Ep. 393 — Marriage, Money, and Maui with Mike & Caroline Neubauer Mike & Caroline Neubauer · Oct 2025 · 39 min

Marriage, Money, and Maui with Mike & Caroline Neubauer

Mike & Caroline Neubauer · October 7, 2025 · 39 min

Zach talks with Mike and Caroline Neubauer, the husband-and-wife team behind Our Family Invests. From meeting on a Maui beach to building a life of real estate success, family adventure, and deep purpose, their story is equal parts romance, resilience, and intentional design.

Mike, a former firefighter turned real estate investor, and Caroline, a realtor and hospitality professional, share how they built financial freedom through smart investing while keeping their marriage and family at the center. They discuss parenting their nine-year-old son, Nico, navigating caregiving for aging parents with dementia, and learning that true success means doing what you love, without sacrificing connection.

Throughout the conversation, Mike and Caroline reflect on their evolution as a couple, from best friends to business partners to co-hosts of a podcast inspiring entrepreneurial families to thrive together.


Key Takeaways

  • A shared “why” fuels success - Their marriage and business are driven by a mutual vision: creating freedom and impact as a family.
  • Communication is non-negotiable - They schedule time to talk, align on goals, and revisit priorities regularly through “coffee dates.”
  • Boundaries bring balance - Clear work hours, shared calendars, and family rituals like Fun Fridays keep life joyful and grounded.
  • Roles evolve, but the mission stays the same - Each knows their strengths: Mike leads investing, Caroline manages transactions, and they pivot as needed.
  • Caregiving changes perspective - Supporting Caroline’s parents through dementia taught them patience, teamwork, and the value of living in the moment.
  • Success without sacrifice - They refuse to chase money at the expense of harmony, choosing family and purpose first.
  • Grace and growth go hand in hand - They remind couples that no one is “100% all the time,” and giving grace during hard seasons keeps love steady.

Guest Info

Mike & Caroline Neubauer
Founders of Our Family Invests, Mike and Caroline are real estate investors, podcast hosts, and parents living on Maui. Through their show and community, they share insights on financial freedom, marriage, and raising a family rooted in values. Their podcast spotlights entrepreneurial couples who are redefining success without losing sight of what matters most.

website - https://ourfamilyinvests.com/ 
instagram - https://www.instagram.com/OurFamilyInvests 

Transcript

Zach Brittle

Mike and Carolyn. You better tell me. Tell me a little bit about who you guys. What's your elevator speech in a nutshell about? About your a couple. I know you have a our family and best angle, but, more than that, who are you guys?

Mike

Yeah. I mean, we're you're I mean, I would say we're probably your typical couple. We're not anything crazy special in any kind of way. You know, I was a firefighter, retired from my W2 job through real estate investing because we were seeking financial freedom, and that was our avenue to get there. And, now we host a couple's podcast and, you know, trying to understand what what brings couples together and what drives them to be the best versions of themselves while they're building entrepreneurial businesses and chasing financial freedom, like we have right now.

Zach Brittle

And then, Caroline, what's your what's your what's your origin story?

Caroline

Well, I was born in Taiwan and adopted and grew up in Canada and Hawaii every year with Snowbird parents and met Mike. He was my first boyfriend. First kiss and, we have a son named Nico. And just we have we've we've done the work. We've done the blood, sweat and tears on continuing to build a life on our terms. And we're trying to pass that on to our son and be a platform for those couples around us who don't want to sacrifice their family while building wealth right.

Zach Brittle

How old is Niko?

Caroline

He's nine.

Zach Brittle

Nine. Are you. Are you guys one and done, or do you know? Or you like, do you do you feel like you?

Mike

Is that we are one and done?

Zach Brittle

Yeah.

Mike

Yeah, we know.

Zach Brittle

Yeah. I think that's always an interesting moment for couples because there's a difference, of course, between growing your family and, you know, being your family. But you guys are a unit of three. You said something, Mike, that I'm interested in hearing about. You said, we have a platform where we try to learn about what brings couples together. Is that how you said it? What? What does bring couples together? What is the what have you found out?

Mike

Well, I think that, you know, most of them have some kind of a strong y meaning that they are their vision is is bigger than them individually. And it's something that they they reach towards together. And, you know, how they get there is is always a process. Right. But it's always interesting to hear those stories.

Caroline

And I think one of the, the continuous threads is that they are in it to be successful together so that their team, them as a unit, their family is more important than the accolades. And so sometimes it has those come to terms moments. But that that seems to be what continues to propel them forward.

Zach Brittle

How did you guys come together.

Mike

Yeah. We met on a beach out here on Maui.

Caroline

In a canoe.

Mike

Pretty pretty typical story.

Caroline

And outrigger canoe.

Zach Brittle

Yeah.

Mike

Yeah. We were I was actually teaching Hawaiian culture and outrigger canoe paddling at the Four Seasons out here on Maui. And,

Caroline

She came as it was.

Mike

It was open to residents and guests of the hotel. And most local people didn't know that it was, it was open to the public. And, so I saw her standing at the at the top of the stairs. There's a stairways down to the beach, and I'm standing outside this outrigger canoe, and I. I just see her. I kind of do a double take. And I leaned over to my, my partner that I was, working with, and I said, man, I think I'm in love. And no joke from that moment, but pretty words.

Zach Brittle

Like.

Mike

Oh yeah, before I ever, ever spoke to her. And from the moment that I saw her, I was I was in love. And, I knew that my life was switching directions. A new chapter had opened that day.

Caroline

And I was not.

Zach Brittle

Yeah, yeah. What was your deal? What do you like? Did you know that you were immediately targeted as the future spouse of Mike Neubauer? Like.

Caroline

Definitely not. But he did ask me on a date that day. I, no, because I was studying photography, and he's a landscape photographer by by trade. And so, we started talking about, apertures and, angles and just different photography lingo. And so he offered to take me shooting and I said yes. And, then he asked me on a date, and I said, no, but I said we could go to dinner as friends. And we were friends for over a year. After that, he asked me out again, and two days later we looked at engagement rings and then the rest was history.

Zach Brittle

Okay, that's pretty un. Uncharacteristic or nontraditional? Like, how do you. I don't want to say defend it, but, like, what? How do you make sense of that particular, say, 300? What, 70, 80 day process.

Mike

Are you asking me or Caroline in this or.

Zach Brittle

Both of you? Yeah, I'd be curious to know.

Mike

Sure. So, you know, when we when we met, we had this instant connection. And that was something where we knew that we were we were aligned in so many ways. We were different in a lot of ways. And I'm ten years older than her. And when we met, I think I think I was 28, she was 18. So, you know, when we when we started connecting and actually hanging out, it was almost like a dopamine hit every single time that we got together. And so we just always wanted to be together. It didn't matter what we were doing. Right? Whether we were watching movies or cooking or paddling kayaks or, you know, snorkeling, surfing, whatever. We just wanted to be together. And so there was a kind of moment in there at some point where it was like I kept wanting more, though our friendship was building, it was also this point where it was like, look, I, I have decided that I'm going to change my life.

Mike

I'm going to be the person that I need to be in order to attract a woman like this as my wife. And so this is probably, I don't know, four, five months in maybe. And, and we had to have that sit down discussion where it was like, look, I really like you and you know that. And I know that I'm not your type. Is this a beneficial thing for us to be hanging out with each other every single day for 12 hours a day? If there's no sense that this is going to go anywhere? Or are we cheating each other out of potentially finding our our perfect spouse.

Zach Brittle

Because are you seeing other people during that year? Is that an open opportunity?

Caroline

We didn't even hold hands. Nothing.

Mike

No, there is, there is. There is no one else. There's no. My eyes had had one. One person locked in and hers did too.

Caroline

And I was busy.

Mike

She had never dated anyone. She was not interested in that. She just, you know, we weren't concerned with anyone else. It was just a matter of like, hey, I'm not getting any younger. And, And I really like you. And if this is not going to be a thing, it's going to break my heart even harder going forward if we keep this up. So it might be a good move for us to just call it quits. And like, I hate to say, like, no more friendship, but I can't, I can't. And so, you know, we tried that for a couple of days, I think maybe two days, three days, maybe 36 hours, I don't know.

Caroline

To commit to that.

Mike

And it was like, you know what? We can't we can't be apart. And so we're like, you know, a magnet being pulled back together. And so we're like, you know what? Let's just let's just keep going because I can't I don't want to do this without you. Caroline. It was to.

Zach Brittle

Say I wasn't ready to commit to not being together. Is that what you just said?

Caroline

To commit to being together? A couple.

Zach Brittle

Got it, got it, got it. Okay. I thought you were saying I wasn't ready. We were apart for 36 hours, but I wasn't ready to commit to that. I was like, that's an interesting angle, but. Right. Okay. Go ahead.

Mike

Yeah. So, I mean, it was I think we had kind of grown our relationship so that we both knew, like we were we both knew that we liked each other. But I think that, you know, Caroline was scared because she had never had a relationship. She had never held anyone's hands. She had never thought of having a relationship. And she was scared that like, well, if this does go sour, it's the end of of my best friend, you know. Yeah.

Caroline

And I think just, so I grew up every year, actually with my youth group, we would make our wants and needs list for our future spouse and a lot of the things at the beginning, plus, not knowing him, I didn't know what was what he aligned with on what I thought I needed in a future spouse at that time. And so that takes time to get to know someone. And I've been through so many friendships up to that point that didn't want friendship. And so they only wanted relationship, and I wasn't interested in that. I knew that part. And so we grew a lot. We challenged each other a lot. We had a lot of hard conversations.

Caroline

We had a lot of deep conversations because we were just we were getting to know each other and spending time, and there were no strings attached. So I think that probably helped us, form a very unique bond where by the time we we evolved into growing together as friends and people and compatibility, it was just it was a formality at that point to move forward.

Zach Brittle

Okay. So, so about a year later, you had this new conversation. And how did you make the transition? How did you know or what was that? How did that happen?

Caroline

It was kind of like that four month, five month conversation where like, I don't think we can continue to do this if it's not going anywhere because it's unhealthy for both of us and the people around us. And so, growing up kind of more old fashioned, I did ask him if he were to ask me again, I would probably say yes. And he was humble enough to ask me if I would consider dating him. And, and I said yes. And then, like I said, we we went and looked at engagement rings so he would know what he needed to pick at some point forward two days later. And then we got engaged eight months later. After that.

Zach Brittle

Not all right. Okay. So, from start to finish it was about two years. Well not start to finish and then how long have you been married.

Caroline

For 15 years.

Zach Brittle

Well okay. And so here you are. You have sort of the back in 2025, you've got this perspective, this platform. How did you find that, you know, over the course of 15 years, how did you go from or just young friends trying to build a thing to becoming leaders in this, in this space?

Mike

I think, you know, it's funny because we met each other when obviously she was very young. Right? So she she was she didn't even she wasn't even in college when we met. Yeah. And so she had just graduated high school. You know, I'm, I'm 28. I still haven't found my way. I'm still maturing. Right. Because I'm slow. You know, I was always this artistic kind of person. I went to art school, I graduated from art school. I had a million different entrepreneurial journeys that all failed. And, And she was with me for that. You know, she saw that I was my own person, and I never really had a job working for anyone before. And, I remember, you know, I was a, graphic designer.

Mike

I had a graphic design company, and I did that for a long time. And one of my set of clients was a group of firefighters, and they're like, do just take the fire department test. It's, it's great. You work ten days a month, you get your your insurance taken care of, you can be a photographer on the side. You can do the design stuff on the side, like you get a stable paycheck. And I'm like, man, that does sound kind of good. And so, you know, this was probably a few years of them telling me to to take this task and finally I did, and the doors kept opening and I kept walking through. So I became a firefighter, shortly after we got married, you know, from there I had a senior firefighter, a couple of years later when I transitioned into, my final station, that was a real estate investor, and he was kind of doing it on the side, and I just started learning from him.

Mike

He would share all his data with me, and I just caught a bug. I was like, man, I could do this. This is my ticket. Let's go. And so, you know, we started investing in real estate and it became one thing after another was like, okay, we, we, we understand how this works. And we started making decent money in that to the point where we got, we got to the stage where we were making more passively off of real estate investing than the W2 job was bringing in. And it was at that point where it was like, all right, let's go all in. And so we did, because our bigger Y was to have more time to spend with our kid to to build those experiences and to fill those kind of buckets.

Zach Brittle

Caroline, what was your what were you doing in parallel? Well, Mike's building. Yeah. You're still in, I guess. And then you're like, yeah.

Caroline

Student. I had different jobs, where it was more office clerical, managing staff and scheduling. And then we had our son, so full time mom and also managing our rentals. So we we started with, I mean, we scraped our condos down to stud. We learned all of the ins and outs of that, from the cleaning to the guest management. Four Seasons background did help with hospitality and that was one of my majors. And so after that, with the taste of real estate, I got my real estate agent license so I could learn the acquisition as well as the sales side, and the contract side, because then it helps us represent ourselves on deals. Also in different markets.

Caroline

There was just a lot of, positives to that. So after doing that, our network was pretty great word of mouth. And so that continued to grow the the different people in the community that we spend time with and fast forwarding that, it kind of birthed, the idea of we have been so fortunate to see a different, a different type of lifestyle that we didn't get to grow up with. Where there are successful entrepreneurs in our lives that have amazing families. And so how do we get to do that? And we have had so many beautiful humans, in our lives. And we knew that they not everyone can have access to these people, that we've been blessed with. But Mike had been asking me for a couple of years to do the podcast, and it just seemed like, you know, get over, get over the fears for the greater purpose and the greater.

Caroline

Why? Because this is possible for families. This is possible to chase after your dreams, to have a thriving relationship and to have your kids want to spend time with you. So that was kind of the purpose of that.

Zach Brittle

So you're getting really good at real estate, and you're learning as much as you can about that. You're taking your condo down to studs, you're getting your license or you're getting smarter from your mentors or whatever else. In parallel, though, how are you? How are you stewarding the relationship itself? Like, is that hard? Is that easy? Do you have do you have disagreements? You have blind spots, like where did that? Where does that, where does that come up for you?

Caroline

Yeah, for for Mike or myself or.

Zach Brittle

Yeah. I mean, just for the, for you guys as a couple. I'll take I'll take either one of you or both of you. It's.

Caroline

Yeah. I mean, of course we have disagreements and miscommunications. But we also have that, that never ending purpose that we're in this together. We both want the same things. We both want the success. We want to have, a great vibe at home. And, so communication scheduled date nights, coaching. We get coached from family to business to mindset because we see the value in it. And that has definitely shaped us as people.

Mike

Yeah. I think if you're you're talking from the business aspect of how it worked and integrating that with the family aspect, it's roles and responsibilities, right? We kind of know what our lanes are. And we had that communication and we talked clearly about that and we put in the systems in place where it's like, okay, this falls into my category, this falls into your category.

Caroline

And we've learned what hasn't worked the hard way. And sometimes.

Zach Brittle

You change lanes or we.

Caroline

Pivot.

Zach Brittle

I know a lot of people listening who maybe are in this kind of entrepreneurial space as a family. What has been what have you found has been successful in terms of drawing lines between like work you and home? You like, do you clock out? Do you have specific rituals that help you do that, or what is the pattern there for us?

Caroline

I think it's actually helped us to be able to work together, in different areas. But being on the same page, being able to talk the same language has actually been great. And there isn't always that divide of like work life, home life. This is just part of our life. This is part of our child's life. So he's been on the job like he knows what we talk about. He knows about rehabs and budgets and, things like that, but also we, at the end of the day, dinner time sports, like we definitely invest in that.

Mike

We do stick with a calendar. Zach. We have a, you know, 8 a.m. I start work for PM. That's done. Right. And then it's it's family time. So basically the the hours Monday through Friday when, when my son is in school until he comes home like, that's work time. And she's on her work schedule and we share calendars so we know exactly what each other are doing. And we do have those date nights. We do have those we have we call them coffee. And so like we we have like date days where it's like, hey, what's have coffee and whatever comes next.

Caroline

We had to pivot our nights to be able to we want to spend time with our son. So and we want to go to the sports events. So the day times worked best for us.

Zach Brittle

Coffee and I like that. I've never heard that phrase before but is yeah.

Mike

Yeah, we talk through all the things, right? The business stuff, the family stuff, all of that is, you know, incorporate in the coffee hands. And if we're doing something after hours, we love talking about what we do like we love sharing ideas and strategies and hearing from each other. And what are your goals? And let's revisit, like what is your vision? What do you want to accomplish this month, this year, in the next five years, ten years, whatever? And are we on lot in line to do that?

Zach Brittle

Yeah. And are you.

Mike

Yeah, I'd say so. I think we because of our communication, has been really spot on with each other. That's something that we made a non-negotiable very early on in our relationship that we are very well aligned.

Caroline

Yeah, yeah. And if it becomes just about the dollar then we're not doing it. Interesting period.

Zach Brittle

And your, your your business, your real estate business and mostly how I heard you all over the place.

Mike

For.

Caroline

Her she's insight is.

Mike

She's an agent. She, she buys and sells stuff here for clients. For me, I take care of more of the investing side of things, and we're all over. So we have stuff here in Hawaii. We have stuff, in the Pacific Northwest. We have stuff, you know, in the in the southwest. So we have things all in.

Caroline

The United States.

Mike

All in the States.

Zach Brittle

Yeah. So as you, as you guys have grown, as your business has grown, you you have the real estate piece, but then you added coaching and helping other couples and families that you don't it.

Mike

So yeah, the.

Zach Brittle

Side hustle that you have or how do you define this.

Mike

Visually coach anyone? That is something like we have people that.

Caroline

We get coached.

Mike

We get coached. Yeah. But we do like we do real estate meet ups and we talk to a lot of real estate investors. And we help we help them kind of get started when we can, we share our podcast has a lot of real estate investors on it. A lot of people who have who have been pretty successful in that space, and other business owners too. But we'd like to hear their stories, their, you know, their struggles and what has worked for them. And what they would recommend doing right now. Right. So as far as coaching, I used to coach real estate investing. I don't do that anymore. Now it's, my desire is to spend all my free time with my family.

Zach Brittle

What do you guys do? And with your free time when when you clock out it for, What? What happens next for you guys?

Mike

It's been a lot of basketball lately. Our son's nine, and he's been getting into basketball. You know, we have a lot of deep conversations with him. And it's a lot of it is just, you know, we take every day to its fullest. And we like to be able to share the things that, you know, we want to instill upon him. You know, the qualities, the characteristics. And we we do.

Caroline

We have Fun Fridays. And we just started incorporating those. So we all take a turn to plan a fun Friday for our family. And then.

Zach Brittle

Niko.

Caroline

Yep. So he gets a night. And his was last week. And so it's from meal to activity to just a time to bond and then once a month we incorporate I mean we kind of do that every every Wednesday too. But with the neighborhood kids and it's just like a fun, safe place where people are kind and they're having a great time. That's just a it's been a fun thing that has brought us and our community together. So we love that Aloha Fridays with our community beach days.

Mike

Yeah. But we're always doing stuff and we're always including him. So when we do Clock Out, he's included. And whatever we're doing. Real estate planning a trip? Yeah. It's like, hey, let's let's plan a vacation or let's plan or let's go hiking or let's go to the beach or, you know, whatever it's going to be. He's involved 100%.

Zach Brittle

What did he plan for last Friday?

Mike

Yeah. So last Friday.

Caroline

He had $30 budget so he could include that in his meal or could use what was in the fridge. And that's for the activity as well.

Mike

Yeah. And so he was he's responsible for I mean, I'll help him cook or she'll help him cook or whatever. But the dinner included, it was, bruschetta. So we made homemade bruschetta for dinner. And then he made these, like, some kind of package he found at the grocery store of, like, it was this Japanese candy. But it's like, in the form of sushi. It looks like. So it's it's complete garbage. But the process was such that, like, you adding water and you're mixing it with this other thing, and it makes this like.

Caroline

A science, a cotton.

Mike

Candy type of thing. And you're doing it was a science experiment. Yeah. But, it was fun. It was cute. And then it turned into, okay, then we're.

Caroline

Going to we're.

Mike

Driving Asphalt Legends on the Nintendo Switch, followed by, you can watch me play Fortnite.

Zach Brittle

So you're allowed to watch you play Fortnite. And do you get into that? Like, is that a thing that you honor, that you're like, okay, great, let's do it. Let's watch you play. Yeah. Because you like also reading the paper while you, well he.

Mike

No no no no no. For me, it's, you know, it's his it's what it what's what lights him up. Right. And if that lights him up then okay. We're going to do that now. I'm not the dad that's going to say, hey, you can play Nintendo six days a week for three hours a day. That's that's a once in a week, maybe for an hour type of thing in our household. So we're not.

Caroline

Playing with people.

Mike

Yeah, but on Friday nights, if that's what you want to do, then that's what we all want to do. Yeah. And so there are times where he's like, let's play Minecraft. I don't know what a minecraft is, but I'll go sit down and I'll play Minecraft with you because that's what you want to do. Okay.

Zach Brittle

Can I switch gears for a second? I think I read you guys have. You're you're taking care of Caroline's parents, is that right? Tell me about that a little bit.

Mike

Yeah.

Caroline

So so both of them have dementia I was adopted as I mentioned previously. They were almost 50 when they adopted me. So they're much much older. So we're kind of going through that phase earlier than later. And they also live in Canada, so they so there is a divide. So we've traveled back and forth about six times and over the summer, to assess them with different things. And that is no joke. Yeah. So we are learning a lot. We are still we are still in it, but not as intensely, but they are both in a care facility, and, they're safe and we're helping to relocate them, when the time is right. But yeah, it's a it's it's.

Mike

It's eye opening every day. And it is, you know, learning this system and the struggles within the system is, yeah, legit.

Caroline

And how to be prepared to with as simple as your kids should know your email passwords because you have that two factor authenticator is for everything. And so things like that are definitely challenging. So I'm grateful to have my family alongside for support.

Zach Brittle

Yeah. What do you what are you learning about dementia.

Caroline

Well, yesterday I learned that you should not deliver a box full of chocolates because you may forget that you've eaten any of them and eat all of them, and then you don't eat a nutritious lunch. So things like that where dementia is one of, in my opinion, is one of the cruelest diseases. Because it's just the safety measures that have to be in place for people with dementia feel like jail. And, there are and I say ones than others, but it's just it's so sad. It's,

Mike

I think one of the problems is that the systems are overloaded and there's so many people that this disease afflicts and there's so few resources for it. And so, you know where her parents are. It's not a bad place. All things considered. But it's sad going in there because there's ten, 15 other patients there with dementia. And they're all, you know, none of them know what's going on. None of them know what they're doing. You have to train them all that. You cannot use Sharpies as lipstick. It's not a good idea. Right. And there's there's new things that come up like that every day. It's almost like watching these grown adults move backwards in time. Right now, they're they're three year olds again. And that's so scary. And it's so sad to see that their dignity is just gone. Yeah.

Caroline

And to not to not dishonor that, but also realize that your relationship with them as your parent is very different. And now you are. Yeah. Like the parent.

Mike

Yeah. I think the biggest piece of advice that we learned when, when diving into this was you meet them where they are. So the yesterday apparently I got married to one of the dementia patients living next door.

Caroline

Who they are known as resident.

Mike

Residents, right. That lives next door. And so Caroline had to be like, yeah, well, how is the wedding and and everything. Right. Because they're telling her that. Oh, we saw we saw Mike this morning. He was getting married to Georgia or whatever her name is at Lynn's next door. Right. Oh, how how is the dress? You know, what was her dress look like? And, like, what did you have for lunch?

Caroline

And because they still have their humans, they still have feelings. And so if they. And they're going to cling on to that feeling. So if you make someone feel ashamed or embarrassed, they're going to hang on to that feeling rather than the actual content. And so and tomorrow it'll be something new.

Zach Brittle

You dealing with them primarily on like FaceTime, are you video conferencing and stuff? Okay.

Caroline

Yeah, it does help for video. But I think that's just something we've had to learn the hard way too, is like, don't try and reason with someone with dementia. Yeah. So we're navigating that.

Zach Brittle

Yeah. And how do you take care of each other in that process?

Caroline

Yeah. It was so jam packed with what we've had to accomplish in a very short amount of time. And ideally this would not happen in a six week period. All the changes. But I think just like knowing that you have someone as your right hand, that you don't have to ask, they are there for you and they also can when when they feel your energy is down to 30, that they can step in. That is so huge. And, just knowing that you have unconditional love is massive. So I'm super grateful.

Mike

I think for me, it's it's just making sure that you're living in the moment and not worrying about what's going to happen in the future and not dwelling on the things that have happened in the past. But being right here, right now, in this moment, and knowing your your partner's love language is important to what do they need? Do they need a hug? Right? Do they need to be told that they're amazing? Okay.

Zach Brittle

Yeah. I've been saying for a little while, like, I think that the, the secret to a happy marriage is it's pretty simple. It's it's doing more things that your partner likes and fewer things that your partner doesn't like.

Caroline

That's great.

Zach Brittle

And it seems like you guys are pretty attuned to that. It's like you have a pretty good awareness of one another's likes and dislikes, your love languages, what you need, and and a really high commitment to, you know, staying aligned at the values level. I wanted to ask this kind of trite question about like, okay, great. What advice do you have for other couples? You've given a lot of it. But like is if I, if I just pretended like I need a secret, do more of what you they like. Less of what? Well, what would you say? What would you pretend if you knew the secret to happy, healthy relationships, what would it be?

Caroline

I would say that cliche communication is key. And then knowing your why, know why you are together. Know what you're working towards. Because that makes the noise. It makes it. It makes it possible. It makes it, achievable because there's a greater purpose.

Mike

Yeah. I mean, it does boil down to communication. And, you know, you guys may have this out where you are too, but we have this event out here. It's called walk a mile in their Shoes. And it's like, you know, we would get together as firefighters and, you know, we did this in the department and we would walk in high heels right. Just to kind of understand like for a mile or whatever it is, I don't know. But just to kind of understand, you know, what somebody else is going through because you don't really know. So if you can kind of break down those walls, have the communication, understand what they are going through or how they're seeing something that's so huge to kind of redirect your selfish opinion. Sometimes.

Caroline

Yeah. Or give grace when it's needed. You know, like not everyone's going to be 100 all the time. And so in those times, do I really need to pick that battle right now? Because it's probably not directed at me.

Zach Brittle

That's amazing. Do you know that joke about walking a mile in somebody's shoes? It's like you're if you're in an argument with somebody, just walk a mile in your shoes because then you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

Caroline

I mean, I've never heard that one. Okay.

Zach Brittle

It's a terrible joke, but it's, you know, obviously it's clever. Well. Very cool. I'm glad to hear your story. What, what should we know about you guys? How if people want to listen to your podcast or they want to learn from you. Like what? What is it that you guys are bringing to the table? Or how should I point people in your direction?

Mike

Yeah, I mean, we're we're on Instagram. That's probably the best way to get in touch with us. We're at our family Invest's. And you know, our podcast is the same. It's called Our Family Invest. And we interview inspiring entrepreneurial couples and just kind of see how they are keeping what matters most front and center in their lives.

Zach Brittle

And if there's a through line, is it the same. Is it communication and knowing their why. Or what is the secret to people who are keeping what matters most as the through line of their lives.

Mike

Yeah. I mean our.

Zach Brittle

Friends are.

Mike

People that we've talked to. It's always, it always comes down to communication. Every single time.

Zach Brittle

And just for clarity sake because I bet you have it like in a, in a nice little package. What is your why.

Mike

Our why is to be able to do what we want, where we want, with whom we want, when we want to do it. Right. And that for us it's, it's our child, it's bringing him with. And to see him growing into the person that we want him to become. And we know that he can become to reach his full potential.

Zach Brittle

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what's next for you guys. Do you know when you think about next. What's in that. What's in the what's on the list.

Mike

Yeah. So you know, like I said before, I may in the moment kind of person. Yeah. And so I'm enjoying this very moment. I love doing the podcast and having conversations with amazing people. I love learning from them. We're still very much into real estate. We are looking at the option of, you know, maybe moving somewhere for a year or something and doing like a, you know, live abroad or world school kind of thing. I don't know, we're just slightly starting talking about that. But, you know, the adventure is always open. And I think that learning is done through travel and through experience more than it is in the classroom. And we want to be able to develop Nico as best as we can.

Zach Brittle

Right. So do you have a bucket list? Do you have a bucket list of places that you want to go?

Mike

Our bucket lists are pretty different, to be honest. Yeah. So we need to work on those.

Caroline

Right. Or maybe we'll have to like, we, we have plans where we can, stop by each other's buckets or reconvene at, joint bucket list I place. But, yeah, we definitely have we have different ideas of ideal travel.

Mike

Right.

Zach Brittle

Well, if I ever make it to Hawaii, I'll give you a shout. If you're ever in the Pacific Northwest, you know how to find me. I'm in Seattle. I think I might be there in the spring. I got invited to speak at some amazing that I'm still learning about. I don't know exactly if it's going to come together, but, I'll definitely give you a heads up if I'm. I'm headed your way.

Mike

You'll be fine.

Zach Brittle

Thank you, thank you. Thanks for visiting.

Mike

Thanks, Zach.

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