron] She teases us, but she is so sweet. All right. We love you all. My hope that was an encouragement to you and a blessing. We're praying for you. We pray that God just moved mightily in your marriages and uses you for mighty things for his kingdom, wherever you're at. And during the season of chaos and craziness, just remember God's our peace and our hope.[Jennifer] And he is good.[Aaron] And he is good. And if you have been wavering in your faith in the Lord, I pray that you would just ran to him like, like you've never ran to him before and that you would surrender everything. He's the only thing worthy of giving your entire life to, and one day we're gonna be able to spend eternity with him.[Jennifer] One day soon.[Aaron] Birth pains.[Jennifer] Yeah.[Aaron] So-[Jennifer] We'll just pray through those contractions.[Aaron] As usual, Jennifer will you pray's out?[Jennifer] Dear father, you are the giver of life. Thank you for the gift of children. We pray we would have a deep understanding of children and we pray for a strong desire to bless the children in our lives. We pray, we would understand our purpose and role in raising children that know you. May our examples of life and marriage and everything show them the way that honors and glorifies you. Lord we also pray and ask for your peace to be in all of our hearts and in all of our homes, especially when the world seems to be lacking peace. Help us to be confident in trusting you for everything. In Jesus name. Amen.[Aaron] Amen. We love you all. If you haven't left us a review, would you take a moment and do that today? Those reviews help us rank in all the podcast apps and it also lets people know what the podcast is about and what other people think. If you have a lot to review, you are awesome. Thank you so much. Don't forget to get the, to take the challenge. It's parentingprayerchallenge.com. We talked about in the beginning of the show. We love you and we'll see you next week.[Aaron Voiceover] Did you enjoy today's show? if you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

FULL SHOW NOTES[ INTRO music]00:10 Aaron Weiche: Episode 19. Navigating the Unknown.00:16 Intro: Welcome to the SaaS Venture podcast. Sharing the adventure of leading and growing a Bootstrap SaaS company. Hear the experiences, challenges, wins and losses shared in each episode. From Aaron Weiche of GatherUp and Darren Shaw of Whitespark. Let's go.00:43 Aaron: Welcome to the SaaS Venture podcast. I'm Aaron.00:46 Darren Shaw: And I'm Darren.00:47 Aaron: And the way we usually start our episodes is just by catching up. What's going on? What's happened lately? 00:56 Darren: Yeah, what's going on, Aaron? What's going on? 01:00 Aaron: Well, it seems like we're all... Have been doing the same thing for quite a number of weeks now. And it's interesting, until COVID-19 and everything else, anytime someone would post the Bill Murray Groundhog's Day meme on Facebook, or Twitter, or something else, I just never gave it much thought. And, literally, the last... I would say for me the last 10 days, I absolutely feel that way. Like it is such a lather, rinse, repeat of the same day with such little variance, it's wild.01:34 Darren: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. My days are a little bit all over the place actually. I just keep working on different things and I'm getting pulled in many different directions right now. Things are changing quite a bit actually for me, I feel. Yeah. Things have been really up in the air and I feel a little scattered.01:51 Aaron: Well, I will take some of your variance. I don't know if it's my attitude, or my outlook, or whatever else, but it definitely doesn't feel like enough variance for me. And I think some of it is just other things that I enjoy, like conferences, and things like that, all shut off. Sports, right? It's baseball season and every night I love sitting down with my Minnesota Twins on in the background, and happily writing a blog post, working on a contract, whatever that might be, just getting some small things done while I'm watching baseball, and that diversion of sports for me, isn't there, and that leaves a big hole.02:38 Darren: Apparently, there is a huge surge in Marble Runs sports. [chuckle] Have you seen this? They've got a big table and you're watching the marbles race through a track. Massive surge in viewership there.02:52 Aaron: Can you bet on it? 02:54 Darren: Probably, yeah. Bet on the white marble.02:58 Aaron: I need those small sources of joy.03:00 Darren: You can start watching that while you're doing contracts and stuff.03:03 Aaron: Yeah? 03:04 Darren: Yeah.03:05 Aaron: Interesting, just as we were talking before and prepped some notes, we definitely have some things to walk through, but I think a great place to start is both of us being remote and to some extent work-from-home. Me not so much really work-from-home, but with having a separate office, but has it felt that much different for you? Family life, at home life, what's that been like for you Darren? 03:31 Darren: Oh, yeah. It's kind of weird really. Because there is the sense that we're not going out anymore, and so a bit of isolation. But it doesn't feel that different to me. I've run a remote company since 2005, I've worked from home since 2005, and so our entire way of working... The way that I work is completely the same. No changes here. The only thing is, I see the Sun a little bit less right now. I'm just in the house and not going outside really. We're not even going for walks really, because Jill and Violet, my wife and daughter, have had mild symptoms, so we're supposed to be really isolated. I've been getting out into the backyard lately, but basically, from a work perspective, it didn't change much for us because we're 100% remote. We've always been that way. How about you? 04:27 Aaron: Yeah, same for myself personally and the GatherUp team. I've only been remote the last five and a half... Almost six years now, but long enough to forget the days of commuting, and in-office, and everything else. So that shift wasn't that hard, where for the rest of our company, which I should drop in I guess really quick just because I'm trying to get good at my references. Our group of products that Alpine Software Group had purchased that are Aramark tech that we used to call ASG MarTech, we actually rolled out a full brand for. So now it's called Traject. Traject includes the seven companies, SocialTools, Cyfe, Authority Labs, ourselves, Grade.us, we're all under this Traject umbrella. So we launched that just prior to everything with COVID-19 taking off. And I need to make that note before I start saying things, 'cause I'm trying to get good in being part of re-brands myself. Re-training yourself on how you refer to things.05:28 Darren: For sure.05:29 Aaron: So, for the Traject team, there's about 60-70% of the team as an overall that's all in-office and located outside of Seattle in Bellevue. And so it was interesting to watch. That first week, especially, was a struggle for them in moving from a centralized office to remote work and many of them have not been doing it right, they're working from the kitchen table and things like that, and especially with having others at home, if your spouse works, they might be just 10 feet away, and they're working remote, right? And it's like... I don't have any of those problems, my wife stopped working last year, it's a little different at my house, I have four kids that are home all the time now, ages 4 to 16.06:15 Darren: Yeah. She's working. Oh, she's working hard. [chuckle]06:19 Aaron: Oh my gosh. And they've done fabulous with leaving me alone, and they know if the office doors are shut, to cool it with dad. And luckily, in the last two weeks, their distance learning e-school has fired up, and so that occupies anywhere from two to six hours of their day depending upon what's going on and everything else. So, yeah, same as you, I feel really lucky that things haven't changed that much. But, yeah, the same... My 10-year-old daughter just said to me last night like, "Dad, every like hour or so, I'm gonna come get you and just make you go outside for five minutes." She's like, "You're in that hole all day." And I was like, "Yeah, you're right. That would probably be a healthy thing."06:56 Darren: Once an hour though, that'd be tough. I don't know, how about every two hours? 07:00 Aaron: [chuckle] I'm gonna try to appease the troops. If they have a suggestion for me at this point I'm just gonna take it because, yeah, I feel for them and all the small things that they're missing out. My kids all love school, but man, they are just missing friends, and socialization, everything else.07:19 Darren: Oh, man. So much, yeah. I used to have a pretty closed-door policy with my office when Violet comes home from school and stuff the office is closed, you don't come in. But now it's like, she wants to come and say hi to me, I'm gonna stop whatever I'm doing, just take some time to chat with her, "Oh, what are you working on? What are you playing with these days?" And you just hear her stories and just spend that time, because she doesn't have any other social interaction. Gosh, neither do I, so it's like, "Yeah, go ahead, interrupt me anytime, come on in and we'll have a little chat for a few minutes and then I'll get back to work." I think it's the way it has to be right now.07:56 Aaron: For sure. My kids have siblings to play with. They're very blessed, they have a lot to do. We're not in a traditional neighborhood, it's a little more spread out, so there's a couple of acres for them to be outside and play on without getting into some of those things and whatever else, so I'm more fortunate than not on a lot of things. I think the biggest emotional toll on me is just, for however long now? 12 years, 15 years, everything for me professionally has been growth, success, constantly going up, right? You still have your small struggles and dark weeks, or months, and whatever else, but really, the overall momentum is always forward. And I've never been a part of something like this where that momentum has been pulled back and you go from this growth mindset to a survival and circle the wagons to some extent. And I think that's been the hardest part on my mood.08:52 Darren: Yeah, it's a real shift from, "Okay, we've gotta build all this stuff and do all these things and keep growing forward," to like, "Oh wow. What do we have to do to protect at this point?" So, yeah, that survival mode instinct has kicked in and, yeah, it's tough to have that shift, and it doesn't feel good. All that growth always feels good and that push for success, but, yeah, it feels bad to be like, "I'm gonna make these tough decisions now."09:21 Aaron: Yeah. And still trying to find the success within it. I was listening to the last weekend local podcast on LocalU and I think Blumenthal coined a term of "sur-thrival". So it's like, how do you find ways to thrive in surviving? 09:37 Darren: Yeah. Totally.09:38 Aaron: I instantly grabbed on to that and I was like, "Yeah, that's a great way to refer to it. I totally agree."09:43 Darren: Yeah, and I'm seeing it actually, I'm seeing lots of opportunities in my business to thrive a little bit. And so we're trying to put in some defensive moves just to make sure that we can ride it out and some offensive moves. And so, I don't know, I'm feeling okay about it. The dust is starting to settle from the first few weeks of it really getting crazy and just starting to settle into this new way of how we're gonna operate, this new economy, and identifying the markets that are opportunities.10:14 Aaron: Yeah, for sure. And I agree with you, it's like there's a first big tidal wave where there was a lot more panic, less information, nothing had really been settled into, and I feel like this week, I feel like that wave has come, crashed, and it's now pulled back out. I think there's gonna be more waves, maybe not as big or aggressive, but it is starting to get a little different and a little more than norm.10:42 Darren: Yeah, and it's kinda like... That's happening for me, I have that feeling that, okay, well, those first few weeks I was just scrambling trying to figure out, "Okay, what the hell are we gonna do?" And I couldn't really focus on all of the regular operations. I was busy filling out government relief applications and sorting out all this kind of stuff. And so, I feel like, while that's happening for me, it's also happening for every other business in the world, where we're starting to kinda, "Okay, the dust is settling, now let's get back to business." It's like, what does the new business look like? What does the new way of operating look like? And all those businesses are gonna start coming out of the woodwork again and the economy will pick up. Sales have been super quiet, but we're starting to see more leads come in now as people are looking at alternatives to whatever else they're using.11:33 Aaron: Yeah. You just stated about five different things I wanna break down. One thing that you kind of mentioned, I know from you and I, we've both been talking professionally, we've also talked as friends during this, just 'cause you need that support in those outlets, but I know you've had to make some hard decisions around your business, and Whitespark, and some employee moves. What has that been and what does that look like? 12:01 Darren: Yeah. So once this all came out and we started realizing what a massive impact it's gonna have on the economy, we had to look at our expenses. Where are our expenses, what can we cut? So the first thing of course was to just take an axe to my credit card statement and be like, "What can I cross off here? What due is absolutely not essential? So we did some major cuts there. It's kind of crazy, I cut like $5,000 in monthly expenses off my credit card. And after I did it, I was like, "Well, dang, why didn't I do that a year ago?" It's just like so much.12:30 Aaron: You weren't forced to.12:32 Darren: Yeah, I wasn't forced to. It's like you kinda get into this. "Okay, well, finances are good, and yeah, those services are pretty good, but are they that essential?" And so I was able to do some pretty good cuts there. And then of course the next most major expense for our company... We don't have an office, we don't have a lot of overhead, it's really labor. So there were a couple of layoffs. One was on the development side, another one was on our GMB management team. We were actually in a pretty good growth mode with the GMB management team, where we were bringing on about 10 to 15 new clients every single month. And so we had just crossed that threshold where we're like, "Okay, well, we need to get someone hired and trained in order to meet that growing demand." And so we had just hired somebody and she had taken on a handful of clients right when this hit. And so we knew that that one was gonna start backing off, we were actually gonna start losing clients, so we had to make a lay-off there.13:38 Darren: It's really sad. She was amazing. We'd love to hire her back as soon as we can. So, once we can, we would love to hire her back. So a couple of layoffs and then another thing is that the government of Canada introduced what's called a work-sharing program. I think they always had it, but they loosened up some of their guidelines around it and made it easier to get into it. So we reduced hours with the team across the whole Canadian team and just to the point where they could still maintain all of their health benefits. So they still get all their health benefits, they reduce their hours by about 37%, and then the government work-sharing program tops that up for them. So it actually doesn't have a huge impact on them, it shouldn't be too bad, but it results in pretty significant payroll savings for the company. So all of those things are the defensive moves to make sure that we're shoring up some resources in the bank, because honestly, Whitespark has been in this growth mode where we've been running the line, where certainly we've been profitable, but it's not like we had millions in the bank or even hundreds of thousands in the bank.14:50 Darren: We were always like, "Okay, once we have enough more revenue, we hire somebody else," we'd have more expenses, we'd expand our servers. As a Bootstrap company, I think that's just what you do, you continue to grow your resources and your ability to build faster as you get more revenue. And so that's certainly what we're doing. So we didn't have this huge cushion. So my defensive measures were to try and create a little bit of that cushion, so it was tough. What was it like for you? 15:23 Aaron: Yeah. Well, one, I commend you, because those are hard decisions and just so many decisions in this are all about the balance between short-term and long-term effects. You make difficult short-term decisions to survive long term. And it's so important, I and we, the company, have definitely benefited from being part of a larger org within this. So, let's just say, as I commented to you, if GatherUp hadn't sold and we were still all by ourselves, I will say we had cash reserves for three months of zero income and 100% of our burn rate to be able to pay bills. We had done a good job of always investing our growth, but we always looked at... We definitely put money away when we were doing well within our growth and created a little bit more margin to have... Whether it was something like this, a crisis, economic downturn, or an opportunity where we were like, "Oh, if there is a small product, or a small team, we can purchase... " Or whatever else we wanted, to have at least a little bit of cash on hand.16:36 Aaron: But even within that, if it was just me and running the company, we would have made similar moves to what you did. There probably would have been... Obviously, the first thing is analyze every cost, cut everything out that isn't necessary, but then, just with about any company, bodies are your most significant expense. And, yeah, we probably would've at least had to make one, two, possibly even three moves, depending upon how we saw it, just to ensure that everything else was in the best position possible to survive at least a three-month if not a six-month economic winter of what we're just starting to get into.17:18 Darren: That timing, it's so unknown. That's the big thing, is this uncertainty, right? It's like, okay, we're seeing some drops, it's not that significant, but who knows, maybe in three months the US economy is gonna be so shut down because of this virus that we're in huge trouble. So if there's no spending happening anywhere, then some of the services and software that we provide will certainly get cut, and so it's trying to make sure that you can weather the storm. And that's what I think we've been trying to do. And it's nice that you're in that position. The timing actually of the acquisition really worked out in your benefit, certainly for the founders, and also, I think, just having that huge strong umbrella above you that can help protect from some of this, is really a nice place to be.18:10 Aaron: Yeah, no, who would have known? No way to tell, but yes, this scenario, it just shows you how much timing is a part of everything in life. So many different angles with it. But, overall, I really feel like Traject has done an awesome job. One is very early communicated the position of the company, the financial health of the company, and that they were already in talks with... We've talked before... There was a couple of layers between the very top level of the company down into the group we belong to. So immediately, there was strong communication, hit upon things that people would be most concerned about, and delivered a lot of good messaging there. And really, overall, the company just kept reinforcing, people first. This is tricky. Take care of yourself first. We want you to be emotionally and physically healthy, that comes first. If you're taking care of that, then we'll get at working and keeping the company healthy and all that kind of stuff.19:12 Darren: Right. For sure.19:14 Aaron: We basically have weekly AMAs with the exec team with Traject. So people are able to ask, "What's changing? Do you see anything different? What other decisions have you made?" So, just a really quick and easy way for whatever is a concern for people to hear that, and also for others, instead of those happening one-to-one in an email to the CEO or whatever else, everybody's able to hear it asked out loud and hear the answer to it, which I think...19:28 Darren: I love that. Oh, man, I'm gonna do that. I've been doing a weekly call with my team, but I always have a weekly call anyways, where I try to communicate the current health of the company, what's been happening in the company, what we're seeing in terms of our revenue and our different lines of business. So try to communicate that and be clear about that, but the AMA thing is a really good thing. I often get questions after the call, like people will just ping me on Slack, and I think it'd be really helpful for everyone to have that, and just, "Okay, that's the end of my spiel, now let's get into the AMA portion of the call." So I really like that idea and I think I'm gonna open that up for Monday's call.20:18 Aaron: Yeah, no, I think it makes people feel more comfortable. Everybody hears the same questions and the same answers, which is also great. And then lastly, they just put together a really good prioritization on, "This is what we're doing first. This is what we're doing second. This is what we're doing third," so the same things that we've just discussed on reducing expenses, different allocations, looking at this. And at the bottom of their list is, if these things don't work based on where things are at, then we potentially look at a percentage of salary cut across the board. And then, if that didn't work, then yeah, we'd have to look at the elimination of some positions. But the great thing, I think, it lays out is, one, it helps people understand the playbook that they're operating off of, which allows everyone to buy into the strategy. Two, it really helps them understand, there's a whole bunch of things before that comes on the table, and the thing I keep preaching to our team is, the thing to be grateful for right now is you have some control over this. We have our jobs, we have our personal income, and doing productive work is such a healthy thing right now.21:27 Darren: For sure.21:28 Aaron: Yeah. And a great distraction, and do what you can to not be paralyzed, or inundated, or overwhelmed, by all of this that's there, and focus on your work, because being successful with what you are doing is gonna contribute to the survival and some success inside of this, and making it to the other side. So when you get into that high level of like, what can you control and what can't you control, well, we can't control the economy and what happens to our customers businesses in full, and all of those kind of things, but we can control how well are we doing at our job, are we doing the right things that are needed to survive right now? Are we doing everything we can to help our customers so we're contributing to their survival? Those are all positives that I've personally worked hard to remind our team. Like, "Be grateful for that and let that gratefulness, and what you have, be the passion into what you're doing right now, in a difficult time for some to find that motivation."22:26 Darren: Yeah, totally. There's so much value in that. When I have a a really productive day in the office, you feel good about it, right? So it's a nice thing that people can lean on when things seem so bad. Being able to take your mind off of the struggles of the world and the stress of the uncertainty of what's gonna happen with this virus, and all the health concerns, and being able to just put your head into some work for a while and get that sense of accomplishment. I find a lot of value in that and I think it's a great thing to communicate to the team.22:58 Aaron: Yeah, you're exactly right. I've said multiple times in communication with stuff where we've elevated something very small and then pushed it out to everyone on our weekly stand-up or Slack, or both, whatever, is like, "No win is too small right now. Celebrate the smallest thing like it is a Super Bowl championship right now, because it's so important for the psyche and for your emotional well-being professionally," right? 23:26 Darren: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, it's great stuff. I'm gonna work on implementing some of that with my weekly calls too.23:33 Aaron: Nice.23:34 Darren: Yeah.23:35 Aaron: The next thing, I think, for us, the big shift almost immediately was just really realizing and I think all companies, especially SaaS, is in this boat right now, it's like, retention is absolutely the name of the game right now. Just as you said. And the same for us, leads, sales opportunities, whatever else, are like, I don't think they're even 10% of what they were in January, February, and early March.24:01 Darren: Right. That's amazing. I would say, if I had to guess in terms of leads for us, it's probably down only maybe 50%. Yeah. So our leads are actually still pretty solid. We're actually seeing quite a few people looking at cutting ongoing recurring citation services. So, let's say we're using Yext or Moz Local, or some of these other services, they are looking at our one-time offering and saying, "This is a much better way to go for citation management." So we're actually seeing pretty decent leads there, and then our software leads are... I'd say they're down about 50%.24:43 Aaron: Yeah. Do you feel like some of those people are looking like, "Okay, I want something around this service, but I want a more cost-effective solution?" And is Whitespark that compared to those. So you're gonna see some trickle down from those.24:54 Darren: I think it's exactly what I'm seeing, and I think also, on the software side, we're quite reasonably priced, and so I feel like a lot of people that are with more expensive solutions are looking to us. Or let's say they had to cut a $3000 a month SEO engagement with a good firm, and so they're like, "Okay, we're gonna take this in-house and now our marketing director has to manage some of this," and they're like, "Okay, local search software," and then we come up. And so I think that's where we're starting to see some of this. It's like people cutting expenses elsewhere and then finding us 'cause we are generally more cost-effective.25:33 Aaron: Yeah, that's awesome. I think that can be a big win. A forced changeover. Just the same as you analyze your credit card and like, "Why am I paying for this," or "What can I do," right? When people are doing that, and then you are positioned that way, that can definitely be a great migration from competitors to you at this time, which is awesome for you.25:57 Darren: Yeah. So we're actually... As part of our offensive moves, is we're putting up some landing pages that are specifically around that and we'll start marketing those.26:05 Aaron: Excellent. Yeah. With that stuff I always think of... I used to... Back in the day when... Building and running, maintaining websites, has worked with a lot of banks, and they would do a lot of campaigns on switching. Just like, "Here's what it's like to switch your checking account from Wells Fargo to us as a community bank."26:22 Darren: Oh, man, that's a great idea.26:26 Aaron: Yeah, just really laying it all out. So they're able to see like, "Hey, here's what's different, here's how we handle it, here's what we need." And just making it so that the consumer felt really comfortable with like, "Oh, this switch happens a lot. It happened so much. It's all laid out. And here's the majority of my questions. I feel really good about contacting them to do this."26:28 Darren: Yeah, I see the same thing in the cellphone companies. Telecom stuff. And so, yeah, I'll definitely look to that for inspiration for how to position those landing pages and those marketing messages.26:45 Aaron: Yeah. What was really interesting to me when you see... And just the way SaaS and recurring revenue works, March was still our best month in the history of the company. Every...26:58 Darren: That's amazing.27:06 Aaron: Yeah, minus one, two, three months over the last six years, it's like up into the right every single month. You know that predictable revenue, it compounds everything else, that's why so many people love software as a service. And so, with everything that's gone on, new clients early in the month, we signed a big deal midway through the month, there's still all these positive things going on, and most of the customers, some canceled, and others, we've been working with ways to help them with their accounts, but that stuff won't kick in until April. And just as you and I were talking before, it's like, I can already see from our predictive revenue tools that our April billing will be about 6% to 7% down from our March billing. And getting back into the psyche and whatever, I was like, "I've watched that number go up." The months where it didn't grow, it was maybe a quarter percent that it went backward, or almost even, but never even a full percentage point, and all things considered, a 6%-7% drop and considering a lot of that, is just paused billing. I think that's somewhat of a positive signal at this point after this first wave of crashing.28:29 Darren: Totally, yeah. Absolutely. I feel the same way, it's like, "Man, the losses are not that bad." And so my confidence grows every week, where I look at the numbers and I'm like, "Okay, I think this is gonna be okay." My confidence is growing but then I'm also a little... I don't wanna be overly confident because there's still so much uncertainty. It could get really bad in the next couple of months. So I don't wanna be overly confident, but I'm starting to feel like, "Okay, well, if we all settle in and this is the way it is, then there's still certainly some thrive opportunities." How can we thrive in this situation? And if we tap into those, certainly we're gonna see some losses, but how much of that can we recover with new initiatives? 29:14 Aaron: Exactly. I kinda look at it, as I mentioned earlier, baseball is a favorite sport of mine, right? It's like a baseball game and we're pretty much in the second inning right now. There's a lot of game left to be played, but it's underway, we're out there, a couple of things have already happened, and for us in these first couple of innings, the biggest thing around that retention is, we changed our cancel process. So instead of just being able to go... Hit "Cancel", drop a quick... We ask, "Alright, tell us why you're cancelling," and getting a little bit of info. We changed that to, you hit "Cancel", now you get a pop-up that says, "Hey, just so you're aware, with COVID-19 and everything going on, we get it, let's have a conversation and let's figure out how to keep you on board with us. Whether it's a reduction in billing, we need to pause your billing for a month." But we put a bunch of things in place and then we built that framework for our customer success team so that they could manage it, where they weren't coming to me and saying, "Alright, here's what this customer wants. They want 10% off this month," or whatever else.30:16 Aaron: We gave them a framework so that they could make those offers, handle those decisions, and take care of it right in the moment with the customers. So it really felt a win for them, win for our customer, win for the business, especially if we kept them from cancelling just to say like, "Oh, great, yeah, I'm a restaurant, or I'm an agency that serves restaurants and hotels. I just went to zero income, but I still wanna retain this data, 'cause they're gonna need this when they come back, what can we do with it?"30:45 Darren: Yeah, that's really smart. Yeah, actually, we put some measures like that in place too, and then we talked to your team about it, and got some more ideas, and it's so valuable. I think that is one of the big lessons for any of our listeners that are also doing SaaS, if you haven't put something like that in place, get that up immediately. Some kind of retention recovery program, right? 31:09 Aaron: Yea. 'Cause, yeah, the cancels are just likely gone. It's so much harder to get them... Say things recover in three months, getting them to physically come back, sign up, even if you market to them, send them messages, they've already... They've mentally divorced the situation. But if you're able to reduce billing or even pause a month or two of billing, then when it comes back, then it's like, "Okay, great, things are back, close to normal, are you good? Let's turn billing back on." Just so much easier of a process, and you need to do that when you're dropping or pausing revenue like that, you need more of an instant on when things return, instead of having to work a marketing program around it.31:49 Darren: Yeah. We actually had some reductions on our support team too, and our support is still as... It's certainly seen a drop in tickets, but it's still fairly active. And so I didn't wanna overwhelm my support team by having them talk to everybody that wants to cancel, 'cause there's a lot of them, obviously, they're coming in. And so we did the same kind of thing, but it's completely automated. So when you hit to cancel now, it gives you an option to be like, "Well, here are a couple of options for you. One, if you wanna keep everything still active, and still be able to use the software, we know things are tough," it's like, boom, "Here's a discount for you, you can get that discount." And so people could choose that option and continue to operate, or they can just choose the pause option, which means we'll stop actively doing anything in your account, we turn off all of the functionality, but we'll preserve your historical data, so that when you're ready to come back in, you can just press one button and turn it back on. So people get to choose themselves on the checkout and that's been helpful for sure. We're seeing a few people take us up on that option.33:02 Aaron: And I don't know if any of my CS team ever listens to this podcast, but I do wanna give them a shoutout. They have been doing an amazing job of taking care of GatherUp customers, and helping, and that's not easy right now for them either, right? Instead of solving technical issues, or usability issues, and things like that, you're talking to people who, they're fearful, they're losing their business, they're in a panic situation. And you're trying to calm them, do your job, and keep the business that you're running maintainable. So, really, a commendable job, a very tricky spot for them in their role right now for sure, and I super appreciate it. They have handled the lion share. I've handled 2% of the conversations that they've handled and they're killing it.33:05 Darren: I can attest to that. As a customer, we had... One of our large customers and reputation builder looked to cancel, and so that conversation happened with us and your GatherUp customer support team, and, man, they're awesome. They did an awesome job, really helpful, many ideas. And the real thing that comes across is that, what can we do to help? You can just really feel it. They're just... It's not about trying to save the money from the account, it's about, "Okay, well, what can we do to help here," and just really being helpful. And you feel it and it feels good. Yeah, I think they're doing an awesome job.34:29 Aaron: That's good. I think we have a lot of genuine care in our culture. I've always appreciated that about our team. So that's awesome to hear come through. Alright, lastly, let's end on something, I guess, a little more positive, some of the things that we're doing right now. What are you doing, Darren, as far as within marketing, within sales? I know you mentioned a couple of things right now, but how are you working this to find some success and get some new business inside of everything? 34:58 Darren: Yeah, for sure. We have a few initiatives that are about to launch. One is what we're calling... One of our big competitors that people look to us as an alternative is Yext. People have a subscription with Yext, they're paying for a monthly fee, or an annual fee, to just have their citation sitting in a database doing nothing, right? And so we have... We're about to launch what we call a Yext replacement service. And so, "If you're currently with Yext, here's how you could switch to us." And so it's exactly what you were talking about with the banks. We have a landing page specific for it, we have a custom package for it, and so that we're planning to launch next week actually. And so that's one of the big offensive moves that will keep our revenue on the citation team rolling. We actually haven't seen huge drops over there. A little bit, but not too bad. And so I think that this service... We actually are predicting some growth and we already have two potential new hires lined up in case we see some growth there from the launch of this service. Which would be great, it'll offset other areas of the business, right? So that's one of the big ones.36:08 Aaron: That's awesome.36:09 Darren: Yeah. Yext replacement service I think it's overdue. We've been thinking about it for a long time, and so we're pulling the trigger on that one and trying to get that up as soon as possible. Another huge one is, our biggest recurring software is our local citation finder. It's basically what we've built our business on. And that software honestly hasn't had a line of code added to it since probably 2015. We have not touched the thing, it's ridiculous. We've partly not touched it because it's been in this sort of complete overhaul redesign, re-development phase forever. We're actually shooting for a launch in 10 days. The 27th. April 27th, Monday April 27th, we're trying to finalize the final pieces of marketing, and polish, and we're pushing that out the door. And, oh my God, it's unbelievably better. And it's actually one of these weird pieces of software that over the period since this COVID thing happened, we haven't seen... I look at it on a daily basis and it's like, six new sign-ups, five cancellations. The next day will be like, seven new sign-ups, eight cancellations.37:27 Darren: And so it's holding fairly steady, and I feel like once we launch the new version of this, massive retention, because the software is just so much better. People are canceling not necessarily because of COVID, but they cancel because the software is like... It did the job for them, but it's pretty weak and it doesn't have a lot of reason to stay subscribed. The new version provides ongoing value in a way that's so much better than what the old version did, and it's a delight to use, it's fast, it feels great, it looks great, and just delivers so much more value. So I think we have the retention, but massive marketing push. There are so many people that are familiar with that software and have been using it for years, we have a huge opportunity to get our name out there and push the marketing for that. There's probably a hundred blog posts out there that reference the local citation finder. All the outreach to them, we can mention to them, "Hey, we got this new version. I've set you up with a free trial account, check it out." So I think we're gonna have a massive blast of additional marketing value, which of course will bring people to citation finder, but once they're there, they see all the other stuff we do too. So I think those two offensive moves are huge.38:43 Darren: And then on the Google My Business Management service, that's a great service that we're seeing fantastic growth, and I was really excited about where it was going. We've certainly seen it cut back, probably lost about 20 to 30 percent of our clients over there, but I did some talks in the fall for auto dealers where I crawled every Google My Business listing in all of Canada for auto dealers, and I broke it down. How many are using Google posts, how many are using... Have filled out the services fields, how many are using products? All these different features. And then I presented those stats, and then I talk about, "Well, wow, no one is doing this, it's a massive opportunity, here's how auto dealers can take advantage of that." And then, of course, I think that data which we're about to publish, for auto dealers, it's not a great time to be targeting auto dealers, but we're re-running that crawl for accountants, and lawyers, home services, all these businesses that are still continuing to operate, we're gonna re-run that with those marketing initiatives, so that we can get in front of those audiences and present our Google My Business Management service. 'Cause that management service is actually really reasonably priced.39:53 Darren: It's 349 a month. And so, for a lot of businesses that are cutting bigger expenses, it's one of those ones where they can come to us for a much lower cost. They're offsetting their cost, taking off that huge bill off their credit card, replacing it with this and still seeing great value in their marketing. So those are the things that we're looking at and cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to even potentially thrive over the coming months.40:19 Aaron: Yeah. No, that's great. And to some extent the same backbone of what we're trying to do. One, I've seen, you put out some tweets and sharing some visuals on the updated local citation finder. What a great way, build some excitement before it even happens.40:37 Darren: Yeah, a little bit of... Yeah.40:38 Aaron: Yeah. Love doing that stuff. Big believer in just doing your work out in the open or looking at your product as an aquarium and everybody can see in. I think those are great things. But I think the core of where you're getting is having things to talk about. If the only thing you have to talk about is, "We need sales," that's a boring conversation that nobody wants to listen to. Kinda like how you and I joked before this started. You made the statement that you have COVID blindness because every email that comes in says COVID on it. [chuckle]41:10 Darren: Oh my God. "A new message from our CEO." It's like, "Oh my God, I don't wanna hear what your CEO has to say about how, yes, you're still operational. I'm sure you are, 'cause everyone is, and thanks for the info."41:22 Aaron: Yeah. Yeah, no, totally. I'm with you on that. But, yeah, what we've looked at is the overall... Again, back to retention, is like, how do we help customers? One initiative that I launched is, I wrote out in a couple of hours, I created a spreadsheet and wrote down 120 blog topics. And then I took it to our team in our stand up and said, "Everybody pick at least two of these to write on in the next few minutes."41:47 Darren: That's impressive brainstorming, man.41:51 Aaron: [chuckle] I'm never short on ideas, only time to execute. So it brought it to everyone where usually it's like Mike and I blog and then we have a product and content marketer. She blogs a little bit, a lot more on feature releases. So we've gone from a once a week, once every two weeks post, to three posts a week for the last three weeks now. And it's been great.42:14 Darren: Yeah, smart.42:15 Aaron: And more social chatter, more things to come in, more things to talk about. And also, internally, I find... People already, it's great gratification for them to put work into it, put it together, and then have it published. And instead of sharing on their LinkedIn or their Facebook like, "Hey, here's what Aaron wrote, or here is our company blog," now it's like, "Here's what I wrote," right? And there's pride and accomplishment behind that. And so, I really feel like it's been a great movement. It's interesting, it's created a lot more work for me, 'cause I'm basically editing and finding really good visuals, and all that kind of stuff, but I love it. The post is at least half-written, if not more, by the time I'm able to get into it, so that's been a really big plus. And I'm always kind of a slogan or a catch-phrase guy. And so, internally, we've just really rallied around like, "Mentions are your best marketing and inbound is the best outbound right now." So, yeah. And going with those, content, then we have the... We're doing the local search Ask Me Anything webinar with you and Joy Hawkins on April 23rd. We already have a hundred and some registered for that. So I'm pumped about that. Traject has been great.43:30 Aaron: If you're a paid GatherUp customer, you can use our social product, Cyfe which is Reporting, or Authority Labs for free for 90 days. So we're offering access to other tools as well. So it's given us a lot to talk about, write about, be out there with, and, yeah, it's helped. It's like, our agency leads are down probably about 25-30% of volume of what they were, and then our multi-locations are really far down, that's the one that's below 10%. And they were just trying to, "Alright, what are the industries that are doing okay right now?" Certain areas of logistics, that's doing well. Grocery, pharmacy, things like that, they're doing well. So we're doing some light outbound with those, but much more we re-calibrated around... I just kinda put together a strategy of the the three Rs. And it's like, research and know the prospect super well. Reach out as a friend, a colleague, ask questions, how it's going for them, what are they seeing, things like that. And your goal is to build a relationship. So instead of trying to slam them into a demo, all you're trying to do is get a conversation going.44:43 Darren: Yeah, and try to solve their problem. What is the thing that they're struggling with, why are they even considering you, and then understanding what their challenges are and seeing if you can help them with that. That's all people want.44:56 Aaron: Yep, for sure. So we've just been hitting on that and we're starting to see progress. It's like, we're seeing the uptick in traffic to the blog, we're seeing more social chatter, we're seeing some of these other things. And these things are there a little slower. It's not gonna be next day success, but I really feel like if things cycle down another level, that's when this stuff is gonna kick in for us, and it's gonna keep us where we're at, and then at even kill, and we're also... We're not pissing people off by trying to shove sales and demo requests, and everything else, in their inbox, doing cold outreach at a time where nobody has mental bandwidth for that.45:36 Darren: And, man, I cannot believe the uptick in terrible cold outreach emails I've been getting in my inbox. And so, it's like, "Gosh, people are extra sensitive to it right now. Do not be taking that strategy, it will not pay off for you."45:51 Aaron: Yep. I don't even read my sales pitches right now. It's just...45:56 Darren: Forget it.45:57 Aaron: Yeah. Not even to see what they're saying. It's just such a hard delete, right? 46:01 Darren: Of course, yeah. It's the worst time to be pitching. If your company was built off of outbound, man, that was not a good move. Right now you need to be an inbound-based company.46:14 Aaron: Yeah, for sure. I agree. Alright. Well, I think we've ran a gamut of things, and I'm hopeful the next time we record it's not Groundhog's Day and we're talking the same things. [chuckle]46:25 Darren: Yeah. Well, it'll be interesting to talk again in a few weeks and see where we've landed. There may be some of these proactive moves. We'll see how they're paying off, and see where things are at.46:37 Aaron: For sure.46:38 Darren: Yeah.46:39 Aaron: Great to catch up, Darren. Glad things are going as well as they can for you guys. I'm excited to see the launch of the local citation finder, and I think you set it up perfectly, it sounds like it's gonna launch in about two weeks. [chuckle]46:54 Darren: You know what? It's even less. 10 days now.46:58 Aaron: Oh, I like this.46:58 Darren: Yeah. I've shortened my two weeks to 10 days.47:03 Aaron: See, we're always evolving and improving, that's what I like about talking to you.47:07 Darren: Yeah. Alright, cool, great talking to you Aaron.47:11 Aaron: Yeah, you too. Hey, everyone, wishing you guys are well in personal lives, emotionally, fighting for your business, all those other things. Many of you are so gracious. You reached out on Twitter, have sent encouraging emails on our episodes, and they're helpful and everything else. If you have anything going on in this time that this is sparked that you have a question on, or you wanna know how we're operating, or even wanna share some of yours, please feel free to reach out to Darren and I, we're really easy to get a hold of, either from our website or on Twitter. So go ahead and reach out to us, we'd love to cover any of that on our upcoming episodes.47:47 Darren: Yeah, even if you just wanna chat via DMs on Twitter, or something, and you've got some questions, happy to talk and see if there's anything I can do to help.47:57 Aaron: For sure. You're a good guy.47:58 Darren: Alright.48:00 Aaron: Alright. Take care, Darren, and we'll talk to you soon, and thanks everyone for listening.48:04 Darren: Thanks, everyone. Bye.[music]

TranscriptAaron Hixson: Hey Northridge, welcome to A Little Better, where our goal is to know God better and to do better, so that we can be a little better. Hey everybody, welcome back to A Little Better. Thank you for joining us for another episode. I'm coming to you with a very important person. His name is Drew Karschner, but he is more famous for his ability to help you paint like a pro. This is our lead pastor, who has some amazing skills that the CW keeps reminding us of. Drew Karschner: Apparently I have bladder issues as well. So, I don’t know. I can paint, but I can't hold my pee. [Both laughing.] Aaron: That is perfect. If anybody has been watching on the CW or you check out from time to time the TV guide, a few times that we've been on TV, the CW has put up -- I don't know if these were previously paid, you know, advertisers or whatever it was. This past week it was how to Paint Like a Pro with Zoom Paint or something like that. And the first week was literally, what was the actual caption for week 1? Drew: It was like, Trouble with Your Bladder or something like that. Aaron: I got so many funny screenshot text messages of people, they would try to catch you with a funny face, and they're like, "having trouble with your bladder." I'm sure you got that too. Drew: I have enough trouble, like, on my own of not making funny moments, or you know, dumb moments myself. Then the CW, obviously would like to help me out as well. Thank you for that. Aaron: Just a little bit of extra boost as if we needed more opportunities for people to make some memes, but, oh my goodness, that's good. And by the way, if you do have any painting tips, I'd love to hear from, you know, the Zoom paint method. Let me know what that is. I'm doing some painting this week, so I need the help. Drew: Nice. Aaron: Yeah, let's actually go in a little bit more here. I have a question I think that maybe is related to the way we've been planning our services ever since COVID has hit. Something that, especially for people that listen to this podcast, they're probably insiders in our church and are familiar with how we do things normally. We haven't typically done a lot of, like, at the end of a service, you might call it an altar call or an invitation, where people can raise their hand and put their faith in Christ, that kind of a thing. We haven't ordinarily done tons of that, but ever since COVID, we've literally done it every week since March the 15th or whatever it was that we went into COVID. So I'm just wondering if you can let us know why is that, what's the thinking behind it. I haven't heard anything negative about it, I just wanna give you an opportunity to cast some vision around that. Drew: Yeah, so the first weekend we had what we would call COVID series. If you remember, we were in the Unfiltered Jesus series. I was in a boat talking about storms in your life. Man, I preached that message and I watched it on the stream. I felt really good about it, but there was one major regret that I had. I know in the season of fear and uncertainty, people have a lot of questions. I walked away from that service and went, "Man, I didn't give people a chance to respond to the truth of the gospel." And I felt this overwhelming sense of a little bit of regret, and I just felt like the Holy Spirit was like, “Drew, you need to lean into this moment and you need to go for it and give people a chance to respond to the gospel.” So, man, I prayed about it, and I just had this sense of confirmation that that's what God wanted me to do and how he wanted me to lead, so I just chased after it. So, ever since that weekend, I've given people a chance to respond to the gospel. There's two reasons why I do that. One, because I think there's a lot of people out there who haven't experienced the hope of Jesus who need to experience the hope of Jesus. I want to give them a clear picture of what that is, the truth behind that, and the way you accept that. But two, I think just as a Christ follower, for us, man, just because I've accepted the gospel doesn't mean I don't still need the gospel. And hearing the truth of the gospel, each week, and being able to pray for people in the moment where they're choosing to respond against the spiritual forces of evil I think is a really powerful reminder and a really powerful moment for our church. And so, I just feel like it's something really God has led me to do. And we've seen God move in people's hearts. There's really no way of measuring salvation. That's something that only God knows. But we've seen, I think up to this point, 106 people say, "Hey, I said that prayer, I chose to respond to this message." And man, I don't know what that number means. I'll be the first one to be honest and say, man, we've had 106 people let us know they said that prayer. I don't know what that means. Only God does. But man, I'm gonna celebrate that people are responding to that, and I just think it's been really cool to see. Aaron: Mmhmm. Yeah, I agree with all that. What's your thought, or what is the conversation thus far related to our plan, let's say -- I'm not even gonna throw a date out there. Let's just say when we're back together, and things are "normal," even though that will likely be a phased approach, what's your guess as to how or when we might continue this, or how long we would continue it? Drew: I don't know if I know the answer to that question. I feel like I'm gonna just, you know, I think we'll continue to do it. I don't even know if going forward we'll continue to do it every single week the way we're doing it. If you've been coming to Northridge church, you know we like to experiment with things. Aaron: Sure. Drew: And we pull things and we add things fast and quick. And so, I'm gonna do it until I feel like, you know, God tells me to stop. I know that's kind of a generic answer, but I don't know. I don't know if we're gonna continue to do it or if we're gonna stop, but I've seen God use it, and I'm gonna celebrate that until we decide to maybe kind of change it or adjust it better for our services. Aaron: Sure. Drew: All that to say, I don't know. Aaron: [Laughing.] That's an extended answer for the reality of I don't know. That's funny. Okay, cool. I just think that’s really helpful for people to hear, and even for me, you know, to think it through. And I'm actually teaching this weekend, so it's good for me to understand some of those dynamics as well, even though we've talked about it some. Cool. So, this past weekend was a cool one on a few different fronts, but getting to baptise Richie was definitely fun for me. Drew: Amazing story. Aaron: Yeah, incredible story. He worked hard to make sure he could express that clearly. I'm so thankful for Richie's willingness to share, and share honestly. I mean, obviously there's details in there that he could have easily told his story without including, and he chose to be honest. And he had even more that he shared especially about, the importance of Starting Point and the particular leaders who lead in the Henrietta campus Starting Point. Brad and Karen Files, Mike and Chris Maloney, are people that he shouted out in particular. And I just, man, that environment across all of our campuses has been so crucial for people's faith. And I think he said it best. He said "they were there to recruit --" I'm sorry. Backwards. [Laughing]Drew: Yeah, that's wrong. Aaron: "They were there to inform, not to recruit." And I love how he said that. That's the reality of Starting Point. Now, at the end of the day, we are all kind of low-key recruiting, right? But the way that you want people to feel is that we're just letting you know the facts so that you can make a decision, and just be praying that God's at work in their lives. Drew: Yeah, we recruit with love. I like that. It's not like people are a number to us. We just love them, and we allow God to do the work that only he can do. That's what he did in Richie's life. He used people to inform them of the truth, love him where he was, and God worked on him. Aaron: Yeah. And if you believe that there's something really good that you're offering to people, even if you're gonna do it in a gentle and kind and loving way, you still are low-key hoping that they'll do it, which is at some level recruiting. You know? So that kind of brings us to that missional relationship thing of living with urgency. Like, if I genuinely believe that I hold the keys to the truth of reality, especially life after death, then I am going to be at some basic level recruiting, but we don't have to think of recruiting in a negative sense where you're getting, you know, cold sales calls from people that you don't know and who don't care about anything but your money. Like, it's not that kind of recruiting, but we could be that kind of urgent. You know, t's a tension to manage, but the fact that he felt as if they were just there to inform, while in the back of their minds they're desperately hoping and praying that he'll come to know Christ, that's why that was so perfect to me. Because it illustrated how we're trying to come across, while maintaining a deep sense of urgency. Drew: Yeah, I think that's well said. Aaron: And you couldn't even see the gloves that I was wearing, so it really worked. [Both laughing.] I was kind of glad they weren't like bright purple surgical gloves, that were up to the elbows or something. That would have looked a little funny. Drew: Dishwasher gloves. Aaron: Yeah, dishwasher gloves. [Both laughing.] Which, by the way, do you ever wear those when you wash dishes? Drew: No. My wife wears them every time. She's got, like, purple polka-dotted ones and bright red ones, I'm like, why? You know why I wear them? I use them for one thing and one thing only. You ever try to open a jar you can't open? Those gloves are bomb-diggity for getting jars. I mean, literally. I can squeeze my hand, my hand hurts, I put those gloves on, I'm like Hulk. I become the Hulk with that. I'm like, [grunts.] Aaron: That's amazing. I gotta say, I've never had a jar I couldn't immediately open. Basically I just look at a jar, and it starts opening because I'm, like, incredibly strong. Drew: It's cause Lauren twists them for you. Aaron: Well, what? No. Drew: It's cause she pre-twists them for you. Aaron: [Laughing.] Whatever, whatever. Dude, I actually -- Lauren somewhere along the way, like, had decided to grab some of those gloves and now I legit, like I don't want to touch anything in the sink if I'm not wearing those gloves. It's incredible. Drew: I'm not sure I'd let the public know that, Aaron. Aaron: No, seriously bro. Imagine doing like 15 minutes of dishes --Drew: You're not gonna convince me on this. Aaron: Dude, 15 minutes of dishes and there's no wrinkly hands afterwards. It's amazing. Drew: Aaron, I like tubs. So that wrinkly feeling is -- I like it. Aaron: Oh my goodness. Again, there's so much wrong with your whole approach related to water. I just feel like we need to do a whole segment. Drew: You mean the most important resource in the world and I actually like it? You know your body is made up of like 75%, so like, right now, you're rejecting 75% of who you are and who God made you to be. Aaron: No, I don't like to sit in my own filth. That's why I don't like it. [Laughing.] Whatever. The fact that you don't pre-shower before a bath is -- I can't, I'll never be over that. Drew: Just to give a pre-reference, if I work out in the mud, in the field, I do pre-shower. But when I'm already clean and I wanna relax, I just get in the nice clear water. Aaron: Okay, okay. Enjoy your lavender bath bomb. I’ll just -- actually, that would be amazing. I'll take a lavender bath bomb right now. I just would pre-shower. Okay, so the series A Life That Matters, one thing I wanna lean into, we've gotten some feedback I think is actually really helpful around the name of the series and what people are understanding it to mean. Let me just set some context and have you give some clarity around it. The tension is, A Life that Matters sounds as if what we're saying, cause the word matters has multiple meanings, and so if you think of the word matters in our culture, oftentimes it's coming up with like Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter and all of the tension surrounding that. But what those hashtags are meant to convey, and in particular, Black Lives Matter, is just trying to illustrate that, you know, people in our community are sometimes treated as if they don't matter. And so this hashtag is meant to highlight the fact that these are lives that actually do have inherent value and worth. So they're using the word matter to imply, this life has value. Just in and of itself. Its existence has value. So when we say "a life that matters," we're kind of making it seem as if, when you look at the world, there are some lives that have inherent value and some lives that don't have inherent value, because that's what the word matter can mean at times. So, I don't believe we're saying that, and I would love for you to tell us what we mean by the word matter so that we can clear up for people that we're not demeaning the value of any human. Drew: Sure, and I think we brought a little bit of clarity to that this weekend when we talked about relationships and, you know, we made this statement, I made this statement. I don't know why I said we. I guess it was just me and that empty room all by myself. Aaron: The royal plural. Drew: You know, we said every life matters. It has intrinsic value because God made people that way, he put his image in them, and so every life has value. That's the way God made us. And so, you can't argue that statement because God already stamped his approval, the truth on it. And so every life has value. What we're really talking about in this series is what you do with your life. And does what you do actually make it count? And so your actions have a lot of weight on whether your life has impact, counts, for not just here and now, but for all of eternity. And so we're looking at kind of the idea of legacy, of a legacy that you can -- and we're gonna talk about this in the series, so this is a kind of sneak preview of where we're headed - a legacy that lasts here on earth, but also looks towards eternity. And so, this is really an action oriented series on what you're doing with your life and how much it can count if you're investing it in the right things. Aaron: Got it. So it's more about the cumulative result of your life's efforts. And I love that word legacy. I think that's. A perfect description because that's what we're leaning into. If you get to the end of your life and you were to just tabulate what you've accomplished and who it will impact, and for how long it will impact them, will you be able to say your life matters? And there's people who have accomplished a lot, but it's stuff that won't ultimately matter for eternity, like whatever, a sports legend who invests their entire life in sports and they get to the end of it, and they're like, "Okay, you got 6 MVPs" or whatever, but that's not gonna matter for eternity. That's not to say that the only thing that has -- the only thing you're allowed to do with your life, like if you're an accountant, you need to quit and become a missionary because you're crunching numbers and that doesn't matter. Of course that's not what we're saying. But that's what A Life That Matters is meant to imply, is are you investing your life, whether you're an accountant, a pastor, an NBA star, whatever you're doing, are you using that platform and those opportunities to have a result of your life that you're gonna say, man I'm so glad that I was a basketball player this way, that I was an accountant who operated this way at work? You know?Drew: Yeah, and I think it goes back to what Paul said this weekend, making the most of every opportunity so, it's learning to invest your time into the right things that not only have impact here, but have impact for forever. Aaron: Got it. So, I think that we'll, if there are folks either struggling through that or trying to figure out if we're making it seem as if someone matters or doesn't -- in fact, I think it's important to say, no matter how you spend your life, it will not impact in any way your inherent worth. You can't make yourself more or less valuable to God by the way that you live your life. Drew: Isn't that the great thing about God? How awesome is that. That truth is amazing, that no matter what you do with your life, doesn't change the value God has placed on your life, but it has significance for where you spend your eternity. Aaron: Yeah. So, if people have questions about that, if you're still struggling through that, trying to figure out either what we mean, or if there's anything in this that brings up a tension in your own life, feel free. Of course, always reach out to any of us, anybody on our staff, any of our social media, we've made that clear. We want to be as accessible as possible. And we would love to bring up specific questions or tensions if you've got them. One thing that we even talked about, Drew, as we were, I guess, sorting through this tension was -- something that came to my mind right away was a line from the book Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper, which, if you haven't read it, it's kind of like a Christian classic at this point. John Piper makes some really strong points about how to invest our lives, and I think it has really impacted a generation of Christianity. But there's a moment -- John Piper's father was an evangelist. At one of his evangelism meetings a guy came forward, placed his faith in Christ, he was in his late 60s or something. John Piper has a vivid memory of this man in what felt like -- John Piper's a kid, so this guy felt really old. And he was at the end of his life and had just placed his faith in Christ. The refrain he kept repeating after placing his faith in Christ was, "I've wasted it, I've wasted it, I've wasted it." The guy, looking back on his life and realizing, "I have nothing to show for these 60-plus years of my life because I've spent it all on myself.” So that person, this guy, he doesn't not matter to God. Of course he matters to God. He has an inherent worth. But he was self-declaring, "I've wasted my life. I've spent it on stuff that doesn't matter, and now I wish I could invest in something that does." Drew: That reminds me, Aaron, this is kind of a sneak peak into this weekend is, we've got a story we're gonna share that is very similar to that. I think it's gonna be really powerful in your message. I can't wait. I just watched it. Man, it'll charge you up. It'll cause you to reevaluate what you're doing with your life. Aaron: No doubt. Drew: It's so powerful. Make sure you're inviting your friends. What a great story. Aaron: It's an incredible story. Drew: By the way, shoutout to Connor Ellsworth, who is actually in our Zoom call right now. Dude, you did an incredible job with the video. Aaron: It came together really well. I've watched it, I don't know, a number of times, and each time, I keep thinking, the first time I listened to it I was like, "Wait, why am I preaching? Can we just play this?" It's like a four and a half minute video and I'm like, let's just play this and be done. I have nothing to contribute. Yeah. It's so good. And his sentiment, this guy from the book Don't Waste Your Life and what you're gonna hear from Michael this weekend, it's just the idea that, "Man, I wish I had done this differently. I don't feel like my life had mattered until I started living this way." Drew: And that's what this series is all about. We talk about death brings perspective. When you're facing death, it doesn't matter how well you lived your life. There's gonna be things you look back and be like, "I did a great job with this." But there's also gonna be areas where you're like, "I wish I would've changed things. I wish I would have done things differently." It's crisis and death that actually give us the clarity that we need to see things accurately. Aaron: I love that. Let's actually talk about that related to the different categories of relationships. What would you do differently, where do you think we tend to go wrong? This is related to everyday relationships, intimate relationships, missional relationships, and our relationship with God. Those are the four categories you talked about, and you even did a little bit of, you know, confession or honesty with us about phone-snubbing your kids or whatever and having regret around that, as we all have. How have you processed this just since Sunday related to making the most of every opportunity and relationship? Drew: I think the big things I was challenged by my message was, one, I want to have more boldness. I feel like I'm seeing that in this crisis. I've had way more boldness just to invite anybody and everybody. I've been, like, scrolling through my contacts being like, "Who haven't I talked to in a while and how can I invite them to the live stream?" And I'm realizing, the worst thing that can happen to me is someone ignores my text or says "I'm not interested." This crisis has given me this, like "Dude, why haven't you been this bold before? What has stopped you?" And it's just creating a boldness in me. And I want more of that. I want that to continue to grow. I don't want that to fade as the crisis fades. I want to keep that, this urgency of, man, I can come up with all the excuses. But what urgency does is it just tears down all my excuses and says "Let's go for it." I'm learning a little bit of that with my missional relationships. Then, with my everyday relationships, obviously I don't want to talk too much about my dad, because we've talked about him, but whew. Yeah. There's just some moments I regret, I wish I could get back. [Emotional.] So that's all I'll say about that cause I'm not gonna make it through. Aaron: Yeah. And as much as sometimes we'll make it seem like you're the emotional one and I'm the nerdy one, I am a super sappy person when it comes to certain relationships, in particular with Lauren. Like, we legit can't watch -- even like romcoms are sometimes on the edge for me, like if there's breakups or spouses passing away or stuff like that. I'm always just like, "Oh, Lauren I love you so much, don't ever leave me" and "I'm gonna miss you." I don't know,something about seeing other people's tragedies that makes us realize that this relationship matters, but an hour ago I thought it was more interesting to be watching some YouTube video. We've all had that moment where either you're talking to your spouse or a friend or something, and the phone starts to creep in and now you're looking at your phone. I've done this a million times where I have to admit to Lauren, I'm like, "I gotta be real with you, I didn't hear a word you just said” because I was too busy doing something stupid.You talked about how we replace the meaningful with the meaningless. I'm watching a YouTube video on how to set up dust collection in a woodshop and the love of my life is talking to me about something. Even if it's insignificant, and I've somehow decided in that moment that I'm gonna prioritize the dumbest video. And as you said, those are the moments that I'm just gonna say, "What was I thinking?" You know? We can't live our lives full of regret, like "Did I literally maximize every second of our relationship?" and I know that. Drew: Right, right. Aaron: But at the same time, I don't wanna lose seconds, you know? I want to make the most of every opportunity. Paul uses that in particular with missions. In both Ephesians and Colossians, those are specific to people who are far from God. He's saying, make the most of every opportunity, but I love that you applied it more generally to even just either your barista or the people that we know the most. Make the most. Why would you not make the most? We have such a short life. These people mean so much to us, and these people will be around for eternity, so catch every moment. You know? Drew: Right, and I just think, you know, we've all worked a job where someone's a jerk to us. And we've all worked a job when someone was kind and appreciative. Sometimes it's as simple as that with your waitress or the person serving you coffee or whoever, your coworkers. It's just like, "Hey, I appreciate you." That goes a long way. Or, "Hey, thanks for my coffee. It was amazing." Or "Hey, how's your day going?" One thing my wife is so good at, and honestly this is where I get convicted in my everyday relationships. We're checking out and I'm ready to go, and my wife is sitting there talking to the cash register. And I'm like, "Babe, shut up! Let's go!" Like, Drew, this is a person. And they're talking to me. And I'm like, dang. I'm a jerk. I am a jerk. I'd rather get on with my day than make the most of the opportunity in front of me. And my wife is so good at this. She'll sit there and, 30 minutes talk, even if there's people behind her. I'm like, "Babe, these people hate you back here, and this person loves you." Aaron: Every cashier that's ever talked to Ashley loves her. Everybody who's behind Ashley hates her. Drew: Like, just keep moving. My wife knows the people at where she goes, where she shops. She knows the name. When she shows up, they're like, "Hey, Ashley, good to see you," and I'm like, "Who are you?" And I'm convicted. I do, I view these people as a means to an end. Your job is to check me out, give me it as fast as you can so I can get the heck out of here. Aaron: Mmhmm. Yeah. And it's very difficult when people serve a utilitarian purpose in our life, it's very easy to begin to ignore them, to not even see them. And you mentioned it, we right now care about these "everyday relationships" in a way we don't normally because, at the moment, your interaction with the cashier at Wegmans is now like --Drew: Vital. Aaron: It's also one of your only interactions with somebody that's not your family. Drew: Can we talk, please? Aaron: You're chatting it up with everybody. Drew: Except there's a screen there. Back away sir. I'm like, "I just need a hug!" Aaron: It's bulletproof glass and they're just like, "Please back away from the barrier." But yeah, so we notice these people and we are grateful for these people, but, you know, life will go back to normal, just like a year after a funeral we go back to how we were operating. Months down the road after this crisis is over, we're gonna start ignoring people again. And so, that's what this series, the essence of it is, you know, it's better to go to a house of mourning, learn the lesson there, and concentrate it into your life such that it won't take crisises in the future to make you care about people, to not miss moments with your family. I know we keep coming back to what this series is all about, but I guess that's just what feels, that's the heart of it. Drew: That's why we do this, cause they're so important. Everybody wants to go back to normal, which I get, at some level I do. But I think we would be missing what God's trying to do if we just go back to the old normal that we had. Maybe we create a new normal that is actually more effective and actually, with our lives, counts even more. Aaron: Yeah, that's beautiful. Let's push toward that. Anything we need to know about this coming weekend? Drew: Um, the man with the beard is preaching. Aaron: Mmm, Nate Miller. [Laughing.] No. Drew: You're preaching, which I'm excited. One, I'm thankful. I just needed a break emotionally and spiritually and physically, so thank you for that. I'm excited to hear. We're gonna be talking about investing our resources, and so it's gonna be incredible, awesome. We're gonna look at two stories, so I'm pumped about that. It's gonna be a great weekend. I've loved this series, and I think it's having some impact on people's lives. Aaron: Agreed. Drew: Do you have anything to say about this weekend? Aaron: Um, well, other than, if you love it, then I did some tweaking. If you hate it, then it was Drew's original message. That's all I have to say. Whatever credit there is to have, I want it. Whatever blame there is, I'm dishing it. Drew: I'll take it for you, bro. You're preaching for me, I'll take your blame. Aaron: [Laughing.] Hopefully the CW, dude, if they give me -- I can't wait for what caption they give. Drew: You know it's gonna be perfect because I'm not there. You won't get any pictures, no awkward faces with the bladder out of control, it'll be like, the title's gonna be Aaron Hixson is better than Drew. That's what they're gonna put. Aaron: No, it's gonna be, like, a modeling agency or something. It'll be like, "Don't you wish you looked this good?" [Laughing.] Oh my goodness. Okay. Well, we'll just wait and see. I don't wanna get too excited about what the CW labels me. Thanks everybody for listening. Seriously, we would love to have a conversation with you. Send in comments, questions, concerns. We wanna alleviate tensions and help everybody the way that we can. So, we'll see you this weekend on the chat stream or the correctly labelled CW. Thanks guys. Transcript lightly edited for readability.

TranscriptAaron Hixson: Hey Northridge, welcome to A Little Better, where our goal is to know God better and to do better, so that we can be a little better. Hey everybody, welcome back to A Little Better, thank you for being part of our podcast community. We're so grateful that you join in each week. I know during the middle of COVID, if you're anything like me, I feel like my podcast listening time has been drastically reduced. Not having a commute means that my amount of listening has gone down. I don't know, Drew, are you the same way? What's that going like for you?Drew Karschner: Yeah, I mean, it's difficult to play a podcast right now, it just is. No commute, it takes down my podcast time, for sure. Aaron: Yeah. So anyway, thanks for still listening in. I don't know if you are now shifting when you listen to, you know, whatever, doing the dishes time, or shower time, what? I don't know, is that weird? [Laughing]Drew: Trying to get away from your kids time. Aaron: Yo, whatever, actually that's the same thing, showering. [Laughing.] But, yeah, thanks for still tuning in. And we've actually got some good options available. If you're the kind of person who has found yourself where you don't any longer have time where you can listen to something and feel like you could drive and listen or whatever, we actually had a volunteer come forward who wanted to provide transcriptions for the podcast, which is pretty amazing. So shout out to Sara [stuttering]. Wow, I can't talk. Shoutout to Shara. Drew: Not to be confused with Shara. Aaron: Yeah Shara. Easily confused. Shout out to her. And that's amazing that she's willing to do this. We're gonna make them available as easily as we can. Now, this is a volunteer who's willing to do this. I'm not saying, she has not signed on to do this for the rest of eternity, and we're not expecting her to, so obviously we'll keep you posted about how that process goes, but we're running it as an experiment for now, and excited that we get to have these available. Drew: Thank you Sara. Aaron: Yes, thank you. In terms of how we will make these available, at the moment they are on our episode webpage, so if you're savvy enough to know where the episode webpage is, depending on how you listen to podcasts, there's a million ways to get to it, so I'm not gonna describe all of the ways, but that's a button that you're looking for. Maybe click the details button or something like that, and you'll find an episode webpage. It'll be available there in text format. If you're having trouble finding it, no problem. You know, you can email us, podcast@northridgerochester.com, or you can even just text me or Drew or anybody that works at our church and they'll get you to us, and we can make sure that we get that to you. You can text me personally at (585)484-7636, yeah whatever, I'd be happy to make sure we get that to you. But that's just another way to make it A) accessible for our deaf and hard of hearing community, but then also at the same time, some people just prefer to read instead of listen, so. That's fine. Engage however you can engage. Cool. All right, that was 2 minutes and 42 seconds of housekeeping. Thank you guys for your patience. But Drew, hit me with some stories from quarantine. Have you had any like, funny things that your kids have done or embarrassing work from home moments? What's that been like? Drew: I mean, you know, I got a lot of good stories. My kids are always trying to interrupt my meetings. I think the best one -- you have to understand my office. One, we took the door off way before COVID-19 happened, which was a great move until now. It's wide open, so you can hear everybody going on. And it's right next to the stairs that come downstairs, and so one day I'm sitting in my office. And I face the door to the stairs.And I'm in, I wouldn't call it a super serious meeting, but I would say semi-serious, and so I'm sitting there and I'm talking back and forth with the people in the meeting. And Ruby-Kate comes down the stairs, and she peeks her head out and she smiles, and she comes all the way down the stairs so she's almost looking in the door frame, and she's looking at me, she smiles. She's got her pajama top on, and she turns her back to me. I'm like, what is she doing? But she doesn't move. And then all of the sudden, she raises her hands in the air, which reveals her tiny, cute little butt cheeks, and she starts shaking and she goes, [singing] "shake your booty, shake your booty,” and she's just wiggling her little hiney back and forth. And like, I just straight burst out in laughter in the middle of this serious meeting. I'm like, "Guys, I'm sorry. There is nothing I could do in this moment but laugh." Aaron: You have been ambushed. Oh, that is so funny. How old is Ruby-Kate again? Drew: She's two, yeah. Two. Aaron: Oh my goodness, so cute. Drew: The better question is, what is Ashley teaching her while I'm in the office?Aaron: Oh my word, that's funny. Throwing Ashley right under the bus. Drew: What about you, Aaron, Grayson do anything crazy like that? Aaron: He hasn't bombed many of my meetings. Thankfully, being where I am, he's not really able to get there without some degree of help. If he's gonna come up, Lauren's usually checking my calendar or whatever to see if I'm in a meeting, which is very nice of her. So no booty shaking yet, but he did, in trying to explain to him, specifically with Gigi, who is Lauren's mom, Donna, they live in New Hampshire. He was talking to her about why he wanted her to come or something, he wanted to see her, so they were talking about why she couldn't come, and she said, you know, trying to explain -- how do you explain COVID to a three-year-old? She just said, there's a bug that people are getting, and it's making them sick, and so I don't want to get that bug or whatever. She was just explaining it on FaceTime or something, and then the next time -- I don't know, it was a couple weeks later. She was on FaceTime with him again, and he said "Gigi, are the bugs still outside of your house? Are they still making everyone sick? Where are the bugs? Have you gotten rid of the bugs yet?" And we were looking at him, like, what are you saying? And she's like, "I tried to explain it, this is the best I could come up with." And now he thinks there are, like, venomous bugs waiting outside of Gigi's house. Which, I'll deal with that. I'll take it. Drew: If it was really a bug, we'd be good in New York cause the snow would have killed it a long time ago. Aaron: Very true, very true. We would be hoping for a snowstorm. Oh wait, we had one last week. Unbelievable. Drew: It's only April 19th, I mean, like, no big deal, right? Aaron: Yeah, everybody loves an Easter snowstorm. Drew: Where I grew up, we got 8 inches. 8 inches. Aaron: What? This past week? Drew: Yeah, 8 inches of snow. Like, the power went out and everything. Happy spring, everybody! Aaron: I know. For once we get to say we're so glad we live in Rochester, we didn't get as much snow. Drew: Jesus is alive, spring isn't. [Both laughing.] Aaron: Seriously. It's still in that grave. Come on out. That's funny. But hey, one more -- I realized I have another housekeeping thing I wanted to mention before we jump into sermon discussion, and that is that we're recording this podcast these days Mondays around 3 o'clock. That's kind of our current schedule. We've done some pre-recording in the past, but because of COVID, we're doing it Mondays around 3. So I would really encourage all of our listeners, if you've got questions or comments or anything that you wanna say related to this podcast, from Saturday night services or Sunday services or whatever, if you have anything, just send it over to us, because we would totally engage with it, and now you have the opportunity to do so right now. We're in a phase where we absolutely could be bringing those things up. Like I said before, podcast@northridgerochester.com, if email's not your thing, text me or Drew or anybody on our staff, that will get a question to us. Literally any way that you can contact us, social media, it doesn't matter. Get it to us by Monday around 3, and we'll see if we can include questions or comments or whatever. We would love to do that, and we're in a phase where we totally can even easier than other times. Hit us up. Okay. So, week 1, A Life That Matters. And I have a couple questions for you. And Connor's listening in, so he might have to tune in as well, we'll have to see here. But that video, the title package, did we already talk about this? The title package was Devin Graf walking on 490 right by the Rochester bridge, right? It looks literally like he's in the middle of the road, I was thinking, ignore social distancing, say nothing about that, he's in the middle of the highway. How did he get there? So then I'm hearing rumors that it was a green screen and I don't believe it, so someone prove it to me. Drew: I believe Connor has confirmed it was a green screen. Matt Snyder was behind Devin, and he was holding up a green screen, and boom, magic. It just shows you how amazing our creative team is. Aaron: Where were they? In the middle of 490? Drew: I think they were standing somewhere on the side of 490, and they green screened him into 490. Aaron: So I'm guessing the reason they wanted to do it there was to match the lighting or something so that it would look the same? Connor's nodding his head. Okay. I just, that is crazy to me, because I've seen bad green screening, and that did not look like bad green screening to me, and I wouldn't have assumed we have the ability to do good green screening. No offense to Connor, I just assumed we don't have that kind of cool technology, but apparently you literally just need a green sheet. [Both laughing.]Drew: The green sheet they used to hang in our podcast studio. Aaron: That's right, "studio." I love when we call it a studio. That makes me so happy, because it sounds so legit, and it's a basement. But, okay. Now that that's cleared up, it was officially green screen, which was very surprising to me. Week 1, A Life That Matters. You talked all about how we need to begin with the end in mind, and I kinda want to enter into your experience. I know that this series came as a result of your dad's death. Talk to me a little bit about, we planned super far in advance. This was not the sermon series that was gonna be just post-Easter. I mean, I don't know. A month and a half ago? When did we make that change? That's a very, quote, "last minute change" for us, and I'd love to just bring everybody in to kind of the genesis of this series. Drew: Yeah, I think when my dad died, obviously the point I said, death brings perspective, or crisis, so, I feel like I walked through both of those things, a crisis with COVID, and my dad's death. It has really caused me to reflect on my life and what's important and what's valuable. I often teach out of the overflow of what God's doing in my heart. I just think those messages are more real. That's not always the case. I think there's series we do that we just talk about. It's not necessarily something that's churning in my heart, but this was just a series that God places on my heart. I've just gotta do this. If I don't, I feel like I'm gonna be disobeying God, cause I feel like he planned it in my heart. So yeah. I just, through the season of life I'm in right now, God's been teaching me a lot of things, and I thought it would be valuable to walk our church through it. Weirdly enough, we're probably all thinking a little bit of those things right now, with the crisis that we're all dealing with. And it's really cool, again, how, even if you go back to Unfiltered Jesus and this series, and how God kinda laid it out for our church, I just feel really blessed with how he has planned our series for us. So we could be really relevant and engaging and impactful in this season. Aaron: I agree. I remember when you first said, kinda like, coming out of the fog of your dad's death, with, you know, the first few days or 10 days or something, where your life wasn't normal. As you were emerging from that a little bit you were saying, like, "Hey, I wanna do this series," and I thought, well that's gonna be really cool to hear such fresh insights from you. But at the same time, wondering, I wonder if someone hasn't experienced a death recently, would they find this to be as interesting, or whatever? And then COVID hit, so it was like, we planned this, and I was like, all right, let's see how it is in terms of relevance, and then COVID hit, and it's like, oh. Incredibly relevant. Yeah, been blown away by how it all came together. And we had an original direction related to -- I think maybe the first title you had was like "Legacy" or something like that. Is that right? Or am I wrong? Drew: No, I think it was -- yeah, I think "Legacies" or "Lessons from Dad." Aaron: Oh, yeah. Drew: So I mean, it's quite shaped and molded. And I didn't want it to be completely about my dad's death, you know? I want it to be about what you learn through those seasons in life, and so. Aaron: Yeah, I think it is fascinating how, I can say this from even, death in our family. Lauren's cousin, this was June of -- I'm trying to think, a few years ago. It doesn't matter. A few years ago, her cousin, who's our age, passed away in a car accident. And student baptism was actually that same week, and so I ended up not being at student baptism, cause I was with the family up at the funeral and blah, blah, blah. And I just remember, even in that moment, there's something about a death that creates like an, "oh my goodness, we have to be at the funeral, and we have to process this, and there's so much I'm thinking about, and like what really matters." And there's an urgency to that, that it feels like I'll never forget what this feels like. But for me, I think about her cousin's death. We're leaving the funeral saying "man, we gotta stay more connected, and we gotta talk more, and let's make that phone call, pick up the phone, let's stay connected." And actually, I remember Lauren's brother -- sorry, I'm kinda going on a rant here. But probably about a year ago, Lauren's older brother was facetiming us or something. He was like, "Guys, I feel like we're still not talking as much as we said we were going to. Remember at Dylan's funeral we were all talking about how we were going to stay so connected, and here we are a couple years later, and we're already back to where we were before," almost like, did we learn nothing from this unexpected death? And I thought, yeah. There's something so true about being at a funeral where you have like, just this lucidity about what matters, clarity around -- these people matter to me so much. I would be devastated if I lost them. But it's just so easy to lose that clarity. And so I think it's so key for us to hear from you as you're still in that phase of like, "I've still got very clear pictures of what matters to me, and I wanna speak to our church while those things are still on my heart." Drew: Yeah, I think as people we have to learn how to keep those lessons fresh in our mind, you know? For me, it's easy right now cause everything I do reminds me of my dad, every place I go. I mean, my mom lives with us. But I do think, over the course of time, it's natural for us to just let that fade, or go back to the way it used to be or living the same way. I think we have to learn to create constant reminders of that perspective that death or crisis gives us so we can live in a manner with the end in mind, rather than what's in front of us. Aaron: Yeah, and I think that's a little bit reflective of why Moses' words are "teach us to number our days." This isn't something that we do natively. We don't automatically begin with the end in mind. We don't automatically remember that our lives are gonna end or just even a picture of our own mortality. We don't automatically remember that, and so it takes God's work in our lives to teach us to do this, like, teach me to keep track of the fact that I've got such a short life. Drew: I don't think it's ever a lesson learned, like "Check that off the box, I got that." It's a constant, daily reminder, whether it's a reminder you set in your phone, or circumstances remind you. You know, there's certain lessons in life you have to constantly learn. And I feel like this is one that God teaches me over and over again through the circumstances that I walk through. It's like, "Dude, you've got plans, which are great, they're awesome, but who knows if you're ever gonna make it to your plans." I've been at my Dad's lakehouse this last weekend trying to get things ready for Mom and situated. The constant thing that Mom and the family says is, "We've finally got this place the way we want it and Dad's not here." And this was Dad's place. It's called "Pop's Place." And so, you just constantly need those reminders that, man, life is short. Your plans might be great, but God's might be different, so how do we learn that lesson regularly rather than through the tragic or the crisis? Aaron: Yeah. First of all, once again, yeah, I'm so sorry. Drew: It's okay, man. Aaron: But, that's why Solomon's words are, he says it's better to go to a house of mourning than a house of rejoicing. And I love that you used a wedding as a comparative, because there really is something -- there's something to be learned at a wedding. Right? I mean, if you've got a strong marriage or even a struggling marriage, a wedding can be a great reminder of, like, almost like a vow renewal. If you've got a strong marriage, you're like, "Baby, I love you all over again, I'd pick you all over again." If your marriage is struggling, it's like, "We gotta get back to this." Whatever. There's lessons to be learned there. But it's different than the, like, "I had an unfixable, irreversible reality of death." That's what a funeral is. It's not like, “Let's recommit ourselves to our marriage.” You can change the trajectory of your marriage. Once someone's passed away, they've passed away. There's something permanent that's like, "What am I gonna do differently now?" And so, funerals just have an incredible ability to do that. But hopefully we don't have to go to a million funerals before we learn the lesson ourselves. You know? Drew: That's the hope. But, I'm guilty so many times of going to a funeral. I don't know if I'll ever go to a funeral the same way anymore. And I think I've had such a good life in the sense of, I haven't lost anybody really close to me that has hurt this bad or stung. You know, I've lost people, but no one like my dad, that close to me. And I think, you know, thank the Lord that he's protected me and my family this far, but I'm telling you. There are certain things in life that I just won't look at the same. You know, as a pastor, death is common. People getting sick is common, people having heart attacks. I think it's gonna reshape the way I pastor. It's easy for me to get numb to, "Oh, someone died." Nope. Not anymore. My heart is gonna break for people who lost people. As a young person, I could have easily been like, "Okay, this is part of life." It is a part of life, but that part of life really stings and really hurts. And I think I'll be able to weep with people and mourn with people and hurt with people in a way that I just couldn't. Aaron: Mmhmm. No doubt. That's so real for any life experience. Once you had it. It's the walk a mile in somebody else's shoes, but you can't walk a mile in somebody's shoes until you've done it in certain cases. You can't really put yourself in the same framework as someone who's had a parent die or something like that until it happens, and then you're in a whole new ball game, you know? Drew: Yep, and that's why I love what Moses said about refuge. It's unique that he brought that up. Of all the things as he's looking back at his life, I love -- and I'm learning this -- that God is the best refuge. He offers comfort that people can't offer. In this season, I'm actually tired of people saying "I'm sorry." I'm tired of people saying "Are you okay?" And they all mean well. I'm not saying people shouldn't do that, but there's just nothing like a refuge from God. A place where God just -- like, sometimes even with my own family, when I wanna cry, I don't want people around me. I wanna be with God, and I wanna just mourn with God because he is that refuge for me. I've read Psalms 90 so many times. It's one of my favorite Psalms. It's actually the first passage I ever preached. So my first message ever --Aaron: That's awesome. Drew: -- to a live audience was Psalms 90. And I've read those words, like "Lord, you are our dwelling place," you know. But again, I'm learning this. I think we've talked about this in other podcasts. Those words are so different to me right now in this season in my life. A dwelling place. Man, I dwelled with God in such a real way lately, where I'm just like, "God, I don't want to go to anybody else but you, because I believe there's a level of comfort, and security and stability that only you can give me, and that's what I need right now." Aaron: And you'll come out of this stronger in that sense, your relationship with God, having been to this place with God, it doesn't go away. Your connection to God that is now stronger, better. What you've just described is literally a longer version of the phase "crisis brings clarity." I mean, you now know things you didn't know. You experienced things you could have never experienced. You know God in a way you didn't know him before. And that's a super bitter pill. Nobody wants to take that. You know, that's horrible, but it's God at work in you. Drew: I also think about, you know, a lot of times when crisis hits, people run from God. What I'm going through, I realize that people miss on some of the best moments with God when they choose in crisis to run from God, because they miss out on what I think I'm experiencing now, it's this level of comfort and stability and security that God gives. And when you choose to run from him because you're mad at what he chose to do, or what he was in control of that didn't stop, you didn't like the circumstances. It's crazy that, in the midst of that, people who run miss out of something that's so beautiful that God offers only in crisis, only in the crazy and uncertain times of life. Aaron: I'm not gonna add anything else, cause we're gonna end right there, man. That's really helpful, and I'm trying to do my best right now to believe that, to lodge it into my soul so that, when my crisis, like yours, comes, I'm more ready for it. I'm glad we all get to learn along with you, and this series is gonna be all about that. So, very much looking forward to it. Is there anything we need to know about this coming weekend or that our people should hear from you about? Drew: Couple things. One, we're gonna talk about relationships this weekend. It's like Rodney said. We talk about our relationship with God first, and Rodney said the second thing is relationships with people. And so we're gonna talk about how we create a life that matters through our relationships. Also, we're gonna be having a baptism, so it's gonna be an awesome celebration. Aaron, I believe you have an inside look at that baptism, because --Aaron: Yeah, I do. It'll be a little bit different because we have an executive order from our governor that requires a mask for any time which you cannot socially distance, so it's gonna be the weirdest baptism we've ever done, most likely, but we're gonna try to comply with every restriction and also make sure that we still do more and better. So, I got to be a part of it, and I can't wait for you guys to hear Ritchie's story. It's a great one. I guess I can say, it's already done. That's probably okay to say. Oops if it wasn't. We recorded it this morning on Monday. Very excited about it. You guys'll love it. All right. Let's be done. My friend, talk to you guys later. Thanks Drew, thanks Connor, thanks to our listeners. Please send us comments, questions, and thoughts. We would love to interact with you. We will talk to you next week.

TranscriptAaron Hixson: Hey Northridge, welcome to A Little Better, where our goal is to know God better and to do better, so that we can be a little better. Well hey, Northridge family, welcome back to A Little Better. Happy Easter. We are glad that you're with us. Today is the day after Easter. I don't know if that has a name, but I'm gonna still call it Easter. I'm the kinda guy who says "Merry Christmas" well after Christmas is over, so, I guess I'm just that guy. Drew Karschner: Do you really say “Merry Christmas” after Christmas is over? Or before it has happened? Aaron: Yes. Both, both. I mean, it's just like the Christmas season. It's a generic timeframe. Drew: No, the Christmas season ends after Christmas. It just makes sense that way. You got 25 days that lead to Christmas. You say “Merry Christmas” all the time. But once Christmas is over, you're not walking around like "Merry Christmas!" December 26th. That's weird, bro. That's weird. Aaron: I still do. I don't know. Okay. Well, anyway, happy Easter. [Both laughing]So, tell me about your Easter, Drew. How did it go down in the Karschner household? Drew: Well, we had a beautiful day with my mom and my family and my brother and sister. We watched the services. And we had turkey, so we baked a turkey, and we had some good food, great celebration. We hid some eggs, and when I say "we hid some eggs," I mean I threw them in the most obvious places for a five, a three, and a two-year old to get them. So we had a little Easter egg hunt with candy and little pennies in there, and the kids loved it. It was great. Yours? Aaron: Awesome. It was good, it was good. How many services did you guys watch? I feel like you're the kind of guy that would watch -- you're always watching other churches and seeing what they're doing. So did you check out other churches or just Northridge or what did that look like? Drew: I watched every Northridge service and I watched other church services as well. It's amazing. All day long my computer was full of services, so. Aaron: Yeah, you're like -- you get so many bonus points for how many Easter services you watched. I was present for all three of ours as well, 9, 10:30, and 1. I guess -- wait, do we have a Monday? Drew: We have one tonight at 7. Yes. Aaron: Yeah, we have one tonight at 7, that's right. So I guess I haven't been present for all of them yet. I've been present for all of the ones that have happened. But actually we're switching around service times. Have we already talked about that? Why don't you tell us what's coming this week for service times? Drew: Yeah, we're just moving -- so, Monday night at 7, it's been a great little experiment, and so we're going to shift it to Saturday night at 7. So, we're gonna take that Monday service. The only thing that's changing with our weekend services is we're taking the Monday night at 7, and we're moving it to Saturday night at 7. One reason why, Monday night was just a harder night for people to engage. I think after Sunday, they kinda move on to the next week, and so, a lot of churches I have worked for have had a Saturday night service, so we're gonna try this out, see if it works, and yeah. Praying God does cool things with it. Aaron: All right, so it's moving, not adding. We're just moving. There won't be a Monday starting next week. Drew: Exactly right, yep. We are moving the Monday night to Saturday night. Aaron: Sounds good. Yeah, I definitely have never heard of a church with a Monday night service. I do think it was a cool experiment, but I can't recall ever seeing that before. Saturday does make some sense. And we have the ability to do it, since we're having to pre-record right now, so that's cool. But hey, the big thing about Easter, obviously Jesus is alive, that's amazing. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Did you guys grow up saying that in church, "he is risen"? Drew: I mean, I think everybody says that. Even now. Aaron: No, I mean, it was like a call and response. It was like a real live thing every easter, you'd say "he is risen" and the church would say like "he is risen indeed." Did you guys -- was it just me? Maybe it was just me. Drew: No comment. [Both laughing.] Aaron: Anyway. So, we're excited. Jesus is alive. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the response from Sunday? What are we hearing from our people? And even people placing their faith in Christ. Did you have any of your pi2 people show up? Talk to me about that. Drew: Yeah, so Sunday was an amazing celebration. So one thing if you watched on our live.northridge platform, you saw a couple unique things that we've been adding. One of those is you could see when I gave the gospel and people had a chance to respond, you could see people say "raise a hand if you prayed that prayer." Aaron: Yeah, that was a cool thing. Drew: Yeah, it was really cool. Our team worked hard on that. Over our three services, we saw 27 people say yes to Jesus Christ. Aaron: Wow. Drew: Plus, three more that came in from a different avenue in that way. And so 30 people said yes to Jesus Christ. If you think about that, over four weeks, that is 61 people. 61. Aaron: Amazing, amazing. Drew: I mean, how amazing is God? And you know, we're griping and moaning over this COVID-19, but God is totally using it to draw people to himself. I know we talked about it, but I hope that never gets old. 61 eternities have been changed because of this, and whew! Let's go! I'm ready for more, I'm ready. Aaron: I know. That is very exciting. And I just love that we were able to capitalize on this season. You know, not every series and not every timeframe would be perfect for that kind of a shift where we're offering opportunities every single week, but this was just like the perfect moment and God utilized it, so I'm really excited about that. That's a very high number. Of course the number is reflective of stories and people that know and people that we’re following up with. They're not just nameless numbers. These are stories we care about and that we're checking with. So, that's very exciting. Drew: Yeah, and kudos to the people of our church for inviting. I got a couple messages from people who texted me and said, "Hey Drew, my friend texted me and said they said yes to Jesus." And that, just stirs a fire in people's hearts. My contractor. We've been adjusting some things in my basement for my mom to move in, and my contractor texted me this morning, so today, I think it was around 9:30. He says "Hey, we tuned in and it was awesome. Thanks for that." I got a message from my high school sixth grade teacher, who said, "Hey, I haven't felt that much hope in a long time. Thank you so much." Aaron: Oh my goodness. Wow. Drew: I mean, again, cool stories of God just working. He's fulfilling our mission. More and better, baby, more and better. People are growing closer to God and people are meeting Jesus for the first time. So, let's go. Aaron: Beautiful. And Drew, dude, I love that you're living pi2. I mean, it would be easy in your position, I think maybe mine too. We've talked about pi2 endlessly, especially back in the Paul series. It's easy at times to feel like that's outside of our purview because we're, you know, we work with a bunch of Christians and stuff, but I love that you've got names of people that you're thinking about. I love it. I've sent out some invitations, and got some positive responses. Some people ghosted on me, but, you know, that's gonna happen. And so, anyway, we'll see what comes from that. I loved getting texts during that morning. Like “Hey, my friend from wherever is tuning in, please be praying.” You know, people just in the moment being like, “I'm so excited they came!” I love that feeling for people, and just that they're sharing and spreading and praying, and we're all kinda like waiting with bated breath for what God's gonna do. And yeah. It's an especially expectant time because of the sadness and the distress and the fear that people are feeling, but then also of course with the biggest Sunday of the year in terms of people being interested in church. Drew: Yeah. Aaron: Yeah, so let's jump in and talk about the resurrection a little bit. Let's talk about this sermon from Sunday. I have some random thoughts that I might end up sharing that just were from my own devotional time on Sunday morning before church. But that's a whole 'nother thing that I'm looking at my notes here. We'll see if that comes up. But for now, you talked about how the resurrection should impact our daily life, and I just kinda thought, what does that mean? What would it mean for the resurrection to, as a believer, impact my daily life? How does the fact that Jesus is alive change what I'm doing day to day? Drew: I mean, if you truly believe in what Jesus accomplished, I don't understand how it cannot change everything. I mean, it should change your motives for getting out of bed. It should change the way you think about life and eternity. It should change the way you choose to live and act towards the people you love and the people you don't love. I mean, every fiber of who you are should be changed by the resurrection. Now, that doesn't happen in an instant. You know, it happens over a life of living in the perspective of the resurrection and how the resurrection gives you victory over your sin. And so, I think the major way that the resurrection has changed my life is the battle between my flesh and the Spirit. Living in light of the resurrection, man, my flesh wants to do things that I know I shouldn't do, and so the battle that wages within me, it helps me overcome the sin that I was enslaved to but now have freedom over. And so my daily choices of how to respond to my wife when she annoys me or how to have patience --Aaron: Wait, that's -- I'm gonna have to stop you there. That doesn't happen. Drew: It's actually usually in reverse, probably for my wife and me annoying her, but every once in a while --Aaron: Good clarification. Drew: But I think of patience with my kids, when we're locked in a house all the time together. I think of just the random emails that you get of frustration of people. Just every area of your life, the resurrection can impact. From my desire to want people to experience what I've experienced, you know. When you truly see the amazement of the resurrection and how it can change your life, it should create in you a desire for people to experience that as well. To love your neighbor, to tell your neighbor about Jesus. When I look at my life and I think about the resurrection, that Jesus is alive, what it really does is it makes me alive. It gives me life. And out of that new life, it changes everything I do. Aaron: That's great. I was thinking even to -- I don't know -- at the kind of really granular level, or really practical level, the fact that Jesus is alive, the reason you're saying it should impact everything is you're walking through the implications almost in an unstated way. You're like, if Jesus is alive, that means . . . and there's like five or six boxes that you're checking as a result of that truth, but like, why would a person 2000 years ago change my life? It's because what that resurrection means, as you said. That he's conquered sin. That resurrection means every claim he's ever made is true. That means that, if we have victory over death, even now in the midst of COVID, I don't have to be terrified of anything. I don't have to be terrified of even getting COVID and dying. I don't have to be afraid of people that I love having this disease and dying. I don't have to be afraid of economic ruin, or anything, global conspiracy that's making this whole thing up. Literally name your fear or whatever. None of it stands a chance against the fact that the worst thing that can happen to you is you lose everything and you die, and none of that can be -- the resurrection is more powerful than any of that. Drew: Right, and you think about this series. We've talked about, okay, you go back to Jesus' baptism, right? We talked about that giving him his identity. We talked about the temptation. It gave him his credibility. I think the resurrection gave Jesus -- it validated him as the son of god. It just took every claim Jesus had made in his life, as crazy as they were, and they said, check that box off, because that was true. You know, I think of even when he was crucified, the soldier, after he died, the veil was torn, the earthquake happened, the soldier says, "truly this must have been the son of god." It's like yep, checked that box. This was God's son. He did exactly what he said he was going to. And out of that, out of his resurrection, whew. The implications of that are endless in someone's life. Aaron: Yeah, and I don't have to -- if my spouse annoys me or if life isn't what I was expecting or if I never get married or if whatever, none of those things, as disappointing, frustrating, and hard as all of those things are, they're not ultimate. We have an ultimate truth in the form of Jesus' resurrection that overcomes everything. And so, it's kind of one of those "if all else fails" things, like, but it's not just an all else fails, break the glass in case of emergency, like, if your house is on fire, "oh no!" Quick, grab this last ditch effort. It's like, this is so important, so ultimate, that it actually can be pervasive in every detail of your everyday life. It's not just helpful in the biggest things. If you allow it to be, it's life-changing in the smallest of things. Drew: Exactly. And we're not saying that there are times in life where -- you know, life is hard and difficult. Right now, people are dealing with some really difficult things. And we're not saying, hey, walk around like "Oh, I got COVID-19, but don't worry, Jesus is alive." Like, yeah. He is alive. But that doesn't take away from the things in life that are hard and difficult. What the resurrection does in the midst of COVID-19, or in the midst of my dad dying or in the midst of anything that happens in life, the fact that Jesus is alive can change my perspective on any situation I go through. Aaron: I love it. In the midst of the story that we talked about on Sunday, there was obviously two guys, they're walking away from Jesus, and from faith. It's just insane to me. I was reading my Bible on Sunday morning before church in light of what I knew was coming in your content. It's just so remarkable to me how no one was expecting him to come back to life. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, and so we know how this whole story ends, but these two guys, it's not like they were walking away because they hadn't heard. They had already heard that the women had come, they had gone to the disciples, it had spread enough through the disciples. These guys had already heard. There are already claims of a resurrection. They're like, “Yeah, but we didn't see him, so...” They're just walking away. And here's what I was struck with as I was reading my bible. After Jesus dies, Joseph of Arimathea comes. He goes to Pilate. He gets Jesus' body. He puts him in a new cut cave, puts the stone over the entrance. So immediately Jesus is buried. First of all, that's fine. It's to be expected. But it does indicate to me at least on some level -- they didn't want him laying out on the ground rotating, but I'm wondering like, why are you doing this? If you genuinely expect him to come back to life, it might be a little weird, but like, I don't know. Put him in your backyard on a patio chair or something. Like, he's coming back. Just give him a minute. You want to be there when it happens. But they put him in a tomb. Okay, that's fine. But then the religious leaders -- this is what blew my mind -- immediately they go to Pilate and say, “Hey, this guy claimed to say he was gonna be resurrected.” That's interesting to me. They knew that. Second of all, they said he's gonna be resurrected on the third day. That's what he claimed. So they had comprehended and, at least to some degree, believed it was going to happen. At least they expected that his disciples would be expecting it and they would try to fake it. So they're like, “This dude's gonna try to pull off that he came back to life. Can we just put a guard and seal the tomb?” And Pilate's like, “Yeah, that's fine. Do whatever you wanna do to seal the thing.” So they put two guards. And they're standing there. And then the women go on the first day of the week, and they're bringing -- again, this blows my mind -- they're not bringing party hats and kazoos, waiting for the third day to happen, they're bringing burial spices because they expect him to die and rot, and they don't want him to smell. It's like, the only people who took Jesus' words seriously about coming back to life were the Pharisees. All the disciples were like, "Aw man, he's dead. And now he's gonna be dead forever." And the more I was reading that, I was so confused. And these disciples, Cleopas and whatever his friend is, we don’t know the name, they're walking away too! I'm like, what is happening? Why did no one comprehend it? And I would cut them some slack if it weren't for that the religious leaders did! Sorry. I just went on a random rant. I told you I had stuff from my devos. But I've never put it together before that the Pharisees were legit like, “Yeah, he definitely thinks he's coming back and it's gonna be on the third day, so let's make sure that doesn't happen.” And the disciples are like, “Well, I don't know what's gonna happen.” Drew: I think the Pharisees were worried that the disciples were gonna come and steal the body. I don't think they actually believed that Jesus was actually gonna be alive. I think they thought, okay, they're going to try to do some trickery to spread this lie. But, think about it. It doesn't surprise me. Can you imagine if someone came into our world and made claims that Jesus did? I think this is a really good question. How many of us would have recognized Jesus if he walked on the face of our earth right now? What's crazy is, the people who claimed to know the most about God were actually the people who killed God. The Pharisees were the ones who walked him through court. They're literally in a circle, looking at God, and they don't know him. Aaron: I guess the thing that's blowing my mind about it is they knew enough, they had understood Jesus' teaching about the resurrection thoroughly enough that they were taking active steps to prevent him from being able to fake it. Like you said, they weren't expecting it to actually happen, but they're like, “Let's just post a guard to make sure these guys don't try to fake it.” I guess I'm thinking, the disciples, what would have been cool is, even if they weren't sure I'm telling myself -- and I'm being way too generous to myself -- but I'm telling myself, I think I would have gone, "Okay, he said he was gonna come back to life, he said it was gonna be on the third day, it's Sunday, can we just go chill? Let's just go sit there and let's just see what happens." You know what I mean? "I'm not actually expecting it, I don't really want to get my hopes up, but let's just go." Now, at the same time, I recognize it was dangerous for them and blah blah blah, and I'm being way too kind to myself, but it just never clicked to me that the religious leaders were like, "Yep, this is probably gonna at least get faked, so let's work against it," and the disciples were not taking any actions. Drew: But that's exactly what these two guys did, Aaron. They didn't leave until Sunday. They waited around, I don't know if they waited around because they thought at some level Jesus was going to come back --Aaron: That's true, that's a good point. Drew: But they obviously didn't believe it that strongly, because they heard the rumors that he did come back and still left! Aaron: They're like, “Yeah, I know.” Drew: That's pretty pathetic if you really think about it. Okay. “Jesus is dead. Okay. He's gonna rise again. Oh, he did? Nah, let's go.” Aaron: I know. So bold. They're just like, yeah, probably not. Let's at least go find out. Normally I'm not a disciples basher because I recognize I've got my issues. I would not have handled this better than Peter or whatever, but some aspects of the resurrection are like, guys, why not just stick around a couple more days and just see if you can at least find out who stole his body or something. Then you'll be on the inside. Don't just peace out. Then I love that Jesus walks with them the whole time, explains the Old Testament scriptures, gets to the very end, and they realize it's Jesus. I love what you said in the video where you're like, at first they probably were really embarrassed or whatever. I loved that point because I would have just been like, "Oh no. We look so dumb.” Drew: What do you say to Jesus? I mean, like -- Aaron: Thankfully he disappeared. Drew: I was just gonna say, I betcha they were so glad he disappeared. Because do you know how embarrassing and how shameful? I mean, in all seriousness, it's funny, because we're not them, but sometimes we are, aren't we? How many times do we doubt God? Like even right now. You think of COVID-19 and all that we're going through. We say things like this all the time as Christians. “Hey, but God's got this, he could take this away in a second.” But do we really believe he can? Aaron: I know if he did, and he were standing here, I would be like, “Well, I gotta say I didn't see that coming.” Like, I intellectually believe it, but I'm fairly certain I don't actually believe it. Drew: And think about how, I mean, it's one thing to take a disease away. To raise yourself from the dead. Again, we've heard this story so many times that what we say and what we claim feels so normal because we get the repetition of Easter, the repetition, but like to hear it for the first time, to believe someone's actually going to do it, it's hard to put ourselves in their shoes, because we know the story. We've heard it over and over again. This was so fresh and so crazy in their culture and their day that, if I'm being real, I probably would have been the guy that would've been like, "Jesus, I love you. But you're crazy. You're crazy, dude." Aaron: Yeah. Obviously my life indicates that I'm no better than these people when it comes down to the details, but it just does sound -- I love what you said on Sunday too, about how it's just another -- I actually can't remember exactly how you said it. It's just another thing with more traditions that's lost its meaning or something like that. You kinda compared Easter to Christmas. I heard it three times. I should be able to quote it, but I can't. But I love that because I do think that that's true, where it's so common. They're like ah, Jesus rose from the dead. But it actually is a crazy sounding thing. Cause it is a crazy thing. And I've even found -- I don't know if this is true for you, Drew -- but like, occasionally encountering other religions and studying them a little bit and finding out what they claim, all of their claims sound so audacious, like what? Like "Mohammed is capable of what?" or you know, whatever. Like that's just ridiculous. But then I go, “Oh no, wait.” That's of course exactly how all the claims I make sound about our God. I just have grown up with them and so it's very kinda, "Oh yeah, Jesus came back to life and that's what we celebrate." So, that brings us to how we lost the amazement of Easter. And I think that's so relevant for all of us to think through whether or not this has just become one more Sunday where we dress up, or where we have a nice lunch. Have we lost the amazement? When do you feel like you've been most amazed, and when were low times for you in terms of amazement of what Jesus did? Drew: Well, I think one thing that's been really helpful for me in recapturing the amazement has been my kids. You know, telling my children, like Joelle, who is really on the cusp of fully understanding the gospel and believing in it. I think seeing it through her eyes is so refreshing. It takes me back to when I was a new believer. Just explaining to her what Jesus did and that he rose again from the dead, the amazement in her eyes is the amazement that I want, hearing the story like as the first time. If you've got kids, I encourage you, share the stories with your kids and watch their reactions. Listen to their questions. I think this is why Jesus says to have childlike faith, where you can believe in something and you can submit to something even if you don't fully understand it. And kids, they believe things greater than we do, because they don't have, you know, the logic of life just stripping away from the faith that you have. Aaron: That jadedness that develops. Drew: Yes, and I see the lack of jadedness in my daughter and in my son when I tell them the stories. Joelle, just looking and watching her listen to the story and watching her eyes and her being in awe that God could do that, I'm like, "God, give me that again." You know, like just give that back to me. It has really helped me recapture. I think I'm in a season now too where I'm emotional cause you know, my dad's dead. I just think God is refreshing and giving me a new sense of amazement for life. I mean, my mom said while we were watching services, she was like, "I wonder what Easter's like in heaven." Aaron: Ah, yo. Drew: I wanted to cry. But I also wanted to rejoice. Aaron: I'm trying not to right now. Drew: Because like, man. Dad is literally with the risen Savior. It was a hard Easter for our family, but it was also helpful in recapturing how amazing Easter is, and to know Dad is with Jesus. Again, what are Easter services like in heaven? Come on, you wanna talk about a party, let's go. Jesus is alive! Aaron: I bet they have Monday night services. Drew: I betcha they get a little charismatic in heaven. Aaron: [Laughing.] Oh man, I had so many other things I was thinking about saying, but I'm fighting back tears right now, so I think we should end on that. In fact, I want to use that as a segue to talk about what's coming next. I'd love for you to just give us a little bit of even just excitement about what's coming in our next series, and I think obviously it's got some ties to what we were just talking about, so what's next? Drew: Yeah, so one, I'm saddened to see Unfiltered Jesus go away. What an amazing series. Aaron: Oh man, me too. Drew: And you know, again, I wanna just say thank you to the Davidsons, Drew and Meg. They're volunteers in our church that have put so much blood, sweat, and tears into this series. They got regular jobs, but they're making and creating these videos. God did some amazing things through these videos, and so, Drew and Meg, thank you for --Aaron: I don't think he's done using them. Drew: He's not. He's not. And thank you so much for your time and energy. You guys are amazing. I also am excited for our new series. It's gonna be different, but it's called A Life that Matters. And really, I'm gonna be just kinda teaching you what God's been teaching me in this series, through, you know, my dad's death, through COVID-19, what really makes a life that matters? I think death and crisis brings a level of focus to our lives, where we really understand what is important and what's not important. And really that's what this series is all about, getting us to get back to the place in life where we're not distracted, where we're zooming in on what truly lasts for all of eternity. And so, it's gonna be a fun, and challenging series, but I think it's what we all need right now in this season. Aaron: I love it. Crisis brings clarity, and I'm looking forward to the clarity you can bring us starting this Sunday. It's gonna be a great series. Thanks for jumping in and joining us again, and everybody thanks for listening. We've got some cool things coming for the podcast, just some updates even just to make it a little more accessible that we're hoping to be integrating, so we'll talk more about that in the weeks to come. Thanks for listening, sharing, send in your questions, podcast@northridgerochester.com, we'd love to be able to interact with those. And especially now that we're in a season where we're recording after Sundays, if you've got things that come up while you're listening on Sunday, if you shoot those off on Sunday, we might even be able to talk about them in the podcast. We'd love to be able to do that. Please reach out, podcast@northridgerochester.com, or, since Drew puts up his email every single week these days, you might as well just email him. Actually, email whatever you want @northridgerochester.com. It'll probably make its way to us. That's if you can stay awake long enough to type “northridgerochester.” Thanks, guys for listening, we'll see you next week.

This Q and A topic is all about communication in marriage. Which we mention often in almost every episode because it is such a vital component of marriage. You have to talk to each other! We answer several questions that were submitted by our listeners. Please enjoy. Read Transcript[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna answer your questions about communication in marriage. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Marriage After God. It's actually the last episode of season three. So if you've been following along, we're gonna be taking a break, we're about to have a baby. If you've been listening to the last few episodes, you know that. And so, we're gonna have a little break. And then we're gonna come back in another season, in season four. We don't have a date for that yet, which is fine. [Jennifer] We'll let you guys know on social media. [Aaron] Yeah. And then, we'll do some new episodes. And so, just as a side note, if you have topic ideas for the new season, go ahead and shoot those in a message to us on Instagram at @marriageaftergod. But, today we're gonna be answering some questions from the audience, but before we get to the questions we like to talk about some things in life, but really, this first thing I wanna talk about is, I wanna encourage everyone listening today, because I know that there's a lot of fears, there's a lot of anxiety going around with the coronavirus, with things that are happening in the world, and I think some of them are legitimate things to be thinking about and considering. We wanna be wise people, that's what the Bible talks about. We don't wanna just pretend that none of this stuff's gonna affect us. But, my encouragement is to remind everyone listening that our trust is not in this world. Our trust is not in the vaccine that they might come out with. Our trust is not in the government. Our trust is not in the healthcare system. Our trust is not even our bodies. [Jennifer] Or money. [Aaron] Or money. The Bible is very clear where are trust lies, and that when we trust in anything other than God, other than His son Jesus, that trust is faulty, that hope is false, and we're actually insecure in those hopes. So I just wanted to point our hearts and our minds back to the Giver of Life. To the One that we look forward to, the One where our hope should lie, which is in Jesus Christ. Guys, one day we're gonna be with Him forever, and we're gonna have new bodies, we're gonna be healthy, He's gonna make the world right. All these things that are in the world, the destruction, the death, the injustices, the sickness, the pestilence, all those things are going to be made right. And so, once this thing passes, and whatever the damage is going to be, we don't know. But there's always gonna be something else. That's why our eyes need to be on Christ. And so I just hope that if you're having anxieties about this, the Bible tells us how to deal with our anxieties, it's to lift up our request to the Lord with thanksgiving, and to pray to Him. And He says He'll give us a peace that surpasses all understanding. And what I love about that is that our peace in God is completely standalone from everything in our life. That it doesn't matter what's going on in the world, it doesn't matter what's going on in our life, it doesn't matter about our circumstances. You could be like Paul, in prison and be praising God. You can be like Peter in prison, writing letters to the church. You could be in the midst of whatever it is that this world and that the enemy, or whatever it is, wants to throw at you, and you can have complete and perfect peace in Jesus. And so, I just wanted to quickly encourage everyone with that. [Jennifer] No, it was really good. I think that there is just a lot of attention specifically on the coronavirus. What I would say is, it is important to pay attention to what's going on in the world, current events and things like that, but-- [Aaron] Wisdom is good. [Jennifer] When we get those thoughts of fear, or anxiety, or frustration even, we need to remember that even in those times we need to submit those feelings to the Lord, and ask Him to guide us, to lead us, to give us wisdom on how to approach the situation and deal with it. And then remember that our bodies are gonna fail us. Our bodies are gonna get sick. There's gonna be, if it's not this thing, it's another thing, and so we just need to be able to trust the Lord that He knows what's gonna happen to us. He knows everything. [Aaron] He's knows all, He's omniscient. [Jennifer] So we can trust that. [Aaron] We can totally trust Him. And again, this isn't to say do not be wise, like we be wise, if we can make that take measures we do, but we have to remember that we could take every perfect measure, we could take every precaution, we can totally stock up what on whatever, just imagine it, whatever you think you could do to prepare, and your trust in that would still be faulty. Because none of that is actually secure. So, our trust is only good when it's in Christ. So, be prepared to the level that you can, and let the Lord have your fears and rest in Him. That's our encouragement. [Jennifer] Another thing that we wanted to share with you guys is just how incredibly blessed we feel for our relationship with Hobby Lobby. And, I don't know if you guys all know but they carry our books. [Aaron] Which was a total God thing, because there was no way that we were connected with them. I wasn't reaching out. We didn't reach out to them. They actually reached out to us and asked if they could carry our books, and I think it's so awesome. It's one of the cheapest places you can get our books. [Aaron] The cheapest place. [Jennifer] And, who doesn't love Hobby Lobby? I mean, just to be able to go there and peruse, and look at everything. [Aaron] People who've never been to one. [Jennifer] Well, if you haven't been to one, you should go check one out. I'm sure there's one near you. If you're near one, yeah. [Jennifer] But I just wanted to first give a shout out to Hobby Lobby and say thank you. Thank you for being someone who advocates for books like ours, and resources that point people back to God. And I also just wanna thank everyone who has been picking them up and buying them from Hobby Lobby, 'cause that keeps our relationship with them good. [Aaron] That reminds me, I love when people go into Hobby Lobby and they take a picture. And they #hobbylobbyfinds. So if you ever do that, we love to re-share those. So if you are in a Hobby Lobby and you pick up a copy of our books, please take a picture of it, and we'll probably re-share it on our Instagram. [Jennifer] Just make sure you tag us @marriageaftergod so that we see it. [Aaron] Exactly, 'cause if you don't tag us, we don't know. But yeah, so that's just a couple of things, just encouragement on the chaos in the world that had our peace. And then just, we're incredibly blessed and honored by Hobby Lobby and their partnership with us. That, to be honest, I don't think we deserve. I don't think we've, it's a God thing, that He set this up and we just wanna give Him the glory for that. [Jennifer] And if you're like me and you have been wanting to order our books, and you want it today, you can go pick one up today. You don't have to order it online and then wait for it. They have them in stock. And they're in every Hobby Lobby, which is amazing. So, it doesn't matter which one, unless they're out of stock. But they carry them everywhere. [Jennifer] Once I know what I want, it's so hard to wait when I do online shopping and stuff. I just wanna go get everything. [Aaron] But now Amazon has one day shipping, which is crazy. [Jennifer] I don't know how they do it. [Aaron] I don't either. But it gets here. Okay, so, one last thing, we have a another prayer challenge. I don't know if you've taken the marriage prayer challenge yet. Over 50,000 people have taken the marriage prayer challenge, which is incredible. So, we have this new challenge called the parenting prayer challenge, and it's a prayer challenge for you to pray for your son or your daughter, or both. Or all of them. Or all of them. Depending on how many kids you have. Yeah, all your kids. And it's completely free. Just got to parentingprayerchallenge.com and fill out the form and choose who you wanna pray for, and we'll start sending emails every day. [Jennifer] You guys might be wondering how it's set up because, obviously, they're not individualized prayers for you and your child, but they're prompts. So, it'll suggest pray for this specific thing, and then, as you're praying, you're making it personal because you know your family best. [Aaron] And it's a scheduled daily reminder. So you get this email, it says hey, you're gonna pray for your son right now, and here's what you should pray for. And it's not to replace your prayer life, it's to encourage it, inspire it, and give you a new outlook on your prayer life, and maybe expand upon it. One more time, it's parentingprayerchallenge.com to go sign up for the parenting prayer challenge. [Jennifer] All right so, this last episode of the season is a Q&A. We polled the community, the Marriage After God community, and Unveiled Wife and Husband Revolution, and we asked you guys to submit your questions, specifically about communication in marriage. And so, first of all, we just wanna thank everyone who sent us your questions. It's been cool to be able to poll the questions from the audience from Instagram, from you guys, and to answer them here. It makes me feel more connected and I love it. [Aaron] They often ask things that I'm not even thinking about. I'm like oh, that's a good question. So, it's really fun that we ask you guys. It also makes us feel like we're connected with you on another level. So, if you follow us on Instagram, that's usually where we poll our audience. You could follow @marriageaftergod, or @unveiledwife, or @husbandrevolution. We're gonna be doing Q&A's often, so if you see us pop a question and ask you to give us your questions, just submit them there, and we store them and we pick from them, and we try and answer them on here. [Jennifer] Yeah, and just let you guys know because of timing, we don't always get through every question, and so if you're listening and you're like, "I know I submitted a question "for communication in marriage," and we didn't answer it, please reach back out to us and just let us know, and maybe we can just answer it on Instagram for you. [Aaron] Or on the next time. [Jennifer] Or on the next Q&A. [Aaron] Cool. So, before we jump into the questions, why don't we just talk about some of the scriptures that, when I think about communication, these scriptures aren't just, they're not necessarily communication between a spouse. But it's-- [Jennifer] With each other. [Aaron] Yeah, it's with [Both] people. With one anothers in the church. [Jennifer] Very applicable to marriage. [Aaron] So I'm just gonna read through a handful of scriptures. [Jennifer] I'll read the first one 'cause it's shorter. You read the second one. [Aaron] All right. [Jennifer] Psalm 141:3 says, "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; "keep watch over the door of my lips." [Aaron] Yeah, and I pulled some of these scriptures to just show what a biblical perspective over our mouth is. And the things that we say. In Matthew 12:33 Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, and He says this, "Either make a tree good and its fruit good, "or make a tree bad and its fruit bad. For the tree is known by its fruit." [Jennifer] Like we know a peach tree is a peach tree because it has peaches. [Aaron] Or it's one of those fruit salad trees. [Jennifer] Well, that would be confusing. [Aaron] Which totally ruins the analogy. But anyways, "You brood of Vipers, "how can you speak good when you are evil? "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. "The good person out of his good treasure "brings forth good, and the evil person of the evil treasure "brings forth evil. "I tell you, on the day of judgment, "people will give account "for every careless word they speak. "For by your words you will be justified, "and by your words you will be condemned." [Jennifer] So what you're saying is words are powerful? [Aaron] They matter, yeah. We need to know that, we can't, like this specifically, and we just talked about this, actually, the other day, we say something and then we say I'm just venting, or I'm just kidding. But in reality if, it's coming from somewhere, those words that we just conjured up out of our mouth. They came from somewhere, and so we need to be careful and aware, like wait, so I said this thing and I wanted to make it sound like it wasn't that bog of a deal, but why did I say that? Why did I say that about so and so? [Jennifer] If someone has self control of their tongue, and they think, they're about to say something, but they decide not to, which is good, I would say they still need to evaluate their heart and question why was that even on the tip of my tongue? [Aaron] Why did it come out so quickly? And often, I would imagine this is about people in our life, and then if we say something so quickly, even if it's to someone in confidence, and we think, wait, am I actually angry at this person, or am I actually annoyed by this person, or bothered, or judgmental or whatever? And we have to think about that 'cause sometimes that comes out of our mouth and it's not from a pure heart. [Jennifer] And I'll say this, words cut deep, and when, especially in marriage, you see that person, you just see their face and you're reminded of what they've said, either recently or years ago. And you can hear them saying it in your mind, over and over again. And so, I think we just need to be reminded that we have a huge responsibility with our words. [Aaron] The next verse is from James, but there's another verse in James that we didn't write down here, that talks about having control of your tongue, and how the tongue is a, it's a small member of a body, but it's actually like a flame that can start a fire. And you're in the members of your body. It's also talked about as a rudder, something that, you have a large ship that is controlled by such a little thing. The things we say actually matter to a point of it directing our lives. But it starts off with saying, if someone has complete control over their tongue, they're a perfect man. So, we all know that we don't have complete control over our tongue 'cause we're not Jesus. Jesus was perfect. And everything He said was controlled. [Jennifer] So, when we're not perfect, and we're not controlled, what's our response should be? [Aaron] Repentance. At least recognizing it and saying, whoa, what I said was off. [Jennifer] Apology, reconciliation. [Aaron] I know I can't put those words back. It's like toothpaste, it comes out, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. So James 1:19-20 says, "Know this my beloved brothers, "let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, "slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce "the righteousness of God." So this is more a practical tip of, hey, to save yourself from saying something you don't mean, [Jennifer] Be slow. [Aaron] Be slower to say it, probably stop yourself. [Jennifer] I just wanna say, it also says be quick to hear. And I think, sometimes we wanna justify the things that we say. [Aaron] What? [Jennifer] We're not actually listening to how our words are affecting the other person, and so I think, I know you said this is practical, a really practical tip is just questioning, evaluating, making sure that you're being a good listener in your marriage. [Aaron] Listening to yourself, and listening to the person talking to you. [Jennifer] And to the Holy Spirit. [Aaron] Yeah, and to the Holy Spirit. [Jennifer] Okay, next one Proverbs 12:18, "There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, "but the tongue of the wise brings healing." [Aaron] Again, showing the power of our words towards others. [Jennifer] Such vivid imagery there. [Aaron] Here's one, Proverbs 18:2, "A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, "but only expresses his own opinion." So, we have to be careful about this, this is something I've struggled with in the past, my foolishness of just only interested in sharing my opinion. Like, oh, well let me tell you what I think, let me tell you what I think, rather than listening, rather than being thoughtful, rather than actually considering the other person. I've dealt with that for sure. [Jennifer] Another one is Proverbs 18:13, "If one gives an answer before He hears," again, going back to be a good listener. [Aaron] This ever happens to me, I don't do this. I do all the time. [Jennifer] "If one gives an answer before he hears, "it is his folly and shame." [Aaron] So, the next one, and the last one, which is by far not the last verse, 'cause there's tons of scripture that talks about how we communicate and the way we communicate. Proverbs 18:21, "Death and life "are in the power of the tongue, "and those who love it will eat its fruits." So, understanding that our tongues are powerful. If we love the power of our tongue, we're going to eat the fruits of it. Meaning, if we want to share our thoughts, and we're totally fine with just speaking things, we need to be able to be aware that those words are ours, and we have to own them. [Jennifer] All right, so that was just a little foundational prep for communication in marriage, just looking at a biblical way to communicate with your spouse. [Aaron] And get a perspective on how we use our words. [Jennifer] 'Cause honestly, no matter what question we answer, that was probably the most important that you hear today. [Aaron] Yeah, the scripture. Not our words, the Bible's words. Always. So, question one from the community says, how do you two come together and talk about your dreams as a couple and as a family? [Jennifer] Oh cool, I like that it's as a couple and as a family. Which we do talk about, dreaming together, in "Marriage After God", and I just love that chapter. Just because it's something that Aaron and I have found a lot of joy in. [Aaron] It's fun. [Jennifer] It's fun. And what we do is, we look at our life and we say, okay God, what do you wanna do with us? And we get to talk about it. [Aaron] How would you say, how have we been doing it over the last few years? [Jennifer] So, our biggest, probably dreaming session, as a couple happens at the end of the year, and we take time to go over what did that last year look like? What's still on our plate? And what things do we wanna try and accomplish in that next year? And it takes a good three hours or more to get through. [Aaron] But they're fun. [Jennifer] Just because it's a lot, but it's so fun, and we do it over dinner. And then we have checkups throughout the year, when things change, circumstances change, or goals change, or we accomplish things sooner than later. So, we just check in with each other throughout the year. [Aaron] Or we're in the middle of a goal, accomplishing a goal, and we evaluate, is this what we really want? Now that we're in the middle of this thing, which we've done. [Jennifer] I will say this, our dreams don't come from nowhere. Well, for one thing, there's seeds planted by God that we feel really strongly about that God gives us these desires that we have. But we also, what we call the tool belt, our marriage tool belt, we look at what we have, and we go from there. [Aaron] Yeah, and it's not like, we talk about this in the book a lot more, the practical side of it. We're not just throwing out, and casting a line out as far as possibly, and trying to see what we can grab. We look at what God is doing in our life, what we've already accomplished, in Christ, of course. [Jennifer] It's like we take that next step. [Aaron] And we say okay, if we have any money, we say okay, how do You want us to use this money? Our home, our cars, our business? And then we even talk about things that we would love to explore and pursue. And we hold all of it loosely, pretty much usually, right? [Jennifer] Yeah. 'Cause there's nothing we can guarantee. [Jennifer] Another fun way to do this is, on those smaller check ins or smaller dreaming sessions, when we like to talk about it, we like to go on a drive, let's say like a 40 minute drive. It's super fun. We're both buckled in. Can't leave the conversation. And we just talk about it there. But, I love doing this and I think that, over the years, Aaron, wouldn't you agree, that it's something that's been cultivated in our marriage because of our intentionality? It's not really something that is just gonna happen on its own, but it's also something that, I don't know, we put the time in to do it. [Aaron] Well, I'll say this, and this would be my one tip in this section, is yes, it needs to be scheduled. So, you and your spouse need to say, we are going to do this, and we're gonna do it on this date. So it's on the calendar. And then the other part is, setting actual goals, writing them down. So, for us, you may not be us, you're goals are gonna look different. Maybe they'll be the same, but, we'll say we want to have this book self published, or traditionally published next year or this year. Or, usually, the traditionally published is a little bit more out of our control. But, self publishing, we wanna have this book published by this date. And then that one goal gives us a whole list of tasks that need to be accomplished before, for that goal to happen. And so, setting that goal and giving it a realistic time frame, and writing it down on paper, and verbalizing it out loud. [Jennifer] The success rate is so much higher. [Aaron] Oh yeah. [Jennifer] Let's use finances. If we had a goal for finances and we just talked about it-- [Aaron] We wanna save $1000. [Jennifer] By next week, we would have forgotten what the plan was. So it's like, oh yeah, we talked about that, I think. So, when you go to write something down, I feel like it's super helpful. [Aaron] The finances is actually a good one. I would imagine almost everyone has some sort of financial goals. Maybe getting out of debt, or saving for a vacation, or pay for college, or who knows what it is? And so, setting the goal, a realistic goal, the thing that you know you can attain, and you can come up with those strategies of, we're going to save $10 a month, or $100 a month, or we're not going to buy this thing every week. When you do that, and you say it out loud, there's now accountability as well. So, something comes up and you could spend the money on it, and you both look at each other and be like, are we willing to cast out that goal we set four months ago? No? Then we have to say no to this. Even though it's difficult. And so now you both are on the same page. And man, that actually feels like victorious. You're like wow, we just said no to something that we really wanted, because there's this better thing down the road that we're saving for. So, I would say set those goals, put them on paper, say them out loud, put them on the refrigerator, put them on a chalkboard, make them visible. And it's true, your success rate exponentially grows. [Jennifer] Again, I really like the second part of this question 'cause they also wanna know how do you do it as a family? So, you have kids involved. I'd say, as our family, Aaron, you are really good about leading our kids through these things, and prompting their hearts, and preparing their hearts. [Aaron] Well, thank you. [Jennifer] And just asking them really good questions. Our children are still pretty young, so we don't download every dream or goal to them. We don't feel the need to explain everything, but as we talk about dreaming together, and as we set goals we do keep the impact it will have on our family in mind. [Aaron] Well, always, yeah. [Jennifer] And so, we share it with our kids, and we'll talk about it, and we'll invite them to participate in the ways that they can. [Aaron] And I would say, because we have this pattern of setting goals and dreaming together, we teach our kids how to do it. So, I'll tell my son, and he's drawing, and he might get to a point of not wanting to complete the thing he's creating. And then I'll tell him, I'll be like, hey, do you wanna be a really good artist one day? And he'll be like, "Yeah." I'll be like well, the way people become really good artists is a lot of practice. I said, so I know that it's difficult to finish this, or you wanna move on to the next thing, and I totally get that because you're excited but, there's a lot of value in you sitting and finishing this and coloring it, and you'll see a completed work. So, that's a little way of teaching my son on how to set a goal. [Jennifer] And that's really good, what I would call that is casting vision, 'cause you're showing him what the future would look like, but what it requires, and I think the same exact thing is important for marriage that both the husband and wife are reminding each other constantly. Because this whole episode is about communication, our words matter. We need to be encouraging each other. We need to be reminding each other, hey, remember we set this goal, hey, remember, this was our strategy, hey, this is what's gonna happen once we meet it, and encourage each other and stimulate each others hearts toward those those goals in that way. [Aaron] I totally agree. That's good. Let's move on to the second question, how do you gracefully bring up subjects that have been touchy in the past? You don't, you just skip over them, you just ignore it. I'm just kidding. No, this is a hard one 'cause sometimes you can't avoid the sensitivity of it, in some scenarios. [Jennifer] I think it's good to be sensitive to it. [Aaron] What I'm saying is not that we be just harsh, or cold about it. I'm just saying you could come, I would imagine that there's some conversations that you can come perfectly gentle, with the best intentions, with the best words, and it will still be a hard conversation. That your spouse still may take it very personally. So I would say you come cautiously, you come patiently. And I would say the number one thing is make sure your heart's right. Is your intention because you're just bothered and you want this thing to change and there they go again? Is that your heart, or is your heart that you actually care that they're growing, they're changing, they're following through with their own words, because of their integrity, 'cause you love them, and you wanna see the mature? So, if your heart is a selfish one, like, I'm gonna go deal with this because I'm offended, which doesn't mean you're not allowed to have offenses. We have to deal with our offenses. But, if it's a conversation from the past, we have a lot of these, about specific things in our life, and some things are little, and some things are big things. I would say, don't avoid them, but make sure that our hearts are right, and make sure that the intention is for actual growth and maturity in your spouse, or for healing. Do you have any tips on that? [Jennifer] Yeah, I was just gonna say that, when I go into conversations like this, I genuinely desire a good conversation about it. And, I think the most important thing that we could do, knowing that it's been touchy in the past, is pray for each other before we even get to the conversation. So, praying that I have the right heart, bringing it to the table, if I'm the one bringing it, and praying that I share in a respectful way, with the right words, words that will bring you understanding, but I also pray for your heart that, if there is sensitivity or anything like that, that you would be able to respond in an understanding way as well. That we're able to come together and have a good conversation about it. And I think that doing it with God at the center is the most important thing that we could do. [Aaron] The tip for the person having the topic brought up to is humbleness. And also, being aware of defensiveness. I do this. I get defensive, we just had a conversation and I was defensive. And you called me, and you're like, "Why are you being defensive about this?" Often, defensiveness is self preservation. It's selfish, often. And so, if we're defending ourselves, then we're not in unity, and we're also not being humble. [Jennifer] You're also not being quick to hear. [Aaron] And I'm also not being quick to hear. Thank you for reminding me of that. [Jennifer] I don't know if this helps practically but, when we go into conversations like this, I'll usually say something to Aaron like, hey, I really wanna share something with you, but, just so you know, my intention's not to upset you, or point the finger at you. It's just something that I've realized or recognized recently that I wanna talk about. Is that okay? Making sure that there's a place and a space for that conversation. You don't wanna just bring it up when you're at the dinner table, or you're walking into-- [Aaron] Right here on the podcast. Actually, I've been wanting to bring up to-- [Jennifer] No. [Aaron] Not on the podcast. [Jennifer] No. [Aaron] And then, one last note on this. I think we can get in a pattern sometimes. Some relationships are special in this way, but I think a lot of us can, in some way, have this pattern of bringing up everything. And not overlooking certain things. There's this one thing that we actually, it's not that big of a deal, but I just have to bring it up every single time 'cause I don't wanna have to deal with it ever again. And so I think, truly internally evaluating, is the thing I wanna bring up, is it a thing that needs to be brought up? Or is it something that I can actually just let go? The Bible tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. So not that we overlook sin and pretend sin doesn't exist, but if I said something one time, we're talking and I said something and you're like, "Well that was rude." But you know I didn't mean it, it doesn't need to be brought up, in that one scenario. Now, if it's a pattern, like I'm always rude, that's one thing, but if I said something, and you think, "He must've not meant that." Or, the way they are with something. Sometimes it just needs to be let go. [Jennifer] And I wanna speak to the other side, if your spouse is coming to you with something, I was gonna say something of importance, but, no matter when your spouse comes to you, how would you answer this question, does your spouse feel like they're walking on eggshells around you? Does it feel like you're here, there's a layer of eggshell around you, and they can't come that close to you? Does that make sense? [Aaron] Yeah. So I think it's important for both sides that people listening can evaluate, okay, am I being aware of what I'm bringing up, and is it necessary? And then, how are my responses towards my spouse? Am I someone who gets defensive? Am I being selfish? [Aaron] Am I being critical? Like I'm just over-critiquing my spouse. [Jennifer] Yeah, and so I think that's it's important to think about are we setting ourselves up for putting eggshells down to where no one wants to come close to us and ask us those hard things. [Aaron] And I think a good remedy for this, specifically, 'cause we're not tryna say, don't have conversations that need to happen. What we're talking about is evaluation and discernment. Is the thing that I want to bring up something that should be brought up? So my solution to that is, when you wanna bring something up, first evaluate in yourself if the thing that you're seeing or wanting to talk about in your spouse, is something that you deal with, but maybe in a different way. Because often, we're very keen to sin or issues in other people's lives that we ourselves deal with. Someone's always late to something for you and it bothers you. And then you realize that you're always late for something else. But you don't think about it. So, ask yourself, is this something that I deal with? And truly ask yourself, because if you care about it in them, you should care about it in yourself 'cause want to. So, just a little tip. [Jennifer] It's good. All right, question number three is, how do you talk to your spouse when they are distracted by their phone? Can we just skip this one? Just kidding. [Aaron] Again, I never do this. [Jennifer] Okay, repeat that for everyone to just take a minute and hear. [Aaron] How do you talk to your spouse when they are distracted by their phone? You can't. [Jennifer] We have struggled with this so much you guys. [Aaron] Before there was phones, there was TV. If you're ever sitting next to me and I'm looking at a TV, I'm not even watching what's on the TV, everything's shut off in my brain. Which is why we don't have a TV 'cause I would just sit there and I'd be gone for hours. [Jennifer] This is true, but, what I was gonna say is, before phones there was an iPod. And I remember when the first iPod came out and we were dating. [Aaron] And it only did one thing. [Jennifer] I know, one thing. And I'm sitting at a restaurant, next to you, and you've got the wire from the cord in your ear, both ears, and you're scrolling through music on your iPod. [Aaron] Now, to my defense, I had just got it. [Jennifer] You were so excited about it. [Aaron] Yeah, I was excited about it. [Jennifer] But here's the point, we do get distracted, and it's a real thing, and I think it's important to talk about. [Aaron] Yeah, I would say, and Jennifer, you've gotten good at this, Aaron, I'm tryna talk to you, can you put your phone down please? Because I didn't even know you were talking to me, and you've been talking to me. And I'm on my phone. Which we have whole episode on phones and boundaries, which is something we're constantly working on. But being free to say that, say hey, can you put your phone away? I wanna chat with you. And you've also gotten good at voicing to me how it makes you feel. You're talking to me and I-- [Jennifer] Mid-sentence you'll pull it out. [Aaron] And then I'm on my phone. Maybe it buzzed or something, and I'm on it. Or, we're talking about something, and it's something that I need to do, and so I go to do it while you're talking to me. [Jennifer] Yeah, oh gosh. [Aaron] You're like, can you-- [Jennifer] Can you wait 'til I'm done? [Aaron] Do that after we're done? I know that you're excited to do that. Yes, it's mostly on my side, sorry. I would say yeah, just get really good at voicing it, hey, can you put your phone away so we can have a chat? I know that's distracting. You're gonna get on it afterwards, but, so we're not distracted, let's put our phones away. But, be willing to receive it on both sides. 'Cause we're cellphone generation. [Jennifer] I was gonna say, I think it's important to have patience with each other because, yes, we are a part of a generation that uses technology on a daily basis. This is such a hard one because it's not just you, Aaron, it happens to both of us. But being aware and allowing your spouse to help you be aware, so not getting defensive when they say something about you being distracted on your phone. I don't know. [Aaron] A little side note about cellphones, something fun that we've done in our community for a long time, I don't know if I started it or someone else did, someone must've started it, but if see someone on their phone and they're spending time with you, just lean over and be like, hey, who you hanging out with? [Jennifer] It's kinda mean and sarcastic but. [Aaron] What's powerful about it is, oh, I'm hanging out with people on my phone, not the people that I'm actually hanging out with. But that's has nothing to do with someone distracted by their phone. If you're distracted, you just gotta ask, hey, this is an important conversation, or I wanna tell you something, can you put your phone away for just a second so we can chat? [Jennifer] I will say this, Aaron, you have been making it a point this last year to leave your phone in the car, especially-- [Aaron] On Sundays. [Jennifer] On Sundays, so that we are not distracted during fellowship time. You leave it out in the living room at bedtime, so you're not constantly scrolling in the bed. On date nights, you tend to leave it in the car. [Aaron] What I'm tryna to do is just, because I know how prone I am to just pick it up when it's near me, I'm tryna find ways of getting it away from me. Which I wish that I could do more. [Jennifer] We've also had some pretty deep encounters with our kids, where they recognize that we're on our phones in front of them, and I think we've shared this on the podcast before, but just realizing how it impacts our relationship with them as well. [Aaron] I think that's an adequate answer for now. [Jennifer] Which is, what is the solution here? [Aaron] Tell them. [Jennifer] Tell them. [Aaron] Can you please put it down so we can chat? [Jennifer] Hey, just so you know, it hurts my feelings when I'm talking to you and you're looking at your phone. Oh also, I gotta mention this, if you're in the middle of a really heavy conversation, and there's no resolve yet, but there's been silence for a while, don't just jump on the phone, that hurts so bad. Just-- [Aaron] Remain in the situation. [Jennifer] Remain in the situation, remain in the silence until it gets figured out. And if it doesn't get figured out, communicate that with each other say, hey, we're just gonna put this on pause until we can figure it out, and then move on. But don't do it without that communication. [Aaron] That's a very good point. [Jennifer] Okay, number four. [Aaron] As a wife, how do you teach yourself to respond, ask, speak respectfully to your husband? [Jennifer] So I guess I have to answer that? [Aaron] Well, it's not for me. [Jennifer] Okay, so first you have to know what respect is. I remember back when we were first going to a marriage ministry, probably in third, fourth year of our marriage, and there was a group of young wives that I was friends with, and we're hanging out one night, and I remember asking them how would you define respect? I don't remember really growing up understanding. I kinda knew it what respect was, and I could get by with a makeshift definition, but I didn't actually know what it looked like in marriage. And they didn't either. It was like they looked at me like why would you even ask that question? [Aaron] Why're you even bringing that word up in our midst? [Jennifer] And I'm just sharing that because I do think it's important to know what respect is. So Google says respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone. So, if you want to teach yourself to respond respectfully, you should know why you respect your spouse, right? [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] You should know why you deeply admire them. 'Cause that's what's gonna fuel you or propel you to respond that way. [Aaron] Do you think a wife can respond respectfully to husband who is not respectable. [Jennifer] That's a really hard question, and I don't feel comfortable answering it for every single person, 'cause I don't know every single situation, but I would say this as an encouragement, that there are some things that you can find to admire about a person. [Aaron] The thought I had, and I was thinking about, not a spouse, how should we respond to a stranger that we know nothing about? With honor, with respect, with kindness, right? So my point was, I think, that in pretty much most situations, on the individual level of a person who loves the Lord, we can find, even if it's not for the husband's sake, or the spouse's sake, out of my respect and love for the Lord, I'm going to speak to this person the way Christ speaks to me. [Jennifer] That's a better answer than I gave. [Aaron] I think you were being careful. I don't think your answer was bad. That's what I was thinking about is, regardless if they find something respectable, 'cause a lot of people might struggle with that, I don't respect my husband, therefore I'm gonna talk-- [Jennifer] I'm not gonna, and then that becomes a justification. [Aaron] And on both sides, I don't respect my wife because of this, this and this, therefore I'm going to, rather than treating them the way Christ wants you to treat them. [Jennifer] That's good. Well, I think that we can, just as you're talking about we can be respectful, and it's not contingent on other people. We can be respectful in our communication towards others, towards our spouse, and like you said, out of that love and admiration for the Lord. I love that. And that that will influence our relationship. My admiration for you has grown over the years. [Aaron] Totally, and vice versa. And I would say also, none of this subtracts from the kinds of things we get to say. If you need to tell someone, which you told me before about my sin in my life, what it was doing to God, what the reality of it was, but you said it so respectfully, so honoringly. And the Bible says to speak the truth in love. It doesn't say don't speak the truth because you want them to not feel bad. You can still say really difficult things to someone in a loving, respectful way. So that's just a thought I had. [Jennifer] Just to clarify too, the question was how do you teach yourself to respond, and ask, and speak respectfully? I would say the one word that comes to mind is practice. That's probably what I should have just started with. But practice. As you practice this, and as you walk in it, it will become more natural for you to respond respectfully. [Aaron] That's good. And remember who you're doing it for. It's not necessarily your spouse, it's for God, because you love the Lord. Yeah, that's good. And it goes for the husbands too. The answer is the same. Okay, so number five says, what do you do when one spouse gets tired of talking and stops listening, and refuses to respond, or to keep the conversation going? This is like that situation, we're having, it's a difficult conversation, maybe it's a frustrating conversation, maybe it's just another one of those conversations that we've had 20 times. Well, first of all, you can't control your spouse, just, I think, the quick answer is that you can't control me-- [Jennifer] You can't force them to give you an answer or or to-- [Aaron] You can lovingly say hey, it's really hurting me that you're refusing to finish this. Is there a better way we can finish it later maybe? Or can we finish it now? I would say also, being understanding in the situation of how the conversation's going. Often, these kinds of conversations are the ones that are, both spouses are at each other, both spouses are annoyed, both spouses are selfish. [Jennifer] Both probably need some humility. [Aaron] Yeah. I would say just, sometimes maybe you just need to step back and pray for your spouse and say hey, I get that you probably aren't interested right now, but we need to have this conversation. Can we do it another time? [Jennifer] I know some things that I like to do with you is, hey, I get that were not in agreement on this, can we just pray about it and close with prayer, and ask God to reveal things to you over the course of however many days, or until you talk about it again. [Aaron] And I would also say, for the one who's wanting to continue in the conversation, so one's checking out, and the one's like hey, we're not done. Maybe ask yourself, are you elongating because you haven't gotten retribution yet, or are you wanting this to keep going because you haven't convinced them yet of your side? Are you wanting to, discern and spiritually evaluate if you're wanting the right thing? Are you wanting reconciliation or you wanting to be right? Are you wanting unity or you waiting for them to yield? And this goes for the husband or the wife. And so, ask yourself, are they checking out because they're not getting to where I want them to be? And that's why I keep going. Rather than hey, are we gonna find a solution, a unifying solution? Are we gonna find reconciliation, are we gonna find a place that we're back in the right relationship with each other? Rather than I'm getting my way and they've come to my side? [Jennifer] That's good. I know I keep going back to prayer, but if your spouse is getting tired of the conversation and refusing to continue it, pray for their heart. Pray that the Lord would minister to them, and transform them, and bring resolve through them, because ultimately, it's the Holy Spirit, right, that does it. Mm hmm, amen. [Jennifer] Okay, moving on to number six. How do you overcome the fear of vulnerability? That's a really big question, but it can be simplified. [Aaron] I think it has to be. Well, first of all, most people are afraid of being vulnerable. [Jennifer] I would say everybody is. Vulnerability isn't something that's like, yeah, let's be vulnerable. It's hard. [Aaron] It's spiritual nakedness. It's showing what's on the inside, and often we don't like what's on the inside. And so I would say, you said earlier, practice. But really, asking the Spirit of God. Say God, transform me in this because, it was other people's vulnerability with us that freed us to be more vulnerable. [Jennifer] It gave us the courage. [Aaron] So yeah, if you're struggling with this, just pray and say Lord-First of all, regardless if you never reveal anything about yourself, we all know who we are. We are wretched. We are sinners who need a Savior, who need His righteousness, who need His power to transform us. And so, just recognizing that and say, okay Lord, humble me, and help me be open so that you can A, change me, the things that I'm afraid of, the things that I don't like, the ickiness, the grossness inside me, but also use that vulnerableness, use that transparency to free others, to heal others. Not because of me, but because of You, Lord. I don't know, that's my idea. [Jennifer] I think a big thing that I learned through being vulnerable in marriage, is having this resolve to understand that love requires risk in making yourself known. So, what I mean by that is, in order for me to know that my husband loves me, like actual me, not someone who's pretending over here is-- [Aaron] Not what you show me. [Jennifer] You have to know me, so I have to reveal it to you, and that requires risk. Because that means I'm gonna share something with you, and then you get to respond. So there's a risk involved, and that's what makes it hard. But I'd say, like you said, practice is really good, and then I was just gonna plug the Unveiled Wife here, because if you wanna get to know someone who wasn't vulnerable, and then was extremely vulnerable, not just with you, Aaron, but with the whole world by writing a book about it. [Aaron] It was a big deal for us. [Jennifer] The Unveiled Wife is my journey of learning vulnerability in marriage and with God. [Aaron] That was good. So, question number seven, we have been married over a decade and feel like we lost things to talk about. [Jennifer] Aah. So, I would say, Find things to talk about. [Jennifer] I would say start learning again. So, Aaron has this really great quality about him where, when he gets excited about something, he just starts learning about it, I don't know. [Aaron] I research. [Jennifer] Yeah, you have this research brain where you just, you get hooked on something. Even with the kids, like when it comes to Legos, it's like, oh Elliot, I figured out this new thing. You're even learning the Rubik's Cube, okay. You been researching. I have been. [Jennifer] Watching YouTube videos, and you been sharing it with me. So you'll sit down on the couch with me and be like, "Babe, look at this," what do you call it? Algorithm. Algorithm. And you do this twist thing and I'm not following, but I'm just smiling 'cause my husband loves to share this with me. [Aaron] And then you see it working and you're like, "How'd you do that?" [Jennifer] Yeah, it's pretty awesome. So start learning something again that you can share with them. It could be anything. And then talk about it with them. [Aaron] And to be honest, if you've lost things to talk about, I don't know this person. I don't know their life. But if you guys are in a place, if you're in a place that you have nothing to talk about, first of all, that's not true. There's never nothing to talk about. There's never nothing to explore with each other, and to walk with in each other. There's, at minimum, there's tons of challenges in life to have to navigate. [Jennifer] So you're saying they're choosing not to share things? [Aaron] Yeah, I would say, I don't think it's possible to have nothing to talk about. [Jennifer] Especially if you have children. If you have children, you have a lot to talk about. [Aaron] Well, and the other thing is, is if we're pursuing God together, if we're looking to what He's doing, He's going to reveal to you sin in your life, He's gonna give you jobs to do, like this idea of He's got work for us to do, good works that He's prepared for us since the foundations of the world, those things are remarkable, meaning that they are able to be remarked about. There's something to be talked about. And so, I think that if there's nothing to talk about, there's potentially, maybe your minds aren't on heavenly things. Maybe your minds are an earthly things, and worry, and things that you're not looking up. [Jennifer] Or maybe there's sin your guys's life that you've been avoiding confronting because-- [Aaron] Mm hmm, sin keeps us in darkness. So I would just challenge you, if you think there's nothing to talk about, I would start praying and say Lord, what's in my life, what's in our life that is keeping us from each other? Keeping us silent, keeping us in the darkness, keeping us from moving forward and being excited about life? Guys, if you're believers, we have the greatest hope, everyone in the world, the greatest hope is for the believer. That's remarkable. That's something to talk about, forever. We're going to do it in Heaven. We're gonna be worshiping the Lord, forever in Heaven. So, if we've lost that excitement now, we gotta ask ourselves why? What's taking it away? Where have we misplaced that? [Jennifer] Now simply, if you're just bored, and you've forgotten how to communicate with each other, and ask each other good questions, I have to let that we have a freebie for you called Date Night Conversation Starters, and you can take these out on your next date, or just hanging out in the house, and use one of those to prompt a question and get started talking. [Aaron] Start asking questions to each other. You can go to datenightconversations.com. Was that prompted, was that planned? [Jennifer] I just thought about it. [Aaron] These are some good things to think about. [Jennifer] Okay, we're gonna get through these next ones fairly quickly, just for times sake, but, how do you get an introvert to communicate? Here, let me change it, Aaron, how did you get me to communicate in marriage? 'Cause I'm an introvert. Keep asking you questions. Never give up. Do it gently with love. The goal is not to ever change someone, the goal's to engage, and the goal is to encourage, and exhort, and to lift up, and to love, and to strengthen. Remember, you're one, and God's given you unique characteristics for a reason. So, they're not things to be bothered by or hated, they might be things that need to be grown in. Just because, quote unquote, I'm an introvert, doesn't mean that quote unquote, you need to stay an introvert. [Jennifer] Don't label yourself that way. [Aaron] You can grow. You never know, what God wants to grow you into, and transform you into. So don't just say well, this is what I am, and therefore that's what I am. [Jennifer] I'll say this, over the years, Aaron, your affirmation and encouragement has really gone a long way in that, you ask me a question, and maybe I'll answer it very quickly or short, or maybe not at all. And you say, just so you know, I want to hear from you. That affirmation, hearing that over and over again, reminds my heart, my mind, he really does just wanna know. [Aaron] And then, one last little thing I would say, recognizing and cultivating the differences in your spouse will make them feel loved and makes your spouse more able to communicate in those times that they can't-So, if they're introverted, recognize that in your spouse in saying, hey, why don't you get some time alone, when you go be with the Lord, I'll take care of the family, I'll take care of the kids, or whatever. And that let's them know that you appreciate them, and their differences, their uniqueness, and you're excited about it. You're like, how can you use that in a good way, so that in those times that it's necessary, you're not allowed to just retreat into your title, into your whatever. They they know that you love them, and that you're saying hey, I know this is hard for you, but we do need to deal with this. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's really good. Okay, so the next one says, how do you stay in touch with your spouse when your husband works two jobs and you're a stay at home mom? I'm just gonna answer this one really quickly for what comes to my mind is get creative, text them, send love letters, make a journal where you guys can pass it back and forth, putting things on the schedule and protecting that time, even if you're super tired or there's other circumstances going on. I would say that those are some practical ways that I would answer that. And I'm sorry, that's such a hard question to try and answer, but the communication is still a priority. [Aaron] I would say if it's a priority, we'll do it. And we have a brother in our church that leaves real early in the morning, comes back real late, and he just he works a long job, and he records videos of him reading the Bible, and asking questions and sends them to his kids. So even though he can't be home, when he has the break, when he has the time, he make sure to, everyday, send them something to lead them and disciple them. So, father's who have these jobs, if you're listening to this, and maybe you're on the road right now, don't use your absence as an excuse to not disciple and lead your children and family. There's ways to do it, especially in this day and age, man, we have technology. You could FaceTime every day, there's ways to do it. So I just wanna encourage you that, get creative like my wife said, find ways of connecting with your spouse and your children regularly, to show them that you're there. Because even though you can't physically be there, you can spiritually. [Jennifer] Cool. Okay, we got two questions left. The next one is, how do you handle conflict when you are very irritated? Which happens to all of us, right? No one's immune to irritability or irritation. But the verse that I thought of was Psalm 4:4, it says, "Be angry and do not sin. "Ponder in your own hearts, on your beds and be silent." [Aaron] And that's a good point is, when you're frustrated, make sure that, again, you're coming with the right heart. So, you've dealt with your frustrations with the Lord first. Doesn't mean you don't say something about it, and you don't address it. [Jennifer] It's that being slow to speak. [Aaron] And then also, maybe wait. Wait for when you've cooled down. That's always a good posture to take. Right, so the last question we got for you guys is, what are important questions you need to ask your spouse every week? Aah. [Jennifer] Okay, so we don't ask each other the same questions every week, but, we do have a standard of questions that we lean on when we want to know each other more, Aaron. And it's stuff like hey, how's your heart? Or hey, what are you thinking about? Or hey, what's God been teaching you? What are you gonna be working on today? Or what do you need help? [Aaron] Or what are you reading in the Bible? These are interesting questions that help, if the other person maybe hasn't been, they say oh, well nothing. I'm gonna get into the Word, right? So they're encouraging. And if they are, you can start a conversation with them about what they're learning for the purpose of growth. And we have some friends, really good friends, Jeremy and Audrey Roloff, they actually have a resource called the Marriage Journal. And it's an awesome resource. They actually have, it's a weekly check up for your marriage. [Jennifer] There're actually specific questions that you ask every week. [Aaron] And they draw you closer to your spouse, they help you get to know each other. It also helps you stay on track with each other. So, if you're asking this question, if you're out there thinking yeah, what should we be asking ourselves? It's called the Marriage Journal by Jeremy and Audrey Roloff. You should go check that out, it's an awesome resource, we totally support them, we totally love them. And it can totally help you in growing in your marriage. So, we love you all, and we thank you for joining us on this last episode of the season. If you haven't checked out the other episodes from this season, please go do that while we're on this little break. And also, check out last episode because we have a giveaway going right now. And it goes only until April 10th, so go check out our last episode and find out how that giveaway is gonna work. But, as usual, we pray before we sign out. [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of marriage. We pray we would be husbands and wives who are willing to communicate with each other in a respectful way. We pray we would have the courage to say the hard things in love. We pray we would be good listeners, and truly hear what our spouse is sharing with us. We pray to share our heart with one another, always. We pray that your Holy Spirit would infuse our speech and open our ears, so that we can hear. Help our minds to understand each other, and to extend grace to each other. We pray the posture of our hearts would be humble. We pray we would strive to make marriage a safe place to communicate, and not a scary one. Help us to work through our marriage issues, and the things that we're experiencing to gain knowledge of each other and of You. Help us to grow in how we walk, and may it be in a worthy manner as we navigate life together. In Jesus Name. [Aaron] Amen. We love you all. And we'll see you next season. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. 

Our physical health and learning how to take care of our bodies have played a large role in our growth of the years. In the beginning of our marriage, we dealt with sexual issues and after 4 and a half years living with those problems we finally discovered what we believe was a major contributor to those problems. We began replacing our toxic products with non-toxic products and almost immediately found healing in the area of intimacy. We have had many people over the years ask what kinds of products we use now and so in this episode we share a little of our journey and the products we like to use. Pleas enjoy! PRAYERDear Lord,Thank you for our bodies. We pray we would be good stewards of our bodies and consider all that goes on them and in them. We pray we would be willing to take the time and research the items we use on a daily basis, using things that help us and not hurt us. Lord, we ask that you would give us wisdom as we navigate living a healthy lifestyle. Help us to make good choices and be on the same page in marriage so that we can enjoy the benefits of living toxic-free. Please help us not to be overwhelmed by the process of learning, but rather, help us to be humble and willing to learn so that we can choose what is healthy for us and be advocates of healthy living for the sake of others. We pray living healthy would not become an idol in our lives and would not hinder any of our relationships. May we be people who don't just consume, but who are about our bodies and take care of them.In Jesus’ name, Amen! Some things mention this episode. http://Parentingprayerchallenge.comhttps://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/the-unveiled-wife-embracing-intimacy-with-god-and-your-husband-by-jennifer-smithhttps://ENG.orghttps://unveiledwife.com/oils/https://norwex.bizDr. Bronner’s - https://amzn.to/2vRCQ91https://www.bendsoap.com/Native Deodorant - https://amzn.to/2VXpWkzBert's Bees - https://amzn.to/3cPJkpNBurt's Bees 100% Natural Moisturizing Lipstick - https://amzn.to/3aKRNs7Ancient Minerals Magnesium Lotion - https://amzn.to/2TQu6YT READ TRANSCRIPT[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helpin' you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're gonna share with you our favorite non-toxic products. Welcome to the Marriage After God Podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as, Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as, Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage. Encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one. Full of life-- [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] and power, [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly, after God's will of our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Welcome back everyone to another episode of Marriage After God. We are happy to have ya, and today we are just going to share some, it's kinda like a funner episode, where we're gonna share, not just our non-toxic products, but why we choose those, and part of our story. [Aaron] Yeah, and well, we've had a lot of people over the years, kind of, 'cause we've talked about our journey with health, and we talk about products we use, and you have people often asking, "Well, what do you use?" [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And so-- [Jennifer] A large portion of my first book, "The Unveiled Wife," you know, talked about our journey, you know, figuring some stuff out, and so, we'll probably start there. [Aaron] Yeah, but it'll be fun. We believe that it's good to have a healthy life, I mean, everything we talk about it spiritual, but there's something to be said about, taking care of our bodies, and being careful with what we're putting on, being thoughtful, we even talk about, yeah, we talk about this often in our books, we talk about it in our life. We actually try and live it also, doesn't mean we're perfectly healthy in every aspect, but what's been awesome about it also is, we actually have less stuff, which is cool. So we'll talk about that a little bit too. So first, before we get into that, why don't you give a little update on baby Edith? [Jennifer] Yeah, is everyone as anxious as I am to meet her? I'm-- [Aaron] Some people are probably like, "They're having another baby?" [Jennifer] I know, [Aaron] Yes we are, number five. [Jennifer] Yep, I'm 38 weeks, and just starting to feel like way more ready and prepared, mentally, [Aaron] Some of that pre-labor stuff [Jennifer] Yep, and my body, but also, just in our home, I feel like, we are all kind of getting to that transition point where, I don't know, we're just, we're just ready. [Aaron] So I'll say this, if you don't hear of any more podcasts coming out, after this one, it's because we had the baby. [Jennifer] But, I haven't ever gone that early, so-- [Aaron] Yeah, you-- [Jennifer] I don't know. [Aaron] We're usually like, I should say, you're usually right on the dot. [Jennifer] I will say this, usually nesting kicks in, and I you know, look forward to, just utilizing that energy, that extra energy to clean the house, and get every nook and cranny, and this time I didn't get that way at all. I had to like, really rely on the Lord, and just um-- [Aaron] Well I'll say this, I think you did have the desire to nest, but you didn't have the energy this time. [Jennifer] Yeah, I had the desire for sure. [Aaron] You're like, "I just can't get up off the couch, "I just, I don't feel like I," So, there was all these things that you wanted to do, but it took a lot of my helping, it took a lot of like, extra stuff that you didn't have-- [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] and so, but that's just unique for this time. [Jennifer] But we got some stuff checked off our to-do list this weekend and now I feel ready. So thank you Aaron, thank you for your help with that. Yeah well, I'm sure we'll have a little bit more stuff before the baby comes. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Gettin' the house ready, just gettin' some things off of our plates, so that we can enjoy little baby Edith, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] when she's here. [Jennifer] What I did do, was I got through Olive's old clothes, and got like a drawer ready for her, and all of her clothes are ready, so, [Aaron] Oh, we also moved all of, 'cause right now we have all of Truitt's clothes, in our bedroom, like right below the changing station, so that we can like change him, and put clothes there, but we moved those. Now he's got his clothes in the boys' room. [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] I'm imagining, we're probably gonna move him into the boys' room soon, right? [Jennifer] Soon, yeah. [Aaron] And then he's gonna be one of the big boys. [Jennifer] Uh? [Aaron] I know [Jennifer] Everyone's growing up too fast. [Aaron] Who in the world? [Jennifer] Elliot feels like he's seven feet tall. Doesn't he feel so big? [Aaron] Yeah, he's gonna be a tall one. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But it's awesome, seeing them grow, we were just talking tonight about if we would have had children earlier, which kinda goes into a little bit into our story, but if we would have started, day one, we'd have a 13 year old. [Jennifer] Yeah, just recognizing, how long we've been married and-- [Aaron] And we probably have 13 kids. So, [Jennifer] At our rate. [Aaron] Yeah at our our rate, yeah. Hey, I just wanted to also bring up something that I've been doing lately, and maybe you can chime in on this, Jennifer, as well, but for the men listening, something I've been trying to do, I know not everyone has our situation. We totally understand that. We get that. But Jennifer and I both, I would say I work the majority of the time, it used to be much more equal, but as we've had more kids, Jennifer's desires, and our desires has changed to, you spending a lot more time homeschooling, [Jennifer] My work just looks different [Aaron] Totally looks different, but the idea is that we're keeping things going, but what I've been doing lately, is letting you have Fridays to yourself, often that's so you can get, you know, the work that you need to get done, done. But sometimes it's just to go. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] To get into the Word. To meet with a lady [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] From the church. To just have time to yourself, or a little bit of both, like you get some work done in the morning, and then you have like a hair appointment, or you have a meeting with a friend, [Jennifer] Yeah, I try and use that time to schedule appointments-- [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] But um, I will say this, I've really enjoyed it, and it's been super beneficial in a lot of ways, but I also recognize that change is coming, with having the baby and post-partum, and all that. So it'll be something that we reevaluate, come very quickly. [Aaron] Right 'cause we go through seasons, and ebbs and flows, and we have to adjust our schedules and our way of living to the situations in life. But, I just wanna encourage the men out there, that even if you're not in a situation, where maybe your wife works with you, or works at home, or maybe, I don't know, like your situations are gonna look differently. The idea is being intentional, to let your wife know that, especially if she doesn't have like, a regular nine-to-five job if she is at home with the kids, if you have a similar situation in that aspect, is giving them time. It may not be every week, maybe it can't be every week, but if it's once a month, if it's every other week, if it's for a couple hours, there's times like, "Hey why don't you, "I got the kids you get out of here--" [Jennifer] And maybe it can't be during the day, but it's at night or, if it can't be during the week, it's you know Saturday morning or something like that. [Aaron] Yeah, there's always going to be a way to just let your wife know that you're thinking about her time, and also, as men who are leading our wives, spiritually, giving them time specifically like, maybe it's at home like, "Hey, why don't you just go lock yourself in the bedroom? "Open up the Bible like, read, journal, "go take a bath, and listen to some worship music." Giving them time to themselves, time to recharge, regenerate. I know some women probably recharge around people, not alone, but, whatever it is, maybe they need to go be with some friends. Just, keeping that in your mind, something we've been practicing, like we said, it's a it's a seasonal thing. So it's not necessarily that it's always going to be this way, but currently Fridays have been your day, and you've been enjoying them, we've been slowing down on that with the baby coming. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Also 'cause, you're having less energy, and you're like, "I just wanna be home." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But, it's been a cool thing. [Jennifer] I think it's a really good encouragement, and I think it's good for husbands to hear, that when it's even spontaneous, 'cause this was something that we kind of scheduled out, and looked at our situation, and said, "This needs to be happening." But even when it's at random, you know, spontaneous, it's a huge encouragement to the wife's heart to know that the husband is thinking of her like that. You've done that for me plenty of times over the years and so, I love that you're bringing this up. I think it's cool. [Aaron] So hope you're encouraged by that. One more thing before we get into our, our list of our favorite non-toxic products is, we just want to invite you to join the Parenting Prayer Challenge. We created this prayer challenge, it's very similar to the Marriage Prayer Challenge, where you get 30, 30 some-odd emails everyday, reminding you to pray for your children, and giving you a topic to pray for over them. and you can actually sign up for one for a son, or one for a daughter, or you can sign up for both, which is pretty awesome 'cause some of you probably have a son and a daughter, or just sons, or just daughters, or just one or the other, but you can go, you go to parentingprayerchallenge.com, all one word, and you sign up, it's completely free, and we just pray that God blesses you, and your prayer life for your children, because praying for your children is so important. Just like praying for your marriage. Just like praying for your brothers and sisters in Christ. Prayer is so important. God wants to be praying people, and so this is just a fun challenge. It's a way of being a catalyst for your prayer life, for your children. It's parentingprayerchallenge.com, it's completely free. [Jennifer] Okay, so for some of you listening you may have already read "The Unveiled Wife," if anything we talked about today, you know sparks interest and you haven't read that book yet, that was our first book that we came out with, you should go check it out, just because it shares more in depth of our journey, of kind of coming to this place of like, being aware of healthy living, and living a healthy lifestyle. But we're going to kind of summarize it. Just to kick off this episode, just so that you guys can, just get some background into Aaron and Jen. How about that? Okay. [Aaron] Let's see how quick we can make this summary. [Jennifer] Okay so I would say that when we first got married, Aaron, we didn't really, we didn't have a strong foundation of what it look like to live healthy. We grew up on fast food, and and home cook meals, but there was no, [Aaron] We didn't have an awareness of healthy living at all. [Jennifer] Yeah, and so we didn't really care about looking at ingredients on products, or you know reading the labels of things. I would say that you know I used all the all the really good smelling lotions and body washes, and if you didn't have more than three or four in your shower, it was like, "What are you doing?" You know, that type of thing. Fragrant candles, the kind of laundry detergent that you just never think about, you just use it because your parents used, or that's what so-and-so use. I remember using MAC makeup. This one, actually, I didn't really ever talk about this one, but this was one that affected me, in my teens because I was caking on the foundation, but I was using it to cover up acne, [Aaron] Which that made more acne. [Jennifer] Which made more acne. And I was actually allergic to something that was in it, and so I stopped using that, even probably around like 18. But anyways, the point that I'm getting at is that we didn't care about what was inside of these bottles that we were using to put on our skin, you know, the soap that we use, the body wash, the lip balms, the hairspray, we just consumed it. [Aaron] Not internally necessarily. [Aaron] We were consumers. We bought what we liked, we didn't have any consideration of what it was, and I actually think, back then, not very many people did. There was movements of it, but social media wasn't a huge thing back then, so not a lot of people were talking about it. Like news wasn't talking about it, like it was just, you got these products, and it wasn't until there was some sort of, big blow up or news story about something that people were aware of something, but I think with, now looking back, everyone is much more considerate about what's in products, people care about it, but back then we didn't have that experience. No one was telling us to, like, "Oh, do you know what those ingredients are?" Can you even understand what there, like, we just figured, like, "Oh, that's what they put in everything. [Jennifer] Yeah, and then, on the side of like, I'm not gonna go too much into this, but medicine, it was kind of just like, the Benadryl, Tylenol, like, whatever you could get over the counter type stuff. And I wasn't raised with a really big awareness of homeopathy, or how to, you know, use what you have at home. [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] To help through sickness or things like that. Or to even just look at what's the root of the problem here? Of whatever symptoms you have. [Aaron] Or having an understanding of what those, why those symptoms exist. How fevers work, and how, like, why are you coughing, and sneezing, and these kinds of things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Rather than just, medicating the symptoms, which we're not totally against medication. [Jennifer] No, I'm just saying this is kind of like, where we came from. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] So we get married, and I, you know, it was just like a normal thing people talked about, to go on birth control, so I did that. 'Cause I thought that was-- [Aaron] It's what you do. You get married, [Jennifer] What we were supposed to do. [Aaron] birth control, wait. [Jennifer] Yeah, wait. And I only on it for about two to three months, and it like, drastically effected my body, and so that was the first thing that I noticed should go. And so we did that. But that was also in conjunction with trying to find a solution for what we were dealing with in our marriage, which started immediately-- [Aaron] Physically, yeah. [Jennifer] And for those of you who don't know, Aaron and I, we struggled with intimacy right off the bat, like, zero, none. [Aaron] Like sex, specifically we couldn't have sex. It was very painful for you, and we've talked about this in the past, there's a few episodes where we talked about our story, and in your book you talk about it, we talk about it in our new book, "Marriage After God." We talk about it so much because it was such a influential season in our life, and how it brought us to our knees before God. Because, it drew out of us, so much other sins, and frustrations, and bitterness, this situation we were going through. Which is often when we go through things that are hard. They often will draw out those negative things in us. Which is cool, because then God gets to deal with them. But that was, yeah, we didn't know it, you would go to see doctors, and they would say, "You're young." [Jennifer] "You're fine. [Aaron] "You're fine-- [Jennifer] "You're really great." [Aaron] "there's nothing wrong, "this should be working just fine." And then we'd go home and cry, because it's not fine, it doesn't work, nothing's changing, it hurts you. [Jennifer] Yeah, it was like at least if you told me that something was wrong, I can work with that. I can't work with nothing. But moving on, so year four of our marriage, we had a conversation with some friends, we were being really transparent and honest with them about our struggles, and they kind of like, I remember them sitting across from us, just looking super confused, like, "How-- [Aaron] Dumbfounded, or like, "Are you serious?" [Jennifer] "Yeah, is this really happening?" but she goes, the girl, she goes, "The only thing I can think of to help relate your story, "to someone else's that I heard is, "a friend of mine has PCOS, and she changed out all "of her products to be more organic, "and just cleaner, and three months later, "she ended up pregnant." Which people with PCOS, it's a hard thing to do, and they weren't even trying to get pregnant. She was just trying to heal some of her other symptoms. And we quickly disregarded that because we thought, "Well, we're not trying "to get pregnant, we're just trying to start off "with the first thing, which is-- [Aaron] Yeah, how do I have sex? [Jennifer] "sexual intimacy." And we didn't think about it again for about five, six months. And then what happened, Aaron you share. [Aaron] Well, I would just, it got worse of course, 'cause we're like, "There's like no hope, "like this in never gonna change." You know, it started off with a lot of hope, like, "Oh, it'll get better, it'll get, "but it can't possibly keep going the same way." And it just did, and you know, I'm praying through this, God was working in our marriage. There was a, if you read in our book, in both of our books, actually, there's this moment that God gets ahold of my heart, and just totally convicts me of my wrong heart, towards my wife. Not just over the situation about our sex, but about a lot of things. And it brought me to my knees, I repented, and I just said, "Lord, I'm gonna obey you. "I'm gonna walk with you, "and I'm gonna love my wife, "regardless of if I ever get what I think I deserve, "or whatever she owes me, or whatever. "I'm gonna love her. "The way you've called me to." And that was the beginning of a lot of transformations, in our marriage, in our life, and our being. But how, I don't know how, it was like. [Jennifer] It was shortly after-- [Aaron] It was like that weekend, maybe, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] or the next weekend, or that week, 'cause it was at church that this you know revelation that God gave to me happened. And I'm in the shower, and I'm just praying, 'cause I'm still like, "God, there's gotta be something, "that's gonna fix this." 'Cause even though, I've totally committed my heart to say "I'm gonna love my wife," [Jennifer] You still wanted change-- [Aaron] I still want a change, right? But my heart was totally in a different place now. And I'm just praying, and I'm like. "Lord, what is it? "It's been since before we were married, "like this is, since we've been married, I mean, "and there's gotta be something." And I looked down in the shower actually, and there's a face wash in there, and I just immediately remembered this story about the PCOS, and the girl that got rid of her stuff, and I just asked myself, I was like, "Is it possible that there's something reacting "with my wife's body?" And then I started thinking like, "What has there been, that you've used, "ever since the beginning, of our marriage?" [Jennifer] 'Cause shampoo and conditioner changed out, body wash changed out, a lot things changed, in those four years, but my face wash was the one main thing that I always was consistent with. [Aaron] And so, I said, I just yelled from the shower, I remember like, "What have you been using "since before we were married?" And you were like, "My f-why?" You were like, confused. Anyways, I take the face wash out of the shower, and I hop onto our computer, and I just start researching every ingredient on the thing. And there was like, first of all, like, half the ingredients were, I went on this site, and it talks about the toxicity level, of ingredients, right? You type the ingredient in, and it just tells you what the level is. [Jennifer] Had you ever done anything like that before? [Aaron] Never, never done like that before. Didn't even know it existed, I had to Google, and I'm searching like, how do you figure out, I'm typing these, and then this site shows up. And like half the ingredients in this thing, were-- [Jennifer] It was EWG. [Aaron] Toxic. [Jennifer] EWG.com. [Aaron] EWG.com, I don't even know, is it still a thing? [Jennifer] I think so. [Aaron] Okay. So half the products were toxic at some level. And then there was several of the ingredients that had specific terms that it said it was, that the affect. Specifically the endocrine system in your body. Then I looked up, I was like, "What's the endocrine system? "I'll just start looking it up." I'm getting all technical, and we're not scientists, we're not biologists, we don't know, like, I'm not gonna try and diagnose people, but all I know is the Lord lead me to something. [Jennifer] We were putting pieces together. [Aaron] I started researching, and regardless if it has any effect, the fact that it had all these toxic chemicals, and I'm like, "Maybe she should, regardless, "she probably shouldn't be putting this on her body." and the endocrine system something that's, it's super important to the whole reproductive system. To the normal function of the woman's body. Like secretion of normal hormones, and I was like, "Dang, that sounds like a lot "of like the things that we deal with." And so it-- [Jennifer] The specific thing that you're talking about is parabens. [Aaron] Parabens, yeah. [Jennifer] So there's four, different types of parabens, in this specific face wash. [Aaron] Methyl, propyl, like all these different kinds. [Jennifer] And this was before parabens was a thing, [Aaron] Yeah, like no bottle said paraben-free, back then. [Jennifer] Nobody was talking about it yet, but it soon became a thing, shortly after that. [Aaron] A few years later. [Jennifer] I mean, I remember a few years later, you'd go into like, Ulta, or Sephora, and you'd start seeing, you know, makeup lines that say, paraben free this, paraben free that. [Aaron] Which is interesting because back then, no one cared. I should say no on knew. And then we're like researching this and finding this out, and I don't wanna say, like started move, we actually didn't start anything. Other people are already trying to get this moving, but because of social media things like that, that it exist. Things were a lot slower. I think things are way faster now. But I was just like, "Hey. "I want to be with you, physically." And in this is a big deal because Jennifer has been using this forever, she believed that without it, she was gonna have acne. And be, and feel ugly, or whatever it was, and I remember I was like, "Hey, would you get this up?" [Jennifer] I said no. [Aaron] And she was like "No!" And I'm like, "I'd rather you have acne and us be able "to be together, than you have clean skin, clear skin." [Jennifer] And then I was like, "Well maybe there's something, okay. "I'll just do it 'cause you asked me." [Aaron] So you did, you chose to put it away. And now, I'm sure everyone's thinking like, "Yeah, I'm gonna go use this to get my wife, "or get someone to stop doing something." But, I, my heart was not just to get her to stop using this. I actually had never thought about it until this moment, and I was just like, "Would you be willing to experiment with me?" Like, "Let's just delete this from your life." [Jennifer] Yeah, it was an experiment. And here's the thing you guys, three days later, three days later, I was at work and I remember just feeling different, and I called Aaron and I was like, "I don't get too excited but, I feel different, "and I wanted you to know that my body feels, "it feels like things are changing." And I feel like it was just like two more days after that that we had sex for what feels like the first time. [Aaron] Yeah, in four and a half years. [Jennifer] Like pain free. [Aaron] Pain free. Not just pain free, but like it was enjoyable. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Like it was, like we were like, "Whoa. "Like that's what it's supposed to be like. [Jennifer] There was nothing else that was gonna convince me, that what we stumbled upon, was the thing. [Aaron] Right, and I would also say, we, God lead us a new place, in our hearts toward him. We had been repentant, of things that were going on, and I think that the Lord revealed thing to us, so I would say I definitely think that there is certain things are engaging, or interacting with your body. I mean we know over the years that you're sensitive to certain things, I'm sensitive to certain things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But I also think that the Lord, was like working in us. So I'm not trying to over-spiritualize it but, I don't wanna take away from what God was doing. [Jennifer] Sure. [Aaron] And he revealed this to us-- [Jennifer] Well and I think, he's the one that revealed this to us, and it was really awesome, and so the next step was, "I'm getting rid of all parabens." Like parabens became this like, [Aaron] We literally threw [Both] Everything, [Jennifer] And I am telling you guys, [Aaron] All of our shampoos, all of her makeup. [Jennifer] It was it! [Aaron] My makeup too. I'm just kiddin'. [Jennifer] It was in everything. It was in so much stuff. People will message me on Instagram, and they're like, "So you know, "You talked about parabens in the "Unveiled Wife," "and what kind of stuff did you have to look at?" It was like, [Aaron] Everything. [Jennifer] I tell 'em, "everything." And so what's funny is that, I look at our shower now from what it used to be, and it's like you had mentioned earlier, [Aaron] There's two things in there. [Jennifer] Yeah, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to do this episode. 'cause we just thought it'd be fun to share with you guys, some of the things that we use now, but this indecent, this thing that happened over something as small as face wash, is what stimulated our hearts to say, "Hey, what were putting in our bodies. "What we're putting on our bodies, "is important because it has an effect on us." [Aaron] And I mean it's definitely not our main focus, I mean everyone that listens to our podcast would know that this is not, we're not like a health and fitness-- [Jennifer] Freaks, [Aaron] Podcast. No, we just know, that there's a holistic view that God has of us. He wants us to love him with our minds, our souls, our bodies. Like so, when we look at the world it's not just, "Oh, we can be unwise over here, "as long as we're wise over here." we look at idea of, what we, we gotta be wise in every aspect. And we seek God on that. So what's wrong with just, caring about what goes on our body and in our body? Not out of a, like, not putting something on my body and not putting something in my body is not making me more holy. It's making me more healthy. [Jennifer] It's taking care of yourself. [Aaron] it's taking care of the body that God's given me. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I will say this, back then, it felt a little bit harder to know what to switch to, because-- [Aaron] Well, there was also less things, I think. [Jennifer] Less cleaner things available and so I just wanted to make that clear, that, you know, anyone who wanted to make a switch today, like if they want to go to their products or-- [Aaron] There's a million products now. [Jennifer] be more healthy in this way, there are so many good products out there and so, it's a lot easier, I would say. But another thing that triggered our healthy lifestyle, was doing the Sugar Busters diet, which we-- [Aaron] This was long time ago. [Jennifer] that was just a couple months, after all of this, and we made the commitment to do it together. We even took a class on it do you remember that? [Aaron] I do. [Jennifer] And they taught us how to read labels-- [Aaron] It was at the church. [Jennifer] Yeah, it was at our church. [Aaron] The church put this like health class on. It was cool. [Jennifer] Yeah so, it taught us how the read labels, and so I remember going grocery shopping with you, and we're looking at the back of like pasta sauce-- [Aaron] Well, everything we bought, had added sugar in it. Every single thing. [Jennifer] But we were like, amazed, we were like, "And this has it too!" [Aaron] I was like, "Bread doesn't have sugar in it." and every loaf of bread, was like, the second ingredient was sugar. And we're like, "Okay, what's going on here?" So anyways, [Jennifer] And then you had to go with a list of what are sugars called? because there's a lot of-- [Aaron] All the different names of sugar, yeah [Jennifer] Different names, for it. But that was another one, when we talk about eating, like that was what stimulated our healthy movement towards eating healthier and just buying things so that we're aware of what we're putting inside of our bodies. It doesn't mean we don't consume sugar, and we don't, you know, we'll have Chick-fil-A, we'll go out and-- [Aaron] No, but that education, the learning about how to read labels. What are ingredients, you know, how they order the ingredients, that's important, I can give a little tip on that. Even though we don't still do Sugar Busters, that month or how many? It was a couple months maybe. [Jennifer] It grew a muscle in us, We now, that's how we shop. When we go grocery shopping, of course there's gonna be stuff that we grab that has added sugars to it, but for the most part, we look at the ingredients in almost everything we buy. Everything, now especially with you, you need to be gluten-free. We look at, we actually buy less things that have wheat in it period, because of that, but it was a good tool in our tool belt, as we talk about in "Marriage After God," to just help us be healthier, help our kids be healthier. They enjoy things, here and there, we just had icecream tonight, so we're not like, sans sugar in our life, we're sans sugar all the time. [Jennifer] I was gonna say, we try and make the best opportunity, or we take every opportunity, when we can, to be healthy, eat healthy, and you know, choose the right thing, but it doesn't mean that we don't get, [Aaron] We also enjoy things. [Jennifer] Yeah, we also enjoy things, so, [Aaron] In moderation. [Jennifer] in moderation. That's good. [Aaron] So, Oh I wanna give that quick tip real quick, 'cause people are probably thinking like, "Well, what about the ingredients?" Just a quick tip on ingredients, the order of ingredients on the box, so like starting from the first, to the second, to the third, the higher up an ingredient is on the box, the more of that ingredient is in the product. So if sugar is in the top three ingredients, that means there's a lot of sugar in that item. So if wheat's the first or water, that's how they order the ingredients, based off of amount of ingredients. [Jennifer] So here's another one, it's really random, but I've been seeing a naturopath for my thyroid issues through this last year, and one of the things she asked me is if we use Weed and Feed. And I didn't even know, 'cause you usually do-- [Aaron] For the lawns? Yeah. [Jennifer] the lawns, yeah. And that was just one instance where she was like, "Well, instead of using that, "why don't you just pick the weeds?" like-- [Aaron] Or leave the weeds. [Jennifer] or leave the weeds. So there's a lots of things in our life that we can look at and evaluate, and say, "Oh, we should probably make change." It doesn't have to happen all at once, but it is something that we should be aware of, to go, "Hey what's happening to this exposure "that we're doing to our bodies. "And how can we maintain a healthy body?' [Aaron] And the Weed and Feed was important because was saying, "You guys walk on "that grass all the time." And like, it goes into your skin, and you're going to be affected by it. Because you're you're working with your thyroid and all of these things, effect that. Which is interesting because, we knew back then that you were probably sensitive to some stuff, and now we know now, you are definitely sensitive to things. Your body's gonna react, maybe differently than someone who, has normal functioning thyroid, or endocrine system or all that. [Jennifer] Right. Okay so, we we're just going to get into kind of a list of our non-toxic products because-- [Aaron] These are literally things that we use, pretty much on a regular basis. [Jennifer] Two reasons, one we just thought it would be fun to share these things, and if you guys you know want to know more, you can reach out to us on Instagram @marriage-- [Aaron] Reach out to Jennifer about the [Jennifer] I was going to say @marriageaftergod. [Aaron] Ah there ya go. [Jennifer] or @unveiledwife We also know that everyone's always looking for, you know, new things or ideas or inspiration so, we just hope that by sharing these, it's an encouragement to you, and give you some information. [Aaron] And I'll also let you guys know that we're not like necessarily sponsored by any of these people. We're just we're literally going to share with you guys the things that we love-- [Jennifer] Now I will say, [Aaron] and use. [Jennifer] that some of these things that I put on the list, and we've been using Young Living Essential Oils for [Aaron] Several years now. [Jennifer] about four or five years now. And we did just recently, just be more open to sharing the business side of things on social media. You may have seen that, maybe not. And so I know you said that we're not sponsored by this, but we,-- [Aaron] But we use it. [Jennifer] but we do use Young Living, and we do believe in what they have to offer, and and have really fallen in love with their products. So, I just wanted to put that out there, just so that people know and we're clear about that. [Aaron] We're not trying to be tricky or anything, we just, these are literally products we love and no one's asked us to share about them. Except for us, wanting to share about them. [Jennifer] Okay so when it comes to cleaning I really love the Thieves Spray, which in the beginning I was using wrong, because I didn't know it could be diluted. I literally would just put the spray cap-- [Aaron] And everything was just like slimy and had like, film all over the [Jennifer] Uh yeah, like a residue. [Aaron] We had residue everywhere. [Jennifer] On the countertops. [Aaron] Oh man, there was no germs I bet. [Jennifer] Ah, probably not. So the Thieves container comes, and then you dilute it, and it lasts a long time. But it smells really good, and I can use it for-- [Aaron] Everything. [Jennifer] I feel like every, one product, I feel like I can use for so much. [Aaron] And what's awesome is like, if you sprayed it on food by accident, I'm not saying you should eat it, but it's not going to be like spraying Lysol on something. Like you spray the table, you spray the the highchair, you spray, you're not worried about this, you know hurting your children. Which is awesome. It's an added benefit to this kind of cleaning product. [Jennifer] Another awesome cleaning product, is by a company called Norwex, it's really awesome you guys, they do these microfiber cloths, but they're like-- [Aaron] Aren't they infused with like silver? [Jennifer] Yeah, they're infused with silver, and they just, I don't know what about it is, but like, when you go to clean the stove, you barely have to even scrape, it's just like, [Aaron] Reusable [Jennifer] It like makes you want to clean. The window rag, you just you put water on it, and just wipe your window down, and they look crystal clear. I bought these mitts for the kids that have, they're just really easy slip-on gloves, but they're good for dusting, [Aaron] So that they can help clean? [Jennifer] So that they can help clean. Oh and our mop, I use the Norwex mop, and it's just really nice. It's good, I like it. I like their stuff. [Aaron] I wouldn't say those are necessarily, healthy products, they're just good products that we love using. [Jennifer] Oh yeah. [Aaron] On that specific one, [Jennifer] On the Norwex side of things. [Aaron] I did wanna go back, and just real quick, the Thieves Spray, we just talked about, I wanted to say it like it what it replaces. Because I think, as we go, we should just remind them, also, what it replaces like, it replaces Lysol spray, it replaces window spray, it replaces like toilet cleaner, it replaces all these things that you'd use to clean your countertops, or your floors, or your tables, or your, it does all of those things. [Jennifer] So for all you minimalists out there, [Aaron] You get one thing, and it does all. [Jennifer] It'll make your cleaning closet, or cupboard very pretty looking. [Aaron] It also smells really nice. [Jennifer] It does, that's true. For laundry, again that they sell Thieves Laundry Detergent and we've really liked that. And I just noticed that, there's a drastic difference when washing towels and washcloths. They're just so much cleaner. [Aaron] And they smell fresher, and they feel nicer. I've been really liking that, as well. This is this one's kind of like for me. So Jennifer, actually, doesn't use the the Thieves Laundry Soap for me, because I'm really sensitive, my skin, if we, if there's any laundry detergent that has any sort of dyes or perfumes or anything, I get like a rash, on my whole body. [Jennifer] If I even think about changing it, he breaks out-- [Aaron] Now, it happens, we've gone, we've stayed at hotels in the past, and I wake up in the morning and I'm just like red, and I go down and I'm like, "What are you guys washing your stuff with?" And they're like "We don't know, why?" And I'm like "I like I need something else." It's like horrible 'cause I'm like sleeping on these blankets and pillows, and so the only thing that we found work, we've actually tried venturing out, into other things, is the Arm & Hammer Sensitive Skin laundry detergent. [Jennifer] But it's fragrance-free, it's clear, [Aaron] Dye free. I'm sure it's got a couple of bad things in it, but literally, it's the only one that I've been able to use and not like break out in a rash on my body. But that comes in a huge bottle and we use it for me so. [Jennifer] Okay so earlier, we mentioned the shower, and just how the bathroom is much [Aaron] less cluttered, [Jennifer] Yeah, less cluttered. So we use dr. Bronner's for just about everything when it comes to washing our bodies. [Aaron] Body wash, shampoo, [Jennifer] I use it in the kids hair, I throw it in their bath and they have different scents, and they come in big bottles [Aaron] I like the rose scented one. [Jennifer] I will say this, the first couple times that we used it, do you remember how it felt like, really different, almost oily, but then once you got out of the shower it was like, [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause it doesn't suds the same way, as like a regular shampoo and also, you have to dilute it. And so you if you use too much, it's like everywhere but it comes off really easy. Doesn't leave any residue, but it's, we love it we use it for everything. Apparently you can use dr. Bronner's for like, laundry soap, [Jennifer] Yep. and dish washing soap [Jennifer] You can use it for a lot of stuff. [Aaron] We use it mainly in the shower, but yeah, you can [Jennifer] I use it for my face wash now, face and body wash, [Aaron] You can use it for everything. We wanna make a note that, the company that that owns dr. Bronner's, they write a bunch of weird stuff on the packaging so we're not necessarily endorsing what is written on the packaging, but we love the product. [Jennifer] When it comes to my like, lotions and things like that, Cetaphil is pretty bland, there's not very much stuff in it. I've used that for years now. I love the orange blossom and ART brand from Young Living when it comes to face moisturizer. The Genesis lotion is also really great, especially because, well, it smells clean and fresh, but it's not super fragrant. That one's good, just an overall lotion, I use that one for the kids. But also, Aaron, [Aaron] Yeah, there's a lotion that I, I hate lotions, like I don't like putting anything in my hands, even though, like right now, my hands are so dry because it's so dry out. But I hate feeling like greasy and the lotion I love the most is from Bend Soap Company, they're actually right here in our hometown. And they make this goat milk lotion, they make goat milk soap, they make a lot of really awesome things. So if you have really sensitive skin, like eczema, things like that, their soaps are amazing for it. That's actually why they started the company, 'cause one of their sons had issues with skin like that. [Jennifer] What I like is their milk bath, it comes in these like shavings, [Aaron] Oh yeah. [Jennifer] And it's just, you toss it in the bath with the kids, and it's just so fun. [Aaron] So just go check out Bend Soap Company, I can't remember the domain, but just Google Bend Soap Company. And their lotion, does not feel greasy. Once it's rubbed in, it's like, it smells nice, it feels great. [Jennifer] You don't have to go wash your hands [Aaron] It feels soft, yeah I don't have to wash my hands afterwards. [Jennifer] For toothpaste we do use Young Living. The Thieves whitening, specifically, is really good for us. And then we use it the kid's ones for the kids. But for the deodorant, this was a big one for me, because I feel like every time I try to use like, a natural deodorant, it just felt weird [Aaron] They don't work. [Jennifer] and didn't work [Jennifer] Yeah, but there's a new company out I'd say a fairly new. They're gaining ground, they're like in Target now, [Aaron] Yeah, they actually have some body washes now, I saw. [Jennifer] Oh really? [Aaron] Yeah, I almost bought a bottle of it. [Jennifer] Oh you should, I'll have to try it. [Aaron] But I like my Bronner's [Jennifer] I know. It's called Native. And they have great scents, it goes on smooth, almost silky like, and it works. Someone asked me, "Do you think it'll work during postpartum?" And I'm like, "That I haven't tried yet, "so we'll know this time around." But I've really really enjoyed Native. [Aaron] Yeah, it doesn't have the heavy metals, or nothin' in it, [Jennifer] Paraben-free [Aaron] So it won't necessarily protect you from perspiring, I should say. It's not an antiperspirant, it's a deodorant. So it protects from the smell, but-- [Jennifer] I don't, really notice-- [Aaron] Yeah, well, it's winter right now, so I don't know, sometimes. [Jennifer] I've been using it for a while though. [Aaron] But I like it a lot. It smells great, it feels good, and deodorant is another one that's really been a, hard one for me because, like, pretty much any deodorant I use, I used to use the Arm & Hammer deodorant, but that has some metals in it, and so I've since switched to Native, but Arm & Hammer and Native are the only ones that don't give me rashes on my arms. And they're painful, you've see them. [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] Like, I they hurt. And I've loved their deodorants. [Jennifer] Another good product for chapstick, is Burt's Bees. [Aaron] Yeah that's good. Especially their vanilla brand, [Aaron] I think a lot of people are like, "yeah, I like that." Burt's Bees, they've been pretty synonymous for chapsticks. [Jennifer] That or coconut oil. Which coconut oil, you guys, you could used for literally everything. [Aaron] Yeah, we should do an episode on that. [Jennifer] Dry skin, lips-- [Aaron] intimacy, oh we're gonna talk about it. [Jennifer] Lubricancy, or, lubricancy? [Aaron] Lubricancy [Jennifer] Whatever that is. [Aaron] It's like, new word. [Jennifer] Okay before we get there, supplements, some things that I've been taking his last year, Nordic Naturals-- [Aaron] You've been, just real quick, you've been getting a lot, into the supplements, just because of your-- [Jennifer] Thyroid. [Aaron] your thyroid. So you've been learning a lot about these. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Because we're, we're trying to avoid going with other stronger, methods, we're trying to do the natural way, [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] and you've been, pretty consistent with this. [Jennifer] Yeah, and just as a testament, after being on the supplements, I have actually, my numbers have gone down, and in my symptoms have pretty much dissipated, but I've also been pregnant the last nine months. [Aaron] Which does change things, yep. [Jennifer] So it does change things. But Nordic Naturals has a really great, strawberry flavored, omega-3. Which I love. And I've been taking-- [Aaron] So it doesn't just taste like fish? It tastes like strawberries? That's good. [Jennifer] Yeah. We've taking D3 a lot. Young Living has a great line of supplements that we use, like the vitamin C, the vitamin B, Multigreens, [Aaron] Yeah, I've been loving their Master Formula. It's like a pack of like five little supplements, and vitamin B, C, D3, all these different ones. I've been taking that, pretty much regularly, every day, I really enjoy that one. [Jennifer] Cool. Okay so for pregnancy and post-partum care, my friend recommended ancient magnesium lotion for restless legs, and it works. [Aaron] Do you get restless legs when you're pregnant? [Jennifer] Yeah, mostly towards the end, [Aaron] I'm being facetious, because I know. [Jennifer] I know, Aaron does the massaging, with the lotion, [Aaron] Yeah [Jennifer] Thank you, Aaron. [Aaron] You've had pretty bad restless legs this time. [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] And the magnesium lotion-- [Jennifer] It's been good. [Aaron] And lavender, on your feet. [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] Has been, really helping you. [Jennifer] Yep, that's true. [Aaron] 'Cause I can tell, 'cause then you fall asleep. [Jennifer] Yeah. I've love it. And then the other thing that helps, has helped me during this pregnancy is the Young Living Deep Relief roller and I don't necessarily put it on, but like I smell it, like especially when I'm nauseous, or anything like that. [Aaron] I personally don't like this one because of how cold it feels. It's like all this-- [Jennifer] When you put it on, yeah. [Aaron] Like the peppermint in it, I just can't. [Jennifer] The cooling effect. [Aaron] But it does work, but it's too cold for me. So you brought up makeup in the beginning, I remember you used to go to the MAC store and you were like, "We have to go to the mall, I need some MAC." And I was like, "Are you serious? "You look beautiful." I've never liked you wearing makeup. You remember this? I was like, "You don't need to wear makeup." But you've used since not used makeup, the MAC makeup and for a long time, you didn't use almost anything, because we couldn't find anything. What do you use now? I'm sure some of the women are like, "What kind of makeup do you use?" [Jennifer] Yeah, so I would say, like my everyday would be, a primer from Urban Decay, which just kind of holds the eyeshadow on, and the eye shadow is also from Urban Decay. And I just like it, they're neutral colors, easy to put on really quick, and the times that I do use foundation, it's a powder foundation from Young Living, it's called Savvy Minerals, it's like a mineral makeup. And it goes on super light and so, [Aaron] But that's rare. [Jennifer] Yeah, it's like on Sundays. [Aaron] I would say you used to use a lot more makeup, and now it's like, you do a little eyeliner, [Jennifer] Yeah, [Aaron] You do a little mascara, [Jennifer] I don't use eyeliner actually. [Aaron] You don't use eyeliner? [Jennifer] No but my mascara, Smashbox has been a really good favorite, paraben-free, and Clinique. [Aaron] Clinique, [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] So no eyeliner, but mascara, okay, and then you use some lipstick sometimes. [Jennifer] Every once in a while. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] The Burt's Bees tinted is really nice. [Aaron] 'cause it's kinda like lipstick, and it's moisturizing [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, so I'm just making a note that you wear way less makeup than you use to [Jennifer] Oh yeah. [Aaron] And I think you're beautiful. [Jennifer] Thank you. [Aaron] Yeah, well, I'm not lying. I've never been a fan of a lot of makeup, and because of this, you've since found contentment in just a very little. [Jennifer] Yep. [Aaron] Which I think is really awesome. [Jennifer] Okay so when it comes to intimacy, you guys we ditched pretty much, well, we did all lubricants because of-- [Aaron] And we've tried a lot of lubricants 'cause, [Jennifer] We've tried a lot [Aaron] 'cause, things didn't work. [Jennifer] But there were so many of 'em that had parabens in it. [Aaron] All of them. [Jennifer] Every single one, [Jennifer] We didn't even know, [Aaron] Had parabens, yeah. [Jennifer] And then other things on top of that that were just not good for you, so, we stuck to coconut oil for a really long time. [Aaron] So, tip, coconut oil's amazing, for that, specifically, and it's so good for you too. And it feels good. That was a little side note, for the adults in the room. So, I guess what we wanna get at, and I'm sure there's like a ton more things that we-- [Jennifer] I know, [Aaron] we use that are healthy, and we could probably, make a whole other list, but we essentially, wanted to show you that we've simplified, we found the handful of products that we love, and that we know what's in them, and we just, what's really awesome about this is, we it makes shopping easier, it's actually cheaper 'cause we're not buying a bunch of stuff and always experimenting, we're not always saying like "Well, let's try this new thing." We just say "Nope, we love this product. "Let's just go with it, we know it works." And so it makes, we don't think as much about those things. We know that we're minimizing the amount of chemicals we're putting on us, on our kids. And so we can have some peace of mind, and just one less thing that we have to think about, in our home. And we can put more intention into the spiritual growth of our family, into our careers, into our children, into each other, and we're not like worried about these other things. [Jennifer] Yeah, or when you say, "don't put as much "thought into them," I would say initially we do, because we do look at ingredients. We look and we do our research and figure out what we want to use, and we're in agreement when we choose things, but then, once we know what it is, it's kinda like that going back to that spaghetti sauce, once we found the one that didn't have sugar in it, we just stick to that one. [Aaron] And it's great. We love it. [Jennifer] And it makes it easy. It makes it so easy when you know what you are good with. [Aaron] Well, and grocery shopping's hard. I don't know if everyone who's listening is like, "Yeah grocery shopping's hard." Like, for us it's hard, like, so once you, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel every single time, we've kinda, we slowly over time with built, our list of things that we like, "Oh, these are the things-- [Jennifer] Stick to the basics [Aaron] "that we can, "we're just gonna go to those things." And some of them are a little but more expensive. But what's awesome is we don't get as much of everything, like we get those handful of things and I was just at the grocery store the other day, and I was just thinking how awesome it is, that we have these habits on the things that we get. There's just the staples in our home, there's things that we get often. We've already looked at the ingredients. We know we enjoy them. We know that we like them. And it just makes these normal, everyday things so much more enjoyable and easy. They're less stressful like, all around like, this this this way of thinking, is just good for our everyday life. To simplify, to know the things that we like, and we create the good habit. And then that habit is there. So we don't have to reinvent the wheel, every single time we walk to the grocery store. Or every time we are shopping for something for our home, and for our kids. [Jennifer] And we also gotta know when we do choose that organic, clean, non-toxic, or non-GMO, whatever the thing is, we can't be up so obsessive about it that when we go out, or someone offers us, or brings us-- [Aaron] Right. That's a good point. [Jennifer] food during, postpartum, or whatever it is, that we're not nitpicky in a way that promotes-- [Aaron] Is this from that specific brand? [Jennifer] Yeah, let's not be like that. [Aaron] Yeah, we're not, yeah. [Jennifer] And I guess what I'm trying to say is we can't make it in idol. I think it's important to be healthy, and do the best that we can, but there's going to be times that we can't, and that's okay. We can't make living out this way, become an idol in our lives, and especially not become a strife point between husband and wife. I think this is something that you guys, [Aaron] Or friends, [Jennifer] can learn about together. Engage in together, and agree on together. [Aaron] That's a really good point, you know it's good to, in general, be making healthier habits in our life, but the point is not just to be healthier, it's too have a good habits. It's to walk rightly and have wisdom. And so is that thing, if those things, are getting in the way of your relationships with other people, they need to be put on the shelf. Not forever, but like you need to check yourself, and say "Am I letting this thing get in the way of them?" [Jennifer] Yeah, or if you really, truly have a heart to encourage your friends, or family members, or whoever to also, live a healthy lifestyle, be patient with them, because it might take someone else more time, than maybe it took you, or I don't know, I just feel like we need to have compassion for people's learning experience, [Aaron] Yeah, well and also don't let this, one last little warning, don't let this be the message you preach. It's good to encourage people and say "Hey like, you know, why don't you try this? "Why don't you try some more healthy things? "Here's an idea." It's one thing to share, healthy lifestyle, and to encourage someone, but if that if that replaces the message we should be preaching, the message of Christ, if like we have this opportunity and we're instead, we're encouraging someone to be healthier, and then what were thinking is, holiness comes from that. Rather than encouraging someone in Christ, and making the healthy lifestyle thing, that's an ancillary thing in our life that were like, "Oh and I like to live healthy, "and here's some ideas if you're interested." So the main messages is our life represents Christ and we preach him. 'Cause, we could do that sometimes. I got excited about crossfit, and every conversation I had was about crossfit, and I have to check myself and be like, "Hey, is this getting in the way "of the message I should be preaching right now? [Jennifer] That's really good Aaron, and I just, you know, just even thinking about this episode, it's little bit fun and quirky, and you know, not very Christ driven, but yet, I think the encouragement here is that we're aware of what we're putting in and on our bodies because, the scripture to tell us about, our bodies being the Holy Temple. [Aaron] Right, and we're, it's just being wise. Let's be wise with our bodies, and we can't control everything, and we shouldn't try and control everything. But what we can control, with moderation, with wisdom, and with sober mindedness, you know, thinking rightly, I think there's wisdom in that. And walking good, and not just putting junk in our bodies, and on our bodies. [Jennifer] And it has felt really good, I think you would agree with me, in having the conversations from time to time, about our lifestyle choices, about the things that we're doing, the things that were buying, and it's something that we evaluate often. You know, even when we go to the grocery store and so, I would hope that this episode, encourages couples to do that. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] So I also wanna let you guys know that if you, especially the wife, if you're interested in following me on Instagram, @unveiledwife, there's a highlight tab called toxic, free, healthy living, and you can get more information there. And also if you're curious about more things, if you want to hear more about, you know, the things that we use just message me. [Aaron] So before we close in prayer, I thought it'd be cool if we let everyone know some of the resources and people that we follow that kinda promote, some healthy living, so what are you share some of those? [Jennifer] So Dashing Dish, she's a good friend of ours and she is-- [Aaron] She's awesome. [Jennifer] really good at just like, meal planning, healthy fitness, [Aaron] Believer, loves the Lord. [Jennifer] everything you can think of, if you want some inspiration she's a great resource. Dr. Mark Hyman H-Y-M-A-N, is a really great resource, he just talks about the holistic living, like that Aaron mentioned. Carrie Vitt, I think it's a Vitt, or Veet. It's C-A-R-R-I-E V-I-T-T and on Instagram, that's where I follow her, and she talks a lot about thyroid health. So I mention that earlier-- [Aaron] Yeah, which is important to you. [Jennifer] Yeah, if you guys are interested in more inspiration for thyroid health, she's a great one to listen to, or watch, or follow. Follow, yeah. [Jennifer] I don't know what it's called. Another one is just.ingredients. She is going to really fun resource, a newer resource that-- [Aaron] Someone shared this with you, yeah. [Jennifer] someone shared with me, and she does like, Costco overhauls, she'll compare products and it's just been really great. [Aaron] A note on her, isn't she the one, that she'll say "If you can't do this, "at least do this?" [Jennifer] Yeah, I think so. [Aaron] And so she shows you like, if you can't afford this, the best product, here's one that's a little bit better than that other product. [Jennifer] I know she shows pictures too, of like, comparing products and things like that. So that's just.ingredients. And then another one I've been falling recently, is Purely Parsons. She's a fun one, just a mom, also nurse, who shares a lot of things, and her highlight reel, I mean, so much about birth, postpartum care, flu season, just home remedies, farming, like, anything that you can think of that you want to know more about, she's just a fun person to follow. And I really appreciated, how much time she takes in explaining things, and sharing resources. And then we had mentioned Sugar Busters, but if you want to know more about the toxi, I can't say that word, [Aaron] Toxicity. of sugar, Dr. Robert Lustig L-U-S-T-I-G [Aaron] Oh yeah, he's the guy [Jennifer] he's the guy. And especially on YouTube. Just research him and check out some of his-- [Aaron] He talks about what sugar does in our bodies. and this is not to be an anti sugar talk, we just when we're aware of how things interact with our body, how God created our bodies, it's pretty interesting 'cause it's not normal things to learn, so just wanna encourage you to check that out. So hey, we just want to thank everyone for being here today. As usual, we like to close in prayer. And so just Jennifer, why don't you pray for us? [Jennifer] Okay. Dear Lord, thank you for our bodies. We pray would be good stewards of our bodies and consider all that goes on them, and in them. We pray we would be willing to take the time and research the items we use on a daily basis. Using things that help us and not hurt us. Lord, we ask that you would give us wisdom as we navigate living a healthy lifestyle. Help us to make good choices, and be on the same page in marriage, so that we can enjoy the benefits of living toxic-free. Please help us to not be overwhelmed by the process of learning, but rather, help us to be humble and willing to learn so that we can choose what is healthy for us, and be advocates of healthy living for the sake of others. We pray living healthy would not become an idol in our lives and would not hinder any of our relationships. May we be people who don't just consume, but people who care about our bodies, and take care of them. In Jesus' name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. We love you all, We thank you for joining us on this episode. We hope it was enjoyable and educational. Go follow @unveiledwife and check out some of her, some more of her things. She posts about them often. And again, we love you, and we look forward to having you next week, possibly as long as we don't have the baby before then, we'll get some episodes up. See you next week. Did you enjoy Today Show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com. And let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.   

Physical touch is such a powerful and amazing gift from God. He designed us for it. We need it. And it is physically, spiritual and emotionally damaging when we avoid it or do not get enough of it. In this episode, we discuss why Physical touch is so important and we give some practical tips on how to touch and be touched more.Embracing each other says “I trust you and need you in my life.”A comforting hug says, “I’m here for you.”A kiss says, “You are mine! And I love you!”Holding hands lets your spouse know you like them and like spending time with them.Tickle rubs, massages, running your fingers through their hair says, “I want to make you feel good.” ...And most times lets them know you desire more physical touch.Being married and living in that sacred space of physical closeness, embrace, touch...there is no other relationship like it on Earth. Make the time to send those messages of love to your spouse through touch. READ TRASCRIPT[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, with "Marriage After God." [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna talk about "The Power Of Touch In Marriage." Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer also known as unveiled wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron also known as husband revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life. Love. And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is "Marriage after God." Well, welcome back, everyone. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Marriage after God, we're super excited to have you. You're looking at me funny Aaron, why are you looking at me funny? [Aaron] I was wondering if everyone knows that you're still pregnant. Or if they're waiting to hear about the baby 'cause I don' know if everyone knows the exact I'm still pregnant? [Aaron] March 20th is the due date? [Jennifer] Creeping up on us. [Aaron] More like, almost there. Also soon along with the baby coming, we have the end of our season coming. Season three of the "Marriage After God" podcast. [Jennifer] You're just prepping their hearts. [Aaron] I'm prepping their little hearts. [Jennifer] Will come back don't worry. [Aaron] Yeah, we have this episode and I think three more episodes. To finish up this season. [Jennifer] It's actually really great timing you guys. And it was intentional, because postpartum is the real deal. And so I need time. [Aaron] We're gonna take a break during the postpartum season and then will come back. Right before summer starts. We're super excited about that. [Aaron] Which always want to take these breaks gives you enough time to go back to all the episodes you haven't listened to yet, or haven't fully listen to. [Jennifer] Or relisten listened to your favorite one. [Aaron] Or relisten to your favorite ones. [Jennifer] I wanted to before we get into today's topic, I wanted to start off this episode with an encouragement of something that happened. But Aaron, when I mentioned that's what I wanted to share about, you're like, "No, let's just do the whole episode on that." I'm not gonna share it right now. That's what the whole episodes gonna be about. Enjoy it later. [Aaron] Right, but what we can talk about is so everyone, we've talked about how we're going through what's it called? "My Family 24 Ways". [Jennifer] "Our Family 24 Ways". That's what's it is. By Sally and Clay Clarkson. [Aaron] It's a family devotional and it's 24 weeks long. We did it twice. The first time we did it. We did it in a quarter of the time because we just kind of took each day was a-- [Jennifer] Each day was a new way. And they come with these coloring pages. Those are really great kind of quick overview of what it was about and gave us time to wrap our heads around it and get familiar with the content. And that was super fun for the kids. We did that last summer and then kicking off the new kind of school year in September. We're like let's do the whole week. And we'll use the was it a devotional or resource? We'll use it the way that they wrote it-- [Aron] Which is every way is a five day-- Process. Process, yes. Every day, there's another verse you're reading, another idea, there's another question, but it's all in the same family way. And we just finished that a couple of weeks ago. There's a couple of weeks we didn't do because of travel or different things. But we just finished it and it was great. The kids loved it, we loved it. [Aaron] Yeah, and we're bringing this up to just to kinda recap that we told you we were going through we gave it as an example to you all, on a great way to start doing a family bible time. It was a lot of fun was really easy. I had a lot of prompts for the parents to walk through it gives you the questions to ask. But Jennifer, what are we doing now? We finished our family 20 or 23rd, "Our 24 Family Ways". [Jennifer] "Our 24 Family Ways". [Aron] By Sally and Clay Clarkson. You should go pick that on Amazon. But when we're done with that and we love that. But what are we doing now? [Jennifer] There was that question creeping up to the end of that resource that were like, Hey, keep in mind, what are what are we going to do next? And there's lots of different things that we could have chosen. [Aaron] Now we've done before, where we just like read through some of the Bible, read just whole chapters. [Jennifer] I proposed to Aaron, I said, "Why don't we focus "on some of the kind of major Bible stories?" Our kids are still pretty young, and they know a lot of the stories but just clarifying for them, what actually was taking place during those stories, and what are the details and so we'll take a whole week on one story. And what I didn't share with Aaron was, my heart behind it was and let's focus on how Christ is pictured in these stories, which I just thought would be a really cool perspective, but I didn't share that part with you for some reason. I just said the Bible story thing really short and brief. And so I started making a list of the different Bible stories and I put them up on our chalkboard and you love the idea, and that first day that we started out with creation and Adam and Eve. You're like, and guys, because you're like, basically laying out what they can expect from how Bible time is gonna change for us. And you told the kids, "so we're gonna dive into these Bible stories, "one story a week, but we're gonna see how Christ "is at the center of each one." And I love that you did that we are totally like on the same page without even having talked about it. [Aaron] And it's been really good. Elliot's been loving them, because He loves learning about these stories. And also the questions and the digging in and how those correlations to Christ and Adam, or these stories that we all know of. [Jennifer] Just in simple things like in Genesis when it says, "we're gonna make them in our image" and get the kids to really like, focusing on what that one is. Like who is the hour. Who is us, who's talking here about Adam and Ellie is like, "Oh, it's God and Jesus in the spirit." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] He got the idea in the beginning. And just an encouragement for those that are listening. You're probably thinking like, okay, like all of our kids know these stories, but you're actually surprised at the stories that you kind of know because you grew up in Sunday school, or how if they don't ever get brought up, your kids aren't gonna know them. They're not gonna know the story of Noah's Ark. They're not gonna know the story of Jonah and the whale. They're not gonna know the story of Joseph and Abraham and Isaac and Adam and Eve and creation. We have to do that. We have to teach our children these stories, and not just stories, their history. [Jennifer] Yeah, and my encouragement would be for our sake, as adults, going back to some of these stories have been encouraging because then we either see things we never saw before, or somehow it's relevant to something that we're going through that we can apply. That's just an encouragement. [Aaron] It's just getting back into the Word of God always and remembering these powerful, testimonies that God's given us of who He is, His plan for redemption and His story for us. Awesome, before we get into the topic, as usual, we have a free thing for you. If you haven't taken the marriage prayer challenge yet, we dare you. Take the marriage prayer challenge. It's marriageprayerchallenge.com. It's a 31 day email series where you're gonna get emailed every day with, something to pray about, and a reminder to do that. So you're gonna be praying for your husband or your wife every day for the next 30 days, 31 days, and we just wanted to get you jumped in. It's almost 50,000 people who have now taken this challenge. That's incredible. Yeah. If you're not one of those 50,000 I just wanna encourage you to go right now and take a break from the podcast even go sign up marriageprayerchallenge.com, It'll take you like one minute, and then come back and finish the episode. [Jennifer] Alright, so today's topic is on The Power Of Touch. And again, this is something that happened recently in our marriage that impacted me so much that I told him and I'm gonna share about that in the next podcast and he was like, "No, we're doing "the whole episode on this." [Aaron] And you went, "we don't need to do a whole episode "it's just a little passing idea." I did I was like, "No, this is actually really important "'cause of how much value you got out of it." [Jennifer] Yeah, so, and we understand that sometimes our episodes go quite long. And we're just gonna jump in, we're gonna dive in and give you the tips and tricks that you can do-- Up front. Right now we're gonna just do them up front. [Aaron] That way if you don't listen the whole episode, you're gonna walk away with the best tips for touch. [Jennifer] Yeah, I like that. [Aaron] What's the first tip they can get real quick. [Jennifer] I mean, I'm just thinking like, when you're passing by each other in the kitchen, you both have these tasks on your mind that you're trying to get done. Just give a little, elbow to the gut and let that let that spouse know that you're there next to them working alongside side them. [Aaron] It also might get them out of their way for a second. Another little tip is like when you guys are laying in bed and like just just right before your spouse is falling asleep, just to remind them that you're there and that you love them. Just giving them ,a wet finger to the ear. Or like a little like tap on their neck to like tickle them a little bit. [Jennifer] Maybe a pinch. [Aaron] Pinch. Those kinds of things that let your spouse know, "Hey, I know you're just we're almost falling asleep "but I love you." I love me so much. One of my favorite ones is when you're like out on family excursion, and your spouse is wearing a backpack And you're kind of walking, a little bit behind them just give that backpack a little push to the left or right. And it really throws them off. But it reminds them, hey, I'm here with you. [Aaron] It's almost like gets them to like flip around a little bit and then they could see you. [Jennifer] The whole point of touch really is to interrupt what's going on. It's to interrupt the day and to say, I love you. [Aaron] Everyone's thinking are they serious right now? We are totally playing. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] We're being playful. These are funny ways. Don't don't actually go by and especially if your wife's pregnant. Or go and hit the stomach. Don't do that. Don't do that. [Jennifer] No , we're just kidding. [Aaron] No, we actually legitimately wanna talk about the power of real loving touch, and what it means and how it works and why God's given us this gift of touch and the benefit from what we've seen in our own life. Something that Jennifer's gonna talk about in a second, an experience that she had with me. And then we're just gonna talk about that and encourage you the listener, you husband and wife who are in your car or in bed or at home, walking around the house, whatever you're doing listening to this, to just remember to touch more. It should be obvious but it's not. [Jennifer] I'd even say evaluate how long it's been since you've intentionally touched your spouse or what does that touch look like, either throughout the day or in the morning or at night, and just let the Lord inspire you today, when it comes to touching your spouse. [Aaron] And this isn't just for those that one of their love languages is physical touch, because every human actually every organism in the world requires touch for that stimulus for healthy growth, especially for human beings. And we'll talk about that a little bit later. But so this isn't just for those that the love language's physical touch. Every single one of us need to focus on this and if it's not your natural tendency to do so then we just gotta work a little harder. [Jennifer] Yep, okay, so this is what happened. I was having an off day. I felt rundown, I felt tired. [Aaron] Super pregnant. [Jennifer] I mean, just physically I just was not doing well. And yeah, just super pregnant. And I mean, everyone listening right now you're just thinking about that off day you've had and you're like, "Okay, I can relate to that." But I felt overwhelmed. And I was getting ready to jump in to school time with the kids. And I just had already felt exhausted. And so I was-- [Aaron] It was like the morning we hadn't even gotten our routine going. [Jennifer] Nothing had started yet. And I was already feeling down. And I didn't say anything about it. I just was trying to do what I knew I had to do, right that saying, "Do the next right thing." And so I'm in there with the kids. And Aaron, usually your routine is, after Bible time you get a cup of coffee and got out to the garage, that's were you work. But you didn't do that. You came in, you came straight to me your like Beeline right for me. [Aaron] Which is not normal for me. [Jennifer] No, usually there's just this space where you like maybe even question like, "Hey, how are you?" "What's going on?" You didn't do any of that. You just opened the door, walked over to me had me stand up. And you just wrap your arms around me and you just held me and I was like in tears over it because I didn't realize that I even needed that in that moment. And even though I felt like sobbing in that moment, I think I might have even chuckled 'cause it was like so refreshing, it was like that. Oh, okay that I think-- [Aaron] Also like, why are you doing this? [Jennifer] Definitely questioning that. But it was such a beautiful moment. And such a beautiful experience. I had to share it. And I wanted to share it with you guys, because it really impacted me and nothing needed to be said. Nothing needed to be more than that. It was just "hey," like there was so much said in the action itself of, "I'm here for you. "I love you, you can do this." And I remember at I had climbed up on the desk. And he was just staring at us probably wondering like, what are they doing? He's still literally a year and a half. [Aaron] And all that PDA is going on. And he's like, What's happening here? [Jennifer] But it really made me feel so good to be embraced. And I just I loved that moment. I love that you had a heart that was soft enough to know what I needed and to not let anything distract you from comforting me in that way. [Aaron] Well, and I'll all admit to everyone listening. I'm sure other men are much better at this. There's some people that are just naturally prone to like oh, like gentleness and comforting and recognizing weaknesses and others and wanting to go love on them. But that is not my natural position. I'm not naturally gentle, I'm not naturally sensitive. [Jennifer] I would say that you're more so you'd like to communicate about it. Like tell me what the problem is. And this is how-- How can I fix it. This is how I can fix it. which I think a lot of people probably think that way. [Aaron] And then on the negative side, I was in my worst way of dealing with this is feeling inconvenienced by someone else's weakness feeling inconvenienced by you're feeling down or because all I'm thinking is like we have this routine. You just got to move forward. And what's happening right now is like stop halting all that and that's my I would say that's my natural position. But you have been praying for me for a long time for this. Others have been encouraging me and rebuking me at times about my lack of sensitivity, my lack of gentleness. And it's something that I've been praying for myself. Because I'm a dad, I'm a husband, a leader in my church. And it's important in every aspect. I just been praying that God would help me be that way. This is not uncommon event, but that morning, I just felt like, Oh, she probably just needs a hug. [Jennifer] And it was perfect. And I just feel like I have to say this, logistically I know that this can't happen like this in every marriage. Schedules are different. Soldiers that are gone, for a long time People are deployed. Yeah, there's a lot of different types of scenarios or situations where in marriage where maybe you can't comfort them in that way with the power of touch, but it can be done still in a phone call or a text message or any opportunity where you are together, right? [Aaron] I would say, yeah, the physical touch is still important. I would say more important in those very little amounts of time that you would have. If anything, I would just, the encouragement for some one who's not around their spouse often, should make sure they take that focus more seriously. I got a question for you. I again, this is a new year-- [Jennifer] For me or for them? [Aaron] For you, Jennifer. It's not normal. But in that moment I came in and I surprised you by doing something out of the ordinary. And just holding you not trying to give you solutions not trying to ask you questions. Not feeling annoyed by the inconvenience. I just genuinely came to hug you and hold you and love you. What message is this into your heart? [Jennifer] It was really powerful for me. I felt like in that moment, there was this. Just first of all rush of peace. I feel like you reminded me that I'm loved. That I am cared for, that I'm thought of, that I'm not alone. Even though I'm alone with the kids currently trying to do school. You we're reminding me in a physical way that you're there and you're supporting me and you're encouraging me. And that how I'm feeling physically in that moment yet sucks and it's hard, but that I can continue on and that I have to, basically. but it was immediate comfort. [Aaron] It gave you something that you didn't have before? [Jennifer] Reassurance. [Aaron] How did it make you feel toward me? Was there like anything you thought, Or like, "wow, like this about my husband?" [Jennifer] Well specifically just that we are on the same team that you're there for me even when you can't take over for me like you just couldn't take over and do school that day, like you had work to do you needed to go get to it. But that you were supporting me in a comforting and encouraging way by letting your presence be known. And just that embrace. Did it make you, 'cause you've seen plenty of times in the past my annoyance, my dissatisfaction with a scenario like this. [Aaron] Did it make you feel more confident in my love for you to see the opposite of that? [Jennifer] Oh, totally, it really affirmed me and to think that you stopped your routine. You stopped your day, you stopped what was habitual, of going out to go to work. For me that was super thoughtful. And it was an immediate affirmation of this man loves me and cares for me and wants me to be okay today. And it did that like my perspective, my attitude, everything kinda just shifted in a more positive direction. And I was able to get through that time with the kids in a much better way. [Aaron] And I remember it drastically changed your perspective of the day-- As you see my countenance. Your countenance, by the end of the day, like I feel like you were more accomplished. At the end of the day, like you at the house clean. You had the, like you felt like a winner. Everything was done that you probably were in the morning thinking none of this is getting done today. [Jennifer] Yeah, and it feels so weird talking about it. Because in this way, 'cause I feel like we're sharing, like in depth, what the impact was, but it was such a small thing. It really was. It was it was such a small moment of physical touch that happened in our marriage. That really changed the whole day around. Imagine what would happen if that was a more consistent event Yeah, for both. For both of us. [Jennifer] I have a question for you. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] Are there any standout moments of when I have randomly touched you or that have impacted you? [Aaron] Yeah, when I saw this question I immediately was thinking about the times in the past where we're sitting somewhere, maybe in church or at a friend's house or just out in public. and you'll put your hand on my back and just start tickle rubbing my back or rub your fingers across my hair, or the back of my neck or those little things even if they're only for like a split second. It instantly makes me feel like wow, that felt really good. My wife touching me wanting to connect with me that way. It also gives me this boost of confidence because in public when you're around people, I don't know if other men feel this way. But there's a confidence boost of like, my wife, my woman loves me. And like is showing it, isn't afraid to show it is-- [Jennifer] It's basically like earlier you asked me, what message did it send to my heart what you did to me. This would be what message is a couple when they're showing physical touch and affection. What message is it sending to others? [Aaron] Well in it, but the message to others sends a message to me, it makes me feel powerful, makes me feel respected. Like it's a little thing but like, my wife not being afraid to show affection to me in public means that she loves me that much that she's willing to show others that love publicly. And there's that there was a confidence boost in that. Other times, just like if we're laying in bed and you just, reach over to hold me or to play with my hair or to scratch my back like little things like that, that have been really like oh, immediately makes me feel really close to like, we're together. We're on the same page. Because what, when you're like, and everyone can relate to this. when there's like a fight or disagreement that there's conflict in the marriage. The last thing you want to do is touch. And so usually not touching is that is a common signal for distance for like we're not on the same page. That reaching across the bed, that reaching across the table, that reaching over to your spouse getting close drawing near. Is the symbol of unity. Is that proof of we're here together? I'm with you like your mine. And it's not obligated it's not like, "Hey, can you scratch my back? "Hey, I need a back massage? "Hey, can you rub my feet?" Which is not bad things to ask, but the unprompted, the desire, the actual desire, I'm going to reach out and put my hand on my spouse in a gentle way and for the purpose of touching them, knowing them and feeling their the warmth of their skin. It does a lot for that spiritual connection, that unifying nature of being one. [Jennifer] So, when I was thinking about ways that I'm intentional with trying to be, physical with you. I wanted to share this. Just as a tip for anyone listening is for me, getting in the car is a trigger, because I know I can reach over and hold your hand. Whether you're driving or I'm driving One of one of our hands is free. And so for me, I know it's such a simple thing, but just reaching over and grabbing each other's hands for a couple seconds, even if it's not long lasting. Is just really good too. [Aaron] Something that just another tip, another trigger when we're out to eat, I know I'll put my hand on your knee. When we're close together. A date night. [Aaron] Or we'll hold hands under the table. Things that keep us connected. And then another thing you're bringing up these trigger things to remind us of when we can touch and where. When we're in battle, because often we're both really hot. We don't cuddle too often because we get-- Temperature hot. Yeah, we're temperature hot. but like it could be easy to just get in bed do you thing forget and then you're rolled over and no touchings happening, no connection. But reaching over and like playing with your hair, or putting my hand on your shoulder or holding hands with you. I love all of that. Even though we can't cuddle because we're too like temperature hot. [Jennifer] More so during pregnancy. [Aaron] But I'm just a hot sleeper, it's hard for me to just want to cuddle for hours. But that doesn't mean there's not ways that we can connect. [Jennifer] And Would you say that there's any ways that I've failed in this area? I just wanna be honest with people. [Aaron] That's a big question to ask. [Jennifer] I know. [Aaron] Well, of course we've both failed in this area. Because selfishness creeps in, and when we're selfish. And usually it plays out. On "oh, I'm not getting what I want, "I'm not getting what I deserve." So I'm not going to give, what they deserve what they want or what they think they deserve. until I get mine. And we do that to each other. And we have in the past, we gotten way better at it. I would say we're talking about just non sexual touch right now. I mean, sexual touch is so important. We're gonna talk about that in a little bit. [Jennifer] I'm just on this side note. Any sort of physical touch will not just lead to sexual intimacy, but definitely cultivates that environment where you want more. [Aaron] Not negative physical touch, we're talking about actual, intensional-- Positive. Positive touch. [Jennifer] Affirmative. [Aaron] I would say just over the years, and it's something that God's been growing us both in is sexual touch, yeah, like initiating, reaching out and saying, "hey, I want to be with you, "I want to experience this time with you." But that's something that we've been both growing in. [Jennifer] Something that is required in order to grow in this area is communication. This is just an encouragement to our listeners, if they struggle with, I wish my spouse would touch me and they're not, and not wanting that bitterness to grow, you gotta tell them, you gotta tell them how it makes you feel or that you want to be encouraged in your relationship that you want to have more. when you say that's really important to be able to talk about it. [Aaron] Not just 'cause we sometimes get into this mode of, if I say something, then it's gonna devalue the reset receipt of it. [Jennifer] I've done that before, don't do that. [Aaron] If I tell my wife what I want, and then she doesn't, then it's devaluing it. It's almost like no, they just got to know. Rather than, like, I'm gonna communicate, maybe they don't know, maybe they have a way of thinking because of the way they're raised that just totally makes them disregard things that I want, or need. [Jennifer] Or maybe their mind just hasn't been on it. And by bringing that message in a positive way, "Hey, I think we like we've done this before, "hey, I think we need to kiss more," or, "hey, I think we need to hold hands more" or whatever the thing is that would feel you fill you up. Talk about it in that sense, where it's like, let's both make a commitment to do this more. [Aaron] I totally agree. And I think just having this desire to... We'll talk about the actual like, touch is just so much more than just it's a good thing to do. And so we'll talk about that more. The Bible talks about touch a lot. Jesus touched people a lot. And so we get this idea of the savior of the king, the Lord the Creator. come the earth himself, God Himself coming to earth in the form of man to touch us, right? There's a famous painting of God touching Adams finger right? There's this idea of Jesus coming to earth and in the flesh is like the ultimate intimacy active saying, God's saying "I'm gonna go, "come to touch you and and to heal you "and to make you be with me forever" and so we get to see this picture and Why don't you read John 13:5 of this super intimate moment that Jesus had with his disciples. [Jennifer] Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. So that was, like really simple. And I just like you said, it's just a really beautiful picture of intimate touch. [Aaron] Right, and it's this story shows us the servanthood of Christ. him girding his loins wrapping the towel around his waist, getting on his hands and knees. [Jennifer] And everybody was probably quietly-- [Aaron] Beneath his disciples. He lowered himself even beneath his disciple to wash their feet. And then he tells them go and do likewise. Essentially which is go wash each other, go touch each other, go embrace each other, go walk in such a way that you guys are unified, and do and do what I'm doing. Look I'm lowering myself as a servant, go lower yourself as servants for the sake of washing each other and embracing each other. [Jennifer] I wish that the Bible was more descriptive in this situation because I would love to hear what was going through the disciples mind when Jesus is getting ready to do this. And while he's doing it. [Aaron] But we only get Peters response, which is he's like, "No, don't do it." He's like, "unless I do this, "you have no part of me." He's like wash my whole body. Oh wait do it, do it. But also how were they impacted by this experience? I wanna hear more of that. But they walked with Jesus and I'm sure they had even more physical interactions with him as far as just arms touching or hugging or shaking hands or whatever, probably took part in their relationships as they spent that time together. But just thinking, how was this touch different? And what message did it send to each one of them about their relationship with Jesus? [Aaron] What I think is awesome is, you have Jesus called our high priest, and this is just a thought I was having right now we're talking about this. And the high and the priests in the Old Testament had to do all the ceremonial washings for themselves so that they can atone for the sins of everyone else. They first had to wash themselves we learned that Jesus did not have to do this because he was perfect. We have perfect Jesus, already perfectly like did not need to be washed, by any means, because he was perfect. Getting down to actually touch the dirt of his brothers, of his disciples. And also how powerful it is because God's created us in such a physical way to need touch. [Jennifer] Where he designed our bodies with the ability to receive it, right like we have nerve endings, and we can feel and I used to think that's fascinating. [Aaron] We have this perfect God in human flesh touching other men's feet and touching the flesh of others. And so there's a physiological response happening, a spiritual response happening, an emotional response happening. All of these things are happening at the same time with the king of the universe. But we get to experience that in little ways, and in everyday life with our spouse, and with others. 'Cause this physical touch thing, we shouldn't just end at, "Oh, I'm not a very touchy person, "and I'll try and touch my wife more. "But I don't touch others." The Bible tells us to embrace each other and how important touches, just gentle, loving touch in everyday life actually has a physiological healthy response in the body. That helps us with many things, but spiritually, it reminds us that we're close. And that we're together and that we're unified and that we care, [Jennifer] Which is so important in marriage, right? Really important infinitely. [Jennifer] Do you remember the time that I washed your feet when you came home from Brazil so we didn't have this, as pre-kids, probably-- My feet were pretty dirty. [Jennifer] Second year of marriage. I wanna say, we're living in Florida at the time. And I had a job. I was working in a preschool and you felt encouraged to go to Brazil, we were missionaries. I just happen to have a job to support us while we were working in Florida. But we were working for an organization that was preparing a trip to go to Brazil, I think it was for two weeks, three weeks? [Aaron] It's two weeks on the Amazon River it's pretty awesome. [Jennifer] And so you went and I missed you like crazy. But I had been reading this Passage about Jesus washing his disciples feet. And I just felt so encouraged when you got home. I think it was like three o'clock in the morning. It was like the middle of the sleep hours. And, and I remember you came home and you went to go take a shower, and I'm like, take a bath. And let me wash your feet. Yeah. Do you remember this? I do, I mean, two years in our marriage where we were already starting to experience some of those-- Hardships. hardships. and relational struggles and it wasn't as bad as it was later on in our marriage, but it was already there, but it was events like this, which I think helped elongate our process of not falling apart sooner. Those little bits of surrender that those acts of like, well, "we don't know what to do. "We're gonna try this like," you're praying and you see this, you're like, "I'm gonna try and walk in this." You tell God, "Jesus says to do this, "and I'm my husband's gonna get home, "I'm gonna wash his feet." [Jennifer] When I remember specifically thinking like, I wanted to feel close to you. I wanted to send that message to you that, "hey, I'm your wife, I'm your helper, "and I want to do what Jesus did and love you in that way." And I saw this what Jesus did as a very intimate thing. And so I just told myself, I'm gonna have the courage and just asked him if I could wash his feet. [Aaron] And I remember it made me feel really close to you. It made me feel really loved, it made me feel really honored. Also, it just surprised me. It was a surprising It was like wait, what? It was a very impactful moment for us. we actually put that challenge in our 30 day devotional for husbands and wives, for them to wash each other's feet. [Jennifer] While we're talking about Jesus, my mind's always, I feel like I'm always going back to "Marriage After God". But if you haven't gotten a chance to read it, you guys should definitely get a copy. It's the book that Aaron and I came out with last year. But there's a section of we're talking about how a marriage after God is intimate. And it talks about Jesus and I just wanted to read it really quick. It's on page 65. If you do have the book. "And marriage after God relentlessly "pursues and embraces intimacy "with each other, and with God, "our greatest example of this level "of intimacy is of course, Jesus. "He put his hands on people "who no one else would dare to touch." And there's a reference there to Luke 5:13, "He reached down and held a dying little girl's hand "giving her life again." Mark 5:41, "He broke cultural taboos to talk to people." John 4:9, "And he wept over the death of his close friend." John 11:35, "That's our Savior, he embraced intimacy. "If we are not intimate with God, "we cannot be intimate with other people. "We cannot weep with those who weep or mourn with those "who mourn or laugh with those who laugh. "We must look to the example of Christ and be willing "to embrace intimacy with God, and inner marriage." And I was just brought to remembrance of that section of the book because of how intimate Jesus was that he was willing to do all those things when I think about him, holding that little girl's hand and it's like, no matter what hardships we face in marriage, we can think to his example and go, "I can reach over and hold my spouse's hand." [Aaron] Well I think the example of Christ touching like the lepers and the sick and the bleeding and the things that a priest wasn't allowed to touch otherwise would make them unclean. Jesus was willing to touch unclean people, because in reality all are unclean. And so he's, he's touching these lepers. He's touching these these sick, he's touching these blind, these people that were outcasts that desire to be healed, to be desire to be known to desire to be reconciled to the community. And it's kind of like this picture in our marriage. Like, are we only going to touch when everything's perfectly right? Or are we going to in the midst of our pain and our hurt and our ugly, our smelly and in our dirty times? Are we gonna touch? Are we gonna embrace? Are we gonna hold? Are we going to reach out our hands and draw our spouse closer to us? Because even though often in our vows, we say, for better or for worse, it's often just for the better, and when it's in the worst is like, I don't have the energy right now. All right, until you change or unless this happens when it's those times that it's the most necessary. Jesus said it this way, he said, "I didn't come "for the healthy I came for the sick." [Jennifer] And I would even say most impactful, when you're either at odds with each other or there's tension or there's hardship [Aaron] Or you don't deserve it. [Jennifer] Or you don't deserve it and your spouse reaches across the table and touches you in that way. Oh my goodness. It's powerful. It's impactful. And I think that that's exactly what maybe one, maybe a lot needed here today. I mean, I just feel like that was really encouraging and even to me. [Aaron] It's encouraging to me, it's something I have to continue to be to remember. You're, you're having a hard time today. And my flesh is like-- [Jennifer] Get up, Jen. [Aaron] It's like, I don't know if I can handle you having a hard time again today. Because I mean, which is totally my selfish flesh, because I'm not experiencing what you're experiencing. So it's hard for me to just empathize right away. But when you walk in the Spirit, so my choice to be like, like, I'm gonna understand my wife right now I'm gonna walk in an understanding way as the Word tells me to do. I can realize this is hard season for you, I'm gonna have this hard season with you. And so just go and hug you and hold you and-- [Jennifer] Tickle me with your beard, which didn't help Aaron. [Aaron] Funny, touching is good to be playful. [Jennifer] It was really sweet. And again, I do appreciate that you came to my level and you saw me were I was at and you had compassion on me. And for the husband's out there who are similar to me, go against your flesh, and walk in the Spirit and and do this for your wife. To be honest some of you men that are listening, are probably thinking like, "Man, I don't ever do that." She'll probably not know what to do. You'll go and you'll try and like draw close to you, and you're gonna feel super awkward and she's gonna tense up and you're gonna pull her closer and you're just gonna say, "I know, it's kind of weird, I just wanna hug you." And then what's gonna happen, she's gonna realize it's real. And then you'll, you'll probably feel her melt. And so don't be afraid to do it the first time, it gets easier, and ask the Lord to help you do it to sort of help you physically encourage your spouse with that physical touch with the gentle the loving, the caring, the caress, the just that softness. [Jennifer] It's good. So we've said it a couple times, but just this idea that physical, physical touch sends a message to your spouse and there was just a kind of handful of ways that I was wanting to share with you guys about what those messages might look like. This isn't like, 100% perfect. It's just some encouragement. [Aaron] When you do this kind of sends these messages. [Jennifer] Embracing each other says, "I trust you and I need you in my life." A comforting hug says, "I'm here for you." A kiss says, "you're mine and I love you." Holding hands, let your spouse know, you like them. And you like spending time with them. Tickle rubs, massages, running your fingers through their hair says, I wanna make you feel good. And most times lets them know that you desire even more physical touch. [Aaron] It's true, and for those that are afraid of that last part, if I do this, then it's going to make them want more. I think that's something that should be prayed through. Your heart of like, you're avoiding touching your spouse because you are afraid that that will make them want more from you sexually. And if that's a fear you have and that's an negative thought you have which is something that keeps you from reaching out and touching your spouse. I think that's something you should pray about, that God would change in you. And there's a scripture specifically about this. [Jennifer] Real quick, I just have to say, there's a flip side to this of when your spouse is giving you physical touch, and you don't want it to lead anywhere that you're not just doing while they're touching you thinking they better not they better not. And then the moment it starts leading somewhere that you don't want it to go. You're thinking, "See, I knew they were just doing it "to get that thing." But, you guys God designed marriage to be physical, and-- [Aaron] It's the pretty much the only confines for Biblical healthy physical touch. [Jennifer] Yeah, like we need to be there for each other in that way. Now, if there's a specific reason why you don't want it to be led somewhere, you got to speak up, you got to let them know. Otherwise, your heart's just going to wrestle. [Aaron] And there's a loving way. It's like, "Hey, I'm really enjoying, "you reaching out you touching me playing with my hair, "you rubbing my back, I know, "you might want something more. "And I just wanna let you know that It may not work. "And so can we plan it for tomorrow night? "Can we can I reach out? "Can I let you know tomorrow?" [Jennifer] Yeah, or the other way is to set aside whatever justification you're rolling around in your head and go for it and enjoy it. [Aaron] Oftentimes, you get to the end of it, you're like, "Oh, I'm glad we did that part." "Oh, I needed that." Exactly. [Jennifer] Okay, so why don't you read that? It's 1st Corinthians 7:3-5. [Aaron] And this is this is a scripture that challenges both husbands and wives. On the actual obligation, we have to physical intimacy. It says this, "The husband should give to his wife, "her conjugal rights," and we all know what conjugal means. "And likewise, the wife to her husband, "for the wife does not have authority over her own body, "but the husband does. "Likewise, the husband does not have authority "over his own body, but the wife does. "Do not deprive one another except perhaps "by agreement for a limited time." I like how first of all says it says, "except perhaps." So it means like, if this is going to happen in the rare occasions of depriving each other, it's going to be by agreement and only for a short period of time. Like don't let there be long periods of time that this stuff happens. That's what almost destroyed marriage. Was long periods of time of not-- Me avoiding-- Yeah. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] That you may devote yourselves to prayer but then come together again so satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control. There's a very stark warning of the temptation that comes from avoiding each other sexually. And there's also at the command that my body is not my own. It's hers and her body is not her own, it's mine, right? Which has tons of implications and we can have another episode about this. But just just as an encouragement, you shouldn't be withholding sexual intimacy from your spouse. If there's a good reason then you need to discuss that and come to an agreement on it. If there's infidelity, which is a good reason to have a break from sexual intimacy. [Jennifer] Not just a break, it's a break being prayerful. [Aaron] It's a prayerful break from purpose of reconciliation, for the purpose of building trust, for the purpose of coming together against stronger than before, if that's where you're at. And so there's there's a stark command on the Word of God that whose bodies ours, are my bodies is not my own, I don't get to just make decisions for my own body. I have my responsibility to my wife, and vice versa. [Jennifer] And we shouldn't be using, sexual intimacy as a tool and withhold it from each other or anything like that. We can't, we can't let division and disunity and that kind of heart to seep into the marriage relationship which is so beautiful, the way that God designed, being married and living in this sacred space of like there's no other relationship like it on Earth. I receive from you, Aaron you receive from me. There's physical closeness, embrace touched, like there really is nothing like it on Earth and to be aware of that and the opportunities that we do have to come together. And again, this is just another place where I wanna assert that if distance or timing doesn't work because of work schedules or something, that is key be circumstances that are keeping you guys from being physically close, that you're affirming one another with your words, words are really powerful. And as much as this whole episode is about touch, you need to be affirming to each other and encouraging each other. Like, "we can't be together right now. "But I'm gonna make this a priority as soon as I see you." Right? [Aaron] Yep, and I want to talk about some of the way God designed us. And created us to for touch for that human connection. Not just verbal, but actual physical. And there's a story that we've been told from friends of ours that have adopted in China. And they went to China, and they walked into the orphanage, and it was silent. [Jennifer] There's babies. [Aaron] There's babies everywhere, but it's silent, no, no crying no. Like you would imagine in a room full of lonely babies. [Jennifer] They said it felt eerie. [Aaron] It was what's wrong. And this has actually been researched by a lot of people. There's several orphanage systems around the world that this is kind of a case where the babies aren't touched. They're not held on a hug. They're not cuddled, none of that stuff. And the babies very quickly learn that they're not going to be comforted. So they don't cry. They need it, they want to be comforted, but the only way they can communicate does nothing so they don't communicate. And it actually stunts their their neurological growth, it stunts their physical growth, it stunts a lot of things in them just because they're not being touched. I remember hearing a story a while ago, of an old man who's single, his wife died years prior, and he wanted to find something to do with his life. And so he started going to the NICU in his local hospital, just to hold the babies. He would go in there and he'd sit in a rocking chair and he'd hold babies that didn't have families, or that they were sick or whatever it was and he would just hold them for hours. Rock them sing to them talk to them. And he had this ministry of going and just holding babies which is amazing. When he gets to heaven one day, God's gonna hug him for doing that. Human touch is fundamental to our communication, to our bonding, to our physical health. There's been tons of research on how physical touch on even little mounts of levels. It brings healing to your body physical healing, like it helps you with your immune system helps you with your neurological development. What human touch does is there's a chemical that God's put in our bodies called oxytocin. And it's released during sex. It's released during hugs, [Jennifer] It's actually released during breastfeeding while a mom is bonding with her baby. [Aaron] Yeah, it's called the bonding drug. When you have an orgasm and during sex, and oxytocin is released in both of your bodies. It actually causes you to physically, emotionally, mentally bond closer with your spouse, which is also why it's prohibited to be having sexual relationships outside of your marriage. Because you're bonding in this way with other human beings that you're not married to. And this is this should be only happening within the context of marriage. But that oxytocin release that hormone is actually so good for so many things. It relieves stress. It combats what's the stress hormone, it's cortisol. It combats that. So you have too much of that in your body and you have all this stress and oxytocin being released through a hug, through a kiss, through an orgasm through that these things that are that release oxytocin in your body, and then boom, you're actually helping your body do what God made your body to do. Which makes it even stronger, healthier, more excited, more fit, less sad, right? It helps with depression, it helps all these things. And these are all just the just the biological function of touch in your in your life why it's so important. So again, like I said in the beginning, regardless, if you're love language's physical touch, every human being on the planet needs physical touch for healthy growth, healthy living. You could have access to this on a daily basis with your spouse. Think about how much more joyful, and secure, and confident and happy you'll be if physical touch's more consistent like healthy, loving, gentle physical touch. A caress here, a hand holding there, a kiss, a hug, caressing the neck, touching the ear, playing with the hair. All these things, that are so good for us and make you have to be so close. And it releases all these good things in your body. And it actually it's a spiritual thing. It's an emotional thing, it's a physical thing. [Jennifer] That's really good. So often, I think that as humans, we become contingent on the other person in the marriage to step up and do something-- [Aaron] Transactional. [Jennifer] And I think it's important to speak to that for just a moment Aaron, and maybe you can share on this but Just as an encouragement to those listening. That we shouldn't be waiting to initiate, waiting to insert ourselves and be physical, for our spouse to do it first or to take that first step or especially if there has been distance or time between, a season of no physical touch. What would you say to encourage them? [Aaron] Well, I first want to talk to those that, like, maybe I'm imagining a husband has a hard heart. There's something, wherever they are in their marriage. And like I said, we talked about earlier touch is the last thing they want. And I would imagine a wife is afraid to like to reach out and hold their hand because they're gonna pull away and reject them. [Jennifer] Or maybe the couple who they have tried to openly Express and communicate that they want more or that there's they're hurt because it's not happening and then they get shut down. And so that kind of like what you're saying about the baby's crying, not crying in the orphanages. They've learned to not speak up and to not say anything. [Aaron] 'Cause they're not gonna get it. [Jennifer] That makes me sad just thinking about that in marriage. [Aaron] So my encouragement to those is to do it anyway. Even if even if they reject you, even if you, you lean over and you go to caress your wife's neck and she swats your hand away, or you reach over to put your hand on your husband's shoulder, and he shrugs it off. It hurts. I'm not gonna pretend that that doesn't hurt, I'm not gonna tell you to pretend it doesn't hurt. But you can hand that to the Lord and say, "Lord, that hurts me. "But I want to love my husband, "I want to love my wife." And, and maybe it's the next time you're walking by them, to the kitchen you just for half a second, rub your hand across their back. They can't stop you. Whether they say a word to you, they're gonna think like, she touched me. [Jennifer] You're sending them a message still. [Aaron] You're sending them a message still. And you do that over and over, and over again. They they look frustrated. You go up and you get close and say, "Hey, I'm praying for you." Just put your hand on their shoulder. They look sad. So you say, "can I give you a hug?" Even if they say no to you, do it. Reach out to touch someone like the song goes, "I reach out" and go to your spouse and just don't give up. Don't give up doing good for in due season you will produce a harvest, you will reap a reward. And I mean think about it's like what Christ did. He reached out and touched a lot of people. And so be Christ in your home to your spouse, reach out and touch them, pray for them. Put your hand on them. Try and grab their hand, touch their lower back, put your hand on their shoulder, put your hand on their forearm. Whatever it is, just let them know that you want to touch them. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's beautiful. We hope that this episode encouraged you guys. And this really brought you to a place where you're evaluating physical touch in your marriage. And I would say our charge to you would be an encouragement to be the initiator. I know we already mentioned that but to be the initiator of physical interaction, in your relationship with your spouse. And don't let your flesh, your insecurities, or your frustrations get in the way. Be courageous enough to reach out and see how that touch impacts your spouse. [Aaron] And ask Christ to give you the strength and the courage to do it in a supernatural way with your spouse. [Jennifer] All right, Aaron, you wanna close us out with prayer? [Aaron] Yep. Dear Lord, we praise you for the gift of touch. We thank you for the way you created our bodies and gave us the ability to fill and touch. We pray that we would be husbands and wives who use the power of touch to affirm each other in marriage and let one another know we are near. We pray we would have the courage to reach out and hug or hold each other's hand. Even when it feels hard to do that or inconvenient. May our marriage be a priority in this way. May our touch remind our spouse that we love them and that we support them. We pray touch with encourage intimacy and closeness like we have never experienced in our marriage before. In Jesus name, amen. We love you guys. We thank for listening to episode, we pray that you would touch more and that if you haven't already would you just take a moment, leave us a review. Just scroll down to the bottom of your app, hit a star rating that the easiest way to do it, you just tap a star. Or you can leave us a text review. We love those and also blesses other people when they're coming to check out the show for the first time. It also lets iTunes and other podcast apps know how to rank our podcast based off her reviews. So we love you all. We thank you and we pray that God moves mightily in your marriages and draws you closer to him and your spouse and see you next week. [Narrator] Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. 

FREE DOWNLOADSDatenightconversations.comMarriageprayerchallenge.comparentingprayerchallenge.com “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” - Ephesians 4:1 How do I become more selfless in my marriage?What are some Tips for consistency in communication within marriage to build intimacy?How do we live for God together...my husband never really been to church Etc?How do you work through disagreements on hobbies? IE motorcycles?How do you keep chasing dreams God's call you to, when your spouse is in a totally negative place?Do you still struggle with trusting your husband? Speaking about p 0rn and how can you battle thoughts?What is your number one advice to couples struggling?READ TRANSCRIPT[Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today, we're gonna answer some questions from the community about not seeing eye-to-eye in marriage. Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life-- Love-- And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God-- Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. [Aaron] Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. This is gonna be a Q&A episode where we polled our community and we got a buncha questions about a specific topic, which is not seeing eye-to-eye, and we're gonna answer those in a bit. But first, before we get into that, Jennifer, is there anything new going on in your life? Is there anything you wanna chat with me about? [Jennifer] I love chatting with you. Something that I wanted to share, that's been on my heart for our listeners, is just something that I been doing intentionally with a girlfriend of mine and that is discipleship and it's going really well, we meet bi-weekly. And the reason that I wanted to bring it up is because I think so often we can go about our days and our times and our schedules and just focus on what is at hand and what we need to do and sometimes we forget about discipleship or mentorship or how we impact other peoples' lives. And I just think it's really important for us to consider, you know, who's that older, more mature Christian in our life that we can glean from? So, someone we can be spending time with that will fill us up that will maybe speak truth into our life or see something that isn't going the way it should be and call it out in us or maybe we can go to them for a question. And then, who's that person who is younger than you that you can reach out to and have an impact in their life? You know, be that person for them. Toward God. Yeah. Encouraging them. Yeah. So, I just, I'm bringing it up because it's been going so well in my personal life that I just thought, "Man, if they're not thinking about this, "I want them to be thinking about this." [Aaron] Well, and it's a, we've talked about this in past episodes, about the necessity of community and walking with each other and our ministries in other people's lives. Yeah. [Aaron] Just the importance of we're not autonomous creatures, we're part of a body, and God's given us gifts that must be used to glorify Him and to mutually build up the Church and to encourage each other and to bless each other, so. [Jennifer] And sometimes our flesh can get in the way, you know, those insecurities where we go, "Oh, it'd be really nice to spend time with that person." But then we answer for them, right? We go, "Oh, they're too busy." Or, "They can't." Or, "I don't know"-- You're really good at this, aren't you? "I don't know what to say." Answering for people. Answering for people, yeah. And you've drawn me out of this. But my encouragement to that person is don't answer for that person but surrender to God, pray about your desire to build that relationship up, and then have the courage to just ask. And if they say, "I can't at this time," receive it and say, "Okay," and pray about, maybe, who else you can engage with in that way. But chances are, they're gonna be thrilled to hear from you. [Aaron] Yeah, I've been through something very similar. Not necessarily, I don't have a scheduled meeting with a single person each week or every other week, but I've been trying to intentionally meet regularly with all the men from our fellowship. Mainly to get to know them more, to get into deeper relationship with them, to be encouraged by them. But also to, yeah, disciple. And we're called to make disciples, we're called to walk with each other and sharpen each other, as iron sharpens iron. If we're not doing that and we're just kind of going about our day and, yeah, we see 'em at church on Sundays and then we leave and we have dinners every once in awhile, but if there's no intentional, like, "'Kay, I actually want to be in this person's life, "lifting them up to the Father, "and I want someone in my life doing that for me," we're kind of missing out on a huge part of what it means to be a believer, so. That's a great encouragement for everyone listening. Yeah. So, before we get into the questions, we wanna tell everyone about our free things that we have to offer you guys. We've made a bunch of resources now that I feel like they keep compiling, like, we're making more and more. 'Cause we get an idea and then we're like, "Okay, "let's make it and let's give it to everyone," so. [Jennifer] And I gotta admit, I'm the one that pushes for the new ones because I want you guys who have already been through, maybe, some of the ones that we've been offering to jump into the new one, which, the newest one we just launched is the Parenting Prayer Challenge, which, oh my gosh, I'm so excited about. [Aaron] Yeah, it's a totally free email challenge and essentially, we send you an email every day for 31 days giving you a prayer prompt for a specific area of your child's life, either your son or your daughter, and it's a reminder every day. [Jennifer] And it doesn't matter what age your kids are because it could be for your infant all the way up to your adult-- Your kids that are out of the house. Children, yeah. [Aaron] And you can get that at parentingprayerchallenge.com, all one word. It's totally free, you should go sign up today if you haven't. And just a quick note on the other ones, we have a free download called Date Night Conversations. It's a list of 52 conversation starters. You can get that at datenightconversations.com, one word. And then the last one is Marriage Prayer Challenge. It's similar to the Parenting Prayer Challenge, but it's for your marriage. Prayer's best. [Aaron] Yeah, you can sign up to pray for your wife or you can sign up to pray for your husband and we send you a prompt every day for 31 days. So, get those, those are completely free. [Jennifer] All right, so we are moving on to today's topic, which, we're doing a Q&A. We already polled the community from social media. We usually do this on Instagram, so if you're not already following, be sure to follow @marriageaftergod. You can also follow me @unveiledwife for some more wife encouragement and then @husbandrevolution for more husband stuff. [Aaron] And we'd love for you to be following us on Instagram so that you can see the behind the scenes stuff in our life. When we do the polls, we'd love for you to participate in those. We look at all those questions that you guys give us. [Jennifer] So, what we do is we poll you guys, we ask you to submit your questions, and then we use those to order these Q&As. [Aaron] Sometimes the questions are not all in the same category, but if we find enough in a category, we're like, "Oh, that's what we're gonna talk about." And so, we try and answer those. And we also always wanna start with: we don't have all the answers. Yeah. That's a funny way to start out a Q&A. We don't. We know this. [Aaron] We will answer to the best of our abilities, we will answer based off of things we've experienced and, as always, we're gonna try and, to the best of our abilities, point back to scripture. We don't always do that well either, but that's our heart because we know that the Word of God is the Word of God; it's perfect and we know that everything that we order our life by should be ordered by it. And so, we try, to the best of our ability, to do that, so. [Jennifer] So, today's kind of overarching topic is not seeing eye-to-eye in your marriage, which can play out in a lotta different ways, but I would also label this as disunity. So, this idea of not being unified-- [Aaron] Right, not on the same page. [Jennifer] Not on the same page in marriage. [Aaron] Which is that, the analogy of not seeing eye-to-eye, that we're unbalanced, you know, one's higher, one's lower, and so you're not seeing in the same space. And so, you have the, unity is a huge thing for marriage. And I'm sure that many marriages don't even struggle with this, right? Like, this is a unique issue in-- [Jennifer] I'm gonna correct Aaron, I'm gonna correct that. [Aaron] We're not gonna see eye-to-eye on this. [Jennifer] I think every marriage encounters this. Yeah. A lot, actually. Every human relationship. Yeah. [Aaron] In the history of human relationships. [Jennifer] Because we're all different heights. [Aaron] Like, it started in the Garden of Eden. You look at Adam and Eve. Come on, guys. [Aaron] Eve was like, "Oh, it does look good to eat." And Adam's like, "All right." No, just checkin'. [Aaron] And just, from the very beginning, not seeing eye-to-eye. But that's what we're gonna talk about today. There's quite a few questions, so why don't you start off reading some scripture? Okay. So, we're gonna dig into Ephesians 4 and starting in Verse 1, it says this: "I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, "urge you to walk in a manner worthy of "the calling to which you have been called, "with all humility and gentleness, with patience, "bearing with one another in love, "eager to maintain the unity of "the spirit in the bond of peace." And if, for some reason, you hear that verse right now and you're like, "You guys have shared "that verse so many times on this podcast"-- A couple. I'm not gonna apologize. The more we say that verse and the more you hear it and the more we live according to it, we will experience this, right babe? [Aaron] Well, and it's essentially Biblical meditation. We're repeating it, we're chewing on it, we're gonna say it over and over again because it's true. [Jennifer] And we're gonna see how it applies to our life and, you know, what we are-- [Aaron] Well, and it's a good tone to start with, to set the mood for this conversation, because no matter where you're at in your marriage, you could be thinking, like, "My husband "just thinks this certain way "and I'm not gonna get on that page with him." Or, "My wife just doesn't understand," fill in the blank. If we're eager to maintain unity with our bride-- Maintenance. With our spouse. [Aaron] That's gonna be the place that we start from, not a, "They need to change because I'm not gonna change." It's a, "What needs to change so that "we're on the same page?" And maintain is, that's a constantly occurring, that's not a, "Okay, we got on the same page "and now we're fine for the rest of our lives." This is a consistent-- Oh, we gotta realign-- Checking. Oh, we gotta do it again. Yeah. Oh, let's do it again. Let's continue to be this way, yeah. [Jennifer] Yeah, so I couldn't help but start out, also, obviously, God's Word is the priority and first and foremost, but I also wanted to start out sharing a little bit from Marriage After God because we've-- Book plug! Written a book for you and if you haven't gotten it yet, we want to urge you to get it, but this is from page 56 in Marriage After God and it talks about this idea of oneness, okay? You know, in Genesis, it talks about two becoming one flesh and so, we though it'd be great to elaborate on this in Marriage After God and so-- [Aaron] Okay, so I'm actually gonna read this section. Jennifer's actually a little outta breath, being pregnant and all-- He's saving me! [Aaron] So, it says this, it's on page 56: "One flesh does not mean two "independent individuals sometimes acting as one, "neither does it mean two individuals "negotiating a workable schedule where they "inhabit the same space but leave each other alone. "One flesh is a picture of unity, a joining together, "a growing together, where parts of each are woven together "in a way that there is no noticeable seam. "Oneness is one of the greatest ways "we show the world the true gospel." [Jennifer] So, what you're saying is it's powerful. Yeah. Our oneness in marriage. Did we write this? Yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, the idea of oneness it's not our idea, it's a Biblical idea, we pulled that from the Bible directly. And it's, again, the reason why I wanna talk about this and we always go back to it is because our marriage represents something more than just our marriage. It's a symbol that God created to represent Christ and the Church and the relationship between the two, that we are no longer separate, we're no longer nomads, we actually are part of Christ, we are one with Christ, the same way my wife and I are one. But when we walk in disunity, when we walk in brokenness and we're not seeing eye-to-eye, we're against each other where actually-- [Jennifer] Or even apathy where it's like, "I know we're off, I know we're"-- "And I don't care." "Not seeing eye-to-eye "and I don't care." Yeah. That's so dangerous. It's not the symbol that God intends it to be, so we're walking in opposition to God's way when we walk that way, so-- So, it's good to maintain that, you know, what you were talking about earlier, it's good to-- Maintain, yeah. Have priority in our marriage to focus on unity. [Aaron] So, question one, from the community, it says, "How do I become more selfless in my marriage? "I wanna please my spouse." Okay, first of all, this is just an outstanding question. I love that someone is even admitting that they want this because so often, our flesh gets in the way, our selfish nature gets in the way of even admitting this. [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause we're selfish. Yup. Naturally, without the Spirit workin' in us. I guess I would first say, this was specifically from a wife to a husband but I said spouse because it goes both ways, and the short answer and the practical answer is: serve the other person. Yeah. Right? The antidote to selfishness is service, you know? The antidote to wanting my feet washed is washing someone's feet. You know, you look at the picture of Christ and what he did for his disciples. And so, I guess, I just had a conversation with a brother from church, we were talkin' about meeting with people, and I brought up this idea of how, if you look at anything in life, how does anything grow? You feed it. Like a tree: you water it, you nurture it, you feed it, you prune it, and it grows. If I want my muscles to grow, I have to work them out, I have to use them, I have to feed them with the right nutrients, and I have to do the correct thing for them to work. I can't just sit back, wish they grew, desire them to grow, desire these things to happen, but do nothing. Children, right? You want them to grow-- You gotta feed 'em, it's like-- No. Oh, that's not-- But more than that, you can't just sit back and just let them have at it in the world, you gotta-- Yeah. Teach them and-- [Aaron] They can't be left to their own devices, they have to be guided and teached and disciplined and corrected-- Taught. And talked to and taught. You said teached. [Aaron] Teached. Oh, did I really? Yeah. Okay. So, in the same way, to become more selfless or, on the flip side, less selfish, you have to practice and work out that muscle. Yeah. So, an example in our marriage: we all go through these seasons where I want physical intimacy and maybe Jennifer can't give it to me. Like, we're pregnant right now, so this is a natural thing that happens, but times that we're not pregnant, maybe she's tired or whatever. And in my selfish flesh, I want something physical. But the selfless, spiritual-driven decision would be like, "Okay, I'm using that as a trigger, "I'm recognizing I want something. "I bet my wife wants something, too." And so, I tried, and I didn't do this every time, I don't do this all the time, but it's something I tried practicing is, "I'm gonna go and try and"-- [Jennifer] Give me the thing that it is you want. So, if it's a foot massage or-- Yeah, I want something-- Physical touch. [Aaron] Physical but I'm gonna go and say, "Hey, can I give you a massage?" And she wasn't even expecting it. Yeah. And that, it wasn't to manipulate, it was purely like, "I know I want something and right now, I'm just, "I know she probably can't give it or isn't interested "and it would be very selfish for me to "try and make her feel bad about it "or try and get something without her desiring it as well." So, I go and serve her. And so, that was one example, is practicing that muscle of service. Which, again, I'm not tryna make myself sound great. [Jennifer] So, I think the word that keeps coming to my mind as you're talking, Aaron, is the word initiation. And we have to be initiators, we have to be people who are willing to start first and not let our selfishness get in the way of that. And so, that would be my answer to this question, is: be an initiator. But even, prior to that, I would say we have to be people who are willing to get into God's Word and know it and let it transform us. And how does that happen? When we recognize our selfishness and we repent of it. Mm hm. Right? Because without repenting of your own selfishness when you see it flare up, you're never gonna change. You're always gonna be a selfish person. [Aaron] Which, repentance literally means to change your mind about. So, thinking you deserve something and therefore you're not gonna give something because if you're not getting what you deserve, why would you give what someone else doesn't deserve, right? And two scriptures come to mind when I think about this, a way of thinking about how to know when to give, to be selfless. I think of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others "as you would have them do unto you." And that's kind of a trigger, is any time I'm desiring something, it's probably a safe bet that the other person in my life, my wife, also is desiring something, right? And so, if I take that as a trigger, like, "Oh, I want, I'm trying, my flesh wants something "or my heart wants something." I can say, like, "Oh, I can go give this to my wife. "The thing that I want, I can give to her." But it's gonna be different, it may not be the exact thing I want, but. Let's say I want time to myself. It's probably possible that you want time to yourself. So, I can go be like, "Hey, "would you want to go out tonight?" Or, "Is there anyone you want to get together with?" Or, "Do you just need to go take a bath?" Yeah. Like, I can think that way. And so, I think of that loving your neighbor as yourself or doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, it's just thinking about the things that you want and then flipping it and saying, "How can I give the thing that I want to someone else?" The second verse that comes to mind is in Luke and it's about lending to people and it says this, it's Luke 6:34 through 36, it says, and this is Jesus talking: "And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, "what credit is that to you? "Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount. "But love your enemies and do good and lend. "Expect nothing in return. "Your reward will be great "and you will be sons of the most high, "for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. "Be merciful even as your Father is merciful." And this is kind of not directly talking about selfishness but it's this idea of lending without this expectation. Like, give without saying, "I'm giving to you "only if I'm guaranteed you're gonna return it to me." That's true selflessness. So, that's what it's saying, is God's even kind to the ungrateful and evil, he's patient with them, let's the rain fall on them as well and gives them crops. That's what this idea's talking about. You know, so we should be merciful, so. [Jennifer] You know, I was gonna ask you a question in conjunction to this question and that is: when people, when a couple, when they're not seeing eye-to-eye or there's disunity in the marriage, usually they don't want to serve each other, right, and so there's that that they're combating. And my question was gonna be: how do you do that, how do you serve each other, how do you love each other amidst that disunity? But I feel like you just answered it in that scripture. [Aaron] Well, it's giving, so, and we always go back to this, I have this quote I say all the time: we can't let our obedience be contingent on our spouse's actions. Like, "Well, you're not loving me "the way I wanna be loved or deserve to be loved, "therefore I'm not gonna respect you." It doesn't work that way. The only person we have control over is ourselves. So, the only person we have to worry who's being obedient, yes, I'm concerned if my wife's being obedient to the Lord, but for me, the only person I can actually control, in the Spirit that God's given me, is myself. And so, even if my spouse isn't walking the way I want them to or doing what I want them to, I can still choose to walk in righteousness, I can still choose to walk in love and be graceful and merciful and patient and kind and loving, right, on my side. That's really good. So, even when there is disunity, even when you're not seeing eye-to-eye on a specific thing in your marriage, you can still love unconditionally. Right, exactly. Cool. Okay, so let's move on to number two. "How do we live for God together? "My husband never really has been "to church or anything like that, so." [Aaron] Okay, and again, this would go back to you have a wife that's not, doesn't go to church with you, isn't a believer, and the husband is a believer or vice versa in the situation. [Jennifer] So, how do you live for God together when one person isn't already living for God? [Aaron] Again, I go back to you can't control the other person. You can't make someone live for God that doesn't wanna live for God. [Jennifer] Basically, this is a not seeing eye-to-eye on a spiritual level. [Aaron] Yeah, on the greatest level, I would imagine. But you, the Bible gives instruction to the wife on how she can walk in a certain way that can totally spiritually influence her husband. You see that with the husband, the husband can walk a certain way that will influence his wife. [Jennifer] Regardless, any person who is following Christ and Christ is living inside of them has an impact in this world. Yeah. Bottom line. [Aaron] And if your spouse, as the Bible says, is willing to stay with you, even if they don't love God, if they're not walking with God, and they're staying with you and you love God, think about the thousands and thousands of hours that that person who doesn't know God is gonna be around God because of you. Like, it's not like you walk up to a stranger on the street and they had a split second that you got to preach the gospel to them. Like, this person's living in the gospel daily. It's going have effect. Mm hm. [Aaron] So, I would say there's no answer on how you can walk together with God if the other person doesn't want to, but you can walk with God for your spouse and in front of your spouse and toward your spouse. [Jennifer] And I would say your greatest desire, before even living for God together, is: how can I get my spouse to live for God? And so, being prayerful for their salvation and being prayerful that they have a growing desire to serve God. Nonstop. [Jennifer] That's a foundational thing that needs to happen. One more note on this. So, me and you, we got married, and from the beginning, wanted to serve God together. Yeah. Right? Essentially, what this wife is desiring, for her and her husband, we were there. But even in the middle of two believers who love God, loved each other, and wanted to serve God together, we were often not on the same page spiritually, we were often at odds with each other in how we wanted to serve God, in our own sins. So, even in the midst of what you might be desiring, of that perfect, like, we're both chasing God together, you still have to walk in your own faith, uprightly, with God for your spouse because they're going to fail you at times, they're not going to be on the same page with you. And that's something that we experienced. Yeah. So, we were on the other spectrum of wanting to do it together but still felt chaotic sometimes. [Jennifer] Yeah, and I would say, after all these years of continually growing in our personal relationship with God, that is what has brought us closer together and has driven that desire to continue to serve Him together. And so, I would say to live for God means that you know Him and so, a good starting place, well, we already talked prayer and praying for salvation, but, is knowing God, getting in His Word, going through resources like Husband After God or Wife After God. [Aaron] Yeah, our marriage devotionals. [Jennifer] Yeah, which you can get and maybe you'll start it and maybe your spouse won't. Maybe you'll be halfway through and it's still sitting untouched for your spouse. Maybe you'll be finished with it for months and finally they pick it up. I don't know how God orchestrates all of that, all I know is I've heard plenty of stories where a couple has the resource and they start going through it and it draws their hearts closer to God, so. And that's just one resource out of so many out there. [Aaron] Okay, so question number three. We have a lotta questions, so we'll see if we can get through 'em. It says, "What are some tips for consistency "and communication within marriage to build intimacy? "i.e. You may not be in an agreement on a topic, "so how do you communicate through it?" [Jennifer] Gosh, I wanna say don't go into it super inflamed and heated. But that's the best way. You go in at a hundred. No, but sometimes you just feel that intense about it and so, whatta you do, Aaron, when you have that intense of an emotion about a topic or about something that you need to navigate with your spouse? I mean, practically, being quiet, starting with silence. I think of that scripture that says, "Be slow to speak and quick to listen and quick to hear." 'Cause often, to be honest, most of the communication issues in marriage is misunderstanding. Because you, as a emotional creatures, God's made you more emotional, you're gonna say something with emotional words and I'm gonna interpret that a hundred different ways and none of the ways I interpret it are how you feel, right? And men being logical creatures, and that doesn't mean women are illogical, it's just hearing something and it's not what you meant and it's not what you're saying and I'm hearing it a certain way and I'm putting it through my own filters and that's what happens, so. Being slower to just jump at the person and be like, "Oh, you said this and that hurt me." But actually hearing and listening and being slower to saying stuff because once the words leave our lips, they're gone and they're-- Yeah, but we're also held accountable to them, right? I think something that I've learned in our own marriage, Aaron, is the way that I can have self control in coming to you with my emotions and still be respectful but still communicate them to you and let you know, "Hey, when this happened, I felt this way." And so, I'm not yelling at you, I'm not out of control, I'm not making you feel little, I'm just explaining this is what happened and this is how it made me feel. And I think it's important for couples, like you said, to be slow to speak and quick to listen so that we hear each other. I think hearing each other is so important. [Aaron] Yeah, and then, and we always bring this up, is: what is your intention? Is your intention to win, is it to defeat your spouse? [Jennifer] Well, the goal should be unity, right? Right. But that has to be a conscious decision, like, "Am I mad right now and I wanna destroy you "or do I actually want there to be peace?" And not just apathy, like, "I just don't wanna deal with it "so let's not talk about it anymore," but, "Am I fighting for something and it's chaotic "or is this something that I even need to be fighting about? "Is this even matter, what I'm frustrated about "or what we're miscommunicating about?" But recognizing that the whole purpose, at the end of it, is that we're unified, we're reconciled, we are one again, we're in intimacy, you know? [Jennifer] Well, and intimacy means to be known. It's not just a physical intimacy, although that's how you're known physically, it means to be known. And the way that we make ourselves known is we are vulnerable, we are transparent, we are real. And so, we're not hiding anything, we're not keeping things from each other, but we're also not disrespectfully just throwing it all out there. There's this self control that comes with it and a safe place where we know we can communicate back and forth and that's what builds intimacy in marriage. That's what makes me feel known, that's what makes you feel known. [Aaron] Yeah, so knowing your end result, which is, it should be humbleness, because God wants his people to be humble, and it should be reconciliation. So, that deals with 99% of our arguments from day to day. It's very rare that we're having arguments over real big things, it's always the little things. And then, what happens is you get all those little things, when the big things do come up, you're gonna be infinitely better at dealing with that with your spouse 'cause you know that you're on the same team. [Jennifer] A good little side note tip would be to start out and use sentences with I instead of you. So, you're not pointing the finger here, you're actually opening your hand and saying, "I want you to know who I am." [Aaron] Mm hm, yeah, that's good, that was a good tip. So, here's a good one. Everyone's gonna have some level of issue. [Jennifer] What's the first thing that pops into your mind when we say this question? [Aaron] How do you work through disagreements on hobbies? And the example that was given is motorcycles and it's probably very personal to that person. Yeah. But women have, this actually could be a wife's hobby. But any hobby at all, hobby's essentially the extracurricular, it's, "I have this passion "outside of my home or outside of my work or"-- [Jennifer] Which, I know you'll generally answer, but I just have to say, when I saw this question come through, I think there would be a disagreement on something like the example they gave, motorcycles-- Motorcycles, right. [Jennifer] Because it's dangerous, right, and so, we also have to address that aspect of, maybe, what this question means, but why don't you kick it off? [Aaron] I would, on the hobbies side of things, regardless of what the hobby is, because there's so many different levels of ability. There could be a wife that is into skydiving with their husband and most people would be like, "No way," but they're like, "No, this is totally fun." So, I'm not gonna just pick on any specific hobby 'cause that doesn't matter, for the most part. I'm sure there's hobbies that are absolutely like, "Well, that's sin, you shouldn't be doing that." [Jennifer] And then there are safer ones, like quilting. [Aaron] And then there could be totally benign ones that mean nothing and it's like, "Well, what's the big deal? "This is not a sin that I'm doing this." The questions should always be wrapped up in wisdom. Can you afford it? If your wife or your husband's not in agreement with it, that should be immediately a red flag because you're not in unity and it's not just a, "That person needs to change how they think about my hobby," because what if God put an insight or a discernment in your spouse? Because remember, you guys are on the same team, regardless of if you feel like you're in a team or not, and your spouse has a reason for having an issue with it. Now, that spouse, as you guys communicate about the hobby, humbly, it could, you could find out that the spouse just has, like your wife, has some sort of disposition from a childhood about the thing you're doing. So, it has nothing to do with anything else other than they just feel uncomfortable. [Jennifer] But if that's the case, is it worth it to listen and hear? Absolutely. Yeah. [Aaron] But what I'm saying is they could, through the conversation, be like, "You know what? "I am being irrational and it's not that big of a deal." Or-- The point is that they're talking about it. Yeah. Or it comes to this side of, "Well, "I just can't get behind it." And then at that point, are you gonna say, "Well, then get outta here 'cause I'm gonna keep doin' it"? And then essentially, you're choosing a hobby over your spouse. Well, on the flip side to this, the spouse that's in disagreement with that spouse's hobby, what's your heart posture and reasoning? Because are you just against it because you don't like them spending time alone from you? Are you just against it because you don't like what they like? So, I feel like the biggest part of this question, and it's for both spouses in the marriage, is: what are the motivations of your heart? On both sides. And are you communicating that to each other? [Aaron] Right, and usually, if you're defensive about something, if you're trying to defend and protect your hobby, that usually is rooted in something and you gotta immediately start asking yourself, "Why am I trying to protect this so much? "Why does this thing mean so much to me?" Because you could be using that hobby as a surrogate for your marriage. Like, "I get more fulfillment out of this thing "than I do out of my marriage or my kids." [Jennifer] Like an escape or something, yeah. [Aaron] And if that's the case, that's dangerous and that's called an idol. You should be careful with that. So, I think, any, there should be nothing in our life, not a single hobby should have any sort of weight against our family, against our ministry, against our marriage, against our responsibilities at our work, with our kids, none of that. Anything, it doesn't matter what the hobby is, it shouldn't be off the table for a negotiation. It should be something that you should humbly be willing to release, if necessary. And the necessity could be your wife or your husband just is like, "I don't like it." And to be honest, even if they're irrational, they are one with you. And if you're gonna just say, "I disagree with you, "you're irrational, I'm gonna keep doing it," you've just literally, how are you ever gonna be intimate, on any level, with a person that you said, "I don't care what you say, I'm doing it anyway"? You just can't. So, I would just put a warning in anyone's life, and this goes for the husbands and the wives, if there's anything in their life, a book club, a quilting club, a hobby of, like, you name it, everyone that's listening is probably thinking, "Oh, I have this hobby." [Jennifer] "I know what my thing is," yeah. [Aaron] And my job right now is not to say hobbies are bad 'cause you can totally have a healthy hobby, maybe it's something that you do with your family, maybe that it's something that you do by yourself, and you have total control over it and it doesn't get in the way of your responsibilities and your family totally feels taken care of and loved and that you're present-- [Jennifer] And they actually enjoy participating in it with you. [Aaron] Yeah, there's lots of things. But at the same time, if you have any level of, "I'm not lettin' this thing go "and no one's gonna stop me," that's a wrong heart. And whatever that thing is that you're into has got some sorta hold of you that you need to deal with. Yeah. So, I wanna share two things. One of them just kinda popped into my heart and I can't push it away for some reason and that is: if you, the individual, have some sort of hobby and you've been feeling convicted in your own heart because of timing, finances, lack of-- How often you're doin' it. [Jennifer] Yeah, whatever the thing is, please please please please please don't push that feeling off and just wait for your spouse to come and share their disagreement with you about it. Be a mature, Christian person, yield to the Holy Spirit-- Who's speaking to you. And say, "God, what are you trying to tell me "and how can I surrender this to you?" If that means give it up 100%, are you willing to do that? I just felt like I had to say that. The other thing is more personal, but I just wanted to share an encouragement. I didn't want it to all sound negative. But Aaron, you have been so good at, first, learning who I am, I don't wanna say studying me, but over time together, you know me pretty well and you know the things that fuel me, as a person, like writing and painting and crafting, and you encourage me in it. Now, there have been times in our marriage where we've been so strapped, it's like, "You can't spend that money on that, "you know, whatever that thing is." But there's also been, often, there's been times where you know that I've been going, going, going and you look at me and go, "I think you "just need to go to a coffee shop and write. "You just need to go do this thing with your girlfriends. "You just need to," and you're a supporter and an advocate for giving me space and time to be fueled by the things that interest me and I just had to say that because I think that, as a husband and wife, we have an incredible position and opportunity to support one another in the things that do fuel us, the things, the hobbies that we're interested in. And you've been really good at that, so I just wanted to say thank you but also use it as a testimony for those listening that they can be that way in marriage, it just requires communication. Yeah. That was good, thank you, I wasn't expecting that. Okay, why don't you read question number five? [Jennifer] How do you keep chasing dreams God's called you to when your spouse is in a totally negative place? So, I'm imagining this is a season, not just a day but not always like this, but they're just in a negative place and how are you supposed to keep moving forward with those dreams that you, maybe, were chasing together or were hoping to chase together? [Aaron] This, it sounds more personal, it sounds like this person, whoever it is, feels like God's called them to something specific. Oh, like individually. Yeah. And they're spouse is in another place. Okay. Either emotionally or mentally or maybe they hate their job and the other spouse is trying to pursue a ministry of some sort or-- Okay. [Aaron] The question itself tells me that the initial, the way the question's worded tells me that they're missing out on the first calling. The marriage? The marriage. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's what I was thinking. [Aaron] We have a responsibility, we're told to love our neighbor as ourself. And I always say, "Who's your closest neighbor?" Yeah. It's your spouse. And then your kids and then your actual neighbors and then your fellowship. And it's not like you neglect the others for the first, but you don't go out of order. I don't neglect my wife, when she needs me the most, to go serve someone else. That's out of order. Well, and here's what I think about that, is: if, let's say it is individual and one of the spouses is pursuing ministry or whatever they feel God has called them to do or maybe it's that they had a specific calling as a couple and that person's in a negative place now and they're not doing that anymore. How effective would either one of them be in any of those situations if they're not unified in their marriage? Not very effective at all. Well, and here's, this is actually the sad part, is they actually could be effective. But they're not effective where it counts. You know, we have children at home, we have our marriage to take care of, and it's not just to have a happy marriage, it's that we have a powerful marriage and that we, like, if I can't minister, we say this in our book Marriage After God quite a bit, actually, if I can't minister to my spouse, what right do I have to go and minister to someone else? I don't want to minister to you, you're in a negative place, but I'm gonna go try and minister other people that are in a negative place. There's something backwards with that. And I also understand that you could be, have already in this mode and you see God moving and God's using you and then your spouse, your husband, your wife, is going through something. And you're like, "Well, do I have to put everything "on hold because this thing's happening?" Yes. Is it totally possible that God brought them to that place and then is asking them to postpone it or wait until-- Absolutely. Something else happens? That could be part of it, right, just as an encouragement. [Aaron] Yeah, I'll get, I don't have the specific scripture on this, but Jesus, when Jesus talked to the Pharisees, you know, we all have a negative connotation of the Pharisees, right? But the Pharisees were God's people and they were the priests in line, they were the ones that were to teach the law to everyone, right? But Jesus, the problem Jesus had with the Pharisees was not just that they were Pharisees. The reason they get a bad rap is because of how they acted. They acted holy and they did the thing that they believed God was calling them to do without doing the things that they should have been doing. [Jennifer] The very specific things that He-- [Aaron] Yeah, He gives this example and He says, "You take advantage of your parents. "You say, "The things that I would "give to you, I give to God instead."" And that's exactly, that's what this question sounds like to me. "God's calling me to this thing over here "but my spouse is holding me back." And I feel like Jesus would say the exact same thing to that person: "Okay, you wanna do what I want you to do, but you're "neglecting the thing I've already told you to do. "I've told you to honor your husband "or submit to your husband." Or, "I've told you to love your wife "as Christ loves the Church. "And yet, you don't wanna do that thing 'cause "they're holding you back from my call in your life? "My call in your life is that also." And so, in another place, Jesus tells to the Pharisees, he says, "You tithe your mint and your cumin "and yet you neglect the weightier things of the law." He says, "You should, the weightier things "are justice and love and mercy." And he says, "And you don't do those things when you "shoulda done those things and the other ones." So, I just go back to this idea of if there's something going on, let's say you have a spouse that gets injured and you no longer can go do the things that you usually do and the ministry that you had and now you have to focus on your spouse. Does that change that you're doing ministry? No. No, you just have changed your energies to a place that the energies need to be right now. If your spouse is in an emotional place, broken, they lost a family member, they're depressed, they're going through things, do you just leave them behind because they're getting in the way of the true ministry? No, if it says the good shepherd was willing to leave the 99 for the one, the one is your spouse. You don't, you leave the 99 that God can take care of because it's God and it's His sheep and His ministry, and you can minister to the one that God's given you. And minister and wash and take care of. And that should never be neglected. I just, we can't do that, I can't tell someone, "Yeah." Well, first of all, we like to use words like, "God told me to," and "God's shown me," and "God's given me" as if that's a trump card. "You can't tell me I'm not supposed to "do this thing because God called me to it." But you know what I can tell you? I know what the Word of God says and if you're not doing the things that the Word of God says, it doesn't matter what you believe, you're wrong. And I'm not trying to be harsh but I am trying to be harsh because many, many families have fallen apart because of this very thing. "No, I'm doing what God wants me to do "and you need to be left behind." [Jennifer] They forsake what He said in His Word. [Aaron] Yeah, and another quote in the book, I said-- In what book? In Marriage After God, yeah. I said, "Don't sacrifice your marriage "on the altar of, quote unquote, ministry." Like, "Oh, I'm doing ministry over here, "so my wife has to deal with it. "She's not gonna ever see me, she has no idea if I love her. "She gets the last bits of my energies "rather than getting the best of my energies "and being the thing that energizes me to do more ministry." It's so much more fruitful to do it the other way than leave them behind. And I just, I think that's my answer. [Jennifer] I think you've covered it really well. So well that I think we should move on to number six. Do you wanna read that one? [Aaron] Yeah, it's about me. Do you, Jennifer, struggle with trusting me? [Jennifer] Do I struggle with trusting you? [Aaron] Specifically speaking about porn, how can you battle thoughts, like the-- [Jennifer] So, I just have to say, I feel like we need to record a whole 'nother episode on this topic altogether because-- [Aaron] We've already done one but-- I know. We should probably do another one. Well, I have received, really, lately, a lot of wives messaging me about this very topic, about trust and rebuilding trust after finding out that your spouse has sinned against you, sinned, especially with pornography, and so, that just needs to happen, but it's not gonna happen this season, so I'm just gonna have to plant that seed and say, "Stay tuned." But just to answer this question, up front, for you guys. I don't struggle to trust you anymore, Aaron. Why? [Jennifer] I think it's because we've worked so hard on building that trust back up and it absolutely takes time. And because, in the beginning, there were times that I did struggle with doubt and fear, especially times that I know you were left alone while I was out running an errand or something like that. And you know what it required is humility and communication. Because I had to be willing to say, "Hey, I'm thinking about you right now and I just, "I don't want you to fall into temptation. "Just be strong, I'll be back at this time." Or when I got back, I would ask you, "Hey, how've you been?" And the more times that we had encounters where you continued to stay pure, it built that trust up in my heart. [Aaron] And then, specifically, along that journey, what did I do, anytime I did choose to get back into pornography? You told me and you repented and you shared with me your own frustrations over the struggle of sin that you had, but you owned it and you were real with me and-- [Aaron] And no matter how little the offense was. [Jennifer] No, and I knew that you struggled with shame and guilt and I knew it was hard for you to tell me. And you learned how to give me a place to respond when I was emotional over it because it makes, I mean, just thinking-- Without trying to control your response. Yeah, 'cause it just, it made me broken knowing that those things took place and I felt a lotta things and I thought a lotta thoughts. But I would say that the humility of you coming to me or me coming to you and the reconciliation process was so important. And when I say reconciliation, I mean we talked about it. Even if it took two and a half hours, we talked about it. We prayed for each other and we tried to affirm each other that we were gonna move forward. Right. And the, some of the, just the practical things is: first of all, it does take time and you should never expect your spouse to just flip a switch and be like, "Well, I'm gonna trust you again." 'Cause that's actually not even Biblical. It does take time to build trust. Now, forgiveness immediately is Biblical, but that doesn't mean immediately, "Oh, we're back to where we were." No, there's been broken trust and it takes time, it takes repetitive purity, right? And then, the other practical is: I made a commitment to tell you, to let you know. And here's the thing, is: the offenses, although they changed in size, relatively, the thing I did, I still confessed it to you and you were able to see the true repentance in me. And so, it's not like it was the same each time, it was less and less and less. But my continuing to come to you and say, "Hey, I made this choice. "Yeah, it was a split second, "but I chose it and I feel shameful about it "and I wanna repent to you because this is not who I am "and it's not who I wanna be and so, I need to tell you." 'Cause I've learned, through the Word of God and through experience, that the confession and repentance is one of the ways that God's given us to kill our flesh. My flesh hates it, it wants to hide in the darkness and keep its, it wants, my flesh wants to not be known because it feels icky and I don't wanna be seen for what I truly am. So, the being consistent and telling you the truth and not just waiting 'til you found out but actually coming forth and saying, "Hey, I made a bad choice." And calling it what it is, a choice, not minimizing it, not justifying it. Those kinds of things helped you trust that I was actually changing. And that I love you and that I don't wanna be that person and that I'm willing to tell you because I want you to know, for my sake, so that I can heal and change and repent and be repented of that sin. [Jennifer] Yeah, I appreciate you sharing all of that and the second part of this question is: how can you battle those thoughts? And I just am thinking back to all of the stuff that I used to struggle with because the sin that you chose to partake in were like seeds planted in my mind and heart for the temptation to feel insecure or unloved and fall into those traps where your mind is just going wildly crazy with the worst kinds of thoughts about you and of our relationship. And I would say that being vulnerable with those and still being willing to be in an intimate place with you where I can say, "Because you did this, I feel this way," or, "I'm thinking these things," and revealing those types of thoughts to you helped me battle them. Because I gave you the opportunity to affirm me and say, "No no no no no, I know I chose that "and I'm so sorry, but that's not who you are. "You don't have to be insecure because of what I did." And there was this back and forth of understanding each other that I think was really valuable. Right. And again, another thing that, for the spouse that has dealt with this and is dealing with it, the mistrust is a natural consequence for a sin. Yeah. Right? And so, we have to recognize that. And so, another thing that builds trust, from the offender's side, is, 'cause what happens is: I've confessed, we've dealt with that event, and then you are leaving somewhere and it's a time when you know I would, usually, in the past-- [Jennifer] You mean I flared up with anxiety inside my whole being? Well, but, no, if you say something like, "Hey"-- Oh. "I wanna encourage you to stay pure while I'm gone." The not truly repentant person would say, "Babe, babe, we already dealt with that, you don't need to bring that up." Oh, getting defensive-- Like, "C'mon, you don't trust me?" No, I should be totally humble and willing to be like, "You're right, thank you for reminding me "and be praying for me and I'm gonna let you know "if I feel tempted and I'm gonna call you and I'm gonna." Instead of being defensive and prideful, I'm gonna be humble and realize that it's totally natural for my wife to not trust me and she's gonna learn trust by how I receive her care for me in that moment. You reminding me, like, "Hey, don't go to that thing." Me receiving that is a trustworthy action, right? Yeah. Another way that I battled thoughts of mistrust was I asked a lot of questions. So, if I ever felt uneasy about a situation or discerning. You know, maybe I woke up from a dream or something where it was like I couldn't shake it, I asked. Or you just feel it. Like, "Hey, something's off." Yeah, I asked you. I asked, "Have you been struggling?" And so, I think that when we recognize that we're battling thoughts, you can't just keep battling them, you can't just keep, you're just gonna be wrestling the whole time, right? And so, being able to open up and share with your spouse the types of thoughts that you're having and also go to God and say, "God, these are "the types of thoughts that I'm having," and finding scriptures that would help fight those thoughts for you and-- [Aaron] Well, and also be praying and asking God to transform your own heart, asking God to transform your spouse's heart. To purify your marriage. Yeah, to use you both for His work and for His kingdom. [Jennifer] See, I told you that this was gonna be a big topic. I feel like we just-- There's a lot, there's a lot more, yeah. [Jennifer] We need to be able to do another episode on that. Yeah. All right, so the last question, it's kind of a bigger, blanket one. It'd be: What is your number one advice to couples who are currently struggling with this eye-to-eye thing? They're not on the same page, they feel at odds with each other. [Jennifer] Well, I will say this: one of the most powerful, impactful, incredible ways that God got ahold of our hearts, Aaron, and made change and transformation in our lives and our marriage was entering into mature, Christian, Biblical community and being transparent with people who we allowed to speak into our lives and say-- "You're off base, bro." But sometimes we didn't even see that we were off on that whole eye-to-eye thing and we got called out for it and so, like, bickering or whatever the thing was. And I just remember how, and even still to this day, it's been such a huge part of our testimony, is being in Biblical community and how being a part of the body, and I don't mean like a one day a week type thing, I mean immersed in it where you know you can text that person, call that person, meet them on the fly for dinner to gain wisdom, to ask advice, to cry about, to praise for, you know, all the things. [Aaron] So, the bit of advice I would give that goes in align with being a community, and it kind of, it's, I talked about it quite a bit in this episode, is humbleness. And in Luke 14:11, he says, "For everyone "who exalts himself will be humbled "and he who humbles himself will be exalted." And all through Proverbs, it talks about this idea of the humble will be lifted up and the haughty are God's opposed. To receive anything from community, you have to be humbled and willing to hear. Like, "Hey, I think you are being a bonehead, Aaron." Like, "Oh, you're right, I agree. "I didn't realize that, I need to change in that area, "I need to go apologize to my wife." So, that humbleness, and even outside of community, in your marriage, if you're in a difficult place, there's something miraculously, spiritually powerful about humbleness. All of these fights we get in, all of the eye-to-eye issues, it's all because they're not seeing our eyes, they're not on our page, which is pridefulness. When we could be like, "Maybe I need to be on their page." [Jennifer] Or humility would point your spouse's eyes up to God and say, "No, look at Him." Right. [Jennifer] "Don't look at me in this, look at Him." [Aaron] Or recognizing you're wrong or maybe don't know or don't have the answer or need to sit back and say, "You know what? "I'm just gonna, I'm gonna let you have this one because, "I mean, I know I've been wrong in the past anyways." It's not a false humility, it's true humbleness, recognizing who you serve, you serve God. And so, in community, which was the number one thing that we believe totally transformed our life, but it also took us, in community, being willing to listen and hear and receive, which takes humbleness. And time. And time, yeah. So, that would be my bit of advice, is: man, humbleness is gonna go infinitely farther than any level of selfishness or pride. [Jennifer] So, the next time, it could be today, tomorrow, next week-- [Aaron] It's gonna be right after this episode, probably. [Jennifer] If you are finding yourself in a place where you're not seeing eye-to-eye with your spouse, remember humility. Absolutely. Remember to pray. Remember to go to God and say, "God, what is it that you want? "'Cause I don't want to get in "the way of what you're doing." Yeah, "How can my response and actions "and attitude right now glorify you?" And that, man, it changes everything 'cause you're like, "Oh. "Yelling and throwing a dish at the wall "is not gonna glorify God right now." Or, "Telling my spouse that they don't know anything "or that they're wrong, those might not glorify God." [Jennifer] Well, that wraps us up for this episode of having answered your guys' questions. Thank you again so much for being there and submitting those questions when we called out for them. Yeah, appreciate it. And, again, if you wanna participate in a Q&A episode, all you need to do is follow @marriageaftergod on Instagram and wait for the next time we poll for 'em. And then you can submit your question and we try and get through as many as we can with the time that we have. And if we ever do an episode where you're like, "I know my question would've fit in there," and maybe we didn't get to it, just message us and let us know. But we just love hearing from you guys and we love participating in this way where we get to kind of answer your questions or at least try. [Aaron] So, as usual, we end every episode with prayer. So Jennifer, why don't you pray for us? [Jennifer] Dear God, thank you so much for marriage. Thank you for our spouses and thank you for the opportunity that we get every day to walk this life with each other. We pray for humility to be a priority in our lives, that we would walk humbly before each other, that we would be motivated by how you're moving in our lives individually and in our marriages. God, we thank you for our marriages and we just pray for unity. We pray that, even in times where we don't see eye-to-eye or we have disagreements or there's conflict, that you would remain at the center of our marriage and that we can submit our hearts to you. God, we pray that we would be one with each other, that we would pursue oneness in our marriage and support each other in that way. And God, we pray that these situations that come up in marriage where we don't see eye-to-eye would be an opportunity where we can learn from each other, where we can grow to understand each other, where we can experience intimacy. No matter what, we pray that your will would be done and that you would be glorified. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So, thanks for joining us on this week's episode. We love y'all, we thank you for being a part of the Marriage After God community. And we just wanna invite you, if you have not yet, would you leave us a review? We love your reviews, they help the podcast get reach, and new people find it because of your reviews. So, if you wanna leave us a star rating and a text review, we'd love that. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

This devotional episode is based on 1 Peter 4:7-11. We wanted to share how Love covers a multitude of sins and why it is so important that we love with this level of eagerness.1 Peter 4:7-11 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.PrayerDear Lord,We lift up our hearts to you right now and ask that you would make us a people who love others earnestly. Holy Spirit direct our hearts and remind us of your word. We pray we would above all things love others. We pray we would love our spouse, our children, our friends, and those who are in our life. May your love pour out of us. May your love pouring out of us transform our marriages. We pray others would be impacted by the love we share. We pray we would be able to love so deeply that it covers a multitude of sin. We pray that instead of shame or guilt, people would feel undoubtedly loved by us and by you. We pray for your word to be fulfilled through our choices to walk in love and that your will would be done.In Jesus’ name, amen! READ TRANSCRIPT- [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith, with "Marriage After God." - [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. - [Aaron] And today we're gonna talk about how love covers a multitude of sin. Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. - [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. - [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. - [Jennifer] We have been married over a decade. - [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. - [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. - [Aaron] With a desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. - [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life, - Love, - And power, - [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God, - [Jennifer] Together. - [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. - [Jennifer] This is "Marriage After God." Okay Aaron, so we, we survived kind of a hard week. - [Aaron] We did survive. - I mean, - We're barely coming on - Our kids survived. - The other side of it, yes. - [Jennifer] But we're not the only ones going through this, so we thought we would just give you guys a little update of our family and hopefully encourage some of you out there who it might be hitting as well. - [Aaron] Yeah, our whole family got the flu. It was bad, but not bad. It was kind of a weird thing. - [Jennifer] Well, I'll say this, the Lord spared me and gave me the grace to be able to help everyone. 'Cause I felt-- - And you didn't even really get sick, you got some of the, like you felt sick. - Yeah you know the gut pain? - [Aaron] But you didn't have any other symptoms, which was awesome. - And the rosy cheeks. I felt like every once in a while, like I really don't feel good right now, I need to go lay down, but for the most part, I was able to be there to help everyone. Which made me really nervous, because people were, you and the kids were throwing up and I just thought, me, at this stage of the game in pregnancy, throwing up would not go over well with my body. - No and so-- - That woulda been terrible. - [Aaron] We're definitely thanking God, which we did a lot of, oddly. But not to be too graphic, but I'm pretty sure I put a rib out from how hard I was throwing up. - [Jennifer] That sucks. - [Aaron] Yeah, it still is really sore. But, what's awesome is, a couple of things, I just wanna praise you Jennifer, because I feel like you handled everyone being sick, and the inconvenience of it so well. I think I even told you, I was like, "I can tell you're walking in the spirit." Like your attitude was good, how much cleaning had to be done. - [Jennifer] It was a lot of work. - [Aaron] It's no fun when literally all the boys are throwing up and it's like, there's no clean blankets. - [Jennifer] It's all at the same time. - [Aaron] Yeah, so we, but we survived, we're coming on the other side of that. But one thing we practiced, I don't think we've ever done it before, not that we're not thankful to God. - [Jennifer] Not in this kind of circumstance, it's not at the forefront of our minds. - [Aaron] I did a post a couple weeks ago encouraging men to thank God for everything, if they get cut off in traffic, if something bad happens, even-- - [Jennifer] You didn't say if your whole family comes down with sickness, did you? - [Aaron] I know, if something good happens, I just said, say, whatever it is that happens today, thank God for it. And I tried practicing that. And so I'm literally in the fetal position in the bathtub, and I'm trying to thank God. I'm like, "Okay God, thank you. "Thank you for being sick." And I was like, why am I thanking God for this? Well, thank you for reminding me that I'm human. Like I'm fragile. Thank you for reminding me that one day I'm not gonna have this sickness. - [Jennifer] Or that we need to pray. - [Aaron] Yeah thank you for reminding, - Ask him. - Humbling me, showing me that my weakness. So there was a lot of things to thank God for for being sick, and I directly thanked God for being sick. And then we of course have thanked God for healing us and sparing our family from being even worse, 'cause it probably could have been worse. - [Jennifer] Something that really stood out to me is I didn't know you had this perspective kind of going into everyone being sick, and I wouldn't say I was there with you in those beginning moments, but you brought the family to the living room, and you said, "You know what, we're gonna pray, "and we're just gonna thank God today." And I think even one of the kids asked, "Why are we thanking God?" - [Aaron] Doesn't make any sense. - [Jennifer] But I was questioning it in my own heart too, like, okay, where's this going? But it was so beautiful to hear your prayer and you starting out saying, "God, thank you for this sickness." And it was humbling for me and for my heart to go, "oh yeah" you know? And to have that perspective before him. And then, I gotta share this other experience is just a friend of mine who, their family also got it really bad. - [Aaron] Pretty much our whole church got sick. - [Jennifer] But I met up with her for coffee when it was all past and she goes, "You know I just found, we found our whole family "just worshiping God through it." And it was so cool, kinda the same thing. And I said, "I didn't really worship him through it, "but at the end of all the laundry being done, "all the bathrooms being cleaned, "and having taken a shower, I came out singing "'Victory in Jesus' so, that was awesome." - [Aaron] But it is worship. Thanking God is worship. So whatever he gives, I think Job says it, "Should we not thank God for the good and the evil?" Like the bad things that happen? We thank God for those too, because he's God and he deserves our thanksgiving. And at the end of the day, salvation is so much greater than anything that we can go through. So, at minimum you can be like, "God, thank you so much "that one day I'm gonna be with you." That is so good. - [Jennifer] So if your family happens to get hit by whatever bug this is, - [Aaron] It's going around, yeah. - [Jennifer] Whatever's going around, we just wanted to encourage you guys to move forward with a thankful heart and to trust God and to be prayerful. And also just to be patient, because we know it's an inconvenience, we know it's hard, it takes away from your work schedule, it takes away from things on your to-do list that maybe you were hoping to do or whatever it is. We know it's hard, but if God's allowing it to happen, we can trust him and walk through it with him. - [Aaron] Yeah, so that was just a little update on our flu campaign. But we wanna encourage you. We have a new challenge. We've been doing a lot of these lately, a lot of new downloads and challenges and free things that you guys can get from us. And our new one's called the parentingprayerchallenge.com. We launched it last week and this week you get to do it. We're still encouraging parents to sign up to pray for either their daughter or their son or both. So if you haven't signed up for the Parenting Prayer Challenge, it's completely free. We're gonna send you 31 prompts every day, encouraging you to pray for different things for your child. - Over 31 days. - Over 31 days. - [Jennifer] Not 31 emails in one day. - [Aaron] Yeah, that's happened one time. Yeah, one a day, and the whole idea is that at the end of the 31 days you've built a habit of praying for your children. I'm sure all you parents love to pray for your children, but we just wanted to give this resource to encourage you to pray more, to pray deeper, to pray more consistently and give you ideas on what other things to pray for for your kids. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and I'll add this, it goes hand in hand with our books, "31 prayers for your son and for your daughter." And if you have those books, oh this'll be an incredible reminder. It's kinda like an alarm, right? Because your email comes through and then you're like, "Oh yeah." So you can get the book and go along with it that way too. - [Aaron] Mm-hmm, so parentingprayerchallenge.com, all one word, spelled the way you would think it's spelled. And sign up for free today. All right guys, we've been doing this new thing, we've mentioned it a few times this season. We're trying to do a marriage episode, we're doing a devotional style episode, a Q&A, we're trying to give a little bit more diversity on the kinds of things we're bringing up and this episode's gonna be a devotional style. We're gonna talk about some scripture. And something that we've been learning, something that I taught on at church. And so we hope it encourages you and why don't you, Jennifer start off by reading-- - [Jennifer] Oh, I was gonna sit back and let you teach for 30 minutes, yeah. - [Aaron] Oh, I'll just do it? No. - Go for it. - [Aaron] Why don't you read the scripture that we're gonna be talking about, - Okay. - And then we'll go into it. - [Jennifer] So it's 1 Peter 4:7-11 and it says this, "The end of all things is at hand, "therefore be self controlled "and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly "since love covers a multitude of sins." - [Aaron] This is a great scripture in 1 Peter and we're excited to talk about it and what it means for us as believers, not only in our marriages, but just in life in general and walking in the body of Christ. And the power that is in our love for one another. And what that means and looks like. So we're gonna dig into this, these few scriptures, and kinda break it down and talk about some stuff and Jennifer you might have some questions. But we're just gonna break it down and see how this applies to us in our life. So the first thing I wanna point out is where our perspective should be. And Jennifer you read it, the very first thing it says in verse seven is "The end of all things is at hand." - [Jennifer] I feel like there should be an exclamation mark. - [Aaron] And it's almost is, it's a semicolon which says everything I'm about to say is attached to this statement. The end of all things is at hand, and so, we can easily, quickly think this is talking about Jesus coming back, or the end of days, right? But in the New Testament when it talks about the end of days or all things at hand or the end of the generation, it's mostly talking about all of the things that needed to take place, they needed to occur for the salvation story, for redemption, God's plan for redemption that he's been planning and preparing since Adam and Eve in the garden. And so, when Peter says the end of all things is at hand, he's saying that essentially, Christ has been born, he's died, and he's resurrected. - [Jennifer] Like we have what we need. - [Aaron] The thing that God has planned to take place has taken place. - Yeah. - [Aaron] Which means a lot. It means that we can now draw near to God. It means that we now can have salvation and a right relationship with God. Because without the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his ascension and him sending the holy spirit there is no, like we can't be made right with God. So all of those things, the end of all things is at hand. The end of everything that God planned for salvation has been done, as Jesus says on the cross, it is finished. So it didn't necessarily mean that hey, the end of the world is tomorrow. But it's also an allusion, it alludes to Christ returning. Because now that the church age has begun, the spirit is living in man, we're made right with God, the bride of Christ is growing, we have an expectation of Christ's return. So we're in this imminent return zone. Like at any moment Christ can come back. - [Jennifer] And we are, we're called to walk a certain way. - [Aaron] Yeah. And so that's kinda, he starts off these statements with here's how you should be thinking. Realize first and foremost you have everything you need because Christ died and resurrected. He's given you his spirit, so now you can walk in his spirit and not the flesh. Like the things that we need to accomplish what he's about to tell us have already happened and are already available to us and been given to us. So that's our perspective in our relationships with our spouse, our children, our church body. That the end of all things is at hand. Like first and foremost, I have everything I need in Christ Jesus, to walk this way that we're about to talk about. And I walk this way because I look forward to Christ coming back, and I wanna not be ashamed at his return, I wanna stand boldly at his return. I wanna be excited for his return. - [Jennifer] It gives those relationships a lot of depth and purpose, how we interact with each other and how we're supposed to be in those relationships with each other. - [Aaron] Right and so, if you think about your marriage. You say, "Well, I just can't because my husband "is this, this, this." - [Jennifer] Or together you're just facing a really hard circumstance. - [Aaron] Yeah, like we went through stuff. And it's like, oh, our love for each other is stifled because of this hard circumstance or these character traits in the other person. But if our mindsets are on wow, first of all I can, because Christ did, and I should, because Christ is coming. My perspective and the way I treated you and the way we treat others would totally be transformed because we're no longer thinking of this immediate, well how did you treat me and how am I gonna treat you? - [Jennifer] Well, it's not about us. - Exactly. - Right? - [Aaron] Which is a powerful thing. And this is being taught to the believer, but the ramifications for this is in every aspect of your life. Most directly in your marriage and then also most directly in all of your relationships with other believers in the church. We need to have this perspective. - [Jennifer] Okay, so, then moving on in that verse, the next word is therefore. - [Aaron] Yeah and-- - [Jennifer] So the end of all things is at hand, - [Both] Therefore. - [Aaron] Yeah, and someone always says, "What's therefore there for?" I mean you ask yourself, "Well, why is that there?" And it's attached to the last statement. So, since the end of all things is at hand, be this way. And what does it say right there, Jennifer? - [Jennifer] Be self controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. - [Aaron] So, in relation to our relationships and in our life and in the way we interact in this world, self-controlled, how often do we say the word self-controlled in our house? - [Jennifer] Well, we're in the beginning stages of training our kids, so I feel like we say it all the time, multiple times a day. - [Aaron] 150,000 times a day. Are you being self-controlled? - Remember, self-control. - [Aaron] Be self-controlled, you're not being self-controlled. You must have self-control. Like over and over and over again. 'Cause that's, I mean our kids are learning to have control over themselves, that's the point. But self-controlled meaning, in my life, am I in control or is my flesh in control? 'Cause when my flesh is in control, we are not self-controlled. We're gonna eat as much as-- - We just give way - We want. - To whatever we want, yeah. - [Aaron] When I'm angry, I'm just gonna say what I wanna say. Oh, well, I was angry, that's why I said that. Well, that's not self-controlled. That's just blurting out what's coming to your mind because you're angry, rather than considering the other person. - [Jennifer] Which the mind is the next thing it says. - [Aaron] Yeah, sober-minded, which yes, this is talking about sobriety, not on drugs, not drunk with alcohol, but sober-minded is much more than just, we talked about this in another episode. I can't remember the name of the other episode, but it's having a right way of thinking. A clear way of thinking. So if you think about, we just talked about anger. You know Jennifer, you do something that really frustrates me and then I get so angry I just start saying whatever I want, like I'm not being sober-minded. I'm letting my wrath and my anger control my words and my actions, rather than my mind. - [Jennifer] It's like being self-controlled of your mind specifically. - Right. - [Jennifer] Like being able to have those thought processes and walk yourself through it mentally. - [Aaron] Another example of being sober-minded is fear. So, there's nothing wrong with natural fear, like you know fire's gonna burn you, so you don't touch it, but we're talking about like there's something going on in the world and it's causing us to have this anxiety and fear which causes us to make decisions and not seek out wisdom and oh, we're gonna go do this thing because XYZ over here, I don't know how that's gonna turn out, therefore we're gonna. And so that's not sober-minded either. Instead of thinking through what is reality, thinking through what is the repercussions if XYZ happens or if we don't have what we need or if, like thinking sober-minded is rather than operating in the fear and just making decisions off that, you're operating in knowledge and wisdom and you seek counsel and you're slow to act, slow to speak. So that's the idea of sober-minded. So since we know that the end of all things is at hand, meaning we have everything we need in Christ, meaning all of the things that God planned for redemption has happened, you have the holy spirit, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. - [Jennifer] So real quick, I just have to, just hearing you repeat that, it says, "Be self-controlled and sober-minded "for the sake of your prayers," that means you're praying. So it's almost like it's saying be self-controlled and sober-minded and prayerful. Like be a person of prayer. - [Aaron] Right, and we just talked about being sick. If our minds were in this position of thankfulness and we were just wallowing in the suffering, 'cause throwing up's not fun, not feeling good is not fun, and we could just sit there and be like woe is us. And we're not even being sober-minded in that. But instead we're like, "Thank you Lord." It actually helped us elevate above our current circumstances to be able to see it from a heavenly position. Like, okay, well, just because this thing is happening, doesn't mean I stop being a Christian. Doesn't mean I can now act XYZ, be this way, say these things. No, I actually even in this, can walk this out. Because we know all things have been fulfilled in Christ, and his return is imminent, even in my sickness I get to say, "Well if Christ was to come right now, "I wanna be like him, wanna look like him." This is how we must live as people who claim the name of Jesus. We can't claim the name, but not walk it out. - [Jennifer] Mm-hmm, okay so before you move on, I feel like maybe some of our listeners would have the same question, and that is, it says "for the sake of your prayers" so does that mean your prayers are in trouble if you're not being self-controlled or you're not being sober-minded? What does that mean? - [Aaron] Yeah, I mean, in 1 Peter I think we get another picture of that when it talks about husbands walking with their wives in an understanding way, it says for the sake of your prayers. So, there is a way that the believer can walk that would hinder our prayers. And it could be put this way, someone told me once, "God's not gonna tell you "to do a new thing until you've done the old thing." Like the thing he's asked you to do already. And so it's almost like this, we're looking for a new word from the Lord, we're looking for guidance and wisdom. And he's like, well, but you're not even loving your wife right now. - Mm-hmm, I have a really good example of this when it comes to kids. Olive, just I think it was yesterday, she came up to me and she was like, "Mom, I don't have anything to do." And so I gave her something to do, it was a small task. And she turned around really quickly and said, "I don't wanna do that." - [Aaron] What else can I do? - [Jennifer] What else can I do? And I looked at her, I said, "Sweetheart, "can you go do what Mommy asked you to do?" - [Aaron] Right. Yeah, and there's even a scripture that says, "Go back and do the first things "that you've been told to do." Like you've left your first love, we learned in Revelations. There's this idea of like, God's already given us some commands, given us some things to do as believers. In his power, to do it, and we wanna skip over those things and we're gonna talk about this. We wanna skip over those things to get to the other things. We're like, "Well, I don't wanna do that thing." Loving that person's difficult. Or, praying for that person, ehh, let's pray for this big thing over here. - [Jennifer] Or how about, "I'll be self-controlled, "but I don't care about being sober-minded." - Exactly yeah. - You know what I mean? - [Aaron] Which doesn't make any sense because, - [Jennifer] I know. - [Aaron] If you're not sober, like let's talk about being drunk, you're not in self-control either. Those things go hand in hand. So yes, the Bible teaches that our prayers can be hindered. I don't know exactly what that means, does that mean that God doesn't hear 'em at all? Or is it that I am hindered? Like I'm not gonna want to pray more. I don't have a desire to, I'm frustrated. No, Lord, I don't want to. It's like when our, like you said our kids, when they have an attitude, Wyatt crosses his arms, puts his head down, it's like he doesn't wanna look at us. - [Jennifer] Or like that example you gave of us being sick, if we weren't sober-minded and self-controlled, we wouldn't have prayed in thankfulness, so yeah, hindered in a way that if we're not walking that way and we're not being that way then we won't be praying at all. - Yeah so, - We won't be a people of prayer. - Regardless of how it plays out, I don't want either of those things. I wanna be able to come to God boldly and I also want God to receive me and hear my prayers. The Bible tells us that the prayers of a righteous man availeth much, it's in James. And I want my prayers heard. I want them to avail much. And when I pray for my family, when I pray for health, when I pray for opportunities, when I pray for other, my family members, when I pray for the lost, I want those prayers to be heard and to have power with God. So, God says, "Well be sober-minded and self-controlled "so that your prayers won't be hindered." Then I should just do that. - [Jennifer] Do it. - [Aaron] It's not easy all the time, but that's what we get to do, because the end of all things is at hand, so I should be able to do it. Okay, so let's move on to this next part of this verse. - [Jennifer] Well the next verse. - [Aaron] Yeah, the next verse, there ya go. Verse eight starts off, it says, "Above all." Okay, and I just wanted to highlight this idea, so if you're in your Bible, which that'd be awesome if you were, you should be. It says, "Above all," comma, "keep loving one another earnestly." And I just wrote down some ideas of what's the all? Like above all, above how generous you might be financially, like, "I've given so much." Above being right, like "Well I know "that this scripture means this." Above memorizing every scripture, above being debt free, above your health, above your safety, above all. Above everything that you see as good, 'cause these things are good, for the most part, don't neglect to do this thing. So, above all, do this thing, right? - [Jennifer] Do you think it's easy for us in our flesh to justify like, "Well, I don't have to love that person, "and we don't even get along, but I'm doing this "over here, so, I'm good with God because this over here." Do you hear what I'm saying? - [Aaron] Yeah, we do this all the time, and there's a scripture that I'll bring up that shows this hypocrisy. Like, "Well no, that person doesn't need to be in my life, "because of XY and Z, but, you know what? "But I read every day, I'm in the word every day." "Oh but I pray, I'll pray for that person. "I don't have to love 'em, but I'll pray for 'em." I think something that I've heard a lot, and it doesn't make any sense, but we say this, "Oh, I love him, I just don't like him." Almost as if love is this general like, yeah we're in the same city, but I'm never gonna talk to him, I'm not gonna be kind to him, I'm not gonna be cordial, I'm not gonna even, I don't wanna go out of my way for them. I'm not gonna give to them, I'm not gonna help them, I'm not gonna. So what love is that? - [Jennifer] If you're doing that, I was gonna say, what's your definition of love? - [Aaron] And that's my point is we, okay, I'll just do this. So the point of everything I said above all, or not that we shouldn't do those other things, 'cause I never want someone to be like, "Well, all we have to do is love others, "and we don't have to be generous, "and we don't have to read our word and memorize scripture." These things that are actually really good for us. "And my health and my, all these things don't matter, "as long as I just love." No. All of those things matter, but we don't neglect this one thing, and often it's the one thing we neglect. We work on all those other things, 'cause we have, those are easier, those are personal. We can control 'em. We can't control other people and that's why it's so hard. And I think of this in Matthew 23:23 Jesus says this, he says, "Woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, "for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, "and have neglected the weightier matters of the law." And then get what he says, "Justice, mercy and faithfulness. "These you ought to have done "without neglecting the others." - [Jennifer] Like do it all. - [Aaron] He's like, "Yeah, you spent time, "you outwardly show all these good things that you do, "yet you've neglected justice, like you don't care "about those in your midst who need justice "and you've been unjust." Or showing mercy and faithfulness. You haven't remained faithful to your spouses, you haven't remained faithful to your people, you haven't remained faithful to, and he's saying these things you should have done without neglecting those other things that you do. And so that was the point I was getting at is like yeah, all those other things are good, but we cannot throw out loving one another earnestly. - [Jennifer] So you used the word earnestly, why don't you define that, just for our listeners really quick? - [Aaron] Okay, 'cause it's a pretty powerful word and it's how he wants us to love each other. It's not like, "Hey, I love you, yeah I'll see you later. "Oh yeah, we're good buddies." It's something deeper than that. He says, "Love one another earnestly." And the definition of earnestly means with sincere and intense conviction. It's so powerful. It's not just a, in passing a word you just say about someone, it's a life lived out way of loving. It's a my actions and the way I think reflect the deepness of my conviction and belief about how I love you. And so a perfect example is in marriage. I love you, and it's not just a word. I show you by how I take care of you. And how I show up every day and how I sit and talk with you. And how I ask for forgiveness, and I'm patient, and all these things are the actions of my love for you. - [Jennifer] Yeah, I think that's really important to point out, because I think in marriage specifically, you can text each other back and forth, I love you, or say it at the end of a phone call, conversation. Saying it in passing or before you leave to go to work. But are your actions proving what those words actually mean? So you've convinced yourself in your mind, yeah, of course I love my husband, of course I love my wife. And I tell them every day. - [Aaron] How do they know? - [Jennifer] But, are your actions supporting your words? - [Aaron] Yeah, and so let's break down this definition a little bit, it says with a sincere and intense conviction, that's the earnestness. Sincere means free from pretense or deceit. Proceeding from genuine feelings. So I don't just say it, it's not just a word that I use so that I look good with my other Christian friends and brothers and sisters. - Or that you know you should use because you're married. - [Aaron] Yeah, like, "Oh yeah, of course I love so-and-so." But yet, you don't truly believe it in your heart. You struggle with believing, like well, do I love him? I mean, I could move on. I'm not going to, 'cause I don't wanna look bad. That's not love, it's a free from pretense or deceit. So there's nothing, you're not saying it to receive anything like, "Oh good, so good that you love that person." And you're not saying it out of, it's not a lie. When you say you love someone it's truthful. It's a genuine, genuineness, a real thing from with inside of you. And then that second part, intense conviction. And I smashed two definitions together, 'cause the word intense and conviction I put them together and it's a highly concentrated and firmly held belief in what you are doing, right? So, it's not going away. My love for my brothers and sisters in Christ, my love for others in the world, my love for my wife, it's real and it's going to drive my actions and my decisions and my attitudes and it's gonna cause me to repent and it's gonna cause me to change and grow because that conviction is solid. It's there, and when I'm challenged in that conviction, when the listener is challenged in that conviction of love, they get to ask themselves, "Well do I truly love so-and-so?" And then they get to remember, well, the end of all things is at hand, I must love so-and-so, regardless. Without pretense, it needs to be truthful and powerful. That's what that word earnestly means. - [Jennifer] I love that definition of intense conviction that you shared, and it makes me think how intentional this type of love truly is, because-- - [Aaron] That's a good word, intentional. - [Jennifer] Yeah, it's intentional because you're motivated by your, like it said, "firmly held belief in what you are doing" so everything that I do in our home, everything I do with our kids, everything I do with you, comes out and is an overflow of this belief that I have that I truly love you and that genuine feeling that you talked about earlier. And that's such a different situation when you compare it to just saying the words I love you or just going about your day without any motivations as to why you're doing those things, you know? It makes me think of the type of motivational speaking you hear when it comes to entrepreneurship, where it's like, "You gotta know your why." You gotta know your why. - Yeah, what's your why? - [Jennifer] What's your why? So it makes me go there when I think about in marriage, why are you doing all the little things that you do throughout your day? It's because you love that person. - [Aaron] Mm-hmm, and it's not superficial, and it's not just a word, but it's an actual held belief. Like "No, I love my wife. "I love John over there." Like truly love them, not just, "We're Christians "and we love each other." - Right. And if we truly consider this you guys, then when we get into a hard spot in marriage, when we get into conflict or something happens unexpectedly that you don't desire, you can continue on, because there's this hope knowing that, "Well no, I love them. "You know, I know this is hard, but God's given me "a love for them." - [Aaron] Yeah. What I think is really cool, I just thought about this, often we think about this idea of growing in love, which we do, we change and our level of love deepens. - It deepens, yeah. - [Aaron] But it's actually, the way this is stated, it's actually a starting point. We start at this basis of love for one another. Not build into it. It starts at this place and I thought that was really cool. I just was, - I like that. - [Aaron] I was just thinking it's like it's not, yeah, it does grow over time, but it's also, like you said, even in those hard times, you default to that position of love. Not default to, well we're not in love because, or we're building in love and the default position is no love. That's not actually, I mean marriage starts, usually, for the most part, with a deep conviction of love. And so the default position is love. And I didn't have the scripture originally here, but I thought about this and I think it goes perfectly well. What this level of love is supposed to look like, it's supposed to be remarkable. It's not supposed to look like the love of the world. Like the world loves itself. There's people that they love their own and they do a good job of that, but the love that Christians are supposed to have for one another is supposed to be remarkable, miraculous. And Jesus puts it this way in John 13:34. "A new commandment I give to you, "that you love one another. "Just as I have loved you, "you also are to love one another. "By this all people will know that you are my disciples "if you have love for one another." So it's not like, if we do these great things, or if we have this great band, or if we preach this great message, it says if you love one another the way I loved you, the whole world will know, oh that's a disciple of Christ. - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] That's remarkable. So I get, the question I have in your marriage, in your relationships at church, would the world look at how you love them as remarkable? Like that's a remarkable love. How could he love like that? How could she love like that after so much has happened to her, after this or that? It's a remarkable love and it can only be done with Jesus Christ. That's what he says, "If you love as I have loved you." Which is an amazing, amazing kind of love. It's literally remarkable. And I have some notes here and this is, this is exactly why churches fall apart. This is why friendships dissolve, this is why marriages end. When we let the intensity of our conviction to love each other soften. We got to that point a few years into our marriage. Our conviction to love one another, because of the things we were going through, got weakened. - [Jennifer] I was gonna say, I don't feel like softens is just the right word because it sounds mushy-gushy, but I mean we're talking about the dissolving of that belief and conviction. - [Aaron] Yeah. And it's not that those things that were happening had some external power to weaken our love for each other superficially, - We chose that. - We let our love, yeah we chose it, that's a good word. And so, I just wanna ask you, as we get into this, have you let your love, the earnestness of your love for your spouse, for other believers, weaken? For whatever reason, because someone hurt you, because someone said something harmful about you, because someone didn't pay you back? - [Jennifer] The relationship's messy or hard or challenging and you just wanna, - Walk away. - Walk away. - It'd be easier. - Yeah. - [Aaron] There's been so many times I've thought to myself, it would just be easier to move. - [Jennifer] Well, we thought that in the beginning of our marriage when we were facing hardship and we got to the point at the end of three and a half years where we were, so incredibly close to walking away convinced in our selfish flesh that it would be better for each other if we just separated. - [Aaron] Move on. - [Jennifer] And instead, God got ahold of our hearts in a remarkable way and, I mean he brought the message to you first and then to me, but it's a choice. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [Jennifer] And are we gonna let our circumstances dictate that choice or are we gonna choose it in our hearts and move past the circumstances? Or even if we have to deal with the circumstances for the rest of our life, and that was the commitment we had to choose. There came this pivotal moment where, people who've read our books, they know what I'm talking about, but we're standing in church, Aaron, and you're sharing this heart that God has given you for our marriage to continue on regardless if anything changed. That is remarkable. And that saved us, that saved our marriage. - [Aaron] And here's the difference in the types of love. The love that the world has for itself, and the love that we are to have for our brothers and sisters and our spouse. The love that Christ gave to us was unconditional. The love that we try and walk in is often transactional. You do this, I'll do this. You give me this, I'll give you that. Oh you didn't do the thing, or you weren't the certain way? Then I'm not going to. Jesus it says, "Yet while we were still sinners died for us." So even when we were weakest, when we couldn't save ourselves, Christ died. Christ gave himself up for his bride. And this is the message that Christ gave me that day, reminding me, he's like, "Hey are you gonna love "your wife unconditionally, or transactionally? "Are you gonna love her regardless if she ever gives you "what you think you deserve, what you ought to have? "Or are you gonna love her like I did "when you could do nothing for me, "and I still died for you?" - [Jennifer] John 13 comes back to my mind like you said. Jesus says, "Love as I loved you." - [Aaron] And you know what this sincerity and intensity, this earnestness sounds very familiar to how Jesus said we would worship God. He says this to the woman at the well, in John 4:24, he says, "God is spirit "and those who worship him must worship "in spirit and truth." Spirit and truth. And this isn't talking about worshiping each other. But it's how we love each other, in spirit and in truth. - [Jennifer] It reminds me of the definition going back earlier to those genuine feelings. - [Aaron] Mm-hmm, it's not from pretense or deceit. It's no, I genuinely love you. I may not know how to do it well, but I'm going to default to love, I'm going to default to giving you the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to love you regardless if you give me what I deserve. And then in Matthew 22 verse 37-48 says this, "And he said to him, 'You shall love the lord your God "'with all your heart and with all your soul "'and with all your mind. "'This is there greatest and first commandment. "'And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor "'as yourself, on these two commandments "'depend all the law and the prophets.'" - [Jennifer] I remember we read this verse to our kids and they got really confused, because we've taught them the 10 Commandments. - Yeah. - And they were like, "No no no, that's not the." - [Aaron] No, you have to honor your mom and dad. Like, yes. And what I explained to 'em is, and this is what Jesus says, he says, "Anyone who does these won't break any of the laws." Because when you love your neighbor, you're not gonna steal from them. When you love your neighbor, you're not gonna lie to them. When you love your neighbor, you're not gonna covet their things. You're gonna say praise God that you've given them those things, God. Praise God. They're gonna use 'em for you, I hope. We don't covet. When we love God we don't dishonor our parents. When you love your parents you're not gonna dishonor them. And so, that's the kind of love that we get to have for one another. And it's actually, it's one of the greatest commandments, to love God with all our heart, mind and soul and to love each other as ourselves. To love each other with that intensity. Okay, so we're getting up to the last part of this section of scripture and it's the most powerful one. It's actually the title of this episode. And it's the reason why Peter is commanding us to love each other in the first place. It's the reason why he's saying to do these things, it's the reason why he gave us the mindset of hey, the end of all things is at hand, be this way, love this way. So before I move on to this next portion of this scripture, I'm gonna read the whole scripture again. It's 1 Peter 4:7-11. "The end of all things is at hand, "therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded "for the sake of your prayers. "Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, "since love covers a multitude of sins." Okay, so here's the-- - You slowed down there at the end Aaron, - I know it's, - [Jennifer] Is that important? - [Aaron] Well, it's the most powerful section of this scripture, I believe. And what's amazing about this is it's the opportunity that believers have to love like Christ. What did Christ's love do? - [Jennifer] Saved us. - [Aaron] It covered us. We've just been teaching the kids through Adam and Eve, the story of Adam and Eve and how they were to, God told that surely on the day that you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you will die. And guess what. - [Jennifer] Well the kids asked the question, - They're like, - But they didn't die! - [Aaron] Yeah, they didn't die. Here's what's amazing is something died instead. They covered themselves with fig leaves, God covered them in skins. So an animal had to die. So even then, way back in the beginning, in the very first people, God showed his redemption plan. That he was gonna substitute the death that we deserve for another. And so it was a picture right then and there of what Christ was gonna do. And this is what the believer gets to do. This is the remarkable love that the world's gonna see and be like, whoa, those people are God's, Christ's disciples, because Christ died for them, and look how they love each other. - [Jennifer] They wouldn't be able to do it without him. - [Aaron] Yeah, and so love covers a multitude of sins. So here's a question, I taught this at church and I asked this question, and it was hard for me to get it out without crying. But I said, "Who doesn't want their sins covered?" I said, "Raise your hand." How many hands do you think went up? None. So I ask the listener, do you want your sins covered? Do you thank God that his son Jesus and the blood that he shed covers your sins completely? That you are made white as snow? That you are clean before God? Okay, so if we can answer that question with "Yes, praise God," then our love should do the same. Our love has that same power. I personally love the fact that God no longer sees my sin. I personally love that who I was before Christ is now dead and buried. But, what we often do is we highlight other people's sins. And what it does is it raises us up and puts them down. Oh so-and-so, I can't believe they would treat me that way. You can't believe it? I mean how else do we deserve to be treated, really? We deserve hell. That's what the human state deserves. - [Jennifer] There's other times in marriage that we hold their sin against them. - [Aaron] Absolutely, yeah. - [Jennifer] So, whether it's for ammunition later, or maybe you're not intentionally thinking that, but all the sudden it comes up again, and you haven't covered their sin in love. You've been hanging on to it out of bitterness and anger, and you're gonna spew it out back in their face to make them feel a certain way. - [Aaron] Or waiting for them to trip up and it makes you feel better, because as long as their sin is greater than your sin then you're not a sinner. That's like the logic we use. I know that we struggled with this. You believed because I struggled with certain things you didn't even wanna see your own sin. Things that you were dealing with, your own pride, your own bitterness, your own angers, 'cause I was the sinner in the relationship. I was the one that needed to repent, I was the one that needed to change. And I did, I mean it's not like I didn't. But we do that, we look, we long for the sin in others. Oh, since they're that way, I can be this way. Rather than wanting to cover those sins. Rather than wanting to overlook them and remind those people of who they are in Christ, without pretense, without this idea of like, I'm gonna point this out, because I wanna hurt them. Or I wanna feel better. - [Jennifer] I think just kind of glancing back over those first few years of marriage, something else that I've struggled with is holding on to the sins that you struggled with even after saying I forgive you or trying to make up and resolve things. Because I had this belief about you that you were gonna fail me. So I was building a case, right? - [Aaron] You were waiting for me to, yeah. - [Jennifer] The next time you messed up, I go, "See, this is the type of person that you are." And I held up a mirror to show you your sin instead of pointing you to God and saying, "But he's redeemed you." You know what I mean? I didn't give you-- - Why you acting like this? God's redeemed you. - I didn't give you the positive message, because I truly cared about restoration at that point I was looking for a case in order to get out. To leave, to say, "You're this way, and I can't handle it." - [Aaron] Yeah. And that leads me to this question, do we see our spouse's sins against us as special or less deserving of forgiveness and grace? Do we see the sins and shortcomings of others towards us as less deserving, as special? Yeah, yeah, I've done things, I get it, God forgives me, but what they've done? No, what they've done is not forgivable. What they've done is, you can't tell me to love that person. Well, you know what, I don't. I'm not telling you anything. God says it, okay? When you give that word picture, 'cause I think it perfectly sums up this idea of when we love the way Christ loves, what it does. - [Jennifer] Well, I was just thinking about this idea of covering a multitude of sins by our love, the word picture that I got in my mind to help me understand that is a blanket and it's function. When you think about a blanket and being wrapped up and curled up on the couch with it, it provides warmth and comfort and padding and it consumes you. - It protects you. - [Jennifer] It protects you, it's just all around you and it was a really beautiful picture for me to understand how God covers us. Kinda like even as you said, going back to Adam and Eve, how he covered them, ya know? - [Aaron] And then the picture I got, and the Bible even uses it, says that our sins are made white as snow. And we live in a place that snows. And you see all the landscape, there's all the colors, the grass, the concrete, the trees, the houses. - [Jennifer] Pretty soon everything starts to fade away. - [Aaron] It snows and guess what. Everything's the same color. - Everything's white. - Everything's white. And beautiful and it could be on the dirtiest, muddiest area, and it's a beautiful white field. And that's what Christ's blood does is it covers us. And out of our thankfulness for that, we get to love others the same way. And this isn't an overlooking of sin, this isn't a pretending sin hasn't happened. And I'll talk about that in a second. But it's the way we love that no one, no one's sin is special that doesn't deserve our forgiveness, because what we've done is so worthy of punishment. The littlest sin we've done is detrimental to our own nature. And Christ has forgiven that in us. And I was reading in Leviticus this morning, and it was talking about all of the sacrifices and all the atonements and the priest is supposed to do this and all, it was so weird, I'm reading, I was like, "I wanna watch a video on this." So I watched the Bible Project's video on atonement. - [Jennifer] Oh they're good. - [Aaron] Yeah, it was good. And I almost started crying in Starbucks, 'cause I go to Starbucks after the gym, watching it because it was explaining how the atonement was a replacement and it was talking about the two types of evil, it was the sin against your brother or God. And it washes that away. But the other thing is the broken relationship aspect. Let's say you stole something, you paid it back, right? But there's also now distrust and fear that's in the relationship. And so that has to be atoned for as well. And so there's this picture of the priest sprinkling blood over the temple and the Tent of Meeting, right? And it showed this picture of, there was all this black looking weeds on the ground, and every time the blood hit the ground it turned to normal. And it said the blood also brought us into a safe relationship and a love relationship. And that's what this love does when it's covering. It's not just pretending things didn't happen, it's actually mending relationships so that we can walk with people not in fear, not in angst or anxiety, but we can actually walk with people in freedom and in love and in purity. That's what this does. And I wanted to share that 'cause it literally almost made me cry when I was thinking what God's done for me, and how he's, he didn't just fix the offense, he also fixed the relationship that was broken because of the offense. - [Jennifer] It's remarkable. - [Aaron] Yeah. So, I just wanna quickly, we talked through a lot of the scriptures, but I wanted to quickly say, this isn't to say we ignore sin, because that actually is unloving. Ignoring someone's sin is unloving. The loving thing to do is to address the sin, not out of our own vindication, trying to get something paid back to us, but out of, like you said, pointing them back to the truth of what God said about them. Or if they're not a believer, to repentance and salvation. So the loving way to, we deal with sin lovingly. And we come to people in truth and our position is of we wanna see the best for you. We want you to be in a right relationship with us. As Matthew 18 says, it's like you've won your brother. That's what you go to them for is for the purpose of winning your brother, not for winning the argument or winning the, oh see, all I want is an apology and we'll be good. No, you're going with the intention of hey, this is broken right now. We need to fix this. Love covering a multitude of sins isn't to say that the sins just disappear. It's to say that we deal with them the biblical way, the loving way for the purpose of reconciliation, 'cause that is the ministry we've been given is reconciliation. - [Jennifer] And we do this for people because we desire the same reciprocation, right? Of love? - I want it. - [Jennifer] I want people to overlook and cover the sins that I've committed, even the slightest or smallest, there's no degree. It doesn't matter. If I'm imperfect, I want someone to love me still. And I think that's important to remember, especially in marriage. - [Aaron] So I hope that bit of scripture encourages you in your walk. As usual we pray before signing off, so we're gonna pray. Dear lord, we lift up our hearts to you right now and ask that you would make us a people who love others earnestly. Holy spirit direct our hearts and remind us of your word. We pray we would above all things, love others. We pray we would love our spouse, our children, our friends and those who are in our life. May your love pour out of us. May your love pouring out of us transform our marriages. We pray others would be impacted by the love we share. We pray we'd be able to love so deeply that it covers a multitude of sin. We pray that instead of shame or guilt, people would feel undoubtedly loved by us and by you. We pray for your word to be fulfilled through our choices to walk in love and that your will would be done. In Jesus name, amen. Hey thanks for joining us for this episode. We pray it blessed you, of course. And don't forget to join the Parenting Prayer Challenge. That's parentingprayerchallenge.com It's completely free and we pray it blesses you. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

We are about to have our 5th child and with our growing family comes more of a necessity for spending quality alone time with each of our kids. The logistics of this also get more and more Complicated but that should not stop uf from trying and growing in our ability to single out our children to show them that we love them, want to hear from them, and want to get to know them as individuals in the family. In this episode, we share some practical ways to get some alone time with each of your kids and why it is so important to cultivate that experience on a regular basis. Join our Free Parenting prayer challenge today and build a habit of praying for your children daily.http://parentingprayerchallenge.com PRAYERDear Lord,Thank you for the gift of family. Thank you for the blessing of children. May we be people who are willing to make our children feel special, and to feel seen and heard. Help us to spend quality time with them, building fond memories and moments that build our trust with them. Help us to carve out time to show our kids that we desire to be close to them and want to dialogue with them. We pray we would be fun and intentional parents with the purpose of teaching our kids your ways. May our children have a heart to build a family of their own because they love our example and appreciate all they experience. May your love be woven into our legacy and may your light shine in our relationship with our children.In Jesus’ name, amen! READ TRANSCRIPT- [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. - [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. - [Aaron] And today we're gonna share some fun ways to spend quality time with your children. - [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. - [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. - [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. - [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. - [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. - [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. - [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. - [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life, - Love. - And power. - [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. - [Jennifer] Together. - [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey, as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. - [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Okay, Aaron, this is just, I am so excited about this episode. I don't know why. - You're always excited for all the episodes, I like it! - [Jennifer] No, this is different. This is like I'm giddy over this because we have young kids and the whole episode is about spending time with our kids, things that we've been learning, as-- - [Aaron] We should let the cat out of the bag. You actually really like our kids. - I do, I'm biased. - So, that's why you get so excited about this. - Okay, fine. I was gonna say we're gonna share things we've been learning as new parents. Are we still new parents? - [Aaron] Someone recently called us new parents. They said, "I would consider you still new parents." And I'm like, we have a fifth kid on the way, how are we still new parents? - I know, I think it's 'cause they are all just still little-- - [Aaron] They're all young, yeah. - [Jennifer] Yeah, we're in a lot of just little kid time. And so even though this episode is about spending one on one time with your kids, really it can go for any age kid. But before we jump into that, why don't you give us a little update on something you shared a couple weeks ago on studying your kids? And if you guys don't know what I'm talking about, you gotta go hear that episode. - [Aaron] So I got some journals and I purposed to take some time to write in those journals things that I'm observing from my children so that I can kind of learn them, think about my children on a level when they're not around and say, "What are the things that I've seen in my kids, "ways they're being, things they've said?" - [Jennifer] So he got one journal for each kid, and he's not writing to them, per se, he's just writing about them to help him. - [Aaron] Yeah, I just write stuff I'm observing as if I'm like, on a safari, like "I saw Elliot today do this." I will say this I wrote about Wyatt in the wrong book. - [Jennifer] I know. - [Aaron] I had to rewrite the whole thing, which is actually kinda good 'cause I wrote it better, but. - [Jennifer] What are some things you're learning about our kids? - [Aaron] Yeah, well, just some cool things. It's cool writing it down, and I've only been doing it like once a month right now. So it's not like every day I'm writing something about them, but it's cool 'cause I write down emotional things about them, like when I see how they respond emotionally to things. - [Jennifer] Okay. - [Aaron] I also write down things that I see them getting good at-- - Or interested in. - Or interested in, things they say, 'cause every once in a while, they say something really remarkable, and I'll just try and remember those things and I write it down, I'm like, "We asked this question and he answered this way." And so just, it's really cool, I've done it twice now and I'm gonna continue doing it, you've encouraged me and said, "Hey remember you said you were gonna?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah." So I think over time, it'll become more of a habit, but it's been a fun thing to to write down and I would encourage parents to figure out ways that they can learn their children. - [Jennifer] Do you feel like it's requiring you to pay attention more? So like, are you trying to notice things? - [Aaron] I am, I am. - [Jennifer] Your eyes are on them more. - [Aaron] Yeah, and I'm not just, "Oh, yeah, they're in the background, doing their thing." I'm trying to watch them intentionally like, how do they respond to that thing? How are they gonna answer this question? How are they...? So yes, I would say it's making me more intentional. - [Jennifer] I just think that's so cool. So something that I wanted to share before we get started is that I had a friend recently asked me at church, she just said, "Hey, have you taken Wyatt out on a date, "like just you and him?" Okay, Wyatt's our, he just turned three, and I was shocked. I was like, "No, I haven't, thank you." Because they know that we do this. They know that we like to take the kids out for one-on-one time, and we've been doing it with the older kids, Elliot and Olive, but I don't know why I just didn't think about taking Wyatt, and he is getting to that age where he would probably love it. And so it kinda woke me up and it was a good reminder that God knows that we have this desire to spend one on one time with our kids, And He used a friend of mine to ask me about it. - To remind you. - To remind me. - [Aaron] It's like a gentle nudge. - [Jennifer] It was! It was really cool, so thank you friend. - [Aaron] Yeah, and you know what, just a little bit of honesty, especially as our family grows, 'cause we had Elliot and it was our first time being parents and so we had all this energy on every milestone, on everything with him and then we had Olive and that dwindles a little bit, all that attention. And then now we have Wyatt and now Trude, and now we have Edith on the way, and I just, sometimes it can be easy to forget certain children in the place they're at, forget what we did with our older children at that place. - [Jennifer] Yeah, or that they're all individuals, because we see 'em as a pack, we're always going places together, and so being able to separate them and say, "You are unique, and you are special, "and you are important to us." - [Aaron] So before we move on to the topic, we just wanna tell you about a new free resource. One of our ways we minister through this ministry is by creating free resources and paid resources. We have our books, of course, but we also love to create these free resources to encourage you in your prayer life and your marriage and your parenting. And the new one we have, I don't know if you've taken the Marriage Prayer Challenge yet, but now we've created a Parenting Prayer Challenge where you can sign up to pray for your son or daughter or both and we'll send you a prayer prompt every day for 31 days, to encourage you in your prayer life over your kids. It's pretty awesome, and all you gotta do is go to parentingprayerchallenge.com and sign up completely free today. Go do that today. - [Jennifer] Okay, so the topic for today is, you know, spending one on one time with your kids, spending quality time with your kids, some even call it dating your kids, like having date night with your kids. And I'm not sure exactly where this came from, but we have two couples in our life that have been instrumental in our faith and in our parenting that we wanted to share with you guys 'cause I'm sure the idea came from one of two of these places. - Or both. - Or both. Matt and Lisa Jacobson from Faithful Life podcast, and Isaac and Angie Tolpin from Courageous Parenting podcast. Again, both of them have been instrumental in both of our faith and our parenting, and they're so encouraging you guys, so if you're not already following their podcasts, you need to go check them out right now. - [Aaron] Yeah, and we started dating our kids after Olive was born, Elliot was getting older, he was almost three and we've tried to continue it since. There's seasons that we totally forget to do it, but we try and make it built into a regular routine. So just one example right now Olive's in dance and so I take her to dance, and I sometimes, maybe every other week, I'll go early, and we'll go have dinner together before she goes to dance. And so it's just me and her, and that's actually been a lot of fun. We get to go eat together and then she goes and dances off all the food that she ate. - [Jennifer] Yeah, not all of the the opportunities that we take with our kids happen regularly because well we're going into having five now, our oldest being seven. - It gets a little harder. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and it just gets hard. So we try and take advantage of every opportunity that we have, but as a large family, we also like to do things together. So I would say our goal is usually to take one kid out a month, and so either you will take them or I will take them. - Yeah. - Or you take two and I take two. So we kinda just mix it up and we play with it. - [Aaron] A good tip to make it more regular, and we tried this in the beginning was monthly birthdays. So Elliot's birthday's on the seventh, and so remember we tried doing on the seventh of each month would be like that date day for Elliot. We haven't been consistent with that, but someone might be able to take that and run with that idea. - [Jennifer] Yeah, the thing that I remember from that when we tried it was that the kids began to expect it. - Yeah they did. - Which was cool, because we want them to know that we wanna spend time with them. - [Aaron] It's my birthdate day coming up! - [Jennifer] But we also like the spontaneous, "Hey, I'm going to take you on a date right now." So, we'll leave that one up to you to decide, but we thought it'd be fun to share with you some standout moments that we've had with our kids on these date days. Do you wanna start Aaron? - [Aaron] Yeah, so speaking about Olive, I would take her to dinner, and we'd go to one of our favorite restaurants and it's right there, right where she goes to dance. And I'll leave early and we'll spend about an hour eating together and just talking, sometimes she's coloring, sometimes she'll bring a book that she loves I'll read it to her, but a couple of cool things about this is it really stands out to other people. They start seeing me with my daughter and they're like, "Wow, this Dad's with their daughter" or just, it's a really intimate thing. So it's an example to others, which has been really cool. It also gives you enough time to just ask them questions and be like, "Who are you?" This little girl who's growing and turning into a her own person with her own ideas and with her own dreams and which is just a really powerful thing. A couple months ago, there was a really funny thing that I found out about Olive from dating her. So we go to this restaurant and I order something I've never ordered before, and it's this shrimp pasta dish. It's amazing, I loved it. It's like one of my new favorite things. And I get it and I'm like, "Oh, this is so good. "Oh my gosh, this is so amazing." And Olive leans over and she's like, "What's that smell?" And I'm like what? - She's really straightforward and blunt. - She's like, "Dad, that smells disgusting." And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" And she literally, she was like "I can't eat Dad, "this is ruining everything and I don't like that smell." I find out she doesn't like seafood smell, 'cause it smelled a little like shrimp and she was like, "It's disgusting!" So every time I order she's like, "Dad, don't order that, "I can't eat with you!" - [Jennifer] Actually, I remember her coming home that night and so you went to dinner first and then dance. So you guys were gone for a couple of hours. And she came home and I was like, "Oh, how was it?" And she goes, "Mom, Dad ordered this food "that I did not like." - [Aaron] "It was disgusting." And so I found out that Olive doesn't like the smell of seafood. So I have to get that pasta when I'm out around Olive now. - [Jennifer] That's funny. Something that stood out to me was, I remember a while ago, just having a hard day and needing a Mommy break. You know, all the Moms right now are like, "Yep, I feel ya." And so I asked Aaron if he could come in and watch the kids while I went and grabbed some lunch by myself. And I was really looking forward to it 'cause you had said yes. - Oh I remember this day, okay - [Jennifer] You understood and said yes and I was getting ready to go, and it was a day that I was actually having a really hard time with Olive. And so I don't know why all these stories revolve around her but-- - She's special. - [Jennifer] She's special. - [Aaron] She's our only little girl right now. - [Jennifer] She was just having a very emotional day, which was new for her in her development. She wasn't like this before, and it was rubbing me the wrong way. And so I was getting ready and you looked down the hallway and you kind of signaled to me like-- - I said it quietly-- - Do you wanna take her? - [Aaron] You learn really quick not to say things out loud. 'cause then it's like, it ruins everything. - [Jennifer] And I was actually really frustrated that you even acknowledged that-- - Or even asked you. - Or even asked me because I just wanted to get out of there. And I'm just being honest, and I just felt my in gut like, yes, that's the right thing to do and so I-- - [Aaron] But with your body language it was like no. - [Jennifer] So I said, "Olive come here," and she came running down the hall. She goes, "Where you going?" 'cause I had my shoes on. I said, "I'm going to lunch, do you wanna go with me?" And she lit up like just-- - You made her day. - I did. And so we went to lunch and I sat down and I tried asking her some questions and getting to know like what's going on, I acknowledged that she had been emotional and she acknowledged that she had been emotional. And it was a really encouraging time for our relationship. It was almost like God showed me where it's gonna be when she's 16. - [Aaron] I know, I love those glimpses! I'm so excited for that. - So cool. And just being able to get her away from all the boys in the family, and just see her for who she was and what she was going through, it was like an eye opener for me. So that's something that really stood out to me and showed me like my little girl is growing up and I need to be there for her and what does that look like? We also took a little devotional with us and it was a book that you actually started going through with her on your guy's dates. And so I took it with and read a page out of it and we talked about it and she was just, she came back just different from that opportunity. - [Aaron] Well it totally encourages her and makes her feel so loved. And yeah, she had a totally different attitude the rest of the day from that time with you. And that that's kind of how is with all of our kids. I love when I go out with Elliot. Again, I take him to piano, and then I'll take him to a lunch. So we what we do is we couple events. - [Jennifer] Things that you already have responsibility to. - [Aaron] Yeah so, I'm like, "Oh if I just leave a little early, "then I can go actually have a date with my son." He looks forward to it and we go and we'll color together, we'll talk, I purpose to not have my phone out at all. - [Jennifer] That's good. - [Aaron] I had to check it once in a while for a text message or you might call me or something, but I try and put it away so he knows that I'm intentionally trying to be with him. And then like, I just try and be, it's actually honestly, it's hard sometimes 'cause I'm like, how do I engage with my son? I'm trying to come up with creative questions, I'm trying to dig deeper than just what we always hear out of his mouth. I'm like, you know, what about this? What do you wanna, you know? - [Jennifer] But you can't expect it because when they're so young, they might not and that's okay. - [Aaron] Yeah, but I have to try. And so it's cool. The last time I went on a date with him, so he's been loving video games. He's playing Zelda, like that little, it's like a remake of the original Zelda, it's pretty awesome, actually. And he just talks about it a lot and I'm like, "Okay, Elliot, you know that someone came up "with this game, right?" And he's like, "What do you mean?" And I'm like, "Well, this whole story, "everything you love about this game, someone--" - Someone designed it. - "Created it." - [Jennifer] Someone made it up, yeah. - [Aaron] It came up from there, like all the names of the characters and all the places and he was like, "What really?" And I was like, "And you could too." And I actually started talking to him, I was like, "Why don't you describe a game?" And we literally spent the hour and he came up with his own game about a little boy with a backpack and his backpack has all of his powers and toys and we came up with what the adventure was gonna be about and he had to save the ancient. And it gave an opportunity where I was able to coax out of him more creativity and he was actually able to see beyond this thing that he loved to something to something that he could create like something he loves. - [Jennifer] That's so cool 'cause you took something that he was interested in and you saw it and you said, "Now how can I use this "to benefit our relationship?" - [Aaron] And it was fun because it made the conversation unique, it actually drew something out of him, I would imagine, made him feel more powerful like, "Wow, I could do that?" like, "I could make that thing? "I didn't even know that was impossible." I'm like, "Well, yeah, someone made it." So it was a lot of fun and I actually got to hear his creativity and I would ask him questions like, "Well, what does that character do? "Where did he come from?" And now he's like, creating these back stories. And so I told him, I was like, "You should do that "as a school project this year, come up with a game." So that was that was a really powerful, fun experience, too. - [Jennifer] That's awesome. Another standout memory that I have is with Elliot, I'm not trying to copy you on these stories. - It's okay if you are. - I know. But this actually happened when we were on vacation. I was pregnant with Wyatt and so Elliott was probably like three, almost four years old and we had gotten the opportunity to go to Maui, and it was really fun. And I remember waking up really early one morning and I shook you and I was like, "Hey, can I take Elliot out?" And you were like, "Yeah," but he was sleeping, but it was so cool. I woke him up and we snuck out without Olive waking up and so you and Olive stayed resting. - [Aaron] I slept for another two hours I think. - [Jennifer] Well it was probably like 5:45 in the morning and I'm like trying to get dressed in the dark. And we went downstairs 'cause we were staying at this resort with access to the beach, and we went, their coffee shop opened at 6 and so we went and got a bagel and walked all the way out to the beach. And I just sat there and we ate a bagel and then he played in the sand for like 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and we walked back up and got to have breakfast again with you guys. And it's such a standout memory for me because I loved having that one on one time with him. I love that we got to take a special unique opportunity away from everyone else just to be together. We got something that we both love and shared it, a bagel. And I have this memory of sitting on the beach, even though that whole vacation was pretty memorable, that's what stands out to me because I sat on the beach with just my son and I got to watch how he plays and I got to observe him and engage with him and love on him and it was just, I don't know, one of the things we'll talk about in just a minute is just the benefits of having that one on one time with your kid and I would say building memories like that where they stick with you-- - [Aaron] And they'll stick with them too. - [Jennifer] Well with them, but it makes you wanna recreate 'em. Oh, it's so powerful for the relationship, for the friendship, for the engaging aspect of what this is. - [Aaron] You know, in this episode, I would say our main goal in sharing these things with you is in parenting and in just marriage and in life and in church and all these things, there's so many things drawing our energies and attentions and every one in a while we just need to be reminded that we need to be taking opportunities to slow down and to get off the beaten path with our kids. To get to know them, to let them know that we are there for them, we like them. Like, it's one thing to love your kids, it's another thing to like your kids. And our kids need to know that we like them. Like I wanna spend time with you, I wanna be near you, I wanna know who you are and how you think. So that's our encouragement. What are some benefits, if those that are listening now start trying to implement some way that they should be taking these date days, date nights, alone time with their kids? - [Jennifer] Well, I the first thing that comes to my mind, and it just happens when you have multiple people in the family, when you step away with just one is you get uninterrupted time with them to really hear them and what they're going through. - Which is nice. - And to chat. It really is nice because anyone with multiple people in a family, you sit down at the dinner table and everyone's talking over each other. And we're working on that, our kids are pretty young so they're still learning that but it's all the time in the car, while they're playing, it's constant and so being able to pull away from the crowd and saying, "Hey, I see you and I hear you, "and I wanna hear more." It's powerful. - [Aaron] And then that goes into the other part of this, which is you get, you get to be un-distracted. But now this also takes, you should be intentional on this. Like I said, I try to not have my phone out because I don't wanna just be, and sadly, we see this sometimes, you see a father with their kid, and they're just, that Dad's on their phone and I don't wanna be that guy and I've done that before. Make sure that we're like, the intention is to be with your child. - [Jennifer] So it kind of gets you out of your elements to where you're purposeful and you're thinking ahead, you're thinking through all the steps while you're on this date, because your purpose is for them. - [Aaron] Yeah, and you know what our children see it. They feel when we're with them or not. Like, "Oh, I'm just here. "Dad's just here, but he's not here." Or "Mom's just here and she's not here." So intentionally putting it away, which totally shows them respect and honor and says, "I wanna know you, I'm here for you." - [Jennifer] It lets them know that there's, I kinda mentioned this earlier, but it lets them know that they're special, that they're an individual from the family pack. - [Aaron] They're not just one cog in the whole piece, that they're a person. - Yeah, yeah. We also get to know them. You know what, like you mentioned studying your kids earlier and I feel like having that one on one time, you really get to know them, where they're at, what they're going through. Something that I mentioned Isaac and Angie Tolpin earlier from Courageous Parenting, and Isaac, he just has this really great tool that he uses with his family that he shared with us, and he really is good at this, like naturally. But he talks about going three questions deep and this is a great tool to use for little kids because sometimes you ask them a question and either they don't fully understand, or they don't know how to answer it and so by asking the same question three different ways you get to pull from their heart. And so maybe you guys can just tuck that away or go look up Courageous Parenting and check that out but he talks about going three questions deep. But Aaron, why don't you give them some examples of what kind of questions they can ask on these dates with their kids? - [Aaron] And this isn't the definitive list, of course. - [Jennifer] No, no, but just some things that we go through. - [Aaron] Yeah, and the idea is, and it's a challenge, is I wanna be deeper than just like, "Hey, how are you? "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" Which I love those questions, but we wanna be able to go deeper so, "What do you know about God?" Which is a great question for discipleship, because then you get to find out like, where they're at in understanding God. - [Jennifer] They may say some off the wall thing that you might have to correct. - [Aaron] Yeah, or they'll blow your mind away and you'll be like, "Wow, I didn't even, "I've never thought of that about God." - [Jennifer] Or how do you know that 'cause I didn't teach you that? - [Aaron] Yeah. Another question is "What has God been teaching you?" Which actually makes them think like, "Wait, God teaches me things?" And then they can think like, "Oh, well, maybe to be more patient with my sister." Something like that. "What have you been interested in lately?" And you might already know the answer-- - [Jennifer] Well I was gonna say their interests can change so you might know the answer, but it could also surprise you. - [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause like forever Elliot loved Iron Man, and now it's Spiderman, but now it's not even Spiderman, it's Zelda. - Zelda. - So-- - Link. - [Aaron] "How are your relationships with your siblings?" - [Jennifer] This is a really good one for kids, that they are recognizing that their relationships with their siblings are important, and so they'll most likely be honest with you about how they are. Go three questions deep though. - [Aaron] Yeah. A good question is, "What things have you been frustrating, "or have been frustrating you lately?" Ask them like, "Hey, have there been things "that have been bothering you? "Are you frustrated with something "or do you feel sad about something?" - [Jennifer] Something that I've been used to asking when I have one on one time with the kids, like Elliot and I just ran an errand recently, and he jumped in the car, and we were headed over to my sister in law's house and I just asked him, "Hey, bud, how's your heart? "What's going on? "What are you thinking about lately?" So just things like that are really good. And then the last one Aaron. - [Aaron] This is a hard question to ask your kids. You know, sometimes they won't even know how to answer this but if you wanna honestly know the answer, and you honestly ask it, it's "How have I been doing as your Mom? "How have I been doing as your Dad? "Is there areas I can grow in? "Is there things that I do that bother you, frustrate you?" Now it doesn't mean that their answer is always gonna be applicable or right but it's a way of honestly saying, "I care how my children view me." Not that I just-- - Maybe they'll be, maybe they'll be really affirming and they'll encourage you. - [Aaron] Well and younger, they're all, "You're the best Dad ever!" And you get you're probably not or you don't feel that way but as they grow up, and they know that you care, they know that you want to know. - [Jennifer] And if we see this as a longevity thing, like an investment, then each time that we're with them, and we're asking these kinds of questions, we're asking this specific question-- - [Aaron] They might start thinking of better answers. - [Jennifer] Well, not just that but in their own maturity and development they will have more deeper, right? But you've prepped them over the years on answering. - [Aaron] Well and what it's also doing is building in them a trust of-- - You can tell me. - Mom and Dad wanna know, and I can tell them. - Yeah you can trust me. - They wanna know things and I want to tell them things and I wanna share with them. So it's this open line of communication and it's not just not having deep, if we as parents early on think "Oh I'm not, "I can't have deep conversations with my kids." Then when they're older, it's not gonna just start out of nowhere. - Right. - So we gotta start now, even if the conversation doesn't go deep, at least you're teaching your children like, "Hey, let's communicate, I want to hear from you." - That's good. - You know? - [Jennifer] So we were talking about the benefits of why we do this, why we have one on one time with the kids and we took a little side tangent to talk about questions that we asked them on these dates but let's finish up with this list of just some of the benefits. - [Aaron] And one of them is you get to know them. Remember we talked about we wanna like our kids. You get to know your kids. - [Jennifer] You get an opportunity to speak into their life. - Yeah. Going back to the whole continuing that open line of communication, you want your children to come to you for advice, you want your children to talk to you. So speaking into their life-- - [Jennifer] Here's two of 'em, I'm gonna share fun for both of you. Just whatever you're gonna go do, and it doesn't mean you have to spend money, I mean-- - [Aaron] I'll say this though, fun is a heart position and it's a posture you have to take. You have to decide in your heart this is going to be a fun thing not a inconvenient thing. Because I have hard time with that. I can be like, "Okay, this is inconvenient, "I have other things I want to be focusing on." But if we say, "Nope, this is gonna be a fun thing. " I wanna spend time with my kid." - [Jennifer] Well and you can look at fun and say, "What's something that I think would be fun "that I wanna invite my child into?" Or you can look at it from their perspective and say, "What would be fun for them?" And the other one I want to share, I already touched on it earlier, but it's building those memories and allowing your children to build those memories of having fun and doing something with just Mom or just Dad. - [Aaron] Another one, it's just logistically, especially when your family starts growing, taking one or two of the children out of the home helps the other parent also, it gives the dynamic of reprieve, it allows for other things to take place, it allows your wife or your husband to have time to themselves or with the other kids. So there's just a strategic, logistical thing that happens with taking one of the kids. And then also, your kids begin to look forward to it. - Yeah, even if it's spontaneous, they still know "Mom and Dad love me and they like me--" - "This is something that happens, "I'm gonna get time alone." And you know, it also opens that opportunity that our kids come to us and they say, "Can I go on a date with you?" They actually invite us on dates, they long for those times alone with us. - [Jennifer] Yeah. I'm gonna run through a couple benefits just for the parents' sake, investing into this relationship long-term. So casting that vision of, kinda like when I said when I was sitting at the table with Olive, it felt like how it would be sitting with her at the coffee shop at 16. - [Aaron] Which is exactly what you're doing. That's a pattern you're building of, if you want to be sitting when your child's 16, 17, 18, 20 and you have that deep close relationship, it doesn't start then. - Right. - It starts right now. - So. We admit, we don't have a 16 year old, but I would assume that if we haven't been putting in the time and investing in that way, when they're 16, are they gonna want to spend that quality time with us? - Well, I hope so. - Well, yeah, but I think the investment comes way earlier on and I think we need to be mindful of that. - [Aaron] Well, and I'll throw a shout out, Isaac and Angie Tolpin from Courageous Parenting, they do have older children and this is what they say. They say, "Hey, we started early investing in this "'cause we wanted our children to want to hear from us, "want to spend time with us." And they do. So we have examples in our life that we get to look at and say, "Well, let's just start now "and let's follow that example." - [Jennifer] Another benefit is Aaron you mentioned that that whole heart posture of kids being inconvenient, like being an inconvenience, and so when you think about one on one time with your kids, going to spend that quality time with them reinforces that they're important and special to your heart, so that it doesn't feel like a burden, the day in and day out of things that you're doing with them, because even you start to look forward to spending that quality time with them and then you get to have fun. Like when I think about taking my kid for a treat, sometimes it's even spontaneous to us in that, "Hey, there's this window of opportunity "and I wanna go share it with them." I like a treat, I like coffee, I like hot chocolate, I like a good conversation and so it's a benefit to us in that way. And then the last one, which Aaron you touched on, but it alleviates the other parent who's with the other kids for a brief time. So if I take one or even two of my kids, and I go on a date with them and you're at home with the other ones, it changes the atmosphere a little bit and I think it's nicer and easier. - [Aaron] I'll say this also, not just on the date side of things, we've kind of made a commitment to each other, it doesn't happen every time but if any one of us are ever gonna go run an errand, we always take one or two. - It's an opportunity! - It's an opportunity for the children and it also is an opportunity for your spouse and it's called this, it's divide and conquer. It's this idea of like-- - Except you enjoy it. - [Aaron] Yeah, but you enjoy it. So it's a pretty smart strategy for not always having the burden of all the children all the time on just your wife or just your husband. It's this idea of like, we're gonna work as a team so that this parenting thing doesn't feel burdensome all the time. - Yeah. - 'Cause sometimes it does. - [Jennifer] Okay you guys, we've shared a lot, but we also wanted to share some cool practical date ideas to spend time with your kids and these are just a handful, there are so many more, and especially when you think about different age categories, 'cause different kids will be interested in different things. And we also just wanna be clear that you do not have to spend extra money on these things. You can make it as simple as going for a walk around the block and heading to the park, playing catch with your son or daughter, or you can save up and go to a nice dinner with them. But we just wanna reiterate that you don't, it doesn't have to be a painful experience as far as finances or time. - [Aaron] And our kids are, they're super complicated but they're also very simple. - Yeah. - Time. - Yeah it's time. - They want presence and time. So like, I would imagine my son Elliot, if I just took him to the top, we have a hill, a butte that we can go look up on top of at sunset or sunrise, he would just love that. - Yeah. - And it's free. We just take the time to do it. - [Jennifer] So here's the thing, don't let anything keep you from excusing your way out of this. If you're a parent, and you have a child or children, no matter what their age is, it's important to spend quality time with them and have one on one time with them to have those conversations and share with them your heart and hear their hearts and really just invest the time into that relationship and I think this is a good word and warning to all of us as parents, especially looking at the longevity of our relationships with our kids and where we want to be with them when they're older. - Yeah. And just a note, imagine or realize what you as an individual need and desire. Don't you want your spouse to spend quality time with you, alone time to get to know you, to look in your eyes and say, "Who are you? "What are you doing?" Jennifer we just had to talk about this. You know like, "Hey, I want you to get to know me, "I want you to ask me deep questions." - [Jennifer] Yeah. Even if you were to think about along those same lines there and if you were to think right now everyone listening about you as a child and what you desired most-- - [Aaron] I think about these things. - [Jennifer] Think about that. Spend some time today and really think about what did you desire most from your mom? What did you desire most from your dad? And if you have children, try and implement those things. Try and be that way. - [Aaron] I don't know if I'm right in this, but I would imagine the things that we wished we had the most, the things that we wish that we got from our parents are probably the things that we have the hardest time giving to our kids. I would imagine that's true 'cause we've seen in our own lives, like me, patience. That's something that my mom and dad struggled with with me at times, I'm not very easy person be patient with. And so patience has been something I've had to work really hard to give my kids. And so if you look at your relationship with your parents, I would imagine the thing that you longed for the most and probably didn't get is the thing that you might have the hardest time giving. But don't let that be the reason. Like say, "Okay, you know what, God help me in this. "I wanna give this to my kids. "I wanna give them that attention, that affection, "that patience, that gentleness that I didn't receive." - [Jennifer] And even without thinking about it, every person in the world, every human desires what? To be known and loved. So, bottom line, this is an opportunity for us to get to know our children, to let them know we know them that we're paying attention, and to give them that quality time where we're conversing with them about things and loving on them. - [Aaron] Okay, let's give some ideas. These are practical ideas for, and you'll have to look at this and figure out the age range, where your kid is at age-wise and say, "Oh, this would be appropriate or this would be applicable." - [Jennifer] And then talk to each other about scheduling and timing and like, is this something we can put on the calendar? What would be best? - [Aaron] And how does it work? Like practically? - And we would encourage-- - Is it once a month? Is it every week? - We would encourage you guys to take time doing it 'cause even Mom who's at home with the kids all day, she still needs that one on one time. So finding ways to give Mom that opportunity and then finding ways that Dad gets those opportunities. And every family will look different. - [Aaron] Okay, so here's some ideas, a meal date. Just picking a breakfast lunch or a dinner and going somewhere, maybe bring it, like you make a pack a lunch and you go to a park. - [Jennifer] Or bring 'em to either yours or theirs favorite restaurant. - [Aaron] Right and just you and them. - [Jennifer] Another one is grabbing hot chocolate and bringing a game along or coloring. Depending on their age. - Coloring, a miniature board game. - Yeah. - [Aaron] Something like, what's that dice game? Yahtzee? - I was gonna say Farkle. - [Aaron] Or Farkle, oh that's a fun one. - [Jennifer] But hot chocolate and I'm assuming as they get older, it might turn into a coffee date. But hey, that's fun. - [Aaron] Another idea is treat 'em to a treat, like a cookie or a bagel or a cupcake or something like that. A donut, we love donuts, and a devotional, bring some sort of like child appropriate devotional and just read it with them and talk to them say, "What'd you think of that? "Do you have any questions for me?" - [Jennifer] Or maybe you don't have a resource, but you have a very specific conversation that you want to share with them privately. Use that opportunity for that. Another one would be the trampoline park. Aaron, you're really good at this one. - [Aaron] I like this one. This one is a fun one for me. - [Jennifer] I feel like I'm always pregnant and so it's hard for me to feel comfortable jumping and I get dizzy really easily but you love taking the kids and the kids look forward to you taking them to the trampoline park. - [Aaron] And it gets a lot of energy out and you can do it with them. And it also requires, you're not gonna be on your phone because it's hard to jump on your phone. - [Jennifer] It doesn't have to be trampoline, it could be laser tag or something fun like that but it's just going to one of those places that is very kid friendly and having fun. - [Aaron] Another one that's free, a bike ride. - [Jennifer] Unless you don't have bikes. - [Aaron] Unless you don't have bikes, but-- - You could rent some. - You can go for a walk, but a bike ride, a lot of people have bikes. Go for just a bike ride around your block, go take the bike somewhere on a trail, and just have that time of going, stopping and looking at stuff and talking. - [Jennifer] Wear your helmets! Even you Mom and Dad, be an example. Another one is interest shopping, and what I mean by this is just for example, okay Elliot's so into Legos and we have this really cool local guy who has a Lego store and it's small and it's like a boutique, but you go in there and there's Legos everywhere. He has a personal collection that he switches that in and out. And so just taking a random afternoon to go check the Lego store. - [Aaron] And it doesn't mean even you have to buy anything. We tell our kids all the time we like to go look at things and we'll say we're not buying anything today, but let's go look. And then they're like "Okay," so their expectations are totally set and they enjoy looking at stuff. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so I say interest shopping 'cause it could be anything from window shopping down in a downtown area to eventually you know, your girl is 16 and she actually wants to go shopping so it could change depending on the child. - [Aaron] This next one's a free one also and Elliot loves this one, Barnes and Noble trip or library. What we do is we just go and Barnes and Noble's fun because you can go and they have so many different types of books and we'll sit in the back and he just picks a book up, starts looking through the pages, picks another book up. Sometimes he'll be like, "Hey Dad, read this one to me." We'll go sit down and I just read to him and it's just me and him and it's quiet in there. - [Jennifer] There's been a couple times you guys have come back with a gift for Olive or something like that. So using the opportunity as a thoughtful way to say "You're not gonna get anything, "but what would stand out to your sister or your brother "or your Mom or Dad?" Another one would be going to get ice cream. Go and get ice cream, go for a walk. Some ice cream places do like a factory tour, you could do something fun like that. - [Aaron] One more is, we got two more, run an errand. This is like a really practical one, I have to go do something, I have to go get the mail, we have to go to the grocery store, and take a child with you and they're your partner. So I'll take Wyatt and he's in charge of the list or Elliot will be in charge of the list of what we're getting and I'll say, "Okay, we're looking for this, what aisle that on?" And so it's like a fun, something that has to be done, but they're doing it with me and they're your partner in that job. - [Jennifer] And it's fun when you give them a job to do on that errand. I know you just mentioned that but I had just been thinking like yeah, they really think that they're valued and have responsibility in the family when they get to be a part of it. The last one that we want to share with you is just a special event. This could be as simple as volunteering to help someone move, so Dad and son go help so and so move or a baby shower, I think of all the times that I get to take Olive on a little date and share in an experience like a baby shower with her and so even something like that you can utilize an event opportunity to take your kids on a date. - [Aaron] And there's a ton of other things, our heart was just to get your mind on this. What are ways that you can get alone with your children and get to know them? And taking turns, Dad doing this, Mom doing this because they wanna know both of your hearts are with them, they wanna know that both of you know them, and that you desire to be with them and like them. And it also, yeah like you said, the pack, it shows that they're an individual amongst the family but that they're also a part of the family. - [Jennifer] And as I was just thinking about this, we shared questions that you could ask your child to be able to pull out that conversation from their hearts but also give them the opportunity to ask you questions. Say, "Is there anything that's been on your heart "that you want to ask Mom or Dad? "Anything that's confusing or you've been struggling with?" - [Aaron] Anything you want to know about me? - [Jennifer] Or yeah, you wanna know about me? So I think opening up opportunity for your kids to ask you questions would be a really huge benefit to the relationship by doing that. - Totally. So we hope that encouraged you. Hope we gave you a lot of good ideas to run with. - [Jennifer] The next time you go on a one on one date time with your kids, be sure to post a picture and share it on Instagram and tag Marriage After God so that we can see what you guys are up to. It'll be inspiring to all of us. - [Aaron] As usual, we end in prayer, so why don't you pray for us? - [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift of family. Thank you for the blessing of children. May we be people who are willing to make our children feel special and to feel seen and heard. Help us to spend quality time with them, building fond memories and moments that build our trust with them. Help us to carve out time to show our kids that we desire to be close with them and want to dialogue with them. We pray we would be fun and intentional parents with the purpose of teaching our kids Your ways. May our children have a heart to build a family of their own because they love our example and appreciate all that they have experienced. May Your love be woven into our legacy and may Your light shine in our relationships with our children. In Jesus' name, amen. - [Aaron] Amen. Thanks for joining us on this episode. If you haven't left us a review, please take the opportunity to do that now. We love reviews from our listeners. And also don't forget to get the new download. Or it's not a download, it's a challenge. The Parenting Prayer Challenge. You can go to parentingprayerchallenge.com, sign up, it's completely free and we'll send you prompts every day for the next 31 days to pray for your children. We love you guys, see you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

In this episode, we answer questions for our community about having children, birth control, how many kids to have and more.Please also take a moment and download our free 52 Date Night Ideas eBook.http://datenightideas.com PRAYERDear Lord,Thank you for the gift and blessing of children. Thank you for creating and designing us with the ability to recreate, what an incredible miracle life truly is. We thank you for the opportunity to build our family and have children. We pray for others who either have not had children yet or in awaiting their first in anticipation. May you lead them in the way you desire them to walk and to grow together. We praise you for all those who have children and we also pray for those who can’t have children for whatever the reason may be. You are sovereign and we trust you. We continue to surrender our hearts to you as you lead us in parenting and raising our children to know you. Please help us with our fears and insecurities. Please remind us every day of the purpose we have with our family. May your name be glorified.In Jesus’ name, amen! READ FULL TRANSCRIPT- [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. - [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. - [Aaron] And today we're gonna answer some of your questions about having children. - [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. - [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. - [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. - [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. - [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. - [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry onlinae for over seven years through blogging and social media. - [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. - [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. - [Aaron] Love. - [Jennifer] And Power. - [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. - [Jennifer] Together. - [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chased boldly after God's will for our life together. - [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. Hey, everyone welcome back to another episode of Marriage After God. We're happy to be with you and we're really excited about this episode, and just being able to answer your questions. So doing Q&As is gonna be just an awesome new feature of the podcast where every couple of weeks, we're gonna poll our trusty community on Instagram and ask you guys what questions you have, and hopefully get some answers, well I should say opinions. - [Aaron] Yeah 'cause we have all the answers. - [Jennifer] No. - [Aaron] On everything. - [Jennifer] We don't but you know what, we're happy to explore these questions with you. And so thank you to everyone who shared these questions with us, and specifically about about having kids which we have a little bit of experience with. And so we'll dive into that in just a bit. All right, so one thing that we really are excited to share with you guys is that we have a new freebie for all of you. - [Aaron] So everyone has already did the free prayer challenge. - [Jennifer] Right. - [Aaron] They already got the date night conversations. - [Jennifer] You better, we've been sharing about those two for a while. So I begged Aaron, and I was like, "Let's do something new. "We've gotta do something new." - [Aaron] So this one is date night ideas. It's a free download. It's a list of 52 date night ideas which you could do one a week for the whole year. - [Jennifer] So is this something we're committing to? We're gonna go through all of these and do them? - [Aaron] Sure. - [Jennifer] Let's do it. - [Aaron] Let's see how it goes. - [Jennifer] I think that would be so fun. - [Aaron] So if you wanna get this freebie, this download, you just go to datenightideas.com and you can download our free ebook with 52 date night ideas. - [Jennifer] And the goal is one a week but if you can't do one week, do three a week. It's fine-- - [Aaron] If you have to do one a day, you know what, you can get done faster-- - [Jennifer] Have fun with it. - [Aaron] And just do it all over again. - [Jennifer] Have fun with it. No, but you can use these whenever you want and you can even sift through them and pull from it. - [Aaron] You know what would be fun is if they downloaded this and then found another couple to do a challenge with. How many they can get done in a year? - [Jennifer] Interesting, the other thing you could do is print them out and cut them out and stick them in a jar and pull them out randomly. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [Jennifer] That would be fun. - [Aaron] That's a great idea. Datenightideas.com, one word and it's free. Go get it, so the topic we're talking about, these Q&As, they're all on a similar topic. We polled our followers on Instagram and many of the questions were around children. Having children, children after marriage. - [Jennifer] So we're like let's stick them all in one episode so we can hit them all at once. - [Aaron] And so we're just gonna, some of these we're gonna wing answering. If we don't have good answers, we might say we don't know. We're not afraid to say we don't know. - [Jennifer] And just keep in mind that these are just our positions on these questions. How we would answer them based off of our experience and knowledge and-- - [Aaron] And things that we know of the Bible. - [Jennifer] Things that we know of the Bible and what we believe in so-- - [Aaron] Take it for what it is. - [Jennifer] Yeah and thank you guys again for asking these questions and sharing them with us and we really appreciate that. If you wanna jump on board for the next Q&A, just follow along on Instagram @marriageaftergod. - [Aaron] And you can always send us your questions in a message and we may not answer it in the message but we'll take down the question and potentially answer it in a future Q&A episode. We'd love to get those from you. So why don't we just jump right in to the first question and this is a doozy I feel like 'cause it's controversial, it could be. - [Jennifer] It could be yeah. - [Aaron] And they ask us their question and they said, our view on birth control. - [Jennifer] So what's your view on birth control? - [Aaron] That's a good question. - [Jennifer] It's a big question. - [Aaron] Okay, next question is, no I'm just kidding. Our view on birth control. - [Jennifer] Let me share my point of view first. - [Aaron] Okay, go ahead. - [Jennifer] I'll just be honest. I went on birth control 'cause that's what I heard you do when you get married. And so I went on the month before I got married and I chose to go off of it a month after we were married. So I was on it for a total of two months and I got married at 21, you were 22. And we were so excited married and so excited to-- - [Aaron] Be with each other physically. - [Jennifer] Yeah, experience what sex was like and it was awful. I'm just gonna be honest. It was very painful for me and so I scrambled, you guys. I tried to figure out why is my body responding this way because it was my body that was keeping us from experiencing-- - [Aaron] Physical intimacy. - [Jennifer] Healthy, physical intimacy. And so one of the things that came to my mind was something that was super obvious because over the course of that month of being married, not only were we having these issues but I gained a lot of weight. I got acne. - [Aaron] There was a lot of things going on. There was emotional stuff. - [Jennifer] Emotional ups and downs and mood swings and it was awful and I didn't feel myself. And so the obvious question then is what happened in the last few weeks that has changed me? - [Aaron] Other than getting married. - [Jennifer] I know it's a big transition. - [Aaron] I that that guy you married can make you feel crazy, I get it. - [Jennifer] But we narrowed it down to birth control and so I chose to go off of it and I haven't regretted it. - [Aaron] And it didn't fix everything but it did actually drastically change your mood. - [Jennifer] And some of the physical things that I was-- - [Aaron] Some of the physical things you were experiencing. - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] So that's an experience you had with birth control. We know tons of people use birth control. I also know that there is certain people that say birth control is a sin. I'm not gonna go that far. I'm not gonna make statements like that. What I will say is I'm not an advocate for opting to put a chemical in your body to adjust and manipulate how your body is naturally meant to work. So that's my, you're meant to do a certain thing. Your body has been created to do a certain thing and birth control is meant to stop that thing from happening, to manipulate the way your body responds to certain things and I don't think that's great. We have a lot of stuff going on this world. A lot of sickness, a lot of problems and for us to be healthy and to do something like that to our healthy body, I don't think is very wise, personally. - [Jennifer] So just to clarify for those listening, you're not saying that you won't put anything on or in your body that helps stimulate positive things to happen in your body. You're saying, you wouldn't do something that would stop the natural function of your body. - [Aaron] I'm saying I don't think it's a good idea to put something in our bodies electively to stop the natural. - [Jennifer] That alters the natural. - [Aaron] Yeah 'cause there's, again, I'm not gonna. The question is about all the other things that happen in this life, we know taking things when you're sick. - [Jennifer] I was gonna say there's supplements and there's oils and there's things that are out there. - [Aaron] Right, that's different than I'm gonna take this birth control to stop my ovulation so that we don't get pregnant. I'm not gonna do that. That's just my personal perspective on this. And to be honest, there's most things like medically that I'm a little hesitant on just because I like to stay mostly natural as much as possible. But this is about birth control. I'm just saying that taking a woman's body, putting something in it to stop her from doing what it's naturally meant to do doesn't sound wise to me. Now on the spiritual side of things, we have to always ask ourselves the question of why are we trying to stop ourselves from having kids? Why are we trying to protect against that? And there's tons of worldly wisdom that we receive on why we should wait and what, there's this and that. And don't you wanna travel? Why don't you establish your marriage first? And none of those things line up with the things that we hear about in scripture about children being a blessing. That it's good for women to have children. People prayed when they were barren because they wanted children and all these positive. It's positive, positive, positive but our generation and the last couple of generations has heard the message of negative. Children are a hindrance. Children get in the way. Children are difficult, they're expensive. They're hard, some of these things are all true. Not all of them but some of these things are true but not in the sense of they're not a blessings. Not in the sense of we shouldn't do it. I think we should always be asking ourselves about our heart posture towards children because God's heart posture towards children from the words of Jesus. "Let the children come to me", that's what he said. - [Jennifer] I love that, that's so beautiful. - [Aaron] Don't hinder the children. - [Jennifer] That's really good. I was gonna say that personally, we think that it needs to be thoughtfully considered not just in its physical impact on someone's body but its spiritual impact. And I think you just hit it on the head with being a heart posture. - [Aaron] Absolutely. - [Jennifer] And asking ourselves why. - [Aaron] Yeah and what do we believe about God? Is he good? Does it give us good things? And has he made us a certain way? And yeah those are all true. So we don't believe in birth control, the chemical form. I would say do any form of birth control, and we're about to have our number five so everyone can logically find out, we don't do birth control. We would probably lean towards just what's it called? The rhythm method? - [Jennifer] Natural planning. - [Aaron] Natural planning. And again, that's not even perfect. It's more of to our own abilities, we're just gonna try and plan around this and if God gives us a child, we're gonna be stoked. - [Jennifer] Yeah, all right let's move on to number two. Okay number two says, what made you wait to have kids? - [Aaron] Made us is a good word because half of it was physical. - [Jennifer] I was gonna say this is a two parter for us. - [Aaron] We just talked about how we couldn't have sexual intimacy. - [Jennifer] Yup. - [Aaron] So it was not impossible but highly unlikely 'cause it was . - [Jennifer] We weren't doing the thing that makes the babies. - [Aaron] Yeah, the thing that makes the babies wasn't happening so there was no babies being made. And then the second part of that is, and this might have been out of a bitterness because we couldn't be with each other. I have feeling that some of it was from that bitterness but also some of it just straight from our own selfish pride. We would tell people, they would ask us when are you guys gonna have kids? And we'd be like, oh we're not gonna have kids for a while or maybe ever because we're too selfish. - [Jennifer] We like sleeping in. - [Aaron] We like traveling. We like this, we like that. We said these things out loud. This isn't thoughts we had. - [Jennifer] And I would agree. Some of it was probably just to give them an answer 'cause we weren't gonna straight dig into well, we can't have sex. So we found a different way to answer it but I think at the core, we truly believe those things as well. We were selfish. - [Aaron] I remember I would pridefully say it like it was something to boast about. - [Jennifer] Looking back-- - [Aaron] You are too selfish. - [Jennifer] Looking back that's so embarrassing. - [Aaron] I know what a fool I was that I would actually say that. God's looking at me at like I know who you are. - [Jennifer] I love you Aaron. - [Aaron] I was like a little child to him and he's patient with me, thank God. But what a fool that I would just boast about my selfishness which is opposed to God, to be selfish. I was literally boasting about my opposition to God. - [Jennifer] I wanted to share a little bit about this question. What came to my mind is well the physical. We couldn't and the selfish but I was also really terrified of having children and I don't remember it being a super affirmed thing growing up. And even though I came from a big family, it wasn't like I had this dream to have a big family myself. - [Aaron] And it wasn't like children are good. Children are a blessing. All you saw was there's all of this chaos at home sometimes. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so I remember just being really scared about having children. And so I was actually okay with not having children for a long time if any. I didn't have a hearts desire to have children. - [Aaron] And I actually, now you bring that up. I remember specifically a thought I had and I had it regularly was I didn't want children because we couldn't be together. All I thought I was like yeah that would be so perfect. We'd get pregnant the one time we do come together and then now like we couldn't enjoy each other, and now we have a kid. This totally negative connotation on having children because it was just gonna get in the way of the thing I wanted. - [Jennifer] Yeah and I think we talked about that even back then. Something that I didn't talk to you about that I really struggled with was the thought that if in that turmoil, those first three years if we did have a kid how much more it would tie me to you which is really depressing and sad to think about. I just am broken-hearted over those kinds of thoughts now. - [Aaron] But that's when we were in our sinful hearts. - [Jennifer] But that's where I was and I didn't have hope in our marriage. I truly believe that we're coming to the end so it was like I have to make sure even more that I don't get pregnant which was avoiding you. - [Aaron] Which made the whole thing worse. - [Jennifer] Yeah, it was a mess, you guys. - [Aaron] The devil is good at what he does. And it's why we have to resist him and it's why we have to put on the full armor of God 'cause these thoughts and things will come if we're not focused right. - [Jennifer] Now I have a part of this question to ask you. It has to do with this question, that's not here but would you have waited if you could have sex? - [Aaron] Back then? Well probably 'cause again I had my selfish heart of I thought tons of horrible things. I was thinking about your body and I was thinking about our sex, and I was thinking about being inconvenience with now I have to raise a child, and we're doing all these things. So absolutely, I think back then, selfishly would have waited. Not because I thought it was wise but because I didn't want to have to deal with it. - [Jennifer] Okay and I was thinking more like answering now having had children. - [Aaron] No, I wished we didn't have waited. - [Jennifer] I like that you're answering really honestly. - [Aaron] No, if I knew what I know now. - [Jennifer] I wouldn't have waited. - [Aaron] We'd have a 13-year-old. - [Jennifer] That's weird to think about. - [Aaron] How incredible would that be? We'd have a teenager. - [Jennifer] Wow, lots more growth opportunities for us. - [Aaron] No, I wouldn't have waited at all but to be honest it's God's sovereignty. - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] He knew who we were. Our sin kept us away from it and it's probably better back then because we had some maturing to do. Not that I'm telling anyone they should choose to wait. I just think God knew what he was doing and he let us through a lot of stuff to grow us and make us into the men and women he wanted us to be. - [Jennifer] Yeah, all right. Number three, do you think numbering your children is necessary? - [Aaron] Yeah, I'd give a 10 to Elliott and then like all if I give-- - [Jennifer] What are you talking about? - [Aaron] I'm just kidding. Numbering, I'm thinking like . - [Jennifer] That's not what they're asking. - [Aaron] Numbering, the question is about should we have one, two, three, how many should we have? - [Jennifer] I was gonna change the question to what we usually get is what number do you guys want or what are you looking for? Because we do get asked that. - [Aaron] Yeah and it's usually with this like are you done yet look. Do you realize how many you have? We know exactly how many we have. So the question is do you think numbering your children is necessary? And I'm imagining the heart but it is do you think it's important to consider how many children we're having? Should we only have one or two or three? That's a pretty common thought. Most of the time, it comes in the form of, we only one, two or three. That's where that comes from. So Jennifer, do you think it's necessary. That's how the question is phrased. - [Jennifer] No, I don't think it's necessary. I don't think that we need to have a set number and we personally don't have a set number. - [Aaron] Our answer when someone asks, how many do you want is whatever God wants. - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] Because to be honest, I don't know. - [Jennifer] To couple with that though, I do think that there's wisdom in every situation and so what I like to say is we take every pregnancy as it comes. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [Jennifer] Submit it to the Lord-- - [Aaron] And in between the pregnancies, we submit those to the Lord as well. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and you know what, it's a journey of walking with God saying God I trust you and it's not easy but-- - [Aaron] And I'll say this. - [Jennifer] He's doing this. - [Aaron] I'm gonna be a little candid here. There was a challenge after we had was it? - [Jennifer] Elliot. - [Aaron] Elliot and we went right back to that place in our hearts of we don't want any more. Elliot was difficult. It was our first child. - [Jennifer] He had colic. - [Aaron] He had colic for a couple months. - [Jennifer] I had nursing issues. - [Aaron] It was really difficult. And we just were like no, we can't do this any more. This is crazy, we are also-- - [Jennifer] Honestly-- - [Aaron] Publishing a book and we're thinking like how we're gonna do all this stuff and have another baby and everything was coming together. - [Jennifer] When I look back on it too, I don't remember it being a negative feeling. I just remember being okay with it being one. - [Aaron] We're like, we're fine. - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] But again from all selfish positions. How are we gonna keep doing these things? That was too hard, I don't wanna do that again. And we were challenged by someone really hard and I'm gonna just explain to you what was challenging to us, and I'm gonna leave it at that. And they came to us and we were just sharing our hearts with them. And they very softly and gently said, you know the reasoning that you were coming to with this deciding not to want any more. And he brought up, is like it's usually for Christians, we say things like we want one, some or none. And it's like that sounds great. It sounds wise. One summer night, I'm gonna choose the size of my family. I think that's wise based off of whatever. Then they said that's very similar to the reasoning that pro-choicers have. It's your choice. Christians aren't gonna choose the abortion option right, hopefully. That's where the heart of a Christian shouldn't be that direction at all. We don't do that. But one, some or none is very similar and it's my choice. Pro-choice, I get to choose what I want. And he's explaining this to us and it cut us to the heart, and we realize wow, we're telling God, who's in charge of this area of our life. We want God to be sovereign in every area of our life except for this one. And so when they were explaining to us that we were essentially making decisions very similar to the idea of pro-choice. It's our choice and I want it to be pro-me whatever I want. And it really challenged us and it actually made us go and pray and dig into what we believed about children, and what we believed about our family, what God wants for us. - [Jennifer] I remember shortly after that conversation maybe even walking out of the restaurant, I told you that as I was sitting there listening, I could picture myself holding my hand shut tight and it was me as a Christian telling God, you are sovereign, you have every part of my life. I love you, lead me oh but you can't have this over here. - [Aaron] Don't touch this over here. - [Jennifer] And I was gripping it so tightly and I remember explaining this picture to you and just saying I feel like God wants me to open up my hands and trust Him. And I feel like we got pregnant about a week and a half later. - [Aaron] Yeah really quick. - [Jennifer] Really quick. - [Aaron] And I'll say this. It's easy to say, hard to do. Every single pregnancy we've had to go to God and say God, we need your help. We need to trust you more. We need to know what you have for us because it's difficult. Pregnancy is difficult. Children are difficult. It's just part of life so it's not like all of a sudden everything became rainbows and unicorns. It was like we have to trust God every single time which is what he wants. And then I'll say this as gently as possible 'cause I know the person that asked this question. I'm not trying-- - [Jennifer] There's a lot of people out there that asked. - [Aaron] There's a lot of people who have this question. I think the question is irrelevant and here's why I say that. You can say I want three kids and God only give you two. Is God wrong? Nope, I God bad? No. - [Jennifer] You could want two kids and never be able to conceive. - [Aaron] You could want one kid and never be able to conceive. You could want whatever you want. We could desire whatever we want. We can have this picture for our life and it's so perfect that oh if we just had a boy and a girl, you have six girls. I know people like that, okay. You could say lots of things. - [Jennifer] You can say you don't want any kids and then get pregnant. - [Aaron] We know people that are on birth control and I've gotten pregnant. We know people that have been barren for years. - [Jennifer] And have gotten pregnant. - [Aaron] And then have gotten pregnant. We know people that have had their tubes tied and then unfortunately have still gotten pregnant and had to have surgery because of the dangers of that. - [Jennifer] We also know the word of God and in Psalms when it talks about God knitting together a baby, a human inside a mother's womb, we know that's true. So it's from Him. - [Aaron] What we wanna do is we wanna say instead of asking well how many do we want? What's wrong with saying, God how many do you want? What do you want our family to look like? How do you want us to shape our family? You could say you want two children, right? And you have those two children and you stop, and there's no way for you to know that that third child was gonna be another Moses, another David. You don't know what God wants for you. So that's why I think that question is a little irrelevant because you think you have control. - [Jennifer] This is what the question should be. Do we trust what you have for us Lord? - [Aaron] Yeah and if that's a zero, and that doesn't mean that doesn't come with heartbreak but if it's zero, then God gets to choose that. If it's one, then God gets to choose that. Me and Jennifer are on number five and this could literally be our last child. We have no way of knowing. Something would happen. We could just not get pregnant again. Things happen or we could have another five. I don't know. But we want to trust the Lord with everything. I wanna encourage you to do the same. Whether that's zero, one, two, three, five, 10. That's the question we should be asking. Number four, what's the best way to prepare for or not be fearful of having a newborn? This is a good one 'cause we're literally right there. - [Jennifer] Yeah and you know what fear is a natural thing and it always comes with that feeling of I don't know what's on the other side of labor, or delivery, or having a newborn, and I struggled with all those fears. But when I look back and I think about my first baby, holding him in my arms, it's the most beautiful, miraculous thing I can think of. - [Aaron] And you don't necessarily look back and dwell on the pain. - [Jennifer] No. - [Aaron] You know it's there. - [Jennifer] I know it happened. - [Aaron] You look back and we think about those-- - [Jennifer] The joy and the love and the incredible miracle that comes with having a child. And I think that we should also just note that this probably whoever asked this question is going to give birth to a baby but I think even for adoption. When you think of the other ways that people build their families. I think there's a lot of fear that comes. A lot of fearful thoughts that could come with the unknowns but we just wanna be an encouragement to you guys that you're not alone. God is with you and do everything in prayer. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, to pray constantly. - [Aaron] To pray for everything. - [Jennifer] To pray for everything and to be thankful. And so I think the first way that I would respond to this question is pray, and pray with your spouse. Pray together over your family and over every situation. - [Aaron] Present those fears to the Lord and say Lord, here's some things I'm afraid of. Give me peace, give me your peace. That's what he tells us to pray for everything. With thanksgiving, lift your request to Lord. - [Jennifer] And the other thing I would say is meditate on his Word. What does God say about children? What does God say about birth? What does God say about families? Things that comes to my mind is John 16:21. It says, "When a woman is giving birth, "she has sorrow because her hour has come "but when she has delivered the baby, "she no longer remembers the anguish "for joy that a human being has been born into the world." That's what I remember. - [Aaron] That's an awesome statement by the way. For joy that a human being has been born. That's so cool and it is true because the pain is real. It's a thing you get to experience. You can talk about that in a second about experiencing the pain but you remember the joy of that child, holding the baby, seeing their face for the first time hearing their coos for the first time. - [Jennifer] I know I said this. It's miraculous, it truly is. - [Aaron] Yeah and seeing them grow up is miraculous too. I can't imagine my life without any of these kids. - [Jennifer] I know and I feel so grateful that the Lord trusted me and gave me these gifts. It's so wonderful. Another verse that comes to my mind and something good to dwell on is Psalm 127:3. It says, "Behold children are a heritage from the Lord. "The fruit of the womb, a reward." - [Aaron] So preparing yourself for having a newborn is you're preparing to have a reward and to build a heritage that he's giving you. That's really cool. - [Jennifer] A good resource for becoming new parents, you should check out "Redeeming Childbirth" by Angie Tolpin. It was just a really good book to bring perspective to having children and what that looks like biblically. So if you wanna check that out just go to courageousmom.com. One last thing that I just wanna encourage you guys with, and this you can do prior to having your first baby but you should also be doing it throughout parenting, and that's just talking about those fears with your spouse whenever they come up. And using those opportunities to encourage one another. If the wife is afraid, the husband can go to the word of God and console her and comfort her and encourage her. If the husband has some fears and he's being vulnerable about them, she can encourage him through the word of God and through prayer, and I just think that is so vital for us to be one in the way that we are experiencing the same thing, right parenthood. And another thing you could do is find someone who you admire, who has experience that you can ask questions to. I know as a new mom, I had so many questions. I still have so many questions. And so finding someone who you can be in communication with even if it's just a quick text or if you can get into community with several people who you can have questions too, and really just have that support system. It's really important - [Aaron] Yeah and that actually leads into our last question, number five really well. This person asked us if we can talk about the best ways to invest in our spouse before having kids. - [Jennifer] Okay. - [Aaron] Which is a cool thing because we could have done this. - [Jennifer] I know we did this for, no, we should have been doing this for years. The first thing that comes to my mind is having regular date nights and when you don't have kids and you're married, it can be so easy to just make everything feel like a date because you're with each other but making it significant somehow. - [Aaron] Getting it on the calendar, making it a regular occurrence. - [Jennifer] And doing something out of the norm, right? So like if you guys regularly already do something together, don't consider that your date. Go do something else. - [Aaron] Yeah, and what's good about that is it puts you into a really healthy pattern and habit so that after the kids, you guys will long and be like, hey, we need to get back on track. - [Jennifer] Not after the kids are grown and raised, you mean after having kids. - [Aaron] I'm saying after six weeks of healing and getting better. You guys are like, hey, we need to get back on schedule with our date nights, that's important. And for awhile, you're gonna have the baby with you and then eventually you'll get a baby sitter. But you start that up and it's there. It's existing. - [Jennifer] And just to encourage you guys, we've gone on dates with babies before and it can be done. - [Aaron] Just find those restaurants that-- - [Jennifer] Are really loud. - [Aaron] Either really loud or mostly full of older couples 'cause they love seeing young couples with their babies. - [Jennifer] Most of the times. - [Aaron] Most of the times. - [Aaron] Some restaurants don't like it but the experience we've had, we have people come up and be like, oh, your baby's so wonderful. This is so cool seeing a couple with children now. Anyways that's a good tip. For the husband's preparing your spouse before kids just doing what a Ephesians five says, "Washing your wife with the Word." Continually speaking God's truth into her life over her reminding her what the word of God says, reminding of her of who she is, what she's capable of, how God made her and building her up because those are the things that are gonna continually give her confidence. Make her feel like she can be a mom that she can handle pregnancy and labor and that she is going to be a victor in that area. So it's immensely powerful the words that a husband speaks over her life which is why we're commanded to wash our wives with not any words but the Word. With God's Word, reminding her of who she is, what God's doing in her life. That the thing that she's going to do. Having a child is such a powerful and beautiful thing that as she disciples that child, she's literally making world changers. Growing the Kingdom of Heaven within your home. It's a powerful thing. - [Jennifer] That's awesome, I love that. Another thing that I would say and this is something to continually do throughout your marriage, but to get really good at it is practicing transparency. Aaron and I talk about this a lot and it's something that I feel like we were actually pretty good at in our marriage but could have been even better way sooner at, and that's just being transparent and honest with one another when you're struggling with sin. You confess that you repent. When you're wrestling with insecurities or doubt or frustrations, you talk about it and you find a way if you're at conflict with one another, you reconcile. All those really important-- - [Aaron] Getting better at those things. - [Jennifer] Communication things. - [Aaron] Which will be huge for your children to see and to benefit from. - [Jennifer] And your parenting because there's gonna be a lot of situational things that come up that you'll have to be transparent with one another in and talk about so that you're on the same page when you parent. - [Aaron] Which leads into the other thing, and this is hugely important. Overcoming sin and bad habits. So for the husbands, if you guys are struggling with pornography, and you think it's just like not a big deal. And you're like, oh it's every once in a while. Just realize what you do, you're gonna teach your children. And I wish I would have known that earlier. I wish I would have recognized the the magnitude of walking in what I saw as hidden sin or things that I was getting a handle on. But it's just every once in awhile, it's not that big of a deal, minimizing those things. Maximize them, take those things in your life and say no, I need to get this out of my life. I'm not gonna smoke any more. I'm not gonna show my kids that habit. The way I eat. The hidden sins of my life, pornography. The way I talk. If you have issue with bad language. Those are things that you're gonna teach your kids and so work on it. Confess them, find freedom from them. Walk in the freedom that Christ has already given us on the cross and walk in it so that you can teach your kids to walk in it. The same freedom. - [Jennifer] Have authority in their lives. - [Aaron] Yeah as a pastor once told me, purity is power. Walking in purity is powerful. Say that last line right there, babe. - [Jennifer] I just put a note on here. Have children, because the question was how do you invest in your spouse before having kids. - [Aaron] Which can be-- - [Jennifer] It could be any range of things. It could maybe you're already pregnant and you're just waiting for the baby to come but it could also be we chose not to have kids right now, so what can we be doing? Well I'll tell you what, if there's one thing in Aaron's and I life that has stimulated growth in our relationship-- - [Aaron] That God's used to sanctify us in huge ways. - [Jennifer] Absolutely, or to just grow closer to each other in opportunities in ways that we never would have known or experienced, it was through having children. And so I've really appreciated that about our journey and where we've been, and so hopefully that just encourages you guys. - [Aaron] Those are five questions that we received from the community. Again we're not the end-all be-all to these answers but we try the best of our ability to look at the word of God, to look at experience and see how God is trying to change the way we think about things. - [Jennifer] I'll say this, answering the questions is not easy for me. I'm a peacemaker and I don't wanna ruffle anyone's feathers or ever put things out there that make people feel uncomfortable, but at the same time I want you guys to know where Aaron and I are on some of these topics because you're you're listening in, you're following us. And for whatever reason, God has trusted us with an opportunity to share these with you. And so I hope that through our experience and through the things that we have shared with you today, if anything, you get to go back to the table with your own spouse and talk about them, and share your own perspectives, and thoughts behind them. And we just encourage you to, like Aaron said, get in the scriptures and dive into what God has to say about these and let that be the foundation for what you believe and your your viewpoints and your perspectives on some of these topics. - [Aaron] 1 John tells us to test every spirit and to discern. So don't just take what we're saying as pure gold. Go yourself to the word of God and find them out. But if you're not willing to go to the word of God, and you just wanna disagree and have your own opinion, you have to understand something that we're not called to just do that. We're called to trust the word of God. And so I wanna challenge you if you are in that place, go to word of God. Take the things we've said and go dig in. Find out what God thinks about all these questions. What God thinks about children in the womb and raising children. You find out for yourself and come up with your own conclusions based off of what the word of God says, not off of what we say. But we love you, and as always win in prayer so please join us. - [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for the gift and blessing of children. Thank you for creating and designing us with the ability to recreate. What an incredible miracle life truly is. We thank you for the opportunity to build our family and have children. We pray for others to either have not had children yet or are in waiting their first in anticipation. May you lead them in a way you desire them to walk and to grow together. We praise you for all those who have children and we pray also for those who can't have children for whatever reason maybe. You are sovereign and we trust you. We continue to surrender our hearts to you as you lead us in parenting and raising our children to know you. Please help us with our fears and insecurities. Please remind us every day of the purpose we have with our family. May your name be glorified in Jesus' name, amen. - [Aaron] Amen. And guys as always, I just wanna invite you to leave us a review, a star rating. We love those. They're incredibly powerful and effective in spreading the word about the podcast. We love you all and we pray that you guys would just grow closer to God and you chase his will for your life and get his heart on the matter of children. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com. And let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

I would imagine that suffering is not a very popular topic amongst most churches today but suffering is a vital and important part of every believer's life and It should not and cannot be a topic that is left out of our Biblical thinking. Suffering comes in many forms and our heart today is to discuss the biblical view of suffering and how it is a powerful mindset and tool in our lives.Download Free Thinghttp://marriageprayerchallenge.com/Topic NOTESI have bee systematically teaching through 1st peter and last week we got to chapter 4:1-Devotional - what are we learning from the WordRomans 8 "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry."Suffering as a believerCease from sinDepriving my flesh is sufferingBeing in human nature and submitting to God is telling your flesh noChoosing to walk in the SpiritUniversal doctrine sufferingRomans 8 to explain whoever suffers … putting away of flesh is causing our flesh to suffer“want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.We have been freed from the “want to do” God gives us new desires new cravings. As we walk in our new selves it growsDefine:Sensuality - Not just sexualTHE WORLDLY DEFINITION IS PURELY SEXUAL.THE BIBLICAL USE is: unbridled lustLiving for pleasure of every sense - pleasing the 5 senses rather than pleasing GodFROM WIKIPEDIA: Hedonism is a school of thought that argues pleasure and suffering are the only components of well-being. Ethical hedonism is the view that combines hedonism with welfarist ethics, which claim that what we should do depends exclusively on what affects the well-being individuals have. Ethical hedonists would defend either increasing pleasure and reducing suffering for all beings capable of experiencing them, or just reducing suffering in the casePassions - Not just what are you passionate about in lifeBeing controlled by our emotions and serving our emotions vs pleasing God - affected by sensuality in that when we are not feeling good or something not pleasing instead of suffering we let our emotional response dictate our actions - flesh isn't getting what it wants so our choice is to suffer in the flesh and choose to walk in the spirit or suffer in the spirit and walk in flesh they are opposedDrunkenness - Not just being drunk from intoxicationOvertaken by a substance or something out side your bodyProverbs 20:1 "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise."Ephesians 5:18 "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,"Removal of natural function - (Inhibition) ConscienceOrgies - Not just a sexual experienceOverindulgenceGiving into your flesh never satiated never enoughEcclesiastes 1:8 "All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing."HISTORICAL "secret rites used in the worship of Bacchus, Dionysus, and other Greek and Roman deities, celebrated with dancing, drunkenness, and singing."Drinking parties - Not just drinking at a party or hosting one intentionallyIt is inviting others to partake with you in all of the aboveNo one likes to feel the weight of shame or guilt alone so if theyMisery loves companyApproval so you can keep doing itWhy godly fellowship is so importantLawless Idolatry - All of this ends with self-worshipHow I feel what I want what I pursueOpposite of dying to self or taking up crossEach one shows the progress of worshipping self vs the CreatorPrayerDear Lord,Thank you for your word and how it cuts us to the heart. Thank you for teaching us through your word. We pray your word would continue to transform us as we learn it and choose to walk out all that you command us to. We pray we would be people who recognize parts of our hearts that need to change, sin that needs to be repented of, motivations that are not pure, and actions that do not reflect your ways for the purpose of repentance and reconciliation and growth. May your will be done in us and through us. May your light shine brightly through our marriages as we encourage one another to draw closer to you.In Jesus’ name, amen! READ TRANSCRIPT- [Aaron] Hey, We're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. - [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. - [Aaron] And today we're going to talk about why suffering is good for us. Welcome to the Marriage After God Podcast where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. - [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. - [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. - [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade - [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. - [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. - [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. - [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life. - Love. - And power. - [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. - [Jennifer] Together. - [Aaron] Thank for joining us in this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. - [Jennifer] This is Marriage After God. - [Aaron] Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God Podcast. - [Jennifer] Hi. - [Aaron] We love you guys. I just wanna say, the first episode of this season of this year, I think it got up to number 32 or 33 on the charts in iTunes. So that's all because of our listeners. - [Jennifer] Thank you guys! - [Aaron] Downloading all of these episodes, your guys rock, I just wanna say thank you. - [Jennifer] Hopefully they liked it, you know, thought it was a good episode to kick off the year with. - [Aaron] Yeah, if you liked it, share about the episode, take a screenshot of it, post it on Instagram, Facebook, tag us in it, we love seeing those. - [Jennifer] @MarriageAfterGod. - [Aaron] And we might even share about your post on our Instagram account. - [Jennifer] That'd be awesome. Okay, so Aaron, why don't you just give a little update where you at, how's your week, what's going on? - [Aaron] I think we talked about it last time. I'm starting to get up earlier. For a while I've been getting up around 5:30 and going to the gym, I've been doing that for a couple years now and recently I told you, Jennifer, that I wanted to get up even earlier. - [Jennifer] I was shocked actually. - [Aaron] To give myself an hour in the morning to get in the Word 'cause remarkably if I don't purpose to do it, it doesn't happen. So I figured what's the best way to do that. - [Jennifer] Or your amount of time spent in it wasn't as much. - [Aaron] Yeah, and so I figured the best thing to do would be get up earlier. - [Jennifer] Okay, so now what does your morning routine look like? - [Aaron] So I've been getting up a four, my alarm goes off at four, and then I hit snooze a couple times. I've been getting up around 4:20, 4:30. - [Jennifer] Now, the first time you did it, I was woken up because usually you sneak out of the house pretty quietly. - I turned the light on. - You turned every light on. - [Aaron] I didn't turn every light on. - [Jennifer] It was so bright and then I was up at 4:30. - [Aaron] What the problem was is I forget to set all of my stuff out the night before and I couldn't find anything. - You weren't prepared. - I wasn't prepared. You should always be prepared. If you wanna have a good morning routine. - Good marriage. - Oh. - Oh. - [Aaron] If you wanna have a good morning routine and a good marriage, prepare, put your stuff out, get everything ready that you're gonna be grabbing, so you don't have to look for it and scavenge. - [Jennifer] And I'm just using it, I'm not even mad about it. I went back to bed. - [Aaron] I mean I'm only a few days into it and it hasn't been terrible because I go to the gym now earlier and I'll say this, I really enjoyed going to Starbucks and sitting down, there's no one there, and getting into the Word, that was awesome. And also I started back up doing my intermittent fasting. - [Jennifer] You did that for a while like a year ago. - [Aaron] Yeah, and I only stopped because I was just trying to do something different, get more calories. But I'm going back to it because I feel like I got too much calories. - [Jennifer] Okay. - [Aaron] I really like intermittent fasting. And if you don't know what intermittent fasting is go look it up, it's pretty cool. - [Jennifer] Why don't you just explain real quick briefly what you mean. - [Aaron] Essentially you fast for 16 hours and then you have an eight hour window of eating. Essentially you just miss breakfast. - [Jennifer] I was gonna say most of us fast throughout the night, but this is more intentional, don't have that before-bedtime snack or anything. - [Aaron] Yeah, I'll usually not eat from seven o'clock until 11 or noon the next day. Which is not always easy. - [Jennifer] You also fit in those calories at lunch and dinner 'cause you work out, they know you do CrossFit, you lift heavy weights so you need that energy. - [Aaron] Yeah, I need enough. But it also does help me maintain how much I'm eating and it also makes me think about what I'm eating so I eat better instead of just spreading all those calories out. Anyways I've gotten back into that and kinda liking it. - [Jennifer] Awesome, very cool. Okay you guys, we also wanna encourage you to sign up right now for the Marriage Prayer Challenge if you have not done that yet. It's really awesome. Aaron, how many couples have already joined? - [Aaron] Almost 30,000 couples. There's actually a number counter on the sign up page, and it's a real number counter. I didn't make it up or faked it, it's actually counting people that sign up. - [Jennifer] Okay, so you just go to MarriagePrayerChallenge.com you can sign up for the husband version or the wife version and what do they get? - [Aaron] They're gonna get a email every day around the time that they signed up, giving them a prompt and a reminder to pray for their spouse. - [Jennifer] Awesome, come on you guys, go sign up, it's awesome. - [Aaron] Yeah, so it's MarriagePrayerChallenge.com. Completely free, just give us your email and your name and boom, you'll start getting those emails every day for 30 days. - [Jennifer] So today's topic is on why suffering is good for us. And we're not just talking about physical suffering or sickness or things like that, but we're gonna get into, well we're just gonna get into something that you spoke on recently Aaron that really, really moved me because I love it when you can look at Scripture and see it a different way, I need that help sometimes, someone else coming in and going, "Hey, look at this, this is awesome." So I just wanna dig in. So this is kind of like a devotional style episode. - [Aaron] Yeah, Jennifer and I came up with this idea to do one devotional focused episode every month and so this will be that one. And the topic is something I actually taught on this last Sunday. And you said, "Hey, we should "do an episode on that teaching." So that's what we're gonna do. We'll talk about stuff I brought up from Scripture and then you might have some questions for me, but it's pretty cool, and it's on a very small section of Scripture. - [Jennifer] I'll say this, one reason that I love that you're my husband is that you teach me and I love that. I love that you can look at Scripture and teach me from it and so I'm excited about this episode because I feel like you're gonna have the opportunity to teach others with the same impact that you've had in my life just over this one Scripture. - [Aaron] Well thank you, that's awesome. - [Jennifer] Keep it up, Aaron. - [Aaron] I wanna emphasize that my hope and prayer is that whenever I'm teaching the Word of God that it's not my opinion, not my own flavor of things, but that I'm just trying to clearly teach what the Word of God is saying. So I hope that's what I'm doing right now. - [Jennifer] Yeah, it's good. - [Aaron] So I'll just kick it off that the section of Scripture that we're going to be discussing is mainly from I Peter, chapter four. And it's only the first four verses, which is gonna be the chunk of what we're talking about. And it doesn't sound like a lot of Scripture, but there's actually a lot in here. We're also gonna dig into Romans eight, and that has a little bit more, so there's still a lot of reading. - [Aaron] There's a lot of Scripture to help give context to these few lines of text. So are we gonna start out with you reading I Peter? - Yeah. - Like give 'em just the context of what we're going to be talking about? - [Aaron] So it's actually verses one through three, I'm gonna read it right now, starting at verse one. "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, "arm yourselves with the same way of thinking. "For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, "so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh, "no longer for human passions, but for the will of God. "For the time that is past suffices for doing "what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, "passions, drunkenness, orgies, "drinking parties, and lawless idolatry." - [Jennifer] Okay, so before we jump into these set of Scriptures, can you just expand a little bit about when it comes to doctrine and universal doctrine? - [Aaron] Yeah, so I start off this teaching actually on Sunday just explaining how when we come up with doctrine, which are the fundamental things that a believer should walk in, teach. These are the things that are core, doctrines in the Word of God. A doctrine, in order for it to be a doctrine, it's gotta be universal. You can't pull something from Scripture and say, "This is doctrine, but it doesn't apply "in Iran, it doesn't apply in Africa, "it doesn't apply in the suburbs." - [Jennifer] Right, or just certain groups of people. Or certain churches. - [Aaron] Right, so if we interpret or pull things from Scripture that isn't universally applied when taught then it's gotta be interpreted through universal doctrine. So that you can't just pull that and say, "Well, that's doctrine." And one example of this would be the prosperity gospel, this idea that God wants every single person to be wealthy, and perfectly healthy, which isn't backed up with Scripture at all. - [Jennifer] We also don't see it in real life. - [Aaron] Yeah, you don't see it played out. There's people all over the world that are not wealthy or healthy, but they love the Lord, God uses them, this is reality on both sides. We see Scripture, like in Ecclesiastes that God gives rain to the evil and the good, evil and the righteous. So there are certain things that he has a certain level of blessing on every person, he gives breath, he gives the sunlight, he gives rain, he gives food, sustenance, regardless of how they are. So the prosperity gospel in the sense of God wants you to prosper financially and with possessions doesn't work universally. But what does work, and this is where I ended off was the universal doctrine of suffering. Without suffering there is no salvation. Christ learned obedience through the things that he suffered. He says that believers will suffer. - [Jennifer] Which kicks us off for this verse that you read, which I don't know if you wanna read it again. - [Aaron] Yeah, it says, "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh," it doesn't say suffered in the spirit, he suffered in the flesh. It says, "Arm yourselves with this same way of thinking." - [Jennifer] Not just some of you, not just you over there in the corner, arm yourself. - [Aaron] Yeah, it tells every believer to arm themselves with this way of thinking of understanding the suffering of Christ. - [Jennifer] And the suffering of the flesh. - [Aaron] And the suffering in the flesh, which we're gonna get into. So when I say doctrine, this idea that suffering is a doctrinal teaching. We cannot subtract it from Scripture, we cannot subtract it from the Christian life. We cannot say, "Yeah, that's good, but only for Christ, "and then he doesn't want his children to suffer." He says, "If I suffered, you will also suffer. "They hated me, they're gonna hate you." These are all things that the Bible teaches and no matter where you go in the world, it doesn't matter where you live it should be something that is taught and understood by the believer this idea, this doctrine of suffering. But there's many types of suffering. And what we wanna talk about right now is what is this talking about. What am I arming myself when realizing Christ suffered? What's the weapon that I'm using? And what it is is an understanding of what suffering is for the believer and why it's so good for us in the varying aspects. 'Cause the first thing we think of probably is suffering, massive pain or loss, which is definitely a form of suffering. But really what suffering is at the base level is our flesh-- - Dying to ourselves, yeah. - Yeah, dying. That's what suffering is. When Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me," the cross is the instrument of death of your flesh, your body. You put a body on it and it dies there. And so suffering in the sense that we're gonna talk about is not just this overtly physical suffering. It's telling our flesh no, that's suffering. And as we go through this scripture, we'll see that more and more. But that's what we wanna get the believer, everyone listening to understand is we shouldn't be running from suffering. We shouldn't fear the idea that our flesh is gonna endure some sort of discomfort and pain and that we're not gonna always get what we want and we're gonna have to tell ourselves no and these are all forms of telling our flesh no, it's suffering. The body suffers when it doesn't get what it wants, that's suffering. When you feel pain, it's something that the body doesn't want, which is why you get that pain signal saying, "Hey, this is not good, stop it." - [Jennifer] Right, we really hope that this episode is encouraging to you guys and gives you a fresh perspective of how suffering is good for us, especially in context to our sin nature and the suffering of our flesh. - [Aaron] Which is the exact purpose of this. Of putting away that sin nature and having the spirit of God win and not the flesh. - [Jennifer] Do you wanna jump in to Romans eight? - [Aaron] Yeah, 'cause Romans eight gives us a perfect context for the second part of the scripture that says "Arm yourselves with the same way of thinking." Right, so we realize that Christ suffered in the flesh, we can have the same way of thinking of recognizing the suffering of our flesh is a weapon against something. And it says, "For whoever has suffered "in the flesh has ceased from sin." And this can be taken very literally, which it should be, I think because if we have perfectly suffered the way Christ has we would have perfectly ceased from sin because once we're dead and gone with God there's no more sin in us. But we're in the flesh, so it says, "Whoever suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin," and I think Romans eight perfectly clarifies what this is saying, and it says this in Romans eight, verse one, "There is therefore now no condemnation "for those who are in Christ Jesus." First and foremost believer, believe this. "There is therefore now no condemnation "for those who are in Christ Jesus. "For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free "in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." So what has set you free from the law of sin and death? It's Christ and his Spirit, right? It says, "For God has done what the law, "weakened by our flesh, could not do. "By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh "and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh "in order that the righteous requirement of the law "might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to "the flesh, but according to the Spirit." - [Jennifer] I feel like you should reiterate that last part. - [Aaron] What he's saying is the law, which is good, and perfect, and righteous couldn't save any man because man has weak flesh. In our flesh we cannot fulfill the law. But Christ did fulfill the law in his own flesh. Right? And so what it's saying is that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us through the putting away of our flesh through Christ. - [Jennifer] Right, I just love that last part that you just read, it says, "Who walk not according to the flesh, "but according to the Spirit," which is foundational to what we're gonna be teaching from I Peter and it's a choice, they're all choices, right? - [Aaron] These are choices that the believer have because we've been set free, so we have the freedom to now choose righteousness rather than only being obedient to sin. - [Jennifer] Right, and it's through our actions that we walk according not to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. - [Aaron] Right, so this says, "Walk not according to the flesh," so if you take anyone who has suffered in the flesh and say, "Anyone who walks not according to the flesh, "but according to the Spirit ceases from sin," that's kind of what this is saying. This is verse five, "For those who live according "to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, "but those who live according to the Spirit "set their minds on the things of the Spirit." - [Jennifer] Okay, I gotta stop you again because I feel like there's often, I'm sure everybody can relate to this, but when you struggle with sin, and you wrestle with those temptations that come, your mind is on it, right, like when your mind is set on something that your flesh desires and wants to do it doesn't go away until either you do it or you tell it no. - [Aaron] Which is suffering. And this is where we're trying to define this. - [Jennifer] But that whole setting your mind, it starts there. - [Aaron] And it says this, "For to set the mind "on the flesh is death, but to set the mind "on the Spirit is life and peace." - [Jennifer] Raise your hand if you want life and peace. - [Aaron] "For the mind that is set "on the flesh is hostile to God." - [Jennifer] I don't want that. - [Aaron] Hostile, like you're an enemy of God when your mind's on the flesh, "For it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot. "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." So when the Bible tells us that the flesh and the Spirit are opposed to each other, are against each other, that's what this is saying. Saying when you're walking in the flesh you can't please God, you're an enemy. When you walk in the Spirit, you please God. And it's God's Spirit that we walk in. And then it says this, "You," believer, "however "are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, "if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ "does not belong to him. "But if Christ is in you, "although the body is dead because of sin, "the Spirit is life because of righteousness." So remember we said whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin? Let's put it this way, although the body is dead, suffered in the flesh because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. So the Spirit that God's put in us has brought to life our mortal bodies, and listen to this, verse 11, "If the Spirit of him "who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, "He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead "will also give life to your mortal bodies "through his Spirit who dwells in you." So I thought this Scripture perfectly illustrated what says right here when it says, "For whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. "So as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh "no longer for human passions, but for the will of God." So when we're gonna get more and more right now into this idea of suffering in the flesh, it's this idea of walking in the Spirit and not the flesh as Romans also says. When you gratify the desires of the flesh you cannot please God, right? But if you walk in the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Right? - Yeah. - [Aaron] So this is what this is getting to, Peter's talking here, and he's explaining how Christ suffering in the flesh has done this for us. Has given us a way to suffer in our flesh, not in a way of self-salvation because we can't, Christ already did it. His suffering was sufficient. But because of his suffering and from his own words 'cause he left and went home to be with the Father, he sent his helper, the Spirit, to work in us and through us for his will and his work in us. So what we can do now is we can learn to suffer in our flesh via the Holy Spirit. Meaning I don't gratify the desires of my flesh. So when you want a donut, I love donuts. - [Jennifer] I love donuts. - [Aaron] Or you want that new car, or you want your neighbor's thing, coveting, right? Or you want to avoid shame so you lie, these are all fruit of the flesh, these are all things to protect your flesh. I don't like the way that feels, I don't wanna be embarrassed, I don't wanna look shameful, I have pride, I don't want them to think this way about me. It's all the flesh, so suffering is, like here's a form of suffering in the flesh, humbleness. That's painful, humbling yourself. Getting down on your knees and saying, "I am this thing, I did this thing, I said this, "and I want to be forgiven by You." Like humbling yourself, recognizing you're not that great of a person is suffering, is telling your flesh no. I'd rather you suffer and my spirit be lifted up. - [Jennifer] So you started out that little lineup of things that people struggle with was a donut so can you just explain, 'cause eating a donut doesn't have to deal with humility, what does it have to deal with? - [Aaron] Well again, our flesh, and I explained this on Sunday, I was talking about how our brains work. Our brain matter, it's flesh, it's a compilation of cells and there's these chemicals that get released and you have sensors, and receptors, and you have all these things that God gave us to work a certain way, pleasure sensors and pain sensors and all these things, and those are all the flesh. Now what the point is is that you don't just shut 'em all off. It's to put them into submission to the Spirit. So a donut right, having a donut's not sinful. Like, oh, a donut's good. But not having any control and letting your senses control you is not walking in the Spirit, it's walking in the flesh. Like that See Food diet, I see food and I eat it. That's not having any control, the Spirit's not in charge, your conscience isn't in charge, it's, "Oh I see it and I'm gonna put it "in my mouth and eat it." - [Jennifer] So the donut can represent a lot of different things. - [Aaron] Think about pornography. Like you're not controlling your flesh. You're saying, "Flesh, you can have whatever you want." - [Jennifer] That's not suffering. - [Aaron] No, well we suffer in the Spirit. - [Jennifer] And we suffer the consequences. - [Aaron] Yeah, we suffer the consequences, but you're not causing your flesh to suffer, telling your flesh, "No, I don't want you to have it. "I know you want that, I know you crave it, "I know you think that's gonna be good for you, "but the Spirit of God that's in me says no." - [Jennifer] That's good. Okay, so I wanna move on because there's a lot of clarity that comes from this next verse and how you broke it down, which is what impacted me probably the most out of this teaching. And so I'm gonna reread the verse, it's verse three, it says, "For the time that is past suffices "for doing what the Gentiles want to do," and I remember you stopped and said, "Underline that." - Underline want to do. - Want to do. 'Cause our flesh wants to do a lot of things. You just gave those examples. "Living in sensualities, passions, drunkenness, "orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatries. - [Aaron] You've read this a lot, right? - [Jennifer] Yeah, I've read this a lot, but I need to explain because I'm sure people relate to me on this. When you read certain scriptures, it's not that you don't say, "And I know I'm not perfect, "I know that there's sin in my life, "and I'm willing to have open eyes "and for God to reveal that to me, "but when I read this I go, 'well, I'm not really "'struggling with those things, "'I don't really have drinking parties or whatever.'" But you broke it down in a way that makes this verse relatable to all sinners. And so I wanna share that. - [Aaron] And let's remember what the context of this is. Christ's suffering, being armed with this way of thinking, recognizing that our flesh, having our flesh suffer while walking in the Spirit is how we cease from sin, it is how we walk the way God wants us to. And so he gives the contrast, he says, "For the time that has past suffices for doing "what the Gentiles want to do." Now when it says, "Gentiles," it's meaning Godless people. Gentiles were anyone that wasn't a Jewish person. And so what he's pointing out is not specifically Gentiles, he's saying anyone doesn't have God, isn't walking with God. And want to do, saying this is the way they want to be. And then it says, "Living in sensualities, "passions, drunkenness," and what I did is I broke down what these things are. - [Jennifer] And how they're all related. - 'Cause they're specific. - Yeah, they're very specific, and I didn't realize that they were even related. I just thought it was one of those lists, you know? - [Aaron] Again, if you're listening and you have your Bible, the want to do part. Okay, it's want to live in sensuality, and passions, and drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry, right? And like you said, "Well see I don't "struggle with those things." And maybe someone like me that struggled with pornography might point out sensuality and passions like okay, yeah, but I've never done orgies, that's not me. But I wanna highlight that through Christ and his suffering and him giving us of his Holy Spirit we've been freed from the want to do, right? He's changing our desires to be his, he's giving us a hatred of sin because he hates sin. - [Jennifer] And I think in conjunction, the convictions become stronger and so we hear the Holy Spirit loud and clear when we go to do something that we shouldn't be doing, right? - [Aaron] Our prayer and constant desire should be that he's consistently giving us new desires and new cravings. I pray, "Lord, give me a craving for your Word." I don't naturally in my flesh have enough craving for God's Word, let alone reading. Sorry if you relate to that, reading's not something I just crave to do, but there's some people that love reading. But I want God to change those desires so the want to do is an amazing thing that God's freed us from that we're no longer slaves to sin. That's the want to do. - [Jennifer] We're not slaves to our flesh. - [Aaron] We're not slaves to our flesh, God severed that slavery with his Spirit. And now we can actually walk in that Spirit when we focus on that Spirit and we walk in his ways in his Word, that's how this works. So I'm gonna define some of these things. Sensuality, it's not just sexual. Our definition of sensuality is usually very sexual and this absolutely does mean sexual, sensuality. But it's not only sexual. Sexual's one sense. It's one sense being usually this physical pleasure. - [Jennifer] That's what comes to my mind when I think about it. - [Aaron] But sensuality in the biblical use is unbridled lust. Unbridled lust. This idea of lust, I see something, I take it. So think about your five senses, sensual, it's a sensation experience. You're looking for you five senses to be pleasured. I want my eyes to see the most beautiful things. - [Jennifer] Or whatever I want them to see. - [Aaron] Or whatever I want them to see. I want my hands to touch whatever is gonna make my mind feel good. - [Jennifer] I want my mouth to say whatever I feel. - [Aaron] Or taste, right? So you think about your five senses and sensuality is living to please your five senses with whatever pleases your five senses. That's what sensuality is. Often, sexual things encompass all of them, which is why it's usually accompanied with sensuality as a sexual thing because sexual things please pretty much all your senses. But food, music, all of these things, not that those things in themselves are sinful, I want everyone to clearly hear me. It's living in a way that you want your senses pleased. 'Cause that's the opposite of suffering. That's the opposite of suffering. It's living for pleasure in every sense. You want your five senses taken care of, and if anyone of them are hindered or hurt or suffer, you're not happy, and something's wrong, and God must be angry or I'm not close to God. - [Jennifer] And you can see this in the flesh when you feel the conviction of either someone saying something to you about something that you're doing or the Holy Spirit just does it and you feel defensive. You immediately wanna justify that thing that it's not that bad, or that it's this or that it's that and you become, you wanna fight for it. There's gotta be a way that I can still have this in my life. - [Aaron] Yeah, so example of this is you're doing something and you're not recognizing it, and a brother or sister in Christ comes up and says, "Hey, I noticed that you're talking a certain way "or you did this certain thing." And you're like, "Don't judge me, get out of my way." And you immediately feel like you've been judged or wronged or hurt. In reality, you're just getting checked in your spirit and your flesh doesn't like it. - [Jennifer] I also wanna be realistic, most people don't say, "Don't judge me." What they'll do is say, "Oh, okay," and then never talk to that person again. They don't even communicate. - [Aaron] Or say, "Well let's just agree to disagree instead of again, suffering the flesh, humbling yourself and saying, "Maybe there is something I need to grow on." - [Jennifer] Or, "Man, that recognition alone just hurt. "And I'm gonna walk in that for a little bit "and see where God wants to take it." - [Aaron] So I wanna read this, I read this from Wikipedia. It's the definition of hedonism, which by the way, is this idea of pleasure-centered living. Like I'm looking to please all my senses, hedonism. "And it's a school of thought," this is what Wikipedia says, "Hedonism is a school of thought "that argues pleasure and suffering "are the only components of well-being. "Ethical hedonism is the view that combines "hedonism with welfarist ethics, "which claim that what we should do depends exclusively on what effects "the well-being individuals have. "Ethical hedonists would defend "either increasing pleasure or reducing suffering "for all beings capable of experiencing them "or just reducing suffering." So think about that. It's as long as I'm not suffering, I'm happy. Or I wanna be pleasured, and if I can't have pleasure I just don't wanna suffer. Now I want everyone listening to think about that 'cause we have areas in our life, Jennifer and I, we were talking about this that we think this way. Like, "Oh, I'm good with all this as long as "I don't have to go without food for a day." Or "As long as I'm not gonna feel this pain over here "or I'm not gonna have to say no to my flesh in this area." Right, we all have this level of pleasure-centered focus or at least avoidance of suffering. That's what this idea of hedonism is. - [Jennifer] Basically if we're living to pleasure our five senses we can't possibly be pleasing or pleasuring God. - [Aaron] Exactly because he might ask us to do something that doesn't feel good. Right? - Yeah. - [Aaron] And so a litmus test is for us to ask ourselves in those situations when we feel like we're just, it doesn't feel good, something's going on, we're having this emotional, which I'm about to talk about, we can ask ourselves, am I trying to avoid letting my flesh suffer a little bit? Am I trying to avoid saying no to my flesh? - [Jennifer] Okay, so the next one is passions and when I think of the word, passions, I immediately think of things that I'm either passionate about or people who've said-- - [Aaron] It's usually a positive thing, yeah. - [Jennifer] "I'm just a passionate person." But yeah, it's usually a positive thing or maybe it has to do with extracurricular activities or something like that. But why don't you share more about that? - [Aaron] So passions, the definition of passions in the dictionary is essentially uncontrolled or emotional outbursts. It's this like passion outburst of anger, which the Bible says wrath is not good, "The wrath of man does not produce "the righteousness of God." And wrath is an uncontrolled, emotional outburst. Or uncontrollable sadness, or uncontrollable joy or happiness. I'm just trying to get whatever emotions these are, out. And what this idea is is someone who lives purely off their emotions. Like, "Oh, I'm not happy, so things are wrong." But you know what, you know how many stories there are in the Bible of people that, like a lot of David's songs or him not happy. Now they still end joyfully 'cause he knows who his Lord is and his Redeemer, but he's in the muck and the mire. He's in a cave, cold and scared, the emotional, passionate person who lives by their emotions would say, "David was doing something wrong because he wasn't happy," but that's not true. David was right where God had him, he was doing what he could do in God's will. Now I'm not saying emotions are bad. God's given us all of these things. Our senses are good things. Our passions, our emotions are good things, but these are fleshly things, meaning if they're the things that drive us and dictate us then the Spirit of God is not. - [Jennifer] Yeah, I was just gonna say if someone's motivated to maintain a certain emotion or are drawn out of their emotions to act, they can't serve their emotions and serve God. - [Aaron] A good example in Scripture says, "Be angry and do not sin." - [Jennifer] So that's a perfect example of having and experiencing an emotion-- - [Aaron] But not letting it control you. - [Jennifer] But not letting it control you and not acting out of it. - [Aaron] Yeah, you know how hard it is to love someone who is harming you or doing you wrong? But that's what Scripture calls us to do. - Because Christ did it. - Because Christ did it. So, there's things that our emotions will want us to do, wrath, outbursts, laughter, like lots of things. But God wants the Spirit to be in control, not our emotions. And I wanna add to this, often, so based on the sensuality things when our five senses aren't being met with what they want that's when our emotions react. I'm hungry, you know the whole term, "I'm hangry." So you're having a sense, one of your five senses not being taken care of. - [Jennifer] Your emotions heighten. - [Aaron] And so you let your emotions go to get what you want, right? That is not being in self-control. That is not walking by the Spirit, that's walking in the flesh. And so I broke these down all like this to show us that this way of being is not the way the believer should be. That doesn't mean we're not gonna fall into our emotions at times, we're not to be these emotionless robots. What happens is God's given us a way to walk in the Spirit, even amidst the heaviest emotional times. Like sadness and brokenness and fear, and we can walk in the Spirit in those things. - [Jennifer] Yeah, how do you submit those to God and walk righteously amidst feeling those really deep things? - [Aaron] So it all goes back to the, men, this is a universal doctrine that it doesn't matter where you're at, it doesn't matter what you're going through, God has given you the freedom and through the Spirit of God to rise above those things and to appropriate those emotions where they belong. In your sadness to go to God and weep before him. And he says, "I've bottled up every tear." So knowing that we can actually run to the Father, "I'm so angry right now, God, take my anger from me. "Show me how to not be angry with my wife, or my husband." - [Jennifer] My kids. - [Aaron] Or we can just handle it ourselves and let's just take that emotion, and let's just-- - Run with it. - Run with it. And what usually happens, and everyone's thinking about those things when they've let their emotions run, we regret it every time. And we look back and we say, "Well, that wasn't godly, "that was not what Christ would've done." - [Jennifer] Or "Man, I just wish I was different." When we can be, it's just the choices we're making. - [Aaron] So I wanna go on to the next part, which-- - [Jennifer] Feels like an obvious one. - Right, drunkenness. - Drunkenness. Well, it's not just intoxication though. - [Aaron] Well, you're right. - [Jennifer] It is, when you look up the definition, drunkenness, it's being intoxicated by something like alcohol. - [Aaron] Right, and this is clearly talking about no believer should get drunk. - [Jennifer] The Bible talks too much about being sober minded. - [Aaron] And not being drunk specifically. So I do wanna clarify I'm not saying this doesn't mean you can go get drunk. No believer should be getting drunk ever. - [Jennifer] All of these things mean what they are. They also have-- - Deeper spiritual meanings. - Deeper spiritual meanings that we can apply to address our sinful nature. - [Aaron] So let's talk about what drunkenness is. Yes, it's being drunk on alcohol or some sort of drug. Your mind, it's overtaken by something else, which is essentially what drunkenness is. You're allowing a substance, an external force to take over your flesh, that's what drunkenness is. You drink enough alcohol, what happens? The Bible talks about it, you start saying things you would never say out loud, you start acting a way you would never act. - [Jennifer] I always say that or associated it with the word uncontrolled, like that person's uncontrolled right now, but I never considered the aspect of it you actually being controlled by that thing that you just ingested. - [Aaron] Yeah, and I'll give an example, Proverbs 20, verse one says, "Wine is a mocker." So it's saying that the alcohol has an influence to cause you to mock. "Strong drink a brawler." Wants you to fight. All of these things are very fleshly things. "And whoever is led astray by it is not wise." So now nowhere in Scripture does it say you're not allowed to drink. Now some people will take it that way, and we're talking about alcohol so I'm just bringing it up. But 100% absolutely no believer should be getting drunk on anything. But the next thing I'm gonna talk about. And it says, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, "and whoever is led astray," so I've given myself over to this substance, this thing to now do what it wants with me. Like not as if it's a real person, but we have these basic, all these things that are talking about the flesh, we have these basic ways of being in the deep parts of us. - [Jennifer] It's the way he designed us, like he designed us to-- - [Aaron] But he wants it under control. Not let go of. And so the other part I wanna say is in Ephesians five, 18 it says, "Do not get drunk "with wine," again there's a direct command, don't get drunk with wine, "For that is debauchery. "But be filled with the Spirit." So it's saying, don't let your flesh go by letting it be overtaken with wine, alcohol, other substances, but be filled with the Spirit of God. - [Jennifer] This also shows that deeper spiritual meaning of what we're trying to show here when you talk about drunkenness because drunken by the Spirit, that sounds weird, but it's because of that deeper meaning that we're talking about. - [Aaron] And at the base level of what drunkenness is, it's literally the removal of the natural functions that God's put in us, that inhibition in us, that conscience, that ability and restraint that is naturally in us to like, maybe there's something I wanna say, but I'm not gonna say it 'cause that's not appropriate. You're drunk and it just comes out of your mouth. So what you're doing is you're living in the sensuality way you want all your senses met, you're living with your emotions and then you wanna be drunk and you want to release the natural built in barriers that God's given you to protect you from doing or saying-- - [Jennifer] Sinful things. - [Aaron] Yeah, things that don't honor you, don't honor others, don't honor God. And so again, it's like this, I wanna just let it all out, I don't want any control, it's the exact opposite of self-control. It's no control. Which then leads us into the awkward one, orgies. - [Jennifer] Which everybody's thinking sexual experience. - [Aaron] Which again, it means that. - [Jennifer] It is, but it also means more than that. - [Aaron] Right, if you look at orgies at the base idea of what an orgy is, it's overindulgence. So all the things we just talked about, it's doing all of it without restraint. - [Jennifer] Yeah, no barriers, no limitations, as long as you want, as much as you want. - [Aaron] Yeah, oh and that was another good donut. - [Jennifer] That was a good box of donuts. - [Aaron] Those two boxes of donuts were amazing, right, but of course I would feel gross after that. Or alcohol, like alcoholics, they don't restrain themselves. And we're talking about these things that go in the mouth, but think about anything. Anything in your life that you don't want any restraint on. - [Jennifer] So it's overindulgence, and it's giving into your flesh, and you're never satisfied, you're never satiated. - [Aaron] Yeah, when you're in the flesh-- - It's never enough. - The flesh never has enough. You know who says this, Solomon says it in Ecclesiastes one, eight. It says, "All things are full of weariness, "a man cannot utter it. "The eye is not satisfied with seeing, "nor the ear filled with hearing." - [Jennifer] Okay so just that made me think of the porn industry. They get hooked at an early age, but then it's not enough to gratify what their eye is seeing, so it gets worse and worse, deeper and deeper into these things that are just wicked. - [Aaron] And worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. - [Jennifer] And still yet never satisfied. - [Aaron] And this is like the exact opposite of what Christ wants for us. In that verse it says, "The time has past that suffices," means we've done enough of this. Literally he's saying that we have freedom from this unsatisfied, never ending cycle. - [Jennifer] Well, what did Christ say to the woman at the well? - [Aaron] Oh, yeah, so the woman comes to him and she asks for water and he says, "If you would ask me I would have given you water "that you would never thirst again." And she says, "Where's this water, give it to me." - [Jennifer] So it's this contrast of allow your flesh to rule you and never be satisfied or walk in the Spirit and be who you are in Christ with freedom and be completely satisfied. - [Aaron] Right, and Christ, God wants us to be satisfied in him alone. And so when we walk in the flesh, like this idea of orgies it's like I just wanna go somewhere that's gonna give me everything I want and as much of it as I can. And this is not the way of the believer. We are satisfied, completely satisfied in Christ. And so this was a historical note, I saw when looking up this idea of orgies, which I did very carefully by the way. - [Jennifer] Which if you think about that. - [Aaron] Yeah, and historically the word comes from, it's a Greek word, orgia or something like that, but what it was was it was a ritual, secret rites used to worship a Roman god. And the Roman god was the god of grapes and vines and caused men to be crazy. So it's this idea of when we have this way of being, we're like, "I just wanna go and I wanna throw "all my inhibition out, and I wanna drink, "and I wanna eat, and I wanna have fun, "and I want my five senses pleased, "and I wanna just be happy." You're literally worshiping something other than God. That's this idea when you walk in the flesh in this way. So we're gonna go to the next one, there's two more, we're almost done. Drinking parties, and this idea of drinking parties is exactly what it says, these parties that you're just going to get drunk. - [Jennifer] Again, in reading the list in Scripture I skip over 'cause I go, "Well, I'm not doing that." - [Aaron] But the deeper idea is parties meaning multiple, meaning many others, meaning you're inviting others to partake in all of this way of being. That's the way that the people that don't know God, the Bible says, "Don't associate with the wicked "for they can't even seep until they've caused bloodshed "or until they've caught people in their snare." Like these ideas of drawing others into the same way of living fleshly. - [Jennifer] And it can be as simple as you're sitting in a room full of friends and you start gossiping. The invitations can be subtle, but I think that the reason people do it is because they don't want to do it alone, they don't want to be alone in their sin. They're seeking approval so if I can get so and so to do it along with me, then there's this sense of approval that it's okay. Or maybe wrestling with the shame and guilt that comes with sin that you wanna forget about and so you have others join in, I mean there's a lot of different reasons why. - [Aaron] Well, I'll give a great example in my own life, and it's something I'm not proud of, but when I was deep into pornography, and I would meet new men in churches there were pastors or they were like older or wiser and deep down inside either I thought, "There's no way that he's not addicted to pornography "just like me," or I hoped that he was because I didn't want to be the only one. And I thought, "No, every single one "of these guys does too." - It's so broken. - It's so broken. So in my mind, this drinking parties idea, this idea of like, "Oh, we're in this together. "He's a sinner like me and he does the same things as I do, "and I actually hoped he did." - [Jennifer] I think this is a good time to caution us to evaluate ourselves. Are we inviting others to partake in sin that maybe we're not recognizing as sin or we've pushed away that conviction from the Holy Spirit and let's ask God this week, "What areas of my life "have I been inviting people to partake "in with me that aren't righteous?" - [Aaron] Well, it first takes that self-evaluation of like, "God, is there anything "in me that you want out of me?" A good example in the marriage, do you remember when we were going through financial stuff? I would let you spend the way we probably shouldn't spend knowing that it would let me spend the way I wanted to spend. - [Jennifer] Right, 'cause then when you would request something I would have to say yes. - [Aaron] Because I'd be like, "Well, I let you get your thing." And essentially we were just pulling each other down. - [Jennifer] That's really good. So in marriage that's often where the invitation starts. - [Aaron] Keyword, drinking party. Don't invite me, just kidding. - [Jennifer] Don't invite me. - [Aaron] Last thing, lawless idolatry. Everything we just walked through is lawless idolatry and here's why. It's self-worship. - [Jennifer] Yeah, how I feel, what I want-- - [Aaron] Is god. - [Jennifer] Well, it should be God. - [Aaron] No, what I was saying is what you feel and what you want is god, is your god. - [Jennifer] Right, is your god. But what we should be saying is-- - [Aaron] "God, what you want." "God, do you want me to be hungry right now?" And I keep talking about these physical things because this is the idea. - [Jennifer] Well, that's where it starts. - [Aaron] We are to be spiritual people. Jesus told the woman at the well that same story. She's talking about where they worship 'cause she was a Samaritan, he's a Jew and he says, "There's gonna be a day "that you will neither worship there or here, "but my people worship me in spirit and in truth." Not worshiping in passions and sensuality and as Jude says, and that happens even in the church. I'm gonna worship God with my senses, and if I don't sense God and feel God, and my senses aren't being met and pleasured by the Spirit of God then I must be far from God. But you know what, there's many people in the Bible that were in the pit. I think of Paul, and he's singing worship songs, naked and cold in prison. In that moment most people would be like, "I don't feel close to God. "He's not helping me, this doesn't feel good." But Paul knew exactly who his savior was and he knew that what he was dealing with as he says in Scripture, he says, "For I have ascertained that my current suffering "is nothing to be compared with the coming glory." What that means is that this temporary suffering, the little bit of saying no in my flesh, the little bit of pain that I feel, the little bit of depraving of my own desires for the sake of God's will and God's thing that he wants done in my life and in others is so little to be compared with the glory that I'm gonna experience when he returns. - [Jennifer] Which is a hopeful message for us as Christians. We should hear that and be like, "Yes, we're in agreeance here." We should be willing to suffer, and this is why suffering in the flesh is good for us. - [Aaron] Yeah, and a lot of people don't like talking about suffering, but this again is a universal doctrine that Christians should understand and walk in that my flesh does not get to win in my life. - [Jennifer] And when we feel those convictions from the Holy Spirit going day to day, whatever it might be, when you don't tell yourself no, you're putting yourself in a place of worship that you should not be in. You're idolizing yourself, you're saying, "God, I'm more important that you." - [Aaron] My comfort's more important that your will. My pleasure's more important that your Word. And so each one of these is like this progress of worshiping self verses Creator. Worshiping the creation rather than the Creator. My comfort, my pleasures, my senses are much more important than what God's doing in my life. - [Jennifer] A dangerous place to be. - [Aaron] And a good example of this is the reason why many people have a hard time getting out of debt or quitting certain addictions or making life changes is because that's too difficult for my flesh to handle, even though God's like, "But I'm gonna "give you the strength to do it." - [Jennifer] Yeah, I think too, just to shed a little bit more perspective on this idea of suffering, I think sometimes we only go so far to see what we would suffer in the midst of saying no to our flesh. So like it's that little bit of-- - [Aaron] "I tried." - [Jennifer] Yeah, but we see what suffering equals when we say no to our flesh, but we don't look beyond that to see what suffering looks like when we don't say no to our flesh, the consequences, the hurt, the pain, the death, the sin that comes. - [Aaron] The shame. - [Jennifer] Because of the choices that we make. And that's what all of this, of what we're talking about today comes down to choice. You're gonna choose to walk in the Spirit or you're gonna choose to gratify the desires of the flesh. - [Aaron] And you know what believer, you're listening to this? - [Jennifer] You have been set free. - [Aaron] Yeah, you're not a slave to sin and death. We can choose to walk in the Spirit that God's given us. He dwells in us, giving life to our mortal bodies. How amazing is that? So this isn't a go suffer and find your righteousness through just self-depravity and self-abasement. That's not what we're talking about. There are some faiths and some religions that believe that. If you just make yourself suffer enough, you'll be righteous. Now the point is we're already righteous, and the way a righteous person walks with the Spirit of God is we don't gratify the desires of our flesh. And when we do, we recognize it, we repent, and we say, "Thank you, Lord, for forgiving me. "And give me your power to walk better next time "to beat that thing that is in my life "because you have beat it on the cross." - [Jennifer] Amen, so here's the charge for us this week and forever. And it's that first part of that verse that you started us off with there and it's, "Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh," our Christ, our Lord, our Savior suffered in the flesh, "Arm yourself with the same way of thinking." We have to think like him. - [Aaron] This current fleshly body we live in is temporary and the simplest way to put this is Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me." The cross is the instrument of the death of our flesh. So let's crawl up on that cross and let's take it with us and let's ask the Holy Spirit, "Lord, teach me. "Teach me how to say no to my flesh "when it craves things that are in opposition to you." Some of us struggle with pride, I just wanna throw that one in there, that's a flesh thing. That's pride, that's the flesh wanting to be elevated and recognized, rather than humbled and God being recognized. So we always end in prayer. Jennifer, why don't you pray for us? - [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for your Word and how it cuts us to the heart. Thank you for teaching us through your Word. We pray your Word would continue to transform us as we learn it and choose to walk out all that you've commanded us to. We pray we would be people who recognize parts of our hearts that need to change, sin that needs to be repented of, motivations that are not pure, and actions that do not reflect your ways for the purpose of repentance and reconciliation and growth may your will be done in us and through us, may your light shine brightly through our marriages as we encourage one another to draw closer to you. In Jesus's name, amen. - [Aaron] Amen, we love you guys, and we thank you for joining us this week. Please consider leaving us a review and a star rating. You just gotta go to the bottom of your podcast app and tap one of those stars and leave a review, we love those, and they help other people find the episodes, find the podcast. And also don't forget to get the free Marriage Prayer Challenge, MarriagePrayerChallenge.com. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also if you're interested you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at MarriageAfterGod.com. And let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, we thought it would be fun to share some gift ideas to help inspire you. All of the gifts we share in this episode are things that we love and use often.ONE QUICK NOTE: If you are trying to get out of debt we suggest skipping gifts for a while. Instead, find free ways to bless each other and show your spouse your are thinking of them. We never want to promote spending when we can't or shouldn't. PRAYER:Dear Lord,Thank you for being the ultimate gift giver. Thank You for the gift of marriage. We pray our hearts would be pure in the way we give gifts to each other. We pray we would be thoughtful in the ways we give to each other. Help us to study and know our spouse well enough to give them gifts we know they will love. More than giving good gifts, we pray our love would be genuine and deep and extraordinary as we pursue intimacy with each other. Grow our love for one another….In Jesus’ name, amen! READ THE TRANSCRIPT- [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with "Marriage After God." - [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. - [Aaron] And today we're gonna share some unique Valentine's Day gift ideas for your spouse. Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. - [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. - [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. - [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. - [Aaron] And so far we have four young children. - [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. - [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. - [Jennifer] We believe the Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life-- - [Aaron] Love-- - [Jennifer] And power-- - [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. - [Jennifer] Together. - [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. - [Jennifer] This is "Marriage After God." - [Aaron] Hey, welcome back to another episode of the "Marriage After God" podcast. This is the second episode in season three of the "Marriage After God" podcast, and it's gonna be a fun one. We're gonna talk about gift ideas and Valentine's Day, and these are fun episodes that we get to do. It's just to become a resource for you to help you in stuff that you guys are trying to pursue with each other. But before we begin today, I just wanna check in with my wife. How are you doing? - [Jennifer] I'm doing good, I'm doing better, I should say. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [Jennifer] I don't know if people can hear it in my voice, I-- - [Aaron] She hasn't stopped laughing for 15 minutes. - [Jennifer] It's been really hard, guys. We went to go record this episode and I could not stop laughing. Something was hysterical but really it was nothing, and that made it even funnier. - [Aaron] And I'm sitting over here not laughing. - [Jennifer] Though I think it's spiritual because we're trying to record. I couldn't stop, but I finally got my bearings and I'm here, and I'm excited to do this with you, Aaron. - [Aaron] Yeah, so, me too, now. It's the second week of the year, 2020, new decade. How do you think things are going? I know it's new, but. - [Jennifer] Yes, I would say so far, so good. I mean, I'm still looking forward to this year. I think one thing that I've already been noticing is that I have this hopefulness to savor this year so that it doesn't feel like it flies by super fast. - [Aaron] Yeah, 2019 felt like it went really fast. - [Jennifer] Really fast. - [Aaron] Every time I looked at the calendar, I was like, wait a minute, we're in the third quarter. What's going on? - [Jennifer] Yeah, how is this already possible? So I'm hoping that this year just is a slow year for us and for our family. - [Aaron] Yeah. Well, seeing our kids grow up also. - [Jennifer] It breaks my heart, really. - [Aaron] It feels like it's going way too fast. - [Jennifer] Why do they have to grow up every year? If they skipped a year, it'd be cool. - [Aaron] I actually think time is going by faster 'cause when I was kid, I remember time feeling like it was going so slow. - [Jennifer] Playing in the backyard for hours. - [Aaron] And then people say when you get older, time flies or goes faster. But we even asked our kids, and my son Elliott, he was like, "Dad, why does it feel like every day goes by so fast?" So my son-- - [Jennifer] Even feels that. - [Aaron] Is even feeling time go by fast, so I'm wondering if there's something to that. Maybe the earth is spinning faster or something like that, I don't know. - [Jennifer] There's still 24 hours in a day. - [Aaron] Yeah, just real quick, what is something you're looking forward to in 2020? I know that there's stuff around our house that you like to do. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so specifically this week, I'm really excited to prune our trees. When we moved into this house, it was kind of bare ground in the sense that we got to do whatever we wanted with it and we decided, on the side of our house, we had this space. I really wanted to plant a little mini orchard. So if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see pictures of it throughout the seasons. - [Aaron] We've got some apples, we've got some peaches. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and I've never been able, I've never really had the opportunity to cultivate fruit trees before. I really don't know what I'm doing, thank you YouTube and friends who share their information with me. But I've just learned kind of the art of pruning and I practice it, and January's my time to practice. And so this week I'm gonna get out there. I use pruning to shape the trees and also to keep them, to keep their form small because our backyard is small. - [Aaron] Yeah, we don't want them to get huge. We wanna keep them small trees. - [Jennifer] But also, though, pruning stimulates growth which is exciting, so it's kind of like-- - [Aaron] It's almost biblical. - [Jennifer] It is biblical, which I also love that whole thing about that. - [Aaron] Yeah, and you've been loving doing it. It's therapeutic for you. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so even in the summertime, I'm actually looking forward to January 'cause I think, oh I get to prune my trees again. - [Aaron] Yeah, and we also get to see the fruit that comes from it, literally. Like literally fruit grow on these trees. Something that I'm looking forward to doing this year, and I'm trying to do, I've already implemented it already. I bought a journal for each one of my kids and I'm gonna, we did this parenting class a couple months ago and I felt convicted that I'm not taking time to study my children. And that sounds intense, but I'm not taking time to just evaluate the things that they like, the things that they say, how they act. - [Jennifer] What they're going through. - [Aaron] What they're going through, yeah. Evaluating their spiritual, where they're at spiritually, where they're at in their heart and emotionally, and even physically. So I'm just, I don't know how exactly I'm gonna do it. I started doing it, I'm just writing notes down in a journal about each kid. - [Jennifer] But I have to, I was gonna say, I have to explain this whole, what happened, because you didn't tell me that you were gonna be doing this and he's unboxing these journals on the bed. And I didn't know they were journals at first. I just saw these different colors. - [Aaron] She's like, "What are you doing?" - [Jennifer] I'm all, "Are those Christmas presents?" 'cause this was just a couple weeks ago. And I thought they were a part of all the other gifts that were coming in from Amazon. And he goes, "Oh, they're journals for the kids "and each one," and he holds up the yellow one. And I'm like, "Is that for Wyatt?" and he goes, "Yup," 'cause yellow, Wyatt calls himself the yellow boy, yeah he likes yellow. And you got a pinkish purple one for Olive. - [Aaron] A blue one for Elliott. - [Jennifer] And I think a gray one for Truett. - [Aaron] Yeah, oh I think that's backwards. I think the gray one's for Elliott and blue one's for Truett. - [Jennifer] Okay. And so he's putting them on his shelf and he's like, "You know, I just, I really feel "like I need to study my kids," and my heart sank in a good way. It was such a beautiful picture of a dad's heart for his children and something I never even thought to do myself. - [Aaron] You do have a journal for the kids, though. - [Jennifer] I write to them, though. - [Aaron] You write them letters. - [Jennifer] I write them letters and prayers, and it's quarterly, so I don't do it all the time. But this is different. This is a way for you to get to know them in a very deep and personal way, and to keep your eyes on them. And I just, I was blown away by that. And so I'm really excited for you and jumping into this, even though I know you're still figuring out what it's gonna look like. - [Aaron] Yeah, and I'm not doing it every day. My intention originally was to do it every day. And I'm like, okay, I can't do that. - [Jennifer] We got a lot of kids. - [Aaron] Yeah, but when I think about it, I'm gonna pull them out and I'm gonna write down observations of my children in it. And so it's not necessarily for them, it's for me. But one day they'll probably read it and they'll learn a little bit about themselves, probably. Okay, cool. So I just wanna encourage everyone that's listening to download a free thing that we came up with for you guys. It's called "52 Date Night Conversation Starters". It's an e-book that we made for you. And the point of it was to inspire your date life. We have a whole episode talking about date nights and putting it on the calendar, and you should go check that out. We're real huge advocates for having a scheduled date night. - [Jennifer] We're also huge advocates for conversations and communicating well with your spouse, which is why we've combined these two. And we wanted to give you something that would stimulate those really good conversations during date night. - [Aaron] Yeah, so you go to DateNightConversations.com, all one word. And you can download it for free, just give us your email address and boom, you'll have that PDF. And what you do is you can print it out. And there's one for every week of the year. And so the encouragement is, hey go on a date every week. And what's awesome is that you're gonna have a conversation about something deep. Why don't you give some examples? - [Jennifer] I was gonna say, so that's your freebie. But here's your freebie. This is for everyone listening. We're gonna give you three sample questions that you could ask on the date night. This is what you would get if you were to sign up for this. So the first one is, I thank God for our life together because. - [Aaron] Dot, dot, dot. - [Jennifer] So you get to answer that. - [Aaron] Yeah, and then you spend the time, while you're eating or getting a dessert, or going for a walk or whatever, and talk about that question. - [Jennifer] So the next one is, is there any part of my work routine that is negatively impacting our marriage or our family? So I feel like this is a really good one to kind of evaluate, where are we at, what's going on, and what can I contribute to this by sharing my heart with you? - [Aaron] Right, and if work routine doesn't work in both roles, you could say routine. Is there anything during my day that I do regularly that maybe needs to be massaged, moved around, cut out all together? - [Jennifer] Yeah, and the recommendation is that you guys ask each other the same question. - [Aaron] Exactly. Number three is, if we envision ourselves in our 90s, sitting on the porch in matching rocking chairs, if you would look over at me and say, "I wish we," - [Jennifer] Dot, dot, dot. - [Aaron] Yeah, so it's this idea that, why don't you transport yourself to 90 years from now, or when you're 90, and then ask yourself what you would have been doing today. That's kind of the idea. But these are fun, creative, there's 52 of them. This is just three of the 52. So we wanna encourage you to go get that DateNightConversations.com. Completely free, go download that. - [Jennifer] All right, today's topic is unique gift ideas for him and her on Valentine's Day. And the reason we wanted to bring this up is 'cause in just a few weeks, everyone around the world is gonna be celebrating Valentine's Day. Not everyone, but you know, a lot of people. - [Aaron] Not in some countries. I don't even know who celebrates it, but, lots of people. - [Jennifer] My point is this, it's gonna be in our faces. It's gonna be everywhere. And we just thought we'd give it some thought beforehand because if you're like Aaron and I, getting inspired is key for gift giving in marriage. - [Aaron] Yeah, and can I be a little honest about my disposition towards Valentine's Day? - [Jennifer] Quickly, go. - [Aaron] Okay, I'm just gonna be quick. - [Jennifer] Hold on, let me cover my ears. - [Aaron] I'm not a huge fan of feeling obligated to give gifts, and I feel like sometimes certain holidays do that. That's not to say if you love doing this, and you love the holiday, don't listen to me. But if you're kinda like me, then don't feel like this podcast is for you, necessarily. Or maybe it might inspire you and you won't feel like I feel sometimes. I'm just being honest, sometimes I feel. But I've had to, I've been challenged by people in my life to not take it as an obligation, but take it as an opportunity. - [Jennifer] Opportunity, I like that. Also, I just wanna encourage those of you who are listening and maybe you're not married yet, that you can use these gift ideas for a significant other in your life. Maybe you're dating or-- - [Aaron] Or a family member, maybe. - [Jennifer] Or a fiance. - [Aaron] Or a friend that's also single with you. That's a good idea. - [Jennifer] Okay, so gift giving is actually an art. I think it is. I don't think I'm very good at it. - [Aaron] Some people are gifted at it, for sure. - [Jennifer] When I think about how I give gifts, sometimes I'm so embarrassed because my wrapping skills are off the charts terrible. - [Aaron] Your rapping skills, like rhymes, or wrapping? - [Jennifer] No, like wrapping paper. - [Aaron] But that sometimes makes the gift even better, the way you wrap it. - [Jennifer] I always opt for the bag and tissue 'cause I don't like, I can make it look cool without having to do much work. - [Aaron] Yeah, and it is an art form. Some people are really gifted at it naturally. They're just so thoughtful in the way that they give gifts. And some of us aren't that way. So sometimes we just need to be inspired with ideas. That's kinda the point of this podcast. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so Aaron and I, why don't we just share a little bit of our experience of giving gifts in marriage and what that journey's been like. - [Aaron] I've tried to be really creative over the years, and some of them hit big, some of them flopped. And it's not necessarily that you didn't like the gifts, they're just, they're different, the way that they are received and the intention behind it versus how it actually turns out. - [Jennifer] Yeah, I'd also say it depends on what's going on in that season of life that that gift is given because one of the things I'm gonna share later, I'll point it out later 'cause I don't wanna give it away yet, but it was very significant to the season of life I was in. It stood out to me more. - [Aaron] And we've done all sorts of things. Sometimes we don't give gifts on certain days. Sometimes we do experiences, we do things together. - [Jennifer] Sometimes we just look over at each other when the time is coming and we go, "We're not doing gifts, right?" - [Aaron] And we're like, "No, no gifts. "Promise me you're not gonna." - [Jennifer] If we're on the same page, it's good. If we're not on the same page or haven't talked about it, then feelings-- - [Aaron] Remember, conversations. We talk about these things. - [Jennifer] I was gonna say, there have been times where I've felt a little neglected or left out. I don't know if you ever have, but sometimes you look at an opportunity and maybe you didn't get something you expected to get or desired to get. - [Aaron] Yeah, and we weren't gonna talk about this, but I do wanna just encourage anyone that, a day like Valentine's Day shouldn't be an opportunity for us to feel neglected. - [Jennifer] Or hurt. - [Aaron] Or hurt. Let's not let it turn into that. If it goes the other way and it's an opportunity to bless and love, and to enjoy a moment together and time together, but let's not let it do the other thing. Let's be above that as Christians. - [Jennifer] 'Cause it comes out in our responses. - [Aaron] It does. And we make expectations and criteria that don't necessarily need to be there and we can put burdens and obligations on our spouse or on our fiance that doesn't need to be there. So let's be above that. Let's take the opportunity to maybe use it as an opportunity to bless and love your spouse. But let's not let it do the opposite. - [Jennifer] That's good. And I just wanna make a note that our ability, Aaron, to give gifts to each other has really grown over time because as we get to know each other more, 'cause we're always getting to know each other. And we recognize the things that inspire us or things that we're learning about and we give gifts based off of those things. It's been really thoughtful. - [Aaron] Thank you. - [Jennifer] And then other times, just the thoughtfulness of bringing your spouse their favorite candy. Sometimes even those moments can stand out because they're like, "They know me." That feels good to be known in that way. - [Aaron] And you've done that, you know I like candy. I don't eat it all the time, but. - [Jennifer] Aaron's an easy gift receiver. - [Aaron] I'm easy to shop for, I would say. 'Cause I don't ask for much, just candy. - [Jennifer] Just candy. - [Aaron] Good & Plentys, to be specific, so if anyone out there wants to get me candy, or Hot Tamales. Okay, I just wanna do one quick note before another quick note. - [Jennifer] How many quick notes do we got? - [Aaron] Lots of quick notes. We don't want this to, we're not gonna try to over spiritualize this. We didn't grab a bunch of scriptures to be like, "See how powerful gift giving can be?" To be honest, we just wanted to have fun with this and give you some gift ideas. And I think it'd be wrong of us to try and turn this into a overly spiritual, here's the rules on how to give gifts. We just wanted to give you some ideas, things that we've loved, things that we've used. And you can take them or leave them. I think it'll just be a simple fun episode. - [Jennifer] Another quick note is that if you're trying to get out of debt, we suggest skipping gifts for a while. Instead, find free ways to bless each other and show your spouse you're thinking of them. And I'll just give you a handful right here. DIY gifts with materials you already have. Using a talent like drawing, I did this before. I think it was for Christmas. I drew you a picture of us kissing. And it was a really small five by seven, I framed it, it was cute. - [Aaron] I think we have it somewhere still. - [Jennifer] Yeah, I do, it's in the mudroom. - [Aaron] Oh yeah, oh yeah. - [Jennifer] I cherish it. - [Aaron] No it's just somewhere I don't ever see. But I like it. Yeah, writing a note, a song, a poem. Those things have deep meaning. But again, the reason I wanted to bring this up is because I don't want anyone to think that we're advocating you should go spend money you don't have. Or that you should spend money when you're trying to get out of debt. Valentine's Day is just another day. It might be an opportunity to give a gift, but you don't have to. - [Jennifer] We're actually bigger advocates for getting out debt than we are to give gifts. - [Aaron] That's the best gift. - [Jennifer] Get out of debt. - [Aaron] Spouses get out of debt, yeah. So yeah, and real quick, some of our favorite gifts we've received, my favorite thing that I pretty much received is whenever Jennifer has done some sort of special event with me. Either planning a birthday party, which she's done a couple times, or planned a guy's hangout time. She's like, "Hey, I've already set it up. "Here's your friends. "You guys are going here, go hang out, go have fun." Those kinds of things have been really special for me. She knows that I love being around people. - [Jennifer] He's so social, you guys. - [Aaron] And Jennifer would love to sit on the couch with me and not do anything. So for her to set something up like that, which makes her not be with me, and gives me time to go be with friends is a huge thing for me. And so those have always been really special to me. And what's been special to you, gifts that we've given? - [Jennifer] Well the first thing that comes to my mind is all my children, each one of them are a gift. - [Aaron] You're right. - [Jennifer] Do you love me for that? - [Aaron] Couldn't have done it without me. - [Jennifer] Okay, so the gift that I was thinking about earlier that was very significant to my season of life and it just stands out to me, was Mother's Day 2015. It was just a couple, maybe a week and a half after I had Olive, and there was a little bag sitting on the table for me for Mother's Day. And I opened it up and it was a pendant with an O on it for Olive to match my E that I had for Elliott. So it was one of those-- - [Aaron] You have a necklace that has, you put little letter pendants on it. - [Jennifer] And it was so thoughtful. It was something I hadn't asked for, which I think that would be my big thing. Is when you give me a surprise or a gift of something that I never requested or asked for, but you know me and you did it because you love me. Those are the kinds of gifts that really stand out to me. Those are my favorite. - [Aaron] And I know that about you. - [Jennifer] That's good. - [Aaron] That you, here's a little quick tip for all the husbands. Just listen to your wife and she'll tell you what she wants throughout the year and you just write them all down and then pick one of them. And they'll be surprised 'cause they'll forget that they said it, but you won't. - [Jennifer] But it won't sound like a request. It'll just be like a nonchalant, "Oh I really like this." Or, "I really love that." - [Aaron] "And I wish I had a--" Or, "I've always wanted one of those." That's how they come out. - [Jennifer] We try and be subtle. - [Aaron] All right, hey let's just get into some of these gift ideas. We're first gonna give ideas for the men. - [Jennifer] So all the men have to close their ears, right? - [Aaron] No. Or they could listen. - [Jennifer] Sorry guys, this is kinda like giving it away but not. - [Aaron] So these are all things that I use and have really enjoyed. They're not necessarily gifts that Jennifer's gotten for me, but I'm putting them out there as, hey this would be great because I've loved them and I think other men would love them. I'm gonna start off with my ESV Heirloom Study Bible. It's made out of goat skin, it's all black, it's huge. I love it, I never thought I'd love this big of a bible, but I really love it. And it's pricey, right now it's on Amazon for 217 bucks, where it's usually $375, so it's actually like a hundred bucks off, over a hundred bucks off. - [Jennifer] Also just a quick side note that these prices could change, depending on when you're listening to this episode. If you're not listening to it at the weekly launch, prices can change. - [Aaron] Yeah, we have no clue. I have no control over the price. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and this goes for everything that we list. - [Aaron] Yeah, I also wanna give a note, we're not being sponsored by any of these people. These are things that we actually have used and loved and enjoyed. I love this bible. It's got 20,000 plus study notes in it. It's got 80,000 plus cross references. Over 200 charts, 50 plus articles, and 240 full color maps and illustrations which I really love because they'll show you an illustration of the temple right in the middle of a chapter when it's talking about a temple. So you get this picture, and you're like whoa, and you see the temple, and it visualizes what you're reading. - [Jennifer] There's something else it has that you've left off and I just know this because I like this feature about your bible. The different ribbon. - [Aaron] It's got four ribbons. - [Jennifer] Instead of just one. - [Aaron] And I use them, actually. When I teach at church, I have all the ribbons in the spots that I'm trying to jump to. - [Jennifer] And it's really great because sometimes I don't want to move my ribbon because I want it there for a reason, but I wish I had another one, so I end up sticking a napkin or something. - [Aaron] Yeah, something in there. - [Jennifer] Something, whatever's closest to me, a business card, so I like that feature. - [Aaron] Yeah, it's ESV, I love the ESV translation. It's an amazing bible, it's beautiful too, when you look at it. I know it's expensive, but I wanted to put a note out there. We spend money on lots of other less important things. Why not spend some money on an heirloom family bible that you're gonna hand down to your kids? Just a thought. The second thing is a wallet. Not any wallet, this is a special wallet. It's by a company called Saddleback Leather. And it's awesome. I've had this wallet since 2014. - [Jennifer] Just to clarify, it's not a dad wallet. So a dad wallet is about five-- - [Aaron] It's not this 14 inch dad wallet. - [Jennifer] That has everything. But it's more compact and it's simple, and it's perfect. - [Aaron] It's made out of genuine leather. It's hand stitched. This thing's beautiful. Saddleback Leather has what they call a hundred year warranty. It's like a lifetime warranty, but it's way better 'cause it's called a hundred year warranty. If anything happens, if the threading comes off, if the leather starts to tear, they'll replace it, no questions asked. - [Jennifer] And it's not the kind that folds open. What you have is just a single kind of billfold. - [Aaron] Yeah, they call it a front pocket wallet. It's a single thing and it's got these slots. And it's got an open pocket for the ID. And so it doesn't fold open. It literally just stays really compact, really small. And it lasts forever. I've had this since 2014. It's got a few, it's really worn down, really nice and soft. I love this wallet. It keeps me from having too much stuff in my wallet, as well because it only can hold so much. I wish you could see it. I'm holding it right now in my hands. Go check it out though, go to SaddlebackLeather.com, SaddlebackLeather.com, and check it out. It's 49 bucks, it's super cheap actually, 'cause I've seen prices on other wallets and they're really expensive. But for how long this lasts, for the quality of it, for how it feels, for how small it is, I think it's an awesome gift idea for any guy. Unless you're the kind of guy that loves their super thick wallet. Number three, and this goes back to, remember we were talking about the journals I bought to write in for my kids. This is by a company called Baron Fig. Baron, B-A-R-O-N F-I-G, Baron Fig. And they're called the confident hardcover notebook. And these notebooks, they did a lot of research on what people are looking for in a notebook. It lays flat, the way the paper feels, the thickness of the paper, the way the pens write on the paper. Everything about it has been manufactured to fit perfectly what you would want in a journal. - [Jennifer] And you've been using them for years. - [Aaron] For years, when I buy a journal, I buy one of theirs. They range from $12 to 22 bucks. Their standard size one, I think it's like $17 or $14. It's not expensive at all. And they ship really fast. They've got 100 and something pages in it. They're just great journals. I use them all the time, I have a couple in my desk right here. Their largest one, I use as my bible study journal and they lay perfectly flat. You just open it up, it lays flat on the table. It doesn't have to, the pages don't bend or anything like that. It's called Baron Fig confident hardcover notebook. Those are awesome. And those are all the journals I bought to write for my kids in it. Number four, this is a little bit more pricey of an item, but-- - [Jennifer] Like much more pricier. - [Aaron] It's much more pricey, but man, this has got some major benefits to your wife. - [Jennifer] It's true. - [Aaron] So wives that are listening, it's not just a gift for your husband. This is a gift for you and you'll see why. It's my Traeger smoker, it's a grill where you can smoke pretty much anything you want on it. And how often do you think I use my smoker? - [Jennifer] At least once, but even sometimes up to three times a week. It just depends on what it's for, what's going on. - [Aaron] Pretty much every Sunday, I bring something smoked to church. I smoke a tri tip, or a brisket. That's kind of something I love to bring to church for our after church potluck. And so my church benefits from it even, too. I'm selling this pretty hard. I love my smoker. But they range from anywhere from 400 to $900, a smoker grill. - [Jennifer] And Traeger's just one brand. - [Aaron] Trager's one brand, they're not the cheapest brand but they're super high quality. It's the one I have. But there's tons of other brands. There's one called Green Mountain. They have pretty affordable models. They're a great brand. Another one is Pit Boss. Camp Chef is one of the top of the line brands that are out there. And then while doing my research on this, there's a really affordable brand called Z Grills and yeah, you should expect to pay between 400 and $900. But man, we get a lot of use out of this thing. I use it all the time. There's nights that Jennifer's like, "Are you gonna be--" - [Jennifer] What sides should I make? - [Aaron] Yeah, "What sides am I making, "'cause you're smoking some pork." Or we're smoking some chicken, we use it all the time. And the flavor you get in the meat is just so good. Anyways, I love my smoker. I couldn't not bring it up because of how much I love it. And how useful it's been to the family, to the church, to giving you breaks for dinners. It's just been amazing. - [Jennifer] Would you recommend a wife just picking one out for her husband, or more of like a certificate of I wanna get this for you, let's talk about it. - [Aaron] That's a good point. To be honest, I think they should just, when it comes to these kinds of purchases, you absolutely should discuss it. - [Jennifer] That's what I was thinking. - [Aaron] That's a big purchase. 'Cause either he's gonna have a preference for the kind, the brand. - [Jennifer] But you can still do something cute like put a little note or certificate in a box and say this is for you. - [Aaron] Buy him some tongs, like a-- - [Jennifer] Oh, a barbecue kit. - [Aaron] That way he's like, "Wait, what's this for?" And you're like, "For the smoker you're gonna get. "We have to talk about it 'cause it's expensive." But yeah, you should always talk about a purchase like this, just with how expensive it is. Never just do it. - [Jennifer] And get them what they want and not just pick something because of the expense. - [Aaron] And then the last gift idea. It's a new thing that I've-- - [Jennifer] This was a gift to yourself, actually. - [Aaron] I did give this to myself this year. It's called the Ember self-heating coffee mug. And I drink coffee every day, I love coffee. - [Jennifer] Multiple times a day. - [Aaron] Multiple times a day. Well that's often because my coffee goes cold and I have to go in and get a new cup. This coffee mug, it's got a heating plate built into it. And it has an iPhone app. It literally keeps the coffee at the exact temperature you want until you're done drinking the coffee. - [Jennifer] This is for all those coffee lovers out there. - [Aaron] Oh yeah. - [Jennifer] I guess tea would work, too. - [Aaron] Yeah, and these range from 75 to a hundred bucks. They have different sizes. They have an older model that you can get that's even cheaper. You can probably even find them used on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. But it comes with a little charging plate. They can last up to 80 minutes, a charge, which is like an hour and some. And if you have it on the charging plate, it lasts all day. - [Jennifer] I feel like this would be a great gift for moms too, 'cause I feel like moms are probably constantly reheating their coffee. - [Aaron] Well, there's a ton wives out there that love coffee and they'd probably really enjoy one of these. - [Jennifer] Maybe like a matching set? - [Aaron] Yeah, they have a gold one, a white one, a black one, they have all these different colors. But I've really loved it. Keeps my coffee hot. It's super practical. I love gifts that are useful. That it's not just a trinket. - [Jennifer] It's gonna make my life better. - [Aaron] It's gonna make my life better. I'm gonna use it on a daily basis. At the end of the day, if it every breaks or falls apart, or I lose it, I'm gonna miss it. I'm gonna be like, where's that thing at? I want that back in my life. So my Traeger, my coffee mug, these kinds of things. My wallet, when I was writing this list down, I was like, "What things do I use all the time?" And these are all those, so. - [Jennifer] All right, my turn. Women close your ears, no just kidding. I just have to make a note that we just hope that this episode brings inspiration to the way you give gifts and especially if you're just in a place where you want to give a gift, especially for Valentine's Day, but maybe you don't know what to give. So hopefully this is sparking some creative juices flowing. - [Aaron] Yeah, the two words I would think of is meaningful and useful. Is that right? That's kinda what these are. - [Jennifer] All right, so for her, gentlemen. The first thing that I wanted to share was something called a growth book. And it's similar to the journal that Aaron mentioned, the Baron Fig journal. I would say-- - [Aaron] But way more useful. - [Jennifer] Well I would say the quality is up there with it. It also is, it's like a journal. But, instead of lines, it's dots. And so it's actually really useful because you can use it for multiple things. - [Aaron] You can draw in it. - [Jennifer] You can draw in it. You can do calendar stuff or scheduling. You can journal in it. I use it for journaling my time with the Lord. I use it for taking notes during the parenting class that we took. I take it for goal setting, things that Aaron and I are aiming for. - [Aaron] You keep yourself on track, too, with a little bit of homeschool stuff, don't you? - [Jennifer] Yep. So, it's just a really, really awesome way to kind of detail your life and what you're working on. - [Aaron] I wanna note, one of the coolest things I thought about these is, doesn't it come with a sticker pack for you to label things? - [Jennifer] So it comes separately. So the growth book itself, which you can find at GrowthRootsCo.com, the book itself is $32. The stickers that accompany it is $2 extra. So all together, you're talking about $34. And honestly, I've never liked something so much that I use on a daily basis. - [Aaron] She's holding it right now and it's full. - [Jennifer] And it's beautiful. They come in different colors. It's got the cloth feature for the cover. And then you open it up and the first thing you'll notice is it says volume, with a line and a date. - [Aaron] So when did you start this and what volume is it. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so this is my, my growth book is volume one from 2019. - [Aaron] You started in September, looks like. - [Jennifer] And I started in September. But I've been using and I'm about three quarters of the way through it. So it's got a lot of pages, and it has other special features. So, in the very back, which I love, it has all the books of the bible with all the chapters and you can cross them off as you read them. So if you're doing a bible plan. - [Aaron] Yeah, keep track of where you are in the bible. - [Jennifer] It has a spot for prayers that you're praying through and ways that God has answered and when. Books that you're currently reading, or a list that you can put together. So it just has a lot of features to it that I really love and I think it would be a great, a great gift but also it's a growth gift. It's like you're encouraging your wife in something that she's probably either already doing or working on, and you're just saying, "Here, why don't you record it?" - [Aaron] Yeah, I wanna support you in this. - [Jennifer] So along with that is my number two, and it's these colored pens that I got that a friend recommended. And they're just on Amazon. They're by Tao Tree, T-A-O T-R-E-E. But they're fine liner color pens and they come with 24 different colors. They're super fun. I use them specifically for journaling in my journal. They're 11.99, so a super cheap gift if you wanna combine those two, it'd be a fun little. - [Aaron] And you use those a lot. You use the different colors for different types of notes. It helps you organize what you're writing. - [Jennifer] Yeah, so that's my number one gift right now, is that-- - [Aaron] Growth book. - [Jennifer] And that's by GrowthRootsCo.com, so you can get that there. And then the colored pens are at Amazon. Okay, now my number three. Aaron mentioned his favorite ESV bible. I'm gonna share mine. It's the journal bible that is about eight and a half inches tall and it's almost square, it's not quite square. But the cover of it is really beautiful. It's this linen print that is yellow, mustard yellow, and flowers, it's just so beautiful. And I use it every day. And it has, what I love about it, is it has a margin on the side, a ruled margin, so you can write notes. I use it, I love reading through the bible. And when I get to one of those notes from two years ago and it was me in labor with Wyatt, or whatever, and just looking back on prayer requests or things that I've mentioned next to whatever it was that I was reading at that moment. So it's kind of like you said, it's a heirloom, a family heirloom. - [Aaron] And it's single column, also right, so on each page is one column of text. And what's nice about that is I believe that the lines actually coincide with the lines on the text, pretty close. And so you could actually have notes that are directly, line by line if you wanted to. It's a really pretty bible. I've always liked it. - [Jennifer] And it's available, also-- - [Aaron] It's hardcover, too. - [Jennifer] On Amazon. - [Aaron] It's a hard, nice-- - [Jennifer] It's a hard, solid bible. And it's just a pretty bible, so you wanna keep it out. - [Aaron] It's really pretty. - [Jennifer] And that runs about 33.99 on Amazon. - [Aaron] Which is not expensive at all, for a bible. It's great. - [Jennifer] Okay, my number four is Made by Mary, and I talked about this stamped pendant necklace earlier. They are just a really great company, MadeByMary.com. And they have something new out, which actually I really am fascinated by. It's called a birth flower pendant. And so you can go on there, and depending on what month you were born in, or if you were gonna get one for your daughter, you just order the month, and it comes with that specific month's flower. They're beautiful. - [Aaron] Every month has its own flower? - [Jennifer] Yeah. - [Aaron] I didn't know that. - [Jennifer] Yeah, they're really cool. But they also do birthstones and you can get, you can order either a bar or a circle, or whatever shape you want, and they stamp whatever it is you want. So currently, what I have is a single circle with an initial of each of my kids, so E for Elliott, O for Olive, W for Wyatt. - [Aaron] And when you say currently, that's a hint. - [Jennifer] No. - [Aaron] At what's coming next. - [Jennifer] No, it was because the one that I mentioned earlier, I was doing individual pendents, like circles with individual letters. - [Aaron] And you were getting-- - [Jennifer] It was heavy. - [Aaron] It was 24 circles on the necklace and it's getting real heavy. - [Jennifer] It was getting heavy, so I switched to a single circle with each of them stamped on there. But Made By Mary, just really beautiful jewelry on there. And they range-- - [Aaron] Super meaningful, too. - [Jennifer] Super meaningful, but they range in price. And I'll just say it's about $38 for one of those pieces of jewelry. The last thing that I will mention and it's one of my all time favorites gifts, and it's from a local spa. And it's just going to get a massage. It's time alone. Or a couples massage. But it's that time that you get to feel rejuvenated and relax, and-- - [Aaron] And usually they're rare, so they're really special. - [Jennifer] So this would be my pricey gift. Aaron had a really pricey gift. This one would probably range between 65 and 250 to $300 because it depends on what service you get and where you're getting it done. - [Aaron] And my gift was the gift that kept giving, though. No, I think that's a great gift idea, is the occasional local spa. - [Jennifer] Yeah, just go spoil yourself. - [Aaron] Yeah, just letting your wife go and have a couple hours to herself, getting pampered and loved on, and massaged, it's nice. - [Jennifer] A great thing about that kind of gift, we talked about giving a certificate to your husband for his grill, but this would be the same kind of thing where you give a certificate and then she can make her own time to go do that and make sure that she's able to really enjoy that time. - [Aaron] Or secretly in passing be like, "Man, I wish there was really good spas around here." And then your wife would be like, "There is, the best one's down the street." And you'd be like, "Oh, that's interesting." And then just keep that note hidden away and then you just get her a little gift certificate. So we wanted to give you those five gift ideas each. We hope they inspired you and maybe even sparked another idea for you, which is awesome. But, we wanted to give you a couple bonus ideas, and these are more gifts that would bless both of you in your marriage, in your parenting. And the first one is we wanna share with you, some good friends of ours launched an online course called "Courageous Parenting" and it's an online program and you take it together. And there's videos, and there's questions, and it's a whole thing to help you grow in your godly parenting with your children. We all need this, Jennifer and I, when we talk about the parenting class, this is exactly what we did. - [Jennifer] We just got to walk through it with them in person. - [Aaron] Yeah, we're blessed to do it with them in person because they're a part of our church. But their program is called "The Courageous Parenting Program" and you can get that at CourageousParenting.com. - [Jennifer] Now it is a little bit pricey. It's 399 per couple, so that's why we're recommending it as a gift, it's a huge investment, both financially, but also mentally and spiritually. - [Aaron] It's actually cheap when you consider the lifelong lessons you're gonna learn from it based off of parenting your children. - [Jennifer] And we're saying this because we're sitting here right now, having just gone through the course and we're going, "Wow, we have some stuff ahead of us "that we're working on and working towards, "and we're so grateful for the information "that we got from them." And so this would be a really great opportunity for you guys to do something together that's going to, like Aaron said, just be an investment for your whole family. - [Aaron] Studying my children, that concept, came from "Courageous Parenting". They were teaching about that and it convicted me. I was like, I'm gonna study my kids. - [Jennifer] So another option, bonus, that would benefit both of you guys-- - [Aaron] Shameless plug, enter now. - [Jennifer] It's our devotional. So it's "Husband After God" and "Wife After God". - [Aaron] You can get those at Shop.MarriageAfterGod.com. They're 30-day devotionals and you do them together, or separately, and then you can come together and talk about them. But there's a husband one, and it walks through specific things for the husband and his role. There's a wife one, talks about specific things that a wife and her role. And then there's questions, there's journaling pages, there's scripture. Man, thousands, and thousands, and thousands of couples have gone through this devotional together. - [Jennifer] Yeah, and it's about $32 for the bundle on our site, which is a really reasonable gift, especially when you think about it being a together gift. - [Aaron] Husbands, this is a great gift to just go and get. - [Jennifer] Yeah, just go get one right now. - [Aaron] And your wife will probably hug you for it. I'm not kidding, you should do this. - [Jennifer] Okay, and this is a great way to cultivate intimacy and communication, and just invest in your marriage in this way. - [Aaron] Okay, the last one that we wanna say, this is for both of you, is Jennifer and I went to one of these years ago and we loved it. It was pretty amazing, we still advocate for them. It's called "Weekend 2 Remember" by Family Life. You can find out about it by going to FamilyLife.com/Weekend-2-Remember. You can also just go to FamilyLife.com. I'm sure they have a huge graphic for it because it's one of the biggest things they do. It's helped save countless marriages. - [Jennifer] So what they do is there events held throughout the year, nationwide. And so you have to go on their website to find out which one is nearest to you. Or if you wanna get-- - [Aaron] And there's probably gonna be one near you. - [Jennifer] I was gonna say, or if you wanna make it a road getaway and go somewhere, you could do that too. But they're hosted at hotels and it's literally a weekend. So you go and you spend the night. And they have sessions. - [Aaron] No kids allowed. - [Jennifer] It's beautiful. It's such a great time to really intentionally focus on your marriage and what God desires for your marriage, and what his purpose is for your marriage. And Aaron, we did it coming out of a season of darkness and hardship. - [Aaron] It really helped us. - [Jennifer] It was reconciling for us. I remember just sitting there, holding your hand, going, "This is exactly what we needed." So we've always been an advocate for "Weekend 2 Remembers" and chances are, there's one very close to you. So they range about 175 per person, which again, this is an investment, but you're talking about your marriage and it would be a great gift opportunity for both of you to sit down and really consider getting away for the weekend to do something like this. - [Aaron] Hey, we hope you enjoyed these ideas. And if you have more ideas, would you share them on our social media so that other people can see them? Just post about it in your stories and tag @MarriageAfterGod, or on Facebook just tag us. People are always looking for ideas. We all need some inspiration sometimes, everyone of us. Well, we thank you for joining us. We're gonna close in prayer, and then yeah. So let's pray. Dear Lord, thank you for being the ultimate gift giver. Thank you for the gift of marriage. We pray our hearts would be pure in the way we give gifts to each other. We pray we would be thoughtful in the ways we give to each other. Help us to study and know our spouse well enough to give them gifts we know they will love. More than giving good gifts, we pray our love would be genuine, and deep, and extraordinary, as we purpose intimacy with each other. Grow our love for one another. In Jesus' name, amen. We just wanna thank you for joining us this week on this episode. If you haven't left us a review yet, would you please do that? Your reviews are incredibly powerful at spreading the news about this podcast. It helps other people to find it. It encourages our hearts. And it helps other people know what to expect in the podcast. So leave us a star rating and a review today. We greatly appreciate it. See you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at MarriageAfterGod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Helpful links from the episode: Zendesk Helpscout Olark Zapier GatherUp app on Zapier GatherUp User Guide MozCon FULL SHOW NOTES[intro music]00:10 Aaron Weiche: Episode 10: Building Customer Success and Support for your SaaS.00:16 INTRO: Welcome to The Saas Venture podcast, sharing the adventure of leading and growing a bootstrap SaaS company. Hear the experiences, challenges, wins, and losses shared in each episode, from Aaron Weiche of Gather Up and Darren Shaw of Whitespark. Let's go.[music]00:44 Aaron: Welcome to The SaaS Venture podcast; I'm Aaron.00:47 Darren Shaw: And I'm Darren.00:49 Aaron: And we have hit double digits, my friend.00:52 Darren: This is it. We've finally made it, big time.00:55 Aaron: Let's just shut it down.[chuckle]00:58 Darren: 10 episodes; this is our final episode.01:01 Aaron: But somebody that's just listening thought we maybe meant 10 years, but no, we just mean 10 episodes, but that feels good for five months into doing this.01:12 Darren: Yeah, we're gaining some traction. I think we're building a following, and I'm having a great time; it's been good.01:18 Aaron: Absolutely; I agree. So, hey, what's been going on with you since we last talked on the last episode? 01:26 Darren: What's been going on? Let's see... Well, I have a fun story to tell. Just the other day I was waiting for Violet and Jill to arrive at the gym, at the gym that I work out, and so that's also where Violet does her jiu jitsu class. So I'm on the treadmill and I'm running, just waiting for them to show up. And I never ride the treadmill, it's just that it was right by the door so I could watch. So I pressed the Stop button on the treadmill when they pull up and I go to get off. But because I don't ride the treadmill I didn't realize that it has, like, a slow down process. [chuckle] So I turn around to get off the treadmill, I realize it's still going as fast as it was when I was basically running full steam, and I was, like, full... Like arms, legs in the air, and landed hard on my back. [chuckle] And there were like three people come running over to see if I'm okay; I'm totally fine. I go to the car, and Jill is, like, in tears; she can't even speak because she saw the whole thing happening.[laughter]02:27 Aaron: Oh, perfect.02:28 Darren: And she's laughing non-stop. Thankfully I didn't really hurt myself, I just kinda got like a rug burn-type injury on my elbow, but I wish I could get the security camera video for it 'cause I would love to see it.02:44 Aaron: It would likely be a YouTube sensation, or make it into one of those compilations that you see on Facebook of exercise fails.02:52 Darren: I think it was worthy of that, for sure, yeah.02:55 Aaron: Well, I'm glad that your elbow is the only injury because, man, I've seen people... It looks like they... You can get knocked out if you fall on your head.03:05 Darren: I think so, yeah. So I was fine, just my biggest injury was my pride. I felt like a bit of an idiot at the gym there. But yeah. [chuckle]03:13 Aaron: Now, have you ever seen people who will walk on the treadmill, and it's set up where they can work... They're on a laptop while they're walking? 03:20 Darren: Yes, I have seen that before, and in fact, one of my employees, a developer that used to work with us, he had a setup like that in his office. And he would walk something like 15,000 steps a day. [chuckle] He was just, like, walk all day long while he was on his laptop.03:34 Aaron: Oh my gosh, I don't think I could pull that off. I would probably make it five or ten minutes; my focus would go elsewhere, and I would be like you. And then even at a walking speed I would end up down on the ground somehow.03:46 Darren: Yeah. You gotta really train and get used to that whole thing about working while walking. It would just be awkward, really, trying to type, I think.03:54 Aaron: Yep.03:54 Darren: Yeah.03:55 Aaron: Well, we gotta keep you upright, so let's leave the treadmill alone for a while.04:00 Darren: So we launched our new service, that Google My Business service that we were talking about last episode, and so I'm pumped about that. We were a little bit... We sent the email out to our mailing list on July 3rd, where I think most people were like, "Yeah, I'm gonna be gone", 'cause most of our customer base is in the US, and so maybe it wasn't the best time for a promotional email, so we're going to circle back on that in a couple of weeks. And we're trying to just do more promotion and build up the service; I'm excited about that. I'm also very excited about how our new account system is coming together, so with the Stripe integration and rebuilding all of our order forms, and just that whole user flow of signing up for our software or our services. So all that's being rebuilt in Stripe; that's awesome. And then of course, getting ready for MozCon which is next week. Can't wait to see you in person there. I should get my presentation finalized and all done here.04:56 Aaron: Yeah. By the time this episode airs we'll both be in Seattle and at MozCon; you speaking, GatherUp's there as a sponsor, but we'll get some time to hang out in person, and we're gonna try to record episode 11, in-person as well while we're in Seattle.05:16 Darren: Yeah, I can't wait; it's gonna be fun. We have to figure out where we're gonna do that recording.05:20 Aaron: It's gonna be a very top-secret location so that we don't, all of our fans aren't trying to break down the door to talk to us.[chuckle]05:27 Darren: Maybe we should at least have a window where the fans can watch.[chuckle]05:30 Aaron: Totally. Like some morning news show where they're just, like, screaming and holding signs.[chuckle]05:38 Darren: Yeah, totally.05:38 Aaron: We could pay somebody to do that; that would be the only way that would happen.05:42 Darren: I think, yeah, we would have to pay, definitely. How about you? What's up with you? 05:46 Aaron: On my side, I'm catching up after enjoying an awesome Fourth of July week where I was out of the office the entire week, just probably spent an hour to two hours each day on email and keeping some things moving, but it was a lot of time off, a lot of time with the kids. Time on the lake, which was awesome. But it always makes... The week you get back and all the things you kind of put off or said, "Schedule the call next week", now I'm basically living with the headset on the last few days, but all good.06:21 Darren: I was gonna say, it's like you get punished for taking that time off.06:24 Aaron: It is. It's double the work before you leave, and double the work when you get back, and that's right. You gotta make it count when you're gonna be out. It's like if you're gonna take all that punishment, then make sure you enjoy it.06:34 Darren: Totally.06:36 Aaron: Amazingly, we've talked a lot about my need and the work; we've had a specific episode on sales, but we have hired two outbound sales positions that start for us in the next couple of weeks.06:50 Darren: Amazing.06:50 Aaron: Yes.06:50 Darren: Yeah, I'm very curious to hear how this goes. Outbound sales, it's a whole new world.06:55 Aaron: Yes. So I'm incredibly excited; we got two great people. Both from referrals of one internal team referral and one from outside and few different things had to happen to get everything to align, but they're starting at the same time. So, a lot of my week... This week when I have spare moments is on materials and trying to get as much together for them to hit the ground running. So, plenty of work to do along those lines. And then related to the product, a really big piece that we've been working on for months that this is probably the first time we've had a feature big enough where we've built an Alpha of it first, usually it's a Dev Server in a Beta and pretty workable solution once we get going, but we've created an insights report that we have tied in with IBM's Watson to do natural language processing.07:53 Darren: Yep, that's nice.07:53 Aaron: So, you'll be able to... Yeah, understand sentiment of reviews... 'cause you might have a four-star review, where the customer talks about three really great things about the business, but then maybe has two things that weren't as good, and we wanna start to separate those kind of things out for you, instead of just attaching all of that content to a four-star review. We want you to understand what are the impact of, what are things that go on in a five-star experience compared to a two-star experience, so you can try to close that gap as a business and understand what those differentiators are. And then trends, what's happening on a week or a month or a quarterly basis that's increasing or decreasing, good or bad within how customers are talking about your business. So really big feature, a lot of work behind the scenes. We will be showing it off at MozCon and... Yeah, excited about that. And we're kind of targeting for the end of the month to get into an Open Beta with people.08:51 Darren: Great. Well, I'd like to get in on that Open Beta, check it out.08:55 Aaron: Yeah. No, I'll have a lot of fun giving you a demo with it. So, that will be fine.09:01 Darren: Yeah, I know it's Watson, is that a paid API you have to tap into? 09:06 Aaron: Yep, yep. Paid API, so we just have to tie into it, which that part obviously is already done. And now, you just get into the training part. We evaluated probably four or five different natural language processing APIs and theirs, I guess, kinda out of the box so to start with. We had two things going for: One, one of our engineers was already familiar with it, had used it in another capacity. And two, when we did some sample test results between these four or five solutions, we felt like it had just the most accuracy out of the box in the way that we were looking for. And no matter what... I mean, it's all about training, right? So you have to train the machine and everything else. But we felt like it was just a better starting point with it.09:56 Darren: Really cool. Yeah, awesome.09:58 Aaron: Yeah. And with that, new features are all about trying to make things better for your customers, the topic that you brought up I think is a fantastic one to address even deeper as taking a look at customer support, customer success teams, what do you need to do to build the right criteria, pieces, elements, processes, team, everything else to support your customers and to lead your customers to success.10:31 Darren: So I brought this topic up because I think we do a pretty decent job of it at Whitespark. If you look at our reviews, a lot of people talk about the excellent support that they get at Whitespark. We have good processes in place, we have a good ticketing software and live chat software that we get through Zendesk. But I wanted to bring this topic up 'cause this is gonna be an episode where it's like Aaron teaches me all of the awesome things. [chuckle] 'Cause I think that you've thought really deeply about this at GatherUp and you've really taken things to a next level and so, I wanna learn from you and I'm gonna be the question asker I think, and you can help me see some of the great ways that you guys have really taken your support to the next level.11:15 Aaron: Oh, I'm on the hot seat.11:16 Darren: Yeah, a little bit. Not really. I think that this will flow more naturally than a straight Q&A. But honestly, I really feel like you've got a lot to share here and that's why I want to bring it up.11:27 Aaron: Yeah, and truth be told, it's an area where we... It was probably almost two years ago now, where we realized we wanted to put a lot of focus into it. To your point with Whitespark and how you guys handle it and customers talk about that, I really think as a bootstrapped SaaS company, like "You have to win there," right? 11:49 Darren: Yeah, for sure.11:49 Aaron: You're not gonna win feature battles, you're not gonna have the 100 person sales teams, all these things that larger VC companies that can scale faster can have. You have to win with service and support as a bootstrapped SaaS company. We looked at and realize we need that to be a differentiator because some of these other things. We can build smarter features/cooler features, but they're gonna be able to build 50 to every five that we build.12:19 Darren: Yeah, exactly.12:21 Aaron: So, in looking at that it's like, "Yeah, you need that as a differentiator." And we realized that a long time ago. And to me, the biggest arc in this that yeah I'd love to talk about what we've done in questions you have but just this arc, right? It was a couple of years ago and funny enough, we were actually in Seattle. I think we were... I can't remember if we were at one of the... When they used to have MozCon Local. I think maybe it was at that, but we stayed a day or two later and we actually used Moz's offices to have an exec team meeting and we white-boarded out this timeline of what the arc looked like between customer support, which is completely reactive and customer success, which is completely proactive.13:08 Darren: Right.13:08 Aaron: And we tried to mark along those lines, like what are steps that we can take to continue to add more proactive and prescriptive things to what we provided and to make our team... We realized we needed more focus on customer success, as well as support but we really needed to make that entire piece the focus of GatherUp.13:31 Darren: Yeah, that's the interesting thing and I think this is where WhiteSpark can certainly improve and that's that proactive approach. Moving from Customer Support, which is when people are asking new questions to customer success, which is you're proactively reaching out to them and onboarding them, helping them out with things, noticing when they're not active in the tool. All those kinds of things that's where I'm really excited about, the potential for support and customer success. And I wanna hear more about what are some of the things you guys are doing like what... Do you actually divide them up into two teams at GatherUp? Do you have people that answer incoming questions and people that are trying to be proactive and reaching out to customers.14:17 Aaron: Yeah, so from a labeling standpoint, all the same team but we have started to... We look at where people's talents are and things like that and we are more giving them roles or responsibilities of this person based on experience, knowledge, personality. They're a great support person. They're great to answer email tickets and do these pieces and whatever else, where someone else like, "Okay, their level of understanding is really deep. They have a lot of confidence to recommend how to use features and they can be a little bit more leading with the customer. Like they're better fit for a customer success role. So we kinda call everybody the same, but we have started to differentiate what their main duties, what the majority of their time is spent on within that process.15:09 Darren: Yeah. And then I'm also curious. So tell me this, what percentage of your customers get a proactive outreach? Do you have to have a certain number of locations in order to sort of fall into this bucket where we're gonna proactively reach out or do you do that with everybody? 15:26 Aaron: Yeah, based on our pricing model, for us it is multi-locations. So the biggest thing for a new client, if we sell a multi-location that's almost always gonna be one-to-one demo and then we're gonna try to do a SOW with them to get an agreement to try to get them on an annual contract and part of that is an onboarding process. And then making sure we get everything set up right. We walk them through, we make them aware of features and all those other steps. And then what we've recently... And I know I've mentioned a couple of other podcasts, we had our team and then we hired a VP of Customer Success and Taylor came on and looked at like "Alright, great. You have this great set up and onboarding process but it kinda stops right at launch". And what he added was a 5th phase to it that's like, "Alright. Now, let's make sure in the first 90 days that you're hitting success metrics and you're getting value either statistically or emotionally out of the product and then graduating and then setting up quarterly business reviews to like, are they still hitting the things that you need them to? Are you on track to do the right things? 16:37 Darren: Yeah, that's that whole next level. That's I think really valuable when you start to tap into your best customers and really making sure that they're getting the most value out of the software. And then that also is a really great relationship building with your best customers where they just feel like you actually care. You're taking the time to reach out to them and they just feel really great about working with GatherUp.17:00 Aaron: Yup. And you discover so much about them when you have those types of conversations and when you get knee-deep in their data as well. And it's given us a more formatted approach. All the time in the past, I'm constantly jumping in and out of accounts and looking for signals on are they doing well, are they doing great, are they struggling, is there a challenge that I can see that I can reach out to them with. And now we're just building more and more of a system around that. We've talked in past episodes and we're just getting into this where we're gonna bring data to the table to help tell us more of those things more in-app analytics. That's still the piece of the story we're missing there. But now for our more valuable accounts, we're doing those types of things.17:45 Aaron: And then the other challenges then on the small business like the one location side, how do you wrap in when you have support opportunities to still provide them a little bit of success with it and as well provide them with as many resources as possible to be successful so that there are things on demand when they need answers or easy ways to talk to the support team I think are really important when you can't give all of yourself to a $40 a month customer or a $75 a month customer but you can give a little and also put them on to "Hey, here's a ton of content or tutorials or other ways that you can get your answers and be successful.18:29 Darren: Yeah. I think that's where we do a pretty good job. We have an email funnel. So when someone signs up for an account they're gonna get their welcome email, their next steps and then there's a series of emails that they're gonna get that sort of tell them about features of a tool and guide them through using the software. And it's pretty self-served. And so if they're not reading those emails, then we don't know. And the one thing that we don't do is we don't segment based off of account size and I think that's an opportunity for us. So if we did segment and we put a little bit more time into those higher value accounts, that's really a good take away for me, personally. And this one is to get a process in place to identify those accounts and then how are we gonna reach out to them and how we're gonna support them a bit better.19:13 Aaron: Yup, yeah. I would say that segmentation is really important and then the outlining exactly what you're talking about. How you can get to 'em. That has definitely been a game changer for us and it makes our customer success team is now in charge of renewals when they signed a one-year or two-year deal when that comes up for renewal. As we say, we should know with 99% certainty that they're gonna renew because we've been talking to them every quarter about of things are going.19:39 Darren: Absolutely.19:40 Aaron: You're not crossing your fingers. Will they renew or not? It's like, no, no we know how they feel about the product and how things are going and that we're a core part of what we're doing or we know like, hey this account is in trouble. We need to make an impact and a change quickly or they're not gonna give us any more runway to make an impact.20:00 Darren: Right? And your account man... You think you have an account managers, they're customer success people, but they're also account managers, and they're responsible for what 20, 30 different accounts that they have to keep an eye on.20:12 Aaron: Yeah, and that's some of the stuff we were just trying to... It'll be really interesting for the rest of this year and we're definitely gonna have some talks but how do we start to understand what each customer success rep can handle within their mixture of things especially is now we have sales people that are hopefully bringing more accounts that need to be onboarded, but we wanna try to get some amount of framework in place, so we know, when this happens, if we're sending out this many SOWs, we know this is the likelihood they're gonna close and so we know the likelihood we're gonna need additional help at this point in time, so we can just be ahead of it instead of reactive, where the team is like, "Hey we're buried. Please send help". That's usually when it's too late.20:56 Darren: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about this fine line between support and sales. Like at my company, we don't have a dedicated sales person, we have our support team, which is basically frontline sales for us. People come in, they have questions about the product, our support team answers those questions, will send them links to sign up for things, they'll make recommendations about what would make sense for them. So they kind of become the sales people in a lot of these cases. If it's a large looking account, they send it to me, or to Nick. And we handle more of the SOW type account set up. In your case, like how do you do that? Does your front... Does your support offer sort of sales stuff for signing up ike the one-offs, is that how it works at GatherUp? 21:48 Aaron: Yeah, so our customer success team will do a couple of our single-location demos within a week. And there really isn't a hand-off at all for them. 'cause it's more of a give demo, answer questions, if there's any straggler questions, answer those, then it's self served to go sign up and then they'll reach back out if they have questions. We have the process things to what you alluded to drip emails, a quick start guide, we have a very in-depth user guide, we have a number of ways to help them start with this minimal human touch as possible and then the support team is there to answer questions as they need it. For anything larger, our hand-off is basically when that agreement is signed, so when the SOW is signed, then I will go to Taylor and say, "Alright, here's what the deal is, here's what it looks like." and a lot of times we're even having conversations before that, but then we're like, Alright, here's the person, our team is gonna handle it, we have a little, small internal information hand-off and then I'm reaching out and saying, "Hey great news. Here's your customer success rep, is gonna be Josh. He's gonna schedule your first meeting, and layout what onboarding looks like for you. And now, I'm here just to ride along if you have any overall questions or whatever, but you're in great hands and move forward. So we use that intro email and scheduling that kick-off meeting as the handoff from sales to customer success.23:15 Darren: Yeah, that makes sense. And what's your you cut off? So let's say, how many people will self-serve that happen to have 20 plus locations, do they just come through the website and, "Oh wow, they just signed up."23:27 Aaron: Yeah, yeah very few. [chuckle] And we really find some of the things that we've done to help identify that. We have our multi-location pricing is behind a gateway. So you have to put in who you are and how many locations when you're looking at something. So we use that to reach out and be like, "Hey great. You looked at our pricing you saw it's completely competitive and very valuable. Would you like a one-on-one demo?" So we use that to get them into the sales process at that time and the majority come in that way and we really sell... I would say the biggest differentiator we do customer success with anyone that's paying a set-up fee.24:07 Aaron: If someone says I just wanna handle it myself and do whatever else then we might back off it a little bit, but we find most people like, "Hey I'd rather pay the fee and I get a tour guide, I get all this one-on-one support, I get a process that really is gonna help me get the value out of this." and then we know that customer is pretty serious too so that format has worked really well for us. We will get on occasion, a 5-10-15 location that comes in and they do sign up themselves and put stuff into it themselves and if we run across it, we'll likely ping them. And just, what are things looking like? Is there anything we can be of help with? Would you like to jump on a call to know more? So we will try to intercede with that, but we really find the majority of them end up coming through our sales process.24:52 Darren: Yeah, that makes sense, especially since you have it behind a form. So if you've got multiple locations, you wanna see that pricing they're already in that funnel where the next step is to set up a demo and then it leads to SOW and a set-up contract and all that, stuff.25:06 Aaron: Yeah, and we had a lot of internal debate when we moved to that when we rebranded we went to that method for our reseller pricing and our multi-location pricing, and I ultimately settled like, "Okay we're showing our one location pricing, this is as expensive as it gets per location. And see the other... Who are you, your email, your business and the number of locations, the minute you submit that you see the pricing right then and there you can bookmark that URL and review it as many times as you want. And our sales process isn't... We reach out with one or two emails max just to make sure that they understand everything correctly. Do they have questions on pricing, would they like to see a demo? So we're just trying to be helpful, we're not gonna over inundate them. There's a few on our team that were a little apprehensive and it's worked incredibly well for us and...25:56 Darren: Oh, that sounds great.25:58 Aaron: Yeah, haven't had any push back on why can't I see all of your pricing, and to some extent a lot of our competitors don't even show one location pricing, you have no idea the cost at all until you talk to somebody. So...26:10 Darren: I hate that, whenever I go to a website, it doesn't have pricing and I'm like, Well, no, obviously it's too expensive, so I'm not gonna sign up. There's only one reason why you wouldn't show me your pricing. It's because it's like $20,000, I don't want it, so that's how I think about it every time. [chuckle]26:26 Aaron: Yeah, totally.26:27 Darren: I think your approach is really smart actually. And maybe, I don't know how prevalent that is, but showing the single-location pricing and then for multi-location pricing, fill out this little form. Now you've got the great lead-capture and you have delivered the pricing to them up front. They still feel good. All they have to do is just enter their name and email, they're gonna get that pricing immediately, and then you have your customer success team outreach to them. Now, those will be sales leads, right? For your new sales team.27:00 Aaron: Yep. Which is perfect to give them a handful of those coming in even though my new sales people, their main focus is... They're outbound, they're gonna be generating their own love in the world.27:12 Darren: I got so many questions, but we'll save that for the next episode on sales. Let's keep talking about support. I wanted to ask you about support contracts. This has come up. We have a number of multi-location clients that are unbelievably time-consuming on support. Like seriously, five hours a week, we spend answering their questions, going back and forth, re-answering the same question six times. It's just like some of these clients, we love them, they're great, they are awesome people, but they really need a lot of hand-holding. And I'm wondering... Right now, we do not have support contracts. How do you deal with this, with these really needy customers that need a lot of time and hand holding? What do you do at GatherUp? 28:00 Aaron: So we're just starting to address this as well, our last exec Summit, a month-and-a-half ago, this was one of our topics. And coming from the world of agencies, you had some of these same things as well. And you try to build those into retainers and kinda have it factored out that way, but I think support contracts are really important and I think most of it has to do with how you position it right up front in the process. And the best way to look at it is you outline... You're able to outline for... In our case, the initial conversations we had was something around like three tiers of support. And I guess I should maybe go one backwards. You're probably in the same position as... You offer amazing support and as your company gets bigger, that amazing support becomes harder and harder to be equal all the way across the board. 'Cause where you were doing it for dozens or hundreds, now maybe it's thousands of customers.29:02 Aaron: And to get the same responses within hours and outcomes and all those different kinda things becomes increasingly hard. And I feel the best way to handle it is to kinda say, "Alright you have three different options in working with us," like "Here's the software fee, but then we also have support that you can decide to purchase or not purchase. And if you don't purchase it here is kind of our standard rule of thumb: You'll get a response within 24 business hours or 16 business hours." But something that gives you leeway for them to understand. "Hey, I'm not gonna get something in an hour and I have to live with that, I want it included I want it has a for free, and I'm willing to live." And the right expectations have been set.29:52 Darren: Yeah, that's the key. That's sort of differentiating is 'cause this is the thought that someone may have is be like, "Well, can't I just get support? Why are you offering support to all these other people? Why do I have to pay for support?" And so I think those different tiers is where you can actually make a case for a support contract. That makes a lotta sense.30:10 Aaron: Yeah. Because you end up showing them like, "Hey if you really value this and you want fast turn time and you want guarantees and things like that, well then you can have it, you have to pay for it." It's like anything, if you want a better version that is bigger, better faster, whatever that might be, there's value attached to it, and so you're willing to pay for it. And then when the expectation is off, then you're at least able to say like, "This was communicated, you declined that. You said, 'I'm willing to live with two days or three days to reply for no additional money.'" So we'll see. This is in theory. And we used to do... I've done similar things like this in agency before around development contracts and e-commerce, and website builds. And they worked really, really well in those scenarios. It's just getting all of it to be done up front. The most important part is selling it upfront instead of having them get in and then when they have a problem, and then saying, like, "Oh, well, you can pay to get help faster." And then they're like, "I would've paid from the get-go, now I'm mad because it didn't meet my expectations. You didn't set proper expectations." That's when you get into trouble if you don't have that available, and they didn't make that choice, then you're just making where, "Oh, it is an option. You never asked, so we didn't tell you."31:34 Darren: Yeah. So absolutely getting it in advance is the best way to do it. So I have a client or two now that is quite needy, that I would love to get on a support contract, but it is a very awkward conversation at this point. And then the other potential concern I have is, you have this client who they send you, once a week, a 15-point list of really long complicated obscure edge casey questions. It's like the most obscure stuff you could ever imagine. And even if they're on whatever a free support plan is they're like "Yeah, I don't need a response in 36 hours, I can wait till next week." But man, they just sent us seven hours of work, so much time to go through, look at what their weird edge case concern is, playing around with the software, going back and forth with the dev team. It's just, it's frustrating when you have these specific clients.32:37 Aaron: I would say since you have that historical data, I would use that to your advantage and say, "We've looked at this, we want to serve you at the right level to make you successful and based on our interactions in the last three months, six months, year, this is the amount of interaction, this is the amount of emails and tickets and request... You would be smart to pre-purchase five hours of support a month for us at this rate, otherwise we will have to look at going to a time and materials with this just because of the amount that it is and it's all to ensure you're successful. So it isn't easy but you have to realize what it takes. Ann a good customer and a good relationship, they'll realize that anyway and if they don't, then that's starting to send you some other signals like they have no problem taking you down with them. [chuckle]33:32 Darren: Yeah, I think that they're probably in the back of their minds are like "Boy, how long are we able and get this free support for Whitespark?". Because they know they're sending us so much extra work to do it. They must know that they're just waiting for the email to come where we suggest we're gonna have to start implementing hourly fees for all of this stuff.33:53 Aaron: Yeah. There's always a way to address it when you have history. I think you use that history to your advantage. These are knowns.34:00 S2: Yup.34:01 Aaron: We're not guessing how much you might need, these are complete knowns and here's how we can continue to help you at this level, Now that we understand the level of help your requesting all the time.34:11 Darren: I like it. Thank you. I will take that approach. How do you measure your... At Whitespark we use Zendesk. So Zendesk has this really great dashboard for statistics. So we can see how many tickets and what are the common things. One thing I really love in the dashboard is the search queries. People that are searching our help center, that's a gold mine of ideas of what people are looking for and what problems they're having. So what do you guys use at GatherUp? I'm just curious how you measure and measure success and what's important in support.34:50 Aaron: We use Help Scout and have for a long time and it's at the point where I'm not in it daily, does everything that we needed to and same things you're talking about. Response times, ticket close times, all of that information is available to us. We obviously have it wired in, integrated to a ton of things from everything from... For live chat we use Olark and if Olark's... If we're offline with live chat then it automatically goes and creates a ticket in Help Scout so we can address it that way. And then the same... Right, using tagging, we also do the same on who's asking, what are they asking about. So we track very, very heavily and we share it in our weekly team meetings. Here's the amount of support interactions in total, here is the amount of support interactions from small business, from multi-locations, from agency resellers and then here's what people are asking about. Like review widget is always one of our leading topics. And then we look at other ones? And that's really great 'cause that helps inform us, do we need to do more with some of our other support features like user guide documentation or something in our emails or do we even need to look at something in the product based on popularity or what are they asking about or what's confusing? 36:16 Aaron: So that has definitely led to us doing a number of things to try to be proactive by taking that reactive data with it. So can we decrease those numbers or be of more help? And even the support team. If they have just one link, they can drop in like "Yeah, your question. We get asked all the time. Here's a very detailed user guide post on this with screenshots. Go to here, and this will help you do exactly what you need to".36:42 Darren: Have you built a email response templates at Help Scout where for really common questions, you've got a template you just fire it up and hit send for the most part? 36:51 Aaron: Yup. They have a few of those put together for the most common ones because there are certain ones it's like, "Yeah, we're gonna get asked what review sites do you monitor?". Boom, here's the answer and here's the link to that full list. So absolutely, efficiency plays are huge.37:08 Darren: That's actually gave me a thought right now. Anywhere we have a template, that would actually probably be a good auto email. So for all customers, when they sign up it's part of the email funnel. It's like email number five is most commonly asked question number two. Right? So just putting all of those frequently asked questions that we have templates for into the auto email and so preemptively giving those to customers that might be wondering.37:36 Aaron: Yeah, totally, totally a good idea that having that information makes you smarter about what people are likely gonna hit as a point of confusion or needing some education or needing to be better is huge.37:49 Darren: Yup. I also was thinking about... I picked this up from that podcast we listened to and talked about last episode about proactively showing more obscure features and ways to use the software into that email funnel. So email number seven in the funnel is like "Did you know that the software can do this? And here's a quick little video on how to do it". Right? I like that a lot too in Email funnels.38:14 Aaron: Yeah, that's something we could definitely be better at because we have so many features. We kick so many out. It's like how do you expose those to more and more users and expose them at the right times for them. Getting smarter around all that stuff is definitely an area I have massive interest in. How do you produce great targeting, right message at the right time for them to be like, "Oh yeah, this is exactly what I should use" or "This will make me more successful with the product".38:44 Darren: Yeah right.38:45 Aaron: Couple other things that I think have been really helpful for us, one, we actually use our own product that after a support instance we send that out to gather feedback and then also request reviews.38:57 Darren: Right.38:58 Aaron: So first surface level, yeah, it's great 'cause we find out is a customer happy with that answer, where they serviced timely, was the interaction with their rep great. But secondly, we have driven more Google reviews for us because you're asking for a review, when somebody's just had a great experience of being helped and again, when we talk about that differentiator as our support team. We see that over and over again where people are like, "Yeah, and man, I loved working with Gatlin. So Gatlin was awesome, helped me do all these things, whatever else. And now I wanna go write a review and I'm talking about Gatlin or I'm talking about this other team member." And that's been really huge at not just getting feedback on the support experience, but people saying, "Yeah, your brand and your service are awesome and I wanna tell everybody about it." So that's been really interesting.39:50 Darren: So wait a minute, are you saying that when a customer support ticket closes in Help Scout, they get into a GatherUp funnel where the GatherUp is spinning the how did we do email? That's coming from GatherUp, not from Help Scout? 40:05 Aaron: Yep. Yeah, so we have our... We basically, our customer success has its own profile within GatherUp. We added that as a location. So the wording's different, the survey questions are different and everything else. And then it allows us to look at what is the net promoter score for our customer success team. And then within the last couple of weeks, Taylor and the customer success team has implemented this for onboarding as well now. And we've just got a couple of those in and that's been great to see where, "Hey, here's how I felt about the level of detail and the timing of it. And man, this person was so helpful in onboarding us." And when you're able to read that feedback from a 200 or a 300 location client, that's a very good client for you and you realize what a differentiator that is. And now that's content you could possibly share with your next prospect, "Hey, here's this company. This brand name and you know this brand name really well. Well, here's what their team said about our team and getting started with our products." So not only do we know the same thing that GatherUp does for other customers, we're producing marketing material to inform the next buyer.41:11 Darren: Oh man, I love that. We're gonna do it too. So we basically, right now we just have the default Zendesk email that comes out that rates customer satisfaction, which is not bad, but GatherUp is so much deeper and so much more valuable. So I'm curious, how are they connected when a customer support ticket closes do you have a Zapier connection? Is that what you've done or do they manually go and enter that person? 41:39 Aaron: Nope. I would believe we have it automated. I don't know specifically if we're using our API or we're using a Zap for it.41:46 Darren: Yeah, I can figure that out 'cause I gotta figure out how I can get Zendesk now talking to GatherUp so that I can integrate that.41:55 Aaron: Yup. Nope, you can absolutely make that happen.41:57 Darren: Cool, well maybe I'll talk to the helpful people at MozCon when I come and visit your booth.42:01 Aaron: [chuckle] There you go. Let's look at it. Let's figure it out.42:05 Darren: Yeah. Well that's awesome. How do you know... Are you measuring ticket volume and using that to identify when it's time to hire another support person? How are you figuring out or you're just waiting for your customer support head, your director of customer support to tell you "oh we need to hire some more people"? 42:28 Aaron: Yeah. This... It's kinda the same to where we were talking about with customer success. We wanna have framework for this. We definitely track support volume that same... In our weekly meeting, customer success department has their section and they're gonna say, here's how many tickets, here's how many conversations, here's how many phone calls, here's how many live chats. We break down all of those things by the medium that they're being handled on. But we don't have anything yet that says this is too much, this is too low. We track the flow of where those are. And sometimes we'll zoom out and say, "All right, what does this look like over the last 12 months?" But being more predictive by using those numbers is definitely a next step for us so that we're able to say, "Alright, where we're at here, one rep full time and two part time on support with the rest of their time on onboarding, we're fine, but the minute we hit this, then we need another and the minute this increase then we need another." We'd like to get it to be a little bit more regimented and predictive.43:30 Darren: Sure, yep. That makes sense. Yeah. For us it's just like we just start to feel it. It's like, we're getting overwhelmed and our response time is taking longer. We've just got too many tickets coming in and then we hire again. But so far we're doing fine right now, but we'll see as we grow.43:46 Aaron: There you go. You never know. What do you feel like is your guys's biggest challenge within your support team right now? 43:53 Darren: I think the challenge is being more proactive. So I don't know if challenge is the right word, but it's the next thing we need to do. Moving from a reactive support position to a proactive success position. And I think we have the resources right now. I don't believe that the support team is completely booked all of their time. And so getting a process in place where we can be more proactive and identifying those high value clients and really trying to reach out to them and help them get set up. There's a big opportunity there that I really have to focus on.44:29 Aaron: Yeah, no, that's exactly where we were two years ago. And the first thing is just identifying it, making it a priority so that everyone understands it and then you lay out what are these, if being proactive is the strategy, what are the tactics that support that that we need to put resources into or make sure we have tools to do. And yes, just you stair step and start picking those up and move up the ladder one at a time while you keep everything behind it at the same level it's at and you can get there. We're two years into that and we still have a ton of way to go. You're always trying to perfect it.45:09 Darren: For sure. It's interesting when you think about you talk about the difference between a bootstrap company and a VC funded company like you see these companies like Yelp and Yext that have invested so much into their sales force and not much into their customer support. And it's just like, it's a complete switch of values. They're just focused on signing people up, not supporting them. And it's such a backwards way to approach business, it seems to me.45:36 Aaron: Yeah. Well customer acquisition gets all of the love and depending upon what size you are, how much does retention make an impact for you? And when you're in a smaller bootstrap company, retention is massive because you might not have the resources to do acquisition all day long. For us we're over five years into the company and we're really truly building. We've had one salesperson on the agency side, I do our sales, but only a very small percentage outbound. But now five years later, now we have resources and we have the right fit with our product where we can very confidently say, "Yeah, now it's time to put fuel on the fire and take the fight to people and go and be outbound sales with it as well." So when you don't have the ability to do that, retention is really huge because as much as you need to land those next clients, you need to keep the ones that you have.46:36 Aaron: Obviously we spend a whole episode on Churn. You could do a whole podcast just on Churn all by itself. But yeah, no, it is super important. And yeah, for some people, I think the bigger they get, the numbers become so macro that a lot of it seeps through the cracks. And we're seeing more and more of that in the space right now where people are coming from some of our larger competitors and they're saying," Yup. I spent a year or two years with them. I didn't get a lot of love. I was paying for features I didn't even utilize. It looks like you guys aren't trying to have everything in the kitchen sink and you absolutely have what we need and you have a few other things that they didn't have because you're a little more focused on the SEO and the local search end of things and wow, it seems like people are raving about your service. So let's work together and that's fabulous. I want that to happen all day long.47:24 Darren: Yup. Well, we should keep that happening all day long for all of our services and products.47:31 Aaron: Totally.47:31 Darren: All right.47:32 Aaron: All right, my man. That's a wrap.47:34 Darren: We did it. We're gonna see you next week and we'll record another episode. Dan, I can't wait for that. It's gonna be great.47:40 Aaron: Yeah. All kinds of fun in Seattle awaits us. And yeah, we'll find a way to hide out and record episode 11 at MozCon in Seattle. And I don't know, we'll have to bring something really festive to the table with us being in the...47:56 Darren: Something, yeah.47:57 Aaron: The same area to record. I don't know if we can sit face to face that might not work, but we just might be like a hotel room away from each other.48:05 Darren: Or back to back.[laughter]48:10 Aaron: Totally. We might have to include some video clips of this.48:14 Darren: [chuckle] Totally. Alright.48:14 Aaron: Riveting stuff.48:15 Darren: Good. Well thank you. It was a good chat. We'll talk to you next week.48:20 Aaron: Alright. Thanks everybody. Remember to subscribe to the SaaS Venture podcast or share the SaaS Venture podcast with someone you know that is interested in sales, SaaS anything to do with software products. We appreciate building our audience more and more and it's all thanks to you guys. So thanks everyone and have a great week. We'll talk to you next time.48:41 Darren: Talk to you next time.[outro music]

Having a mission statement for your family isn't required but it can be very beneficial for creating and maintaining the culture of your home. Jennifer and I have never created a mission statement before so we thought we would make one while you listen. If you have been blessed by the Marriage After God podcast please consider supporting it by picking up a copy of our book titled Marriage After God. https://marrigeaftergod.com READ TRANSCRIPT [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with "Marriage After God". [Jennifer] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're gonna do something fun and we're gonna talk about creating a family mission statement. Welcome to the "Marriage After God" podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just "Happily Ever After". [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as "Unveiled Wife". [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as "Husband Revolution". [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years, through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one full of life. [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power. [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is "Marriage After God". Firstly, we want to just thank everyone for joining us on this podcast today. We're super excited just to have you join us 'cause this is gonna be an interesting episode. We have a lot in store for you, but first we just wanna ask that you would take a minute to leave us a review. It's easy, you just scroll to the bottom of the app and just leave us a star rating review or comment review. This is one way to support the podcast "Marriage After God" because it allows other people to find the podcast, and we wanna do that. So, please take a moment to help us out there and thank you. [Aaron] Also, our book's out. Our new book, "Marriage After God", is available. It's been such and awesome ride seeing the response we've been getting, and if you have not picked up a copy yet, we'd love for you to go to shop.marriageaftergod.com, and pick up a copy today. One of the most powerful ways you can support us, is by buying our book, and it also supports your marriage and your life. We wrote the book for you. We wrote it to encourage you in the ministry that God has for you and your spouse, so go grab a copy today. [Jennifer] Okay, so we are going to start off here with an ice-breaker question, and Aaron came up with this question, so I'm hoping he has an answer. What is the ideal family trip or vacation? [Aaron] I actually didn't think about it when I said it, so I don't have... Okay, let me think. Ideal family trip. So, I can look back on something we have done that I really enjoyed, when we went to the East Coast, but we did like a plane-drive, plane-drive. [Jennifer] It was over a period of a week and a half, two weeks. [Aaron] Yeah, and I thought that was a lot of fun 'cause we got to fly the portions that I thought would've been boring, maybe. Get to a new area and then drive around, stay for a day or two, go to the next place-- [Jennifer] And here, you said, "Ideal family trip". That doesn't sound ideal for any family. [Aaron] For me! Oh, are you saying ideal for everyone? [Jennifer] Yeah, I don't know if that was your question, but I'm just thinking everyone listening right now is probably shaking their heads, no. [Aaron] I thought that was a fun trip for us. [Jennifer] I think the majority of families, especially with young children, would say flying and driving multiple times in one trip would be a difficult challenge. [Aaron] Okay, I didn't know it "ideal for everyone". Ideal for everyone would be like, going somewhere awesome and staying there for a while. Like, with a house that's comfortable and you have all your family with you, and there's a pool or a beach. [Jennifer] Where would that place be, Aaron? [Aaron] Maui? I don't know. [Jennifer] Awesome. [Aaron] What's ideal for you? What would that be? [Jennifer] So, I think you and me just like adventure because I really had fun that time too, that we went to the East Coast, but I think an ideal family trip is visiting family in California. I think that's just because I know it's something the kids enjoy. We usually hit up the beach. We stay there all day. [Aaron] Yeah, that is fun. [Jennifer] I think it's just an easy, kind of, go-to is when you're visiting family somewhere, you're staying with them, and you're just doing something simple. [Aaron] All right, that's good answer. [Jennifer] Relaxing. [Aaron] I'm sure everyone listening has their own ideal. Like, staying home. Eating ice cream, that sounds ideal. [Jennifer] Now that it's summertime, I'm sure there's a lot of people traveling and doing, you know, maybe family vacations or summer trips. [Aaron] Camping. So, we hope you guys are, and we hope that if you can spend that time with your family and doing something fun, even if it's local, like camping in the backyard, you're doing it, 'cause those are memories that your kids will love forever. [Aaron] Oh yeah. So, I just wanna, before we get into the main topic, I'm gonna read a quote from the book "Marriage After God", and it's about this idea. It's from Chapter 13 of "Marriage After God". [Jennifer] About what idea? Just that you clarify. [Aaron] Yeah, it's about the idea of creating a vision statement or mission statement for your marriage. It says this, "Casting a vision together for the future "of your marriage is an intimate experience "where hope for the future "stimulates perseverance for today." What's awesome about that is, when we create a vision for the future, it doesn't mean we're necessarily planning to the "T" everything that's going to happen in the future, it's just saying like, "This is where we'd like to be." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] "This is what, you know, "the trajectory we want to be on as a family." It helps in those moments when it's tedious; when it's hard; when you're going through something and you say, "Well, we're in this together. "We're going the same direction. "We know where we wanna be, and even if we never get "to that exact point in time, or ideal situation, "we're going there together." [Jennifer] Yeah, and in Chapter 13 of "Marriage After God" we really, you know, drive home this idea that this is an intimate experience that you guys get to do together, and it's something to look forward to casting a vision together and having hope for your marriage and hope for your future together and for your family. This is something that we've kept as a valuable thing in our marriage for years, and I enjoy it. I enjoy the process with you, and so even though in "Marriage After God" we don't strictly talk about creating a family mission statement, we do talk about casting a vision together. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] And in the back of "Marriage After God" we even list some questions for you to sit down and have one of those date-night conversations and be mindful of the next five years, the next 25 years and what that looks like, because when we look to the future of things, there is hope there. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] I think that's important. [Aaron] And we have, like you said, we've always cast vision, planned for the next 60 days, next six months, next year, five years. [Jennifer] We kinda do seasons. [Aaron] We do seasons of that, but we've never sat down and actually wrote down a family vision statement. [Jennifer] Yeah, so even thought we kind of operate out of this same understanding, we've never sat down to do it, and it was actually because of the "Marriage After God" podcast series, which if you guys haven't checked that out, we've been going through-- [Aaron] Yeah just-- [Jennifer] Yeah, 16, 17 episodes about this idea of 'Marriage After God' but several people who we interviewed brought up this idea of creating a family mission statement, and how it has impacted their marriage. I know people share about it online too. So, we just kinda wanted to use this time to, first, encourage you guys in your marriage. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] Encourage you guys to have hope for the future as you vision plan together, but even more so create a family mission statement. That's our challenge for you at the end of this episode and because Aaron and I have never officially done this before or wrote it down, we thought it would be fun to-- [Aaron] We're gonna do it with you. [Jennifer] Do it with you, so-- [Aaron] We're just gonna start talkin' about it in this podcast episode, and we're gonna start coming up with kinda the foundational ideas for our own mission statement. [Jennifer] This was an idea that I had after having those interviews and being encouraged by people because I thought, "So often we hear people say, "'We did this thing. "'We created this family mission statement "'and here it is, or it's still a work in progress.'" [Aaron] That sounds wonderful. Good for them. [Jennifer] That's awesome, but where's the example of doing it? Which I don't know if everybody needs an example of that but sometimes it's helpful to go, what does that actually look like in a conversation? [Aaron] Yeah, how do you have that conversation with you spouse? I feel like every time a couple that we interviewed brought it up, we looked at each other and we're like, "We need to do that!" We wave our hands like, yeah, we just need to do that. [Jennifer] So, the unique part of this episode today is actually that we're gonna be jumping in here in a bit to kind of experience it with you guys. This is like a behind the scenes kind of-- [Aaron] We have not talked about this before recording this. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, you'll hear the candid conversation about how we see our family, where we see we're gonna go, yeah. So, you're gonna join us on this little adventure with us. [Jennifer] Okay, so-- [Aaron] Before we start, why don't you read that quote from "Seven Habits of a Highly Effective Family" by Stephen Covey. [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] 'Cause it's in his whole book about creating a mission statement. [Jennifer] So, I will let you guys know that we actually haven't read this book, but I just jumped on really quick and I typed in Google and said, "family mission statement". [Aaron] This is a part of the process. [Jennifer] Yeah, I encourage you guys to do that too. So, we haven't read this book. We probably will in the future, but there was several people who were quoting this from his book, and it says, "A family mission statement "is a combined unified expression from all family members "of what your family is all about, "what it is you really want to do and be, "and the principles you choose to govern your family life." [Aaron] That's cool, and that's essentially what we're doing. We're not doing it with our kids this time. Our kids are, I think, too young. They'll eventually get older and then what we'll do is we'll probably sit down with them and invite them in and we'll adjust 'cause maybe our kids will have other perspectives they wanna bring in. I know that we have families that they have large families, lots of kids, and they bring their kids in, their older kids, and invite 'em to be a part of this vision planning and mission statement. [Jennifer] So, two things, since we're being candid here. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] The first one being, I don't think our children are too small to be incorporated, even at this stage of the game because it's not finalized yet, right? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] This is our initial go at it. And so I think-- [Aaron] And Elliott is pretty smart. [Jennifer] Yeah, Elliott's smart. [Aaron] He'll be like, "Why don't we..." [Jennifer] But I think... Okay, so our kids are six and a half, four, two, and eight months. So obviously, Truit's not gonna say much. [Aaron] I don't know. [Jennifer] But having a family fun meeting, where we're saying, "Okay guys, here are some questions "mommy and daddy have for you", and getting them involved. Maybe even if some of the questions are over their head, it'll still be a fun time to spend together and maybe we'll be surprised." [Aaron] Let's write down the funny answers and then we'll keep those for the future and say, "This is what you said when you were four." [Jennifer] Maybe we'll be surprised by them. [Aaron] That's probably true. [Jennifer] So, I do-- [Aaron] I concede. [Jennifer] The second thing is I wanna encourage those listening, if you do have children, that you do find a way to incorporate them in this process because they are a part of the family; and if you're doing it and you don't have kids yet, that's okay too. You and your spouse-- [Aaron] And I guess it's gonna give them more ownership and be like, "Hey, you are members of this family, "not just people that are in it." [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] "You're part of it." [Jennifer] Yeah, and I think what I've gathered from trying to understand this family mission statement saying, is that it's not something that is like, "here are the rules", you know. It's more of something that's supposed to encourage the family unit to be in agreeance and have the same understanding of what those family core values are. So, even though this quote up here says "to govern your family life", I think there's freedom in that. It's not like a list of rules, but it's something creative, a creative way to establish standards and core values. [Aaron] Okay. So, should we do it? [Jennifer] I think we should jump in, yeah. [Aaron] Should we start working on this? I know our kids aren't here but we're gonna start at least with the foundational stuff, maybe? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Answer some questions. [Jennifer] And just again to preface, this is not something that's... There's not a final answer to. We're kinda just jumping in to show you guys how the conversation could go. [Aaron] Well, it's gonna go. [Jennifer] Well, it's gonna go. This is it. [Aaron] This is our legitimate conversation that we're gonna talk about our mission statement as a family. [Jennifer] Okay. You might hear keyboard typing 'cause I'm taking notes. That's how I'm doin' it. [Aaron] Yeah, so you have a question there, but I guess I wanna start with the first one. I know we kind of hit it up, but when you hear "mission statement"... 'Cause I'm sure everyone has their own little definition of it, and you even had to Google it, like, "What's everyone do?" Everyone's got a little different take on it. When you think mission statement, what do you think? Like, is this our one word phrase or few words phrase? Like, when we are out and about we say, "This is who we are!" [Jennifer] Yeah, we get t-shirts made, right? [Aaron] Yeah, we can get some t-shirts made. [Jennifer] That's not a bad idea. The word that comes to my mind is it's a motto. It's a way of being. It's a way of doing life together, and I do think it is something that should be shortened and concise so that it's easy to remember. [Aaron] I agree. [Jennifer] There might be portions of it that are expanded upon, but I think it should be something that is easy to remember. [Aaron] Okay, it's almost like a statement of faith on our website [Jennifer] Exactly! [Aaron] It's like, "This is what we believe, "this is who we are." [Jennifer] Exactly. [Aaron] Yeah, and this is how we're gonna live. Of course, because we're believers and we love the Lord and we love the Bible, that's probably gonna be a big part of this. [Jennifer] Well, yeah. I would assume that Christians who create a family mission statement, it's built upon the Word. [Aaron] Right. Okay, so we're gonna have to have some verses and we'll get to that probably. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, here's the first question. What are some words that describe our family or what we want our family to be? [Jennifer] Hmm. [Aaron] I'm just gonna throw out the first thing-- [Jennifer] Okay, go. [Aaron] I thought of is generous. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And for those listening, a lot of the things we're gonna say, because we kind of have just walked in certain things over the last 12 years that we've been married and even before then. I think there's just gonna be some natural things that come out of us. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But now it's gonna be solidified as, "This is who we are." So, generosity is something I believe has been a mark of our marriage for a long time. [Jennifer] I like that. A word that comes to my mind is, I think I already said it, but "adventurous". Meaning that we find the fun in things. [Aaron] Write that down, "we find the fun in thing", 'cause there could be lot's of different "adventurous." Adventurous like, we like to take financial risks. Or adventurous like-- [Jennifer] No, more like, we do fun things. [Aaron] Okay, that's a different kind of adventur-- [Jennifer] We like to explore. We like to eat. We like to go-- [Aaron] We love change. [Jennifer] We love change. [Aaron] Not too much change but we like new environments. We like-- [Jennifer] Yeah, I would say, not change so much to our rhythms and routines, because those are important but more so just experiential. I don't know how to explain it. [Aaron] Like new environments. [Jennifer] New environments. [Aaron] It goes into the adventurous side of... We like to go to new places. We like to be around new people. [Jennifer] I don't know if we've shared this before but we've kind of done these Saturday adventure days with the kids throughout the summer time. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] 'Cause we go through seasons where it's just easier. [Aaron] We did a podcast about the adventure days. [Jennifer] Okay. So, that's an important thing. When I think of adventure, I think time set aside where we know we're gonna be doing something with the kids, whether it's local or maybe a-- [Aaron] Out of the norm. So, like, we have our normal flow. We have our normal rhythm, and then we're gonna go do something 'not'. [Jennifer] Go on a hike. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Go look at the river. Go whatever it is. [Aaron] Go for a long drive to a new place through a rose garden or apples. [Jennifer] I do, I make... You guys don't know this about me. I make Aaron go out of his way for me all the time because-- [Aaron] She's like, "I found this orchard "on the other side of the mountain. "Can we go?" And then like, it's not open or... I'm just kidding. No, we've actually had a lot of cool adventures just 'cause you Google and find a cool place to go see. [Jennifer] Yeah, even like, we were in Portland this time last year. I remember it was hot and only Elliot was awake, the other kids were napping. I was like, "Will you just pull over and let me go see "the rose garden? "I've been wanting to see it." You know, but it was a fun little detour and it worked out for everyone. I like that kind of stuff. [Aaron] So, adventurous in the fun kind of way, in the environmental kind of way, the experiential kind of way. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] I would say another word I think of is community. [Jennifer] Mmm. [Aaron] I know it's like an easy buzz word for Christians. [Jennifer] No, it's good. [Aaron] We've made big decisions in our life and one of the main criteria in that decision was community. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Often. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] When moving, our prayer was, "Well, we can't move until something changes "in our community because we have these relationships, "we have these connections. "God has us here." [Jennifer] So, being loyal. [Aaron] Yeah, I like that word, loyal. We walk with people and we don't just say, "Well, "they'll get over it, we're gonna move on "and find new friends." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Not that we've been perfect at this, but community's been a huge part of how we make decisions. Even now we think, "If we ever had to move, "who's are we gonna convince to move with us?" And it's not that we don't like being... Like we couldn't do it on our own. We know that community is so important and we want to take it with us. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, I would say a part of that is also walking in light, and we've done this time and time again where it's just being transparent, being able to communicate-- [Aaron] Oh, put that word, that's a good word, transparent. [Jennifer] Okay. [Aaron] I guess it is tied to community, but it's transparent in other things too 'cause our online communities we are transparent with and we don't know any of them. [Jennifer] If nobody knows what he's talking about, we have these online communities who are amazing people. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Who have been following us [Aaron] Facebook, Instagram. [Jennifer] For eight years now. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] It's so awesome. [Aaron] Yeah. So, we try and be the same person to every person we meet. Would that be like-- [Jennifer] Integrity? [Aaron] Integrity. [Jennifer] I like that. [Aaron] I don't know if that's in-Integrity's like being the same person when no one's around. Right? [Jennifer] But also when different people are around. It's all the time. [Aaron] Right, okay. Say like, I'm not showing this person that face, and then that person this face. [Jennifer] I only show you different faces. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] I used to have to work on this. [Aaron] Showing me like... I'd be like, "Why do you give everyone the 'good' face?" And then when you get home I get that face. [Jennifer] Yeah, you said, "I want the best of you." [Aaron] Yeah, that was-- [Jennifer] 'cause I had a problem with showing you too much-- [Aaron] Well, I think it's normal. Just as a little tangent. It's easy to let down the face you have on for everyone else, when you're around the person you know loves you. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But we should really say, "No, I'm actually gonna work harder to give the best "to my closest neighbor, my spouse." It doesn't mean we give the worst to our other neighbors. [Jennifer] Everybody else. [Aaron] Yeah, I guess it's just-- [Jennifer] I needed balance in my life when it came to that. [Aaron] Yeah, it's learning how to be real. Like, when you're around someone, you could at least be real and say, "I'm not feeling good right now" or "I'm not"... Anyways, that was a tangent. So, transparent, I like. That's a good word. That's something that's always been, we've always prided ourselves in... I don't wanna say "prided ourselves". Just being transparent. Not wanting to hide things, be open. Integrity is a good word. So, I think community, transparency, generous, let's think... [Jennifer] I would say faithfulness to our Christian walk, to being obedient to God's Word. Our faith is foundational. [Aaron] I like faithfulness though as the word, because it's easy to say faith. Faith's important, but faithfulness means to our faith and to the Word, and to God. [Jennifer] It's like active. [Aaron] Yeah, it's like a movement word. Is that a verb? It's an action word. What are some... I feel like there's other words that we often say. [Jennifer] Just real quick as a side note to those listening. [Aaron] Extraordinary. I just wanted to say before I forgot it. [Jennifer] Okay. That's fine. [Aaron] Extraordinary is a big word for us. [Jennifer] Yes. Do you wanna explain why? [Aaron] Well, we talk about it a lot in the book "Marriage After God". [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] But it's this idea that we've always had a heart to not just be normal. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] And that doesn't mean that our goal was to be special and like how we wanted to have this... 'Cause starting this ministry online wasn't even an idea in our hearts when we first got married, but our idea was like, "Well, let's just do what God wants "and that's going to be extraordinary." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] We went to the mission field for a while and then we went to Canada, and we went to Florida, and we did all these different little things. [Jennifer] I can actually see how even smaller decisions in our life, like buying this house, that wasn't a small decision, but-- [Aaron] It was at-- [Jennifer] But I just think of decisions that we've made together and we've even out-loud said to ourselves, "Well, that's extraordinary", or "That's not the normal way!" [Aaron] Right, well we could do the ordinary or we could do it the extraordinary way. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] And the reason you brought up this house, for those that don't know, they can actually find a YouTube video about us doing the house process. We bought a, I wanna say a fixer-upper. [Jennifer] Decrepit. [Aaron] But it was a beater-upper. It was really bad. We had to tear down most of the house to fix it back up, but when we thought about it we were like, "Well, this is how we're gonna get what we can afford." [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] "And then we can make it ours." Which, lot's of people do that, but it was extraordinary in my mind. So, extraordinary is a good word for us. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, when you paused back there I was just gonna note that that's okay when you're doing this process together. There's gonna be times when something might be on your heart or right at the tip of your tongue, and you don't know how to explain it. I think that's why the majority of people will say, "You don't just sit down and write a mission statement. "It's a process, and the process is what counts. "The process is the important part "because you're actually communicating with each other "on what matters most to you." [Aaron] Good tip. [Jennifer] Yeah. So, you just mull it over and come back to the drawing board over and over and over again until you narrow it down. [Aaron] Yeah, and I think after we go through this, we'll be able to see these words and think of better words. [Jennifer] Probably. Or use the good old dictionary! [Aaron] Or just the thesaurus. [Jennifer] Thanks, Google. [Aaron] Thesaurus. [Jennifer] Okay, so are there any phrases that we repeat often or say? [Aaron] Yeah, there's a-- [Jennifer] I know one! Go ahead, what were you gonna say? [Aaron] We do hard things. [Jennifer] Yes! That was what I was gonna say! [Aaron] That was... But you know what? That's a phrase that we only started saying when our kids started getting older. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] But-- [Jennifer] To encourage them we would say things "We're the Smiths and we do hard things." [Aaron] And so they own it, and they say, "Oh, okay. "This thing that I said is hard, we do those things." [Jennifer] Yeah. What's cool is they've recognized when we're doing Bible time, certain stories in the Bible of people doing hard things they'll recognize and go, "Hey, David does hard things!" [Aaron] Yeah! So, I think "We do hard things" is a important phrase, and we didn't come up with that of course. [Jennifer] But we use it. [Aaron] We use it often. [Jennifer] I don't know where it came from. [Aaron] And it doesn't just remind our kids, it reminds us because how many times a day do we get to this point of like, "Ugh, I don't wanna do this right now." And they're like, "Ugh, we do hard things." [Jennifer] It's the fight against the flesh. [Aaron] Yeah, we just did our lawns for the first time this season, and I just kept wanting to quit. I was like, "I did enough. Next week I'll finish the weeds." And I'm like . And then I go through and I'm like, "Oh, I'm just gonna go "a little bit further and make this look nice. Then I'm like, "Ugh, I just wanna give up." And then I go a little bit further, and I just kept telling myself, "No, I can finish this. "It's like my first time ever doing this, I should be fine." [Jennifer] That same conversation happens to me every single time I go to work out. It's like, you have ten squats on the list to do and you get through four and you're like, "Ahh!" [Aaron] "I should be able to do this." [Jennifer] "Okay, I'll do one more." And then you want to bail out but then you just keep going, you keep going, you keep going. [Aaron] I think it's a good phrase. What's another phrase that we say? Oh, it's kind of a word but we use it as a phrase. [Jennifer] What? [Aaron] "Gotta have self-control." [Jennifer] Oh, self-control. [Aaron] So, it's a word but-- [Jennifer] Self-control. [Aaron] We use it in a sense that we say it probably a million and a half times a day to our kids. "Are you having self-control? "You need to have self-control. "Remember self-control!" [Jennifer] We say it to each other now, too, because in conjunction with "We're setting the example. "We're setting the example". [Aaron] One of us will be having an attitude about something, just tired or exhausted or frustrated; and I'll be like, "Okay, are you self-controlled right now?" We say it a little quieter to each other. [Jennifer] Okay. So, what-- [Aaron] Is there any other phrases? We say other things. [Jennifer] I'm sure there are and we can come back to this if we think about it, but I was gonna ask, "What is it that we value? "What are some things that we really value?" [Aaron] The Word of God. We have to start with that. I know that sounds like the default answer, but it has to be the number one thing we value. It's what we tell our kids is the most important thing, it's what we try and teach them, we try and live it. So, I think the Word of God is... Now, I will say this, and it's something I've been convicted on recently and something that God's been convicting me on for my whole life, probably. I think this, and then I'm like, "But do I actually show this?" Am I in my Word as much as I could be? I don't want to say "should be" because I don't think there's a number or how many chapters or how many words or how many verses, or whatever; but I know in my heart when I'm in and out of it. I know when I'm giving God's Word the attention it deserves in my life. We could feel it. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] Recently you've been kind of just overwhelmed with the book launch that-- [Jennifer] Lots of stuff to do. [Aaron] Lots of stuff to do and I was just thinking to myself, I'm like, "I wonder what-I didn't say this to you, but I was wondering when you were in the Word. [Jennifer] It's so funny, it's not funny, it's... Wow, this is really convicting because I know exactly the moment in that conversation where I had this thought that, "I wouldn't be feeling this way "if I was in the Word", and-- [Aaron] When was it? 'cause I was thinking about it. I didn't say it to you, I was just... 'Cause I was just encouraging you and comforting you and letting you know it was gonna be okay. [Jennifer] No, it was really impactful for me, and I've been in the Word since. I think sometimes we just get in these ruts or seasons where we're busy or we're going strong on certain areas of our life, and we don't realize when another area have kind of-- [Aaron] Yeah, we've neglected an area. [Jennifer] Been neglected, and that was happening with me for a couple days. I'd say about a week and a half. [Aaron] Well, me too, and I was feeling... Remember I told you how I was feeling? [Jennifer] Yeah, I think it was compiling. [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] I think the Lord is good. [Aaron] Well, I was just thinking on Sunday, the message was about... Actually the message wasn't about it, but Matt said, "Hey, we can't know all of this in one sitting. "We have to just go line by line, verse by verse, "chapter by chapter, over years of reading and reading, "and re-reading and re-reading, and re-memorizing "and re-stating, and chewing it over." Then this morning, I was listening to J. Vernon McGee, and he was in Isaiah and he was bringing up the scripture that talks about "precept upon precept, line by line", and he was saying... You know, it took five years for J. Vernon McGee to teach through the Bible. That was just him going through one time. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm. [Aaron] Five years. How much do we go 'precept by precept'? Are we just reading through it? Laying on the knowledge that we're getting out of it. That was another good tangent, but Word of God I think is the most valuable thing. It needs to be-- [Jennifer] Bolded? [Aaron] Yeah, bolded and-- [Jennifer] Italicized? [Aaron] Italicized, highlighted in green, but I think it needs to be more evident in our own lives for our kids sake and for our own sake. [Jennifer] Yeah. What a great tool, this mission statement, to remind us to do that. If this is gonna be a foundational thing that is in front of us by maybe putting it on a plaque in our house or however we're gonna display this once we do finalize it. To be reminded of that, you know, every single day. [Aaron] Yeah, "Let's go back to the Word of God. "What does the Word say about this situation." [Jennifer] So, what other things do we value? I feel like we value-- [Aaron] Stewardship? [Jennifer] Stewardship. [Aaron] Is that a good word? [Jennifer] That's good. [Aaron] Like we value-- [Jennifer] I'm gonna write that down. [Aaron] Being good stewards, which we talk a ton about in 'Marriage after God'. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Because of how important it is to our ministries. [Jennifer] It's like the whole book's message, really. [Aaron] "Are you stewarding the way God's given you well?" That's the whole book actually. [Jennifer] I guess part of what I was gonna say goes along with this. I don't know if you would agree, but recognizing our need verses want in minimalism. Not that we're minimalist people because we have stuff. We have stuff, but I don't feel like we exaggerate and go outside of what we need. Does that make sense? [Aaron] I would agree. I think there's been seasons in our life that, because of discontentment or dissatisfaction or whatever, we've chased after things. [Jennifer] Or acquired. [Aaron] Collecting things, or buying things that we don't need. That's rarer, I would say. I'm not gonna say, "It's not super rare", but we tend to get what we need and not much more. Again, there's plenty of things that we have. [Jennifer] I think we've been good over time of challenging each other or encouraging each other, you know, "Maybe we don't need that thing right now", or "Hey, if you are gonna go get that, think about this." [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] You've done it with me with kids clothes before. "Hey, instead of buying off that website "can we just try and"-- [Aaron] "Because they're not gonna fit in it "in six weeks." [Jennifer] "Or they're gonna be stained up." [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Or whatever the reasoning's were. That was just the first thing off the top of my head. I think that... [Aaron] Stewardship minimalist. Yeah, I agree. We're not minimalist, but we definitely think on a more, "What do we need verses what do we want? "And what do we want, is it something we need, "and is it something we can use and is it gonna be"-- [Jennifer] We're willing to be confronted by that, for sure. [Aaron] Right. What is other things we value? Relationships? [Jennifer] I was gonna say people. [Aaron] People, yeah. I would say this goes up higher. [Jennifer] You can even see this in our kids because Olive really values relationships. [Aaron] Mm-hmm. [Jennifer] All of our kids do, but I could just see it in them. [Aaron] Yeah. Well, it's of course, the Word of God points us to-- [Jennifer] God's relationship. [Aaron] I would say that's almost the number one message in the Bible, other than Jesus Christ and him crucified, which everything points to that, is why he died for us is to give us relationship with the Father, and then through that gives us relationship with other people, right? Like, John 17, which we should put down because the next thing we're gonna talk about is scripture, but John 17 is a major one, which is the high priestly prayer Jesus prays for his disciples and for everyone who believes in the message that the disciples bring to the world; is that we would be one. That we'd be unified just as Christ and God are unified. [Jennifer] Yeah, but before we move on to the scripture section, I had some things I wanted to share about the values. So, 'cause this is all about brain-dumping and just getting out of our minds and heart what we believe to be true about our family, to build up this mission statement. So, words like 'creativity'. I feel like we value. Inspiring each other towards greatness. [Aaron] Can I throw in a word? Creating. [Jennifer] Creating, okay. [Aaron] I mean, we've done the self-publishing thing, the blogging, the social media. It's just kind of been a part of what we do. So, creativity, inspiring, but we also create. It's part of us. [Jennifer] Mmm, that's good. [Aaron] Elliot loves to draw, Olive loves to paint. [Jennifer] Yeah. That's good, lots of Lego building. [Aaron] Lots of Lego building! By the way the Lego thing you built yesterday is awesome. It's like this huge city. [Jennifer] It was supposed to be Bleecker St. in New York. [Aaron] Okay. [Jennifer] I just didn't get to finish it. [Aaron] I didn't see the signs. [Jennifer] Oh, go back and look at it. So yeah, some of the things that we value are experiences where, being able to go to a museum if we're near one, or-- [Aaron] I feel like that falls under adventure, adventurous, right? [Jennifer] Okay. Yeah, but it's like learning experiences. [Aaron] Well, put learning then. That's a good word. [Jennifer] Learning. So, whether that's-- [Aaron] Learning is a big thing-- [Jennifer] Experiences or books, resources, pretty much anything I can get my hands on for us or for the kids that encourages growth and investment. [Aaron] All the educational films like Marvels, Avengers, and Iron Man, those are really for us. [Jennifer] For us. [Aaron] For us, yeah. Yeah, I think learning is a great word. So, under value... [Jennifer] Does food count? [Aaron] Oh, you know, can I say wisdom? [Jennifer] Wisdom, yeah. [Aaron] And you actually should put food on there because that is a huge thing for us. Food. We love food! [Jennifer] Not just food. [Aaron] God loved food. [Jennifer] I know but the experience of food, like the actual tasting good and figuring out what flavors are there, but then the experience of eating with people. [Aaron] Yeah, so actually food kinda encompasses all these. [Jennifer] Okay so, on our family mission statement it's gonna say, "The Smith family", and then in bold right beneath that-- [Aaron] "Food." [Jennifer] 'Food'. [Aaron] That'll be our... It's short. [Jennifer] Semi-calling Gods word. So, it's like both, right? It's like the Word of Life. [Aaron] Well, God's Word is the bread of life. So, it just literally all fits in. Everyone here that's listening, our mission statement is [Jennifer And Aaron] Food. [Jennifer] This is how our conversations really go in real life, to you guys. We're not makin' this up for you. [Aaron] I'm pretty sure I can fit every single one of those things into food. [Jennifer] We'll figure it out. [Aaron] Yeah. Wisdom, what I mean by wisdom is, wisdom is the application of knowledge. [Jennifer] Yup. [Aaron] 'Cause you can know lots of things and do nothing with it. [Jennifer] Not ever implement it. [Aaron] Yeah, wisdom is like, "Oh, I actually know how "to navigate this kind of relationship, "therefore I'm going to navigate it that way." Or, "I know that I should keep my mouth shut "in this situation", so I could choose to act on the knowledge or not. So, wisdom is taking the Word of God, taking life experiences and letting it teach us and then saying, "Oh, last time we experienced that. "Let's make a different decision this time." [Jennifer] Mmm. [Aaron] We were actually just talking about this in the car. All the experiences the God's given us, hard ones that have taught us things. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] That a lot of people won't ever experience. [Jennifer] Right, but everyone listening has their own set of experiences that-- [Aaron] That no one else will have. [Jennifer] No one else will have. [Aaron] That God wants to use to teach them wisdom. [Jennifer] Yeah, but wisdom is saying, "Okay, I'm going "to learn from that, and not just learn from it, but"-- [Jennifer] Apply it. [Aaron] "I'm gonna apply the knowledge to my life now "regardless of how easy it is or how it feels to my flesh." [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] Right. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, wisdom is a big one. [Jennifer] Okay, cool. So, moving on, were there any more scriptures that you wanted to share? [Aaron] Think of some scriptures... [Jennifer] One, you brought up generosity earlier, and so one of the scriptures that came to my mind was 2 Corinthians 9:6-8, it says, "The point is this: whoever sows sparingly "will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully "will also reap bountifully. "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, "not reluctantly or under compulsion, "for God loves a cheerful giver." So, I just thought about that. [Aaron] That's a great one. Cheerful giver. [Jennifer] I think it defines how we give, which I love. [Aaron] Yeah we don't ever, I mean we try not to give out of compulsion. As in, "Oh, we must do this!" No, we'd be like, "We want to do this." [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] So, that's a good one. Another one I think of is the Great Commission in Mathew 28, where Jesus literally tells the church what it's job is. It says, Mathew 28:18, "And Jesus came and said to them, ""All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son "and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe "all that I have commanded you. "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." [Jennifer] I love that last portion. [Aaron] Yeah, and we can take this as our individual mandates, but really it's the mandate for the church as a whole, 'cause there's all these different functioning parts. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] Discipling, evangelism, teaching-- [Jennifer] Baptizing. [Aaron] Baptizing, all these different things, and we sometimes get to do all of them, and sometimes get to just play at planting or watering. [Jennifer] A portion of it, mm-hmm. [Aaron] It's what the church's job is and I think it should be what our job is. [Jennifer] I feel like if I could summarize that whole verse, it would say, "to make Him known", you know? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] Like, to know Him and to make Him known. That's such a big-- [Aaron] Put that down. That's a awesome thing, make Him known. I think that should definitely be in our statement because that is our life. We want our children to do that. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] We want our children to know Him. [Jennifer] Right. [Aaron] And then we want our children to make Him known. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] Is our desire. [Jennifer] Okay, so we want to encourage you guys that as you do jump into experiencing this process of creating a family mission statement, to go to scripture, to see where your family values line up according to His Word, because it is foundational to how we live our lives and do what we do. This was just to give you guys a glimpse into the behind the scenes, Aaron and Jen, and how we communicate through things like this. Being able to share your vision for your family and life, being able to come up with, and create a family mission statement. It's supposed to be a unifying experience of togetherness, intimacy, understanding one another, identifying "who are we" and "what are we doing"? [Aaron] Yeah, "Who are the Smiths?" [Jennifer] Well, "who are they listening, who are you?" And kinda just build this missions statement to look forward to sharing it with your family. [Aaron] Yeah, and we're not done with this. We are going to on our own, now, finish this up; but this was our getting started. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] We started it out. We're glad that you got to join us on this candid conversation of us trying to think out "who we are and what we're about". [Jennifer] Yeah. I did want to share a couple practical things. When you do do a family mission statement, based off of what I've seen and you guys have probably seen too. Some fun ways to have this experience and share it with each other is use a whiteboard, or get some poster paper, or a pen and paper, or like we just did, use your computer, your phone, whatever it takes to make those notes. You can brain-dump and then cross stuff out as you go, but have fun with it. Also, some examples of making it visible in the home. I have some people say, "In this house", and then they list all their words. [Aaron] So, once we're done with it we can put this up somewhere so we're always seeing, "Hey, look what we... "We're not acting the way we say we're gonna act." [Jennifer] Exactly. Some people do the last name in bold at the top and then share the core values or the mission statement. Some people put it in a frame. Some people put it on script, on canvas. There's so many different ways that you can visibly show it in your home and the great thing about that is-- [Aaron] Tattoos, that's a really good one, right? [Jennifer] Just tattoo it on our backs? [Aaron] Yeah. [Jennifer] No, but this is a great thing, like you said, to be mindful of how we operate as a family. We can even share as our kids get older, and teach them through it like, "Hey, we're the Smith's and we do hard things. "See it says it right there." So, those are just some things and we wanted to encourage you guys in that. [Aaron] Yeah, and I hope you had fun with us, too. We had fun. We're gonna finish it up, we'll probably do it on a date night or over the next... It doesn't have to be done right away, right. It's something that we can evolve with us. [Jennifer] It's a work in progress and so many people who have shared theirs with ours have said, "It's still a work in progress, "and you can change it and alter it as you go." Remember, you can incorporate your family, your kids and everyone to participate in it, but we did wanna challenge you guys with doing it. Even if it's just the initial go at it like we just did. [Aaron] Start it on your next date night. [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] That's the reason, you're like, "Oh, we have to go "do our mission statement. "Oh, we'll need a babysitter! "Let's go do this." [Jennifer] Have fun, have fun, have fun! [Aaron] Yeah, and then invite your kids into it also. Not on date night. Go to date night, start it, come home, invite them in afterwards, or on another day. [Jennifer] And you guys don't need a specific set of questions to figure out. What we just did is we just said, "What are some phrases "and words that define our family, "of what we know of our family already?" [Aaron] We just started. [Jennifer] We just did it. Ask each other hard questions. [Aaron] Cool, so we like to end our episodes with a prayer, and so, Jennifer, would you pray for us? [Jennifer] Sure. Dear Lord, Thank you for the gift of marriage. May we continue to walk in obedience to Your Word as we seek to fulfill Your will for our lives and our marriage. We pray, we would consider the purpose You have for our marriage and we pray we will work together to communicate what our family mission statement is. We pray we would humbly submit it before You and that it would become a pillar in our family and in our life, that reminds us what we are doing and where we are headed. May this family mission statement build up according to Your core values, be an anchor for our marriage and family, motivating us to live our lives on purpose. May the experience of considering and building our family mission statement be a time of togetherness intimacy and understanding. Thank you for the hope You give us every day. May we honor You with our lives. In Jesus name, Amen. [Aaron] Amen. So, we just want to thank every one for joining us this week and listening to this episode. I hope you had fun with us. It was a lot of fun for us, as I said earlier. But go, start a mission statement with your spouse and with your family, and see what happens. See how it focuses you. You might end up finding out that you're participating in things that don't even line up with what you guys believe as a family. That might be cool. Or you might realize that there's opportunities out there that you could be tapping into because of it. We just wanted to thank you. We look forward to having you next week, and if you have not yet went to shop.marriageaftergod,com and picked up a copy of our new book, "Marriage After God", we'd love to invite you to do so. We thank you for everything. You guys are awesome. All the reviews, all of the comments and stuff we get on our social media, and just all the listens. You guys listening to these podcasts, we just so appreciate you guys. We look forward to having you next week. See you later. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes, also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.