Feeling disconnected? Do this tonight!

When marriage just sucks. And we're disconnected and we're not really talking. And I don't even know what to talk about. I really don't want to talk to you if I'm being honest. If we're just stuck in that spot, this is what we do to get out of that. Welcome to the Family Goals podcast. We're great. Believe it or not, even on the family. We hit major ruts in marriage on the regular.

Where things are just stale, we don't know what to talk about. It's easier to just pick up our phone. You know, maybe we're holding on to some hurt or frustration or bitterness. Maybe we feel disconnected and we don't even know why we feel disconnected.

You know, we've been there. We're there all the time. You know, there's just there's cycles of that in marriage. And I think over 19 years of marriage, we've had plenty of uh experiences with disconnection and not really knowing how to move toward each other.

And there was this very, very helpful tool that a friend of ours gave us a while years and years ago and said, This is what me and and my wife do when we feel stuck, when we're trying to create connection. I think maybe this would be helpful for you. So We are gonna walk you through a conversation framework that we've used over the years when we're just stuck. We just don't really know what the marriage needs, but we're feeling super disconnected. Uh, we go to this.

I will explain that this is, but we go to this and it always seems to work to bring us back toget together, to reconnect us, to get the conversation going, um, to create a heart connection, mental connection that is really lacking. So you wanna Yes. Give them more of a overview of what this is. It's a tool called Fano. Not Thanos, the bad guy from Avengers that snapped his finger with the

The infinity stones and the glove and half the population of the world died. Not Thanos. Why do you watch that stuff? Because it's really good. Thanos with an F. It's an acronym, F A N O S And it's stands for five different words to that for the framework. And this is what's so great about this is that it's awkward, it's forced, but it works. It works. So do it. Do it. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna explain what each letter is.

And it's a conversation prompt. Uhhuh. And we'll explain how that works and then we're gonna Do it real time. Our commitment is to not edit it. We have no idea we're gonna do this. Podcast, by the way. We just hit record and go. So um yeah, so we're gonna explain what it is and then we're gonna actually do it live, like in real time for ourselves, as if you weren't here and as if we weren't on camera. And we're gonna try to keep it brief. Yes. And honest.

And I have no idea what's gonna come out of my mouth'cause I haven't thought about this and neither have you. So no preparation. First let's just jump in with what we'll explain it. F stands for feeling. You share a feeling that you're having right now. And you're taking turns on this. So each spouse is a good thing. No, let's do fanos anyway. We're not just okay, fine, we'll do fanos. All right. F.

Feeling. What's a feeling you're having? We'll go we're gonna go through this in real time. So then she would share a feeling and when she does, I'd be like, Great. You don't have to respond. You just like, okay, wow, you're feeling sad, or you're feeling whatever. And then I would share a feeling. So F is what's a feeling that you're having right now? Then A is an affirmation. You affirm your partner.

Oh you know, I wanted to affirm something in you Shea that I saw the other day. So we're do, do affirm. We'll get to that in a minute. Hold your horse. Don't be a glutton. So you affirm something. So you're starting with something innocuous as here's what I'm feeling, which is a great way to let people in like I'm feeling this. You affirm, so we start with something positive about the person, which might be hard if they're if think of anything to affirm. But the point is,

Then you get to the N, so after you both have affirmed each other, which is a need. Share a need. I have a need right now. So like if you have little kids and Your mom, you might like, Hey, a need I have right now is like I need a quiet shower. Or a shower, yeah. Can you take the kids? It would it would minister if you could just it's a need I have, right?

O is ownership, something that I need to own. You know what? I flew off the handle of the kids the other night and I and I kind of ruined dinner. I need to own that like I kind of lost my ish, you know? Whatever. Something you need to own. Take personal responsibility and both people have to do it.

That's that's you're not allowed to suggest what the other person needs to own, right? No, that will like take Phanos and turn it into Thanos and like finger snap and one of you's gone. Uh but then the S is success. Now some people say a struggle.

But you've got to do it. Why would you want to end on a struggle? It never made sense to me. So we end on a success, which is a win. It's just a you know, say a win, something that you feel like is successful in it could be in your life as an individual, it could be in the family, it could be whatever. Share a win, share a success. F A N O S a feeling

Affirm the other person, share a need you have, own something in the relationship or the marriage or the family, and then share a success. And a caveat I'll add is don't Resist the urge to jump in on any one of those things or you're not you're probably not gonna get through it. Now you could argue, Well, we're connecting and that's great. You know, we're just gonna use it as a jump off point and that's fine. I'm not

I'm sorry. I'm not telling you what to do, but there is a tendency that someone could take it and run with this and just like dump a whole bunch. Which isn't really the point of this. We really want both people to be heard. Yeah. You want to kind of move through these things because it covers a number of different things. So this is an event session. This is intentionally designed to move you through a number of different Conversation.

Make sure that each person gets equally heard. Resist the urge to defend or argue, well, you shouldn't feel like that. Well blah, blah, blah, blah. Or like don't do that. No, you don't really need to take ownership of that. You really need to take ownership of that. Please don't do that. This will not go well. Like

This is just creating a safe space for you each to bring how you're feeling to the table. And that could even be it, right? Like you could even just let each person share and you get all the way through it and you're like Awesome, let's go get Chinese food, you know?

Or sure, you could use it as a jump off point to to keep going. But the point is try to work your way through it. Try to make it um just fair and equal for each party. Try not to be defensive, try not to speak into the other person's. section. Yeah. So good so good. Work your way through it. It's designed to work for two reasons. One, it if you don't know what to talk about, or you're not one that shares your feelings or you don't want to

Affirm the other person. It forces you to to focus on these psychological things. Sharing a need which is vulnerable, owning something, which is taking personal responsibility, affirming something which is is really part of what makes a beautiful relationship. Yeah. Um

Getting in touch with your feelings. Like the very first one, I get stuck at the F because I don't know what I'm feeling half the time. And then ending with gratitude and s and positivity, which is scientifically proven to make everybody happy. So it's all designed for a purpose. So just it's great because it just forces you to cover

Everything, almost like a full body workout where you're like, I'm so glad this coach is telling me to do all these work because I would never do abs or I would never do biceps or whatever. So you're forced to cover everything. Uh and then to your point. You're not supposed to react.

talk afterwards, it was successful because it gave you something to connect. You learned something. And then maybe like later that night or the next day be like, you know, yesterday you said you're feeling really discouraged. Like I've been thinking about that. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Now you have some data on your spouse and even on yourself.

That may go somewhere, may not. So you don't have to even feel like it's working and it works. And the last thing I'll just say real quick in the week. And then I'm gonna say last thing after your last thing. Okay, and then I'm gonna say a last thing. I think we think I think this is the show's gone off the rails. I think

It works really well when you go for a walk. Yes, I agree. When you're removing your body. If you especially if you're at a hard spot and you're like, Mm, not really I can't like look at you across the table and like without losing my itch. Yeah, if it's really in that in that hard spot.

Go for a walk. Yeah or drive in the car so you're not facing each other and then say, Okay, let's go through the F. Yep. Just makes it a lot easier. Good. I was just gonna say don't skip any for all the reasons you just said. Don't opt out. Don't be like, Well, I just don't know how I feel. That was obviously me and personating. What are you saying? Yeah. Yeah, don't opt out.

Do all of them. Be diligent. Okay. We're gonna do this. And now we're gonna do this. I have no idea. I'm already nervous. I've done it. We haven't done it a few weeks or a few months. I don't know. No, we haven't. Okay. You wanna go first? Feelings. Okay, a feeling I'm feeling is I'm actually feeling really connected to you and excited about that because

I would say a week ago we felt dis very disconnected and I've been so overwhelmed with book launch and like so myopic about that and all those things that I have to do and feelings about that that I haven't been super connected to you. So in the last couple days I feel really connected to you. And it's been fun today getting to do some episodes and and hang out. So I'm feeling really connected to you. Love that. Love that for you. Yeah. Um thank you for sharing that. I feel

Good. Today's been a fun day. It's been like and by fun I mean like it's been we've done a lot of different things so far. We're at like two o'clock in the afternoon. I've probably done like eight very different things today, but It's been good. It's been a life-giving day. I feel like it was a good close to the week. I wrapped up some I wrapped up things that needed to be wrapped up.

We're gonna get to spend family time this weekend. So I'm excited about that. And I do feel a lot more connected than we were feeling like a week ago. So I'm really, really grateful for that. It feels like everything's in a a good spot. Yeah. Awesome. See, not so bad, right? That was the U. Not bad. Okay. A If we had done this a week ago though, we would not have been able to fit everything into the podcast. Convenient that is today.

Just, you know, last week it would have been a lot messier. Yeah. I'm feeling angry. Uh let's see. Okay, a affirmation. Um I wanted to affirm you in how kind and thoughtful you've been to me during this book launch, and especially this week with the book launch party. You planned a whole party. sent out invites, catered food, had some little surprises and and just like l little things. And it just f I felt very cared for. And I feel like wow.

She really thought of me and that took effort and it took time and and you have a lot going on and I just feel like that was just super kind of you and so I wanted to affirm you in that. So thank you. You're a great wife. Thank Okay. I wanna affirm in you this week in particular that well, two things. One, I just appreciated as difficult as last weekend was in the conversations that we had last weekend. Um, I just appreciated that you were so

It's hard to describe. Like you were willing to be like, Yeah, I do think that's the problem. Instead of being defensive, you were like, I think you're right. I think I'm I'm really stuck here or like I'm really thinking about it this one way. And it it enabled us to come together and kind of talk about the issues as not each other is the issue, but like, yeah, this is the issue. And like, let's partner together on this being the issue. And you could have just closed up and

gotten frustrated and gotten frustrated with your with yourself and like, oh, why is it like this? Why am I like this? Um, and I just appreciated that you approached that conversation with a lot of humility and curiosity and like we were able to put the problem outside of ourselves and address it instead of getting defensive. Um And then I just appreciate the way you've been showing up the past few days. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you.

N Is a need. I told you we didn't prep for this. Yeah, if I have a need specifically that you could meet in this season. Do you need me to place a two thousand Bulk bulk book orders. If you could do that today, please, and leave another two thousand reviews also on Amazon.

I'll get right to work on that. Yeah, outside of that um I know what I need actually is and I need maybe you can help me sit down. We can plan I need a day away soon to start to plan some work related things outside of the book because the book has been like dominating my planning all year for the business. So I have like let everything, all these little fires burn in the business. And so I need to address them.

soon so I could start working towards some things before the New Year's. I need like a day away or like a planning day sooner than the end of the year. Like I need even just like one day. So I'd probably need to sit down with you and say like when would be a good just day that I could just

Just go plan some stuff to get my head right now that the book launch is over. Because I have not thought past September third. That makes sense. Whenever the book came out. So September's probably a good month for that. Yeah. Because October's so full for us. Yeah. So

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. The only thing that c the thing that comes to mind for I'm just not the only thing. I'm sure I have like a million needs, but the thing that is top of mind right now for me is over the next two weeks. I'm gonna be pushing really hard to get the wellness house launched. Yeah. So we have a Airbnb.

Uh wellness dedicated wellness Airbnb here in Tampa. It's amazing. Put a lot of time, effort, and energy and money into making it just an epic wellness Airbnb. So sonical plunge, et cetera. And we're gonna officially launch that on the fifteenth of September. And I just know it's gonna take up a lot of my time and energy and like my brain over the next two weeks. Um But I wanna do it well. And so I think I just need your in advance, like

Patience and excitement over that. I know I'm gonna bring you into a live launch that we'll do on the fifteenth, like on a Sunday night. And I just don't wanna feel like we're I'm pulling us along. I want it to be I know I'm like I'm the one who's pushing for the hard launch of this and and all the stuff related to it. But if I

your like participation and support and patience with me over the next two weeks while we just kind of get it out the door would be really appreciated. Yeah. Cause I carry my own anxieties about is it going to do well? Am I doing enough? You know, so that would be helpful in advance over these next two weeks leading up to the fifteenth. You got it. Thanks, babe. O is something we need to own. Something I need to own. Um

Well, this kind of builds off our conversation last weekend. I need to own like my own uh Oh, what's the right word that feels accurate? I need to own my own journey of like wholeness and care. If I if I need something.

I need I'm responsible for it instead of I need to own that I haven't been doing that. I've been so myopic is the best word I can think of, so focused on like, okay, just get this book out in the world that I when if I'm not taking care of myself emotionally or mentally or physically or whatever it might be, and when that I'm feeling the effects of that of like, ah, you know, and I'm looking for like solutions, if I really need to own that that's my responsibility to

to look out for myself to be take care of myself so that I can show up fully for you guys and I it's not your responsibility. You can't do that for me. So we are we've talked about that, but I need to own that I need to do that. Mm-hmm. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. Thank you. I was gonna ask you what I needed to own. It's already breaking the rules. Okay. You know what you need to own.

I don't know. Trying to think of what like relates to the last like week or so. I mean, I think if we're staying on topic of like we're in book launch season and all and the push and we're still obviously we're like literally still in the middle of book launch week. So we're not all the way through yet, but um I definitely need to own that I can get really task and I can move past the celebration and I can move past um just like taking the moment to fully be excited and

have the full conversation if you're like telling me about something that's relating to the book or some feedback that you got or something like that and some of the things that have been the wonderful things that you're celebrating alongside the launch. Like, oh, so and so said something, um

all the time. This is a problem, not just this week, but all the time. I know I can be very tasked. Like I'm cleaning, I'm cooking dinner and I'm not like fully all the way dialed in to give that a full proper moment and a full proper celebration. So

I wanna do better at continuing to like when you're celebrating even a small win, like I got at this great review or someone said this really great thing about the book that I'm stopping, look like making eye contact with you, fully celebrating with you. And not just multitasking, that's awesome, you know, and keep going with what I'm doing. I know I can be so task and I can be more ta I can overlook people in general and you specifically because I'm just task focused. So

I'm gonna keep trying to do that this week as we like continue to celebrate what's been going on. But if there's anything else I need to own, speak now. Have you bought a copy of the book? I own fifty copies of the book. That I bought. Have you bought one? I don't think I have. You're right. Do you want me to r do you want me to buy a book and leave a review? You literally should. It will actually count.

I should. You have a different Amazon. I'm gonna use your credit card. That's fine. I don't care whose money. I just we just need to bump the algorithm up a little bit on Amazon. Should I leave like a review as someone else? Just as your initials, SC. Yeah. Cool. I don't know. Now everyone who listens to this will know that SC review is. She's got a pin name. We're gonna use something totally different. Like Thanos.

The evil guy from Avengers. Okay. And then S, and we wrap it up here, see we're almost done, is a success um that you want to celebrate. And so I would say Well I I would say um The book launch party was r the whole book launch has been a success so far. We're sort sort of in

And while we're recording this, we're still mid book launch week, so I'm still waiting for some data to come in before it's like I hit some of the goals and dreams that I've had specifically, but so much has already been a success. But I really loved the party on Tuesday. That was so fun. So I think having a bunch of people over, um You know, and it's it's weird being a author because no one really

knows or it's not that they don't really care. But it's not accurate. So I didn't say that. It feels like they they you know they're like, oh cool, you wrote a book like like as if like last week and I just wrote a book. But it's been like a eighteen months of my life process. Um, so you I never want to assume that people are as excited about it as I am, of course. So in when we were inviting people over for the book party, I thought it was fun to do it, but then it's like

Are they gonna be like, Why are we s what are we celebrating again? So like people write books all the time, but it was cool how excited people were. Um, it was a really cool God moment of the people God's put in our lives. The last couple of years just celebrating um some really cool new friendships and

and worlds colliding and they were all having fun and they were they were excited about like the book and my friend Graham wrote this book and I think the whole party was a success and it wasn't awkward and it wasn't I didn't feel weird or I don't know, like even the last party, you threw this epic surprise party for me for my first book two years ago. And the the party was amazing. Jazz band and we were it's rooftop um downtown Tampa and

Uh flu in people from like Sweden, like my my uh Each book launch it's gonna keep going down. Eventually we'll just be at McDonald's, like gr grabbing a McFlurry. Congratulations, Graham. You wrote another New York Times bestseller.

Yeah, you might as well start start big. But the party was amazing. But um I don't know, I felt awkward and weird and and like so I was like, I don't want to feel that way at this party. And didn't feel that way at all. I think the whole night was a success. It was just fun. It was like good fun. So that's a that's a front.

success. It was a success. I'm gonna take that as the as my success. I'm not gonna use that as my actual success, but I am gonna keep that. But it's because of you, yeah. Um I'll go with a success in parenting this week. Two things. I feel like I was able to really dive in and encourage Chloe in some ways that, you know, there's just like certain things I'm bad at.

Uh, when something seems very obvious to me, like I love you. That seems very obvious to me. I'm not always good at articulating because words of affirmation aren't super high on my list. So There were some things that I really wanted to communicate to Chloe this week, just things I see in her and see God doing. And I just did it, even though to me it felt kind of like.

We're stating the obvious here, but I know that that her she also is words of affirmation. Words of affirmation. So proud of myself for that parenting moment. And then with Vera, we had a really rough morning yesterday and um she Was late for school because she wasn't organized and she ended up 10 minutes late and it was a class she had a test in and she was like crying the whole ride there. And it's just like one of those things where you're like,

You want to jump in and save them from this situation because I know she felt bad. She loved school. You know, it just was she just wasn't fully prepared the night before, blah, blah, blah, blah. And It's so easy to just wanna jump in and make it all better or like I'll email your teacher and tell them it was my fault. Maybe they'll wave your tardy or whatever it is, like

And I was really sitting in that tension of like, she needs to feel the pain of this. Yeah. So that she takes responsibility and From now on, like she gets herself ready the way she's supposed to the night before and so that the mornings aren't a stressful scramble and

It broke my heart because she's crying and just, oh, you never Vera doesn't get that emotional. So it's like it was really heartbreaking and I was just really feeling a lot of tension of I want to encourage her, but also like let her sit in the consequence. And I was able to do that. It didn't feel very good.

But I was able to let her sit in the consequence and she took the tardy and it, you know, it was fine. Like it was fine. And now she probably it's burned into her brain. Like she really doesn't want that to happen again. So I was proud of myself there. Cause at the end of the day, it's just like we wanna We want our kids to not experience pain, but they need to. They need to experience natural consequences and I know that. So it was a good like little

Test. Oh yeah, this is what that feels like again. Yeah. So that was a little parenting win, parenting success from the song. Yeah. You're a great mom. Thank you. That was a bonus affirmation right there. Mm-hmm. Phano. See, it's already working. Phanosa. The female version of Phanos. Um there's Phanos. F A N O S. Share a feeling you're having. Affirm the other person about something. Share a need you have. Share something you need to own for the O, and then share a success.

And so like we just did this on the fly and I just got a lot more into your heart and mind that like and now I'm understanding how you're thinking, how you're feeling. Yeah. And I already know most of those things, but like it's actually shocking that I'm like I should really like what you said about the need of a be patient and excited for the

The Airbnb like relaunch kind of thing. That was a good reminder for me. Like I know that, but I'm thinking about my own stuff. Like I'm like, oh yeah, it just draws attention. I'm like I gotta make sure I'm like there for shave the next couple weeks'cause you're doing a lot, thinking a lot.

And so that was a good reminder for me. So that was very useful. So Phanos can be super useful. It works, guys. It works. So the idea we're we're done here. The idea is simple, like in your back pocket, F A N O S Phanos. You're feeling stuck. We don't know what to talk about. Go print those t shirts right there. You're feeling stuck, whip it out. Um it's just a helpful tool, even if it feels dumb while you're doing it, even if it's a struggle, it's working, which is pretty cool. Very cool. Yeah.

Well that was fun. Yeah, we did it. Wow. I feel like somebody should give us a round of applause. Is anybody around here that can clap for us? We just did that live real time. We didn't know? Just us here. All right, you still we should still close out with what are you grateful for? We got a signature move. What's one thing you're grateful for? Man, uh all the kind words for the book. Um, I probably said that in the last episode. I'm thinking of um

One video I gotta show you this video of one of my my buddies, Cantis. Um Cantus, if you're listening, I don't know if you listen to the show or not, but he listens to my other stuff up in Georgia, I believe. I believe you're in Atlanta.

Just he's sent a really sweet video um supporting me with the book. So I gotta show it to you. I won't spoil it here'cause I want you to see it. But um people like Cantus and so many of you have reached out and just said like, this book is so good and this is why it's good for me, or this is perfect timing.

So I'm so grateful that it's resonating with people. And like I'm getting specific examples from twenty-two year olds out of college that don't know what to do in their lives to sixty-two year-olds that just got laid off and they're like, what am I doing in my life?

40 year gap and they're both like this book came at the right time. So I'm just super grateful for that. Yeah. I can't wait to see that video. Um I'm grateful for did my kickoff coaching call today for this next like three month. I do these coaching sprints, like three month coaching sprints. primarily of like burnt out business burnt out but very successful business owners.

And we had the first introduction call. This will be my second round of doing this coaching and it felt really good. That's that's what I'm grateful for is like doing it now a second time, I feel more confident. I know the results on the other side of it. Um, so I can just speak with a little bit more confidence, lead with a little bit more confidence.

uh knowing what's ahead for them. So it felt really good for a first call. It just felt really good. Yeah. I'm so proud of you for doing that too. Thank you. All right, people are ready to move on from our love love. Thanks for listening. You were amazing. Hope you have an amazing weekend. Try Phanos out and then message us. Let us know how to be for you. Okay. We'll see you on another another episode real.