Saying Yes More Often

Nancy and I reflect on our recent road trip and how saying "yes" to new adventures sparked powerful insights. We talk about the power of saying YES to unfamiliar experiences. Pushing past our comfort zones brought out our playful sides and challenged us to live more authentically.

Timeline Summary:

[01:05] Discussing how Nancy talked much more in the last episode.

[02:30] What was at the end of the rainbow?

[03:20] This road trip was a shift in attitude, finding the power of saying “yes” to more.

[05:50] Crossing sketchy bridges in Niagara Falls had my anxiety ramped up and how I related it to life.

[10:59] Our trip reminded us not to get stuck in the robotic rut of everyday life. 

[12:00] We share how we carve out sacred time for "me" and "we" during the week.

[15:50] Our newfound "power of yes" has spread to our designated we-time on Wednesdays.

[18:10] Nancy opens up about really listening to my feedback.

[21:10] Letting go of control and just living in the moment was so freeing on this trip.

If you're digging our stories and loving the ride, do us a solid - rate us, follow the podcast, and share it with your crew. Your reviews mean the world to us and keep us bringing you more f*ck'n authentic stories. Until next time, folks, stay f*ck'n authentic!

Transcript

Nick: 0:07

It's time to get fucking authentic. Yes, here we are live. Hi. Nancy says, Are we recording like live? I'm like, Yeah, it's pretty live right now. Oh man, I love it. It was funny because, wait a minute, what was I actually going to say here? I was gonna say something really important. And then it just completely slipped my fucking mind.

Nancy: 0:34

I can't help you with that. I'm sorry.

Nick: 0:36

Yeah. Anyway, you know what the beginning of the sounded like? I don't know if you remember that Saturday Night Live skit, where the two girls were like, muffin top muffin. And Betty White was sitting there going something about eating her muffin or something. Like, Moist, moist muffin or whatever. Do you remember that? That was hilarious. No, too much. We were talking about it. When we were on our way home. And then we went out and got a bite to eat. But we were talking about how the last episode that we recorded. Like you talk so fucking much. So talk so like now it's like funny because now it's like, now you're not gonna say anything. Right? So it's sort of like,

Nancy: 1:22

who was there that was with you. So I'm like, it was me.

Nick: 1:27

It's funny because I'm like you I couldn't barely get in a word in edgewise. And

Nancy: 1:32

Nikki on site. You can you always get a word in edgewise. But yeah, we'll say that.

Nick: 1:37

Yeah, yeah, it was just funny. People are like, Oh, Nancy really talks. And that's like the last episode. You were just like, on fucking fire.

Nancy: 1:45

Way. Go Baby flag way. Go.

Nick: 1:47

Yeah. So we ended last episode talking about how we were going to go into Niagara Falls and talk a little bit about the last parts of the trip. And we decided, I don't know. They weren't.

Nancy: 2:01

But Niagara Falls was awesome.

Nick: 2:04

Yeah, Niagara Falls was cool.

Nancy: 2:05

I mean, we went underneath. Yeah,

Nick: 2:08

we did go underneath.

Nancy: 2:09

What does it think of? You know what I mean? It was either the boats or going underneath Niagara Falls, and you chose under the falls? And what an experience that was. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. That was kind of nice. Yeah. Which kind of leads us to our actually, the

Nick: 2:29

funny thing is can't see the pictures, but we actually found the end of the rainbow. Oh, we did we I took a picture. Yeah, I took a picture of the end of the rainbow. And let me tell you, there was no fucking pot of gold. And we did. Look. We did. There was no pot of gold. There was no gold piece. There wasn't a gold color there. Wasn't there one gold ship.

Nancy: 2:49

Even if there was gold pot of gold. We couldn't reach it. It was like,

Nick: 2:52

Yeah, but the pause was there was a pot of gold. I might have gone in there a little bit. I'm like, I'm not sure. Yeah. So yeah, we saw the end of the rainbow. And it wasn't everything it was cracked up to be. And let me tell you, but the Falls were awesome. It was pretty. Yeah, it was pretty. And then on the way home, we stopped on a couple more of the covered bridges that that you'd love. Yes. And we sort of talked about that. But I think the whole idea behind this trip. And one of the things that we really wanted to talk about today was this was something completely different for us. I mean, we do a lot of road trips. Yes. So not different in the sense of a road trip.

Nancy: 3:31

We haven't done a road trip this long in a long time. So but yes, this is totally different. Normally, we just go for a couple of hours and then we're you know what I mean, we stop and that's it.

Nick: 3:42

Yeah, but this was a week long and we went somewhere that we never had been before. We did things that we never have really done before. I mean, we did some climbing in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains but this was a consistent basis every day doing something like that. And I think part of this and what we want to share with you guys today is we took on a different attitude we've been saying yes to a lot of things that we would otherwise not be saying yes to we got challenged with that remember we did get challenged with that with Gabby

Nancy: 4:21

Yes. And decided on this trip we would do it so this

Nick: 4:25

trip present and we wanted to share with you just the power that comes with saying yes to things that you have never said yes to whatever they are

Nancy: 4:34

whatever it was yes. And I think yes, pon pon Han based upon that punt on

Nick: 4:44

Oh neat. I'll tell you what you guys are gonna get to know this chick real well in it's just going to be a fucking beautiful journey. Let me tell you

Unknown: 4:53

I'm already thinking of what you good whatever.

Nick: 4:56

But anyway, yeah. So the power of yes but not only the power of Yes, but I think people need to realize that when you're when you decide to do something like this, you're giving yourself permission to just let go sometimes. And this could go into a whole fucking multitude of things of control and expected. Like, there's all kinds of things that we could tie into this, but we're just going to talk about the power of Yes,

Nancy: 5:22

I know. It's like, I want to say yes, but then it's like, again, yeah. intended. But

Nick: 5:27

yeah, I think giving yourself permission to actually do that is part of how powerful this is.

Nancy: 5:35

I think that was part of the reason why we enjoyed ourselves so much. We actually tried things that we wouldn't have normally done if we weren't saying yes to them.

Nick: 5:47

Yeah, I mean, I know for me, and we talked about this a little bit in the last episode, I have some fears of heights. And there's reasons for that had some fears with your knees. And

Nancy: 5:55

I'm always afraid that I'm either going to fall or I'm balancer here is always their power of Yes. kind of helped me.

Nick: 6:03

Yeah. And I'll tell you one thing, though, now that I think about it to remember when we were going into Niagara Falls. One thing that I'm not a very big fan of is bridges. I can't stand fucking bridges. And it was how many of them yeah, getting into Niagara Falls coming out of Buffalo, there were two huge and I say huge bridges, most people fucking pussy like whatever. But the bottom line was people will. I'm just saying if you're doing it every day, and you're just like, that's nothing right. This is like a cakewalk, which actually, it became one thing that struck me as we were driving in, we come up to this bridge, and I'm thinking, all right, this isn't cool. Because I don't like crossing bridges. I think a lot of that has to do with control. A lot of that because I feel out of control. And this was the first time I'm crossing this bridge, right. And so when you're crossing the bridge, you're like, I guess you can put expectations. I don't know what to expect. There's all kinds of things but we get across the bridge, and I'm like, Okay, fuck, we got across the bridge, right? And we're talking and we're laughing. And I'm like, and then all of a sudden, fucking like another, like four miles down the road. There's another fucking bridge. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. What the fuck are we doing? He

Nancy: 7:13

just sweater just going. Yeah, I wouldn't

Nick: 7:15

go so. So crazy. But yeah, I was there's a nerve factor there. We get over that bridge. And of course, it is the last bridge. And that's really cool. So of course, now you have to understand, just like we talked about before, always trying to be proactive and trying to control things. And the reality is I'm sitting in our loft that we're sitting in here.

Nancy: 7:33

We got about that. That was on the what? The 13th

Nick: 7:35

floor? Oh, yes. Which again, that didn't bother me as much. But we spent one night there. And I knew that the next day, in order to get out of Niagara Falls, we have to go over the fucking bridges again, that was dam bridges. And that, that that causes anxiety or whatever. But I was sitting there saying to myself, all you have to do is get over the bridge. Okay, so you're going home, and you want to go home, but you just have to get over the bridge. Like it's not that bad, right? All you have to do is drive over the bridge, once you're over the bridge, like, it may not feel the best. But it's just getting over the bridge. And I think that's part of the control. That's part of saying yes, it's part of letting go sometimes and just saying, it's not as big as it seems we say no to a lot of things because we make them this multitude of something,

Nancy: 8:20

or excuses or whatever the case is,

Nick: 8:22

or we look at ourselves like oh, if I do that I'm not responsible enough. Or if I do like, there's so many negative factors to saying no, that when you just start to use yes more often. And again, we're not talking about Oh, yeah. Go fucking do an eight ball of cocaine in Oh, yeah. You said to say yes. Like, I'm not talking about stupid shit. Come up with this. Because where I come up with it is how people are people be like, Oh, we should actually what we should do right now is put like a disclaimer. Like a fucking thing on here. It's like, I'm not telling you yes. To go and fucking do something. Said Yes. Told me to say yes. Like, come on. I'm just saying that when you finally open up your mind to realize that saying yes. Is so freeing. And so like, eye opening, that once you do it, you're like, Oh, that wasn't even really what it is. And so now actually, the funny thing is even just from those bridges, and I know this sounds it sounds so trivial

Nancy: 9:31

simple, but yeah, but it's,

Nick: 9:33

but it is simple, right? That but we would make it paralyzed. We make it paralyzing. Right? Exactly. But I literally now what am I saying all the time? We just gotta go over the bridge. Right? That is the metaphor like for me, that's the thing of I just kind of crossed a bridge like, you just got to go through like get over the bridge and you're over the bridge. Okay, there's another fucking bridge. Well, I just got to get over that bridge. It's almost like, just one more time. If you do it just one more time. How do you know that that's not going to be the time. And that for me is has been huge. And that's the sticking point for me with this whole trip was, especially on the road, especially being in places that we were never at before which we get comfortable, we get complacent. And then it starts to get boring. And when you start to get boring, then your mind starts to just be like, dead. Yeah, that's so true. You might just becomes jell O, you're just robotic, you're just doing the same thing over and over again. And it's like, fuck that. I know, the colors were beautiful. And it was like nothing we've ever seen. And it was different. But we only saw it because we said yes,

Nancy: 10:39

I was just gonna say, because I would have never would have been the colors regardless, we could have seen the colors from wherever we were at. I mean, probably not as good as we did when we climbed up certain peaks. But yeah, for me, like I said, last time, I think it was that power of Yes, I was just, holy shit, I was able to get up and climb. I mean, it was crazy.

Nick: 10:59

The most beautiful view is at the top. Correct? Yes. So and you can use that. However you want to use it, you know, for your own life or for our lives. I mean, if you don't keep climbing, if you don't go over the bridge, if you don't keep saying yes to things and stop using everything else as a negative, or becoming complacent in what you're doing all the time. Just because it's comfortable, then you're going to live a fucking boring life. And then the bottom line is you become robotic, you lose your curiosity about life, you lose your outlook about waking up in the morning and having something to look forward to or experiencing new things today. Let's talk about like even today, since this trip. Every Monday, Nancy and I obviously everybody knows we've been married for 34 years. And we always try to do something different with ourselves and with our relationship. And one of the things we have is a thing called me Mondays, which is I love

Nancy: 11:53

the Mondays.

Nick: 11:54

Yeah, it comes over it slips. But it's me Monday, right? So we get to come home, and we get to do whatever the fuck we want for Monday. So Nancy will come. So obviously we're totally different. Yes, totally. And I mean, so she'll come home and want to maybe read a book or go to bed or do whatever, take a nap. And of course, I want to just go outside. Watching Andy Griffith Yeah, I can. Yeah. Or the rifleman or some stupid shit like that. Yeah, that shows how fucking old we are. But a even the young people can watch that shit. And he's cool. But yeah, so we do me Monday. And that allows us to do something for ourselves once a week, obviously, we might whatever we want all the time. But this is a designated time that we're able to just not have to ask each other anything or feel like we owe time to each other or anything.

Nancy: 12:47

And I think it's really nice, because it's like the weekend is always go and Monday is just kind of like a chill. Kind of breathe a little bit and just kind of Yeah, sure. I mean, I chill. But yes, you do.

Nick: 13:00

Yeah, I chill in my own way. Yeah, yeah, running around the block is very relaxing. And then Tuesdays are sort of Tuesday's a regular day we come home and we you know, do things around the house or whatever. Taco Tuesday. And then Wednesday, we have a day called we Wednesday. In other words, that's a time for just me and her to go out and do something completely different. We don't sit at home, we don't just do we go out to the movies, or we go out and have to a new place for dinner or we do a different bike ride or different

Nancy: 13:28

people are gonna be like, You guys are with each other every

Nick: 13:31

every day. 24 Fucking seven. And we have a we Wednesday, what do

Nancy: 13:35

you need, we Wednesday for me tell you why we need Wednesdays, because we're constantly going and going and we

Nick: 13:42

have to understand our days together are definitely our days together. But fuck, our days together are literally directed by everybody else in our lives around us. So although we're together all the time, or whatever, we have responsibilities that detract us from each other during the day. And we're really, we're together but we're not together. This is time alone for us without any phones ringing without any kind of interference. And this is just us talking about our lives. And we do talk about our lives a lot. But this is really putting it in perspective and putting it in order and writing it down and doing shit like that. Generally we do on Wednesdays, oh my God, how funny is it that we do our recordings on Tuesdays or Wednesdays because those are the times that we're most connected? Yeah, that's true, guys, just because we're together. 24/7 doesn't mean we're completely connected at that point. You know what I mean? I still are separate people. We still have separate jobs, even though we work together. We still live our lives, the way we live our lives, but you still need time for connection. And I think that's I'm not going to get into a whole relationship thing because as time goes on, we're going to talk about our relationship but you still need that connection with the power of Yes. So what that has created for us you even more is it's actually really solidified our purpose for we Wednesday and whatever. And what we've even taken it further now is like today, we didn't just stick around in the neighborhood of whatever, we drove 45 minutes to another area. And we actually had a little bit of a sort of like an appetizer dinner and not a dinner. And then we knew there was a cool little coffee shop in that neighborhood. And that's where we went, we saw vino coffee, and vino is the shop of selection. Yeah, I don't drink much. But yeah, but we just sat and talked. And we actually sat and talked there and talked about what we need to accomplish in our lives, not just in our lives, but in our business for the podcast, and working with like, say our producer or working with a couple people we're working on with social media. So in what brought that about was saying yes to so we were doing the Wii Wednesdays, yeah, we always did the weekend. But that almost started become a little robotic as well, because it was just always around here, because we were too tired when and we're like, fuck that, like, get out in fucking experience something different, experience something new. And really just let yourself go. And that does mean like, if you want to indulge in something, you know, you're always telling yourself No, or that's irresponsible, or I don't have the money for that. I'm not telling people to go spend money they don't have I'm just saying that once in a while telling yourself Yes, it indulging. If you have kids and you want to get away from the kids, it is not an irresponsible thing to take care of yourself, and to say yes, and to get away. And to find a way to do that no matter what it is. It's locking yourself in a closet,

Nancy: 16:42

right or going for a walk in a different neighborhood. You know what I mean? Like, so it doesn't have to constantly money, but just doing that it kind of changed your perspective, your minds, you know, we walk around the same area all the time, so to have a different view. And that's why I think that's what happened when we went on the road trip. And we said yes, it was like just a different outlook and everything. And

Nick: 17:05

even when we walk now like in do some recordings, the big thing about me is having control is that right now we're sitting in our studio, and we're doing this and so the sound probably sounds a little bit better than we would on our Lavell ear mics as we're walking. I know, right? But the idea is that is something different. And we want to also bring that to you guys. Like even listening to a podcast. We don't want it to sound like shit. But we want to bring you along with us on those adventures in those times that we're just walking around and just sort of connecting so that we're connecting with you guys as well. And that's pretty much the thing here is the power of Yes. And we wanted to bring that to you guys and just sort of share that with you.

Nancy: 17:50

And I just wanted to kind of say a little something about the power. Yes. When we came back. Yeah, I know. I don't talk much. But yeah, now. We came back. We had gone to our granddaughter's party birthday party. Yeah, birthday party,

Nick: 18:05

which we enjoyed ourselves. That was awesome. years old. Isn't that fucking insane?

Nancy: 18:09

And we come back and you had mentioned something to me, you know, I was sitting down, and all I kept thinking, in my mind was, like, I said, the power Yes, just sit there and dance and just listen to what your husband has to say. Sometimes you just have to kinda like, part of us is listening to your other partner. Just kind of talk to you about things that he sees about you. I just want to say I appreciate that. Because I mean, it took a lot for me to sit there and listen, but because I was saying yes, in my head, like just, I'm like, okay, just sit here. Just listen to what he is. Yeah, you know what I mean? This is, I'm trying to do like the opposite of what I would normally do.

Nick: 18:52

Yeah, I mean, that's sort of that really, honestly takes me by surprise, because that same night when I when we had that discussion, and I had said what I said, and you pretty abruptly got up and then wanted to go do your nighttime ritual before you went to bed, and then you went to bed. And I thought, I mean, I said what I had to say, because I really believed in what I said, I didn't know how you had taken it at that point. As a matter of fact, I think I thought that you had taken it sort of pretty bad. So it's really awesome. To know, and I appreciate you saying that, but I know that you the next day, you obviously address the situation,

Nancy: 19:36

right? That's why I wanted to bring it up because just because somebody doesn't seem like they're paying attention or accepting you know what they say?

Nick: 19:46

I was so so there you go. I mean, just because you decide to think or do something completely different totally. It literally changed the whole outlook of that point in time and did it for me, even the next day? I think because the next day you walked into work because I get there generally before she does. And she walked into work. And she says, Hey, can you meet me out at the side door? And I'm like, yeah, no problem. Like, usually I'll help her carry stuff in or whatever. And the first thing you did was give me a hug. And I was like, you've like literally never done that before. And that is a I don't know if he should say that. No, but it's true. It's It's who we are. Right? So so people, I mean, it doesn't matter. Like we're not. I mean, I'm a hugger, loving people, but we're not very affectionate people. I mean, we're loving, right? I mean, we, it is what it is. But that was totally out of the ordinary. And I think, knowing now why it happened makes it even more special, because that makes it even more special for what we're saying that the power of Yes. And the power of just having. I don't even want to say a positive outlook on things. Because I think that's just a fucking narrative for a lot of people is positivity and negativity and all these fucking words, I think we just have to live our lives. Like, we just have to just Let life be. Stop trying to manage everything and stop trying to control everything.

Nancy: 21:21

Yes, just let Sure and I think that's kind of like the biggest thing. And I think that's what was nice about this whole. Yeah, yes, thing. You know what I mean, it was, you don't feel like you're in control, which is kind of it was sort of control, which was cool. Right? And I wasn't in control. You know what I mean, I was in control. From the very beginning of this trip, you know what I mean? Until the very end, you know, so it was kind of like, kind of letting loose and just kind of listening and paying attention to everything around us.

Nick: 21:52

I can tell because some of your navigation skills really sucked. They were pretty bad. Yeah. I'm like, okay, Nancy, what are we doing? And you're like, I'm just living in the moment. That's great. But you know, could drive off a fucking Cliff here. Like, we need to pay attention a little bit, but

Nancy: 22:11

it's sociate. And bro.

Nick: 22:13

Now, it's just you know what? We got to have fun, man. Yeah. And we just wanted to come on and share this with you guys. It was funny, because we had actually recorded another episode already. Oh, yeah. And we listened to it. And we're like, now this thing sucked. And we actually had spent like, 40 minutes recording that episode. And we wanted to come on and bring something on to you guys. It's a little bit more substantial and meaningful. And we really appreciate

Nancy: 22:37

it, at least for us, it really meant something and it made that it made our trip completely different. Totally different.

Nick: 22:43

So so we just want to say that we appreciate you guys just listening to our conversations. Hopefully, they get to inspire you guys. And hopefully you get to follow us or give us a review or rate us or I don't even know is that what it is? Do you do all that shit? And podcast too?

Nancy: 22:59

Yeah, no, not really. I need to really figure that

Nick: 23:01

out. Do it. Subscribe. Do whatever it is, you guys know you listen, right? Do it like rate us? Review us say, hey, thumbs up. And if we're doing some shitty, seriously, like, keep it to yourself. But tell us like, Dude, your things suck. I was seriously no, I had a dude come up to me. And he was like, hey, podcast is great. But you know, you guys, when you first start out, you really don't do an intro or anything. And I think the thing for us is that we, I took that to heart like, wow, that makes sense. Like, we liked the fact that we sort of it sounds like we're just you guys are just coming into a room and we're in the middle of conversation and we're having that conversation. But if there's any of those little things that you guys are like, hey, it would be cool. If you did this or talked about this or did whatever. We'd appreciate that. So thanks for. Thanks for listening to the rant and we'll talk to you next time. Bye.