Episode 6o: Encouragement Matters
Introduction
Hello there friends. Welcome back to the show. I’m your host Miranda Anderson and you are listening to Episode 60 of Live Free Creative. This episode is titled Encouragement Matters.
I have a special guest here with me today. My husband, the one and only Dave Anderson is on the other side of the mic and I’m so excited to invite him on this show. It’s been a while since you’ve been on, right?
DAVE: It has been a while. Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Of course. I’m always happy to have you. We celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary this past week and as part of the celebration, I thought it would be fun for us to sit down and share both a little story that stems from our wedding day and also the effects of the idea of encouragement in our marriage and in our life.
Encouragement Is A Powerful Tool
Now, whether or not you’re married doesn’t matter for this topic because I think that that idea of encouragement and what a powerful tool it is in relationships will help you no matter what your relationship status is. You can use it with friends, you can use it with parents or children, you can use it with partners.
It’s so important and I think we sometimes forget how important it is and what the different ways that we can be encouraging our within our relationships. So we’re excited.
About A Wedding Story
Dave and I both came up with three specific ways that we can be encouraging and because I have my special-guest-husband here today, we’re going to forego our segment so that we can jump right into the topic of today’s show, which is encouragement.
So actually the segment is going to not be a real segment. It’s going to be a story. Dave and I had a really interesting wedding ceremony. We were married in the Salt Lake City temple, which is one of the temples of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
It’s a beautiful building, hundreds of years old, right in the middle of downtown Salt Lake. In fact, the entire city layout was formed around Temple Square that is ground zero for Salt Lake City, and then the entire city is based on–like the streets are numbered accordingly from how far they are from that city center where the temple is.
Our ceremony itself was officiated by this great man who had been Dave’s mission president years before. Do you remember his name?
DAVE: Yes. Elder Orton.
Elder Orton. So he had known Dave as a 19, 20 and 21 year old in Romania and then was living in Salt Lake, and we asked if he would be so kind as to come officiate our ceremony.
The actual wedding ceremony is very specific within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints. But usually the officiator gives some advice or tells a little story or kind of embellishes it a little bit or else the ceremony would be quite simple. And within the temple we don’t do, uh, like what are those called when people…
DAVE: vows.
Yeah. You don’t necessarily like just do your own vows. But the officiator often will give some sort of advice. So it can be a really, depending on what the officiator says, it can be a really interesting or unusual or traditional ceremony. And I would say ours skewed a little bit interesting and unusual. What do you think?
DAVE: Yeah, I was definitely interested in this story that he told but I was not expecting a story like this.
Yeah. So, so let me tell you this story. I don’t remember if it was right before or right after our actual ceremony of like saying I do and being officially married, but the elder or 10 stood up and said, I want to tell you a story. And he actually had printed it and gave it to us and I probably haven’t tucked away in a scrapbook somewhere.
The Wedding Story About Frogs
He said: “There once was a group of frogs” and at this point we’re all like, what is he talking? What is happening? We were getting married. I don’t want to talk about frogs.
There once as a group of frogs and they were out in a forest hopping around, as frogs will. One of the frogs hopped down into a hole. It unexpectedly hopped into a hole and it was really far down in this hole and it was absolutely seemed impossible that this frog was going to get out.
All of the other frogs stood around the top and they see this frog down in the hole and they start yelling to the frog saying things like, don’t waste your energy. It’s not worth it. You’re never going to get out of there. The hole is too deep. You should just lay down and enjoy your last few minutes on earth.
DAVE: Right. They were jumping up and down, waving their arms and screaming at the frog.
Yeah, telling him, don’t worry. Don’t worry. It’s not worth it. You shouldn’t. You know, they were kind of telling him, avidly, stop trying. You’re just wasting your energy. This is useless and you’re not going to make it out.
And the more they yelled and the more they wave their arms and the more they jumped up and down, the higher this frog jumped. He was listening to them or it seemed that he was listening and he was just being lit on fire by the things they were saying.
And the more they yelled at him to stop, it’s not worth it the more he just exerted himself and used all of his effort. And he dug so deep down to a place that he didn’t even know existed. And he did this one final hop higher than any frog had ever hopped.
And he hopped all the way out of the hole and landed next to his friends on the side of the path. And they all are astonished. Absolutely like jaws on the ground thinking what happened? How did that happen?
And one of the frogs said, “Why did you keep jumping? We were telling you that it was impossible and we were telling you that we want to do to save your energy. Why did you keep jumping?”
And the frog said, “What?” And they said, “We told you to stop. Why did you keep jumping?” And he said, “Huh? I don’t hear you. I’m deaf.”
He Thought They Were Encouraging Him
So it turns out that the frog and the hole could not hear what the frogs at the top were telling him. And by the way that they were yelling and jumping up and down and moving around their arms, he thought that they were encouraging him to jump higher and higher and higher.
And because of their encouragement, he was able to dig deeper than he ever had before and jump all the way out of the hole to save himself and live happily ever after.
Have you ever heard that story before? I had not heard it before and while I thought it was a little bit odd for my wedding ceremony, yet it’s something that Dave and I have talked about and come back to over and over again over the 13 years of our marriage because it shows the simple power of encouragement, what it means to let someone know that not only are they doing a good job, but if they continue doing a good job, that they may be able to change their lives, that they may be able to do more than you ever imagined possible.
Ways We Can Be Encouraging
So today in celebration of our marriage and the ups and downs that have come along with it, Dave and I, each thought of three ways that we can be encouraging to each other, both things that we do right now and things that we want to work on.
One of the reasons that I thought it was really important for us to think about the ways that we can be encouraging–rather than the ways that we want to be encouraged by someone else–is that I think that we often are, our mind automatically goes there when someone talks about encouragement, we think to ourselves, “Gosh, wouldn’t it be nice if someone was cheering me on like that?” And we can think of all the ways that the different relationships in our lives could support us and our dreams better.
And so I think that it’s really powerful to think about it in this different way because what is within our control is the amount and type of encouragement that we offer.
It’s definitely not within our control. What types of and amounts of encouragement are offered to us by other people. Because we’re not in control of what anyone else does or says or thinks or acts. We get to choose how and when and in what ways. We encourage those around us. And so that’s what Dave and I have done.
We haven’t talked about the notes that we made. And so I’m interested to see what Dave’s are and if we overlap at all or what we have to go on, but we want to share six specific ways that you can be encouraging in your relationships in today’s show. So I’m going to let Dave kick it off with his first one.
Believe They Can Accomplish Their Goal
DAVE: All right. Well, um, so I think that one way that I can encourage is kind of a more of a mindset, it’s to believe that the other person can do, can accomplish anything. Just having that belief deep within your heart that whatever that person wants to accomplish, they can do it.
And all of the encouragement and all of the active encouragement comes from that feeling, it kind of sets your mind on the person that says this person can do whatever they put their mind to. And I just need to be a help and a support for that.
I think one example would be, for example, when you started this podcast, it was something that you had thought about doing. We kind of mentioned it a little bit, and I believed deep down in my heart that this was something that you could accomplish and something that would be fun for you to do, something that you would be very good at. And so I just looked for opportunities to support you in that. And that just came from my belief that you could accomplish it.
I love that it’s so important because that’s kind of mindset is where everything starts. Right? Right. Because I think that we can be falsely encouraging and maybe people see right through that when we say, Oh, you’re doing a great job or keep going. And we’re kind of thinking, Oh, they’re never gonna do it. Right?
DAVE: You see the side glance or you see like the Twitch that says maybe they don’t really believe it.
Yeah. And I wonder if we do this with our kids sometimes. I know we do a little bit sometimes and we’re like, Oh, they’re not very good at soccer, but go out there and play like good job, you know?
But I’ve been amazed even just specifically with soccer this year, we’ve spent however many years putting Milo in soccer and having them not doing a good job, and then this year, all of a sudden it’s like he decided that he wants to do it and he likes it and it’s easier to be encouraging when there is proof that that the impossible is possible. Right.
But this what you’re talking about, mindset goes before that, that you almost create the ability for someone to believe in themselves by the way that you believe in them. That’s right. That’s really powerful. I love it. Okay, awesome. Good one to start with.
Say “Yes, And…”
Okay. My first one is this say “Yes, and…” to the ideas. The background to this is a little bit out of improv. In improv comedy you’re in a partnership and I mean, I’m not an improv comedian, but I’ve just heard about this and learned about it a little bit. You’re in a relationship with the person that you’re doing improv with and the cardinal rule of improv is to never start with no, you always lead with yes. And then you adjust after that you allow the other person to bring to the table whatever they, they will and you accept it and then you’re able to move beyond it. 
And we kind of have a running joke in our marriage. I know when I said that you kind of gave a little smirk. I’m throwing myself under the bus here because I am an idea person. I am always coming up with ideas. I’m always running in past you and sometimes even starting on them before I run them past you.
You have always been my Yes man. And you’re so, so naturally good at this. And I have not traditionally been naturally good at it. There have been lots of times in our marriage when you’ve come up with a great idea that as soon as you propose it, because it’s different than what I was thinking. I just say, “Oh, I don’t think that’s gonna work,” and or I just kind of brush it aside or like, “Oh, I already had plans for that.”
Rather than what an encouraging responses is saying, “Yes, tell me more. I’d love to hear about it. Let’s, let’s work together on this,” and having it be that true partnership where you accept what’s coming and that doesn’t mean that it has to be that way forever. It’s not going to be set in stone. That just means that you’re open to the other person’s ideas and possibilities.
Many times in our marriage, your ideas have deepened and enriched so much. Like I start somewhere and then you bring ideas and opinions that just enrich and develop and then we kind of are able to snowball into something that is better than either of us had dreamed of.
But without that initial “yes,” you close off any opportunity for possibilities to emerge. So my first tip for being encouraging is to consider yourself in an improv act with your partner and to lead with yes. Even if in your head you’re thinking, “I don’t know how that’s going to work.” Allow yourself to lead with yes and be open to the possibility that it could so that you don’t automatically burn bridges and shut down great ideas.
DAVE: That’s a great thought. I mean, that’s kind of the idea that basically underlies a lot of what I believe is the essence of encouragement is that helping the other person feel like they can accomplish whatever it is that they want to accomplish.
Provide Resources Without Expectation of Return
DAVE: My second tip for being encouraging is to provide any and all resources without any expectation of return of investment. There’s nothing more freeing than to have somebody to support you whether you’re going to succeed or not.
I think a lot about when we decided or when you decided to publish your, your book by yourself and that is a considerable investment financially. And we were in the middle of renovating our house and also fixing our house from the flood. But this was an important thing for you to accomplish. And I guess we maneuvered some things around so that we could make sure that this book got published.
I made sure to let you know that there’s no expectation on the return on this book. The most important thing is that this book gets published. People get to read it, people get to see it. But there is no expectation that this is gonna be a big money maker, that this is going to earn back what we spent and more. But it’s just that it needs to happen.
I’m tearing up over here because you’re so good at this and it’s so true. Providing resources when you have them without the expectation of return like that, that takes away the fear. It takes away the, um, the stress. It takes away feeling like you have to prove yourself.
I’ve had lots of people ask about that. Like, “Gosh, what does Dave think about you deciding to write a book and invest in it.” It affects, you know, it affects our family. Not only because I took time off of my regular job, that was a money making job to write the book, but then also that I invested a ton of money into the book and to not have you waiting around for everything to shake out to even and, and beyond.
But to know that even if this was the amount that we paid for me to create this incredible project, this work that could go forth and that the right people could receive it, that that was enough, that it may be just that an investment without a return. 
Hosting My First Workshop
You’ve been good at this for our whole life. I remember when I hosted my first workshop and no one bought tickets and so I gave the tickets to all of my friends and so it costs me–I mean the investment wasn’t huge; this is minuscule compared to what we’re talking about with the book–but it was like $400 or $500 that I had rented a space I was paying for food. I had bought all the materials for the workshop and then I gave it all away because I needed people to come and sit in the seats.
I remember being so sad and frustrated that no one had bought tickets and saying, “Gosh, you know, it’s not even worth it because I’m paying, I’m not even making money. I’m paying for this workshop.” And you said “No. It’s okay. If this is what you want to do, then we can pay for it. This is what you do when you love something, you pay to do it. You pay to make it happen. When you have a dream, you might have to pay for it for a while. And that’s okay.”
I think that’s an incredible mention for people who are in the position to offer resources to people around them. Maybe it’s not only financial resources. Are you able to offer time? Are you able to offer encouragement and shout-outs and are you able to buy the products that your friends sell? Are you able to offer resources without the expectation that they’ll be returned to you or that it has to be a trade? Can you just be kind for the sake of being kind?
It’s an incredible question for us to each ask ourselves in what ways can we be more like that?
Hold Space For Them To Do What They Love
It also leads well into my next one, which my number two tip is to hold space for the other person to do what they love. And it’s a similar thing. You were talking maybe more specifically about finances and providing that resource. And what came to mind immediately for me was the resource of time to create space for the other person to do the things that they love and not always expect them to come back and continue giving and giving and giving all the time.
So one example of this might be that even though even though a wife and mom might spend a lot of time at home with the kids, if the husband, you are my husband, if you want to go exercise after work, and that means that you don’t get home until 6:30 instead of 5:30, and even though I’m tired and even though I want you to come home.
(I want you to be home all the time. I actually wish you didn’t have a job and you could just hang out with me all day.)
That’s holding space. If you want to go exercise and that’s the time that works for you, then the way that I encourage that is by holding space for you to do that. Maybe that’s in the morning, maybe it’s after work, maybe it’s on a Saturday afternoon.
I think of all the wives in the world, luckily I’m not one of them, but all the wives in the world who spend four hours every Saturday alone because their husband is out golfing. And that’s just something that he loves to do. And that’s the space that she creates for him.
And you might like think that’s ridiculous and maybe that’s a dumb thing for a wife to do, to hold space for her husband to go golfing. But I see that as incredible encouragement to recognize that the other person in the relationship has needs as well and that you can generously hold space for them to do the things they love, pursue the hobbies that they have.
And you know, it all kind of wraps up into being the same thing over and over again. Just different ways of manifesting it, but just recognizing that you want to be supportive and of the things that your partner or friend or mom or child wants to do. And this is one way that you can be encouraging.
DAVE: And I think you mentioned that as a hypothetical. Like if the wife hold space for the husband to go to the gym, I guess some sort of a hypothetical, but that’s actually really something that has helped me a lot in the last year as trying as I’m trying to kind of get back into shape or get into shape. And you’ve been very, very helpful in encouraging me to keep my routine and to make sure that I don’t fall back. So that’s been a very good way for you to be encouraging to me.
It Should Matter To Us Like It Matters To Them
I’m glad. I think there was like a mindset shift at one point when I realized like this not only should matter to him, but this should matter to me too. Especially as something as serious as, as your health or your hobbies or the things that you love. I shouldn’t ever feel like it’s taking away from me for you to go spend your time doing those things.
The least I can do is hold down the fort while you go spend time doing some of the things that matter a lot to you and that matter for your health. And that matter for your wellbeing. And then you come back just as you do. For me, when I travel around the country teaching workshops or speaking at events and you’re home for five days with the kids holding space for me to do the things that I love, I come home from those things a better person and a better mom and a better wife just as you come home from spending time doing the things that you love, a better husband and a more engaged person.
It actually is like a double benefit because you benefit from doing it and being there. And I benefit from you doing it and being there. So it can become really easy though I think in a relationship–especially one as as old as ours, you know, 13 years is not like nothing; t’s kind of a long time–it can be really easy to have small resentments or is resentment the right word where some little things, something that started little can sort of become a festering problem that every time your husband goes golfing or every time your husband goes to the gym or your wife goes out of town with her friends or goes and gets her nails done in the middle of the day on a Saturday morning, that you think, “Gosh, they’re here she goes again.”
Recognize that this is an opportunity for you to show encouragement and support and to hold space for them to become the person that they are going to become and have that be enriching in a relationship because it benefits our relationship. When I say, “Hey, did you get your workout in today? When is it going to work for you? Does after work work fine or do you want to do it during lunch?”
When I’m working with you on your goals, it’s better for our relationship as a whole, like our whole everything. Everything is better rather than when we’re trying to nitpick around the specific things that, you know, we have to make sure that everyone’s score is equal or something.
I don’t know at what point in a relationship partners start being on opposite teams rather than on the same team. And so I think that what Dave shared about his number two about making sure that you provide resources, whatever available resources you have can go to support the person that you are encouraging in their dreams.
And my second point is that resource including your time and your energy that as you exchange those things with love and intention, you remain on the same team and you remain even in your individual pursuits recognizing that your individual pursuits benefit the whole.
DAVE: Right. Exactly.
Give Them Absolute Freedom To Change Course
DAVE: And onto my third tip, I believe of course it’s important when you’re encouraging somebody to hold that person accountable. Like you were saying, “Did you get your workout in? How can I help you? What are some things that that I can do to make it easier for you?”
On the other hand, I think it’s very important when you’re encouraging someone to help them understand that they have the absolute freedom to change course or to make adjustments and say, “You know what? This isn’t for me. I need to try a different tack or a totally different area of my life I want to work on.”
I think this goes back to a little bit what I was saying in my second tip, that you don’t expect any return of investment. I’m just saying that “I trust you to know what’s best for you and I’m going to help you achieve that.” Whatever it is. If it is something different tomorrow, I’m going to give you the same full 100% support on that new thing tomorrow because I believe that you know what’s best for you better than I know what’s best for you.
That’s such a good like one liner rule to live by that I believe that you know what’s best for you. Like, how often do we think that in our lives? I think that we spend a lot of time thinking that we know what’s best for everyone, right? At least I do. Am I the only one who thinks that I know what’s best for everyone else?
When we believe that you know what’s best for you, then all of our actions align with that idea and we’re able to be unilaterally encouraging and supportive, which this whole episode is about encouragement, right? Encouragement without the expectation of a return of return, encouragement of some sort of expected outcome.
If you allow someone to change and to become who they want to be, even if it changes from day to day, then that’s just like a unconditional encouragement. There’s something really cool about that idea. I love it.
Say Thank You
Okay, my third and final tip for the day is to say thank you for every single thing. Even if it’s something that you expect and that is a little thing that you would be angry if it didn’t happen. Still say “thank you” because I believe that we aren’t owed anything by our partner.
Regardless of what society would tell us or what people might say, you don’t enter into a partnership or a relationship because you expect that other person to fulfill you or to take care of you or to even support you. Those are things that we are responsible for ourselves.
Does it help us and benefit us if the other person is supportive and encouraging and helpful? Yes, absolutely. But we can’t go into relationships expecting that’s where we will find all of those things that we need.
We have to know and be able to find some of those things for ourselves in our own hearts. So in the spirit of that, every single thing that someone else offers to us is a gift. The time they spend with us, the reading to the kids with us that doing the dishes for and with us the planning and going out to lunch and uh, taking the dog on a walk and all of the things that happen in a mutual relationship, especially in a partnership like marriage where you usually have some sort of household to maintain if you have kids, there’s a whole laundry list of things that go on in terms of like raising and managing the responsibilities that come with raising children.
But that doesn’t mean that just because something is expected doesn’t mean that it doesn’t deserve gratitude. And just because you hope that all of these things would go without saying doesn’t mean that they have to go without saying. I believe that gratitude can be a transformative part of our individual lives and it is absolutely a transformative in a relationship as we feel grateful for things that people do and express that to them. Our love for them only grows and our ability to encourage only grows.
DAVE: And how encouraging is it when you’re on the receiving end of that gratitude to want to be better to that, to improve and to kind of in a way earn that gratitude and become a better person.
Totally. This is one of the things I wrote down, just like a quick note, I wrote down, we want to do better when we think we are doing well. Exactly. Like people want to do things they’re good at. And so if no one ever tells me thank you for making dinner and you know, my kids like leave all their food in their plates and my husband like eats and then goes and watches football and no one responds to the idea that the dinner that I made was actually great. How am I supposed to want to maintain the motivation to continue to cook?
But if someone says, wow, that was a great meal, what did you put in it? Wow, that was delicious. Thank you for cooking dinner for us. Thank you for, for doing that. I think, gosh, I want to keep doing that.
I mean, maybe not all the time if we’re being totally honest, but we’ve told our kids, the only acceptable thing to say when someone gives you food is thank you. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. Don’t eat it. But it is not acceptable to complain about it or to like nitpick about it.
And part of the reason is just for my own sanity, that when I make a meal, even if it’s Mac and Cheese, the only thing that I want to hear is thank you so that I can have the motivation to make another meal the next day. And I think that this goes for so many things. If you are in a situation where you feel frustrated that your partner isn’t doing more of the things that you think he or she should do, like if you’re holding them to this unspoken standard of I expect things of you that you’re not doing.
What I suggest with my tip number three is that you start paying very close attention to every single thing they do that you appreciate and expressing that appreciation saying thank you. Even if it’s just holding open the door, even if it’s just bringing the mail in, even if it’s just taking the garbage out once every couple of weeks, every single time they do it. Say thank you.
Again, we have to go back to Dave’s tip about not doing things with an expectation of return. You don’t say thank you because you hope that that thank you will help them do it more. You say thank you because that reminds you that they’re doing something for you and you get to feel grateful for it and that will only grow your love for the other person.
It may actually also as a byproduct, not the not the reason you say thank you, but as a byproduct, it may actually encourage them to do more and more within their relationship because they feel appreciated and they feel seen. David grace, he’s not, you can’t hear it, but I’m nodding.
Recap The Tips For Being Encouraging
Okay. So let’s go through just really quickly and say our tips. So you say your first, I’ll say mine, we’ll go back and forth and just do a quick recap of our tips and then Dave and I are each going to share one situation in our lives where we have felt encouraged and then we’ll close it out. So go ahead with your first step.
DAVE: Tip number one, believe the other person can accomplish anything.
My tip number one is always lead with yes. Say yes, and….
DAVE: My tip number two is provide any and all resources without the expectation of return on investment.
That’s such a good one. I love it.
My tip number two is to hold space for the other person to be able to accomplish the things that they’re hoping for in their life.
DAVE: My tip number three is give absolute freedom to the other person to change course or make adjustments.
My tip number three is to always say thank you even for things that are expected.
Okay. We hope that you have loved those tips. They’re all going to be in the show notes so you can head to livefreecreative.co/podcast look for Episode 60.
And if you want to, maybe I’ll throw together a quick printable and you can actually just go to the show notes, print out a printable. So you could share this with your kids, with your spouse, and encourage your spouse to listen with you, and you guys could discuss. Or a sister or your parents how you can be more encouraging in your relationships, starting from yourself, not from what you hope the other person will do, but starting from yourself.
Feel Good Encouragement Moments
And so just to close out today, we thought that for a little feelgood moment, we would each share one time in our relationship that we have felt especially encouraged or supported by the other person. So Dave, do want to start us off?
Supporting My Workouts
DAVE: Sure. We alluded to this a little bit earlier, but I set a goal. I’m 39 now and I set a goal to be Fit By 40. There’s a little alliteration there for you all. It’s included a lot of time at the gym and just spending a lot of time working out where I could be home helping around the house and it has been so helpful in not only giving me the space that I need to do that, but also being supportive and encouraging, and you keep me on task, you follow up, you take my goals seriously.
And it’s just been very, very helpful in those days that I don’t think that I really want to, to go to the gym. I don’t want to work out. It’d be easier if I just stayed home and slept in. I know that you are aware of what’s going on. I know that you’re taking it seriously and that I should take it seriously too.
I’m so glad that it’s working out. You’re doing awesome. Dave recently put up a pull up bar in our shed and so now all of us get to do pull ups whenever we go out to the back. I’ve done them a couple times.
DAVE: Yeah, you’re pretty good.
Tea Kettle Story
I’m getting better. And of course we already alluded to mine too. The first thing that came to mind when I thought when is a time that I felt really encouraged by Dave and I’m gonna cry, but I think one of the most powerful moments, and a lot of listeners will probably relate if you’ve had children. One of the most powerful times of my life was when I was pregnant and expecting babies. And then, especially during labor and delivery and with my first baby, I was so tired.
We didn’t have kids. And so it was easy. It was easier to be tired and sick. But, um, I was very particular about the things I would and could eat and would and could not eat. And I needed to take a bath every single night. And there was a couple of specific circumstances I can think of when our water pipes froze and our water heater didn’t work.
Dave came home from a long day at law school and he filled up the bathtub using our tea kettle. It took 30 trips of like filling it to boiling and then pouring it in. And then filling it to boiling and then putting it in so that it would, by the time it was actually full, it was still warm enough to enjoy a hot bath, such as selfless showing of love and support and encouragement during a time that was really, you know, it could be really tricky.
Timing Contractions
And also when I was in labor for Milo for that first baby, I was in labor for 15 hours and I decided to have an unmedicated birth and you can listen to my whole birth stories for all three kids at The Birth Hour. I’ll link that in the show notes if you want to listen to, if you’re into that.
But I remember sitting in the hospital and Dave held my hand the whole time and would count on his watch. I would squeeze his hand when we, when I had a contraction and he would count on his watch 30 seconds because that’s what the Bradley instructor had told us. After 30 seconds, it won’t get any harder. It may last, but it actually won’t increase in, in difficulty.
So he would, he would squeeze my hand and say, it’s not going to get any worse. And just sitting next to me holding my hand through one of the hardest and also most empowering experiences of my life showed me what true encouragement looks like. Just like the selfless ability to give and to be with and to hope for and to love, um, is so powerful.
Publishing A Book
That was the first thing I thought of. That was a while ago. Um, but those same characteristics Dave has exhibited throughout our life. And the most recent example, like he mentioned, it was when I decided to stop working essentially in the way that I had for the last five years in order to create space for myself to write my book.
For a lot of people that would have been difficult, like income that we count on in some ways and um, and what was known. And then beyond saying, I’m not going to work for a while because I’m going to write the book, which I mean, I guess is working kind of, um, but just a whole different way.
And then saying, Oh, and by the way, we’re going to invest a lot of money into making this happen and bringing it to, to fruition. And without blinking and without batting an eye and without saying, is this really going to be worth it? Could you be spending your time in a different way? Why don’t you look at the things in your business that have worked well up till now? Why don’t we stick with what we already know works well?
Not one time did Dave suggest that my decision to write a book and to publish it was not gonna work like you said. His first tip to just really believe that anything that you’re the other person believes as possible. He is an embodiment of that because he sees that what I want is possible and supports me in all of the ways to create it.
Conclusion
We hope that this show has been encouraging for you, not only as you’ve been able to listen to our stories and our examples, but also that you can listen, look back at your own life or look into your current life and see ways that resonate with you, that you can offer more encouragement, that you can stand at the top of the hole, and whoever of your friends or partners or, or spouse or whoever it is that’s down in that hole.
Rather than being the frog at the top, that saying why even try, it’s not worth your effort. You’re not going to make it. That you can be the frog offering all of your love, your support, creating space and believing in that person in a tangible way, offering resources, offering help.
And more than anything, just believing that what they believe is possible is possible and believing that even things that they don’t yet see are possible are possible and creating space for them to, to bring them to pass
DAVE: This whole episode that we’ve been talking about this, I keep thinking to myself that this applies not only to other people, but it can apply just as much to yourself. Like providing yourself the encouragement that you need to get the get things done. It’s like you can be believe in yourself. You can make space for yourself and give yourself this time and support that you need and you can say yes to yourself.
I love that. And without expectation, I feel like the biggest like learning moment for me has been when you said that you don’t have to expect anything in return. Like you can give encouragement and resources and time and love freely without expecting a return on them. That is what true encouragement looks like and that is what we all can give.
And like Dave was just saying, that’s also something that we can give to ourselves. It’s something that we deserve. So if you’re not finding that encouragement for someone else from someone else, make sure that you’re giving it to yourself at the very least. And as you do that, you’ll be filled up in a way that enables you to turn around and be encouraging and supportive of all of the people around you as well.
I want to tell Dave, thank you so much for taking his lunch hour and sitting with me today in our attic bedroom recently renovated.
It feels good up here, doesn’t it?
DAVE: Your did a great job with it. It’s a beautiful spot.
We’re chilling. I’m so glad that he was able to come on the show and share some of his wisdom and ideas with you today.
Thank You
And I want to tell you, listeners, thank you so much for being here. This is Episode 60. I know a lot of you have been with me from the beginning and some of you are new to the show.
Subscribe to the podcast: I encourage you to subscribe and to leave a review on iTunes if you haven’t yet.
Contribute on Patreon: If you are new to the show and you haven’t heard of the Patreon, there’s an availability for you to join at one of three different membership levels and you can support the show and get a bonus episode every month with a free printable so that you can apply the concepts that you’re learning and live free, creative into your own life.
More Than Enough: And lastly, we talked a lot about my book. Do you have a copy yet? If you don’t have a copy yet of more than enough, I encourage you to check it out. You should read some of the 85 reviews that are on Amazon of people saying the way that the book has changed their perspective and has actually started to help them change their own lives.
I believe that taking time off to put all of my thoughts into paper and to make it available to you was not a waste of time. That it can really make a difference in the way that you think about the life that you lead right now and help you to take the steps towards believing that the life that you have is already more than enough. But that sounds like a message that you need. You’re tired of running the race a little bit and you are ready to focus back on what matters most. Encourage you to check out more than enough.
It’s available on Amazon. I’ll link it in the show notes. It’s also available on Audible if you’d like listening, and I am the narrator, so you’ll get to listen to more of this beautiful voice. It’s also available in a Kindle format if you’d like to do an eReader instead.
Thank you so much again for being here. I hope that you have a fantastic week. I’ll talk to you again next time.
