Today, I discuss our engagement story - how we both had certain (and different) expectations and how that can hurt your journey in life. I also discuss my own expectations and why, for some reason, I think I can have expectations that don't align with my lifestyle.
Sponsor I Wish I Had: Ultima Replenisher
Just The Tip: How to cook pancakes for fluffy goodness
Whisper In: The hilarious and talented Ryan George, best known for Pitch Meeting.
@pitchmeetings on YouTube
@theryangeorge on IG
Music by purple-planet.com
music by Wondershare Filmora 12
SIDMEDIA.net
@saturdayisdadurdaymedia on IG
@Saturdayisdadurdaymedia on YouTube
Today, I discuss our engagement story - how we both had certain (and different) expectations and how that can hurt your journey in life. I also discuss my own expectations and why, for some reason, I think I can have expectations that don't align with my lifestyle.
Sponsor I Wish I Had: Ultima Replenisher
Just The Tip: How to cook pancakes for fluffy goodness
Whisper In: The hilarious and talented Ryan George, best known for Pitch Meeting.
@pitchmeetings on YouTube
@theryangeorge on IG
Music by purple-planet.com
music by Wondershare Filmora 12
SIDMEDIA.net
@saturdayisdadurdaymedia on IG
@Saturdayisdadurdaymedia on YouTube
Holy shit. Anybody looking to get divorced out there, just build some furniture together
welcome in to another episode of The Story lesson advice Podcast. I'm Justin, the host, thank you very much for tuning in this podcast is part of Saturday is Saturday, media, videos, podcasts, blogs, eventually books, all in due time, feel free to check out my website, S I D media.net. It's where you can find more videos, blogs, all the links to the podcast, all that sort of stuff. Also, I will be releasing a new podcast after the holiday that is going to be focused on book reviews. Because I hate reading and the name of the podcast wouldn't you know it is I hate reading. So I'm going to give a down and dirty Review of Books that are been impactful to me that I've really enjoyed reading reluctantly. But I've actually enjoyed them and give you my opinion from a non reader reader. So all right, I said, Holy shit, you want to get divorced, build some furniture. So kidding about the divorce part. But what I do want to talk about is this kind of overarching theme. And I'm going to illustrate it in a story. And the story is the engagement of my wife. And I bet. And this happened in November of 2012. I remember it like it was yesterday. But the reason I'm going to tell this story is at the end, hopefully it'll make some sense. So we were getting getting ready to go on a long weekend trip to Chicago, we lived in Dallas at the time, and we were just, we were just dating, we were not engaged yet. And I had months earlier, talked to my father and talked to her family and had everything ready to go, I had the engagement ring. And we were leaving the next morning and I'm sitting in the living room of our apartment just nervous in the service. My wife is in the bathroom doing something. And I picked up a magazine nervously and I thumb through it. And it was one of her magazines, because we used to read magazines back in the day. And all of a sudden, lo and behold, there's a little clip of an article there that says,
For guys, I totally this was like the most random thing that happened. But it was like for a guy's piece of advice or something like a guy's column that was in the woman's magazine. And it said, if you are traveling with an engagement ring, and you're going to do a destination engagement, make sure that you do not pack it in your suitcase, put it in your carry on. Now that may seem obvious to everyone in the world. But it was not obvious to me. And I had the ring tucked away nestled if you will, in the suitcase. So I had to scramble in like 20 seconds to get out of the suitcase, put it in my backpack without my wife knowing anything. And I pulled that off great. So we get to the airport, everybody's got one of those stories where you're running late. And you're literally running through the airport at Full Tilt. I talked about that back at the first episode of this season. I was trying to make connecting flights back home. But we had that experience running late through TSA, literally the last two people on the plane, but we got seated, we're good to go. We're flying. And my wife asks me something to the effect of or says something to the effect of,
you know, hope you're planning an engagement this weekend. Or it would be really nice if I came back with a ring or something like that. Something to that effect. And when you get put up position, what are you supposed to say I had the ring sitting right there down on the ground in my backpack in under the seat in front of me. But it was going to be a surprise for that night. So I don't remember what I said my wife I think is very clear on this. But I think she said that I told her something along the lines of like, I'm not ready to marry you or I don't know if your wife material or whatever. I hope to god I didn't say that. But according to her, I said something along those lines or I'm just not ready. I just want to have a fun weekend or whatever. So the rest of the flight. My wife was just furiously thumbing through her magazines and just, you know, almost the pages ripping out and I was like, Oh, great. We haven't even landed yet. And I'm already in trouble. So anyway, I think we calmed down. We ended up walking around for a few hours. And
when we got settled in Chicago and everything and walking up and down Michigan Avenue, and the whole time, you know, I could tell she was sad and we're mad or maybe both.
And I was uncomfortable because it didn't go well or whatever. So anyway, that night, like I planned, I was going to propose and it was cold and we ended up going to Navy Pier which is where I wanted to propose to her on the Ferris wheel in in Navy Pier. Now I
hate heights. Like for me, if I am standing up by it is too high. For me. It's basically my fear of heights. So I thought that would be a really cool experience and something different, you know, something a little bit more unique. So that's where we ended up doing it on top of the Ferris Wheel. I'm freaking out. I don't even remember what I said. She said, Yes. All all was forgiven.
When I kind of told her the story of like, why I said what I said, even though it was the wrong thing to say. So we had, we're all excited. We get off the Ferris wheel, and we it's at Navy Pier, and it was at night during the week. So we're looking for somewhere where we can go quickly to have our first celebratory drink, call our families do all that stuff. We looked around and the only place that was open at the time at Navy Pier was Bubba Gump. So what do you do you go in, you make the best of it. So we went into Bubba Gump, to have our first celebratory drink as a newly engaged couple and are promptly greeted by a pregnant smoking bartender. Now, I don't know if she was really pregnant, but I think she was. And she was smoking. And we came in, we're grinning from ear to ear and telling her, Hey, we got we just got engaged. And she couldn't have cared less. And we asked if she had champagne or something like that. And apparently they were out of it. So all they had at the time was Miller Lite. So we were like five minutes before they were going to close. And so we spent our very first drink the very first moments after our engagement was spent at a Bubba Gump, drinking Miller Light served to us by a pregnant smoking bartender, while we called our parents. So that did not meet the expectation of I think what either one of us had when we thought about how we would celebrate our engagement. Oh,
all right. Now it's time for this week's sponsor, I wish I had. And this week, the sponsor I wish I had is something that I have discovered maybe three or four months ago, my wife discovered it actually. And she and I had been using it regularly. Because both of us tried to drink a lot of water throughout the day. Both of us use two years ago, drink a ton of diet soda. Every day, I used to work in outside sales. So I would grab you know, a 20 ounce a Diet Mountain Dew, a 20 ounce of dieting, and W A 20 ounce a Diet Dr. Pepper, and that was usually what got me at least through the mid afternoon. But I would drink a ton of soda every day. And so with my wife, and about probably six or seven years ago, we both just kind of said like, alright, we got to stop drinking diet soda, we got to gotta start drinking more water. So we discovered sparkling water. And we started just dominating Kansas, sparkling water. Like it was going out of style. And Topo Chico, which is the greatest sparkling water in the world. So we were just slamming that stuff. And it was good because we both like the carbonated fizz that you get from from soda, but we're like, Hey, we're drinking sparkling water. But a lot of the stuff that we were drinking had, you know, flavor additives and all of that. So was it better than drinking soda? I don't know maybe. So we said alright, we got to do kind of our own thing. So we just kind of switched to just drinking water. And then intermittently we would you know, sprinkle in a sparkling water or Gatorade zero or whatever. But we were still looking for something that just you know, once a day twice a day kind of at the most just given us a little bit of flavor a little bit different experience than just a gallon of water all day long. So lo and behold, living in Arizona, so 120 degrees outside during the summer, we stumbled upon Ultima replenisher. And this is a hydration powder that you can put in your water mix it up and it is super flavorful. It bumps up your electrolytes rehydrates you there's a little bit of sodium in there to make sure if you're sweating it off all day long that you can you can still recover from it from from the experience and this is the flavor that we're using today which is a cherry pomegranate. It is absolutely awesome. We have one in our house, my wife has one at our office. Take about one scoop a day, sometimes two scoops a day. If we're really outside a lot or whatever I throw it in about 30 ounces of water and that's just a really great break from just drinking regular water and it's hydrating and it's electrolytes and all the things so I highly recommend Ultima replenisher if you are looking for a break you're looking to try to make sure you stick to water but just kind of need something once in a while or if you're like I am and you're out in the desert and the summertime is just unbearable. So if you're outside if you're on a golf course, maybe if you've had too much to drink the night before and you need something or even during the during your drinking extravaganza break it up with one of these to
to hydrate yourself. So ultimate replenisher, this week's sponsor I wish I had.
Alright, so the engagement story, not really that crazy, but kind of fun and fun and how the way that it ended of us sitting at a Bubba Gump drinking Miller Lite, in front of a pregnant smoking bartender, while we tried to call our parents and family and let them know that we were happily happily engaged. The reason that I told that story is, because I think oftentimes in my own life, and maybe somebody else listening can relate to this is that my expectation does not match my reality of what happens. And the reason it does that, most of the time, is not because the reality is not what it should be. It's because my expectations are not what they should be. And I had to kind of do some self examination over the last couple of years, of what my expectations are about all the different facets in my life. And when, when I get right down to it, the lesson that I learned is, my expectations do not match my reality. In a lot of instances, because one of two things, one, I have unrealistic expectations of what the situation is, or could be just in and of itself. Or two, I have unrealistic expectations of what that situation is, or could be, compared to what I have done to make it that type of a thing. So two examples. One would be
as a married couple, having time together, date nights, having adult conversations, having a little Secretary time, whatever you want to call it, that stuff is going to ebb and flow and ups and downs and when it has ups and when it has Downs. Oftentimes, that is because the people involved are making or not making the effort, whether it's just having time every day to talk about stuff, or to make sure that we go on date nights, make sure to continue to date your spouse continue to do nice things for your spouse. What I noticed is when I'm not putting in that, that effort, and it's good effort, but when I'm not putting that effort and that work in, then how can I expect to have the same type of results, compared to when I was putting the work in and when I was putting the effort of so if I'm not making time, in my schedule, to be able to spend time with my wife to talk about the budget or just talk about life, or if I'm not asking her to go out on a date with me every couple of weeks or every month, over a long period of time to be able to just have some grown up time, then why would I expect that our conversational life or our date life is going to be just awesome. If I'm not the one, if I'm not one of the people putting the work in, then why would I have the expectation that it would be any differently. And I think it's very easy for us today. Everything we see on social media, everything we see on TV, it's just the it's dialed to 11. And that's just not reality. You know, the funny thing is like, you watch any show or movie or whatever, anytime there's a sex scene, it's like, you know, the most passionate, the most greatest, the most wild chandelier hanging sex in the world. It's like, okay, that's not reality for for most people most of the time, right? Same thing you see, you know, the Marvel movies, all the lead leading actors that were just completely jacked in. And what that represented for a lot of guys, myself included is, that's just not realistic for most people, even if you're doing everything in your power. So I think there's, there's that aspect of it. And then the other part of it, I said is just as is having unrealistic expectations, compared to the reality just in and of itself. And if you walk into an expectation, if you walk into a situation with an expectation, then I think you're setting yourself up potentially, to be to be let down and to play into the negativity of your ego and let resentment and all that kind of stuff build up. Now there's a difference between, hey, I have an expectation that when I get in my car, it starts or that my that the door shuts in my house, or you know, when I go to the grocery store the cash registers or working for self checkout, those kinds of things I'm talking about. A great example would be a movie for example, I just talked about Marvel, but when you think about movies, and I'm a big fan of movies, including a lot of the Marvel movies, you have a tendency to go into those or any movie that you might like, and you focus on what it isn't, as opposed to
What it is, and a lot of people get upset about that. So you can figure that out about a movie, a dinner with friends, going out, you know, having a day to go shopping, or going playing golf or whatever. But if you're if you have a set of expectations that are outside of like, Hey, I'm just gonna go do the thing, or I'm just gonna go watch the thing. If you have an outside expectation that's usually driven by ego, by need by desire by a want versus just experiencing it. And then oftentimes, you end up focusing on the things that it isn't, as opposed to appreciating it and just experiencing it for the things that it is. Oh,
all right, in this week's just the tip segment, it's another food, just the tip. And it's a super simple one. But it has served me well over the years, especially with a young daughter. One of the things I didn't know I loved until I had a daughter was pancakes. And I like pancakes fine, or whatever. But a lot of times, they're not super flavorful. And I as a shocker, don't particularly love the taste of butter. I don't mind it, if it's in a sauce, if it's part of a tomato sauce, or, you know, maybe if you put a little warm butter on top of a steak or whatever. But by and large, if I had a choice, I would always reach for olive oil instead, if you're at a dinner table, and there's bread that comes to the table and butter or bread that comes to the table with the oil and vinegar mixture. I'm always going to want the oil and vinegar mixture. But I digress. So pancakes, I never really love pancakes because they were usually drowned in butter or syrup. And they were just kind of hold on. So once my daughter got old enough to start eating solid foods and having fun with with food, we started making pancakes together. And the branded pancakes that we usually just make to make it super simple is a Kodiak and I've had that as a sponsor I wish I had last season. They are great Kodiak does a ton of like kind of protein focused products, oatmeal pancake mix, make at home, like oatmeal and protein bars, kind of like beer bytes, which are like crackers really, really good stuff, awesome stuff. But we get this, their their pancake mix their chocolate chip pancake mix, and it's just delicious. But this applies to kind of any pancake mix is when you mix it, and you mix it with the water and you get it to be the consistency that you want. Then let it rest for about five minutes before you put it in the pan. So what I'll typically do is mix it up, and then let it rest, turn the flame on, on low get my pan on, you know warm. And once that's good and heated, then I'll add my oil spray or oil to the pan or butter to the pan to coat the pan. And then I'll put my pancake mix in but I let it sit three to five minutes, maybe even seven minutes. And the reason why is that baking powder, everything else is in the pancakes, letting that rise get fluffy because you just whisk the hell out of it. So letting the air get all in there, letting all that happen when you then put the batter into the pan and are gentle with it. And don't keep slapping it with a spatula and just turn it once if you can. You're going to find yourself that you have a really thick and super super fluffy pancake like exponential exponentially more fluffy than you've had or exponentially fluffier than you've had before. So that is this week's just the tip. Oh, okay, so we talked about the story of our engagement and how we ended our engagement party or night excuse me at bubblegum stringy and Miller Lite in front of a pregnant smoking bartender. Talking about the lesson of that is having unrealistic expectations for what you think it should be based on what your ego kind of sometimes can drive what your your own personal wants or needs or desires can drive. And
the advice that I would give would be and I would give this advice to myself if I could go back in time, I would give this advice to my daughter when she's older and anybody else that's listening. And it would certainly have helped me over the years have a much better experience and enjoyment with a whole lot of different things. And the advice that I would give myself would be don't let your expectation impact the experience and a great example of this is going to be a wedding everybody thinks that the everybody not thinks everybody says the wedding the happiest day of your life no it's not like your wedding day is an absolute shit show it's it's long. It's there's lots of weird things that you're doing that you never do. There's way too many people that that want you know to be with you and be in front of you which is all great like that's wonderful that you have people you know supporting you and wanting to be there for you but there's so much stuff going on. Everybody says the same thing. You barely spent any time with your your your spouse, you barely got to talk to anybody
For more than high and thank you, and are you enjoying yourself and this and that, and then it's over and you're just exhausted. And there's a huge bill and all of that sort of stuff. But I think the oftentimes there's so much pressure, so much of an expectation built up on the wedding day that it's got to be just this perfect, magical, unbelievable experience. And when you walk into that, there's no way that it's going to live up to it, even if you have it at the Plaza Hotel. And everything is catered by, by a three Michelin star restaurant and you've got fresh flowers everywhere. And everything in the world, like, nothing is going to live up to the expectation that oftentimes we have in our head of what something like a wedding, or whatever is going to be. And that can oftentimes get in the way of us myself in the past and even recently, probably have been just enjoying that experience for what it is. And when you think about what the best day of your life is, as a married couple people say it's your wedding day. But for me, and I think my wife would agree, it wasn't our wedding day, it was probably the third day of one of our trips to Mexico after we were married before we had kids, when we were just hanging out not a care in the world. Because we had no expectation, we were already on vacation, all we had to do was just wake up and just enjoy ourselves and do whatever the hell we wanted to do. And if we wanted to have a mimosa at 830 in the morning, we did not that I did, but maybe I had two or three or four of those at 830 in the morning. But that's fine. That's another story. But seriously that the reason that we had such a good time is because we didn't have an expectation of what we were going to do that day we didn't even know we were going to do that day, we just woke up and just kind of went where the wind took us. So that is a great example of how we did not let our expectations impact our experience. And then on the flip side, something like a wedding or something like a big party. Even the holidays, we're smack dab around the holidays with Thanksgiving and Christmas. There's this expectation that you've got to have something you know, great, this great party, this great meal this everything's got to be perfect. Like, no one cares. No one cared that at our wedding, our centerpieces were cookbooks that we rented from the library. No one cared that, you know, my suit was was something I had in my closet, and no one cared that my wife found her dress on sale, and none of that matters. But if you put all that expectation on yourself, all you're doing is setting yourself up and your ego up to be disappointed, frustrated. And even when you're in the moment feeling those things. And now that is projecting outward on to everybody else around you to that experience. And in the middle of it like I've done in the past, the experience is less than it could be because you're focused on what it isn't as opposed to what it is. Oh,
okay. This week, the whispering is someone that is a very, very, very talented comedian, and content creator that I have been following for several years.
He's from Canada. And I have a flannel shirt on. So already, this is perfect. His name is Ryan, George. And he is probably most well known for his YouTube series called pitch meeting.
And every week, he has like a five minute YouTube video where he plays two different characters, a studio movie executive, and a studio director that is pitching a movie to the studio. And it's really funny, because it breaks down how silly and ridiculous a lot of these movies are, and how giant some of these plot holes in movies are, and how stupid some of these giant media companies can be making poor decisions about the movie. And it's really, really funny. And he does a great job of pointing that stuff out in a humorous way that doesn't degrade or do anything negative to the creators or the people working on it. But really kind of shines a light on what it has. He's got a ton of other skits and he's been around for a long time. He's got a lot of great stuff. But his pitch meetings are so funny. I will watch them over and over if I just need a laugh, or if I have to have a quick lunch or something and I want to watch something on YouTube for five minutes. So his name is Ryan George. He's from Canada and
stuff is called his stuff. His stuff is called pitch meeting. Go check it out on YouTube this week's Westboro.
Alright, time for the cooldown as we wrap all of this up. So this week, the story my wife and I getting engaged, having to propose on top of the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier having a rocky start to that trip, because apparently I said I wasn't ready to get married or didn't know if she was the one while I had the ring sitting in my backpack on the ground right in front of us. All the way to celebrating our engagement later that night with a miller lights in front of a pregnant smoking bartender at Bubba Gump shrimp, because that's all we had at the time.
The lesson from that that really takeaway is having unrealistic expectations compared to the reality and what drives that I think a lot of it, I know for me, is really driven and rooted in ego and, and wants and needs. And when that happens, it makes the experience very, very difficult. And the advice that I would give myself would be, don't let your expectations impact your experience. And the example I gave was, at a wedding, your expectations are so high that it's got to be this perfect day, and everything's got to be great. And it's the best day of your lives. And when in reality, it's just a long day, it's a pain in the ass, and you just want to get through it. And the best day of your life as a married couple is usually, you know, the third or fourth day on a vacation when you don't have a care in the world. And you're just hanging out just the two of you as the most real version of yourselves.
The sponsor I wish I had is Ultima replenisher, that is a electrolyte and hydrating powder that you can put into water. My wife and I have been using it for several months. And it is just awesome. It's a great way to kind of break up drinking just buckets of water oceans of water all day long. So I highly recommend checking that out for the just the tip segment. It's all about pancakes. My recommendation when you make your pancake batter, let it rest for three to five to seven minutes. And your result is going to be the most fluffy, most delicious, most super tall timey pancakes that you've ever had. And the whispering for this is a comedian and a content personality that I've been following for years. His name is Ryan George, he is best known and how I discovered him was on YouTube for
a reoccurring weekly bet he does called pitch meeting where he basically plays two different characters on a video, one of them is a producer guy, and one of them is a studio movie executive. And the producer guy pitches the movie concept to the studio executive. And he basically does this for all the famous movies over the last several years. And it's really funny because he kind of shines a light on some of the silliness in the plot holes and the poor decisions that the executive make. But I think he also does a really good job of he doesn't in this because there's a lot of you know, kind of shining the light and making fun of things. But he doesn't do it in a way that that denigrates or makes fun of the people who worked on the project because the people who are doing the work oftentimes, if it's not what you expect, it's usually because of time or money or both. So he does a really good job of balancing that but just hysterical. I have watched his I think every single one of them at least like five times. So go go check them out. So that is it for this week on the story lesson advice podcast. As I said weekly blogs are going to be on Sid Sid media.net. That's my website for the media company. As well as weekly updates on YouTube. We have almost daily videos, clips of this podcast, going to be having additional podcasts. I'm going to be doing additional videos focusing on product reviews, and book reviews, culinary videos as well leading into my experience with that. So thank you for all of the support. Have a wonderful rest of your day, wherever you're listening to this and we'll see you next week on the story lesson advice podcast.