Zach: How are you doing? You want to get into it?

Anna: Yeah. Did you get both of our questionnaires?

Zach: I did, and I’m worried I might pick a fight. I, Did you compare notes in your questionnaires?

Anna: We kind of filled some of it out together, didn’t we?

Daniel: Just a couple questions.

Zach: Is it okay if I pick a fight?

Daniel: Yeah, sure.

Anna: You want to use this? An example, in other words.

Zach: No, I’ve just.

Anna: Actually got to be like this couple. I’m just kidding.

Zach: Listen. No no, no. Listen, I ask people all the time to fill out, this question about how they would rate the relationship on a scale of 1 to 10. And I can’t tell you how many tens I get. I get so many tens. And I’m like, Please, can you not with the tens, right?

Anna: We’re not, Oh, there’s. I even moved mine from a four to a five. So just so you can.

Zach: Say your five. Yeah. And you were an eight. Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah.

Anna: You were.

Daniel: Yeah. I was trying to be honest. I think, to preface it. Our ten years together, we’ve grown, we’ve ebbed and flowed. That’s like I kind of rated it based on the arc myself, not the. Yeah, I saw fit a little way and how I am. And I figured there’s, you know, several things that I can improve on to make this a ten.

Daniel: So I have, well expected and, and, I do that too.

Zach: You’re not surprised that you’re sort of further apart than the standard deviation.

Daniel: Is it is it further apart than the standard?

Zach: Well, I don’t know. It’s a five and an eight, you know, I mean, that’s sometimes that’s a signal that two people are in the same relationship or they’re not aware that things are going on, but it sounds like you have some kind of like, know my. And again, this isn’t science, right? It’s arbitrary sort of it’s relationship.

Zach: Yeah. How do I think about a random number scale and your lens was about trajectory perhaps like on the trajectory of our relationship specifically with regard to what I’m bringing to the table. I’m trending in the right direction. Maybe I’m at today. Is that is that a fair way to say what you just said?

Daniel: Yes, I would say that is I think.

Anna: That’s probably fair from where he started. He’s, he’s he is at a perfect firm eight.

Zach: Are you surprised that Anna was at a four? That she ticked up to a five?

Daniel: Probably not. I think yeah. She’s been pretty. Pretty, communicative about her desires. Right.

Anna: And so we have we’re pretty good communicators. We’re not, like, stuff it and hold it. We’re kind of more like. I guess that’s how we film this.

Daniel: I would say I was that person.

Anna: Yeah.

Daniel: Anyways, I’m from a an old school family where you just eat it and walk through it, you know? So.

Anna: And I ain’t been in therapy since I was 14, like you said. So I’m like, the Olympiad and I have to, like, kind of calibrate, be like, come on, keep it up, keep up, keep up.

Zach: Capital therapy and lots of eyes is on it.

Anna: Lots of them. Lots of. Yeah. Different. Different styles, different approaches, different, you know, but yeah, it’s a definite I also learned, I think in my 30s, that therapy into me wasn’t a process that needed to get over. It was like a way you choose to live your life, right? If you want to be a self-reflective person, if you want to be a, person who grows and changes openly, like, readily, and rather than fighting it, I feel like some people always swim upstream with their therapy.

Anna: And I was like, give it to me and what’s the next thing? And I wanted to do therapy, I think, for my whole life, just as a point of, you know, thinking and feeling about things and, you know, clearing things that I might not be aware of or that I am aware of and just kind of a keeps a good soulful hygiene.

Anna: I think a spiritual, you know, health in there. So, you got on board and pretty soon I don’t think that he was expecting to.

Daniel: Wow. So therapy was not any good. I mean, it probably even today if you told.

Anna: Your dad, you.

Daniel: Know. So my family, they’ve they’ve had fighting and turbulence my entire life. And if you brought the word up, you need to go to therapy or rehab or any of that. It was. Yeah, that’s for sissies. And, only only weak people do that kind of stuff. So that was the guys I was raised under for a long time.

Daniel: Yeah. Which was different than her, her family dynamic.

Anna: My dad was like I’ll pay for therapy. I will, you know, so that you don’t have to use your health insurance. I just want you to be healthy. And they were in marriage therapy. And so it’s kind of advanced at that time my dad and mom were really progressive for, you know, parents born in the 40s raising their kids in the 80s.

Anna: You know, it was like, yeah, that wasn’t a thing yet. It was almost like you only went to therapy if something was really.

Zach: Yeah. You know, I used to think the same thing. I used to think people who went to therapy, there was something wrong with them. They were broken. And now I sort of think people who don’t go to therapy, there’s something wrong with them. They’re broken.

Daniel: Oh, yeah?

Anna: Yeah. That’s really.

Daniel: Well, that’s the best way to put that for sure.

Zach: So. Okay. Tell me then about your five.

Anna: You know, I think my five has a lot to do with, you know, just kind of playing catch up. I married Daniel because I was extremely attracted to him, and I knew that he was a very, very, very good man. And I went in knowing that he was at a deficit in a lot of different ways. But no wife can tell him, and I just hope that maybe he’d keep up and like, want to work on this eventually.

Anna: I was 36, I wanted children, I knew that that was the value I had. A lot of my friends who were living in Hollywood were still at 37 and 38, chasing this ultimate marriage. And I’m like, I know marriages are not a lot to bank on, even though I my parents are 80, two, turning in and still together, still alive and thriving.

Anna: So I had a good role model of marriage, but I wasn’t going to hang my coat on it. I knew that relationships were hard, and so I said, I know that when I marry this man, no matter what. And I knew that he had a history of not wanting to get divorced either. It was like, okay, we’ll be in it and we’ll work on it.

Anna: And I know that he’s a good man, so I will have great children. Both. You know, in the psychology department, he has a very good mind. It’s very clear and straight and honest. He didn’t have a lot of. I dated really dysfunctional men. And I knew that he had issues like we all do, but they weren’t like the kind that was psychological fracturing.

Anna: And I was like, then you can work on this, right? If the mind isn’t broken in the heart is good. We can fix things as they come up and go along. And I think that I took for granted that I am a hyper mobilizer of change. And Daniel’s a Taurus and he is very slow in his reckoning and taking action.

Anna: In fact, that’s not his strong suit, is it? He will know something years before he will actually know how to implement it into something that is, of significant impact. And so for me, I think the five is a point of fatigue, sometimes a point of helpless or hopelessness where I’m like, I know that he knows everything he needs to do, but there’s still like, a lack of action.

Anna: And the impact of him not living into his genius is is felt pretty deeply in our family, in our, relationship. And, I don’t know, I feel like I’ve done a lot of work on being like, am I just a critical woman? Am I just, you know, the never satisfied partner? Am I the, you know, the critical nitpicker?

Anna: And I feel like I have worn many hats over the years. 13 years and first year, like the, you know, devoted encourager. And then you’re like, I’m going to try to be the inspirer and then I’m going to be the, you know, you know, the pusher, and then I’m going to be the retractor, and then I’m, you know, and I feel like at this point I am a healthy enough individuated person where I’m like, this is your stuff.

Anna: But if it doesn’t change, my highway might split from yours because we’re like, we choose every day if we want to be on the same highway. Right. This is love is a choice. It’s a deep feeling. I’m very passionate about Daniel. I am extremely attracted to him physically. Our sex life is this kind of backwards for most relationships is that our sex life is not enough.

Anna: But when we have sex, it’s amazing. And I was trying to explain him that I’m like, biologically there’s nothing wrong. I just have a really hard time being like the last thing in my day when I feel like I wanted you to lift 50% of the load is now let me meet your needs. Right? So I think that is where my five sits is I’m like, not dissatisfied with you.

Anna: I’m not dissatisfied with love. I love our children and our family. But I don’t know how to compensate for your lack of action in your life. It’s actually yours. And I’m no longer, feeling like, why don’t you do it for me? Or why can’t you do it for the kids? Or I’m like, this is what you’re sitting in.

Anna: But I then am trying to figure out how to relate because I was raised with codependent parents. I want to be the fill in the gap, and he tells me his needs and I’m like, yeah, I would love to be able to do that for you. And then, so that’s kind of I think that dynamic for me.

Anna: Right. In terms of just desperately wanting change and going through, it’s kind of interesting. There’s a certain amount of, grief or grieving that goes through the process of coming to acceptance of things. And so I think that sometimes I’m just more sad than I’m angry anymore. Like frustrated. I’m like, oh, okay, this is maybe what this looks like.

Anna: And so I’d like it to change. But I think that’s where I sit, bro.

Zach: Well, what do you think about all that?

Daniel: Well, yeah, I mean, to to be fair, there’s some stuff in there that’s that I own. And I think probably there’s some stuff in there that Anna hasn’t quite figured out she needs to own yet. This is my, I guess, my journey and growth. Right? Like when I grew up, I was the modeling and for me was an alcoholic, abusive relationship that my grandparents and on one side of the family, on the other side of the family, was loving like my grandpa would kiss beside my grandmas butt and kiss her on the cheek in front of us.

Daniel: Right? Playful, jovial man. And I always modeled my relationship towards that. And so what I think is, you know, we had the dynamic of my grandpa was built houses and he was a farmer, and he was gone all the time. And grandma stayed home with four kids. To my personal dynamic with my parents. My mom had that personality.

Daniel: Obviously, my dad came from a twisted, abusive background and they were both loving towards each other and still are just, you know, there was things there for.

Anna: Your mom and dad. Sorry.

Daniel: Yeah, my mom, my mom and dad are still loving towards each other for sure. Just, two different dynamics coming together. Right? And so I always thought, oh, I’ll have that relationship. Like my grandparents, my parents seem okay. But as you become an adult and you start to see all the dysfunction and issues, right, that my mom would never talk about, my dad pretends like they don’t exist because he’s fine kind of thing.

Daniel: That as an adult, for me in a relationship, I start to see my faults. Right? And so I’m like, I need to change these things. And it’s been on me for a long time. And my mindset before was, I don’t have these problems. Right. This is not a this is not a thing. She’ll come around to seeing. I don’t to I started doing therapy and talking to people and figuring things out and I would still say, I’m in that process of unwinding all of those things.

Daniel: I think I was also taught a the way to protect your fears is to be insular, right? And not being keep them to keep them in this place and try and chunk them off as you can without anybody helping or anybody being involved kind of scenario. So yeah, when she says a five and I say an eight, it’s because it’s like inside of me.

Daniel: I’ve been opening up to all these things. We had a fire that swept through. So my family on my dad’s side, the head on the cyst function has lived in where the Marshall fire happened. Right. And so that fire happened and basically wiped out six generations of families stuff there. Right. Yeah. And so what it did for me was, was a blessing in disguise to kind of reset this stubborn us against the world mentality too.

Daniel: It’s such a bigger place for me. And now I’ve got to figure out I have these skills that I was raised with that were meant to just be like one directional into many. Like, what do I do now? Right. We’ve been there for six generation, like I said, just doing, grinding out, building a life.

Anna: And that was us in them. Like he’s very family oriented, which attracted me to him. But that family was like we against the world. And so Daniel, like, I don’t know, they weren’t pushing him to go do things. He got to hide behind a lot of his. The immaturity that accompanies alcoholic families, like generational, multigenerational alcoholism. Yeah, yeah.

Anna: His dad didn’t drink, but he’s a he’s a the pinnacle adult child. Like, he’s a boy child. And he’s, you know, so that role modeling is like, oh, you’re a good guy, but you lack, you know, accountability. Responsibility. Yeah.

Daniel: What it is is and I, I’ve seen this dynamic because I have a extremely large family and children oftentimes overcompensate for the lack of that in their life from their father or mother, in other words. So my dad saying was, he’s going to spend all of his time investing in us, spending time with us, sports, hunting all these things that, you know, his dad cowboy thing and all these things that he did that I was a part of.

Daniel: So I was like, I was his best friend growing up, even though I was just a kid looking up to my dad.

Anna: Also, his parents were were had him at 19. My parents had me at 34.

Zach: Oh wow.

Anna: So we have a huge difference gap in terms of I’m 13 years younger than his mother.

Zach: nan

Anna: Just it’s a weird. Yeah. So he was raised by children right. Who were just you know doing their thing and not you know his, his mom like left architecture school at a great university to get married and never went back to college. And you’re like, why didn’t the parents, like step in and say, no, this isn’t happening.

Anna: But they got married and had their first babies at 19. So I think there is some of that. Transgenerational, you know, stuff that impacts you for sure.

Daniel: Yeah, like for sure.

Anna: I also but what about the action part? I, I just therapist him for a minute. Well, you ask the question.

Zach: Well let me just ask this question and this is what I would say to my client, if you were a client in my office, I would say, okay, you got an eight, you got a five, that’s 13. So at the moment you have a six and a half. Your relationship right now is at a six and a half that we can kind of say that’s the average.

Zach: If you come back to my office in a week, a month, a year and you’re like, hey, to seven and a half tonight, whatever it is, collectively we haven’t. We’ve raised our average. What happens between now and then for each of you, like, what’s the thing that has to actually occur.

Anna: Yeah.

Zach: That you know that and that raises your number. Although averages are tricky right. Like you could raise your number to a six and drop your number to a seven and a half. Daniel. And we’re still takes his.

Anna: Yeah.

Zach: We’re still averaging up. I’m just saying like, you know, I think we’re always chasing better. Right? It’s going to be better than what? And what does that mean if we’re talking about our financial situation, we go, I’ve got more money than I had a month ago. We’re talking about our health. My cholesterol is lower than it was a month ago.

Zach: If you’re if your number is higher than it was a month ago or a year ago, what happens for you both? What’s the actual thing?

Anna: I think there’s a deeper level of satisfaction. I mean, in life and in the firm, but it’s not. I think that.

Zach: Yeah.

Anna: Practical. Go ahead. Where you say.

Zach: Well, that’s an experience. Like I think if I, if we experience more satisfaction, sure. But like, what is the thing that has to happen for you to experience your satisfaction.

Anna: Yeah. This is what I would say if I was answering my question. And maybe this is ironic, is that or maybe it’s actually very, you know, appropriate to every relationship. Is that for me? I don’t need Daniel to do more for me.

Zach: nan

Anna: I’m not asking him to be more affectionate or be. Sometimes I would like him to be a little bit more light hearted. He tends to be more melancholic and kind of. You know, he has been depressed from a lot of the loss in his life that he wasn’t processing. He needs to probably do a little bit more deep, processing.

Anna: He’s had a lot of loss. But I think that for me, when Daniel is more of all of himself, there is more of him for me to love. The more authentically that Daniel can show up in his life, then the more there is for me to fall in love with. And right now I feel like, for example, this is this is not news to him.

Anna: Daniel is a near genius, mechanical mind. He can do anything. He fixes and restores historic cars. He works on big machinery. He can go in and build a house. There’s a problem. He knows how it works. He was explaining to me uranium the other day. And like, his mind is so good and he has insecurities about not getting through school.

Anna: And he had some learning differences. And so there’s all this stuff that he loads into his self-concept that the bottom line is, let’s say this is that I need Daniel to go out and be able to bring in an income. I have been the primary financial supporter the whole marriage, and I wanted to have a third child and I wanted him to.

Anna: Okay, so here’s the practical application, not the theoretical one, but theoretically I went to being like, just get a job. Why is it so hard then just do this, why can’t they do it? And what I’ve been realizing is that what what would really bring satisfaction to me is to see Daniel take his skills and actually manifest something of of value, of gravity, of, of, what is it called?

Anna: And you have compounding like Daniel’s life hasn’t compounded into something, even for him to be proud of. Meaning he knows his strengths, he knows what he could do. But because of his insular experience, he kind of lives in the like, not wanting to put himself out there. There’s a big fear about failure. There’s a big fear about. And I’m like, so by you not living into your actual genius, you are depriving the world, but also our marriage and therefore our children who watch you, you know, leading by example of being able to just go out and do you because if you if he did like him, he literally could make all the money we needed

Anna: to support the family. So I have this on side like interest in, I want to be able to send my children to study abroad like I did. I want it. I grew up affluent. He grew up not impoverished. Right? He wasn’t poverty.

Daniel: But yeah. So let’s preface this. I was poor as shit is okay. As a kid, we lived in a trailer. I wore hand-me-down clothes, obviously. And then what happened in Colorado is you had this boom of building new schools around me, and I went to school, and these kids were wearing Air Jordans, and I had cowboy boots with holes in them.

Daniel: So I was heavily picked on as a kid. I had three friends all the way through elementary school. Other than my cousins were always like brothers to me, right? But we didn’t go to the same school, so I was always by myself in these schools, and it never affected me because I grew up. It’s like in the morning we got fed the cows and pigs early and it was just, that’s hard.

Daniel: Kids calling me names and picking on me never felt hard is, you know, I was always able to make friends and navigate the world to. I get into middle school, I’m athletic. I’m one of the best players. Pretty soon I get into high school and everybody wants to be my friend. Even kids are picked on me. But I never changed who I was as a person because I came from a it came from this old school family that’s like your merits based on how you treat other people and who you are, not what you have or what people think you have.

Daniel: And all of these things you know, being being poor was like I was also my mom’s father. He just he helped everybody. I mean, that’s the word. He’s 86 now. And they all just keep saying, you know, it’s all he it’s all he wants. That’s what makes him happiest to help people. Right. And so helped his friends build their houses, helped his brothers, you know, have things.

Daniel: And so I, I clung on to that. And I also derive a ton of pleasure out of helping people. And so I always look at the world from that frame of mind. Right. Which is difficult when it comes to money. You can’t go out of your way to help everybody and have a ton of money.

Anna: That title out there to your codependency, to his natural love language is doing. But he also like codependent. He feels like he has to help everybody, and then he’s not gonna to charge them or he’s not going to do things, but okay, hold on. I want to hear what you think would have to happen to increase our median age or satisfied.

Zach: So that’s going to come back in a month or a year with a seven and a half or an eight. What happens collectively between the two of you that drives that number? Sure.

Daniel: Well, my part obviously is. Yeah, I, I feel like I’m just stepping into a world where I’m starting to have dreams of doing something right, where I put my energy and my focus, which forever. When I quit playing sports, I kind of just wandered through, never knowing really what I wanted to do. I maybe this is code, a pen or whatever, but when my parents were like, we’ll pay for you to go to school, they don’t have money.

Daniel: So I thought, I don’t know what I want to do, I don’t want to waste your money. Where is my sister had none of that. She’s like, I’ll go to school and you guys pay for that. And so I never I never really allowed myself to dream. It’s something I could build on to. I just use my skill sets to make it through the day, each day.

Daniel: And so in me, I think part of that’s becoming clear. It’s like I’ve got a dream and she’s saying I’m more attracted to him when he’s home, when when he’s fulfilling himself and he’s truly, authentically him. Right? So that’s my part. And I think for Anna’s part, it’s like sometimes, you know, I grew up in a family where money was not the thing.

Daniel: Right? I was it wasn’t talked about. It wasn’t as like we just made each day work to. She’s got dreams of doing things that take lots of money, and I’ve never been really mindful of that or thoughtful of that. And so it’s like sometimes I look at her and I’m like, we have three amazing kids. We live two doors down from both of your sisters, four blocks from your parents in a town that people want to be in.

Daniel: And we have a great life. And I just in my mind say, we’re going to we’re going to get there. It’s just not happening as fast as you, Anna would like.

Anna: And so 13 years for.

Daniel: Me, she’s come on probably. Yes.

Anna: Come on. Yeah. That’s not fast.

Daniel: Okay. Yeah I think when I look at relationship I look at overall trajectory of it where I want to be at 80. Is it deeply deeper in love with you and and jovial and having fun and relishing in the life that we’ve lived, right. No matter whether it’s in great poverty or great wealth? And so that’s my ambition for our relationship.

Daniel: And I don’t, I don’t think in it, I, I think what would have to change is maybe Anna gearing towards that ambition also, instead of just acquiring wealth and having things or going places, in Europe, like.

Anna: And maybe that’s because I actually feel like I live very much in the moment, like each day you’re building the life, but you’re the it’s the outcome. I’m like, of course I’m going to want to die next to you think that’s it? But life is good in these moments.

Daniel: I guess what I’m saying is, is I don’t feel that. And I and I, I always hold space where it’s like, I see you. I see how you’re doing things. You are world win. So it’s just like you the other day. You come up with an idea. I try it and I’m like, I’m the person. It’s like I come up with that idea.

Daniel: And then I step back and I look at it and I suss out the situation. You’re the person who dives headlong in. I need more of that. And I feel like what I’m saying is you need more of coming back the other way a little bit like, let me think about this for four days before I just jump into it.

Zach: Yeah.

Daniel: Right.

Zach: So yeah, I know, I mean, it. Yeah, yeah. If I were again, if I were probing you a little more specifically, like, I think sometimes when you have a gap, like a satisfaction gap in the relationship, and that gap is painful for people because there’s a gap. And if it’s a big gap in your case, it’s maybe three points arbitrarily, like nonscientific a three point gap.

Zach: Maybe that’s painful, maybe it’s sustainable, maybe four points is the one that’s not sustainable. Maybe two points is the one that feels really good. Whatever. Sometimes the gap closes, not simply because you maybe Daniel in this case deliver, you execute, and you step up and it closes somehow because maybe, Anna, you lower your expectation or you change or you, you, you diminish kind of the not diminished, but you sort of come down off of the this really lofty and beautiful vision that you have, and it squeezes the gap a little bit.

Zach: It might squeeze it down to two and a half or squeeze it down to one or something. So it’s not get if I’m holding my hands like this, like you can you can raise you can raise experience, you can lower expectation and you can sort of squeeze them. And it sounds like, Daniel, part of what you’re describing is if we if we close this gap, if we raise our average.

Zach: Yeah. You need to step up and kind of figure out how to execute on some stuff. But also it’d be helpful if Anna would appreciate or realize that there’s maybe some loftiness to her vision that isn’t I don’t know, I don’t know what the right word is, realistic or sustainable or achievable.

Daniel: Yeah, I think so. Anna moved out early, lived in San Francisco, moved to L.A. she was going to be an actress and a dancer. And this is this will probably describe our personalities, where people growing up said, oh, you’re attractive. You should model, you should act. And I’m like, no, you know, I want to put my energy into this world.

Daniel: Like that world for me is a fairy tale of a fairy tale thing. Yeah, sure. It’s fun to think, oh, I could do that. And oh, what a life I would have. And it was like I could see that my life would be better not doing those things right. And so I think and it still has that overall dream of accolades and success and all these things, which is great.

Daniel: Right.

Anna: But well, so I’m so that is in my actual personal business and my own ambition. Professionally. Yes. But that doesn’t drive. No, I’m just saying that that doesn’t drive. We’ve both talked about this where that doesn’t drive my I’m like not aiming to be affluent. I’m not aiming to have six cars. And I want like I grew up traveling and I think traveling is one of the world’s greatest educations of humanity.

Anna: And I think that I took Daniel on a trip around the world for our honeymoon, and I was like, look at the world. I just want you to, like, explore this. And the whole time we had a little grouchy, grouchy, grouchy. But listen to that.

Daniel: No, no, oh, no.

Anna: I just don’t want to finish. I don’t get lost on this track.

Daniel: This is where.

Anna: You often I start to get lost in the story.

Daniel: I know, but this is where I would say we went around the whole world. And how much time?

Anna: Two months.

Daniel: Too much. How much time do we spend in each place?

Anna: Five days in each spot?

Daniel: No. Not quite.

Anna: Yes. 4 to 5 days in each spot.

Daniel: Okay.

Anna: That was the average median. We took two weeks in Myanmar. We did two weeks in Australia. Okay. My whole point is, is that at the end we’re driving I was pregnant, we were flying back from Tokyo and I looked at it and I said, so do you think that, you know, I know that this has been not like you just dove in deep.

Anna: I know what you’re facing. I was like, but do you think you’d want to do this again? And he’s like, yeah, as long as we could spend more time in each place. And I was like, fine, fine. This was supposed to be a deep dive. Suck it. It didn’t go in. You know, I can be a better tour guide.

Anna: No problem. So later we’re, you know, watching a show, and he’s like, oh, I’ve been to Florence. Or, you know, we’re watching a documentary. He’s like, oh, I remember when we were in Myanmar and I was like, this is what is fun for me about being in marriage. It has nothing to do with like valuing finances and a fluency over real life things.

Anna: But I want to give that to my kid because I saw that Daniel’s heart is good, but it’s. But there was also like a lack of seasoning right towards like bigger things. And I’m like, I don’t want my child to be the bonds. Like Kitty. That is in a box like and doesn’t know how to stretch. She doesn’t know how to do things.

Anna: And so travel is not about look at how a fluent we are is a very practical self-cultivation or a cultivation of self. And I would think that you would agree with me that that’s not a pressure in our marriage of the finances. It’s just that you also now are like, yeah, I’d like to, you know, very to be able to do these.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah. I just, I just all those things are awesome. Awesome. But I, I and this is, this is probably where the struggles in the I’m grounded in like reality. Right. And I look around we didn’t I didn’t get on an airplane till I was 18. Right. And and I’d already been lived in Australia with her parents.

Anna: We’re so different.

Daniel: And and.

Anna: But we’re.

Daniel: Traveling.

Anna: Spiritually.

Daniel: Traveling around the world and experiencing all that was awesome. But the majority of people who live in this country don’t experience that. Don’t get that. And I’m like, okay, we’ve got to go. I feel the same. But taking our kids to 90 different countries, that’s like, now you’re talking about maybe that’s how I experience.

Anna: That’s how you trip. But this is tricky.

Zach: But does your desire to not go to 90 countries keep you from going to one country that.

Daniel: Yeah, that’s a no. And I would say no. Right.

Anna: And so we’re not I know that just listen to what he said because I think he has it. Say that again. I’ll quickly.

Daniel: Say that again as it.

Zach: Does your desire to not want to go to 90 company countries keep you from going to one country.

Daniel: And I would I would, I would say no, I would say, yeah, what happens to me is it’s like, I guess I’m in a point where it’s like I’m trying to figure out my life and then or we’ve got to have money to go on this trip. And I’m like.

Zach: Okay, but where are you going next?

Daniel: Right. Well, where are we going next? Or yeah.

Anna: We’re going to Australia in two weeks. But it’s not our pay. It’s. Yeah, I mean in, in a week. Here’s, this is I really that was a good therapy question. Can I just highlight that one more time. Because I think that this needs to land not about travel.

Daniel: Yes I listen I.

Anna: The way he is overwhelmed by possibility limits his ability to even take one step forward. Yeah. And all I’m like is just focus on the next micro bite, just the next micro bite. Like like miniature. But because and that’s maybe where like I’m trying to show him a vision and I know like I know what it takes to get places.

Anna: I spent 25 years trying to build something and it is agonizing. And so that’s why I’m like, if you know where you’re going, then you can step into it. But for him, like the 9000 places to go is like, no, no, I can’t get to the one I because yeah, that I don’t know if it scares you. I don’t think it scares you, but the ideas are so overwhelming that then he goes black.

Zach: It’s pretty popular. It’s not popular, but it’s pretty common. Like social experiment where people go to the store to buy jelly. And if there’s like 25 kinds of jelly, they won’t buy any jelly. But if there’s five kinds of jelly, they will buy the jelly because interesting.

Anna: There’s too.

Zach: Many. They don’t know how.

Anna: I did that the other day. Yeah.

Daniel: So let me answer that question. I don’t I don’t suffer from that. It is when we start talking about traveling.

Anna: I’m trying to remain.

Daniel: Neutral. I know and this is so this now you now you’re getting to experience where we have to grow. Yeah. Both directions. Right. So yeah I’m like, let’s travel to France. Yeah. To this place. Let’s plan that in. And it’s like, but if we’re going to France, we can go to England. And if we go to England, we can go here and and I’m like, I’m like, can.

Anna: I do that? I’m like, DC, I do that totally.

Daniel: Now. Now you’ve pushed me over the edge of my decision. I go to the store. It takes me a fraction of the time to do all the things that you’re saying. Yeah. She goes in the store, she’s A.D.D.. Yeah. And I’m like, she’ll be like, I’m out in 30 minutes. I’m like, no, you don’t come out of this store ever.

Daniel: Yeah. Even if you’re going in for one item in under an hour. So I’m like, this is where I hold the space. And I’m like, I love my wife’s push in my wife’s creative brain to capture all these things that I can’t. But I get pushed over the edge where it’s like, okay, now I’m backing out of this because, well, because I have agreed.

Daniel: I’ve agreed to do something that now just spun out into ten things.

Anna: But here’s the here’s the power here. I have to say this the reason that happens to you, I believe, is because I take action. So my action tends to follow my personality. But if you took action and you’re like, I’ll plan the Florida trip, I’ll plan to France, then I’d be like.

Daniel: I can do this. Okay, so this is I’m not I’m not a a great I can’t do.

Anna: Management is not is not your strength.

Daniel: I can manage to if we if we’re going to one place, it’s like I sit down and I can plan out all these things. And this how it works for me. And you’re like, okay, got all those. Now we’re going here because we’re already spending the money. Might as well make it worth it. Oh, and since we’re there, we’re close to this.

Anna: How am I just man and woman as do you see this dynamic a lot like.

Zach: Oh it’s not, I don’t think.

Anna: Is it okay.

Zach: No, I think it’s totally down more to personality.

Anna: Personality.

Zach: Diagnoses like when ADHD is present or I don’t if you guys mess around in the Enneagram at all. But there’s like, yeah, like there’s a lot of like just personality kind of, operating systems that people have. And it’s not typically gendered. I don’t think some.

Anna: Of them like, of course I have energy or something. I have that one together.

Daniel: So just to say all that, what would make my life better is if I had more of what she had. Right. So like when you’re building the house you get a set of plans or a car. There’s a process the ground up. Right. And you go each step. You can plan for that step up here. But it’s going to change before you get there.

Daniel: Yeah right. Every time. And I’m like you can’t get there trying to figure out that step and be done with it without starting here. And I’m this start here guy and then we okay, I’ve got this squared away and we can make that happen. But it’s then all the stuff in the ether that starts pulling in from like, I can’t handle that, I don’t know.

Daniel: Nope. Okay. Back out of this because this is oh, this is overwhelming. And yeah.

Anna: So then but this is what’s hard to and this is why. And I do see.

Daniel: What career wise I have all these skills.

Anna: Yeah. But but it overwhelms you the application. Like where is it going to go. Yeah. How is he going to try.

Zach: Do you have a day job. Do you clock in and clock out somewhere or do you do.

Daniel: Yeah I have my whole, my whole life. It’s just not what he mean.

Anna: Maybe you have I mean, you move around.

Zach: Boeing. You’re not a contractor.

Anna: No, he is not making it up. He was working for his family and and he was career driven towards trying to take over for his uncle. Yeah. Who already had a firstborn son who’s not very capable. But then the fire happened. But. But, Daniel, you were.

Daniel: But to answer your question. So right now, my brother, I’m.

Zach: Like a Joel and Ethan Coen movie or something.

Daniel: Yeah. My brother in law as a metal fab business. And and since before we even moved back from LA, he was like, let’s start a business together. And I was like, well, we’re in LA now, so that won’t happen. But, when I come back, we can talk about it. When we came back, I just started working for my uncle because I was going to get I was going to make the most money again there, and I was kind of getting myself into thinking, yeah, I could I could step in here and make this happen.

Daniel: I’ve got to manage some terrible family dynamics, but I might be able to make that happen for what? The potential of this is, right? It’s a lot of money to over that four year period where I was paying and making most of the money from work to the house, I started to realize I’m like, you know, I don’t know if I’m going to be happy doing this.

Daniel: And then the fire happened and there was all this loss of things that I built and done in my entire life out there that was gone. And there was a long process of figuring that out for me. I was in therapy the whole time, but a lot of it was driven towards how to how to push us all those bad things from my childhood and not pass them on with my children, because I was in a depressed state and I was constantly snappy or I was behaving a lot like my family.

Daniel: And I just hate that, okay. With with my whole heart. Like I try and run from that. I probably don’t engage in things and take these micro steps or jump out into the deep end because of those things where it’s like when you grow up in a family of conflict. I was taught, you know, fight to win it all or flee.

Anna: Fighter flee. And you know.

Daniel: There was no flee. That’s me. I learned that.

Anna: Was your compensation pattern, right? Like you said, of wanting.

Daniel: To go in and finish saying that was me overcompensating for what I was taught. Right? And so when I get to fight, even with my dad, which happened a lot through the time we worked together, was, I’m not backing down. He’s not backing down. People around us are getting scared because we’re basically come to the point where we’re good.

Daniel: We’re calling each other out to, I’ll kill you. Yet. I mean, it goes it goes to that point like it’s the most unhealthy thing ever to I learned to I’m not involved. You say what you want, okay? Do what you want. And I just go the other way and things are easier. Right? And then I don’t feel bad.

Daniel: And I don’t harbor anger and frustration in my heart day after day after day because of our patterning. Right. And so my dad has five brothers. Two are dead now, but he doesn’t talk to any of them. My grandpa had five brothers, didn’t he? Talked to hated the others, right? And then my great grandpa and his brother hated each other.

Daniel: And didn’t. They had their their whites were best friends, right? And so for 40 years they didn’t talk, but their wives would sneak around behind their back and hang out. Right.

Zach: So I know should I got it?

Daniel: Yeah.

Zach: You you need to write your novel.

Daniel: I mean, I thought that I mean, it could be a I think about Yellowstone and all that stuff. I’m like, yeah, this is this is this is the experience. This is. Yeah. You know, brothers seeing seeing your uncles have fistfights as kids over stupid stuff like the county cut down cottonwoods and left it and they were fighting over who got the free firewood to the point where they got a fist.

Daniel: That’s like.

Anna: It’s Appalachian type stuff. Sure.

Daniel: Like it’s hillbilly stuff. Right?

Anna: And so but I think the Daniel’s making a good point, which is you are.

Daniel: I overcompensate for that. You.

Anna: It’s hard for you to take act like he thinks that anytime he engages or something in his nervous system is like, if I am going to engage in this and it could be as something as, like fighting for a job. Yeah, that there’s this like trigger of I can’t over engage or I won’t back down. And then it keeps him from taking it.

Anna: Yeah.

Daniel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think in just for you and Zach, this is a conclusion that’s coming after a culmination of and a pushing me for 13 years, experiencing this fire, spending time in therapy and realizing, yeah, I could do something. And now where I sit, it’s like, but do I have a dream of doing something? What fulfills me, what’s going to make me attractive to Ana?

Daniel: But also, I’ve never spent any time fulfilling myself like his dream of what I want and make it happen. Man, I guess that dream. And so I’m like, in a place where it’s like, we have to make it now. So I’m going to I’m putting these pieces together to try and make that happen, but build this dream of when I get up in the morning, I’m excited to go out the door instead of, man, I just got a I got to put my shoes on and make this happen and just grind through it.

Daniel: And I might. I have modeling in that way where it’s like, I see these men, they’re broken down, they’re they’re frustrated, they’re angry.

Anna: And they’re in.

Daniel: Because they just grind it out for years. Right? And I’m like, I’m not I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to pick something and just make it happen, because I’m going to grind myself to and will myself to make that thing I don’t like happen. Right.

Anna: So what is it like? I have a question. Is there a personality type because you’re a psychologist, says her psychiatrist is psychiatrist.

Zach: You psychologist? I’m a couples therapist.

Anna: Therapist. Okay, so when you go into the psyche of a person where there is a, like a complicated relationship of, you know, where this story or the idea keeps the how do you heal that or where do you start to unravel, like life impact, which is self-fulfilling, right? Like so if it doesn’t fulfill him, he doesn’t want to take action.

Anna: That’s a that’s a theme that keeps happening in his life that I watch. Right? I didn’t I don’t label that. He says it and I repeat it and I’m like, that’s so interesting that if he can’t see it or if he doesn’t know how it’s going to work out, how do you take action? Right? Where? Because I think that you would agree.

Anna: Marriage therapy or any therapy is that the first step of change is behavioral action, right. You can sit all day. This is one of the reasons I like ended up sticking out of, analytical therapy, which is like, I don’t need to know all the hows in the whys and the connection of everything. I just want this act, this, this very fundamental thing to change in my life.

Anna: And I think that that applies to marriage, where you’re like, I don’t really care. Like all of the ins and outs, eventually I just want this to change, right? I want to get that median thing changed and that comes through. What is an action I could take? I think that’s why that question is really pointing. It’s like, what action would close that gap?

Zach: Yeah.

Anna: And it’s like it can be a literally like Daniel’s got some stuff in the works. So it’s not it’s not a thing. But I think that that’s a hard thing for people, which is why I think my frustration of dissatisfaction was is so low because I’m like, it can’t take 13 years. Yeah. To do something. It I mean, I know that you’re still doing stuff, but it’s like eventually you do it or you don’t.

Anna: It’s more my mentality. So how do you encourage in relationship change or, you know, in personal development change. What would you say is your.

Zach: This always happens? My answer is going to be unsatisfying, mostly because we’re out of time, but it always happens when when you get to the good stuff right before you got to set it up. I say to clients all the time, like, oh, well, I guess we’re going to pick this up next week. And I will say, I love you guys.

Zach: I hope that we become friends, and maybe you’re the kind of couple we should check out. Like in six months later and go, how’s it going? What what happened in Australia? Did we improve?

Daniel: I mean.

Zach: Does your novel coming and what did you build it? But I think you know. And you’re not wrong. I mean, I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not as say that. I say that twice. Not a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I’m not even really an individual there. I’m a couples therapist because I because I understand it as a different mechanism, that couples therapy is about making sure that people have the relationship that they want, and so that looks like a thing.

Zach: And so we start with something like what’s your number? So maybe it’s a six and a half. And then we have to ask the question, what would make it a seven and a half? What would make it an eight? People come in and they want tense. They want a ten, and you can’t go from six and a half to ten.

Zach: You have to go from six and a half to seven, and something has to happen in order for that to to occur. So I spent a lot of time just evaluating that with people. And you start to figure out like, what is it? And it’s not make more money. It’s not even really get a job. It’s something like live into a dream and then I think the place that becomes really interesting is when you say, okay, what’s in the way of that?

Zach: Is it your personality style? Is it your fear? Is it your family of origin story? Is it your commitment to fight or flight? And when you can surface what’s in the way, then you kind of know where the work is, right? You sort of go, oh, that’s, that’s something I need to work on. And if you need to outsource that to personal therapy, great.

Zach: If you need to get a guru on the internet, fine. If you need to join a 12 step group okay. Sure. Try that. Or if you need to go to church, become born again. Okay, maybe that’ll help. But something’s in the way of you getting the thing that you want. And, you know, doing effective. Well, couples therapy is, is naming the thing that you want in the relationship.

Zach: But then then resourcing that with strategies and tools and resources again, that help you eliminate the things that are in the way. And so that’s my unsatisfying, cliff note answer.

Daniel: So I will say that for me, it was satisfying, right? Because I am a person who I’ve had to do everything on my own, per se, right where it’s like the way I learn is by doing. And when I first learned how to build a motor, my uncle handed me a set of tools, said, take that thing apart and put all the parts in the bucket, and then he just took off.

Daniel: So I sat there as a kid tinkering around, and I figured it out. And what you just said is profound for me, because I think part of what holds me back, and I think I’m going to do it on my own, right? And I don’t think you get there on your own. Yeah. Anymore.

Zach: Well, I think for you in particular, you have this thing that you want, which is to preserve and protect your sense of self and your identity, and that’s okay. People ought to do that. And and then there’s this other thing that you want, which is to live in a long, healthy, mutually edifying relationship with this woman that you love, and that those two things may be in tension with each other, you know, the desire to stay the same, and then the desire to grow closer to this person.

Zach: And so that deserves some exploration for sure.

Anna: That’s asking, asking insight. Dig.

Daniel: Hey.

Anna: Very good.

Zach: Thank you so much for giving me.

Anna: We provide you enough conflict.

Zach: Some of your after me. I had so many questions and we talked about the first question like the entire time. So,

Anna: Hopefully that’s helpful for the people.

Zach: No, I’m sure it’ll be amazing. And I want to be. You guys are giving back any time we begin. I, I really I’m really interested in your story, and I want to hear about your trip to Australia, and I want to hear about how the weeks ago. So I will definitely be checking back.

Anna: Let’s do let’s keep in touch. It’s so nice to meet you. And thank you. It’d be really it’s great to to be in relationship with you. Appreciate it.