The "I'm Ready Now!" Podcast
Ideas to help you when you're ready for change.
The "I'm Ready Now!" Podcast
EP 24: SPECIAL EPISODE: (2 OF 4): Marital Goals--One Main Goal Plus Six More: Crafting a Meaningful Union Together Through Common Values, Goals and a Marriage Built on Intentionality! (Special Guest: Lydia Sanchez)
Marital goals serve as the backbone for a thriving relationship. This episode delves into the core strategies Lydia and Isaac have adopted to build a strong and intentional marriage, including travel, effective communication, and family engagement.
• Staying married as the foundational goal (emphasizing intentional living)
• Importance of shared travel experiences
• Commitment to volunteering and community service
• Strategies for effective communication
• Maintaining a healthy lifestyle together
• Nurturing family relationships and connections
• Becoming more social as a couple
Strong marriages take hard work. Second marriages, such as ours, take even harder work because the odds are stacked against you because 60%-67% of second marriages end in divorce as opposed to 42% of first marriages!
So, Isaac and Lydia's encouragement to live intentionally together through creating common values and goals is a welcomed call to action!
Welcome to the I'm Ready Now podcast ideas to help you when you're ready for change. I'm your host, Isaac Sanchez, here I share my musings on whatever it is I am reading at the moment, as well as any other ideas that I believe will help you break free from a standstill in your thinking in order to get you dreaming again. Thank you for joining me today. Well, I'm ready now. How about you? Excellent, so let's get started.
Speaker 1:Happy New Year again, everyone. I think I'm going to just keep saying that until January is over, so don't hold me to that, but I think that's what's going to happen. Thank you for joining me again. I can't wait to get into today's topic. If you recall, we're stepping away from our regular topic, our content, dan Miller's book, the Writer of the Day because I have as my guest my wife Lydia to discuss our marital goals. We'll be back to our regular content after the next two episodes of goals.
Speaker 1:Let's get into some housekeeping. So there are the standard reminders I like to share right at the top. First, there are chapter markers on this podcast, but they are different this time. This time, there are markers highlighting each goal we discussed today, and so go ahead and make use of those. Also, remember that in the description of this episode there is a link you can tap to text me. There. You can leave your feedback on the topics we're addressing as well. You can always email me at IsaacSanchez, at Maccom. I look forward to hearing from you. That's always really, really exciting. Okay, let's keep moving on. As I shared last week, I'll forego the what's Up in your World segment in order to get straight to our conversation today. So let's go ahead and move on. Today, lydia and I discuss marital goals. We'll discuss about seven goals that we have for our marriage. The first one is super obvious, so let's just dive in to make the most of our time with Lydia today. So we are back together. I'm here with my lovely wife, the scintillating Lydia Sanchez. Welcome back, dear.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's a joy to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, listen where we last left off as a just quick re-intro. We intended last time we last left off as a just quick re-intro. We intended last time to go through all of our marital goals for the year, and that was the idea. We sat down and got ready to do that, and then, after just going through the first one, we realized we'd been talking for about 35 minutes just on that, and so we just decided, hey, let's go ahead and break these up. So today we're going to discuss marital goals and what's the number one goal for married couples, including ours?
Speaker 2:Stay married.
Speaker 1:Stay married, as I mentioned at the end of the last time if we don't get that one right. It's a short podcast, so we can just play the bump music and walk out right now, but we're going to stay married. Yeah. So how do you do that? And, of course, one super obvious way is just this idea of living intentionally and what we do to keep our marriage healthy, and that's something you and I decided on.
Speaker 2:Yes, we talked about being intentional when we were dating and what kind of things we can do and we've kept up with some of those things and it hasn't been as frequent you know when we were dating, but the letters are still coming and you know just little surprises here and there and it keeps our marriage healthy by being intentional.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we've grown into some things also and that's one thing that we've discussed, that we're not going to sit around and beat ourselves up over this. There's some things that aren't happening as consistently and other things have been introduced that are happening consistently. So it's just like anything, this should grow, this should move, this should change as our marriage changes, as we grow into new areas. So the key that has not changed is the idea of intentionality. So we're staying intentional. That's a key value that we have and we're doing that to keep our marriage healthy, and part of what we're going to discuss today is how do we do that. So goals help with that.
Speaker 1:So today we're going to discuss the goals for our marriage, just kind of what we're doing, what we're continuing to do and to live in that intentionality. And our way of doing that is just having goals that we kind of look at and see what's working. So first, let's as funny as it is, yeah, staying married is key, so let's talk about that. Now. The odds are against us and we need to know that and decide that we're going to add to the percentage of second marriages, because ours is a second marriage, and we need to add to the column of second marriages that stay together. We're going to help bump up that percentage, and so it's a decision that we make. So I've taken a moment to go to the internet, because if it's on the internet, it must be true.
Speaker 2:But yeah.
Speaker 1:I looked at and these data points I'm familiar with and actually one of them surprises me, but I'll talk about that then. So let me just go over these real quick and we can comment quickly. But this is just a little side about. The odds are against us and so we have to really be intentional. Any marriage that is on a second, third marriage. You need to really kind of think of that intentionally. So here's what it says here and a quick search on the internet. It says in the United States the divorce rate for second marriages is between 60 and 67%. Now I remember in math you'd round up so that's like 60 to 70%.
Speaker 2:Yikes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is. It says. It continues here saying this is much higher than the divorce rate for first marriages, which is around 40%. Now they explained this later on, but that caught my attention immediately because I remember hearing it was more like 50%, a little over 50% divorce rates in first marriages. So great, it's going down and it has an explanation a little bit, I believe, later on on that. All right, so 60% to 70%. Let me just finish this up here real quick. They have an explanation. The divorce rate for second marriages is higher than the divorce rate for first marriages. They just showed that there. It says that the divorce rate for third marriages is even higher, at around 73%. So let's stay away from that one yes, okay.
Speaker 1:And this is the bullet point there the divorce rate in the United States has been declining over the past few decades, but it's still higher than it was in the early 70s. Okay, so the fact that it's going down is great. And then the divorce rate for second marriages can be high, because people may not be as cautious about their second marriage as they were about the first. So we were just discussing that. That's where the intentionality comes in. Right, you know, we have to be intentional.
Speaker 2:Intentional and kind of learn from our mistakes and we got a second chance at, you know, marriage, and so what are we going to do to make it better than our first marriages and we can see our mistakes and just learning to do things differently, maturing and we've evolved into two different people that are we're teaching each other. We're our best teachers.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:I learned from you, and hopefully there's a thing that you can learn from me too.
Speaker 1:I've learned a ton from you Actually some very important things I've learned from you. Now, that's the next bullet point there, kind of what you're alluding to. It says, however, each marriage has its own unique circumstances, and some second marriages are successful. Of course they are, ours is, and it's that thing to where yeah, don't go by just the data points Like these are individual marriages, these are individual people and so we have absolute control over that. They go over factors that can affect the risk of divorce. This can go everywhere, but what they have here is whether one or both spouses come from a divorced home we did not come from divorced homes. And then whether the couple has children. I have two adult children, so that's kind of unique. We don't have them little children in the home and so, but even that has its unique challenges and wonderful opportunities. And then whether the couple has experienced a previous divorce. So we had just talked. You just brilliantly, just explained that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, learning from mistakes, learning from each other and whatnot. I will say, just on the children part, it's great that my son and daughter, who are 24 and 19, my son, 24, my daughter, 19, that you've taken on to them wonderfully. They've taken on to you. They love coming here to visit to spend the night. They're in close proximity and so that works out wonderfully. But talk about intentionality. That's where we've been very intentional about bringing them in and doing things with them.
Speaker 2:Yes, and inviting them over to have dinner, or just being intentional, like you said, I have to show that. I have to show that they're welcome here and have some food out, and food is a good hook. Yeah, and your food is an amazing hook. That's what hooked me too.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so they come and they know they feel. One of the things that we've talked about is that when they show up here, that we want them to feel like they were expected. A very few times and they understand a very few times do they show up here and the guest room is not laid out for them. There's been times you've left a little gift out for uh selah and uh ken. He walks in and he sees that food is there. They walk in and open the fridge and open the covers, like that's been created already and that's wonderful and that's uh really important. So, um, so yeah, so we're, we've, we, so we've talked about that. Let's make them feel that when they come over, we've been expecting them.
Speaker 1:We couldn't wait to have them here.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And then to try to create that environment as they're here, all right. So now that we've talked about the pitfalls of a second marriage and we're living intentionally and not haphazardly marriage and we're living intentionally and not haphazardly let's just give a little bit of background on how we came together, because it is fairly quickly, I think, by any standards.
Speaker 1:I remember going through divorce care through my church when, I got divorced and there was a and I know this is not scientific, but there is a rough calculation that says if you've been married for so long, you should probably wait X number of years before you start dating again. And there's a lot of details Are the kids young and all that kind of stuff. But I just remember there being a certain amount of years and so we kind of beat that by a little bit. You'd been divorced for 10 years, I'd been divorced by three or four years. So, based on the math, I should not be married right now. So good thing that I wasn't good at math in high school, so yeah, so anyways, I remember that.
Speaker 1:But we came based on those standards. We came together pretty quickly. So let's just go over a little bit of that. So I was not looking for marriage, I had stepped away. I was living on my own with the kids and in that span of three to four years I just had a plan that once Selah graduated, I was planning on heading out to Nashville where my brother and his wonderful wife live with their three boys. My dad is now out there with them and I would continue teaching out there. I just wanted a new start.
Speaker 1:And that was my plan Now. By that point I wanted to be sure that Selah was graduated and into the university settled in Great she settled, I can move on. And into the university settled in, great she settled, I can move on. Ken, we had had discussions about him staying with me for a variety of reasons Totally up to him, but one was just strict financial. For him, it's like if you want to stay and you have a reduced rental fee, I remember telling him if we go out to Nashville together I can break open another door in the back and never see you yeah, you know whatever.
Speaker 1:So he has his privacy yeah, and, and he can continue to build his financial goals and grow as an independent young man. And the key, though, is he's with the army national guard. He had just come back from Poland for 10 months, and he was really worried about going out there to Nashville only to find out that Tennessee National Guard was up next to be deployed, and he'd have to do that all over again. So he decided and I understood that 100%, but that was a plan I would go out there, he would stay out here, and so that was kind of my goal. And so what was your goal?
Speaker 2:So I had a goal and my goal was I worked really hard on the home that I had bought and my goal was to eventually rent it out and buy myself a little RV. And I had given up on dating, and so I. My personality is I love to be adventurous, I love to explore new places, new food. So I thought I can buy an RV and take my little dog with me and we could just take off and travel, and so those were— you even said.
Speaker 1:you said dating right now, but you even said marriage, like you had given up on marriage too, like that's just not going to happen. Yes, because I remember you telling me, like I was just going to fix up my little home and you know what you just said but then just retire here and that's it. You know, keep working on it, which you did an amazing job, but you just kind of put the brakes. Even on marriage, is what you said.
Speaker 2:Yes, I, put the brakes and I just gave. I had given up, like I just thought I would be single for the rest of my life and I was okay with that. And so the home that I had bought was a single story, and so as I was decorating it and stuff, I had in mind that I was doing all this hard work. So when I retired, I wouldn't have to put the hard work in, because it was already done. When it came to the shower, one of my plans was to make sure that it was flat, just in case when I was 70, 80 years old and somebody needed to wheel me into that shower. There was no step, so I was already planning ahead for my future. God had other plans for me, and now I don't have to travel by myself. You're my adventure partner and it's a lot of fun to do these things together.
Speaker 1:Well, let's go back a little bit because you got nosy on November 8, 2019. Right. I did she got nosy and stepped into my social media world and I saw a friend request and a wave yeah and uh I thought, oh wow, lydia from the lopez family from 39 years ago, yeah, so, uh, that's just uh. We basically remet online. It was november 8 2019 where I saw that.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I sorry to interrupt you, but I remember that day clearly. I remember it was like kind of in the after, like early evening, and I remember sitting outside on my porch, me and Darla and Darla, my dog, and I was. I had my phone and I was just on Facebook and I was just scrolling and then it had friend suggestions and then I saw you and I was like, oh, that's Isaac from the Sanchez family. And so I'm like, oh, let me say, was a great family that was introduced in our lives back in the early 80s when, you know, I was still a young girl. So that was really cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my dad was pastoring out there that many years ago and that's how our families connected. So that was November 8th 2019. Now I've been telling Lydia that I'm doubting the date here because I want to say that it was 2020. But when I go back and look at the timestamp, I swear I saw 2019. But my memory was standing in my kitchen having this little text exchange with you in Chino. That would have been after where I was in Santa Ana, so that would have been 2020. So we're going to go back and look at that, but regardless, that happened and we just were in and out of each other's lives online. It never continued.
Speaker 1:We did find out that we were both divorced at that point, which that got me pretty excited that you were single. So we'll get into that in a moment, which, you know, move fast forward to 2022, june 17th, when I came over to visit you in person because I just wanted to find out, I want to meet her. I want to see over to visit you in person because I just wanted to find out, I want to meet her, I want to see is it all true, what I see? You just seem like an amazing person, very kind, very generous, and I want to see that in person. So that was June 17, 2022. And then, less than a month after that, july 9th, just a few weeks afterwards, we decided to go steady and you were a little bit hesitant. I was 100% certain. I wanted you in my life, 100%. And then, on June 11th, 2023, we were married.
Speaker 2:We were married. Yeah, it's going on Less than a year. Yeah, it was about 11 months, yep it was about 11 months.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, and so we, you know, after that 39 years of being apart, in that short amount of time we were together and we're going to get through a brief discussion about that. But, like I said, I was interested right away and you were a little bit hesitant.
Speaker 2:I was a little hesitant. Yeah, it was kind of fast. Everything was going great from the time that you came over the very first day on that June 17th.
Speaker 2:And we had a wonderful time, just going out to get a bite to eat, visiting just your old stomping grounds, your old house, and passing by old church, and a visit with my Uncle Joe and Irene, and yeah, it was a wonderful, wonderful time and I really enjoyed your company and I didn't know what to expect. So I just thought he's a nice guy, don't think anything of it. Um, you know, he just wanted to come and see his old stomping ground, so, um, like which was my excuse to get out there yeah, that was the big fat excuse I wanted to see you.
Speaker 1:I didn't care about looking at the city, but that was my excuse to get out there. And and you wonderfully said, hey, I. Because my intention was, if we just have lunch together, that'd be enough.
Speaker 2:And then if.
Speaker 1:I wanted to move around and look around, that'd be great. But you said, hey, I'll be your tour guide. I thought, oh, shoot, and so what I thought might be an hour hour and a half lunch ended up being about five or six hours, uh, driving around, meeting, reconnecting with, like you said, your Uncle Joe and your cousin Irene, so yeah, and visiting some old spots. So that was really cool. So that's how that actual reconnection happened. And so, yeah, so you'd mentioned, you were tentative, and so we finally kind of got around that and realized, you know, once we were kind of dating steadily that, okay, let's keep working on making this happen.
Speaker 1:And in that time we knew we did dig deeply, trying to learn about each other. So we did some reading. We had what we call these intimacy cards Thank you, amazoncom, right and they just had different categories, different questions. Some were humorous, some made us really think, and we had a rule that if we wanted to pass on something that we didn't feel comfortable speaking about at that time, we would. There's a balance there about things like okay, but we should know certain things, we shouldn't be hiding something that wouldn't be fair to the other person. So we were good about that that was a healthy discussion. But those empty those intimacy cards can lead, I mean little question that can.
Speaker 1:It went on, for you know, sometimes there were laughs, sometimes there were tears. They were very serious at times because we were discussing very delicate issues, but we were learning about each other Like we knew, back to the intentionality we knew we. We have to get to know each other really well. I didn't want to get hurt, you didn't want to get hurt. I'm bringing two children, young adults, into the relationship. One was a teen at the time. They don't need to see their dad hurt. I don't need them hurt by meeting you, falling in love with you and then it not happening. So we were really intentional about that.
Speaker 2:Yes, and those intentional intimacy cards. They're just great because we did learn a lot about each other. If I were just to think of something off the top of my head, like as we're sitting there, like how do we learn about each other? Some of these questions, I don't think that they would just come naturally, like I'm going to ask him this, and so it was. It was really cool to have those cards and you know there's different categories and so we'd go through each category, pull one out and, like you said, you know I learned about you. You know, like one one that I remember it's like how, how are you when you get upset? And I remember you saying I just would like to be left alone. And then you asked me and I was like, oh, I don't get that. I hadn't gotten mad, you know, in a while, but all that's changed. You've seen me in a frustrated state and yeah, yeah, it was critical.
Speaker 1:I mean it was really cool what we were learning about each other with that stuff.
Speaker 1:It was just really, really important and just to kind of wrap this up, because we want to get to our goals, but this is all important because it showed we knew second marriages had a higher rate of divorce. And we're saying all this because we were padding that, we were trying to protect ourselves from that. It was the key. So we had to know who is this person and yet, at the same time, again, this is me. I didn't want to let you go, I did not want to lose you. I have to marry this woman, I have to marry her. I was just so smitten by you and so, yeah, so there was that on my end. There was that balance and, of course, you had your own voice to where. No matter where I was coming from, if you didn't want to get married, you weren't going to get married. So there's that balance.
Speaker 1:Now, in all these discussions of what we're talking about whether it's these cards, spending time together, reading books together we did learn about shared values, our faith. I love the way you lived your faith out loud. You weren't ashamed of that. You were into fitness. You know I was. We talked about this last time. I'm working on my journey. You were not happy where you were, but it was a value you had. I knew that, I saw that and, of course, our family. We loved family and we just learned about. We're going to need clear communication and we knew we were going to have to have strong financial stability. So we were open about that. We brought that to the table Because I remember you said several times you're concerned, I want to be able to live comfortably in retirement. That's coming up. This came up too. We have a shorter amount of time together, like here. We are just thoroughly in love and ecstatic that we've met and that we're married, but we don't have the same amount of time.
Speaker 2:We don't have the same amount of time of working time as well and enjoying our lives together.
Speaker 1:And no one's guaranteed that you can have a couple that gets married when they're 18 and one of them dies the next year. So some stuff is out of our control, but assuming and believing the positive, that if we have longevity, we need to plan for that and live that way, and so all of that was placed on the table early on.
Speaker 1:And so just the last few things just to wrap this up and move on to the exact goals that we're talking about. There was the big E word expectations, learning expectations that we can get in the deep trouble If I'm expecting you're supposed to be acting a certain way and I'm getting upset about it. And yet I've never laid out my hopes to you and vice versa. And then the big C word compromise, knowing you're not always going to get what you want. I'm not always going to get what I want.
Speaker 2:We have to compromise some things. It's so important to compromise and, yeah, I may want something and you may want another, and and you just learn to compromise. Like, do you really have to have it? Or sometimes it's just nice just to to see, um your partner have a smile on their face that you know they're enjoying um sushi and I really wanted a cheeseburger. So you just learn to compromise and it's really not that big of a deal, and you just learn to okay, it's my turn this time, so yeah, Okay, that one's a big deal because we'd have to go eat sushi.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, listen. So that's kind of the background. Again, that is important that you understood that, that we knew that intentionality was crucial because the odds were stacked against us.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And we wanted to learn from it. Okay, so let's go ahead and move on. Next to our goals. Okay so let's get to the goals. There's a few goals here, and we're going to hit them pretty quickly at this point. The first one is travel. Travel is a priority for us. It's something that we want to do, and so we have some goals, and some of them we've hit together. Why don't you let them know? Talk about where we traveled to first together for our honeymoon talk about where we traveled to first together for our honeymoon.
Speaker 2:So our honeymoon we ended up in Gatlinburg, which is in Tennessee. It's the Smoky Mountains, so that's where we had our honeymoon at and that was just. It was amazing just seeing all the beautiful trees, the greenery. It was so peaceful.
Speaker 1:You found an Airbnb that was just tucked wonderfully in the mountains.
Speaker 2:there it was so beautiful, just the ambiance of the cabin. They just had really pretty decorations, the furniture was really nice and it was just a perfect Airbnb for us nice and quiet and it was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we like to do Airbnbs because we like to cook together, get our groceries in.
Speaker 1:I was just talking to a friend who prefers not Airbnbs, a hotel. Know, if you get back from a long day you can just order out and have room service, all of that, and there's definitely an argument to be made from that. We've kind of just enjoyed cooking together. So having an Airbnb allows us to drive right up to the space, have the space, do the washing and drying all of that and so, yeah, so we did some hiking out there, but in the Smoky Mountains we just did some sightseeing downtown and some good downtime and so, because we were out there, we ended up going to visit family in that case.
Speaker 1:But that was our first kind of excursion. Out was our honeymoon in Gatlinburg Now. So then just recently we headed out on my two-week break even though we took one week of it, our winter break from work to Mariposa, california. That was about six to seven hours, yes, and that was because we wanted to spend some time at Yosemite National Park and Mariposa is about an hour out from that, right, so again, we got an Airbnb, great spot, wonderful hosts of their home brought us fresh eggs from their own farm. It was great.
Speaker 2:They did Left us a little note on the refrigerator saying welcome. Lydia and Isaac had the fireplace going when we arrived. Yes, it was better than Motel 8 that they leave the lights on. They left the fireplace on. They sure did. I love that.
Speaker 1:And so we ended up going into Yosemite three or four times that week and we did a couple of hikes the Upper Falls, the Four Mile Trail. We didn't quite hit them all because of time. We learned a big lesson like get the hike in early, early early. Yes, you have to start early. Yeah, otherwise on the way down we were so close to the upper falls, maybe about a half a mile or a mile away, half hour away, whatever. Once we just saw where we were.
Speaker 1:But we're out of time right if we would have gone up and then spent a few minutes up there, come back down, we'd still be walking in the dark by an hour and a half, maybe two, and we weren't prepared for that. Same thing happened on the four mile trail. We did a lot of wonderful sightseeing that day. I went to a museum, we went to the lower falls, we went to an art gallery, and so we spent time cruising around the park. We stopped at the chapel, but by the time we got to the four mile trail, as we got up, I don't know, we must have been up a mile and a half or something, and then, the same thing we realized we need to.
Speaker 1:You know, come back down.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Um got gorgeous pictures out of it all Gorgeous pictures and um, yeah, we, we still enjoyed ourselves. And so next, next time, we know we need to um rent a uh, airbnb that's like right in Yosemite, so we can um not drive that hour going, an hour coming, and so we can sleep in a little bit, because those blankets were we were getting up early.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're quite comfortable so uh, we also, uh, checked out the bride Vale falls there, the lower falls, as I mentioned. So, um, redvale Falls there, the Lower Falls, as I mentioned. And then we also went to Old Town, mariposa. That was gorgeous also, just a block or two of just the Old Town there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep. And then we did take one hike up at the Mariposa Hills, got to see to a reservoir and back. That's right, a lot of burn space out there that we'd found out. I think it had been 10, 15 years but you could still see Burnspace. Yeah, and talking to some of the folks at the pizza place that we visited a couple times, where they were talking about their building there had burnt down, Burnt down and they had kind of rebuilt it up.
Speaker 1:And so yeah, so we spent some good time out there, you know, sightseeing, looking around, making the most of it, relaxing for sure. But that was the second thing, and so tell us about where we're going next. According to you, We'll see if there'll be compromise here, or if I dive right into you. But how you came across the next place you're hoping that we can go to.
Speaker 2:So at our trip in Yosemite there was some books that were left by our host and so I was just looking through them and I opened up the book and I saw Canada and I started reading up on Canada and I was like, wow, I'd like to go visit Canada, so I'd love to travel there and so I'd like to make a plan and put some money away and see how much everything costs. And we talked to a good friend and she said it's so important to take vacations. When you have time off, you shouldn't just be spending it at home off, you shouldn't just be spending it at home just having downtime and you know cleaning, and you know vacations are meant to have a vacation just to go and explore and just to kind of forget about everything and just see beautiful new sights and new experiences, new food, new faces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can hear people right now and it it's legit saying well, that costs money. It's easy for you to say no, it's not easy for us to say it costs money for us too. But it was just one of those things If it's a value, if it's important what she and her husband would do, they're in their early 70s. And she said when she was 21 years old right.
Speaker 1:They were married at that point right, they got married young, but she loved traveling, not so much her husband. He's kind of moved into it now, but from that point on they just knew every year we're going to do this. We have to go see places, Just go explore our country, the world. And so it's in terms of the money thing just plan for it. You have 12 months to plan for it. You can budget it in a week and then the next week start putting money aside.
Speaker 1:And if it means, as she said, an extra side hustles, some overtime, whatever, don't make that the excuse, because 12 months are going to go by and either you work for the money, because it's a value, or you chose not to, and then you've lost a year. So it's just kind of nothing to be played with. Just make a decision, which we have. And so now, if we decide to go to Canada, we've got our work cut out for us within the next. Now we've got the summer coming up and that would be easier for us to do this in the summer. I've got the two-week break, there's a spring break coming up, but regardless of where, the further time along the easier for us to start putting our money aside for that. But that is a value that we have and that is to travel. And so Smoky Mountains in Gatlinburg, yosemite in Mariposa and now, quite possibly, canada, or, as my high school Spanish teacher said, canada.
Speaker 2:Canada. He's from.
Speaker 1:Canada and you'd have bananas for lunch. That was hilarious. Okay so, yeah, Okay. So that's one of the values travel we want to be sure to travel.
Speaker 2:Travel and to have a plan when we travel to get seats together on our flights you know, do it with plenty of time. And yeah, that was awful to be sitting on different sides of the plane. When we were on our honeymoon. Those were the only seats that were available.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we learned that lesson quite well. Okay, so the next one is volunteer. We have a value to volunteer. Now, we have not been as good on this one, and there's been a couple of reasons for this Partially just excuses, because there's plenty of places to go volunteer. But one way that we volunteer is just wherever we're at, as church members, our community of faith, and, as we've moved in, we're settling at the place that we're visiting now and I'm going to be getting involved with the music there, and so that's something that's a quick, easy way for me, and there's always opportunities that come up there to volunteer. So that's one way we're going to be doing that. But there's also places in the community that we can volunteer at, and so we just need to find those and make them happen, and I guess for us, it's more of doing something consistently.
Speaker 2:I know that I'd like to get more involved in the church and whatever I'm needed, so I'm looking forward to the Bible studies that are going to be starting up this month and whatever doors are open for volunteering, I plan on doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to learn a lot. It'll be cool to volunteer together, so we'll find those spots and we're going to move into them. But that's key. So the other one is if we can find something in the community, as I was saying earlier, that'd be wonderful to have some steady place that we can go to, where we say, hey, we know for sure, on the first Saturday of each month there's the Salvation Army that's doing something. We go help there.
Speaker 1:Or there's a church that gathers groceries, we'll go pick some up, take them there and help bag them or go help deliver them, and we just know that's what we do consistently. So I know that'd be something I'd like for us to look into. So that's a key value is trying to volunteer, give of ourselves for nothing in return. The more you volunteer and you see what others are going through and how you're helping others, it adds a lot to your own gratitude list. So we're going to start looking into that.
Speaker 2:That's great. I can't wait to dive into that.
Speaker 1:This next one is on the interpersonal side, to communicate better, like we are always talking about. How can we do that better, to stay out of the crazy cycle, as they say in the Love and Respect book. And so one of the things that we do is we have a book that this week we might have to give ourselves a B minus or a C plus, that we read from devotionally at our breakfast time together. So we'll sit down and it's based on the five love languages and so there's a reading every day and we read through it and we discuss it.
Speaker 1:There's no questions there. But we have the habit of just discussing what we've read there, what we've learned, and, um, so that's been very useful. So that's one way that we kind of are always bringing something up uh that's relevant to what, you know, we're living through, working through what we're trying to get better at and some stuff that we're great at, and so we give ourselves props for that but, that's one way we do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we grade ourselves and that's always fun to do. It's like how are we doing with the reading? Are we living the way that they're explaining, giving examples and yeah. So sometimes I can see in some of the readings where I'm like, ooh, the shoe fits perfectly. I'm like I can be doing things differently or I can be helping out a lot more. So, yeah, it's very helpful to read that devotional and it's something that I look forward to reading too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as issues come up, we're able to see ourselves in there, and we're both. That's one thing that's been great about both of us, I feel, is that we're both open to kind of sharing where we kind of are not living up to the mark on some of these, and so I'll bring up some stuff, you'll bring up some stuff, knowing that perfection is not the goal, because we're not going to get there as human beings, but certainly getting better in the things that we're looking at. So we both just kind of fess up on some of the areas where we can do better at and how we can be better at these things. And the other thing about communicating better is one issue is learning how to create space as needed. So if a moment gets a little bit heated and we're a little bit upset, and continuing the conversation at that moment would not be healthy, uh, trying to, as you explained earlier, kind of learning about me. I just need space. I 100 want space.
Speaker 1:Um, and I learned very quickly you're not that way. Like, you want to, like, not not that you want to get into it, and in other words, you want resolution and you don't do well of not having resolution right away, so you don't want to keep talking, to continue an argument. You truly, you truly, are really good about wanting to continue a conversation, to tighten it up, and there have been times where things were a little bit hot and you, you, I give you like an A on being the one that goes out of your way to drop your guard, to try to just kind of squash the problem and not in a sense of like, not deal with it, but kind of let's just get over this. What's going on, what do we need to do? And then let's get past it.
Speaker 1:And I remember early on is because of that value, like we said earlier, we don't have a lot of time together. We just don't at this stage of our lives and in this marriage. So you're queen of that, but I still do need my space, and so you've learned that, and I learned too that if I'm going to be given that space, respectfully I appreciate that, but I need to maybe not Maybe I need to be careful how much time that is, because on the other end, you're hoping to kind of wrap this up pretty quickly and so it's that balance right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that it's fair to let you know, let your partner know, I just need a little time right now and I need two hours, I need five hours. So at least you know that at the end of that time that you can talk about what's going on. And because it's I think it's what drives me crazy when I can't talk to you and like just give you a hug and just say, hey, I'm sorry for saying those things or, you know, making you feel in a way that you know was hurtful. So like the big goal is knowing that I'm on your team, that we both decided that we wanted to be married and that we love each other. So love is the most important thing. And communication if you don't communicate very well, you learn real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's for sure Real quick because you can't read my mind and I can't read yours. You learned real quick because you can't read my mind and I can't read yours.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'm just giving you props. So, because one of the big things is, yes, it's easy to be the one to come up to the partner and say, hey, I'm sorry I did this, I'll be better at whatever You're really good at. When I'm clearly at fault at something, you're still willing to try to bring peace right away, and I just think that's a very that's a very powerful thing that you have. That I've always appreciated about you. So communicating better is quite key, and so we keep trying to work on that.
Speaker 1:Okay, the next one that we talked about a little bit earlier, that I noted about you when we get to know each other, is this idea of a healthy lifestyle. This has been really key for us. I mentioned already a couple times it's both a value that we have. It's hard Anyone who's tried to change their life habits in terms of moving and how you eat. So, whether that's a walk or it's a morning fitness group, as we tend to do at 5.30 in the morning, it's hard to do that Now. Some people have just a passion for it, but I've even heard people that just love doing that. Getting up at 4.30 is still tough, you know, and so that's where discipline kicks in. But the key is it's a value of ours, and so, whether it's a walk, whether it's the morning group, whether it's a hike like true confessions here we missed all week of the hike, of the excuse me the morning workout.
Speaker 1:The morning workout, but we were out at this morning yesterday morning.
Speaker 2:Saturday morning. Yes, we were on at it this morning, yesterday morning.
Speaker 1:Saturday morning we were up at 6.45, 7 o'clock hike, and so we were back at that. But that was something that I noticed, and whether it was a particular program that you're on, or you knew a lot more about nutrition than I do, and so you're really good about that, and whether it's a hike or whatnot, this is something that we've always valued. So why don't you share a little bit about how that's showed up, how we were doing that when we just started meeting each other?
Speaker 2:I've loved to have an active lifestyle so, whatever it was doing, I loved I think it's so much fun to, you know just be at a class and just challenging yourself, and so I found that to be a lot of fun. And so when we started talking and you know, we started just going on walks or going on hikes, that was really fun, and so it was really it was great to know that you had the value of exercising, that it was important to us to keep moving, and it's either one of us that sometimes I'm like I don't want to get up and you're up with putting on your gym clothes and I'm like, ok, I better get up.
Speaker 1:Neither of us did that this week. It's just been wonderful to know that that's something again we just. The great thing about this morning workout group is there's some older folks there in their early 70s and they make it super clear to the rest of us like, keep doing this keep moving yeah, just on the hike that we did the other morning. Uh, there was one of the younger guys there, probably the youngest one there right now. He's early 20s, early 20s maybe 20s um, and she was encouraging him.
Speaker 1:Uh, barbara, who's in her early 70s, was encouraging him. Uh, just, you're doing the right thing right now.
Speaker 1:The fact that you're showing up and just take care of your body. And so we're really careful about even in our weaknesses because it's a tough thing about being very, very, very, very consistent. I don't know anyone who's 100% consistent. They're probably out there and props to that discipline and we're headed that way. But just having the right things that are going to fuel your body correctly, working your body out, just making that a goal that does not change, and I know for a fact that we're on that. So just again, when we went on our honeymoon, one of the things we did was we bought tickets to have a hike, a guided hike with a ranger through the Smoky Mountains and that was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yes, but that's just a symbol. That's exactly where we're at Like. We love that stuff and we build it in to our quote vacations.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so that's another area that we're going to keep working on, and that is to live a healthy lifestyle with our food and with our fitness.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:Two more to go. This second to last one is to maintain and grow family relationships. We are very fortunate we still have. Your mom is with us and my dad is with us. Your dad passed away over 20 years ago.
Speaker 2:I know he passed away in 97. So it's yeah, it's been over 20 years. Yeah, my mom passed away about 13 years ago 1213 years ago.
Speaker 1:My mom passed away about 13 years ago 12, 13 years ago and so but we have our parents. My dad is out in Nashville with my brother, trini and his wife and their three boys, and your mom is living in her home here in the Inland Empire, and so we're wanting to nurture those. So you're already talking about a time, during the week in this case, where you'll be able to go spend some time with her. Yes, do some things for her, and I brought up to you the other day of finding a weekend, maybe a full day, where we can head out there, because not only is a good chunk of your family there, but your immediate family, but also a neighbor that we love yes and so we'd want to visit with them also.
Speaker 1:So it it's important, you know, trying to maintain those, those connections, those relationships. And you know, one of the things that we talked about too is that everyone's an adult now and so it gets a little more difficult because they have schedules, they have family, they have work, we have family, we have work, and and so. But we do our best. That's not an excuse not to get together, that's right. So we're working on that, and so, whether it's a phone call to my dad, a visit to your mom, yeah, you know, those are things that we're trying to do.
Speaker 2:Yes, I, you know, I'm fortunate to have my mom close by. She's about an hour away, so I do miss her and so I try to call her on the daily and just check up on her and just see how she's doing. And so I plan on going to see her this week and just spending the night and just hanging out with her. Just hanging, hanging out with her, um, maybe learning how to make flour tortillas I never learned and, um, she, she loves to crochet. So, um, it's just important to um to make time for your loved ones and be intentional. Um, you know, pull out the calendar book and just schedule Like I'd like to spend more time with my family, with friends. But if you're not intentional then it's just a thought and you find yourself busy during the day and it doesn't happen. So you have to be intentional about the people that matter to you.
Speaker 1:Yep, you've got to schedule it. Make it happen. The people that matter to you Yep, you got to schedule it. Make it happen. Also, when my dad was out here visiting recently, towards the end of the year, you were really good about taking him out to some old stomping grounds that he really appreciated, where he worked, those kind of environments that he wanted to go back and see. We spent time taking him back to my mom's burial site and we spent time there. That was very special.
Speaker 2:for all of us that was very special.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so you know, and just we had him here at the house for a stay over and just got to sit and chat.
Speaker 1:And here he's still dreaming, he's still wanting to be busy. So that's a great thing. To kind of finish on this one end, we have Kean and Selah, my kids, who are adults now. So them too, you know we're coming together at a time where they're growing up and moving apart as adults with their schedules, their interests. So it's wonderful that they still enjoy coming by and, as we said earlier, just to touch on this, you know we make it intentional, we make them feel like they're wanted here, and so they'll come spend the night. Sometimes my son, ken, will be here on a Saturday, spend the night until the next morning, his day off. You always have a wonderful meal prepared for him when Selah comes in. Her school is university is near to my school, so when she comes in for scheduling purposes during the week, where she can come here instead of going all the way home and then I can drive her in the next morning.
Speaker 2:It's always, it's always special that, um that when they do come over, uh that you know Ken and Selah, they enjoy eating and, um, that's one thing that I enjoy doing is cooking and just making sure that there's food and that, like you said, that we expected them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the fact that they still enjoy coming by is a real huge plus and we nurture that. We purposefully nurture that so that they have that feeling that, yep, we're happy when you're here and so. But it is that thing to where you know, as much as we want to, would love to share extended time with them, their schedules don't allow it. You know they're adults, you're going to school, they're working. Days off don't always align, and so we have to try to find those gaps in our time where we can just kind of everyone jump into that little hole of time and be together.
Speaker 1:But that is part of building relationship with growing kids and maintaining with our family, our parents, and we'll keep working on that and trying to make that happen. Okay, finally, becoming more social as a couple. I learned that about you. You love to entertain people. We did that a couple of times there where we used to live having neighbors over at the patio for breakfast, having them over for Christmas, a little get-t together that they thoroughly enjoyed, and so you know one way that we've done that is hikes. So, as we've been meeting people and the fitness group in the morning, we learned that they like to go on hikes on the weekend and so we've made sure that we hit those hikes. So, like I said earlier, we did not go to the gym this week. The blankets, I think, were extra warm this week. We're going to blame it on that, but we were there for the hike and it's a wonderful six mile hike about two and a half hours of our time.
Speaker 1:So we did that and that's allowed us to meet some wonderful people. And so how about neighbors? How are we doing on the neighbor front? Trying to be social?
Speaker 2:The neighbors. Well, we have a wonderful couple that lives right behind us and they've been really friendly and they've invited us over for a cup of coffee, they've been here to our house and so they're just a nice couple and I hope to grow our relationship with them and have them over for dinner and, um, just grow, grow, uh, not just being neighbors, but they seem to be like, uh, lifetime friends that we can just.
Speaker 1:They're just great people, yeah and uh, there's other wonderful neighbors here that we'll stop and chat with or whatnot and so they're the first ones that have been in our home.
Speaker 1:We've been in their home and so that's kind of cool and no ulterior motives here. But they are starting a coffee company and they had us over the other morning to try out their machines and the espressos and cappuccinos and everything was amazing and she did some baking and so that was fun. It's fun to hear their them excited about their new venture together. Yes, but uh, yeah, so we're gonna find out. Hopefully she'll open a window, uh, and the door or something. In the morning on the way to work I can scan a qr code and get a cappuccino on my way out yes but uh, yeah, so we've been just being friendly as neighbors.
Speaker 1:but that group, I agree, they seem seem like wonderful people that we can work with together and get to know better and you know. So that kind of goes along with being a little more proactive, inviting people in you mentioned this earlier with sometimes not sometimes, but at this church they have meeting groups during the week where people kind of have studies together, smaller groups.
Speaker 1:And so whether we go to someone's home or whether we open someone's home, that's another avenue to be more social with some friends, and we did go out with some friends from the church a couple of weeks ago and that was fun, and so that takes again intentionality of inviting someone and getting the schedules right, and so, like I said on the faith group here we just talked about that, that's still moving into place, getting to know people there by attending Bible studies, by doing different things together, and then, as we get to know them, we can move into a closer relationship with some people.
Speaker 1:But that was fun Share quickly before we wrap up here on the breakfasts that we would do and even the Christmas get-together that we did back where we used to live. You set up something wonderfully on such short notice and they loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think it's fun just to have people over and I enjoy planning and it's just great to when we had the neighbors over. You know, a lot of times you just wave to your neighbors. You don't know that, you don't know them by name, but you just see their car go by as you go and check the mail and you just kind of politely wave. So I thought it was important to get to know who our neighbors are and so I thought, you know, I had a thought. I told you, hey, do you want to have the neighbors over just for coffee and like some dessert? And so I went to a few neighbors house, knocked on their door and said, hey, we're inviting you to come, you know, at a certain date and time. And so we had a really great turnout. A lot of people came and I just I had planned on just having coffee and, you know, a dessert, and so a few of the neighbors came with like dishes of food and it was great. This was the Christmas one, right?
Speaker 2:That was the Christmas one, yeah that was the Christmas one, and so it was fun. You recorded them as they came in and made a little video of that and send it to them, and so we, we connected with them and then, after we had done that you know it was it was cool to check the mail and it wasn't just a wave anymore, it was like let me stop by and see how you guys are doing and you know, just catching up a little bit on each other's personal lives, and so just yeah, that was great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then a couple of times we opened up the back for breakfast with the neighbors and just came hung out.
Speaker 1:I, you know, we did a breakfast same thing very casually and they came by and just it was just a wonderful time. People love to get together and just spend time in casual conversation, nothing formal and uh, and so that was exciting too. So that's one thing that that hasn't happened here yet. We know it will and um, but it's, that's our way of trying to be more social as a couple bring people in, um, having people get to know each other, and you know, just like you said, making the waves a little bit more than a wave on your way to go find the mail, get the mail, drive into the garage, out of the garage, you know them that much better, and so, yeah, and so that's our final kind of goal value that we have, that we're working on and I think we're we're getting to it pretty decently.
Speaker 2:We are. I'm very proud of us and what we've worked hard at at our, at our marriage, and um, I'm very happy to be married to you and I love being Ms Lydia Sanchez.
Speaker 1:And I love being your husband. Well, as we come to our wrap up and application time, grab your journal, notepad, notes, app whatever you use to write out how you will apply these goals today. While you do that, I'll just say that once again, I'm grateful to my wife for helping me walk through these goals. I knew it would be better if we went through these together, all right, so let's jump into application and wrap this all up. How do you apply this Now? Even if you are single, it's the same. However, if you're married or getting ready to get married, you should definitely jump at this exercise as a couple. All right, so here it is. First, decide on your core values and set goals for these. That's it. Okay, make a list of your values. Is it travel? Is there relational values there? Health and fitness, spirituality, financial security what are the values that you have? So take your time to list those and be very specific about that. Now, once you have done that, for each of these, for each of the values, decide on a key goal or two that you want to achieve this year. These should really matter to you because, in the heat of battle this year, when you're working on any one of these goals, for those values, you're going to find yourself asking why does this even matter? And when that question crosses your lips, you must have a great answer for this. It's essential that you have a great answer for this, because that's going to help you power through. Okay, so list up the values and then, once you have your list of values, start setting the goals for each one of those. Okay, now a great thing to do is to go back to the wrap-up of last week, episode 23, and listen to Michael Hyatt's Smarter Goals that I share. Filter your ideas through his Smarter Goals lens and tighten up your thoughts on the values and goals that you're setting for yourself or with your partner. Next week, lydia and I will discuss our spiritual and financial goals. These are together intentionally, so I'll let you know why next week.
Speaker 1:Let me send you away with a quote here. It is Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal, and that comes from Errol Nightingale. Now, just as an aside, I remember hearing this from Dan Miller in one of his podcasts and I've loved it ever since. All right, that's it. That's a quote. Think about it, act on it.
Speaker 1:Thanks again for spending time with me today and my wife Lydia join me again as we continue to discuss goals. Thank you for listening. If you found this time together useful, please consider following this podcast and leaving an excellent rating. If you feel you can't do that yet, please reach out to me and let me know what I can do to get you to leave a top rating. If you are already excited about what you've heard, please consider sharing this podcast with a friend. I really would appreciate it. Also, I'd love your feedback, both on today's topic as well as what you'd like to hear me address in the future. I would really appreciate that input. Again, I'm your host, isaac Sanchez. I hope today's talk serves you the way it has served me. Remember your next move is just one inside away. Have an amazing rest of your day. I'll see you next time.