Episode 23 - Interviewing The Husband

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Episode 23 Overview

Guess what I did?? I interviewed my husband for the podcast! How fun is that? Noah and I talk about the ups and downs of our first year of marriage, learning to be adults, our mistakes with finances, and how we manage running a business together. He has some awesome advice... both for the husbands and the wives. Reach out on Instagram @firstyearmarried after you listen and tell me what you thought--and please don't forget to rate and review the podcast!

Transcript:

Kayla: 00:00 Episode 23, Interviewing the Husband.

Kayla: 00:15 Welcome to the First Year Married Podcast, where we get real about building the marriage of your dreams. I'm marriage coach Kayla Levin, and I take newly married and engaged women from anxious and insecure to confident and connected, with practical tips, real life inspiration and more than a little self-awareness along the way.

Kayla: 00:38 Hi, so today I'm interviewing my husband Noah Levin. Say hi.

Noah: 00:44 Hi.

Kayla: 00:45 And most of you know this but the two of us run First Year Married together, so he is the man behind the scenes making sure the podcasts get out and the website doesn't break and many other things, that we actually ever make money on the business sometimes. Marketing...

Noah: 01:03 Amateur coaching of the coach.

Kayla: 01:05 Oh yes. If any of you are really starting to master and use Thoughtwork, I want to advise you not to teach it to your husband because he will use it against you, whenever you're having a hard time. And you don't feel like being coached, you just want to be annoyed which actually is a great Segway into my first question.

Noah: 01:22 Great.

Kayla: 01:23 You're ready?

Noah: 01:24 I'm ready.

Kayla: 01:26 Okay, I thought this was an interesting day because we've been planning on doing this podcast for a while now and it turned out that the day I'm interviewing you, I've been really cranky. And you've been a little cranky too.

Noah: 01:39 You're not cranky, you're so wonderful.

Kayla: 01:40 But I've been really cranky, I've been trying to get myself out of it, but that really hasn't been working. So I wanted to start with, how do you deal with that? Like how do you deal when your wife is just cranky all day long? How do you not get annoyed, or if you are annoyed, how do you keep me from finding out? What do you do? Also I'm hoping that the people that are listening are sharing this episode with their husbands because I think you're going to have a lot of wisdom to share. So what do guys need to know about when their wife is really cranky?

Noah: 02:09 So just for the record, I had no idea what I was getting into here, or what the questions would be.

Kayla: 02:15 Okay, that's fair.

Noah: 02:17 I also get to edit, this which is great.

Kayla: 02:19 That's true.

Noah: 02:21 It actually is really hopeful to have the tool in my back pocket, this coaching tool, and the model. Because I think that being able to look at another human being and having the self-awareness of the fact that my own thoughts lead to my own feeling lead to actions, right. So if I'm observing a feeling in another person then it must be that there is a thought that is not working out so well for them. With that, I think that it has given me empathy to see, okay maybe I should... Honestly, a lot of the times I don't operate in the best of ways that I might react and have my own negative thought, if you're cranky or if I'm dealing with any cranky person.

Noah: 03:04 But today I know that you have a lot that you're going through, so it's just able to, I think see that and step back and say, okay whatever you're saying or doing is not a reflection of reality at the moment, it's a reflection of the fact that we're moving across the world and packing up all of our stuff, and liquidating our house, and you have a business to run and your husband's super busy and we have a bunch of kids. Being able to realize that I shouldn't react to exactly what I'm facing right now and take a step back and say, okay how can I help this person? Really helps me not get caught up. And I think that's one of the amazing things about being in a marriage, where you're so close to somebody you often wouldn't help them as much as you would if you saw a person act in exact the same way on the street or at work. But I think you've taught me a lot of things about how to approach this that I use right back on you.

Kayla: 04:03 Yeah, I think the visuals, that you should know I've been using a lot lately, has been like imagining, not that I really ever watch boxing, but in boxing match where sometimes you feel like you're opponents, and like, oh I need him to stop being cranky, I need her to stop being cranky. Or I need them to get it together, or I need them to help me. And then instead just visualizing myself on the bench in the corner, right, or even the two of us on one team but just the idea of okay, where is that outward energy of trying to fix or change? And instead of it going at my spouse, having it be like okay two of us, we have to remind ourselves that we're on the same team, and that energy goes like, we're back-to-back, it's us against the world. Not that we should, that's a little negative sounding but, I think what you're saying, okay this is my person and how can I help them?

Kayla: 04:53 And also, what I like is this idea of going meta, I'm not going to get caught by, and I see this with the wives also, we can either get very caught up in all the little behaviors and, are they appropriate? Are they acceptable? Is it nice? Is it mean? What our husbands are doing, or we could step back and we can go meta, which is really hard to do sometimes with the person that you see, day in and day out. But just go okay, whoa. What's going on when I'm not around? What's going on with his at work? What's going on with him with his friends? What's he thinking about? What's he stressing about lately.and it's a really good way of just having more compassion and empathy and feeling like you're part of the same team.

Noah: 05:30 Yeah. I think one other thing to add here, and I take an inventory of my day so far, and this is going to expose my processes a little bit to you, but if you look at everything I did this morning and this afternoon. I took a really extra long shower, and a long time in the morning to get started for my day, because I need that to be able to process and plan. And then I had two ice-creams throughout the day that were really me just giving myself little bits of happiness to manage through what I knew was going to be a lot of stress and craziness. I also almost deleted out a huge file I was working on for hours, and that was the second ice-cream so.

Kayla: 06:12 Yeah.

Noah: 06:13 Not that I should be eating ice-cream all the time, but I know that in order to operate as a happy, healthy, stable person, those things did help, today at least.

Kayla: 06:23 Yeah, just stopping and saying, okay what could I use right now if I'm really feeling under the weather, or upset or tired? And I think that's also one thing that we've done, we do this a lot right when we have a newborn, we apply in other places too, which is just suspending decision-making or opinion-forming or we take a break from all of that when we know that our life is unusually stressful. So when there's a newborn and we're not really sleeping, then one of us, we kind of relax our standards for if one of us is really upset for a day, it's like, yeah this is just the newborn.

Kayla: 07:00 And that's again another thing I see a lot with newlyweds, you haven't had that much time with this person, and so when they are having that really hard time, it feels very personal and it feels like it's a reflection of how the marriage is going. And we know when you can step back and look at what's going on in life, it's really easy to say, okay this is a reflection on how life is going. This is a reflection on, I needed two more hours of sleep, or this is a reflection on, I didn't get that time alone or I'm hungry. Or I even thought today, I was really feeling cranky and then I checked in, I'm a type 1 diabetic and my blood sugar was high. You know so sometimes, it's an interesting kind of dynamic between, yes our thoughts create our feelings, but at the same time there is a level, and we talk about self-care in the First Year Married course, there is this level of just taking care of yourself. The engine needs to be fueled, and whether that's food, or that's time alone or that's exercise, whatever it is, sleep is a big one, knowing where to put the blame almost. Right?

Noah: 08:02 Yeah.

Kayla: 08:02 Like this isn't about my relationship, this is about sleep or something else.

Noah: 08:06 There is a tool that I use a lot that allows me to, I think go to that place without being super unhealthy. I'm not eating ice-cream all throughout the week, I'm very committed in my diet to being extremely careful with what I eat. People make fun of me at work because I'll have chumus and vegetables.

Kayla: 08:25 Which is hummus, for the white people. I probably should say that, that's a bit racist sounding.

Noah: 08:32 It's probably not going to make it in. But yeah on that, this morning I davened at home, I prayed at home. I typically pray at synagogue on a weekly basis, every morning but when things get a little bit stressful, that can be hard on the family for me to be going out in the morning and going out at night.

Kayla: 08:49 Hard on you, sometimes you need the break.

Noah: 08:51 Yeah, so but the fact that I'm committed, I think is the tool that I use is, I know that I'm doing something that I don't believe is the ideal, and I'm going to allow myself that, this time but stay committed to that ideal. And that allows me to go there, but not stay there and become really unhealthy with my food or become really unhealthy with my praying habits.

Kayla: 09:12 Hmm. Like it's a break.

Noah: 09:13 Yeah.

Kayla: 09:14 From the general rule.

Noah: 09:15 Yeah, and I'm not breaking any rules today. Like a red line.

Kayla: 09:21 Right.

Noah: 09:21 It's just a lightening.

Kayla: 09:23 Let's go back a little to earlier in the marriage, this is a tricky one. What do you think was one... I'll say one of, so it doesn't have to be the top, but what was one of the hardest things about adjusting to married life? Did you think I was going to go easy on you?

Noah: 09:44 You know, I'm a weird person in that I was really excited to get married, even as a younger person, I really believed in committing and had a vision for building a home and providing for my wife and kids, that was something that I always was excited about. I think the...

Kayla: 10:03 I mean basically, you're Adam Sandler, from the Wedding Singer. Does that date us? Have you seen that movie? No? Because he always wanted to get married.

Noah: 10:12 Yeah, I guess so, I'm just not very good at singing. I don't have a voice for it.

Kayla: 10:15 It's a nice guy, he's not good at singing either. We love you Adam Sandler.

Noah: 10:22 Right. I definitely think that there are a couple of different challenges with just not understanding. I mean honestly, having the two different backgrounds that we had, like I had a really healthy set of parents in terms of their marriage was always super solid and stable, so I didn't realize that if I raised my voice at home, I wasn't yelling I thought, but to you it was a very different experience, I think because you didn't have that background. For me that became a challenge of, okay I have to really adjust my behavior because you're around me now a lot more and I want you to not feel threatened, so how do I change how I approach conversations and challenges and problems to be able to work together and not be combative or cause issues for you.

Kayla: 11:15 Right, I was always checking to see, is this viable, are we getting divorced today? What's happening?

Noah: 11:22 Yeah, 100%

Kayla: 11:22 That, yeah, so you had to tiptoe around that for a little while.

Noah: 11:25 Yeah, and then the second thing I think was finances, all of a sudden everything was a totally different world.

Kayla: 11:33 Well we also, we got married pretty young and we got married after a year studying abroad after college, which means that we started adulting at the same time that we became married. Which was something that we both wanted because I think, we both felt like it would be cool to learn that all together, but the downside of that, was that we had to learn...

Noah: 11:54 How to cook.

Kayla: 11:55 How to do everything.

Noah: 11:57 How to buy furniture.

Kayla: 11:58 Yeah and how to run a household and...

Noah: 11:59 How to work.

Kayla: 12:00 Pay for things.

Noah: 12:02 Yeah.

Kayla: 12:06 Max out our credit cards.

Noah: 12:07 Yeah, we didn't max out, we had a lot of credit card debt at the beginning and I didn't have a solid career.

Kayla: 12:11 I didn't really either.

Noah: 12:11 You wanted to live in Israel.

Kayla: 12:13 Yeah.

Noah: 12:14 Which we're now finally, 10 years later, making happen.

Kayla: 12:17 Yeah.

Noah: 12:18 I think all of a sudden having that pressure to make it was very different, my own personal safety was a lot more important. I was into rock climbing and all kinds of crazy stuff before we got married and then all of a sudden I was like, I need to slow down my driving. But a lot of the things just became really real all of a sudden.

Kayla: 12:41 So you felt like getting married increased your level of responsibility?

Noah: 12:48 For sure.

Kayla: 12:49 Mm-hmm. Do you think that a lot of guys feel that way?

Noah: 12:53 Yeah. I imagine so, I mean maybe once they have their first kids, more than people who just get married. But yeah, all of a sudden people are relying on you to make it.

Kayla: 13:04 Right.

Noah: 13:05 And I was unemployed for the first three months of our marriage, and it totally... I mean it was extremely awesome because we had a really long honeymoon, albeit in New Jersey. But at the end of the day, that was also nerve-racking, because I wanted to start on a course where we could have kids, and feel really confident and healthy and happy. And I didn't have a pathway for that, I'm a planner, I wanted to know what it was going to be and until we really got on a path that was very nerve-racking.

Kayla: 13:38 Mm-hmm.

Noah: 13:39 And then at the same time, sharing toothpaste, like the way you manage your toothpaste tubes is just absurd.

Kayla: 13:46 We have the best couple tip. This is the best thing you will learn from the First Year Married Podcast, because I'm squeezer from the middle, and my husband's a roller. This is for toothpaste, right. So are you guys ready for this, this is mind blowing for those of you that are like us, that have this constant argument. We get two tubes of toothpaste.

Noah: 14:09 Yeah.

Kayla: 14:10 And I'm left with the consequences of my mid-tube squeezing.

Noah: 14:13 And not blush.

Kayla: 14:15 And you can have your nice neat...

Noah: 14:17 Yeah.

Kayla: 14:17 Yes.

Noah: 14:18 Because lots of things you could just have two of. And it's just not really an issue anymore.

Kayla: 14:23 It makes it so much better.

Noah: 14:24 I can still judge you for it, because I get to observe instead of experience.

Kayla: 14:28 You do judge me. You do judge me. So what would you give as advice for a guy who's, he's in his first year or maybe his first several years married, I hear from the girls a lot, I hear about their guys, but I don't hear from them.

Noah: 14:41 In terms of ?

Kayla: 14:42 I don't know what's something they should be thinking about, that would help make the process easier?

Noah: 14:48 Sure, well I do have the benefit of having listened to all of the podcasts so far, and I think one of the things that helped me the most, is this perspective that I think we had since the beginning that we were building something and then it wasn't supposed to be built yet. That our relationship, despite the fact that we knew each other before we were married, was just in its infancy and that every experience would be building more together.

Noah: 15:15 Honestly, in our year in Israel when we were learning and studying, the thing that stuck with me the most was that, what love really is, is two people standing and looking in the same direction. And that love is all about giving to each other and that to build true love, it's not that you meet each other and all of a sudden you're in love. When you meet each other, you have infatuation, it's like an amazing experience but that wears off and what you have to do is invest in building what love is. And the longer and more you invest, and more experiences you go through together and do for each other, the more you'll actually learn what love is, and how to have that for each other.

Noah: 15:58 So, at the beginning, I expected it to be hard and I expected there to be a lot of challenges and a lot of things to learn, we knew each other for years before, right?

Kayla: 16:07 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Noah: 16:07 And it's still, it's a totally different world, when you're living together. Even if you've lived together before, when you're committed to each other and this is the future. And I think that perspective of every bit of, whether it's sacrifice or investment or experience that can create, is building this amazing future together.

Kayla: 16:30 Hmm. Cool.

Noah: 16:32 Thanks, I thought it was cool too.

Kayla: 16:35 I like it. I mean, obviously I agree with everything you're saying, and it's always such a good reminder that it's really just about framing the experience. That you can see yourself as starting at the beginning of a journey or are you just expecting things to be great, already. It's inspiring to see yourself as like, you're beginning a journey of something you can get better at, and then this is going to just keep improving the more you work at it, because when your marriage gets better it just makes everything better, right?

Noah: 17:03 Yeah.

Kayla: 17:04 The returns on working on your marriage are so amazing, because if you can do something to improve your marriage it makes everything go better.

Noah: 17:12 Yeah, I'll double down, there's one thing that I've learned and it's another tool in my back pocket, which is, in the darkest places exists the most possibility. I've stolen the idea from the Art of Possibility that we read, it's a great book. That concept that the worse the situation, the more distraught you are, or the crazier something is-

Kayla: 17:31 Which happens on a regular basis in our home.

Noah: 17:34 That-

Kayla: 17:35 No comment.

Noah: 17:36 Not confirming or denying that statement. And the harder it is, and we get out of it, or I'm able to... I'm exhausted and it's nighttime, and the dishes aren't done and the house is a mess, but I stay up till 12:30 and I just do it for you. That's a very subtle example of what I'm talking about, but the bigger the fight we're in, then we can get out of it, the stronger the bond that's created because we've gone through that together. Or some of the hard times we've had together, whether it's a health issue that you've gone through or whatever it is, the experiences and challenges, my career, those things when you get through them together they build a stronger bond. And so in a way, as messed up as that is, I look forward to the downsides because it gives us more opportunity to do something great, like greatness comes from that.

Kayla: 18:31 Right, that's how you grow as a couple, anyway.

Noah: 18:34 Yeah.

Kayla: 18:34 We don't need to look for the challenges but they find us.

Noah: 18:39 They happen, you just wait for a while.

Kayla: 18:43 Here's a question that came in from someone on Instagram, she is thinking about starting a business with her husband and she asked my thoughts. So I'll share with you what I said, and then you can add or disagree, whatever you want to do.

Noah: 18:58 Yeah.

Kayla: 18:58 So my thought on it, was that I think there's a couple of reasons that I think it works really well for us. One is that the roles in our business are really clear, in terms of what my job is, and what your job is, and we both have total autonomy in our areas. I don't go in and tell you that you did a bad job at editing a podcast or running ads. And even though we listen to each other's feedback, and probably sometimes you'll say to me, comments about how I could record differently or present differently on the podcast, or ideas for episodes. But at the end of the day you're not the one calling the shots, so I have the autonomy and I have the creative expression of what I want to be doing, so it's more satisfying in my area and the same for you.

Kayla: 19:42 So I think that part is really helpful, we really do have pretty cleared delineation between what we're doing and we both really enjoy the work that we're doing. Like you really are into digital marketing, those of you that don't know, my husband has his own podcast called Digital Marketing Life, because he's been working in this industry for a long time now and is phenomenal at what he does.

Noah: 20:03 You're biased.

Kayla: 20:03 You have to leave that in. And so it's enjoyable for you to look at the data and to see how to make the ads more successful and to nurture our leads, and all that stuff, it's probably a lot more complicated than I'm making it sound. And I really enjoy the coaching and I really enjoy doing the podcast, and so we're both getting to do something that we really enjoy in our own areas. So we're not trying to constantly get into each other's business about it. I think those were the main things, the clear delineation, and that we both really enjoy the parts that we're doing.

Noah: 20:33 Yeah. The thing I would add, there were two pieces out of that. And one is that we've attempted this I think a lot of times, I did fire you at one point-

Kayla: 20:43 That's a good point. For my birthday.

Noah: 20:44 For your birthday, from another business we were working on together.

Kayla: 20:47 It was actually a really nice birthday present.

Noah: 20:49 Yeah, because it wasn't healthy, it wasn't a good working relationship. And then there were also the fact that we worked really hard to build up my career, so that this isn't an income generating business that we rely on really heavily for really important things. A lot of what is happening here is it enables a lot of the goodness in our life, but it's not something we need for the baseline.

Kayla: 21:12 Mm-hmm.

Noah: 21:13 That's huge because it gives us a lot more freedom to speed up and slow down, and not have pressure on our marriage, if we need the space.

Kayla: 21:22 Or on the business, like we can do it the way that, we can do it right. We don't feel like there's a constant concern for the bottom line, or how much more money could we make.

Noah: 21:29 Which is amazing because what I'm so bought into here, is your for helping the women of the world. There is a problem in our world, where marriages are failing early on, and to be a part of solving that is inspiring. And to be able to do that together and focus on content and helping people and not the making money part as much, I think is a huge piece because it puts less pressure on us to perform and more on enjoying it.

Noah: 21:56 And the other piece is which that leads into, is that we made some rules early on, if we're not having fun working on the business together we don't work on it.

Kayla: 22:04 Mm-hmm.

Noah: 22:05 And because there's not that pressure if it's not fun to sit down, we just don't do it that night. Right, and we get enough ahead in what we need to get done, that we relieve that pressure. I think the pressure piece is the most important piece and the boundaries that we have, the delineations of jobs, which you mentioned and the fact that we have ground rules that, like this is a positive healthy thing and we have the self-awareness to, if it goes to a bad place, cut if off and make sure that our marriage is first, and our business comes second.

Kayla: 22:39 Right.

Noah: 22:41 So I would say, I wouldn't recommend this until a marriage is far enough along because stuff comes up, money is hard, even if you're married, even of you're sharing your bank accounts and everything. When money comes into the picture, unless it's something that really has flexibility, it gets messy. So give yourself lots of time to work on other things first, and then you know you can introduce the business concept later on, if it really makes sense. Unless you have mentors and people you're really close to that can help you throughout that process.

Kayla: 23:16 I think it's also different, in terms of different... I guess, different levels of business, if we were opening...

Noah: 23:21 ... a restaurant.

Kayla: 23:22 Obviously a restaurant, right is a whole different level. I was going to say like an job, or selling things from the basement, or something like that. There's a lot of different levels of business that I think, requires different levels of skills. But one example for me was that when we were getting started, my husband was... You were really passionate and felt very strongly that this business should have a podcast.

Kayla: 23:44 I was really hesitant about that and you eventually convinced me, and then I think that by the point that you convinced me and I saw the value of it and it really worked. One of the things that really switched if for me, was that I had at that point done a couple of courses and I wanted to be able to keep some inspiration for the women who had already been through my course. So I was seeing that need, so this was now hitting all these different places that would be helpful to people who've taken the course, who won't take the course, for people who might take the course, all these people would benefit. But then when you came around and you were like, and here's how we shall be marketing this podcast. And it was so not in my comfort zone and not the things that I would've done.

Noah: 24:24 You didn't like the billboard? The billboard was amazing.

Kayla: 24:25 Could the Facebook ads and the podcast image and everything just not have me on them? Could we just have everything without me? And then he took out a billboard in our neighborhood, I'm getting calls from people, like what exactly is going on with you guys?

Noah: 24:41 That is my favorite type.

Kayla: 24:44 But I think at that point, it was easier for me just to say, he's the marketing guy, this is his job, he's my boss in this area and I'm going to trust him. If he feels responsibility for marketing this business and then I don't play along, like I'm not being a good sport about it. Then he can't get the results that he's trying to get. So it's not fair to give someone responsibility and then stand in the way of them getting results. So anyway, that was just an early experience for me of realizing, it's not just saying this is your job and this is my job, but it's this is your job and I'm going to help you as much as you need me to, and this is my job and hopefully you'll help me as much as you can.

Kayla: 25:25 Okay. So for our final question, I wanted to ask, we are super into different types of personality type systems and I love Gretchen Rubins's Four Tendencies, and Carol Tuttle's Energy Systems and all the different things, Myers Briggs' Enneagram so which has been the most helpful for you, especially in the realm of marriage and why?

Noah: 25:49 That's a great question, I think you are not going to be super surprised by the answer. There are a lot that I really enjoy but there's one that I've dug really deep into and I use at work, I use it all over the place, and it's not a personality as much as it's a behavioral system. It's called The DISC Assessment or DISC Profiles, and it's probably too big to have within the scope of the podcast. But just to give an example, the best story that we have, which you already know that I'm going to tell, is when one of your best friends moved to Dallas. It was a holiday, and I had family in town that was about to leave, and the way the Jewish holidays work, they're the first two days and the last two days of a week, essentially of this holiday.

Kayla: 26:39 That's because we still live in America, but when we move to Israel it's going to be different.

Noah: 26:42 It's going to be the first day and the last day. So before those last days started, because during the last two days in America and in Israel we will too, we go fully offline right, we're not using technology-

Kayla: 26:53 And having lots of big fancy meals, and spending time...

Noah: 26:57 ... with our family, all of those things. So the family was leaving and you decided it might be a good idea, from Atlanta to go to Dallas and visit your best friend, who had just moved there.

Kayla: 27:10 By car, that day.

Noah: 27:11 Yeah. Well so you were really smart and you sat down... You didn't sit down, you went and made a really nice breakfast and you made a whole place setting and so when I got home from the synagogue you sat me down and just served me breakfast. And I immediately went, what are you trying to do?

Kayla: 27:33 What do you want from me?

Noah: 27:35 And you said, “Nothing, just eat."

Kayla: 27:37 We'll talk about it in a minute.

Noah: 27:39 And I was terrified. So I ate my breakfast and then you came and sat down next to me, I'll never forget this, and you said, “I just thought it would be really cool if we went to Dallas for the second days of the holiday. Don't say anything just think about it, but it would really mean a lot to me.” And then you basically left. And what was genius about that is that in the DISC Profile, I'm an “S”, I care about stability, I care about the team, I care about the family a lot. You're an “I", you really love excitement and experiences and people and just having fun. And so, what you did is you showed me, that I could give to you and create this bond, long term stability, give to the family by creating this experience. But you knew in order to have stability, I'd need time to plan and think through how it could actually be done. So that you were giving me the space to have, you gave me the veto of like, if you don't want to do this it's okay, but it would mean a lot to me. You came back, I said, "Okay, here's what we'd have to do. We'd have to leave in an hour and a half, because it's a 15 hour drive, and I need approval from my boss."

Kayla: 28:57 And just put me with three kids.

Noah: 28:58 Yeah.

Kayla: 29:00 One of them was a baby.

Noah: 29:00 Exactly.

Kayla: 29:02 .

Noah: 29:01 And I had a whole list of everything we needed to do. So I call my boss, who of course is also an “I” who loves these experiences, and totally was like, this is so exciting.

Kayla: 29:11 You have to do it.

Noah: 29:12 Yeah, and she was great.

Kayla: 29:14 We love you Lindsay.

Noah: 29:17 And she enabled it, she said, “Go for it. We'll work it out, you'll work a day from there or we'll just shift some things around.” And so we were off to the races.

Noah: 29:25 And I think the fact that you understood where I was coming from and provided what I needed, and I understood where you were coming from and how I could provide that for you, totally changed the game. Because in any other circumstance you would've walked in and said, “I want to go visit my friend,” and I would have said, “You're insane, sorry.” Right?

Kayla: 29:44 Mm-hmm. And then I would have gotten really upset about it.

Noah: 29:46 Yeah.

Kayla: 29:46 You would have been resentful that I got upset because I didn't get a ridiculous request.

Noah: 29:50 Because I would be like, you don't think through these things, there's a 15-hour drive whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. You recognized and respected what I needed and thought through it before you presented it to me and then gave me the space to process it and really enable that happening, and then I could work through that.

Noah: 30:05 So I think, that profiling is super helpful, I see it in so many different situations. It's not who you are but it's how you behave and what your preferences are for communication, was really huge and I've used that all over the place in relationships, and particularly in our marriage, so I would 100% say that one.

Kayla: 30:24 All right so, if any of you or your husbands have any questions that you want us to tackle, I would love to have you back for another episode in the future.

Noah: 30:35 Yeah, anytime.

Kayla: 30:36 So send those in, and you can send them in, Instagram's probably the best thing @FirstYearMarried on Instagram, and thank you so much for coming onto my podcast.

Noah: 30:46 Thank you for having me.

Kayla: 30:46 Have a great week everyone, bye-bye.

Noah: 30:50 Bye.