When Life Keeps Breaking You: A Marriage Story About Illness, Resilience, and Starting Over w/Kate & Mike

You guys are in Franklin, Tennessee. That's pretty fun. I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, so I was I kind of I have that part of the country that I have a real fondness for. But where did you where were you before Franklin?

We were in Miami.

Okay.

And before then we were in Maine. And I grew up in Maine, and Mike grew up in northwest Indiana, outside of Chicago.

Okay, well, tell me about that. How did you go from Maine to Miami to Franklin?

Do you want to say.

Oh, we moved. Very simple. Or long story short, we I mean, the way I look at life in the explain this is there's chapters, there's chapters for being in Maine. And then that chapter kind of came to a close and we were in Miami and that chapter came to a close. Then we came to Tennessee. So we kind of ended up in Florida as a fluke. I ended up getting pretty sick with something, and we needed to be in a place that the temperature was better versus Maine's. Winter goes like eight months or it feels like, yeah, they just got another six inches of snow now.

And it is basically. Beginning of March in Maine.

So and we needed to change our life based off things that were happening. So we actually were in Tampa, and then we were there for a month on vacation and then never left Florida. And we were there for four and a half years and then basically even Miami. I mean, this is a very long story that we're just, you know, it's summing it up in a couple. But it was we just knew it was time for the next chapter. It was time to make a move. Kate wanted to be around grass again. Every the nature in Miami is like, it's going to kill you in one way or another. You lay on the grass and could kill you. The tree, the grass.

Spiky or smushed.

Yeah. So we were looking for another place to move. And we've been to Tennessee before. We it's kind of the middle of the road. You get all four seasons, you have grass. Nothing's really extreme. Yeah. It's cool. Slower pace of life. And we needed a change for the kids. Yeah.

I wanted to live somewhere safer for our kids. They're seven and ten. I wanted them to just be able to, like, ride their bikes down the street and not worry that they were going to get kidnaped. Just basic parent stuff.

Did you get to did you get to, like, be in Miami and kind of go, we want to move. And then you just cataloged a bunch of places and pro it and convert it and figured it out like.

Yeah, it was a very proactive move. I mean, Kate and I have.

Been well thought out.

Yeah, we've been together since 2011. So 15 years and everything that we have done, I think up to that was very reactive for moving. We've moved a.

Lot, let's say impulsive not reactive.

Okay. Well you can call it impulsive reactive. There's like I just look at it as proactive reactive. You'll call it impulsive.

Because it was it was sourced in but it was like quick and not reactive to me is like something happens in the external world and you react, okay.

If it's not.

I know we're just not. We're in it.

You guys.

You guys doing any therapy? Having been in therapy before?

Yeah, a lot. All the time.

Dedicated.

Yeah for sure. So it was.

Of words.

It's like yeah well that's the tone and word definition. That's my that's my life I deal with the. Yeah. So it was just like this one. We actually was very thought out okay. And instead of just saying it was if we would have moved a year prior then when we moved here in 25. So if we would moved in 24, which is when Kate was like, we got to go, we got to go, we got to go. That would have been very reactive, slash impulsive and would have been more stressful versus what we did from the summer of 24 to the summer of 25. We really had thought out, made decisions, looked around at places in Florida as well, like to stay where we were and then came here and, you know, evaluated from places we visited quite like 4 or 5 times, I think, and just came back and forth, checked out schools, got housing.

Did our astro cartography.

Yeah.

Is that real?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh that's real.

So you look at your both of your astrological charts laid over the, the globe and you look at like where both of you, it would be super supportive cosmically to live. And for both of us, this was not the main driver of our decision, but it was a fun accessory for both of us. The only place in the United States that's super supportive for both of us is the band of about 200 miles east and west from Chicago to New Orleans and Nashville. Tennessee fits right in the middle, so it was really cool and it has really felt that way. It's been such an exhale for us, and after about a decade of we had like a really hard decade, I would say, or eight, 8 to 9 years. And this last year has been quite full of blessings. Things have gotten a little bit easier, and I'm grateful for that.

You begin to other 15 years and 8 to 9 of them were really hard.

Yeah.

That's true. Yeah.

How do you how do you tell that story to yourselves? How do you tell that story to us? Like what is the what's the. Yeah.

Marriage wise things have I mean like our relationship at the core I would say is be interesting to hear our different perspectives. But like, it wasn't really hard because we were fighting or someone was cheating or, you know, someone was like, addicted to gambling or something. It was the birth of our first daughter was really traumatic for me, and I went into quite a bit of postpartum anxiety and, and insomnia and, and she was really sick. So we had a very sick baby for the first year of parenthood. And it was like it was awful. Just becoming a mother was 1000 million times harder than I ever could have expected. And that was very hard on our marriage in our business. But just like having a sick kid for anyone who has dealt with a child with chronic illness is.

Yeah.

So brutal. And then a year later, Mike started getting sick with something called topical steroid steroid withdrawal, also known as Redman syndrome. And that was something that went on from 2016.

It really started in 17. I started getting rashes and things. It was mainly stress, probably very much stress induced, and then I was given oral and topical steroids and that really backfired starting in 2017 to 2024.

Yeah, that created like a fire in your system. And and.

There were then.

I.

Then I like broke my kneecap and then I got hit by a car and broke my leg. So all that stuff went down. And then we had a second kid in the middle of all that too. So that was the eight year journey that. Yeah.

And then some political things happen in Maine. And then my mom got publicly canceled. And it was just. Just like such an intense. Time of like, car accidents and broken bones and surgeries. And Mike, you know, all of a sudden would just, like, drop 40 pounds in one month and not be able to function. And we're business partners and and married. So there's a lot of turmoil. I will say I'm, I. Really like I think we.

Yeah.

We're better than ever. So that's great. Like, even better than early days in terms of our connection.

Our early days were.

Also tumultuous. We started.

With tumultuous. I mean, that's.

An adventure. They weren't tumultuous.

Yeah. Wow. Okay.

No they weren't no, they weren't emotionally was okay. How would I describe it.

That was. No, it was just it was impulsive.

Impulsive?

Yeah. Good.

They were impulsive. Yeah. Mike and I started off our relationship on a ten month road trip. It was supposed to be. I just, like, invited him. We barely knew.

He. We didn't know.

Each other. I invited him completely randomly to drive across the country with me for five days, and he never left. And that turned us into us. Living out of my car for ten months, going around the country. So our whole, our whole like we haven't done a lot of like deep roots, stability location wise. And so it feels like a really big deal to have chosen Nashville for our family and like put down groups. We're under contract for a house. We'll see how that goes. And just.

Like in Nashville.

Yeah, yeah. Just be stable.

Yeah, I, I don't. I've never really felt that. Stability thing that happens. You know, it's like when people are like when people tell me they lived in my buddy, one of my best friends, he's lived in the same home. I was just visiting him. His mom passed away in Chicago, and I was like, how long do you own this house, bro? And he's like 11 years. And I've known him, you know, since college, and I got 11 years.

I think we've lived in nine houses in 11 years. Yeah.

So fascinating. Like, I.

Like I'm going to bed right now with Penelope, our oldest daughter, and she's ten. And I said, we're about to move again once we close on this house. And this is going to be your she has this whole thing that she's setting a record for. How many homes world record, how many homes she's lived in at ten. And I said, you're about to live in your eighth house since you have in your ten years old. Yeah. And she's like, oh, that's I wanted to keep the record going. I was and I know at the core she does not because we've had there's always reactions that come out every time we move. But yes. So we're now we're like now I would say I've been looking at real estate constantly since July of last year, like obsessively.

And we, we bought a rental property, like an investment property in Maine. And then we're looking for the primary residence here in Tennessee. And it's just like I become obsessed with, like, finding a place for our family to chill. And, like, just.

Has been new for you.

Yeah. Completely.

Yeah. It's for you.

What's changed?

Yeah. Like, where did that.

New thing. I think because, like, I'm not. It's interesting because 25, the 2025 was the first time since 2017 I wasn't sick or broken bones or surgeries. So to go from 17 to I had my last surgery December of 24 and to have one year where I wasn't, I was still doing rehab and PT and stuff and getting my body back in gear. But that was that's like training. So it's different than rehabilitation in a way. And for me it was just like, okay, now I have this other energy, like energy is coming back to me in ways that I haven't really felt since I was 20 years old, 18 years old because of like things have just shifted and a lot has to do with our move coming here and then just where that.

So that's what's really changed to be like, okay, it feels really good here. Our community is strong here. There's a lot of adventure that can take place. It's the middle of the country for me. It's like easy to bounce around. So if we're going out west, it's, you know, it's three hour flight instead of seven. It's for going to back to Maine. It's two hour flight instead of four. Right. It's like all of these things of what we want to do in our life. Just it became a little bit easier moving here. And I just started feeling a lot better. Like, I think that's the big piece of it where I'm not I'm not I'm not sick and I'm not in surgery mode.

So it's everything's kind of really changed. And there's this like provider instinct that kicks in. I told the story at our live event in February, but my buddy Steve and I, when he had his first child the same time we did, he was like, man, just got gotta work. I got this kid now. I was like, he was like going crazy about like. And I'm like, I don't feel that at all. And it's like, now it's hitting me. Ten years after having a kid, I'm just like, okay, we get this stability, we get this done, and it does this. And I knew once we had our primary house decided and obviously we're not closed yet and, you know, inspection and all that stuff. But it's like once that takes place it like frees up so much space and energy that for do other things. So yeah, that's what's kind of shifted a lot has to do with them. Just healthy again. Yeah.

Well like I said, I, I actually think it's pretty fascinating that you would, I mean, I, I, I didn't know you could move like I lived in the same house when I was. I mean, I grew up in one house. The only reason we moved is because my parents declared bankruptcy and we couldn't afford to stay in our house, so we had to go to another house. But it wasn't because we wanted to go to Miami or thought Maine would be cool or astro. Cartography wise, we were like, this is the place that looks the best. And then, you know, we've been in Seattle for 25 years in the same house. And so I think it's actually incredible when people do have the freedom to kind of move around and do their thing. And so that's intriguing to me for sure. It's worth asking, did you also lay your kids maps, star charts over top of the thing, or do they get did they are they supposed to move to LA at some point?

And interestingly enough, what what the philosophy is for astro cartography is that as long and I think this is a metaphor for everything, the kids will do great wherever the mother does well.

Okay.

So you don't actually have to do your kids astro cartography until they're going out on their own. So it's it's based on the mother's well-being.

Okay.

Now that's I'm sure there are different astro cartographers who would tell you different things, but that's what the one who we worked with said. And I was like, that feels so deeply right to me because of, you know, babies and nervous systems and the way the mother's nervous system sets the tone for the whole family. You know, that whole like, it's so it's such a cliche. But if mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Like, that's just true. And so. Yeah.

Yeah. Is that.

We'll do theirs when they're 18.

Is that, is that was that true of you and your mom?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. My mom lives in the same house that she bought in 1980. Okay. So I grew up with so much stability, and my mom's family still lives on the farm that she grew up on, and my dad still spent summers in on the same property that his great that his grandmother and my great grandmother owned. So, like, there's so much stability. So I have felt like the delinquent with like, oh my gosh, I'm totally screwing up my kids. We're all over the place. But, yeah, I would say that's true about I would say that's was true in my upbringing. I will say, like my mom has always my mom. She says she says I have a rich in her life and my mom always, like she's always up to something.

And same with my dad. They're both really curious people. They're always learning, they're always up to something, and I am so grateful for that because I never felt pressure around like, oh, I'm their source of joy, or I have to do something to keep them entertained or give them purpose, like, you know, possibly a little bit more. I was like, hi guys. Like, hello! But overall I love how much she was just like doing her own thing.

Yeah, yeah. And then you have two girls, Penelope. And who's the other one?

Ruby.

Ruby. They're seven and ten.

Does Penelope get to be called Penny ever, or does she.

Only at school.

Yeah. Or in Miami. She was called Penny a lot. I don't know what. What?

She's named after my aunt Penny.

She's not really cold.

I just I think people just call her, I don't know. Yeah. She never really chose Penny. We we I call her Pete. Penelope, as.

We were.

Not a like name.

She told her we weren't allowed to call her Penny, right.

At some point. It's one of my favorite names. Penelope and Penny. It's.

It's a great name, isn't it?

I didn't, I have two girls. They are 23 and 19 right now, so. Wow, you're in the nobody. Nobody on the podcast would be surprised. Me say this again, which is I feel like parenting young adults is harder than parenting young kids. So this whole idea of like, whatever's good for the mom is good for them. I'm like, okay, sure. Well, until they're 15, 16, 17, and then it's like, oh yeah, but when they're 23 and 19, it's like there are people there, like actual people, and you have so much less influence than you than you currently think you do. But yeah. Okay. Well, what's your thing like? As you when I say when I, when, when people talk to the two of you or they meet the two of you, or you think about your marriage, like, what would you say is like, this is our thing, what is it? Do you have a thing?

Yeah. I mean.

I love people with.

A we have a lot.

We have a lot of things.

What do you define as a thing?

I have my favorite interview that I've recently done was I have a couple that I talked to, and their thing is that they are like escape room people. They do escape.

That's really cool.

Like they've done like 30 rooms. Wow. But they've.

Done I never want to do in.

This room.

She would be. I don't ever want to go to escape room world. The idea of it makes me panic. Even saying the word our thing is not escape rooms. But I would say it's honestly, it's always been business for us. It's business. And babies and bodies.

Travel, health.

Venture like. So it's like health I.

Think we and bodies I'm a love alliteration.

So business bodies maybe it's really been I mean since that we met through work and our thing is really about building stuff together, whether it's an event, a program. I know, and Mike loves to build stuff. And now he's building out this whole, like Airbnb short term rental arm of our life. So I really am fairly uninvolved. Yeah, business. I mean, business is our thing.

Listen to this. Do you know that there are Airbnbs that are also escape rooms?

I do not.

You can go spend the night in an escape room and, like, solve it while you're there and then you can, like, have sex and you can have dinner and you can go out to the, like the park. That's fun. And you come back. So that's what you should do, that you should do that.

I should do that with Kate. No, I mean, I could do that with somebody else just for myself. Oh, Bill. That. Yeah. I mean, that doesn't really interest me, but I could I'm going to look into it. I do like to have a I do like the idea of a theme. Like space. Like an Airbnb space. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, we're not I would say our theme in Maine is not really we don't have one defined at this moment. I think we can right now. And just we had to do a gut renovation. So right now I'm just trying to get to the finish line of the gut renovation.

Theme is getting it done.

Yeah, thanks. Getting it done.

But also we're putting.

In the theme of stop writing checks.

We're putting in organic, you know, organic and nontoxic. So like, our thing is nontoxic, healthy travel for the Airbnbs.

I don't know how.

Body first.

Okay. I mean, we'll come up with something better.

We'll come up with something.

But why.

Do you care about bodies? Like what does that mean to you? What is that?

Well.

We.

Got, you know, it's all we got. It's the one thing you that like a it's. Even though bodies work in very different ways, it is the great equalizer. Like, we all have a body and it's the only relationship that we have that's consistent from the day we're born until the day we die. And our bodies are come preloaded with this incredible technology that no one ever was taught. Because religious conditioning and cultural conditioning, especially for women, but for everyone, has taught us that the body is like dirty or shameful or desirous and meant to be like we should suppress everything. Or in the spiritual community, it's like, oh, that's just a meat suit. And I'm like, no, we are designed to be able to have these incredible states of consciousness, these incredible states of ecstasy, these deep knowing, this connection with nature, that to me, it's our greatest source of power.

And if we can learn to fully inhabit our bodies, that is our inroad to being our most powerful selves. So for me, it's always about the body. And of course, a huge throughline in our story is bodies not functioning optimally. And the way that that I think I mean, for me personally, like, it's just built up tremendous compassion for humans going through what we have gone through. And I personally, I think I needed that, I needed that, like, I needed my edges softened and my idea of like, oh, just, you know, just do. It. Just like get it. Done to be squashed a little bit.

Yeah. There's so much lessons that happen when we actually pay attention to what our bodies are telling us, you know? And one of the reasons we ended up in Miami to, you know, another answer to the question you asked me was my body was forcing. Somebody told us this, so this is not I didn't make this up, but they they were basically it's like Mike's body is forcing you to make a change that you're resisting to make. And when I think back where we lived in Maine and that experience, it was beautiful. But we needed it's like I wasn't fully happy there due to variety of circumstances and for us to go to Miami. It created a liveness in Kate and I, though I was really sick when I was really sick, Kate became really alive with all of her friends and social hangouts and just being in Miami.

It was there was an aliveness that took place. But the only reason that happened is I don't know if we would have ever made the decision to like, we're moving to Miami, but it was my body kind of shutting down to force us to go. And we listen to it to follow. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like it tells us things and. Yeah.

So how do you how have you learned to pay attention? Like, I mean, I get.

Well, it took me a long time. So for me basically what happened in 2018 and again in 2021 is my this withdrawal symptoms that Kay was talking about. My skin turned into like a snake. So it was like the worst sunburn you've ever had. Time 1000. Yeah. It's like I was just shedding for I would wake up in the morning after vacuum my bed because all the amount of skin that was just sitting there, and it just kept happening and happening every day. And I was like, how long is this go on for? And I started thinking about layers of skin and how does this work? And like, is it all going to just fall off and then it's just my muscle or or whatever? Yeah. So all these crazy things would happen and and then it's like, okay, I didn't learn my lesson from that one.

So like, let's go break your kneecap. Okay. I didn't learn my lesson from that one. So let's go get hit by a car. And then how many? You know, bonehead. Mike, when are you going to pay attention? Right. So for me, it was just like these. And it was like, okay, I have to look at the way I'm operating differently than I have before. And in the meantime, for there I was also injured, a downhill mountain biking and all sorts of other things that took place. So it's like, how am I? For me, this was, you know, my experience is like, this is how I'm showing up in the world. These things keep happening. Well, these things are going to. And then I was like, well, maybe they're probably going to keep happening unless I change the way I was showing up originally.

And that's what ended up happening for me. So it was like, where what is the way for me to show up differently than to stop having to go through this? This, like torture is what I felt like. And yeah, so that's what that's for me. That's why I start listening and then I start implementing strategies. Right. So how did I do that? You know, journaling has been effective for me. It's been very inconsistent in my life. But I restarted again in the last couple of weeks and it's actually been really nice meditating for sure. I started attending Joe Dispenza events. That was really eye opening for myself. I did a psychedelic psilocybin experience, just it was a guided with a therapist to help me and that like really got me started, like opening my heart again.

Same thing that happened at Joe Dispenza events. So if somebody's not into a psychedelic experience, there is like go to Joe Dispenza event, you're going to experience the exact same thing. It's just with 2000 other people doing the same thing. And no, no substances like this is all naturally created. So that's where because I used to do a lot of drugs and drink a lot in college, okay. And so for a good run of 16 to my from the time I was 16, 28 had this wild, crazy adventures. And then I was always obsessed with like these outer body type of experiences. And I realized after going to like the Joe Dispenza event, I was like, oh, I could just have this stuff naturally. And like, I'm doing this with this body naturally.

So, I mean, those are some things that really helped me kind of tap back in. Obviously there you mentioned couples therapy previously. You know, it's like that has been a huge source of help for Kate and I over the years. And then having kids, it just it opens for me. It really was a hard opener where it's like, this is immensely not in control. It's a total illusion. And you got these little faces that just reflect back. We're very open with our children, like we have very clear lines of communication. Obviously there's boundaries that exist there, but for the most part, like my kids will just look at me like, dad, I don't like the way you're talking to me, like straight to my face.

And I'm just like, oh, okay, from a five year old. So maybe I should like. Or you make me feel this way. Like, they're very expressive and they're very direct, which I that's how I am. So it's very confronting when they talk back to you like that and you're just like. And not in a rude way. So I want to be very clear. It's like if they're speaking to me rudely, that's a different I will definitely be like, excuse me. Can we, you know, but if it's if I'm not being kind, that's different. Right? Then I can reflect to that, reflect them. So those are some of the things that have helped me. Yeah.

Kate, tell me about couples therapy. I mean, not that I mean, I think a lot of people are listening and sometimes they use they use this podcast as a supplement for couples therapy, like they can't afford it or they don't want to go there, but like, what is what have you guys experience and how has it been meaningful for you? Have you done it once? Have you done it a million times? Have you done it like what? What do you learn? Like what is the deal? What is it?

Yeah. So 20. So I had sort of a we had an agreement when we got engaged and I said, you have to be willing to get help if we ever need help. Like, not you personally, but we have to you have to be willing. Yeah.

And solo.

And solo if necessary. But so that was like my that was one of the cards that I had on the table when we got engaged. And I come from a family of divorce and when I was it was 2016, Penelope was about a year old and I cannot remember exactly what happened. But I do remember calling one of my best friends from the supermarket parking lot and saying, we are having a marriage SOS. Like, I don't know that this is going to work out. I need help. And she sent us to her couples therapist and we have worked with him ever since. Here and there for a while we worked with him. Maybe weekly.

Or I don't actually had a run where it was.

We had.

A good run every week or every other week for a while. When we moved to Miami, got pretty rough. It was when I was sick a lot. Yeah.

Early. Days, 2016. And then we would like, come in for these more intensive periods. We haven't talked to him in a long time now because he's on a freaking sabbatical.

Going like a year. He's like.

11.

But life is good.

So yeah, he's he's doing whatever he's doing, which I support. But but we I mean, we've been in a really good place. But I think that, you know, you you said something really smart about what your experience was when I said, like, we need help in 2016. Do you remember what.

Yeah. I think well, I grew up in Indiana like there she grew up in New England. So it's like much different. Everybody's got a therapist in New England from the time there too, you know, it's just like that whole area. It's like everybody's I got mine, I got this, you know. But so growing up in the Midwest and once you get out of that area, it changes a lot. And I didn't know I'm sure there were therapists, but I didn't know any families. My parents never talked about it that would go to therapy. So it was something completely out of my. And also, being a man like, we can't omit our faults, like asking for support, asking for help. It gets much more challenging, gets much more difficult. Having your wife come to you and say, we should go to therapy. It's very it can be very emasculating so that the word maybe.

Is that the word? Yeah, yeah.

Good word. So okay. I think that's the right word. You know, I don't know, but it can be very confronting to put it to be like, oh my God, now I'm failing and I, we go down these and then we just fall down a dark, dark space of, of failure or we, we believe we're failing in this way. So when Kate came to me, I just when we first started talking about this, I was like, okay, well for running, if I'm running a business and I need a marketing person and somebody says we should go get a marketing person, I'm not going to spiral out about, oh my God, I'm I mean, sometimes I do, but it's like it does.

It's not that big of a deal. You're just like, okay, I go hire this person. I need a landscaper to cut my grass. Okay, I'll just go hire a landscaper to cut my grass. And I just thought that the therapist was just like. That was like hiring a landscape company to cut my grass for our relationship. And if we want to make this thing work, sometimes it makes sense because relationships were I just realized, like, relationships are complicated, you know, like my. Oh, yeah, I mean, it's just you're taking lineages from centuries compounding into two people who are supposed to now create this life together. And you're like, hey, everything is great. And it's like, no, everybody, even living in this world, like the amount of people from your lineage who's alive is maybe 2 to 3 generations back, right? Or 1 to 2, three generations probably tops.

And so to look at it from there, with all that stuff that's passed down and stored in our bodies, and as we show up and then all of a sudden, you take these two people, I'm supposed to get together and it's like, okay, that can be hard, right? And it is hard. And so, like, how do you unpack these things? So it's great to have a lot of we were fighting about a stuffed pepper in the kitchen. That's all. The whole thing started.

Yeah.

It started I don't even know why.

I don't even know dinner.

But it was like stuffed peppers is how we ended up in marriage therapy. And yeah, so for me, it was just it was another, I mean, I think very operations and systems. So I'm like, okay, system is marriage. This is it. Let's go see we can go through this. If this doesn't work, then we reevaluate like the relationship. But it kept working. So we're still here.

Do you do you have a theory? Do you have a like a if you're on an airplane and somebody says how does how does marriage work? Do you do you have an answer based on what you've learned or what you've cobbled together? Have you really rude question for somebody to ask you on a plane? Be like, hey man, really?

I think it's I think it's a great question if somebody asks you that because if they're like newly married or want to do this or what's your advice or something. So I think for us, when I filled out, your form to me was like, we have good communication and we'll listen to each other. It wasn't always that way. But then we're able to, I think, asking for help when we know we need help, and then supporting the other person to get the help that they need instead of trying to fix the other person. One thing Kate always does for me is like, who can you ask for support? Right. So it's a reminder to me. Exactly.

That's the subtext.

And same, same for her.

Who else can you talk to you about this?

Because I needed reminding to I have the support system. So it's it's my job to ask for that. Yeah. And so for me she understands that. And then the same thing with her like we can reflect that back. But I think open lines of communication I think creating dates, we do a weekly date night and it's been pretty consistent. We really try to write.

Even when Mike couldn't walk and could barely stand, we.

Still would still go out. So okay. And it was like miserable. But we still did it. So for me, I mean, she had a great time. Yeah.

He didn't. You were not great company. But we we kept it. We kept.

Now that I've been healthier, our date nights look like Kate gets really tired and falls asleep at the table, so, you know, so now I'm just dealing with a person that's tired at the table. You know, at this.

Stage on your date nights in the morning.

Yeah, we do, we do a lot of coffee days. Yeah. But what I mean, so we have weekly day nights, but also when are the time to talk about certain things. Right. So because we run a business together, how many times do you end up in the kitchen. It's like, hey, did you call so-and-so about this? And I'm like, I'm trying to chop broccoli. And the kids are screaming. I'm trying to stuff the peppers. Right? And so you just like. And then it's then it's like, all right, we're chopping broccoli. And then the kids are yelling. It's like, okay, no, no, we have money, date meetings. We have planning meetings. We have like there's a meeting for it's not.

Containers, certain things. And that has been.

That's.

The best. The biggest I am naturally. I wouldn't say I'm chaotic, but I see every single thing as connected all the time. And Mike is much more compartmentalized of like, this is over here and this is over here. And so we're good for each other in that way. But the the containers for specific kinds of conversations that are repeated dates in our calendar is such a game changer. So that like, logistics aren't leaking into date night and business. I'm not like telling him an idea as we're going to bed or it's just really been a game changer for us.

Yeah, I have two questions for you. Number one, I don't know how old you are, but are you old enough to know.

We're both 42? Are you 43?

43? Yeah, 43.5.

Early 40s.

As of yesterday was my half birthday, so just.

Oh, happy half, right?

Yeah. My, it's only because my mom.

His mother, used to make him a cake on his half birthday, and I'm like, I'm not. We don't do that. So like, every year.

I'm not.

I'm never once remembered. Sorry.

No, I don't care. I just I only remember my half birthday because I used to get a cake.

Mother, his mother set the bar really high.

I'm ten years older than you. And I remember a Saturday Night Live about chopping broccoli. Do you notice it?

No, no.

It is amazing. Oh, that is so amazing. Yeah. I'm gonna. I'll make sure to follow up and send it to you. Okay. It's like Dana Carvey singing jumping broccoli. Jumping. Brooke, he's at the piano and he's like just. It is so fun when you. I couldn't help myself. You were like jumping. I was like, I know that song. Yeah. I learned this new question today. I want this. This will be maybe our closing ish kind of question, but if, if you if your partner if the other were a piece of clothing in your closet, what piece of clothing would they be?

Mike would be my like most favorite fitting genes that are like, they just like look amazing. But they they like, make me feel sexy but comfortable at the same time. And like, they just work every time.

Okay, that's high praise. Yeah. Nice.

Yeah. If my partner was a piece of clothing, it's my grandma. Couch shoes.

Oh, yeah. Tell me about that. What?

Well, you have a lot of personality, so you shine bright. Grandma couch? Yeah. The purple shoes. Oh, well, that's the model of them.

Oh, though you have to describe.

Yeah, I'm going to. Okay. I'm gonna. Yes, yes.

That's what.

I'm sorry. As soon as you said grandma, I was just like, all right, but now I know what you're talking about.

She is unexpected in a full experience. And I bought these shoes that they call them. They because they come out back in, like, the early 90s. You know, those couches that were wrapped in plastic. Yeah. So that's Kate. No, I'm just kidding. The box comes like it's wrapped in plastic. And so it was this whole idea came about because of this woman, and it was this, this his grandmother. And so he created a shoe experience out of these Adidas shoes. And so you unzip the plastic, you pull out the box, there's a poster that comes with it. There's a bag that the shoes come in. There are multiple different colors, shoelaces that you can use their purple, red, white. So it's like an adventure in a box. And that's by far my wife.

Okay, you guys, you should have seen Kate's face. She was waiting. She's like, what? Where is this going? What is this?

I know that's.

Gotta be offended.

And I like it. Yeah, I'll take it.

Right. Yeah, I just read I just saw that question today on like a real or something. I was like, that's a good question. Because if it's the, you know, the sweatshirt that you want to wear at home but you don't ever want to take outside, that's a little different, right? Like, and, you know, or whatever. So, okay, we talked about your babies. We talked about your bodies. What's your business? Do people need to know about your business? What is what is that? Probably okay.

We help high capacity humans upgrade their financial life.

Okay.

Through really building the energetic and logistical infrastructure that no one else will ever see. But it's the stuff on the inside that's behind the scenes that's done in secret, or only heard in your inside voice. That makes all the difference on the outside of what other people will see.

How do you do that?

We do that through a combination of neuroscience based like neuro somatic techniques, nervous system healing, brain rewiring, and then practical personal finance that's rooted actually in fun and pleasure as opposed to like this is a boring snooze and then manifesting and wealth energetics and expanding beyond the identity maybe that we inherited so we can have a new experience with money. And we do that with one signature program that's called relaxed money that we've been teaching. This is our sixth time.

Okay. So who am I? Like, who am I if I want to work with you? Am I am I like, do I have a ton of money? Do I have a little bit of money? Do I have a little? Am I either one like you?

Could be either one. I will say that our people are like they have successful careers, their leaders in some capacity. They might be leaders in the home, leaders in their community. There are people who people look up to and respect. So they have this level of they look really successful on the outside and on for some, in some way, behind the scenes, there's like a disconnect between how it looks on the outside and how it feels on the inside with their money. Yeah, and that could manifest in a lot of different ways. But it's like that tension that they want it to feel as successful as it looks.

So if I'm wearing the right clothes, but I don't necessarily have the right posture, you're going to help me with posture.

Yeah. Posture systems stewardship. Yeah. We also do quite a bit of like actual wealth building. So how can you pull on the different levers in your life so that you can get your money working for you, instead of you always working for your money?

Well, I have a plan for you, which is I think you should make an Airbnb. That is an escape room and I will come to it.

Are you really into escape rooms?

I'm about to be. I enjoyed that conversation.

You got.

Inspired, I was inspired. There's one in Joshua Tree. There's one in San Antonio.

So an Airbnb escape room or just.

I really can see how that would create a liveness in a marriage. Yeah. So I even though, like, I'm not interested in going to an escape room, I can see how the like, tension and the challenge. And honestly, our entire business is an escape room. Like we're constantly in that. So it's similar.

Yeah. And you get to solve problems and you start to look at like how that person performs under pressure. And how does this person perform it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You should you should check it out. I forget what number it is, but it was just a couple months, a month or so ago. But the reason I like to ask people what their thing is, is because there's always something to learn from the thing, right? If your thing is in sports, if your thing is music, if your thing is business, if your thing is astrology, shoot. I mean, there's something about we can always learn something from somebody about something. And my new thing right now is I think everybody is fascinating. So I, I will never I can almost promise you I will never do an astrological map chart situation. It almost probably never guide my. But the fact that it guided tours, I'm like, that's amazing.

I love that that is the coolest thing I've ever heard. And then, you know, your kids are going to get their own little map when they're 18 and that's going to say a thing, and you guys are going to put wind behind it, and that's what it's all about. It's like, do your thing, do it well, and and see what you can learn from that thing. And that's, that's that's what I think.

So I love.

That I think you'll do an astronomical astrological astro cartography reading or an astrological reading of something. You can let us know when you.

Do want to come to your main Airbnb escape room.

I will do.

The astrological chart. So I have some things to send you. I got to send you this chop and broccoli video I got to send you. I'll send you the link to that last recording. But where should I send people if they want to learn more about you guys? What is the way that they find Mike and Kate?

So at Kate Northrup on Instagram is a great place. My podcast plenty. Mike is a frequent guest. We used to have a show called The Kate and Mike show, so our listeners like the episodes best when he comes and joins and Kate Northrup.

Com okay. Right on. Well, listen, thank you so much for coming on and hanging out with me. And tell me a little bit about your story. This is I always love talking to people. I always tell people I have this enormous privilege of speaking to couples every day. I mean, I have a full practice. I've talked to thousands of couples and I got to do this podcast, and most people don't get to do that. Most people don't get talked to a lot of couples. They talk to one to, like you said, generationally, we have access to two, maybe three generations of our own kind of marriage story or relationship story. So the fact that we get to tell other people about other ways to do things is a blessing. And I'm glad that you participated with me. So thanks for doing that.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you.