Episode 1: Cousins can't be best friends

Okay yay, hi!

Hi! Hi, my cousin! My cousin. I miss you.

Cousin I miss you too. It's so nice to be talking with you

This is amazing. How was your day? You went on a bike ride today?

I took a wanna bike ride today. It was such a lovely time. I also got so sunburned yesterday. So I was like bike riding, but also versus the sun. but it was fine. Long sleeve shirt, sunscreen under the shirt. And just a lot of grin and Barrett.

Alright. Natural. Worth it.

Worth it. No, so nice. Super, super nice. 10 out 10 recommend. E-bikes? I'm like slightly nervous, but why?

I know, we have to carry a conversation.

But no, we're just talking to each other. Which we don't get to do enough and we want to do all the time anyway.

Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think we have good things to say.

What is our relationships to each other?

That's a great question. So first and foremost, we are cousins, not best friends.

No, I literally put, I literally wrote down Liz is my cousin. Although some would want us to be best friends, we're just cousins.

Yeah, because you know what? I think, so here's the story behind that. When every now we're younger, our older sisters would always say like, no, you guys are best friends. We're like, no, we're cousins. And like for us, cousins had more weight to it, I think.

Cousin Trump's best friend. She's my family.

Exactly. Yes, yes. ⁓ We're more than best friends. Like it's like a connection. It literally is blood. ⁓ But in like actuality, we were best friends. really were each other's person. Yes.

is blood. ⁓ 100%. I think each other's person is exactly what I would say. Like, since we were little babies, we were just joined at the hips.

Yeah, like truly. And we have some pictures, but a lot of memories of like just family functions. And like we literally were each other's like we were just together constantly. And I'd say you like growing up, you knew me better than anyone. Like I could, you were like, I could just be completely myself. Like when I was like grumpy or I don't know. mean, like it didn't matter. And like, could be those things towards you and you like understood, you know, like I could and vice versa too.

clear. That's exactly what I was thinking about. I'm just imagining we both have a bunch of siblings and I feel like when our brothers were mean to us, we knew what the other was going through and we just weathered the storm by each other's sides. Stay together.

Even when one of us was being sassy, we would just throw it back.

I would say I can be as mean to you as my sister. Like I could be... And we were sometimes. Like me and you got into fights and I feel like that's the sign of true love.

Exactly. And like deep down we always knew like it like didn't matter. I remember a time when I think we were either like middle school like eighth grade like older middle school or high school and you were at my house and we were so annoyed at each other I just like locked you out of my room. Like at the same time she was just like chilling in my hallway.

It wasn't Yes. I was just, I was like chill. ⁓ Like, please lock me out. It happens.

You were chill. except- yeah the members were walking by and you're just like, yeah, close lock me out. You know how funny it was in the moment?

Bye.

It was still was like real like annoying. And so I was like, we just need.

We need some space, but not that much space. Like don't go home. Like sit out in the hall. I'll call you when I'm ready. Like don't go home. You don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. Just like 20 minutes. Give me an hour. I don't know. Yeah. There were times when I would get dropped off at your house, like before you had woken up and I like, we just like knew how to be in each other's lives from waking to sleeping.

Like I knew to like,

No, no, no, I do still need you. And like we knew we would laugh about

whether or not it was a good time to like wake you up. Sometimes I would just go in your bedroom and like grab a book, sit at the end of your bed and just read until you woke up.

And if ⁓

I get it. Yeah, exactly. That's okay.

And that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. was fun times growing up. We had some good, some good memories.

We did it all together. did basketball camp, Irish step dancing. ⁓ What else did we do? Did we do that writing, the creative writing workshop in the fourth grade?

I don't remember that, did we? ⁓ my God.

With Rita Brown? I think about that all the time. Do you? Yes, because that was my first time I was complimented on my writing. you know, it's in there.

You think about that all the time. I think maybe I blocked it out because I need writing.

That like makes no sense. You're so good at it. Well, I don't know, in my head, you're great at writing.

In English class, in one of the high school years, we had to like journal for the first like 10 minutes or something at the start of each class, just like free write. And I was just like, I'm like, don't know what to say. High school third grade, wow. I don't know what to write, da da, and just kind of run through the morning. But I'm like, this is dumb.

I think I found that notebook in my mom's attic not too long ago. Something like that. And they're hilarious. Because the prompts were like, what's the weather like today? What's the temp? And then your thought. And mine was always like, it's as cold as a snowbank in Vermont. And it's 31 degrees. And my neighbor just had a baby.

I would love to go back and read some of my entries.

It's ⁓ concerning. Yeah. It's-

It might be very dry, I think.

I think they'd be lot funnier than you think.

⁓ I'm sure I would laugh hysterically. Yeah. ⁓ And then now we're long distance.

We are. We did live together in college. We did in those years. But yeah, now we're long distance. We've been long distance, not ever since living together, but kind of. Kind of. Because I moved to from, well, where do you live? Where did we grow up?

We did. We grew up in New Jersey, little New Jersey. I'm still here. I'm literally five minutes from where I grew up. And we lived in, for those of you New Jersey folks, lived in Morristown, New Jersey for a while. My dad grew up there and my nana, my grandma still lives there and she was 97, I think when we moved in. But basically the, oh, there's a Rio in the back.

She's a new mom. I cut her some slack. ⁓ no. ⁓

Yeah. Yes. We moved in, the whole idea was that she was a very independent lady, loved her house and everything. It was just like a small, cute little house in Morristown, New Jersey, but that was her home and she really cared for it and loved it. But she was nine, seven years old. So it came up, the opportunity to move in, it was me. Evy and then our good friends. And we were both in college. And so we commuted from Morristown and the three of us lived upstairs.

There was three bedrooms and a bathroom. That was the upstairs. ⁓ Evy and I, of course, ended up sharing a bedroom at one point.

tried Datsu for about two weeks and then we were like, is dumb.

So we quickly shared the bigger room. ⁓ And yeah, it was the best time. So like we were there with her at night and not as much during the next year in classes, but really someone just needed to be there at night. And then she had visitors and people come to stay with her. And that lasted maybe like two and a half years.

I think we moved in around like 2015 and then we graduated in 2017.

Yeah. And we lived there a little bit longer than that.

What do you think Evie and Liz living in Morristown during our college years would think about Evie and Liz right now? life. Aww. ⁓

think they'd be proud of them. I don't know if they'd be surprised or not. Yeah. You know?

think it would be so, yeah, I don't know. Like you have a baby named Rio. Yeah.

Yeah, I do. I don't know. I think I had almost like bigger, grander dreams for myself, but at the same time, this was my actual dream, you know? Like, I was a husband and a baby.

You have a house, a husband and a baby. Morristown, Liz shared a bed with her cousin and woke up at four every morning. That was the, when that began, when your trainer life began. I remember being like, this is a crazy semester for you. And then it never stopped. You just never stopped waking up at four AM.

Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, I think I killed a couple of brains, more than a couple of brains. But yeah, I studied exercise science at Montclair State University, which is where my current husband, my only husband, my real husband.

Andrew, you're the current husband.

He also studied exercise science. But yeah, life and then we both became personal trainers. He loves it. I liked it, still like it, but don't love it. Especially because if you're a personal trainer, you know the hours are egregious. If you train someone at 5 a.m., yeah, 5 a.m. is early, but like if you're training someone at 5 a.m. ⁓ You're not even the person working out at 5 a.m. They wake up maybe at 4 30.

You're waking up at like 3 30 or 4 so that you can get to your gym place of work. And also if you're training someone at 5, you're most likely training someone at 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10. So it's not like you get like many breaks. You have to be ready to go for the entire day before you even see your first client or in my case client said it's small group personal training.

Um, and still do, but part-time and in the evenings now that I have a child. Anyway, yes, you're waking up like not even 4 a.m., like 3 30 a.m. Honestly, you're lucky you can start at six and sleep in a little bit, but yeah, it's a tough one. And then also usually are training people in the evening too. Um, so it's just like a long day.

Your- No, I could never, I have always kind of wanted, like I feel like I should have also been a trainer at like, that would have been a. I think like a good structure for me job wise as well. Or like, I don't know. feel like, but the thing that holds me back since graduating college, since getting married up till now is the schedule. Like I just can't. Yeah.

You have a firsthand experience, like look at it.

Exactly from start to finish, well not finish, but like from start to where you are now.

Yeah. And you like waking up early. You like working out early. But in a way, when you're, you can't have like a morning routine really. You just kind of like wake up, you eat and you go. If you have, you know, prepped food the day before, it's not like you're like cooking eggs. Of course some people do, but.

I do. I do. No, it's a lot.

Yeah, so I think that's what, like, I really, really like my sleep. Like, I'm definitely someone who needs a lot of sleep. So, like, I would crash hard at the end of every single week. Like, hard crash, catch up, like, take like a three hour nap on a Friday and feel like somewhat okay. Yeah, I did that for a long time. Yeah. Liked, here we are.

You were up. Yeah. A lot of times of Liz showing up just being like, I'm so sorry. I am so tired, but I'm here. And you've got me until nine. And that's it.

Exactly. You know, one thing I learned, especially when you graduate college and you're just like not seeing your friends every day, and even high school, you're not seeing your friends every day, like, because you have to. And then you realize, like, as you become an adult, ⁓ you have to make an effort. And like, everyone's jobs are tiring. Like, when you start working a nine to five or whatever job you end up doing, like, it's tiring, it's a week and you're tired.

But I realized, like, it's always, always worth it. I'd say like 95 % of time to just eat the tiredness and show up and see people because I think back now, like, we've done so much and like we've traveled a lot and but like even just like hanging out with friends, I've made such good relationships. A lot of it is thanks to Andrew because he's like this too, we definitely prioritize it. it's always worth it to show up because in a few years time, You don't remember how tired you were, but like you remember the time you had.

That's definitely important to remember.

Good. Yeah, you know, guess someone, think it was ⁓ Marisa Gallick. think Connor's aunt told me this like one of the last times we were home, like maybe Christmas time or Thanksgiving. And she just like mentioned something that she was going to the next day. Cause you know, making small talk, whatever. I'm like, what did you do today? What are you doing tomorrow? And that sounds intense. What are you doing? Tell me your plans. What's your itinerary?

You know, small talk. I'm really good at that. I'll hit you with it. Just try me. ⁓ But whatever. And she told me she was going to like some of like maybe like friends, nieces, whatever, or her brothers, whatever.

Hence, stop.

someone's recital of something. And I was like, ⁓ wow, like that's amazing. You can like get to that event and she has many kids. And I was like, wow, you have like time to do that. And she was like, you know what? I just kind of decided like, I want to be the person who shows up. I want to just like be the person. If I can make it there, I will make it there. And she said, it's just like, so matter of fact, I was like, that's very nice.

I was like, you know what? That I think I agree. I think I would like to adopt that thought where it's just like. Cause I feel like I went through a phase recently of like learning how to say no, setting boundaries. Like if I don't want to do something, I don't need to do something like in a social setting of like, I've just been around more people who have a lot of social boundaries and a lot of like, and that's how they like to live their lives.

⁓ And I've kind of like tested that out a little bit because I feel like we've come from big families. come from a lot of a lot of social obligations and a lot of things like that. And they're just kind of understood, like you should be there and like, if you can't there, be there. And so I was like experimenting with this, like, you know what? If I don't want to go and talk to people I don't know very well for three hours, I don't need to go.

⁓ But I feel like now I'm like, that's not exactly me. That's not exactly how I want to be. I actually do want to show up for people who don't. They don't need to mean the world to me, but like showing up is inherently a good thing to do. Even if it's for like an hour or two or just to say you did. And like, I think that's easier when I don't live around my family, but if I did, I think that would be an easier thing to do.

Here it's like, all right, you're go show up for someone you met last week.

Yeah, true. I think that part of being from a big family is you're used to doing things because you have to. Like you don't really have a choice in the matter. Like, we're going to like your brother's basketball game. This event, you know what I mean? You just go as a family. It's not like you like that a choice in the matter. You just it's like you don't even question that you have a choice.

Yeah. Especially if you have younger siblings, it's also then like you're not guilted, but you're like pressured to be like, make sure you show up for them. And you're like, I was gonna, but now that you've told me that I don't really want to, but okay.

Yeah, you're like learning how to be an adult and make your own choices. But you're like, well, I do have a lot of little siblings to show up for that apparently I need to.

I'm actually a mother. I'm only 21 but I'm a mom. ⁓ I've been born a mother. My son is six years younger than me.

Literally. ⁓ Just to touch on, don't think, where do you live right now? Why are we long distance?

⁓ Why are we long distance well? When me and my husband Connor got married we decided we wanted to move away from the great state of New Jersey even though I Love New Jersey. I know why God bless New Jersey. God bless the country of New Jersey. Yes If you know, know, ⁓ we decided to leave New Jersey because we wanted to try out something new to build a relationship away from

her ID card. If you know, know.

the support systems that we had for whatever reason. And we moved to Puerto Rico. So I live on la Isla del Encanto, beautiful island of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico. And I'm learning Spanish, but I need to practice more. But yeah, we live in Puerto Rico. We've been living here for four years and some change. We are not X60, if you know, you know. We're not Act 20, we're not Act whatever. We don't get the rich people tax cuts.

It's not why we live here. ⁓ We just moved here on a whim with like four suitcases. We didn't even know if we would stay very long. We didn't know what the plan was. But we first landed on Isabella, lived there for like three months. Then we went up to Kamui, lived there for about three months. Thought we would go closer to San Juan, but realized the metro area wasn't really for us. headed back down to Aguada where we lived for almost two years.

And now we live in Rincon with many other expats. Yes, I know the reputation that Rincon has, ⁓ but we love it very much. We just fell in love with the people and the culture and the way of life here. ⁓ It's hard to imagine living anywhere else now. I really thought we would only be here for like two years or even a year. I don't really know. ⁓ Had so much to learn when we moved here.

thought like my view of Puerto Rico, which like was not, there was no view of Puerto Rico. I had never been, never visited, had no idea what we were coming into. I mean, the only reason I did know about Puerto Rico and anything at all was knowing Puerto Ricans who lived in Jersey and the Bronx, ⁓ et cetera. And yeah, I don't know. We just, we just made the leap and We have built a cute little life here.

You have built a very nice little life there for yourselves. It's very nice.

And huge part to the Puerto Ricans here who have welcomed us and helped us set up a life here and taught us how to survive the blackouts and the power outages and the hurricanes and everything. yeah, it's a super interesting time to be living, I think, in somewhere that's technically a territory of the U.S. and in a time when the U.S. is... you know, loving the idea of war. Yeah. And in a place where like the U.S.

doesn't want to support, but also takes advantage of like the rate of Puerto Ricans who are in the military is crazy. The amount of military bases we have here in Puerto Rico. I don't know, not to get the political. It's a fascinating place to live for many reasons. ⁓

It's just-

But there's so much to learn. think my worldview has, I think I am who I am today, certainly because I moved here. It's really taught me a lot about the world, about people, about myself. Tenet would recommend moving away from wherever you've lived at least once in your lives.

Yes. Yeah, definitely. I can't speak on that because I have only lived in New Jersey. I talked to me game about moving away, but we never did. We're like opposite where

I don't think I ever thought I would move away.

I love that you did. Side note, what's funny about Evie's husband Connor is he loves cold places. He gets hot so easily and then loves Puerto Rico.

Yeah. It is hilarious. I really thought we'd end up like in like Alaska. Still could, who knows. But yeah, it is funny. It is funny.

Right, right, who knows? I feel like Andrew, my husband, his mom is Puerto Rican, a New Yorker Rican if that, what did you say, New Yorkan? New-y-o-re-can, I was like, I'm getting something, a syllable off. And then his dad is Cuban, was born in Cuba and came here when he was 13, I think. But I feel like as the older I get, like I said,

New Eurekan. Yeah, yeah.

We had a brutal winter here in New Jersey. So I'm like, my goal is to go somewhere warm for like a couple weeks, if not a month next winter. We'll see if that happens. But like, number one would be Rincon. Like, it's the best. It's such a cool spot. We obviously love going to visit you guys. And we're actually going in October for Andrew's, TZ Evelyn's birthday. And she also loves Rincon, of all places. Here he comes.

That's perfect. We'll get to see you guys there. But yeah, I'm like, I feel like I would love to be somewhere warm, but like, I don't know, like circumstances, like we're just here. have like, obviously our families are here. And then we have a really good friend group from college, Montclair State. And like, it's just like, would be so hard to give that up because we spent... a lot of time in our 20s, like COVID hit in 2020 and we were 25?

I think 24.

Yeah, we were 25. Because I got married in 2021 and I was 26 turning 27. Neat. Yeah, we got married.

Yes, ⁓

Literally, I mean, we were joined at the hip for most of our lives. And then we got engaged a week apart and then we got married a few months apart. did write, I wrote in one of our creative writing things, I did write a story where we had a double wedding and it was so close to coming true.

That's part. I know we debated it for a second, that would have been way too massive of a wedding.

Or we could just elope together on the same day.

Yes, that would have been nice. I think I would have been murdered by a certain someone.

You would not have survived. I would have also died fighting by your side.

Yeah, but anyway, I feel we spent so much time in our 20s like, I, we built such strong friendships. And for me, these were like new friendships, like I'm so close with everyone we grew up with, because we grew up in like a tight community. So I'm so close with everyone we grew up with. for me, I was like, ⁓ my gosh, like I'm making like new friends who I'm also really close to like, this is an amazing thing.

Like I haven't like, I don't know, I didn't never like had that in college, I always commuted to school. ⁓ So anyway, and like, it was, it's like nice. And now like we just have this like core group, we really make an effort to see each other and yeah, it would definitely be hard to leave. And that's why we are here still. And like, we love it, but I would love to like travel more and like extended periods of time in other.

feel like these, those kinds of things, they take some effort, but they also like, there's always some kind of triggering event that sets it in motion. Like Connor and I were always going to go somewhere. So we came here and we just happened to like not leave and then happened to meet the right people at the right time. And it happened to just like, it just all, I was going say unraveled, but that's not true. It just unfolded the way it did because I don't know.

I don't know why. So like if you guys were to get an opportunity, you know, that set up a little bit of a longer stay somewhere, would, you would take advantage. Or you wouldn't, who knows.

Yeah, it's true. Like life is definitely a series of choices and like you can look back and fought whatever. But I do think also like you can like setting goals is a good thing. I don't love setting goals, like maybe goals is not the right word, but like I like having like an idea of like things I want to do at some point. I'm like, okay, definitely.

do not like about goals? Tell me. ⁓

I just feel like this is gonna sound a little ridiculous, but I just feel like it's so like patriarchal. Like, what's the goal and like accomplish it and finish it and like.

Like, why? Why would I do that? Give me a good reason.

Like I think more in the terms of like, don't like rigidness and that to me a goal is like very rigid. And I understand like the purpose of other and like people who set goals and achieve big things, it's like they're driven. And I just think I'm not, I'm a very type B person and goals are a little too type A for me.

How do we get our dreams, as type E people? What are we going to do? manifest them. We manifest them? Yes. Okay. Do you believe in manifestation? This is like the second time you've said this. Explain yourself.

Okay, I've been... I've been on my feed getting a lot more like woo woo things on my feed.

⁓ huh, ⁓ huh. It's showing. Do I want you to be my business partner? Manifestation?

don't know what I do really. No, ⁓ here's a story about manifestation that I didn't even know was manifesting. So we bought our home. It's five minutes from where I grew up. when we bought it, Celine was like, ⁓ my gosh, I feel like you manifested this. You always said you wanted to live in one of these houses in this town that we live in. And I was like, ⁓ my gosh, I don't even remember that.

She's like, hey, we talked about it all the time. was like, I remember wanting that.

Well, you do house tours all the time, for sure. What? Like, you love to drive around and check out houses. That's like our number one thing we did together on a Sunday afternoon.

Yeah, I love it. Exactly. Yeah, the best times. New Jersey is great for that, honestly. But when Angel and I were looking for a house or even like talking about houses, we literally like always said, I don't care if it's like a big house, a small house, kind of like a small house with potential to expand. I want a nice property. I want a cool property, like a big yard. And we're like, it'd be really dope to have ⁓ a separated garage.

do a whole garage gym. And we talk about like,

in our previous life. It's true.

We want to have people over on Saturdays, do like big group workouts together. Um, then like barbecue side and like literally when we saw this house, it's this town that is five minutes from where I grew up that I love and separate garage, cute, like small little house, but it has so much potential with so many things that we want to do.

I'm not sure. So cute.

and it has a really big yard, it's half an acre and there's a river in the back, which is so, just like nice. I'm like so excited to kayak this spring, summer. And it's just funny, like I remember standing, we're standing in the garage and we're looking at each other like, this is exactly what we talked about. exactly. We said we never wanted a fixer upper, but like would be cool to like make the house our own.

This house wasn't a fixer upper, but like it needed some fixing up. were like the walls were turquoise blue.

And the group.

carpet that I don't even know how old it was that definitely smelled a bit. We ripped up the carpet. We did a lot. And like, it's just like so cute now and we love it. And again, it has the potential that we want.

Yeah. I'm manifesting a sun soaked yard with a porch, wooden steps, crisp air. would love to live in like upstate New York.

Mm.

I really want to go to Maine. Maine is calling me lately. I don't know what it is. The longer I live on the island, like you said, warm weather, but like, you don't understand how much I crave seasons. it's, it becomes like, I remember the first ⁓ like winter we spent here, I was very confused because my seasonal depression, which I don't really have, but like, it was like, I wanted to be sad and I couldn't figure out where to put it.

It's like, I'm not cold. It's not dark out. Well, actually, it gets dark here really early all the time. But like, I don't know. It was really weird. But not to take away from your manifestation. Congrats on manifesting your manifest...

Malfoy station?

and I lost it. Congrats on manifesting your dream home. That's incredible. Impressive.

I know, makes me believe in it more. Okay?

Okay, and then you manifested this podcast, right?

I did. In a way. How did I, well, it's funny because I said that I wanted to, well, had the Rio, my baby, my four month old in November and it was a rough winter here in New Jersey. It was cold, cold, cold. It was dark. feel like daylight savings just, I don't know, somehow you always forget how dark it is and how short the days are. And I was postpartum and it was kind of brutal the first like month.

Like I would remember I'd be like pacing the front door waiting for the light to come out. ⁓ Abby was home for Thanksgiving and he, she came to me in Rio and as soon as she came in, I was like, here's the baby bundle up. We're going outside full mental breakdown had to.

It was really sweet. I honestly, I look at that moment as like, aww. I'm so glad I got to see you break down.

He had something, think he had like work. He was finishing up something like that. And Evie was home for Thanksgiving. So it was like a couple days after Thanksgiving, Rio was like barely a week old. And you came in, and I was like holding it together until you got there. Like as soon as I saw you couldn't hold it together anymore. Just like, I need to be outside.

I think yeah

obviously like bundle up and luckily we have like a very cute front porch two little rocking chairs. So we just yeah had a session talked about birth and everything and just let out a lot of emotions which was very needed. But he walked in the door immediately here's the baby you're not coming in don't take your

It was very sweet. Don't take your coat off. In fact, I'm going to drape a bunch of blankets over you. Let me know if the baby starts to freeze. And that's it.

That's right. But meanwhile, Connor was just like chilling inside. was like, ⁓ yeah, there's no service around. He's like, yeah, I it. Kick his shoes off, sit on the couch. Like first time you're in our new home, by the way.

He was like, just ignore me. I was just like, that's a man. That's man right there. He's good at that. Yes. Oh my gosh. Something is biting me.

EA. ⁓ no. But anyway, so I was like, are spending a good chunk of time not in the cold next winter. And like, I want to bring Rio to beach. I want to bring Rio particularly to Puerto Rico. beach. But anyway, so like, Brandon was like looking at Airbnb's costs and then you called me, like, do you to do a podcast? I was like, yes, absolutely. Like, how is this going to work? We're virtual, whatever. We're still figuring it out.

But I was like,

Yeah.

yeah, we can do some in-person ones. It just like felt right. And then also I ordered a microphone and I think I mentioned this at beginning, but like, you know, it's not cheap. So it's a nice, nice couple of, a couple hundred bucks there. But randomly I was like, okay, let me just like see if I can return something from Rio's registry that we weren't using, get like 60 bucks to put toward this. And then I see on the registry people had given ⁓ money that we haven't, like back in December.

that we hadn't like even seen or redeemed yet because I hadn't looked at the registry since then and it was enough for the microphone plus the lecture so I was like it's meant to be. Just like little things that are pointing in the right direction and then obviously you can't just manifest you actually have to like do things as well. Yeah. I realize that I'm not.

meant to be. We type B are not delusional. Just don't want to follow the straight line. I don't understand how to do that.

I think also I'm a little from like the very like goal driven life of like, okay, wake up, five percent better every single or one percent better every single day, like self help book, I'm just like burnt out from it. like I realized the ⁓ benefit of them. But too much of something can be a bad thing, even if it's too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. And I think I'm burnt out from it.

I'm like, no, like this was never aligned with me. I need to like figure out my own way of life and what works for me, you know? And that's what I'm doing.

like it almost annoys me how predictable like the stages of mindsets that you go through from like your 20s to like I'm assuming forever more. I just feel like I feel like it totally went through that too. I feel like I went through the whole like and then everyone's like 30s you just feel so much more settled. You just feel more like you know what you want and you're like you set yourself up to get it blah blah blah and I'm just like yep check.

Check, Like the 20s, like 23, like when I was working, I worked for Liz's dad for like three years out of college. And when I was working in there, I was just constantly listening to self-help podcasts and like, with some, I would say discernment, like not everything. I'm not listening to like, I never got into Joe Rogan. I never got into like, whatever, the diary of a CEO. Like I didn't really, I didn't get into like that extreme kind of thing, but like I listened to Atomic Habits.

Are you like? Great book, love that book. book, great book. Dancing. I agree, because that one's straightforward. It's like, is a system I use and it works sometimes.

with self-help books I really pressure behind it, you know? Some of them have like that like, ⁓ my god, I to be doing this thing. Like atomic habits is like, you like you can be doing this thing and it's like a nice mindset shift.

Yeah, like if you're having trouble with this, you could do this. And if you do this, would probably do this. There you go.

And here's like simple like little changes you can do in your life to help you do this that like are kind of easy.

Yeah, but you definitely, know what you're talking about where you're like, there's just like this betterment fatigue where I'm like, I just don't need to be crazed all the time, like moving forward. But. I do feel like there's, I don't know, I'm at a stage now, my stages, ⁓ where I do want some things and I don't know, and I've figured out how to get them. I don't know, you just do it. We're at the no more discerning kind of stage and we're just recording a podcast if you want to record a podcast.

I think the 30s you have just a little bit more money than you did, not much. A little bit, enough to buy her a microphone. Fly home to New Jersey for Thanksgiving and hug your cousin while they cry on the porch. do hope, like I do have a dream for this podcast, for the many podcasts I hope to be a part of. I do want to like, I don't know. There's, I feel like there's another phase where like I saw success as kind of like a bullshit thing that doesn't exist.

Yes.

Like, not like I could never reach it, but like, that's just like another lie. Success doesn't exist. You decide what you are at any given point. But now I'm like, okay, now I'm looking at this through like the pod, there's a podcast industry. And I understand that I can just be at the entry level of podcasting forever by just recording a podcast with my friend.

Like.

No, not my friend, my cousin. And that can be that. Or there's just a different level where you can go and you can try and be successful. You can try and reach a different level of something. And I'm like, okay, I think, I think I'm at a point where I'm like, all right, let's go get that next level of life. that? Yeah. Yeah. And there's any, whatever you want to get there, you can get there.

Like you have the aspiration. And I think what I've realized is in order to have that aspiration dream goal, dare I say, come true, it's more about like being yourself and like something that like resonates with you and then committing to a hundred percent. Like I found that I was forcing myself to like commit to something so hard and give so much of myself to something that I didn't like resonate fully with. And I that's where the burnt outness comes from.

So like this whole manifestation era that I'm in is more about finding things that resonate with me that I can then put my energy and effort towards. That's where success happens.

Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. Put that on the internet. ⁓ Hell yeah. I'm very curious to how your mindset changes as you continue to be a parent and as your kid gets older and all that. Like I'm so, like me and Liz, y'all don't know. Me and Liz are one mind and I rely on her. I rely on her to tell me about my future sometimes.

Clip that.

Because how Liz parents is, I assume, is going to be very similar to how I parent. Although, manifestation, red flag. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, now I should manifest. That actually is what that means. I should really start manifesting. She would never leave me astray. No. ⁓

Come on. We'll do an episode on the woo-woo things I've seen.

Love it. Let's do a woo. We'll call it the woo woo episode.

Yeah, I have a lot of shout outs from my to my TikTok friends. do still use TikTok, Not as often, but I do still scroll. Come on now.

Should I download TikTok again? I deleted it when the, what's his face bought it.

It was a good cause for you to delete it. think only add it back in if it's going to add to your life.

well, I might have to redownload it to put clips up. gotta put clips up.

Yeah, we absolutely have to. Okay, but speaking of this podcast, yeah, name ideas.

Name ideas for the pod. I also will say. I do think it should be like something something with Liz and Evy. And I do think Liz should go first because it sounds better with a vowel toward the end. After. That's my humble. That's my I'm so humble. I'll go second. I'll take the L.

I want to hear yours. You heard mine. Do you agree with that? Also, if I were going by my full name, Elizabeth, that would alphabetically come first anyway.

Okay, damn. We have the same first letter. I know. Evelyn and Elizabeth. So Evelyn and Elizabeth it is.

That actually sounds better though. I'm down, I'll go violence a bit.

I'll go up. I mean, I honestly think that's that'll be fun. I think we should do that. Yeah. You know, don't give a shit.

I'm London Elizabeth. It- I- Let's go, go, Evelyn Mills. And don't be confused when she calls me Liz or Lizzie. Or Trace.

or Triz. We've been together a long time.

Yeah. Yes. So my first idea was what's the point? And it's just kind of like, figured almost like so much what we're talking about before, like goals, like what's the point of goals? Like we're going to try about that. ⁓ We can like try different things, like, and like kind of like, ⁓ review, reassess with each other. And like, what was the point of that? Even like, like gardening, like I tried cloth diapers.

Okay, name ideas.

love to talk about that. Sure. Like random things and it's like, okay, like what is the point? Yeah.

I do like that one because I also feel like the name, either your other option falls into a different category, but one of the categories of titles is like, that's what you ask your guest if you have your guest. So like, what's the point? That's what we would ask our guests at some point. Like, what's something that you say, what's the point to, or whatever. I don't know how we would intro that, but, ⁓ or it's a name that means.

Nothing until we make it mean something, like your other suggested idea, which is laughing house.

Yes, exactly.

which I do love, because that means we define what it is. My idea was like, had one, it's not a good one, but it was around the idea of finding your passion. So I didn't really have a good name for that other than like. Well, what dreams are made up. don't even know. But I had Hey now could be hey now with Elizabeth and Evelyn Elizabeth Elizabeth, whatever one we chose. I forget. And, ⁓ but I did have another, my other idea was don't tell my mom.

Which is like, we could talk, it could be anything, but like, what's something you, you didn't tell your mom or like, I don't even know. It just kind of sets the overall theme is like. what I'm about to say, don't tell my mom. And like, it's gonna be funny, it's gonna be a little risque, it's gonna be whatever, it's not. But like, it might have been when we were our 20s. Like, how many stories do we not tell our moms in Morristown when we live together?

How many crazy things do we do that we will not be talking about on this podcast? No one will ever know, but you know. Sometimes you ⁓ go out and you dance and you don't drink too much, but you end up going... to someone else's house and you play card games. And then you go home and then your Uber driver has an oxygen tank and he might not live till tomorrow but he is driving you home.

I think did get it safely home.

He did get us safely home. We literally, mom, we just played cards. And I mean that. I didn't even kiss anybody.

We literally just played cards. Period. So I did get lifted up to dirty dancing, so.

And that's how they got us. You pulled dirty dancing. I guess we're going home to play cards. I swear to God we played play.

the bar. We locked eyes. He said, yeah. I said, yeah. Went for it. It honestly was magical.

It was, I was there. Yeah. Most of those stories, we were there together. I remember that one time I went to that dude's house in Jersey City who I had met at the bar and like, you weren't there and it wasn't good. Well, that's because you weren't there and not a good time. Not a good time. Yeah. You did get me cookies. Oh, Jersey.

You Over and... ⁓ Jersey. Yeah. So TBD on the name, guess it'll art. I mean, when this is out there.

What? Name. I do feel like I like Laughing House the most because we don't have like our driving force really yet. You know what mean? Like we don't have. But I feel like we have. Let's do it. Wait, wait, no, I didn't mean that. No, I just mean like, then like, do we have to explain the name or we just don't explain the name? If someone's like, is your podcast? Laughing House?

Let's do it. Nah. Wow.

It says it reminds him of a clown. And I don't want to be reminding people of clowns. But also we'll make it what it is so then... Yeah. ⁓

Yeah. ⁓ I didn't even think like of like what other people would interpret it as.

Yeah, but I do think that's part of its strength because we would have to like people would immediately think of us if they actually Listen or whatever

Yeah. that wrap up today? All right. First one, a little intro about ourselves. liked it.

I think so. Nice. Yeah, feel like subscribe, share with your friends.

Five star review. Por favor. Thank you.

Those matter. I feel like I have to learn how to not be moving the entire time.

I decided I didn't care, is that bad?

Okay cool. Me too. Cool. There's like this thing over my face. Okay I'm gonna stop recording.

Okay, you're-