Freedom Lifestyle

Getting Engaged and Buying a House During Covid

August 06, 2020 Sam Laliberte Season 4 Episode 53
Freedom Lifestyle
Getting Engaged and Buying a House During Covid
Show Notes Transcript

Buying a house doesn't mean giving up your freedom and we're going to prove it.   

During Covid I got engaged and bought my first house. I had dreamt up these milestones millions of times throughout my life and never did I expect them to occur during a pandemic. It was a serious case of expectations versus reality.

I invited my new fiancé onto this episode to share: 

  • how we got a mortgage despite both being self-employed
  • our process for aligning on our dream house together
  • why we're moving to a small town with <20k people (Squamish, BC)
  • whether my fiancé believes in soulmates 🤣

Additional Links: 

About the show:

✨ Freedom Lifestyle is an online community and podcast series that empowers the movement towards flexible work. Sam Laliberte interviews remote workers, digital nomads and self-employed people who've pursued a lifestyle that allows them to work from anywhere. Sam discovers their version of the Freedom Lifestyle, learn how they got there and reflect on the impact its had. ✨

Sam Laliberte:

it was a very spontaneous decision, but one that came from years of learning that. Coming up with something together with your partner. can be much cooler and much greater than just kind of doing things yourself and hoping someone will join you. you're listening to episode 53 of the freedom lifestyle podcast series. This will actually be the final episode of season four. Part one. I'm going to be taking August and September off from podcasting to focus on my move to Squamish. I'm moving across the country and just to help myself get integrated to the new West coast lifestyle. I'll also be doubling down on a number of freelance projects that I've secured over the last month. I have some really interesting and exciting things coming up, and I'm not sure if anyone can relate to this. But when I started my freelance journey, I was really worried about the fact that I didn't have a focus. In terms of, I am known for offering this service. I am an expert in this. I've kind of just explored lots of different projects over the last three years. And when you look at what I have coming up at any given time. Everything seems so random and so different, but I love it. I was really worried that not being an expert at one thing or being known for one thing was going to hold me back. And it was gonna make it harder for people to refer me and refer business to me, but it hasn't been the case at all. So if you're someone who likes to take on lots of different projects and variety of work, it is totally possible. A quick example. Last week I planned a virtual team retreat. For a client's company with 15 people. I'm about to start a contract next week with a brand who wants to launch an affiliate marketing program in September, I'll be starting to do sales calls for boss, babe. And I also have all of my own revenue channels. We are totally allowed to create our own rules in the freelance world. So please do not forget that on that note, if you're a dreaming up your own various revenue streams and online courses is one of them. I have an Epic resource for you. I've partnered with Amy Porterfield's team on their 30 day, digital course bootcamp it's completely free. And in it, she's going to help you align on what your first course should be. What's the first online course you should create. What's that topic. Who's that ideal customer. What should be the topics of your content and how to create that outline all the technology bits and of course, launching it successfully. So you can make that income. When I created my course over a year ago, the first thing I did was find a mentor who I could pay, who had done this before. It was the best investment of time and money at the time, because I had never created an online course before. Intuitively. I knew what I wanted to teach and I could think of that content, but there were so many other things that I didn't even think of that I needed to plan for that made such a difference. This resource that Amy is offering is completely free. So visit what's your free.com/free stuff to sign up for her 30 day digital course bootcamp. I've also included a link in the show notes. Now for today's episode, I wanted to wrap up this part of season four with getting personal about what's been going on in my personal life. I've been making moves literally in may. I got engaged and in July, my now fiance and I bought our first house. These are milestones that I have drummed up, probably my entire life. I'm definitely a hopeless, romantic type. And I've always wanted to cocreate a life with my dream partner. So having all of these experiences come true in a short period of time during COVID brought up a lot of feelings about what my Patients were versus what it actually was like. And in many times it was a challenging mental journey that I had to go through to accept that this was the way it happened. While my physical and external reality was experiencing all of this. So I wanted to dive into these topics today and I figured let's also bring Jared and himself. So for the third time, Jared joined me towards the end of this episode to share his experience of what it's been like, getting engaged to yours, truly. And buying a house with me for the first time. In addition to the personal stuff that we both will share. There's also a number of tactical pieces of advice that you might find really useful if you're going through a similar stage of life. Some examples would be how we actually narrowed our search and approached even locating and finding and selecting our dream house. As well as how we got our mortgage, despite both of us being self employed. Before we hop into this, though, let's hear from one of our very own freedom seekers. do you want to get a free ad for your business on season four of the freedom lifestyle podcast while I've totally got you in an effort to support more small businesses during COVID-19 I'm offering a new free podcast ad stimulus. Program simply go to what's. Your free.com/free ad and upload a 22nd audio ad for your business. You may just hear it on next week's episode. all right. May 8th, 2020 was that Friday. And I woke up that day thinking I was spending the evening with my best girlfriend, Sarah. Let's keep in mind that this is when COVID was just hitting full force in the city. We were in Toronto, everything was closed. Spending time with anyone other than the people you lived with was. Frowned upon and frankly risky. So when my best friend was pushing for us to get together and hang out that evening, I was pretty resistant and she had to play her best moves to convince me to hang out with her. If you want to know the full story about how Sarah, my best friend and Jared, my then boyfriend now, fiance. Managed to pull off this whole engagement thing without me having a clue. You should check out the Instagram I G T V. Video. Jared. And I went into detail about how he asked. I'll also include a link to that story and the footnotes. Over the last four years dating Jared, there were so many picture perfect moments during our travels and planning, amazing dates and peak experiences together that were just so romantic. And I remember on many times being in my head. Wow, I'm totally getting engaged today. But sure enough, the trip would end the bill would come and there was no ring. I had pictured getting engaged over and over and over again throughout the last 30 years about what this day would look like, what the state would feel like. And I knew I always wanted it to be a surprise. a couple of years ago while Jared and I are about two years into dating, I told him that just, you know, whenever you propose to me, I'm going to say yes, I'm a pretty intuitive person. I knew early on that Jared and I had something really special and I was ready to just jump in and take that leap with him. So I let him know, Hey, I'm going to say yes. So don't be nervous about that, but I want to be caught off guard. I really want it to be a surprise. Well, he definitely checked that box when it was happening. I was so frigging confused. There's actually a couple of photos. We had a photographer there, our friend, Lex, who captured the moment. And there's one that I'll never share on the internet because it's just like a dead giveaway on my face where I'm just thinking what this is happening now. Here. Okay. The amount of thought and effort Jared put into making this surprise was absolutely exceptional. He put so much effort, so much thought, so much detail, and he was definitely committed to the surprise. However, it wasn't exactly the most romantic moment. It was in a dark living room. I'll say it is where we met four years ago and he found the house and got into it. So very thoughtful. But yeah, the environment wasn't exactly set up to be the most romantic, the Tire walk over to the house. I was laughing with my girlfriend thinking I was spending the night with her catching up, just going into the, the experience thing. He goes, having a girls' night. And don't even get me started with the outfit that I was wearing for this moment that the photographer was now capturing my one and only engagement in my entire life. Thankfully Sarah knew to bring a second outfit in her backpack and convince me to paint my nails. Somehow prior again, you got to watch the IETV video. If you're curious about how these two pulls it off. I had envisioned not necessarily what the series of events would be like for getting engaged, because I wanted it to be a surprise. I probably thought I wanted my friends involved in some way or some kind of social aspect, but I didn't have a vision of what the day would look like. I just had a vision of what it would feel like I anticipated it being just this most romantic, loving, certain Peaceful feeling of when this moment happened. And because of that, I'd put so much pressure on the experience that it wasn't able to meet those expectations. And in that moment, when those feelings weren't coming up, it was, it was very disturbing inside. I knew what I wanted it to feel like, and it wasn't happening. Jared and I actually got into a fight the evening of our engagement, the tears yelling, there was some sadness involved. It just, it The vibe I had pictured. 1 million times in my head. And then if you asked Jared, he was on his own negative journey himself, he was so scared to get caught and have the surprise ruined that Sarah, my friend jokes, he had a one track mind. The destination was surprised, Sam. He was focused on that at all costs. And I joke that, yeah, it was definitely a surprise in many ways. I feel bad knowing Jared spent his entire engagement day so stressed instead of also feeling all that love and excitement and certainty that should go with getting engaged. There's the word? Right? Should. The reality is that in life, there's no right way to do anything. There's no should way it should go. I know this in my career, but when it comes to my personal stuff, I can find myself in that trap of. Needing to live up to expectations and society's expectations of how things should be done. a week after getting engaged, Jared and I flew to Whistler where we spent the next six weeks, pretty much just together in nature, being with each other, having the time to ourselves. And that was actually the best part of it. That's when the engagement part really felt how I pictured it. With that pressure behind us of pulling off the perfect engagement and knowing that, okay, that chapter is done, we could finally just focus on ourselves and our future and being together. So getting engaged was really good for us in the end, but it wasn't the most perfect day. And I hope that if your day hasn't come yet, or if it has an, it's not the happiest memory, I want you to really take this story as an opportunity to release some of the pressure and just remember what this milestone signifies. to you. For me, it was about committing to a life partner that I could then co-create with for the rest of my life. But instead, I got confused. You just see too many romantic movies and you talk about this and especially being, you know, a heterosexual woman, you see this moment portrayed in the media a million times or within your networks and you compare what that was like. In terms of what you saw or what you thought it was going to be. So, yeah, just wanted to be real, that it was picture perfect in the sense that I am with Jared and he is realistically the best thing that's happened to me. And I love our relationship so much, but the actual day we had put so much pressure on it, that there was expectations that it was never gonna live up to. and so that's kind of tough to swallow to know that we didn't spend the day. Super romantic and loving. And we were a little bit anxious, both of us, but we're engaged now and loving it. And there's no rush for either of us too. Plan wedding or getting married anytime soon, all the 2020 weddings have essentially been rescheduled to 2021. So we figure next year is going to be really busy and we kind of just bought ourselves some time. We're excited to have a really long engagement and co-create what a wedding could even look like for us knowing us. It'll definitely be unique. Now, during this time in Whistler, Jared and I achieved another milestone, we bought our very first place. You might remember from the last podcast episode that Jared and I did together, it was when we were actually wrapping up season three, it's called designing a goal setting weekend with your partner. One of the activities on the schedule for our two day planning retreat was coming up with a dream house and making a checklist together. Around December. That's when we created this episode and had this retreat. We knew we wanted to buy a house soon. We were new. We were ready for that chapter. We didn't know when, but we knew the first step in any type of co-creation is to align and make sure you both want the same vision. And if you've ever started the process of looking for a place before their endless listings and all of them, or many of them are staged so beautifully. That you look at it. And you're like, I love that they all start to look the same, going to viewings and making offers can truly become a part time job. So to narrow down our focus and ensure that we were aligned, we created a must have list and a nice to have list, uh, features. So whether you're buying a house by yourself with a friend, with a romantic partner, I think this is going to be a really helpful activity for you to do, to just narrow down what your searches. So that you can spend your time. Evaluating places that really do make that checklist and make sure that in the rush of the moment where you see a beautiful fireplace and you ended up buying a place that has a fireplace, but doesn't have all the things you actually wanted just because it looked so nice that you don't just get caught up in making a spontaneous decision that doesn't actually fit with your vision and what makes sense. I really encourage you to do that dream house checklist. Some examples for us was over 1000 square feet. Right? Lots of lighting. Room for a sectional couch or a King size bed, some type of green space or patio minimum, two bedrooms. Like these are the types of things that we aligned on. And also talked about things that didn't matter to us. I talked about a fireplace. We didn't really care about a fireplace. We thought that loft style places were cool. But when we talked about it more and realized. We both work from home. We've been in pretty much a studio condo together in Toronto with no walls. That was actually pretty annoying. From a work perspective. And of course, when it would get us started with our Bengal cat, we realized that, okay, loft style isn't for us. So it's also about realizing what are the deal breakers as well. And you might want to come up with a third category for doing that activity. Essentially, we got everything we had aligned on. We had totally manifested this dream house and found it with a serious twist. On a whim. We bought a passive townhouse in Squamish, which is a town near Whistler with a population of less than 20,000 people. This is the town that prior to buying a house in it, we had only ever been there for one dinner. Jared said it's the most spontaneous thing he's ever done. And I'm so proud of him. Prior to putting an offer on the Squamish place. We had been looking in Vancouver. We had even put an offer on a place we loved about six months or so prior, and we didn't get it. And this whole COVID experience really just made us evaluate where we want to spend most of our time. And what aspects of the city do we really value and have access to? And what kind of things can we totally live without? We love the outdoors. We love nature. And as remote workers, we can really work anywhere. So COVID really helped us see what it would be like to not have any of the perks of a city and have a taste of being in Whistler and nature. And it was probably the most peaceful. Both of us have felt in a long time. We don't have to be in a city all week. In fact, we're now in a town that's about a 40 minute drive from Vancouver and we'll just drive in for special occasion social opportunities, fancy restaurants. All of those things that come with a city, which for a lot of people, they need that they want that hustle and bustle. They want that liveliness that energy. And that is so cool for us not having it made us realize. Hmm. Not really not really necessary. we would have totally continued searching in Vancouver. So it's wild how this pandemic has really impacted everyone's lives, listening to this and various ways for us. It's been pretty huge. The most common question we get asked is what does this mean for our freedom lifestyle in the future of travel? And aren't you digital nomads and buying a house? Definitely sounds like something that ties you to one physical location. It's not exactly location independent. But we refuse to let that be the case for us. When we were negotiating our offer, we confirmed that we could do short term rentals and rent our place on Airbnb. As long as no issues come up, you know, parties or disturbances to the other units. They granted us permission to put our place on Airbnb. Toronto summers are too good to give up and all my family's Ontario. So right now he's planning on spending June and July in Toronto. And. Rent our place on Airbnb while we're gone. We still want to travel as soon as that becomes possible. Again, we'll be dreaming up destinations and thinking of the next two or three months, stint of traveling together. I'm sure. In fact, we were meant to be spending the fall of 2020 doing a three month your road trip. It was all supposed to start with a very close friend's wedding. Of course, that got canceled and everything got canceled. So instead, I guess, were furnishing our first house and integrating into a town where we literally know no one. So we'll still travel when things opened back up again. And if anything, moving to Squamish has motivated me even more to be completely location independent in terms of how I make my money. And growing my online business without the convenience of being in a big city and what that has to offer from a professional and a networking standpoint. in Toronto, you can go to an event every night of the week. It's so easy to make connections. I'm really gonna have to double down now on my online presence, creating digital products and services using this podcast platform as a way to network strategically. With other freedom seekers or brands within this space. Buying a house does not have to mean giving up your freedom and we are going to prove it. I think we're ready to hear what Jared has to say all about this. And so for the third time, in three years, over 50 podcast episodes and four seasons, Jared, welcome back to the freedom lifestyle podcast. Thank you, Sam. So happy to be here as always. I love having you on the podcast, because one, I have to prep a lot less. You're down to just show up in these interviews and just answer the questions that I have. And two, it's just always fun to kind of hear your perspective. We go through a lot of the life experiences that I've talked about on the show together. And it's really nice to hear what you have to say about all this. Yeah, well, I'm really excited to be here and excited to share a bit about our story over the last few months. because although not much has been happening to the COVID. a lot has been happening for us. It's true. Well, I wanted to start off with an easy question for you to just warm things up. So how are you currently feeling about our relationship and the future of jam salmon? Jared. that's a, defund ticket started. I feel pretty excited. I think we've, we've made a lot of, life moves. Along the path that any couple is supposed to take, but, we've decided to take those steps together and I'm really pumped about them. How did the engagement experience, let's start with that in particular, live up to your expectations. What had you been dreaming up your whole life? About what that day would look like? Well, I can't say necessarily dreamt up what the engagement day would look like, years prior, but I had been dreaming up was what. my dream relationship would look like, and that was something that I felt like we were adding. And for that reason, I felt like it was, it was about time. A bit delayed even to take it to the next thing. To take it to the next stage. so really with the engagement, wasn't so much about what I was looking for, but what I know you were really looking for in terms of that, creating the. Surprise and very cool memorable experience for the day and the weeks following the engagement. So I was really focused on, what I thought you wanted, which isn't necessarily what you even wanted yourself. when you think back on it, is there anything that you would change then? Cause it sounds like you had an idea of what you thought I wanted and maybe that wasn't a home run. So what would you even have changed about that day? I don't know if I necessarily would have changed anything. Like I did put in my best effort based on the information I had and the experience that I wanted to create for us, what I probably would change is just, not putting so much pressure on myself. And not putting so much pressure on it to turn out a certain way. So if, when things were going well or not, so well not taking it so to heart and just saying, look, this is just. A day that we're trying to create for each other. but it doesn't really have any meaning beyond that. and I think when you're in the moment, it's like, Oh, your engagement. Day or week at everything should be going completely, perfectly. You it's like you're should be walking on the clouds, but that isn't really the reality of the situation, especially when you're trying to get engaged during COVID. where you can't just go on some romantic honeymoon afterwards. And we actually had a pretty busy time at work and in our personal lives and stuff. So it was, it wasn't really like we could just disconnect and enjoy it fully. We had to kind of fit it within the constraints of regular life. And trying to pull off as a surprise, which is hard to surprise me in general, but that day was particularly difficult. It was such a busy week at work. And I was just so focused on work stuff. And I remember last minute I made you join a Pilates class mid day. I just like pulled that card and like completely threw you off a loop. Right. Yeah, for sure. I was trying to get out of it and I'm, I'm a horrible liar and really bad at keeping in surprises. So I was doing my best to just come up with weird reasons. Cause I mean, I'm always down to work out as you know, especially Pilates class, shout out to Durata. so it was weird that I was saying no, and I was trying to come up with different excuses, but you weren't really buying it. So I was like, you know what, Sherra? And then I was like an hour and a half behind on the plan to get everything ready after that. So. Well, I'm glad we did the workout together. What advice would you give to someone who's listening to this who might be thinking of proposing to someone this year, or is hoping to get engaged in 2020 now that you've had that life experience? That's a really good question. I would say it, it really depends on your partner and what you think they may want. and you probably won't get it. Right. So I think the key is really just. Doing your best, and putting in. It's solid effort. Because you can't get everything right. But I think taking the time to come up with. and the effort to come up with something that's memorable and come up with something that's unique to you guys. And not just some sort of template, will go a long way and then know that things may go right. But things also may go wrong and that's okay. And it's not, Any sort of sign of anything more than whether how good you are at arranging and engagement day has nothing to do with the relationship as a whole. And what does being engaged, signify to you? Because you alluded to, it was overdue. You know, maybe this should have happened sooner, but you needed to work through that on your own. So as much as it was about me and planning, the actual experience, there was a lot for you too, in terms of. When you're ready to feel confident in taking that step. So what is being engaged signified to you and what kind of association do you personally have with it? Regardless of whether it's me or it would have been someone else. well, engagement to me definitely is a sign of longterm commitment that you, no matter what happens, you're ready to go with it through that person. when you have any sort of argument or when you're, Things are tough. It's no longer about whether this is the right relationship, but how are we going to work through this together? just because you're engaged that mindset. It doesn't automatically switch. it's something that takes years pre the engagement, but I think especially once the engagement happens, really if ever doubts come into your mind. Or anything like that? That's no longer on the table and, you guys need to work on it together because you've chosen this person as. Your person for the rest of your life. So, you. Stick with it, with them through thick and thin, no matter what, no pressure. Do you think we're soulmates? Do you believe in soulmates? Are these areas. These are getting into questions I had for this, That was the point. Soulmates. I actually don't know. I hear people ask this question all the time. and I don't really have an answer to that. What I do believe is I'm extremely excited about spending the rest of my life with you. And I'm so lucky to have found you and very pumped about it and extremely happy that we are engaged and married at some point. So, you're not sure if that Taylor's with lyric for invisible string is true about that this whole time. There was this invisible string pulling us together. You're not sure if I, I don't really know. I know there was a bunch of events that. I kind of go back and forth with this. There's nothing to do with relationships, but just about the like spiritual versus scientific fact based perspective on things. and I I'm in the point in my life where I used to be super fact-based and it has to be proven and I'm shifting towards. A bunch of different things, including our relationship in the different spontaneous things that, not only brought us together, but brought us to this point that have happened. and for that reason I'm kind of in the middle, because I don't think, it was just chance that brought us together. Awesome. Yeah, totally respect that. That's fair. Okay, let's move from the engagement to the next big thing that you've done over the last couple of months, which was similarly a mental and physical. Journey that you went on. I say mental because moving to Squamish, the location that we bought the house in was never a city or a town on your radar at all. In fact, you shared with me that people who are young, that moved to Squamish in the past, you've actually looked down on that a little bit. So share with us a little bit about your process of feeling that way about Squamish to now being all in on Squamish and why your perspective has changed. I think this whole process of moving to Squamish is one of the reasons that I'm so excited about our relationship and why I think we're such a great pair because. Prior to us being together, I kind of had a vision of life. Through my own eyes and I, it was more of a straight path and I thought I knew how things should go. and I knew where I was headed in and if someone wanted to join me on that journey, like there. Like go right ahead. Lucky them. but over the last handful of years or so since I've known you, that has definitely changed. And I think Squamish and the move there was really, A manifestation of that transformation and how I now view things and view what a relationship can do that was something that happened in a month period from you coming up with the idea and kind of pitching me on it to me. Actually being very open and receptive to it. And within a couple of days realizing how good of an idea it wasn't how cool it was that we could kind of create our own life in a new space And I don't even know where I'm going with this now, but basically. I'm super excited about it. And it was a very spontaneous decision, but one that came from years of learning that. Coming up with something together with your partner. can be much cooler and much greater than just kind of doing things yourself and hoping someone will join you. you are the one who took the lead on securing our mortgage. You went through the details of that process of evaluating options, starting those conversations where you surprised at how difficult it was in terms of us both being self employed. We had kind of heard about this and we knew this was a problem, but. Yeah. Were you surprised or did it kind of happen as you expected it to be in terms of the challenges? And can you elaborate. What that process was. I heard it was going to be a challenge because both of us work for ourselves. but I, I didn't really realize how much of a challenge it would be to get a mortgage. and definitely shout out to my dad. Who's 1% owner in the property because even though I've had a very steady, normal income in the past and I still have generated income. And so have you over the past couple of years, because it's not in a typical T4 format, it's honestly not even recognized, by the, the loan people. and basically they told me, even if you had$10 million in the bank, but didn't have a regular income. that is worse than having$10 in the bank, but a standard job with a T four and making$60,000 a year. So it's a pretty. Backward system and a lot of ways. and I think there's a lot of opportunity for disruption. and we didn't go with a traditional mortgage lender. We didn't get our mortgage from the bank. is this kinda what you mean by disruption about there's alternatives? We're not really disruptors though. that's kind of like saying, Ford by putting in some sort of. Better air conditioning system is disrupting the car industry. I would say Tesla is a disruptor and that no Tesla has come to be in the mortgage industry. from what I've seen. So there's definitely not any disruption that I've seen yet. We'll moving to Squamish impact to your work at all. Not really. No. and that was one of the reasons that it was. Kind of not a no brainer, there's a lot of reasons to move there because it wouldn't affect our work. in fact, I think it would enhance it because being able to get easy access to the outdoors I have a bit more relaxed lifestyle outside of work, means you actually are able to work better. and both of us work remotely and, I don't have any intentions to ever not work remotely, at least for the most part again. Freedom lifestyle. Yeah. What about your personal relationships? Because how many friends do you have in Squamish? Well, we made friends with our real estate agent. but we don't really have any close friends. I'm actually kind of excited about it because. we have a strong network in Toronto and we have a strong network in Vancouver, and those are the two places that will still be spending time in. And then it'll be fun to kind of create our own new crew in Squamish, whoever that may be. What do you think COVID in 2020 are here to teach you? This is a question that's come up a few times. It's a classic journal. Prompt that on the spot right now. What do you think it's here to teach you individually? COVID is definitely drastically changed our life, because I don't think we would have moved to Squamish without COVID. and I think. what it's actually taught us is how to build a day to day life. That is a bit more relaxed and. A bit more chill and not always thinking about planning the next thing. So usually we're always just yessing peak chasing peak experiences. Yeah. Wherever those, wherever those may be. and in between those experiences, not really having the best setups or caring a lot about it. So it's like thinking about where we're going to be next. And in the meantime, we're just kind of like, Rejuvenating ourselves till that next thing. and I think now what we've learned is that those are great, but I think over time, you. Care more and more about having a setup in your home base, wherever that may be, that you're excited about. And building a sustainable, day to day life. In that setting. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show for a third time and wrapping up part one of season four with me, it's always fun. And I cherish these moments. It's nice. Especially when we get to talk about our relationship, it's just as much value for me being your partner, reminding myself how you feel. I know, you know, words of affirmation is not your love language, your all access service. So it's nice to put you on a spot and put a mic in between us and make you talk about our relationship and how much you love me. It wasn't necessarily easy to just. Spill my heart in front of all your adoring fans. but I hope I did. Okay. And I do love you lots and thanks for having me on the show.

if you enjoyed this episode, you are in luck. There are 52 other podcasts episodes that I've produced for you over the last few years. And while I'm on this break in August and September, I hope you'll listen to them. And anticipation of part two of season four. Fun fact about Jared and I is, we're actually co authors of a book together. We created the LDR activity book, which is a book full of fun activities that can bring you and your partner closer together, help you align on a future together. And really co-create. So, if you want to check that out, visit L D R activities.com until we're back for part two of season four. Enjoy your freedom.