Rosanna
Hello, and welcome to Episode Two of the relentless pursuit podcast. Today’s episode title is called everything is an investment. If you’ve read or heard the title of this podcast episode, we might have you thinking this that this conversation is all about financial investments or planning for retirement. So if you were hoping to hear the secrets of investing in the stock market or real estate, you’re not going to find him here.

Jordan
No, not us.

Rosanna
Have you ever noticed though, that you’re always investing your time and your energy into something? Think about your days. What are they filled with from your career and your hobbies to your networks in your communities. Everything you say yes to and are a part of is an investment. It’s an investment of your time, of your energy and of your resources. If you have to make sure that the things you choose to allocate your time and resources to are indeed the right things. So let’s talk about how to invest in your life and not just in your portfolio.

Jordan
What’s wrong?

Rosanna
Just tripping over my words a little bit today.

Jordan
I remember being I don’t know if you remember this, but I remember when we were newly married, I’d go over the monthly budget. And I would just be like sweating over how much we were saved or how much we weren’t saving and how much we were spending and I wanted to just kind of accumulate this little pool to eventually like, invest in something and then I slowly learned about investing and the fact that like, once you have some sort of a resource, you can, like allocate that so that it grows in some kind of way. And I wished I’d learned a lot of those lessons financially speaking when I was even younger, but I feel like after I understood money in that way, everything else started taking on the same sort of you know, like metaphorical significance. There are so many resources that we have beyond money. And we’re constantly investing those kinds of things. So I heard something interesting not too long ago, that we we all have time and time is one of the biggest things we’ll be talking about today. But do you know how long 1 million seconds is?

Rosanna
No, I was an English major. I do not know how long 1 million seconds is.

Jordan
1 million seconds is about 11 and a half days. So do you know how long 1 billion seconds is?

Rosanna
I do not.

Jordan
To put in perspective, the difference between a million and a billion a billion seconds is almost 32 years. Okay. So one thing that got me thinking is I heard someone talking about our time, according to the number of seconds that we have, and in a sense, we’re all time billionaires. We have we hope, at least 1 billion seconds ahead of us that we can invest. So if we thought of those seconds like dollars, how would we invest them or spend them wisely versus foolishly? And so I think the thing that hit me and this is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this, like so early in the podcast is that we are going to invest in something we’re going to be spending these time dollars that we have in something, whether we want to or not. And I think it’s wise to make sure that we are investing in the right things. So we’re going to be spending our time and energy to what are the best ways to allocate those resources that lead to the kind of growth and outcomes that we would like?

Rosanna
That’s, um, that’s a pretty intense way to look at your life. I mean, if you’re looking at seconds as dollars, right, so we’ve already we’ve already gone through a billion.

Jordan
We flew past our first billion

Rosanna
Seconds, right? And so we’ve got like, how many more 2 billion, 3 billion more seconds left? So how are we going to use this time, that time moving forward to invest in the right things?

That’s a lot to chew on.

Jordan
It’s a lot to think about few thoughts to get started.

Rosanna
Yeah.

So when we were coming up with the idea for this podcast and everything being an investment, it was my job to kind of research some interesting investing statistics. And so when you look at statistics and investing, there’s not all of these articles about time investments or you know, investing your time wisely. So I’m going to utilize investment statistics and kind of show how those could translate into the investment of our time in our lives have what we want to kind of create moving forward. And so one of them has to do with kind of like retirement savings. And it says if you do not start saving until 45, you will need to save three times as much as if you start at 25. And so I remember being married. We got married, how old are we? We were 23. So we were young when we got married. And I remember we were married just like a year or two. And like you had a very strategic saving plan. And then you were getting information on like life insurance, and then IRAs.

Jordan
And at that time, like, we should have been doing this sooner.

Rosanna
Yes, I knew at that point, you were like, we should, yeah, we should have been doing this sooner. And then you kind of had me panicked. And I’m thinking, I don’t want to use the money I have now to prepare for something later. And it took a long time to shift to that. But if you look at it strategically, in terms of investing in savings, right, if you start saving at 45, like how much more time are you trying to make up for when you get there. And so I know that’s something that you and I have been talking a lot about, is that we want one of the things that we’ve chosen to invest in is each other. And so investing in each other means when our kids are grown and out of the house at some point we want to still like love each other and adore each other and admire each other and the…

Jordan
fruits of those investments…

Rosanna
…right but we can’t put our kids in front of that and ignore each other until then, and then hope when we’re 65 and everybody’s out of the house that we’ll still know each other, love each other, understand each other and move forward, we would have to backtrack to kind of like, build into that. So when I was thinking of investing, and starting now, and we’ve talked a lot about investing in our relationship from early on, but it always has to be a priority and that it always has to be important. So that was kind of one of the kind of like, light bulbs that went off and kind of the wake up calls, like maybe we are making the right decision that our kids are important to us and they’re amazing and wonderful, and we do as much as we can with them and for them. But we also want to prioritize each other. So that was kind of one thought I had another thought I had had to do with another investing statistic and it said this, on average women invest more conservatively than men. I thought that was interesting. I’ve been talking to a few other ladies about kind of just the role of women in shifting and wanting to be out of the house, but also wanting to be a mother. That’s a financial statistic. But financial statistics in our analogy, but within the analogy of investments, right, like, women do need to invest in themselves and not conservatively, like we need to, like better ourselves, whether it’s health, wellness, personal growth, development, learning, like I think sometimes women, although we do those things, we do it in very small increments, because we’re maybe a little more. Yeah, we’re just kind of maybe risk, what do you call risk adverse, where we kind of want to control everything. And so we don’t take the risk to invest bigger in ourselves. And so I think that maybe has some implications for kind of the now and investing in yourself.

Jordan
Yeah, maybe I’m more conservative. It just is more conservative in like certain arenas of life.

Rosanna
Right. Okay. Yeah.

And then the third statistic I thought would be interesting to bring up now, as we’re kind of all dealing with kind of like this question. COVID-19 and worldwide pandemic, “it says the greatest returns seem to be when most people expect the biggest losses.” So it says the greatest three year period of owning stocks was during the Great Depression. And the next best return was in the three years starting in 2009. When the economy struggled…

Jordan
It goes down, then there’s a rebound.

Rosanna
There’s a rebound. And so it’s during those times when things are bad, that investment needs to be greater. So if you’re investing at that time, then as things rebound, there’s more kind of like fruit from it. And so I think that has to do with all of our lives now, because I think a lot of people have put their life on pause, or are just waiting for this to be over, right, they’ve kind of like waved the flag. They’re not in their normal routines, they’re not hitting it as hard as they should in multiple arenas in their life, waiting for it to be over. But this is the time that we kind of like dig in.

Jordan
When you make the investment and you’ll see you’re gonna see greater rewards from that after this is all over.

Rosanna
So those were some of the statistics about investing. They got me thinking about how we’re investing in our lives now.

Jordan
Their time and energy because I don’t think it works a lot different. I think that you make those kinds of investments with your time and energy and your talents and in different arenas, and there’s dividends that you’ll reap as you go and eventual outcomes that you’ll get to that I think are worth the time that you put into it.

Rosanna
Agreed. So although it’s not a podcast about investing in your portfolio, some of those same truths and kind of investing tactics, I think can be applied to how we’re investing the time in our lives towards what we want and what we’re pursuing.

Jordan
Okay. All right. Well, let’s get into some of our questions then. And I’ll fire off first with a question for you that I think will be maybe just a good place to start and applicable to most folks listening and that is what would you consider to be your biggest investments?

Rosanna
I think right now the biggest investment would be our kids.

They’re one of those slow growing investments where it’s just, it’s every day, day after day, over time where we only have so many minutes with them.

Jordan
And you could like I know, like people have done the math, you can add up the number of minutes from the time they’re born till the time they they turn 18 or whatever age they end up, you know, become an adult and moving out and truly being on their own. And it is scary. It is a finite number of minutes that you have with them.

Rosanna
Yeah, I think I’ve seen it in hours. And I forget, like how many hours it is you have with your child before they like turn 18 and go off to college if they choose that path. And when you look at it like that, and you’re kind of like we were talking about in our last episode, like, you know, waiting, you want to fast forward through all of this to get past that you think wow, there’s there’s only so many precious minutes and hours and we can’t wish them away that we need to make that investment now so that when they’re 18 they’re responsible and they’re self sufficient, and they have good hearts and they’re, they’re doing good for the world. So I think that’s especially as a mom I think that’s one of my biggest investments, even if I’m running a business, or if I have other priorities, like, they’re my biggest investment, what I do with them and for them is where we’re going to see those returns. And those are long ways off.

Jordan
Sometimes it doesn’t always feel like we’re getting what we thought we were, I know out of the the investment so to speak. But we know like the the time and energy that we pour into those relationships and those the things that we try to teach them go a long way towards who they actually become. So I would, I would, I would say the same thing to that parenting is the biggest investment. But also it struck me too, like it’s, it’s a it’s a commitment. I mean, you could you could have kids but not be investing in them in theory, right?

Rosanna
Sure, you could, you could outsource your investment,

Jordan
Right. So we’ve kind of like we’ve not only committed to starting that investment, but also committed to maintain continuing to contribute to it as we go.

Rosanna
Well I think contributing makes it sound like the savings plan we have set aside for them for college we’re like monthly you contribute just like a donation into the pile. But we’re we’re doing more than that with when you talk about investing in your kids were cultivating something there. And the image that comes to mind if we are committed to our families and to raising our kids is we’re cultivating It reminds me of when I go out front and dig out the weeds. You’re like cultivating the yard you’re cultivating the soil you’re cultivating the garden right? You’re like you’re digging through the soil you’re taking out what’s bad you’re putting in what’s good. You’re constantly pouring water.

Jordan
One of my favorite analogies for life is the garden and so we don’t get too many analogies at once. We should do I go episode our favorite metaphors for life. Here we go. But I agree like trying to yeah, like take out or literally like weed out the bad and help something beautiful blossom over time.

Rosanna
Yeah, I mean that’s that’s like a I mean, it’s an investment. But it’s it’s a hand all hands on deck investment, like you’re rolling up your sleeves and you’re getting dirty, as opposed to just, you know, you’re like a contribution that you’re just putting pennies in the bank and watching them grow. This is very different.

Jordan
All right, so what what are your other big investments?

Rosanna
Gosh, I don’t know that I’ve…

Jordan
What are some of your biggest investments and it doesn’t have to be all now like even over time, like I would consider education to be an investment and we’ve talked to a lot of youth currently in their education. And looking at how the whole point of education is not so you can complete an assignment and get a grade but that’s to like use your word cultivates to cultivate your mind and your understanding of the world, your ability to think so that years and years down the road, you have a foundation of using your mind well so that you can use it in new arenas and new ways and continue to learn.

Rosanna
But I think that for me like that That almost seems like a newer mindset like growing up as a kid I don’t remember like education being talked about in that way that you’re, you’re learning this you’re cultivating your mind so that at some point, you can use that to contribute in this way. You know, it was more of like a means to an end like this is what you do. This is what you learn. This is your kid, you go to school, right? You go to school that’s supposed to do what you’re supposed to learn. You’re supposed to then go to high school, and then maybe college and then and then get a job. Where I feel like now the shift is a little bit more of like, this mindset of Yes, you’re, you’re cultivating who you are, you’re investing your time and your education and your knowledge to become anything you want to be. Yeah, so it’s a little bit different.

Jordan
I think it’s different to I mean, when you’re a kid, you just kind of have to go and that’s the story that’s outlined for you and you follow along with it. But once you don’t have to be in school anymore, you realize the real value that you do get out of it. And many people do choose to continue with their schooling in order to find some way to get educated in some new arena that’s interesting to them.

Rosanna
Well, on that same question you asked, What else are you investing in? And I think one thing for us that’s been important is investing in our community. Where we live about a year ago, we moved, and we moved from the town we live in to the town we live in, we like eight blocks away. We had lived in this town for nine years. And we felt very well rooted and planted here. The connections that we made, were very important to us. And it made us not want to move and so and I think that has to do with the investment of like, who we are, and what we’ve done within the surrounding community that was important to us.

Jordan
I’d say like all relationships are an investment and we we’ve put our roots down in this town. And same with our children as well, like they have their own connections. So it’s difficult to difficult for us to just uproot and feel like you’re starting afresh somewhere else, but I feel like at least I can learn a lot from you but just continued to, like maybe invest more intentionally then not just in like relationships or friendships but like in the community. I feel like I can give more than maybe what I’ve had the mindset for over the last several years.

Rosanna
Like, how do you mean exactly?

Jordan
Even I think of our neighbors on our streets, I feel like I can be just more cognizant of who they are and having intentional connections with them. Giving to our community like I’ve coached the soccer team a handful of times, and I think that’s a cute and appropriate way of like having some connections beyond just our immediate household or our street and like I would see it as something like that where if I have something that I can give to my community, and I think of community like the town, then I would like to find ways to contribute whether it’s through donations or volunteering or just to stay issue more connections or, you know, anything along those lines.

Rosanna
Yeah, and I think those are the things that people maybe often miss when someone is having a food drive. You know, it’s, it’s easy to just kind of pass by that sign. But like if you know that you’re feeding other people in your neighborhood who don’t have those resources, like, that’s a way to show up, to be present to invest in the area that you live in to take care of others who, you know, can’t, even with me, being registered in the local Bloomingdale Chamber of Commerce, you know, connecting with other business owners in the area, seeing what they’re doing, supporting one another has has been eye opening for me, whereas you can live here, but if you think about the businesses within the confines of the local town and the community and what they do for the community, and with each other, it’s it’s interesting to see that, you know, unfold.

Jordan
And so I have another question too. And I think it’s your turn, but I’m going to take it.

Rosanna
That’s fine.

Jordan
I have a few interesting questions I’ve been thinking about ever wanted to ask you, so I’ll go with this one because I don’t want to miss it. At our first episode we talked about these are the days and the focus was of contentment and focus on the present moment. So there’s a bit of an irony that our second episode is talking about investment, which I think by its nature is putting time and energy into something now that has its fruits and pay off later on down the road. So how do we strike that balance between finding contentment and the focus the “these are the days” mentality versus the everything is an investment and we’re looking towards the future kind of approach?

Rosanna
Well, if we go back to the billions of seconds that we have, right, there’s, within a day we have 24 hours, we often say that there’s not enough hours in a day. Now that things have slowed down there seems to be plenty of hours in the day. So I think it has to do with prioritizing, so you know, kind of chunking your day where there’s there’s hours allocated to our kids and enjoying them and living in the moment and being carefree. But you know, today you can plan for tomorrow to step outside of yourself and your immediate needs and your wants, and doing something for someone else, right? And we can do that by getting the kids on board and doing something for our neighbors with them. You know, kind of just you can you can enjoy what you have and be content, but you can also be forward focused and minded. I think there’s time for all of it. As long as we’re strategic about it, and I think that’s the biggest thing is being strategic with an investment, it would be the same. It’s being strategic, knowing when to allocate time and funds and efforts towards putting more in you can’t always but there are times that will allow you to do that and you have to take…

Jordan
A lot of people do that like at the end of the year they’ll they’ll rebalance their portfolio. And maybe that’s something that some sort of a basis, some sort of a timeline, there’s this sort of rebalancing this question, you know, if Am I doing everything it’s do, am I investing towards my values, and making adjustments if need be.

Rosanna
Well and you and I do that every year, we either do it at the end of December beginning of January, where we look at our lives kind of where we are financially as a family, what our goals are, and we try and realign those things with where are we going to allocate our time, our intentions, our interests, our you know, our, our giving, like, where are we going to put those things? And I think that’s something that couples, families, individuals have to cultivate this mindset of stepping back, kind of putting it all in front of you looking at it, and then being intentional about where you’re gonna where you’re going to be.

Jordan
You got a question?

Rosanna
I’ve got a question.

Well, I’ve got three. I’ll start with one.

This I think this has been really important to me in the last couple of years. But I want to get your take on it. How important how important is it to invest in yourself? If there was a top five list, how important to you do you think it is for to invest in yourself?

Jordan
I mean, I think you have to. To me that that makes the investments that you put towards everything else that much more valuable as well. I mean, there’s a lot of different areas in yourself that could be included I was thinking about even just your your health is an investment in a way that’s maybe the only thing you can ever invest in that could increase the number of the amount of time that you have, you know. Remember my dad told me before my resist, but he told me when he was trying to teach me as a kid how to eat healthy and I wanted nothing to do with it. He told me it’s like your health is like putting money in the bank. And it that has sunk in with me over the years, as I’ve finally understood, like I probably should eat vegetables and exercise and sleep and do things that create a healthy life and I think that that is an easy foundation to look to, that allows me to have the health that I want to have to be able to give the time and energy to other things, I would consider education to be another area of investment in yourself. And there’s probably other domains that we could look at too, like recreation, and hobbies and skill development, like any of those other things that are really focused on yourself and make your own life into living and thinking better, but can also make you a better parent or a better spouse or a better colleague, or you know, better in all kinds of domains.

Rosanna
And I think as life gets busy, and you know, we’re pressed for time, I think that might be something that’s overlooked this first one, that’s the first one that goes right, like, I’ve got to deal with this at work, or my kids need me here or I’ve made this commitment to the community or I have so we don’t take care of ourselves or we’re not investing in long term health for ourselves, which you know, brings kind of like stress and being tired and you know, not feeling well which does not Put, you know, make us at our best. And so I would agree that it’s investing in yourself is important. And sometimes we forget to do that. And I think there are seasons that that happens. Like when you’re starting a family and kids are small, it’s sometimes that goes by the wayside. And then we kind of, you know, muster the strength that kids are a little bit older, we can balance a little bit more. But I think it’s something long term if you’re, you know, single or recently married, it’s something that you have to continue to do.

Jordan
Yeah. So going off of that, and also referring back to one of the stats that you had found was, is it ever too late to start an investment? So like you said, when you’re 45, like financially have to contribute three times as much as when you’re 25 to I’m assuming that was like a retirement funding or something like that. So in the same vein, like is it ever appropriate for someone to say like, I’m too old, really my prime for investing in this area or that area of my life has passed?

Rosanna
I would say no, because like an investment like where you can’t really rewards until you know, 30 or 40 years later, right? Like whether it’s a rental property or portfolio, that’s a long term investment. There are other things that are that are shorter term. And it just reminds me of a quote that says it’s never too late to be who you want to be. You can start now, like, and I think that’s a great way to look at it. Like, okay, I maybe I won’t be a concert pianist ever, but why should that stop me from learning to play the piano if I want to play the piano?

Jordan
What about a bad? Is there any such thing as a bad investment?

Because I was thinking about that tonight. Like, I think about even the bad times are the mistakes are the things that I’ve regretted, you know, there’s a lesson to be learned from it. And I feel like that in itself is a good outcome. And we can learn from even a negative experience.

Rosanna
Well, I don’t think we would willingly go into something thinking I’m going to start this relationship with the hope that it fails so that I have a great experience someday to you know, to tell you about. I don’t think like that’s the, you know, in that way, that would be a bad investment, right? Like, I’m gonna enter into this relationship or try this that I know will be bad. But I don’t think I think we always need to take there needs to be a sense of risk too, that not everything that we do is going to be safe or comfortable. I think it has more to do with, like the trying and learning from it. And so even if it doesn’t turn out the way that we hoped, or you know, you know, kind of like, here’s another one baking, right, like we follow the recipe, we hope it turns out well, and then it’s, you know, like a Pinterest fail that you take a picture of and send to your friend. You know, we don’t hope for that. But the intention is to go in to learn something to do something to master something, you know, to make something and sometimes it doesn’t work out and that’s okay.

Jordan
Yeah, I think that’s that as I looked at experiences, I know there’s plenty of bad ones in our past, but at least we’re able to glean a lesson from it and make the future choices that will make stronger so in that way, there is a positive outcome from the investment.

Rosanna
Do you have another question for me?

Jordan
I got a bunch.

Rosanna
Oh, go ahead. Can I get a little nervous? cuz sometimes they’re so deep and then you want me to answer him on the spot? I’m not sure. Yeah, how to answer.

Jordan
Yeah, I do like this putting you on the spot. You’ve heard the phrase diversifying investments? Is it better to like diversify your investments can spread your time and energy over a number of areas? Or is it better to have a more narrow focus?

Rosanna
I mean, is there a wrong answer? I mean, I have an answer. And mine would be to have a smaller focus. And this is just based on like me in the last 10 years and what I’ve tried where I’ve had my hand in probably two dozen things, and I think sometimes long term that’s hard to maintain and it’s hard to manage. And really the only one that suffers is me because I’m giving of myself to too many different things. So like this last year, I did like an assessment of like, what are the most important things to me, and really digging in deep to those things, and not that I’ve shut myself off to other opportunities or to other people or relationships, it’s just there are a finite number of minutes and seconds and time. And so those priorities that need the most cultivation and the most investment like I need to be more focused with, especially at this time. I might be able to open myself up to more later or to change the focus or the scope

Jordan
Like parenting is time sensitive. Your kids are gonna grow up one way or another, but maybe it’s good to look at like, after when you’re in the empty nester phase is a great opportunity to change your investment, you have more time available now to put towards something else.

Rosanna
Right, the traveling is gonna happen then it’s a whole lot of traveling. I mean, we still go places with the kids, but the traveling that I picture in my mind isn’t going to happen in our 30s and 40s. So it’s just knowing that like, I will get to some of those things or be able to like be deeper into those things later on. So let’s Let me focus on and you know, A through F right now. But I think every year I also reassess like, like what has shifted. If my business shifts a little bit like what how do I refocus that towards like new investments of growing it one way or another, even with relationships with people those you know change over time and and what does this relationship need? So I think it just, you know, life living in the moment and like letting things come to you to like just the way that life kind of happens then kind of shifts kind of where you prioritize those investments.

Jordan
Well, I have a bunch more questions here. But I do want to get to some of our takeaways as well. And I know like these, these conversations always lead me to think a little bit more precisely, maybe just a little bit more accurately about some of the best ways that we can live and make these decisions together. So I’m sure we’ll be talking about this a bunch even after we press the stop button on the recording. But for me, like the biggest takeaway in talking about this is recognizing first like, just realizing and remembering that there is a finite number of minutes and seconds and of energy that we can put towards things. So being intentional with how we are expending that is something that definitely comes to the forefront of my mind. But I think what also comes to my mind too, is that I can’t almost like the opposite of some of where our conversation has gone. I, there’s a lot of pressure when we think about how, what we’re investing in what we’re not investing at this moment. And I think it’s good to to, at least for me, like take my foot off the accelerator, and enjoy the things that we are have already invested in that are like we’re right in the midst of the fruit of you know what I’m saying? So instead of thinking I have to be producing something or I have to be learning something and you know, that’s one of my, one of my problems is I feel like if I if I’m not making something or improving in some way then I’m just wasting my time. But I think that that’s that’s not the case either. That’s not that I’m encouraging wasting time or I want to get better at that. But I do want to get better at enjoying the things in life that don’t lead to an obvious, like, you know, quantitative outcome.

Rosanna
Yeah. And I think you know, one of the things to remember too is there are good ways to invest your time and what’s good for you isn’t necessarily good for me. And what’s good for us isn’t necessarily great for another family. So it’s really just that intentional, stepping back and assessing like, Where are our strengths? Where do we wanna, like put our time or energy and effort to choosing those things, and then to being consistent because I think it really comes down to consistency.

Jordan
Yeah. So it makes a solid investment is like believing in it and then pouring that resource into it more, so it grows. Great. Well, we’re glad you all could join us for this second episode of relentless pursuit. Now if you haven’t yet, please check out our website. It is at the relentless pursuit podcast calm and you can find some ways to give us some feedback and to reach out to us there. And please, if you haven’t subscribed, subscribe to our podcast and leave us a five-star rating and a raving review. love to hear from you. We’re looking forward to sharing more episodes with you in the future.

Rosanna
Thanks, guys. See you later.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jordan
Welcome to our very first relentless pursuit podcast episode. We’re really excited about what we have to bring to you through this podcast. And we’re excited to have some conversations with each other and share those with you guys. So…

Rosanna
a little excited, a lot scared. So bear with us as we kind of work through this in the format and what we’re recording. We’re at home alone without our kids for the first time in 10 weeks of quarantine, and we’re trying to get this done in our home so it’s a little bit more organic and kind of just reflects who we are and what we stand for. But usually it’s a whole lot louder around here.

Jordan
Yeah. So we’re having some fun with this right now. For today’s format for the episode as well as many others down the road, Rosanna and I have a topic that we discussed the topic in advance. But then we have is our own set of questions that we are going to be asking one another to try to kind of tease out some of our best insights about that topic and hopefully have some takeaways that we can apply ourselves and strengthen our relationship and strengthen our whole approach to life here. So I hope you didn’t peek at my questions beforehand, I know, I had them out.

Rosanna
I did not peek at your questions. I nearly moved the furniture.

Jordan
I want to have some of the same questions. That would say a lot. So this week, we’re talking about a phrase that’s been very near and dear to us over the past few years. That phrase is these are the days and we say this to one another as a way of sort of grounding us in the present, and sometimes even in our most frustrating moments we might yell to one another, “These are the days.”

Rosanna
And that happened this morning. Believe it or not, I had just finished a workout. Kids were in the kitchen buzzing around. He was upstairs trying to work and to not totally lose my mind, I literally shouted,

“Babe, these are the days!” And he came running down because he thought something was wrong because he didn’t hear exactly what I said. He just heard someone else, babe. And it was like that reminder, like, we’re in it. These are the days.

Jordan
So we’ve used that phrase quite a bit. And it has helped us remember that, at least after this time of life, whatever the challenges and frustrations are that we’re going to look back on it and probably, hopefully, say another that these were the days.

Rosanna
So there’s, he said that this was very near and dear to our hearts. And so much so that there is a framed print in our kitchen. It’s on the wall that I walk by at least 30 times a day. And it says these are the days and it was a gift from Jordan and two of my closest friends after they threw me like a 37th birthday celebration this past November. And the celebration kind of followed that theme,

Jordan
Big milestone – 37.

Rosanna
37 big milestone that that moment you realize, oh boy, 40 is around the corner. But my husband who is I think morally opposed to themed events actually had a theme for my party. And it was, these are the days so he invited six other couples that we knew to the house for dinner party in honor of my birthday with the purpose of celebrating me but also with sharing from their life, their experiences, their backgrounds, what, what it means to kind of cherish the time that I have now and how I can best like utilize who I am and my gifts to like to really like, dive in. And like there was ever a point to like, stand and applaud my husband, it was like this moment that he invited all of these different people and for most of them, their only connection was me. Most of them didn’t know each other or you know weren’t good. And we connected a lot of people, but it was all about them being able to give me advice on how we can cherish these times. And so I think it was brilliant because we are so busy living our lives. we’re so busy raising our kids, digging into our career, starting careers, changing careers, you know, volunteering, and then sometimes we get lost, we get lost in the hustle from one thing to the next, the laundry, the groceries, baseball, soccer, sports that we make the mistake of missing what these days really are. And for me, I feel like these are the days I wished for at one point in my earlier life, like you wish to find the man of your dreams and spend your life with him. Check. You want kids right? You want it you want a whole gaggle of them. We have four so you know, check, check, check, check, check. You know, the minivan all of the things, and then you have them and you’re in it and you’re like,

Jordan
Minivan, really?

Rosanna
I mean, maybe minivan wasn’t on my list, but it’s probably not out Right, not on everybody’s list either. But you know, a career, a husband, a house, kids, you know all of it, and then you get it. And then you’re kind of like knee deep in the trenches, and the kids are crying, and this one needs help with this. And, and work is hard, and families get complicated. And then we kind of miss living in those moments. So…

Jordan
You know, it makes me think of remember that time we went to one of the restaurants over here, and there was that old couple, and they’re like, Oh, we had four kids, too, these are really special times. And that’s at the same time, they were like flinging food at each other and one of them was running off and it’s a little like fun, but frustrating at that moment, but they I mean, I think they embodied that kind of concept. Like those really were like charming days that they look back fondly on.

Rosanna
And and i think that’s that’s part of what this topic is about today is that sometimes it’s not until we’re you know, hindsight is 2020. So it’s not until we’re out of those days that when we look back, we finally remember like what those days really were about instead of getting caught up in So particular of the logistics of the day.

Jordan
So one quote that came to my mind when I was kind of thinking through this and I’ve thought about this before, too, is I’m gonna paraphrase John Lennon, but he said, one of his songs life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. And I feel like that is true. And that can be a trap at times because that we spent so much time setting goals and aspiring towards those things and always looking towards the future. You don’t realize that life is what’s happening moment by moment by moment and it’s good to be thinking about the future make plans, but are we really like focused on what we have at the moment as well too, because chances are pretty good that we’re gonna miss many of those moments when they’re past us.

Rosanna
We’re gonna miss those moments when they’re past us. Because sometimes living in those moments is hard. There’s so many there’s so many good things. Right it, today is May 13 2020. So if you’re like us, which I think everybody is like us, you’ve been at home in quarantine for nine weeks now. Right? Kids have been home elearning these are the days guys like, these are them right now. And we’re all there. So it’s, you know, how do you how do you dig in, even when you don’t want to?

Jordan
So I’ve heard a, quarantine aside, I’ve heard that there are folks were certain times of life like things kind of pick up. And I feel like we’re at that point where our family life has definitely picked up where we’ve got, you know, four young kids, and they all you know, just parenting requires like time and dedication, on top of career picking up as well. And you know, we’re kind of at the prime in terms of health and skills and there’s just a lot of busyness that takes place where it’s difficult to feel like you’re really being committed to doing any one of those things very well. And I think we each have to like some of those different times of life so it is difficult to like to pause and to appreciate. And I almost feel like remember like when George Costanza on Seinfeld would say “Serenity now!”, or I don’t know if it was his dad or whoever that was, would scream that to try to add a sense of calm to the moment. I feel like sometimes this phrase can be that for us, too. “These are the days,” trying to reassure ourselves like, hey, there’s some good in this if we can at least change our perspective on it a little bit. Well, the stresses are frustrations.

Rosanna
Yeah. And the name. So the name of our podcast is relentless pursuit. I think Jordan and I just the kind of people that we have always been, we’ve always like to take on new things. So you know, we both have jobs, that we have other passions and goals and projects that we want to pursue. And I’m guilty of this in a good way. And so Jordan, and I usually tell him like you can do anything. You can’t just do all the things all the time. But like the whole point of relentless pursuit Is that him and I are constantly pursuing one another That our marriage is something that’s important to us that we put time and effort into, that we’re, you know, even pursuing relationships with our kids with our friends. We’re working on building things, trying different things, taking chances. And so sometimes, you know, when you think of these are the days it’s, you know, you want to utilize all of those like skills and all of those passions, like now is the time to do that. Now is not the time to slow down. Now is the time to pour into all of the things that you want to try. But it’s also that balance of like finding the appreciation for all of those things, and being cognizant that they, they all are important and they all can fit.

Jordan
Alright, so I have some questions here. Do you want to go first?

Rosanna
No, go ahead. Go ahead.

Jordan
All right. I gotta pick a good one. I’m sure I think you answered one already. Okay. Well, we’ll skip that one. All right. So here’s maybe the biggest question so we tell ourselves, these are the days because we sense that there is something to appreciate about this moment. And once it’s gone, we’ll look back fondly on it. But what do you think the biggest obstacles are to appreciating those moments while we’re in them?

Rosanna
I think sometimes maybe for us, the obstacles are our needs and our wants and our level of productivity, where we’re where we want to accomplish. We have certain goals, like whether it’s in real estate or in, like personal business that we want to achieve. So we’re constantly working towards those. But although that’s one domain in our life, another domain in our life is our family and our kids. And so sometimes those two things are at odds that our kids need us want us right the we’re at the stage where our kids still love us, and want want to play with us and want to spend time with us. And even sometimes when we kind of put a restriction where Mommy needs to work now and then after we can do this or dad has this to take care of then we can play when those things are at odds I think sometimes that’s when we we don’t cherish those moments and that’s when these days seem harder than they are. It’s because what we want and what we have are at odds.

Jordan
And also say when things don’t go according to plan to, because then I feel more frustrated by the day rather than feeling like I nailed it. Like I would love to be a great you know, fill in the blank, I get whatever I’m working on, or dedicating time towards any particular day. But once any one of those is thrown off, then I feel like maybe the day wasn’t solid should have been. And I just want to get past this day get on to the next one. This isn’t the day.

Rosanna
Well, yeah, I mean, that happens. I think that stems into one of the questions that I had written down and it was how can we cherish these days? And I think I’m gonna answer it because I was thinking a lot about this. Like, how do we cherish these days and then next to it, I put the ordinary I think sometimes in order for us to feel successful, or in order for us to feel like our kids are going to remember these days, it’s that we had to do something big or special or unique. But I think it’s more about, like cherishing what what there is even under certain constraints, whether it’s financial or time, right? Like, what is what is the mindset? What is the feeling? What are we embracing instead of wishing we had or hadn’t done, but just embracing what is what is in the now.

Jordan
So that kind of ties into one of my questions too, for you, which was what do you think you’ll miss most about these days? And so what I’m hearing you say is that you’ll miss the ordinary. But so you wouldn’t necessarily recommend like to make the most of these days. So you need to do something big. So it’s not it’s not about a big trip. It’s not about a big event or a big milestone. It’s more about what felt like what is what are the ordinary things.

Rosanna
How we make each other feel, how do we show each other love and how we show up? I think those are three you know, three great ways. You know, going to Disney isn’t bad, right? Having a big birthday party at you know, some laser zone isn’t those things aren’t bad things. But if you strip those things away, what still remains?

Jordan
I think of when I’m awake in the morning. Usually I’m awake before the kids are most of them – I try, darn it – but like when they come downstairs and actually like come up and just give me like a hug or sit on my lap like to me that’s that’s an ordinary kind of thing that is special that I want to try to hold on to because that’s not always gonna be there.

Rosanna
Well, an ordinary too. And I know I’ve had this conversation with my mom before with other moms with people I know that your kids, you know, your, your kids will…they’re here now and they’re safe. You can protect them now. You can be there for them now, but at some point, they will leave they will grow up. They need you a little bit less or they need you in different ways and it’s not the same. And even though it’s taxing now in terms of how much like time and effort and reassurance and guidance and reprimanding they need now that kind of maybe tires us out, those are the important things.

Jordan
Yeah. And maybe that’s good to pay attention to more for us too. And we’ll get into some takeaways I know, but I’m already thinking about, like, what are some of those, those everyday kinds of things and I’m thinking, particularly with family that I may miss later on. Dinnertime is another one that comes to mind that is very ordinary, just to sit around the table and talk or, you know, tell them to stop singing or dancing at the table, playing with food or whatever they do. But those will be even I think, sometimes like frustrating moments that we may miss.

Rosanna
Agree, I think that’s a lot about how you structure your family or your time or whatever it is, you know, every family is different. And there are certain families that do things a certain way or traditions, and that’s what works for them. But those are the things that the kids really like embrace, right? When we do Thanksgiving breakfast with friends, you know, they hold on to that those are the things that they remember. And it’s nothing outlandish or crazy or uber-creative. But I, you know, those are the things that, that we appreciate to that they look forward to. And then we look forward to together and that’s what makes the days.

Jordan
I think traditions especially have a way of kind of, like almost teaching, reinforcing who you are like this is this is what we do. And usually they’re not on like an annual basis. This is something that we’ve we’ve gathered around and defined ourselves by.

Rosanna
Yeah, well yeah, the way you define yourself as a family, you know, the things that we have that Catapano is don’t quit or you know, enter your family’s name and their motto here, you know, those things that we continue to reinforce and then that we live out in every day of our life. So whether it’s we’re riding bikes, and we fall down, or we’re riding bikes, and we’re passing our six mile mark, and the kids want to give up and we you know, can you need to push them it’s, it’s those little things that make these days.

Jordan
Okay, so let’s say I’m in the moment, I’m in the day. And I have a flash of recognition that this is great. I’m gonna miss this I love this moment, whatever it is, how how do I capture that?

Rosanna
Take out your phone real quick before someone starts crying or complaining or bleeding.

Jordan
Maybe that is the moment. I think like photos definitely play a big role and very convenient to take those pictures too, but I almost wonder is it is the very fleetingness of those moments what makes them special? You appreciate it because you know, you can’t always have it.

Rosanna
It’s like, you know, taking a trip going on vacation, right? Like when you’re somewhere and you’re taking it all in whether you’re walking on the beach, right? It becomes special or it becomes something you look back with fondness because it’s, you know, kind of just this one little piece that you’re going to take with you that you can’t always have. But you look back on. So yeah, I mean, if you think about like memory.

Jordan
So I try to do with my, and I know you don’t want me to call it a diary – my log, my journal. I tried to record even if I mean, especially now it feels like Groundhog Day where like so many of the days are the same, but try to record some of the uniqueness of it before it disappears into the, into the blur of the past. And we don’t remember the little things that made it special.

Rosanna
And I think that’s true because so many days are similar. Now we wake up and we work at home and we work out at home and we teach the kids at home but even before that when we left for work and came home and you know had things to go to on certain nights or certain days, like when you look back, it’s kind of a blur, where there’s like seasons of life where it’s like you do a certain thing a certain way for a while. So what are those things that stand out? Or how do you make them stand out? And I think that’s you one of the questions that I have was how do we cultivate a life that creates our best days now?

Jordan
We actually want to say that those were the days.

Rosanna
Instead of saying those were the days, 10 years from now, when our kids are like driving and out with boyfriends and girlfriends, or whatever, and we look back and say, ah, do you remember when we were 37? And our kids were little? Gosh, those were the days like, how do we wake up tomorrow and say, Man,

Jordan
so every day, you can say, “These are ALL the days.”

Rosanna
These are the days, like THESE are the days? You know, like with a sense of like pride and ownership. Because I think, you know, I’d mentioned earlier hindsight is 2020, right? When we look back now, when we were first married, right? Like, Oh, do you remember when we were first married and the house was quiet and like, you know, you like reminisce and you’re like, Oh, my gosh, and we totally squandered it because we should have done X, Y, and Z. Or, you know, the kids are finally in bed after a long day. And we’re like, Can you imagine? 20 years from now when all the kids are out of the house, and all the traveling…We like we like to either rewind, and we like to fast forward and we like to pretend like we’re not where we are right now. Like, we want to get out of it, we’re so quick to want to rewind or fast forward or it’s like, we should be wanting to press pause on what’s now. Right. And that’s, I was thinking about that yesterday in preparation for today, you know, what is what is good about being in your 30s and we’re in our late 30s now, but like, I feel like you and I like in terms of who we are and what we want, we have definitely hit a stride. And there’s definitely things that we’re working on and that we’re proud of, but like you know, like how are we harnessing like our time and our energy in our effort to like, you know, telling our friends that we’re excited about the now we’re not looking to fast forward or rewind like like this is that like, jump on board like come follow us like this is, this is the time

Jordan
Is that easy to do? So I feel like a lot of the time when we just kind of the way we talked to one another sometimes we talked about how busy or stressed we are how there’s kind of certain challenges. Or I know like when I talk to some people, there’s sometimes this, this tendency to gravitate towards the negative. And it’s sometimes can feel like a challenge to say like, things are great, or here’s what we’re working on that excites us. And it’s more than maybe like a home improvement or an upcoming trip. It’s something that we are doing or even like, going back to the ordinary, like, Is it okay to be excited about the ordinary and how do we celebrate that with other people who are surrounding us?

Rosanna
Yeah, I mean, I think we live almost in a society in a culture where it’s like this, this there’s this like commiseration pool that everybody likes to like everyone likes to like, tell you how busy they are and how tired they are like as if the person next to you is also not busy and also not tired. We’re all busy. We’re all tired. We all have kids. They’re all driving us nuts. Like that’s the reality of it. Right? But we all love our families. Hopefully we all love our spouses. Right. But I think that’s, you know, what’s unique sometimes is that you talk to people and because they’re of the mindset that you know everything, is…

Jordan
I don’t think that’s their mindset, just like it’s just an easier way to share experiences. At times, I’m not saying it’s universal.

Rosanna
No, no, but I think sometimes that makes it harder to be like, yeah, this is what’s exciting right now, like, you know, I think it’s because we don’t want to toot our own horn, or we don’t want to seem like we’re bragging or that like, whatever. But like, someone will pull up in a new car and like, everyone’s excited about it. But like, why aren’t we excited when someone is trying to start their own business or when someone’s trying to write their own book or, you know, like, people, maybe it’s because people are afraid of failure. And so being vulnerable and sharing those things, you know, is hard, but cheering one another on and talking about what’s good or what we’re working towards. A domain that we’re really nailing like is a great way to like live our best days though.

Jordan
Yeah, enjoy that with one another and then with with everyone else that we have a chance to interact with. So I feel my mind keeps going back to just the just the appreciation like it’s almost a mindset. I heard someone walk through at some point a way away to feel more appreciative even in frustrated or annoying settings, and they said, “picture like the worst dinner that you’ve had and the kids are being ignorant or disrespectful and the meal tastes like garbage. And if you died the next day, how much would you pay to go back to that moment,?” and all of a sudden, that changed that changed my perspective, just hearing that description to think I would give anything and everything just to go back to even an annoying or a frustrating moment. If it’s with people I love in a setting that kind of like you said, indicates like this, this, this ordinary this, this moment of life that in the moment may be difficult to appreciate, but afterwards like we miss and we cherish so much.

Rosanna
I’ve heard someone explain that same thing as like, in our ordinary moments, we’re looking for something extraordinary. And it doesn’t have to be like crazy, but like when work is busy for me, and then I’m like missing weekends with the kids because of weddings and events and, and gearing up for them and I feel tired. Like I’m wishing for an ordinary day at home where I don’t have to go anywhere, right? Like I wake up on Monday morning and I’m in my sweats all day and I probably haven’t showered like you’re wishing for one of those days where you don’t have to, like put makeup on and get dressed and like be on at work. But then the same thing to is now that like I’ve had no events and I like not that I serve no purpose but like my my business is at a standstill and there’s nothing I can really do about it right like I’m longing for being an event planner or a day of coordinator just to like do something that excites me and is fun and is new and is challenging. So it’s, you know, the grass is always greener.

Jordan
Yeah. So it’s like a balance between sort of appreciating what you have whatever that may be in a moment. And still, like kind of aspiring towards pursuing the different kinds of things that you’re interested in building too as well.

Rosanna
A little bit of both. Any more questions on your list?

Jordan
I had a bunch and then we kind of answered them throughout our conversation. So nice job.

Rosanna
Well, not to toot our own horns right? There we go. So that kind of leaves us with maybe advice or takeaways, and of course, nothing that we talked about was like earth shattering right or groundbreaking. You’re probably not going to listen to this and think “Oh wow…”

Jordan
“That changes everything!”

Rosanna
Like, oh, game changer. But I think these are all things that we addressed while we were talking but these might be things to like, you know, jot down if you are jotting something down or in the note section of your phone, you know, we’re talking about These are the days. So my first takeaway, which is it’s really funny, the takeaway is that these are the days these ones, these ones right here at home with our kids and quarantine, these ones right now or my business…

Jordan
That would be out there would be in bold…

Rosanna
THESE are the days. And so if we look at that statement, and these is in all caps are in all bold, and these are the days, what are we doing to make these days count? What are we doing to make them matter? Like, how are we harnessing the best of who we are in each of these days?

Jordan
I don’t want to be thinking like I have to wait for these days to be over to get to the point that I want to be at.

Rosanna
I think that’s so great. I think that a lot of people’s mentality is like their life is on pause right now. And like they’ve put a lot of things aside and then they’re waiting for this like Start button. But if we’re not living in these days now, and like preparing and working and pushing like once we restart, we’re going to be very behind. I think the second thing that I came up with was to relish the simple things. So dinners together as a family. We like to walk. Take bike rides with the kids like just being outside in the fresh air, being able to move our bodies having bodies that move. Being healthy, right? There are people who are not healthy. So just those simple things where, you know, our kids have very loud lungs, right? They can talk and they can, you know, it’s like, the things that are annoying in the moment. But like, those are those simple things that their voices will be gone from this house someday. And so like, trying to appreciate those things. Now. The third thing would be being grateful for what you have. I know a lot of people have started gratitude journals, writing down three things a day that they’re thankful for, if you was it, our second blog post that I posted was all about, it just talked about taking some time to be thankful for what you have, so you can go back to that blog post. If you subscribe to us. You got a guide on a daily gratitude chart that you can fill out but be grateful for what you have. I know about a year ago, we moved into this house, and it was something that we’ve been dreaming and planning for a while. And every day since we’ve woken up every day in this house, either you or I have said to each other. “Gosh, we love this house, we’re grateful for being here.” And that like changes everything about your mindset in the day when you’re starting with something that you’re thankful for. And I think the last thing is to live in the present. Stop rewinding and going back to what it was like when you know you had more time more energy more money, whatever, or fast forwarding to wanting to skip what’s now and move ahead to something else.

Jordan
It’s good to like look fondly back at the past and it’s good to look towards the future for reasons as well. But we can’t

Rosanna
You can’t, you can’t live in in those areas like you’re not going to go back and relive it, you’re never going to be in that same circumstance again. And same thing about the future you’re you’re not sure where you’re going to end up. So like this is that like right now like dive, dive all in. These are the days. For as hard and as uncertain… THESE are the days. These ARE the days. These are THE days.

Jordan
These are the DAYS.

Rosanna
These are them guys, right? Job or no job, in your house in quarantine safe at home, or, you know, on the front lines like these are them. So what are we doing? How are we harnessing who we are the best things we have to offer and putting those in each of the domains of our life?

Jordan
I definitely enjoyed talking about this and talking through it because it just even just the process of talking raises my consciousness and my awareness of it. So looking forward to more conversations to come. That wraps it up for our first podcast conversation. We’ve got more to come down the line as well. We mentioned our website. If you haven’t visited yet, check out www.therelentlesspursuitpodcast.com and you’ll have a chance to subscribe and you’ll have a chance to read some of the things that we’ve been posting leading up to this podcast being aired. Also, we would appreciate if you get an opportunity to leave us a five-star rating and a glowing review. Tell your friends if you loved us, and if you didn’t enjoy it, tell your enemies.

Rosanna
Thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you for tuning in. You know, this is something that we decided we were going to do. Back in January, we sat in a Starbucks and kind of dreamed this up. So to be able to do this is exciting, fun petrifying, but all we’re looking to do is to have great conversations, challenging each other and challenging you guys to be the best that we can be to live the best life and to continuously pursue all of the things that we want. So thanks, thanks for listening.