Date Nights & Deadlines: Balancing Love & Ambition

Welcome back to the Infinite Gold Podcast. How you doing, babe?

I'm doing swell. How you doing?

Oh, you know, I'm on like 3 and a half hours of sleep, you know, worked last night into this morning, but I feel pretty good. We're going on date night, so why not?

That's what caffeine's for.

Exactly right. Cheers. Thank you. Cheers. Good old coffee. So what did you want to talk about before we go on our date night?

You know, I wanted to kind of highlight, um, what inspired us to start focusing and giving more attention to our date nights.

Yeah.

Um, and the importance of it. I know that, you know, once we uh, had kids, that obviously time from you and me was taken away a little bit. So, and we kind of— what, 3 years ago? When time gets taken away from us, and, um, I shouldn't say that, but our attention was— it was redirected. Our attention was redirected while we were still loving and caring towards each other. Um, a heavy focus wasn't as You know, there.

Mm-hmm.

So now when we space out time in our schedules, cuz we know how busy you are working a ton of overtime left and right and, you know, just day-to-day stuff. Mm-hmm. Cuz we're like, hey, we gotta get this done. We gotta get this done. Wait.

Yeah.

We really need date night.

Mm-hmm.

You know, between you being gone at work for all hours of the night and/or day, depending on your schedule, and me being home with the kids and really not having any adult contact or conversations. Uh, we, we need some time for just you and me. We need some adult contact and adult conversations.

You're not having adult conversations with Jackson?

Half the time I don't understand what he's saying. I struggle. I try and sometimes I'm like, okay buddy, cool, that sounds good. And then he just looks at me like he's waiting for an answer and I'm like, I don't know why you asked me. Yeah, I'm like, I don't have no idea. I'm like, can you elaborate please? Can you explain to me? Help me understand.

Can you use that in a sentence?

Yeah. So, um, yeah, I, I think us starting to prioritize squeezing us in on the schedule and having that quality time together, even if it's just for an hour— it doesn't have to be like a full day or weekend kind of deal. I mean, you know, once in a while, like what, quarterly or something like that, we, we do like a a full day date, like a full-on date, which is—

that's our plan this year. Yeah, to get back into doing more of those. Um, and that's kind of where we fell off last year because exactly what you said. I mean, family, work, um, starting the businesses, like everything stacks on top of each other. And sometimes, yeah, we forget like what got us to where we are right now. We didn't get here from doing all this other stuff by ourselves. We got here together building things, building the family, and we got to keep that going. And that's where I feel like sometimes, I mean, there was parts of last year where, yeah, we kind of steered different directions and it was kind of hard. And we always realized that every time we came back to doing more date nights, we kept coming back to doing more things together. Like the connection became more real. And that's where I feel like a lot of people, they get into that problem, they get into those slumps, and we're all, we're all going to have slumps. Like we're all going to go through things. It's just how are we gonna get back on track much faster?

Yeah.

Than like, let's say years of prolonged time away. Like that, that's, that's where it definitely hurts.

Right? Yeah. No. And, uh, I think what we've learned is that even after you're married, it's still so important to date your spouse.

Yes.

You need to still go on dates with each other and keep that spice and that like excitement alive.

Oh yeah. You got to.

So, yeah. You know, it's whether you're You're trying new things in, in or outside of the bedroom. You know, I'm just, you have to go and do new activities.

Yeah.

And just really have that quality time. And this doesn't just go with our date nights.

Yeah.

It's also with anything else in life. Be where your feet are, be more present.

Very true. Very true.

So we're in, you know, we're on a date. I don't want you to be thinking about work. I don't wanna be, you know, you don't want me to be thinking and worrying about what's going on with the kids while they're being babysat. You know, we want to be there, be with each other, and worrying about that present time and what's happening in our, like, immediate atmosphere.

Yes, I agree. Yeah, that's the one other thing that is one of my goals. And if you haven't realized, the main topic of today isn't about date nights and dating your spouse. It's more of goals and, uh, goals that we created for this year. And a lot of the goals that we created is around you and I. It's around our business. And your business isn't going to thrive if your relationships aren't thriving. If you're— some of the things that we talk about is, for example, your business, you're in a professional pillar based off the Infinity Model. If your personal life, if your mindset, if your leadership, if that's not strengthening, if that's not working on all cylinders, your business is not going to. You're professional life is not going to— your wherever you're working is not going to if your home life is not standing strong. So we're taking more of the atonement of, yeah, we're going to scale our business and our business is going to take off this year. We're going to do it from the personal pillar of strengthening our relationship with each other, with our family, with our friends. But it starts with us.

Yeah, it starts with us individually. Like I think the reason we have grown even closer than I feel like we have ever been our entire relationship is because we had set our goals on prioritizing ourselves and working on our own personal growth so that way we can grow as individuals but grow as a couple.

Yes, without a doubt. Um, and one of those things that I had to reframe from is because I can be on my phone way too much, especially with work and being on call. And then, I mean, we all go through the phase, and I 100% did, is social media. Social media is the— it's a necessary evil is what, is what we like to call it now. I mean, right now we're— you might be watching this on social media, you might be watching this on YouTube, on Instagram. Yeah. The key takeaways that I want you to get from watching this and/or just watching anything is go onto it with a purpose.

Yes.

And that's where we had to try to change our mindset and our goal for this year of less social media, but not necessarily less social media in the aspect of being on it less, but be on it with more of a, a direction and a reason why we're there. We're going on there to learn. We're going on there to connect. So if I'm going— if we're going to go on there to connect with our friends or family, we're going to go on there for a set period of time. We're not going to go on there and next thing you know, we're doom scrolling and we're not even connecting with our family or friends. So we didn't even go on there for the reason we did.

Right.

Or for example, I tell myself, and this is, I went through this spiral, I'm gonna go on there and I'm gonna look up, uh, you know, a few of the people and I'm gonna learn some things. And then I looked that up and the next thing you know, I'm down rabbit holes and I'm down memes and I'm like, uh, what? Oh yep, that was about 45 minutes for why?

Yeah, you've done infinite rabbit holes. I just remember is when you are stuck at work and it's, it's really slow and you're in the middle of report writing and you're like, okay, I'm gonna take a break, take a breather for a second, you know, I'm gonna go and scroll and do this. And you start doing some research and then you keep going deeper and deeper and deeper, and then you send me all of your research. I'm like, what are you doing? How did this stem? But one thing I'm sure you'll notice it too, whenever we go and open up the app of Instagram, for example, it's always opening up to your main feed. It doesn't open up to your own profile or the search engine. Search engine, they do that almost worse. They do that on purpose. So whatever is the first, like, you know, post or reel or what have you is popping up from somebody that you follow and that's in your feed, you're gonna see that and then it's gonna trigger you to start looking at other things that may be related to that or continue to scroll in your feed. To see what else is there. So like when we're going on there, I know now we try to focus more on, okay, how long have I been on for, and am I, uh, taking in something that's educational or that's going to bring me some benefit and give me something to think about, rather than, rather than, you know, being entertained by freaking like cat videos or somebody doing some stupid dance, you know what I mean? That's just for pure entertainment or because we're escaping reality. That's what a lot of people do. Yeah, a lot of people are doing that these days. Shoot, I'm guilty of it. When I get annoyed or overstimulated with the kids, I pick up my phone and I start scrolling, and then next thing you know, 20 minutes goes by. I was like, oh crap, I could have been doing this instead.

Yeah.

And I wasn't being present in that moment.

Exactly. The— it's funny when we talk about it, so one place that always pops up is the bathroom. I'm like, ah, gotta go to the bathroom, might as well doom scroll for the next 30 minutes. And then you're like, babe, you done? I was done probably about 25 minutes ago, but you know, we're, we're in here doing our thing. Maybe it's partial getaway from the kids screaming or reality.

Lucky. I don't know, I don't get that luxury. I have bathroom attendants with me 24/7.

I don't know, right now they are both very daddy right now.

Like, no, I could, I could escape the room without the kids looking. Their backs are turned, they're playing, they're busy doing toddler things. I escaped to the bathroom like quietly, almost tiptoe if you will.

Yeah.

And Laney somehow figures out like, oh, Mom's not in the room, she must go find Mom.

Oh, she's smart.

She goes straight to the bathroom. She goes straight to the bathroom.

Not dumb.

Well, the other day I'm sitting, I'm sitting on the toilet and you know how there's like that wall, you know, between like where the door jamb is? Yeah, I have like— I will admit I'd lean back and I tried to hide from her, but I'm like, well, your legs are sticking out, you gotta like, you gotta like move your legs. It's kind of like the, um, an ostrich sticking their head in the ground thinking like, oh shoot, okay, maybe if I can't see them, they can't see me either. And so that was immediately my thought and I'm like This is definitely not working. She comes up, she grabs me by the legs, and she's just smiling. Hi, Mommy.

So you turn into a kid if they can't— if my parents can't see me, they can't—

I did, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, exactly. Fun times.

Of course. Of course. You got to have the humor in all of it as well. But so what are some other— obviously, so some goals that we've had is more date nights. Being more present amongst them, less social media. Again, being more present, uh, with the family on those side of things. What are some, uh, tactics or tools that you've realized that have kind of helped you and, and/or us so that way we can accomplish those set goals that we have for this upcoming year? Like obviously, cuz we started this before the new year, right? Like we started working on this before the new year, but we really made it like a, Like this is happening this year. So what, yeah, has kind of like helped you, um, make this work out and happen? Well, it has. Yeah.

Okay. So, um, overall I think just taking action and being more intentional.

Yeah.

And kind of setting up more a, of a, uh, a schedule.

Mm-hmm.

And organizing and prioritizing. Okay. What, what needs to get done? And, you know, if there's some things that you don't finish on that to-do list that are, that were supposed to be a priority that day and it carries over to the next day, well, you're like, at least I gave, I gave what I had. Mm-hmm. To get, you know, A, B, C, and D done. And if E didn't get finished, you're like, okay, I'll take care of it tomorrow. That'll be the first thing that gets done ahead of the next priority list. Uh, so not to like let it fall off. You know, the cliff and forget about it. Be like, oh, I didn't accomplish it today, so it's not that important. And then you forget about it and never get it done. So just be, being better about making the choices and prioritizing what's important to us and what's important to, um, the steps getting those goals accomplished and taking the everyday steps. Um, you know, whether it's, uh, prioritizing doing a project that has to do with our work.

Yeah.

Versus doing the dishes. If you gotta let the dirty dishes sit in the sink for a little bit because you've got to get something productive done, and you're— you decide to do that rather than tactical avoidance, which is a lot of what I have done and still catch myself doing once in a while. I've gotten way better about it.

So much better.

Yeah, so much better about it now. So like, you know, if my house isn't perfectly in tip-top shape It is what it is. I'm right now, my, my main focus is to handle our business stuff so that we can take off and accomplish those said goals and those dreams that we are trying to reach. Because if we keep doing it at like a, an unsteady path, an unsteady pace, and we're kind of just hiccuping along.

Yeah.

It's gonna take us much longer. If we're not, if we're not focused in and diving into what we need to get done. So really being intentional, making better choices with our time and going by a schedule. No, you don't have to be super, super strict, but you need something to go by. You need some guidelines, something that kind of helps hold you accountable in a way, something accountable on paper. So you get to look back and then, okay, I'm the kind of person, I'm tactile. I like to write things down.

Yeah.

And when I accomplish something, I love the feeling of just checking it off the list.

I've seen your, I've seen your list. Like your list is all nice and neat, but when you check it off, man, you check the heck out of it off.

It's hilarious. That is done.

Yeah.

Don't even look back. That's done. Moving on. Next one.

Yes.

And just kind of move forward like that.

That's so good.

Uh, leading, leading into that, it, what, every time you're accomplishing something and you're checking something off a list, you get this feeling of accomplishment, and that's where you start to get into a little bit of your, your progress.

Yes.

And when you feel that progress and you're like, oh shoot, okay, I got this done, I'm doing really well, like, okay, keep going, I'm capable of this. Yeah, I'm capable of this. Yeah, you get momentum and then you don't want to stop.

Nope.

And then because you've gotten so good at it That's your discipline, not your motivation.

Right there.

Discipline.

That's it right there.

Keeping going. Once you've got your momentum, it's because you've been doing those consistent daily actions. Hugh, man, I, I love that. Hugh, I'm good. I'm sorry, I'm using it here.

We're stealing it right now, buddy. Yeah. It's happening.

It, it was so good that it's something that we talk about regularly and we wanna share it with everyone here that's listening.

Yeah. So what she mentioned right there is, uh, consistent daily actions. Okay. That's one thing that. Um, I'll be honest, I, I'm still working on too. I was not the best at because, uh, I'm, I'm kind of like, I'm that, but we talked about it, our animals. I'm a buffalo. I just, I just go, go, go, go, go. And a lot of times is I don't, I don't schedule as well or I don't plan things as well. Like, I, it's planned in my mind, but as you guys know, and anybody that has tried to accomplish something, you can have it in your mind, but if you write it down to paper, then it's there. That's, that's right there is what you want, because now you could plan it. Now you can create those consistent daily actions that are going to get you to those goals and dreams that you have.

Can I interrupt? Go ahead. Second, another, another way to like help hold yourself accountable is saying it out loud. Not just, not just keeping it in your head or writing it down. Say it out loud, because then what's next? Your actions are to follow.

That's exactly it. You, your actions aren't going to come from just thinking something. Like, you really got to say it out loud. You really got to feel it, embrace it, and go for it. The other thing that I love about saying it out loud— and that's why we're kind of saying it out loud to you guys right now about our date nights and about being more present— because if you see us not going on date night, you see us not being more present, hold us accountable. That's the thing. When you start saying things out loud to your friends, your family, your co-workers, anybody around you, they're going to hold you accountable. We're just human natures. It's it's gonna happen. But, hey buddy, so I heard you were, uh, trying to lose 20 pounds. It looks like you gained 20 pounds.

Or you are eating a Snickers bar.

Or, yeah, here you are, like, what's going on, buddy? So like, saying it out loud is going to create those actions. It's going to create those CDAs, consistent daily actions. It's going to get you moving. And I love how you tapped into the discipline versus motivation. Yeah, is Everyone thinks that, oh, I've got to have motivation, I gotta have motivation. You don't need to have motivation. You're not going to have motivation. I'll be honest, right now my motivation's pretty damn low. Like, not much sleep, I'm exhausted. This coffee is helping out tremendously. Um, us chatting, being together, um, it's not our date night yet, but it's, it's kind of our day now. We're spending time together like this.

I like this. This is part of date night.

This is important.

Yeah.

We're, we're bonding together. And that's something that you can take into account. Like a lot of our date nights, we're not trying to make it so business, but we are obviously in business together. Yeah. If some of your time consists of talking about business, let it be like that. Just don't let it be like that for everything, for all the stuff that you do. Yeah. But take advantage of those times. Like if you wanted just to be you two, you don't want other people involved, you don't want anything, and this is just you two. Well, you're bonding in a way that we have our dreams and our goals that are very high and very vast. Like, we know we've got to work on the business together. So if we're going to do it together, let's do it together. It's going to be way more fun that way.

Well, the thing is, like, we don't— I don't think we really look at it as work because we genuinely enjoy doing what we do and it's why we do what we do.

Exactly.

I think— oh, I now I'm— I lost my train of thought. You, you want to do what you love and love what you do, so it really doesn't feel like work.

No, it doesn't.

So when we do get on these like, uh, conversations with each other, I know we enjoy having those. And so, and we make it fun. It's effortless. That's what's also exciting to me is that we don't have to really try, which kind of leads into the date nights.

So like before, you— there's this stigma of like, oh, date nights, that you have to go out to dinner, you have to go do this, you have to go do that. It's like, no, do what you both enjoy doing. Like right now, we enjoy talking to you guys, we enjoy doing this podcast, spending time together, we enjoy coffee. Like we haven't done it in a while, but we're gonna now also to have our date nights, to make sure we have— we're gonna have date mornings or date brunches. Like we love brunch, we love coffee. We'll go to the coffee shop, just hang out, just be with the ambiance. Uh, and for example, we're about to go to the shooting range. We're gonna go shoot some guns. It's going to be fun. It's enjoyable. So just think like outside the box, like what do you two enjoy doing, and go do those things. If it's a hike, like it could be a hike on in the afternoon. If it's a gym class, if it's something, just do it together, and that's all you need to have more of that presence amongst each other.

Yeah, it could be whatever you want it to be, whatever you guys enjoy doing the most together. I'd say like, you know, it's just being intentional with that time.

Yeah, definitely. So we'd like to encourage you guys to start, start dating each other more if you're a couple. If you're, if you're single, then date yourself. Date yourself. Exactly, date yourself.

Like, you know, there were— there's times where you know, before I, uh, you know, met you, babe, and before I was really dating and was just totally single. And I was like, oh, I want a relationship. Now I don't. Like, why'd you— I want a relationship with myself. I wish, like, back then I knew, like, I should have a better relationship with myself and love myself a little bit more and not be so hard on myself and take more time to date me. Date me so I know myself better. So when I go to— when I do meet somebody and the time is right, that like, yeah, I know who I, I know who I am and I know who and or what I'm looking for.

That's good. Yeah. So go that route. Also write down your goals, write down your dreams for 2025. Say it out loud. Say it to everybody around you. Let's all hit 2025 running. Let's make it a great year. If you guys have any questions, if you'd like us to talk about any future topics or anything like that, comment them below in the YouTube. This will be there, or you could shoot us an email, shoot us a DM on Instagram. We'd love to answer those questions for you. But we love all you guys, and we'll see you on the next episode.

Later.