"Intention" instead of "in tension" with Billy and Melissa Hokacker

How are you doing?

Great.

Incredible.

Why?

It's a good question.

Life is full and very blessed.

Okay. What does that mean?

That means that, we have everything we need.

Amen.

And we have more than what we want.

All right. All right.

Mic drop.

Well, listen, I. I'm willing to put the press into that because I always get skeptical when people fill out the form and they tell me that the relationship is a ten. Yeah. I'm like, what? How is that? How is that a thing? So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is it a ten? Yeah. I can't be any better.

Yeah, I'll speak to that. Yeah, I think we answered. Well, speak for myself, I answered accurately. I think it is a ten. It's interesting. I just might. This might sound a little confusing because we actually talked about it after. She said she only put a ten because I said 20. So she thought she felt guilty, but, I was I was, genuine in that. And I think if, it depends how you perceive the question. So if I perceive the question as am I fulfilled in the marriage? It's a ten. Like, it checks all the boxes it meets, the expectations. It's more than I ever hoped for. We can get into all the details of that. But at the same time, we have a is at nine week old.

Yeah. Yeah. So we have a nine week old, and she is our fifth. And, there's lots of, I guess, distractions. And that doesn't always make things easy. And I think so. I think it's circumstantial. I would say like to answer that question. Maybe a little more accurately, I would say, given the circumstances. It's a ten. Do I wish that, we were a little more, connected in certain ways? And, yeah, there's always things that can improve, but I think it's about the process more than the actual, thing. So we're like, there's reasons why. Okay, so I just got back to doing date nights, and we went last night, and we did. I think we did. Yeah, we did mini golf, but we also did it the week or two before.

So if you'd asked me three weeks ago, I would say, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's a ten. But I really want to go back to date nights. We haven't been playing together as much. And there's things that we need to continue to improve in my mind. And it just might be my, twisted mind that doesn't make it less than a ten. It just makes it, circumstantial. So, I guess it depends on how I look at that. So my heart says ten, but I also know there's areas to improve.

Yeah. And maybe that mean Melissa go ahead and weigh in if you want to take before I, before I edit or let's what edit. What is it. What's the word I'm looking for. I don't want to edit your response. I want to comment on it or I want to have a commentary on it anyway.

Yeah, I mean, I, I agree with that. I think, you know, we want to be realistic in our marriage and with, you know, the various life things that come up. I mean, having a newborn in the house with four other children that need attention. Three under the age of ten. So, you know, three of them under the age of ten. Our oldest.

Three total. Yeah. Five.

Total five total.

Three. Total. Under ten.

Yeah. And then we have an older one that's 14.

We have four. They're ten and under. Yeah.

Yeah. For that or ten. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So if the baby I have to least three other ones that are under ten and then I'm.

The teenager I'm the math guy. Yes.

Yeah.

He keeps it all straight for me, but yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, we, we try and be realistic. But if you're asking, like, I wouldn't want to do it with anybody else. Yeah, I wouldn't want to do the hard things with anyone else. I wouldn't want to, you know, have those difficult moments with anyone else. I think our marriage has gotten really strong over the last maybe five years, and I feel that that's only because we're just constantly, like, try and be consistent with the basics and, you know, the foundational stuff, which we can always, you know, flesh out more. But, yeah, I, I agree with the ten, but right now we're like, in a season of transition and, you know, things are kind of up in the air and we don't know if we're always going to have that time to pray in the morning or evenings or have that date night.

But, you know, we're just constantly trying to push forward and do a little better the next week or do a little better the next day. Yeah, that kind of looks like.

You know how they say like, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy or everybody. Every boxer has a plan, so he gets punched in the mouth or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I came in here with a whole list of questions, and now I have a whole bunch of other questions.

Yeah.

So I have two questions. I'll park one and ask the other one. The one is, whenever anybody ever says in my practice, they give me a time, they say, oh, it's been really hard for a while. It's sometimes they'll say a while or like, things have been really great for five years. Five years ago, I think the last five years, things have been really good. Like, I want to know, like what happened five years ago. Like what? What was that? So you took that in there? I want to come back to that. But then you said something about, you know, we've gone back to the basics and the I forget the other word. I used to remember.

Basics and foundational stuff.

Yes, sir. What is that? What are the basics and the foundational stuff like that? Yeah. How do you define that for yourselves?

I'll take that one. And Melissa takes the one about five years ago. Oh, sure.

Yeah.

I can remember.

You're the main character, so. Yeah.

Yeah we do. I shared it in my, in my, my poor man version of the form I ever started with. Just my quick email. I said that we do a lot of, like, growth oriented things. And I think that's foundational is the idea of that growth mindset, like, within the marriage that we can change, we can grow, we can connect more, we can listen better, we can, parent better. I think that, that's probably part of the answer to the five year ago thing. But I know that's not super specific. Specifically, we share three feelings with each other every day. We, we share, this is not every day, but we, every Sunday, we sit with our knees touching, and we listen to each other for about ten minutes, and we just listen.

We don't do any advice giving or, or other insight. We just listen and kind of, in some ways parrot back what they're saying to help each other process what's going on in us that helps connect us deeply. We talking. We mentioned the prayer. We mentioned the date nights.

We do a temperature.

Temperature reading, which includes, something we grateful for.

The other person, not.

The other person. I usually share it with something I'm grateful about myself. And then as well as her. Just kidding. Then we do part of that is, new information. So. Hey, Melissa, I want to let you know that I'm invited by this, amazing guy Zach, on his podcast, and we're going to be doing it next Thursday. I want you to be there. So, make me look better. So we share that, then we do, something that we're confused about, So, Melissa, I am confused why there been no, towels in the bath? I don't know, just whatever it is. Right. And then what?

What's the towels thing? That sounds like good information.

Yeah, yeah.

We're talking about that.

Yeah, yeah. And then we do a preference. So the preference would be. Hey, I noticed that you didn't make the bed. I really prefer if you did, you know, after you got.

You just daily temperature reading or the.

Temperature reading needed, and we do.

What we do on our date night, which is.

Okay.

We try and do it Wednesday night. Whatever activity we're doing, whether it's just taking a walk or going out, you know, somewhere.

Did I miss any of it? I'm sure I did. Other.

I think that was pretty, too.

Yeah, yeah, things like that.

That's cool. Like you, I, I think it's, you know, people talk to me, about doing the work. You know, they're like, we're working on our marriage or something. And I'm like, okay, great. What does that. What does that mean? You know, like, if you if you're working on bench pressing your body weight, you can be like, oh, yeah, I'm working on my form, or I'm working on adding weight every week, or I'm working on, you know, I do push ups outside of the gym or, you know, you can actually talk about what it is that you're doing. Most people can't do that about their marriage because we're we're working on it. I'm like, oh yeah. Oh, well, we sit together, knees touching, and we talk about our feet on Sundays. So we share feelings to daily or oh, we have it like I think that's really, really actually quite cool. So thanks for sharing that with me and with people.

Thanks Zach and I information. One more that I think is so this has been so transformative for our marriage. I because I forgot it and that is it's evolved over time. But we do a monthly. So actually now this is reminding me of all this other stuff. So we do we do annual meetings. So the annual meetings are talking about what the goals are for our marriage, for our families. And we do all types of things. So we have a whole agenda. We talk about the vacations, we talk about what's going on with the kids, the homeschool, the whole thing. That's not what I the thing I thought of, but we do that. The thing I thought of was that we do a monthly family meeting, and that has been really, really transformative.

The monthly family meeting I started off, I think, with, like, mostly finances, and we still do that. So every month now we we do sometimes more than once a month, but we do a financial check. We do a physical check, we do a fitness check, we do, friends check. We do, kids family. And that's been.

Something else that starts with this.

Yeah. That most of them. Yeah.

Fitness, friends, finances, family. Yeah. And fun probably.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. And, here's a here's the thing, a little bragging point.

I'm a people who listen to the podcast regularly. No, I'm obsessed with alliteration. So I'm nice. You got me. I'm like, I'm hooked. I'm kind of in that meeting now. Forever.

Yeah. Here's here's something that, that that I'm really proud of. So we have done that and we have not done it perfectly and we have not always done it on time. Yeah, we have not missed one of those at some level for 16. Is it 16 years old? No, since 2010. So whatever that is. Yeah. We had like 15 years. We've not missed one single of those monthly meetings.

Yeah, it's a monthly meeting.

Yeah, yeah. And that I think has been really, really powerful. In all those different areas.

Yeah.

What do you say to people now see, I got another question that's like I got punched in the mouth again. But yeah, if I sell this to people, if I. Yeah. Or if I tell people, hey, here's what I want you to do. Touch knees every week or have this monthly meeting, or have this weekly date night in one of the things that always comes back to me is, well, he never once initiated it or she never once initiated it. It's a good question. You know, like we did it twice, but then it fell off the radar because. Because something because other because they. Yeah, you know, but like, how have you how have you solved that problem. How have you maintained that to go back?

I think you really have to humble yourself. I, I think for myself, I'll speak for myself. I find it really hard sometimes to humble myself. I, I think you really need to just say. Okay, how much is it worth? You know, if if he's if he's not going to step out and give me the hug that I want or he's not going to step out and say, hey, we really need to sit down and talk about this issue that that we've been putting off. You know, is it still worth the. Oh, he never does that. He never says anything about it. He never gives me that hug. Or is it more worth it if I just step out in faith and say, I know he loves me, I know he cares about me and I can trust him. I mean, we've been together for almost 18 years and I know that if I extend a hand, he'll reach back.

And so I think a lot of it just kind of has to come down to just humbling yourself. And, I think that's an area that I've really had to mature in my marriage. Because, you know, as a woman, you want the man to always reach out and be the hero and come and rescue you and do all the things. But he also has stuff on his plate and his mind. And so if you're sitting there feeling like, oh, he might, you know, my spouse just never does that thing. Maybe you try it. Maybe you reach out and and do what you're looking for.

Yeah. And this is, one thing I. And I think we've done a pretty good job of that sort of a balancing act where it's like, sometimes I'm initiating. Sometimes she is right. I don't think it's like, always me or it's always her. Sometimes, and I love that. I love what she initiates, and I'm sure she does as well. Yeah, but one thing that we've not been perfect at, but it's been helpful when we, when we, when we do practice, it is sharing it from like our feelings perspective, like, so like if I were, you know, I, you know, I wouldn't necessarily give advice to people, but if they were asking and they said, you know, what do I do if you know he's not doing it?

And I would say rather, Mary, rather than tell your husband, that, you know, he never, you know, he never initiates, date night or something like that. Yeah. You know how about just sharing your heart with him? And I know that's hard, because you have to really just put yourself out there, and that's a risk. But, yeah, I feel, I feel really lonely, that, you know, that that, you know, that we don't spend time, quality time together, and, you know, I would love to spend more time. And I think that, like, that approach is obviously going in at land a lot better than somebody feeling like they're getting attacked or they're getting accused of something. Yeah. And it's like oh man. I'm like yeah I don't want you to feel that.

You know. And that's been a big learning curve. Yeah.

Yeah. We were not good at that.

Early on actually for, for me.

Yeah.

It's so easy for me to just kind of, you know, see something and immediately jump to it and say, well, you haven't been doing this. Like, why haven't you been doing this? And then he just shuts down and, you know, can't can't hear anything else except I'm a failure. Sure. I'm I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do as your husband.

Yeah. That's probably the that's that that whole that whole piece is probably the biggest thing I think.

Yeah. Did something happen five years ago? Did you guys make an intentional shift? Five years ago or what? Is that number relevant?

Yeah, it's funny that I said five years ago because now I'm realizing that was Covid and, I, I was pregnant with our fourth baby. Of course. Well, that's not one sided. And we were gearing up to have our first and only boy, and she had.

Five, and there's four girls or.

Girls. Yeah. So three girls, then the boy, and then our last one is a girl and she last.

Are you done?

Yes. Okay.

We'll see. Yeah.

I'm seeing now we're done.

Okay.

I am at my.

That's an interesting that's an interesting phase. Right. Like. Yeah I know there's a difference between growing your family and like being your family. Yes. Yeah. So yeah.

So we could talk more about that. But, yeah. So Covid was going on and, by September I was in the hospital giving birth and, I, really was just I, I've, I've had experience with postpartum before, and I had an experience, short term postpartum with him. And it didn't last a whole long time. I actually did not go on any medication at that point because I got into some really good therapy. Feeling good, with the book. And it was under that guide that I got this therapy and it was like an eight week, therapy session. And, really transformed my mind in terms of how to kind of understand where the stress was coming and, how to relay that to him and how to just kind of reframe my thinking, all those good things.

And, then, church was different for us. We were heavily involved in our church. But once Covid hit, just things started to change a lot. We weren't anxious anymore. Yeah. Not as connected, which I'm sure a lot of people could relate to. Business was changing for him. He had two studios at the time. Fitness studios. But he was also starting to do more online things and started his own podcast. And we realized, oh, wow. We don't really need a brick and mortar to do certain things. And so the door just started to open up and the thought process started to open up to potentially moving out of state. We were in a, high income area on the East Coast, and, we had a lot of friends that were kind of heading south after Covid hit a lot of restrictions where we were, including over fitness business.

We were closed for six months, ten months, ten months. And, so lots of things were shifting and happening and kind of that groaning of like, can we be somewhere different? I homeschool all our kids, and we really didn't have a big homeschool community where we were. So I was really doing a lot of it on my own. And yeah, I think that just kind of started the process of maybe life could look a little different elsewhere.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, one of my intake questions with couples that I'm meeting for the first time is I ask them to go through and just talk about, like in their story. There are there are there always are key like before and after moments like the before this happened, the relationship was like this. After this happened, their relationship like could be for better or for worse. Like could be like that. You know, before the affair, it was like this after the affair was like that before the birth of our third baby. It was like this after the birth of our before Covid, after Covid, like, there's always these pivot points that people can kind of look at and go, oh yeah, that, so it sounds like that was one of them for you. It just that it shifted perspective and opportunity. And then where do you live now? I don't even know where you are.

Middle Tennessee. All right. Right. Yeah. I'll just add a quick point to that. I think from my perspective, I think a lot of the shift in our marriage has been a result of us having our own personal shifts. Yeah, it has been. Yeah, I think a big part of it as well. And then other way to get into it here, I mean, we could be I just don't think it's, as valuable as some of the other content, but I had, some, some real shifts personally that I think caused me, to be a better husband, quite honestly. And I think, I think that's been that's been a big part.

I mean, is can you can you label them? I mean, I mean, go into it, but like, if I.

Don't, I have no problem going into it. So like, I guess a shortened version of I, I, my story is probably not uncommon, but I kind of kind of ignored, a lot of things that were kind of under underlying things, like character things, just mostly around feelings and, and just, you know, pushed everything down and I was the guy, like, on the outside. Everything's great. I'm crushing it. I'm staying busy and that whole thing. And then I was. I was really, humbled, in my mid 30s, because I had a lot of ways I, I want to say, like, a lot of ways, I had the Midas touch. I started this business. It like zoom, zoom. And we we had this crazy financial turnaround.

Real like crazy rags to riches story. And everything was great. And I had always, my, one of my biggest values has always been health and fitness. And I've been, in sports and martial arts and, you know, everything. And really disciplined and and then I, is everything is a process. But if there was like a moment like you're talking about there were there were two medical things. One was actually a false diagnosis, which was just wild. And, so for a short period time, I believed I had a terrible disease that I turned out didn't have a. Well, but that really, did a lot internally. And. Yeah. So, like, a lot of a movie. Yeah, yeah. So then after all of that, I ended up then getting, diagnosed with, something else that was real turned out to not be quite as, bad as I was led to believe initially.

But a lot of that was just like that, that mortality thing where, like, I was like, I was I was never, not nothing was ever going to happen to me. Like I was just I was getting it done. And then I had these things happen and it was just like a real shift. Internally. And I did a lot of spiritual growth, a lot of emotional growth. And I think just like the timing of all of that really, helped our marriage because I was not a bad I don't think I was a bad husband, but I think I was like, less in touch with what was going on inside of me. And as I began to grow in that area, it, I think it really helped, the marriage in the family.

And then I came along in the marriage, and I had all these big feelings that I wanted somebody to hold for me.

Yeah. Because.

And he just. He couldn't do it because I, I had had postpartum with our first, And that was a time where.

That's a good example. That's a good, contrast.

Yeah, yeah. We just he didn't know how to to help that he didn't know how to relate to it. But when he started to experience things that were painful and, kind of a shock to his system, he then realized, wow, like, difficult things can happen. And now I he's kind of faced with his own emotions about it. And we both just began to start doing a lot of self help and self, spiritual, work. And our church was a big back on the East Coast. Our church was a big, factor in that. And so, yeah, those those were some pivotal moments that like, you know, here, here's someone that that couldn't really get in touch with where I was at emotionally.

Now, I know not not to brag, but now, there are there are times it's almost too much. There are times where I just start crying. Oh. Yeah. Watch,

What's the big crier?

What's it called?

Antoine.

Don't watch, don't watch Antoine Fisher with me, because it won't be pretty. But I will say that sometimes. Sometimes? Now I am the one that's actually containing our our girls emotions.

Yeah. Better than I do.

Yeah. So that's like one of those things where it's like you're. I guess your pain turns into something that's, you know, really, there's something that needed to happen.

Yeah.

Oh, only thing I'll say is, like, I think experientially and in my practice, but also culturally, I think more men need to have the experience that you had where they kind of learn how to get over themselves and learn how to open themselves up to feelings and not be validated or, or, you know, have their self esteem be established by their career or their fitness. Amen. Like, yeah. So I'm glad that you mentioned that. I hope that people will latch onto that and go, oh, there's another one of these guys who, you know, the secret is and I don't think women have the same challenge or call. Yeah. You know, for sure.

Yeah. I'll just add to that encouragement. Anybody listening? It's like, so easy to to go through your life and ignore, so much. And there's a cost to that. You lose out on a lot of. Yeah. You know, maybe, who you're called to be, your humanness. And it's not easy because it's easy in the short term to ignore things. But it's like anything else that we ignore in the short term. There's going to be a cost for that.

Yeah. There's a wife to like to be able to hold that for your husband and be able to be there when he is ready to be emotional and, and share some of those scary feelings is really important because I think that's where you can really, help support him in what he needs to discover about his own feelings and his own emotions. And I think that can be scary if you don't feel like you can share that with your wife. If we shared some really intimate details about things with each other that have really opened up and blossomed, a lot of our growth together because we've accepted each other fully, our past, our present. Like we're just always trying to go deeper so that the other feels like they have that safe place to land,

Yeah. Cool. Now, that's one of my canned questions. When you. When we were going back and forth before, before the interview, I saw this initials BJ. I didn't know what it was. I was like, BJ oh, okay, that sounds interesting. But then. Oh, yeah, then I had to look it up. It's Brazilian jiu jitsu, and it sounds like. It's like something that's really important to you guys, or that it's a, it's somehow it's relevant to your story. Like tell me about that. What is what is that? I mean, what is is it for both of you? I mean, is it do both is it just you belly or like, what's the deal there? Like, why is that a thing? Yeah. Why is that? You.

Why is that. Yeah. Really?

I'm not I'm not sure.

I think it's, So, so on. Yeah. On your. You're some of your questions for us, pre-show. We, Yeah. Billy's been involved in Brazilian jiu jitsu for since he was 19. Yeah. And, some of our, our family members have followed suit in the last couple of years. I started when we moved here to Tennessee, and a couple of our kids got involved. And so, but he's got the most bragging rights in, in it, third degree.

Yeah. Third degree black belt.

Okay. But what is it like? And what is the life lesson? What is the oh.

My goodness.

I think that there's a I yeah I happen to believe that there's relational life lessons in all things. Everything. Right. So if you're an artist, you can talk about how art informs your relationship. If you're a if you're a dentist, you can talk about I mean, so I don't yeah. It's just anybody who does.

Jiu jitsu I think is a marshall. It's a, it's a martial art form to think about. If you're familiar with wrestling, it's there's I've looked I've seen.

It on the Instagram. I can look at it, but like, it's a.

Yeah, yeah, it's a grappling art, where, there are, joint manipulations and chokeholds. It's based on the idea that the average self-defense scenario is going to and end up in an engaged scenario, as opposed to you look at like a muay Thai fight or a boxing match, and they're not engaged generally. Right? There's some there's a tie up, but generally they're disengaged and they're striking each other. And that's not really how it looks. When you're walking down the street and you get attacked most likely, they're going to grab you around the waist or they're going to grab you around the neck. And it's designed to be able to combat those attempts, and it's designed for people that aren't necessarily as physically gifted, because it's not really based on strength.

It's based on leverage and technique. And it is one of the weirdest addictions that you'll ever find. I, just, I got addicted the very first time I trained. I was, I don't know, I don't know if you can tell now, but I'm like, I'm this, like, really muscular guy, and, I'm not really, but I'm in good shape and, when I was younger, I was really into weightlifting, and I was more, back to, you would say than than I am now. I was about 195 pounds. And I walked into this, this dojo, if you call it that. And I ended up, they call it rolling, which is like the basically means sparring. And I ended up with this guy. I don't never forget this. This was 26 years ago. And he got on top of me in what's called the mount position, which is essentially you have you're straddling your, your opponent.

He's underneath. And I was strong and I was aggressive, and I had no chance. I could not get out. And literally in that moment, I said to myself, I said, I cannot live. And this might have been my twisted ness. I don't know why I had this thought, but I said, I cannot live knowing that somebody could do that to me, especially somebody that was way smaller than me. That guy was about 145 pounds, and I was just so fascinated by it. I was pushing and I was turning and I was flailing and it was all, to to no avail. And I decided that moment that I was going to learn this. And I have not been able to stop. It's, it's so rewarding. It's, so fulfilling.

The years before by the life lessons, there's so many, it's it's it's physically, beneficial. It's mentally. Think about life. There's going to be challenges. There's going to be things to figure out. And what better way to condition yourself to overcome challenges than with having somebody on your back or on top of you. And you need to figure out what technique to do and how to do it, and the timing to be able to to move forward or get out of a bad position. It, it makes some of the other challenges of life a little more bearable. And maybe not quite as deep. It's just it's like anything else that you do with other people, you know? So for some people, it's tennis or basketball. Whatever it is, it's that, that camaraderie that you develop. You're doing it with other people.

You're sweating together, you're growing together, you're learning together, you're pushing each other. That part has been, has been really great from, from a social standpoint as well. And because I'd be doing it so long now, I'm more, I start off, I was one of the younger guys on the mat now, one of the older guys on the mat, and I get to give back and teach and help with what I've learned. And it's been it's been great.

It's fascinating. Yeah. The other another thing that I don't typically take the bait on, but I, I feel like, not that you have earned the right, but I don't typically take the bait on people telling me about how their relationship is rooted in the Lord and how like they like, but hearing you describe that, like I have long argued, I can speak Christian is like, I, I'm fluent in that area. And I've long argued that I think the most intimate passage in the Bible, most intimate passage in the Bible, is Jacob wrestling with the angel. It's and it seems like a little bit of what you're describing, like there's this grasp and this kind of trying to find leverage and try to find, you know, how to become transformed functionally, you know? And at the end, he's like, all I want is more of this, like, tell me how to do this.

Amen. You know, you know, and you end up with it. Yeah. And you end up with a limp.

You end up with a limp and a new name.

Yeah.

You know, so that is, That is. Yeah. Cool. Do you, do you want to speak a little bit to like, how. What do you mean when you say the secret is like a relationship, this grounded in faith or grounded in the Lord? Like, what is that language for you?

Yeah. Well, Moses the Christian is speaker here, so let her, let her grab that one. Let's see for me. It.

Well, let her grab it.

Okay. Yeah. Go.

My, I grew up in a pastor's home. So I'm well versed in church, and how to serve in church, how to be a part of church, how to do the right thing. Not the wrong thing. I'm a rule follower. You know, all those things. But as I've gotten older and as I've become a wife and a mother, I realize that my faith has to go deeper. Like, I can't just do all the surface things. I can't just constantly serve and feel like, okay, the Lord's blessed me, and now I'm doing the right thing. I feel that I have a hunger for it. I have the hunger for depth in my faith. Ask those really hard questions to kind of sit there and be like, oh, do I really believe this when especially those difficult moments are coming?

I also realize that scripture doesn't always heal in the moment, that it has to be a like rooted thing that you just constantly are digging at, you know, and planting in your life. It's not something that, you know, I can just always say to myself and, oh, I feel better, you know, that we are very human and we all come with stories and history and, and all these things that that challenge, that depth ness with the Lord. But through marriage, in my parenting, I've realized I need to get deeper with the Lord. I need to have that hunger and that desire to be so close to him, because I can't do this other stuff on my own. I can't figure it out. You know, and anytime I ever try and do that, it, you know, it's my own flesh that, you know, sometimes gets it right, but then most of the time it doesn't.

And so when we're having conflict or something, you know, it's really wrestling with the Lord, like, I'm so angry or I'm so sad and I'm grieving this, or I just feel like I'm not getting ahead with this or, you know, and really coming with that rawness, I think has has really deepened that relationship with the Lord and has made me better for my family. I'm certainly nowhere near as we probably all are, where we want to be with the Lord, and they will eventually come. But, I think yeah, I think it's just, getting down through the surface of what all that Christian stuff can be. Yeah.

It it echoes what you guys said at the top of the time, which is it's not, that you don't have a ten because you're there. You have ten because you're confident and that you're getting there, whether you're confident that you can navigate getting there with one another or that you can wrestle together with. Yes. Yeah. The the not being there. Yeah.

Yeah. Actually if if it really was a true ten I would be kind of sad I think because that means that's kind of IVD. Yeah, that's kind of twisted too. But it's like.

I always I mean when people say it, I'm like, brother, I got to do with these ten people again. Like, what is what what aren't they, what truth aren't they telling. Yeah, yeah. You know. Yeah. All right. Okay. We're like, we only have a couple minutes left, but I want to ask you, you wanted me to ask you about your car in New York City. This is a story that is important.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just it's kind of like a testament to, like, where we've come from, at least, like the good storyteller. But. Yeah, I'll do. You're doing my best. But, just kind of where we've grown, I think, it's a good, wrap up to kind of where we are now. I was at the time working in New York City, you know, taking the trains and I from dogs.

I remember, like, first I was like, does this even make sense? But I think, yeah, I think it's perfect.

Yeah. So we like to tell the story, because it also shows the dynamic between men and women and just how differently our brains can be. So, I was working in New York City. He came to pick me up, so that we could travel to new Jersey for, BJJ tournament. And, he came upstairs. I was showing him around the office. We say goodbye to all my colleagues, went downstairs, and we came out the door, and he said, I know. I parked the car right here, and we're walking up and down the street trying to find our car. And if anyone knows New York City, Queens, any of those areas, you can't just park your car anywhere. Sure enough, it had gotten towed.

Yeah, I looked up it, I looked up, and I said, I said, I know it was right here. It was right under that.

This sign that says only sign.

So we stopped and asked the police officer where the the, impound was. But before that, I freaked out and I said, what are we gonna do? Because I'm thinking of the tournament he's got to make it to. I'm thinking, we don't have a car. We're in New York City. How are we going to get their money? And he looks at me and goes, we're going to find your car. And it was just as.

Clear as day for me. I was like, you gotta find out where the car is and go get it.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm all emotional and I want him to tap into that emotion, but he's just like Mr. Practical, like, let's go find our car. So, I think now if something like that happened, I would probably stay calm. He might freak out a little bit. I don't know, because now he's in tune with his emotions. Now, but I think we would just tag team it and get on it and figure it out. And yeah.

We've had a lot of things similar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think their process is like that. We've just learned to, communicate and again, just going back to like the basics and the foundation of what we've learned and how it's it's made us better as a couple.

And if you want to see some funny, crazy stuff, go to a New York City car impound. Goodness. Oh, jeez. Thing. Yeah.

Yeah, it was a fun night. We did make it, though. Yes.

Where were you living at that time? Is this the high income area that you lived in?

Yeah. Long Island, New York. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. My wife grew up in Greenwich. Okay. Yeah, we lived for a couple of years in, in Fairfield County there. But, I understand that scene a little bit. It's wild out here in Seattle and have people talk about the East Coast. I'm like, oh, I want to, because I grew up in Virginia. Okay. So, not quite middle Tennessee, but I get that part ish of the country, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you guys are super fun. I love talking to you and hearing about your perspective, point of view, how you made it. We didn't even get into most of my, like, pre-planned questions, but those are my favorite interviews. Yeah. So thanks for coming on and sharing your story. And if, if, if people want to, like, know more about you or learn more about you or be like, ask you questions, what should they do? How should they should they want to find you? Can can they find out about like do you want to.

Well, is it Melissa? Is, she's an influencer. So, really easy to find.

Okay.

Who does? She makes her own rules.

I do, I do have my own, little Instagram account, but I don't. I'm not. I'm by no means an influencer. He's the.

Yeah, that's like. Yeah, yeah. So I'll just mention a couple things. If, they're just connecting, like, hey, I really wanted to check in about some of the things you talked about or whatever. It's, Instagram, or LinkedIn or Facebook. It's just Billy Huffaker for me. And. Yeah, I work as a as a, call it, profit coach, so help businesses become more profitable and have a website called Your Fitness Money coach.com. If that's, resonates with anybody, I do. I also do some, some marital, coaching on the financial side. So that's, something that could be of interest and. Yeah, that should be good. And I have a podcast called Your Fitness Money Coach Podcast. If you happen to be listening and you happen to be a service based business, I think you'll enjoy it.

I talk a lot about, just, you know, growing healthfully, paying yourself more, reducing your stress around money and just a lot of personal growth type stuff. Cool, awesome. Yeah.

Thanks, guys.

Yeah. Thank you.

Zach. Appreciate it.

Can you will you show us how you share three feelings.

Yeah. Oh yeah we do. We don't do it live right now. Yeah. Let's do it. Let me just give me 30s just to write down, like, three feelings, yesterday or today. Because usually we do it. I could end of the day today it's only 1145. Yeah. This is perfect. Yeah. Let me just give you you give me 30s. Okay. Cool.

Dude, dude, I can talk. But to say this part. Actually, I should have said this earlier because I. I called you the main character with. But I don't think we captured on tape where you, how you said, well, he's got main character energy.

Yeah. I'll tell you. My, our oldest, she's 14, and she bought him a mug for Christmas that says main Character energy.

I love it.

So I love.

It.

Yeah. He's the baby in the in his family. I'm like the middle child. So, yeah, we have interesting dynamics sometimes.

I got to, I could do this, this whole thing. Right. All right. So actually, this is funny. This is interesting because my struggle has always been tapping into the negative. Right. And now and I'm as I'm doing my 32nd exercise here, my first, my two that I have are negative. So, this will be podcast. Yeah. Okay. Cool. All right. Awesome. Do you, do you do you do that because there is a little bit of explaining about it. Do you want me to do that or is that take away from what you want to do?

I just explain it. Well edited it okay.

Okay. All right. So yeah we do this three feelings exercise. It's really simple. We actually learned it, from the, the guy who wrote the five Love languages, Gary Chapman, I believe. And it's a simple way to enhance communication. The thing that it's not, I think is important to understand is that it's not meant to be deep. It's unlike where I talked about the need a knee that is the opposite of this, where it's all about deeper connection. This is more about to staying in the groove of practicing sharing feelings. It's actually beneficial for the person as they're going throughout their day, especially if you're like me and you have trouble tapping into those feelings, you could notice them.

And what I do actually is I write them down. So I have a planner that I take with me throughout the day and something happens. I write down the thing and then I'm triggered. So later on when we're doing this exercise, because I have a hard time thinking back, as you can see from what I just did. So that helps me. So. Okay, I'll go first. Yeah, I, as you know, I overslept today, and I don't like that. So I felt, frazzled and frustrated, being late to jitsu and starting the day off. Not how I want to start the day. So, yeah, I was I was frustrated.

Yeah, that is frustrating. And I can totally see where you felt frazzled when you got up. My first one would be I felt sad last night and disappointed when I couldn't get to bed at the same time as you, because I had to deal with the baby. And then she woke up, like, after only a half hour, and I ended up having to go sleep on the couch with her. So, yeah, disappointed that we couldn't have more of a together night and just being able to go to bed at the same time. And she needed my my assistance. Yeah.

I can definitely I could definitely see that. Yeah, I had, a call today. And it was with, a woman who I was so excited to work with, because we connected. And I feel like what I do is exactly what she needs. I was so excited because I thought we were going to move forward to work together, and she wants to think about it. So, yeah, I was, I was disappointed, not necessarily because of the money, but, because I was genuinely excited to work with her. And, yeah, I'm hoping that it's still, we still move forward.

Yeah. It's disappointing when they don't sign up. So. But, yeah, hopefully she'll move forward with you. My second one is, I'm feeling excited about the school year. As you know, the kids and I sat down and kind of made a plan and got really focused about how we want the year to look like. So I'm feeling really optimistic and excited about, what we have ahead of us.

Awesome. I'm excited for you guys. Well, I was on a podcast today with you, and, we talked to this guy named, Zach. Zach Brittle, marriage therapy radio and it is like an awesome vodcast. I'm so excited about it. I felt grateful and excited, for people to be hopefully encouraged by our message. I'm going to do a little cheat here. I'm excited, and grateful. And I'm nervous. I hope, I didn't come across like I have everything together because I don't. And I guess part of me is worried that people will, kind of hear the messaging wrong. But overall, I'm really excited.

Yeah, it is exciting. And, hopefully people can get some really good things out of it, but also see, another couple that's just kind of in the same, same sphere is them and working through things. My last one is, I was really thankful that I was able to get out of the house, find myself on time. No major issues. Everything went really smooth getting out of the house, leaving the kids. And, So I'm really thankful to be able to to do that today.

Awesome job.

That was amazing. Thank you so much.

That's fine. And now and now you can check that off. We don't have to do it today.

Yeah, right. Right. Congratulations.