How We’ve Built Life, Business, and Love Over Two Decades

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I was feeling a little like unclear about what our next five years was going to look like or even our second half of our lives. And I'm like, I feel a little lost right now. Like I need to really check in with you and we need to align our, you know, our big dreams, our goals and that changed the game for us.

And we're back with another episode of.

He said she Said.

Guys, this week Lori and I are hitting 20 years married. Now before we go into why and how we got to 20 years, because that's what we're going to talk about like as entrepreneurs, as dreamers, as a couple of crazy people. How in the world did we make 20 years? And it goes so quick.

It goes so quick.

But before we do that, we are now halfway sold out for our VIP in person mastermind where you get to spend two days at our home masterminding with nine other incredible business owners. So it's super intimate. We're all working on each other's businesses. The first one was to smash hit. That's why half of them are coming back. And even better, you get to be on our podcast, both of them house on video.

You get the podcast reels, you get the actual episode. You get to use this to help get booked on other large shows. It's a pretty epic experience and deal by the way.

It happened. So you know how I do the follow up coaching call? Yeah, well, I talked to somebody who came to the last VIP weekend. Yeah, this week and she's like, you're never gonna believe it. It worked. I shared that I was on Earn your happy, not mine. Yeah, she goes, I shared that was on Earn your Happy. And I got booked on and I don't wanna say who it is, but I got booked on so and so's podcast.

Oh my.

So it literally works.

Amazing.

Yeah, it's like an instant boost for your exposure. So anyhow, you guys, if you wanna come to our house mastermind on your business for two days, you know, we have follow up calls, there's a whole Bunch of really cool moving parts to it and be on both of our shows right now. Literally. Rush over to Chrisharder Me Weekend so you can grab one of the last spots for the VIP weekend mastermind. That's Chrishardter Me weekend. Chrisharder Me weekend. All right. 20 years, babe. How did we get here?

How did we get here? You know, we were just telling our engagement story, which this was before Instagram, but I feel like we should tell them.

Oh, God, it's embarrassing. It's. It's brutal. Okay, I'll. I'll give a real quick version.

Love it.

I'll give real quick version. So this is 21 years ago. This is 2004. Okay. Lori is 20. I don't know, 23. 23 at the time. I'm 26 at the time. And, you know, Lori and I for, like, two years were like, why would we get married? Like, everything's fine. Why would put a label on it? Like, we were doing that dance.

People who. We were like, we're madly in love. We don't need a label. Like, we're good to go. And then one day, we were driving around on a Saturday, and we just kind of.

Yeah. One Saturday morning, just driving around, and we're like, but why not? And it was just this weird, out of the blue, like, yeah, but why not?

We were like, okay, if people need, like, this outward commitment to know how we feel about each other, then why don't we just show them?

Yeah. And so this is very casual. Lori's like, I don't know why not? And I'm like, I don't know why not? And so that day, just running errands on a Saturday morning, we're like, all right, we're going to get engaged, so I'll start looking. So we go, we look at some rings. I learn what kind of rings that Lori wants. You know, maybe this is a matter of four to eight weeks that are transpiring. And then I'm like, okay, now I have to buy the ring, and I have to try and make this, like, a surprise. I have to try and make this a thing. Even though she kind of knows that we have this handshake deal to get, you know, engaged.

I was so thrown off, though, because, do you remember you booked Chicago for a weekend getaway? And I was like, oh, I'm absolutely getting proposed to in Chicago. And something was wrong with the ring.

Yep.

And so the whole weekend went by. I'm waiting the whole weekend. Nothing happened. I'm like, okay, hey, I guess that Wasn't the weekend. So I was completely shocked.

Yep. So I'm like, gosh, how do I do this? And especially after missing the opportunity in Chicago, it felt, you know, kind of anticlimactic. So she was working late one night, and I knew she was working late, and so I thought, I know I'm going to get a ton of rose petals and cover the entire kitchen floor and entryway floor in rose petals. We had just moved into a new home that you and I bought together. So I cover everything in rose petals. I'm going to turn off all the lights in house so that they can't be turned on. Hold on. There's a caveat to that story. In a minute. And. And I'll make dinner. And when she walks in, it'll be this wonderful romantic setting. Now, guys, this is before Instagram proposals, okay? Like, now people are, like, going in, I don't know, hot air balloons or yachts or whatever the hell they do. This is Green bay freaking Wisconsin 21 years ago.

And I worked at Jodeco all day. I was in a T shirt, and I smelled like coffee.

And so we're talking not fancy. Very anti climactic here. Anyhow, so I have this scene in my mind. I'm like, how do I make this happen? Now, this is the embarrassing part. I did not grow up in a family that taught me, like, how to fix things around the house. This is so embarrassing to say out loud, but I didn't know how to go turn off the power, like, using the. The. The main look, Chris is good at.

A lot of things. He's going to. He's going to help you buy a house, a car, get out of tough situations, but he's not going to help you with your home, okay? So he could not find how to turn off the power. So instead, because he wanted it to be a surprise, he went and unscrewed every light, every lighthouse in the house so that I couldn't unscrew lights on.

Put them in a pile somewhere.

And he had a pile of these light bulbs when I walked in, and none of the light switches worked, and I'm like, I'm yelling to him. I'm like, why is there a pile of light bulbs? And I can't see anything? And I walk around the corner to, like, all of these candles and rose petals all over. He's cooking dinner, which never happened, so that felt extra special. And I was like, oh, my God, what is happening?

And I was like, yeah, that's why, biatch. Marry me. Oh, that was it.

And I still said yes, despite knowing he didn't know how to turn the power off.

God, that's embarrassing. For the record, I know how to do a good number of things around the house now.

He does now. Yes. Yes. Okay, so that was our anti semic.

Engagement story 21 years ago. And here we are, married 20 years this week. So here's what I thought everyone would be interested in. We've built so many businesses. We've built so many, you know, we hit so many goals and we've had so many catastrophic moments too. Yeah, right. We've had mega ops that a lot of you guys know about and celebrate and we've had a lot of downs.

Oh, damn. So many downs.

Terrible, terrible years. So what do you think is one of the biggest reasons that we made it to 20 years so far knowing it's been a roller coaster that I think people can't fathom.

The fact that a few years in, we somehow started doing personal growth individually and then together.

Yep.

So we started on an individual path. Me first, just because I had terrible anxiety and I didn't even. I didn't even know what personal growth was. I had no idea what personal development was. And I had never heard of a personal development book. I maybe had heard of Tony Robbins. I don't even know if I did, to be honest, at the time. And I knew nothing about self development. Zero. Never heard of it. Wasn't a thing in my family. Wasn't anything that was talked about. Business books were not talked about. So literally zero development. Because even when you're in like, like a business, like you were. Chris, in the corporate world, I was in banking. They teach a lot of like, kind of personally personal development slash, like team development, stuff like that. I didn't have any of that. So when I had this terrible anxiety, I told Chris, I'm like, could you just like, ask someone at work if they know, like, is there like therapy?

Is there something to go to?

Is there something to go to? And this guy at his work suggested Landmark Forum, which for those of you who don't know, it's like a major personal development weekend. Weekend long. It's a company that teaches personal development. And so that was my first dive into personal development. And I thought it was so weird and so awesome all at once. And so I think after that you went with me, right?

Yep.

Yeah, so you went with me. And that was like, honestly, that kind of blew the roof off of like everything we thought, even though a part of it was a little Bit different or weird we thought at the time, because, you know, our first intro to it, doing that together was such a game changer that. Yes. Then we went to upw, Tony Robbins. We did that a couple times, and we just started diving in. I started going to the different Costa Rican retreats, like, really doing some deeper work, working with different coaches. Then we started going to Masterminds. And also there was a couple years there, well, quite a few years, where I read a book a month religiously and just got through all the personal development books that I had ever heard of. All the big books that you guys, you know, you all read and we all know of, and that changed the game for us. If we would not have had that, I promise you, we would not be together. Because we have. We have tapped into so many tools.

That save our ass.

Saved our asses. Especially through financially hard times, family hard times, personal hard times, medical health hard times. Like, I swear to you, if we did not have the agreement of growth together, we would never, ever still be together.

Yeah, I agree. So I second that one for sure. Without a doubt. That's probably the foundation of it. I think the second reason why we've made it to 20 years so far is we've always had this agreement to try everything on for size, no matter how dumb we thought the idea was. So we don't just shoot it down. We don't reject it. I remember we literally made this agreement out loud, like, listen, because things weren't going well, and we're like, we need to make an agreement that when somebody brings an idea to the other person, we are going to at least be open and try it on for size.

And shoot it down immediately.

And the second half, the agreement is this. It doesn't have to be a fit, right? So that's what's freeing. Like, okay, I agree. I will always try this on for size. And it doesn't have to be a fit, but at least you tried it on for size instead of shooting it down. So this means when we've changed into different people, because you do guys from your early 20s to your mid-40s, or in my case, upper-40s, you became many different people along the way. This means when you come across hard times, this means when you feel like switching careers, this means when you feel like having long hair and mullet instead of short hair, this means when you feel like, you know, going through your 100 pieces of jewelry phase, this means, like, whatever. Yep, we have an agreement to try it on for size, but it doesn't have to be a fit. And that has helped us so much to not feel rejected and for us to feel like we have the freedom to change, the freedom to grow instead of here's, here's the worst thing that people do. They think they have to stay the same person for the safety of their relationship or the safety of their friends or their family, or they might be cast out somehow. And so you end up being a really unique, unhappy, false version of who you actually are meant to be.

I find it now that, you know, we can really, like, lean into it. It's so fun because I get different versions of you and I think if you can let go and be like, okay, well, if he's feeling more him, that's probably a better version for me.

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So at first if something is different or you're like, oh my gosh, I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about them, you know, taking a completely different role maybe at work or I'm not sure how I feel about, you know, this new version of them after they've gone to this event. Like, you guys have to give it some time because if they are doing something that makes them happier, you're going to get a better version of that human. So it's kind of like just allowing them to have their space and like do their thing because we're just all.

Trying to figure it out.

Like I'm trying to figure out who I am constantly. We're always changing, we're always evolving. And he's trying to figure out who he is. And I think if you can look at it as like this fun, like, oh, who do I get to be with this year now that it's, you know, there's, now that you have Frillo, now that you are in a different phase of your life, now that you want different things, like, how can I be excited about that version? And I will say I have one more after this.

Yeah, I was gonna Say we need a third thought. Yeah, okay.

I mean, you're gonna absolutely know exactly what this is because we talk about it all the time.

So what's the third reason we made.

It 20 years that we always dream together?

Yes, that's exactly what I was gonna say. I was gonna force in here if we didn't. Our ability to share a common dream at all times is what has kept us together. So when we feel a hundred miles apart and the train is coming off the tracks, we still have this center point. That is the dream that we can get excited about together. A vision of what it might look like, even though it looks like a disaster in the moment, of what it might look like one day, we have that in our sights together. And if my dream was like, you know, 100 miles to the left and if her dream was 100 miles to the right, that's not going to work. That's never going to pull you together. So you have to find a common dream or a common life vision. And it's got to be changing, just like you've always got to be changing. So this means you got to do a lot of talking about it, a lot of rituals around it, a lot of like updating it. You and I just went to the Montage about four weeks ago and updated our five year life. And there's a lot of things you update on there. There's things you take off the dream, there's things you add to the dream, right?

Yeah. Every year, every year there's something different. I actually wanted to do it, you guys. Some of you saw that we went to the Montage in Laguna or if you just thought we were at a hotel together and I was feeling a little like unclear about what our next five years was going to look like or even our second half of our lives. And then like, I feel a little lost right now. Like I need to really check in with you and we need to align our, you know, our big dreams, our goals. And that's what we did the whole weekend. And it was absolutely wonderful. And, and actually, you guys, I have this in my couples playbook that I wrote. So if you want to know exactly what we did, all you have to do is DM me the word playbook or you can drop it on any of my posts at all. You can just comment the word playbook.

On any of my exercise.

Just playbook that word altogether. And it's the exact questions that we ask each other. So you do an individual exercise. It's very quick, you guys. This can take like 5, 10 minutes, I'm not even kidding. Or you can milk it out for a couple hours, whatever you want. And you ask individual questions. So I would answer, then he would answer his on his own. And then we have questions that we answer together. Together. And then you kind of compare essentially. It's your opportunity to kind of see how those two visions can align and you can create your couple's vision together. And if you are single, I actually think that you should do this. I think you should get really and answer on your own. And then even if you want to, you can answer for what your ideal partner would be and just picture what that partner, who that would be, what they would be answering, what they would be thinking. Because I think there's no way to call that person in without being clear on what you want that to look like.

I will say this guys dreaming might sound like, oh, that's not big of one. It might be the biggest one.

It might be the biggest tied with.

Self development because here's why. Whenever I feel distant from Lori, whenever I feel like we're drifting apart, whenever I feel like, wait a minute, we're just at odds. It's because we haven't realigned on our dream lately. It's because we haven't checked in with each other on. Wait, do we have the same dream? Does it need to be adjusted? We've gone long stretches where we kind of stop checking in on the dream. And I might be over here individually dreaming and she might be over there individually dreaming. But we always come back together and then we don't feel so far of her.

Yeah, so go and check that out. We're celebrating our 20 years for this whole week, actually this weekend. And on August 27th is our 20th wedding anniversary. And we're so excited. Like this is a huge milestone. I don't know how time went this fast. So if you are in your first year, your fifth year, your tenth year, like it absolutely flies. And I promise you that if you put the work in, it just gets better and better and better and better. And trust me, we've had years where we're like, oh my God, like are we gonna make it? And I promise you, if you just keep choosing each other and choosing these things that we're telling you, you're gonna be more than fine. It's gonna be the greatest thing that you've ever done in your life.

I think it's important for people to realize that we've had years, not one like multiple years where we weren't sure we were going to make it. Oh, do we get divorced? Is this it? Is this where it's at? And because of some of these things we talked about, we made it through. So whether you're in the ups right now, whether you're in the downs right now, get to some of those good fundamentals and you'll get through it.

So grateful for you guys and we will see you next week.

Thanks for listening, guys. Love and appreciate you.

Bye.

Bye, Sam.