Nicole:

Hey, everyone. I am so excited. You have no idea the energy that is coming into this chat, partly because I have two guests in studio. Y’all that never happens. One of them’s already grunting in the background. Alex is back. I’m not even gonna get an intro. Alex is here.

Alex:
I’m back.

Nicole:

He’s back. And we’re excited that he’s here just because I actually needed his help for this interview because our special guest is Dr. Morgan Anderson, y’all. I’m telling you right now. This is going to be a treat. We are doing our first couples therapy session.

Alex:
<exhales>

Nicole:

Why are you exhaling?

Alex:

That’s excitement.

Nicole:

Exhaling excitement. Okay, good. We’re doing our first couples therapy session here. Not formalized. Obviously. We’re just going to chat through some things. And then and then we get to learn all about Dr. Morgan. Now if y’all aren’t familiar, this is our generation’s Dr. Ruth. This is our cool hip Tinder friendly. Explain it so we can do it, dating guru who’s applying actionable practical tools that we can use every single day to have the relationships that we want, need and deserve. Dr. Morgan, thank you for being here.

Dr. Morgan:

Thank you for having me. Can you hang out my bathroom with me every morning? And say that, please?

Nicole:

Oh, no you don’t want my trauma in there with you. I’m so glad that you’re here today. And we have a lot of ground to cover. Before we kick off. Just tell us a little bit more about how you get because first of all, if y’all can’t see she’s gorgeous, she’s smart. She’s giving good hair, strong eyebrows. Trustworthy. And I just wonder this is not the vision I think that a lot of us have of what therapy is like, how did you even come to this? Because you are giving so much on the relationship front.

Dr. Morgan:

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I’m glad you notice my eyebrows. Yeah, these are real. Okay, so I just like a lot of people who get into clinical psych, I experienced childhood trauma, I actually lost my mom at a really young age, I was five years old. And then watched my dad go through three different marriages. And I just had to grow up really quick, really, really quick. And then of course, I’m getting my doctorate in clinical psychology and I kind of thought, Okay, I’m gonna do things differently. But it turns out I had so much unconscious stuff going on, that I attracted really, really unhealthy relationships over and over in my 20s.

Nicole:

Oh, wow. So I mean, what you’re telling me right now is, it’s actually possible while we’re trying to learn to do right, that we can do wrong.

Dr. Morgan:

Oh, for sure.

Nicole:
Story my life <laughs>

Dr. Morgan:

Logically, I knew what a great relationship was, but unconsciously my blueprint for what a relationship was was so unhealthy. So I essentially hit rock bottom. You know, like so many people that create something great, you have that moment. And for me, it was my second year of graduate school. I was dating a narcissist, who I did not know was a narcissist to begin with. And then…

Nicole:

They’re good at hiding, right? They’re good. This is what they do.

Dr. Morgan:
The love bombing stage.

Nicole:

I mean, especially if you lacked before and they look for people who are in that state, ya know, so…

Dr. Morgan:

Highly empathic, right? I’m so so vulnerable to it. And he had a great family and I loved his family. So successful…

Nicole:
Sounds like it was hot, too.

Dr. Morgan:

Oh, yeah. So yeah, I hit this rock bottom moment, I was filing a police report in the lobby of my apartment building. People walking by. And it was just this moment where I said, I just need to do something different.

Nicole:

Right? Like, how did I get here? How did I get here on it? Yeah. So then, that was really I think, a shift right? Like where you really came to the specialty of your craft because there’s a lot of places you can go in clinical psych. Yeah. So I mean, really, just spending your life now this has been your mission work, helping empower women with the tools they need to pick the right partner, while getting to know themselves is huge. So your specialty, you know, is really around attachment theory. Can you just tell us because I was trying to explain this to Alex earlier because for y’all who don’t know, Alex grew up in like this idyllic family. I mean, like, I’m telling you.

Alex:
Yeah, it was good.

Nicole:

I mean, he’ll be the first to tell you like his parents are so loving. They’ve been married. How long have your parents been married?

Alex:

Um, yeah, like 30 something years. It’s probably it’s probably 40 years.

Nicole:

Y’all they on time they like the one of the first things Alex told me about his parents was What do you remember about how they are? And how they like and your memories of their relationship?

Alex:

What about the falling asleep on the couch thing? And like watching movies? Yeah, watching movies. My dad always the fall asleep on the couch. My dad always comment on our hair, like, you know, oh, had like kind of like cutesy thing like things. It’s kind of like, I don’t know, keep the love alive.

Dr. Morgan:

They have secure attachment!

Nicole:

Attached! So we neither of us were like, are really all the way up to speed on attachment theory. We just know kind of, you know how it’s like, you know what’s good when you see it, but you may not know what it is to look for it yourself. So the definition is so important. So I did not grow up like that Alex obviously grew up differently. I have repeated patterns. Alex has not. So tell us more about in practice what is attachment theory?

Dr. Morgan:

Yes. When I first started to research it, I realized pretty quickly, this is the missing piece to the dating puzzle.

Nicole:

Ooh, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, y’all write this down. You’ve been looking, you’ve been searching, we got answers. Attachment theory is the missing piece to the puzzle. Tell us more.

Dr. Morgan:

Because it helps you understand why you do what you do in relationships. And we know that if we want to change what we’re doing, we have to understand it so that we can have compassion towards it. When we have compassion, right? Yeah, compassion for ourselves, and then we can let it go. So by understanding attachment theory and applying it to your relationships, you get that understanding that then gets you to compassion. And then you can choose differently.

Nicole:

I love so it’s a tool that we can actually use in order to help us understand ourselves better, which will then help us pick better partners.

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah.

Alex:

And you were saying that there’s a couple different kinds of attachment theory?

Dr. Morgan:

Oh, yeah, we’ll get into it. Let’s go.

Nicole:

Oh, you don’t understand people right now are pulling over their car, they’ve stopped working. They are standing in the grocery store, they are frantically writing down in their phones. And if they’re not there they are now because this is the answer, right?

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah. So I like to think of attachment theory, in a lot of different ways. But one of the most helpful ways is understanding the attachment styles. So there’s four main attachment styles. And if you think about like, you have a relationship toolkit, you actually have all the styles available to you. But it’s just which one do you use the most, which one was modeled for you? Which one fits your template?

Nicole:
So no one’s born with a specific attachment theory, we all can be any of the above, but depending on what happens in our life will lead towards one or the other?

Alex:

What you’ve seen as a child like kind of affects relationships.

Dr. Morgan:

Zero to seven with your caregiver has a huge impact. Your early adult romantic relationships have a huge impact. Oh, wow. Because it’s your template for oh, this is what a relationship is. 

Nicole:
That’s good. So that also matters for those of us who are mamas out there listening? You know, what we have our kids around ages zero to seven, you know, and in those early formative years is really what they are likely to replicate unless we imprint other things.

Alex:

Yeah. It’s crazy. Because yeah, you probably don’t think about the kid, you’re like, Oh, I’m just living my life and stuff with kids are picking up everything. Like, I mean, even recently, I was telling you about the way I grew up, and then you’re like, Have you ever told your dad that like, blah, blah, blah? You know.

Nicole:

I say this all the time.

Alex:
Yeah. Have you ever told your dad that you remember this? And that? And I was like, No, I don’t think I’ve ever actually mentioned it. And then I would go back and mentioned and he was like, really? Like, you remember that?

Nicole:

They pick everything up. Like they have no idea. But it’s so true.

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah, we all have those stories from early on.

Nicole:

Good and bad because I definitely remember negative things like simple things like the way that Alex will talk about how seeing his parents fall asleep on the couch, or holding hands or being affectionate, or even saying I love you, or how can I help?

Those are not things I grew up with, you know, and, and I don’t say that in a way that it was, you know, one thing is good or bad. It depends on what you’re looking for in your life. But I will say, I’m sure Dr. Morgan might say otherwise. She’s like, No, that’s bad girl. No. I’m just trying to be nice to the listeners. Okay. therapeutically. But what I will say is that, culturally, that wasn’t the norm, you know, it’s not a naturally affectionate household. So my parents did not grow up like that I did not see holding of hands or cuddling on the couch or much affection, you know.

And so affection was in the form of tasks and doing and yeah, those sorts of things. So, what’s crazy is I think a lot of people confuse attachment styles with love languages.

Dr. Morgan:
Oh, they do.

Nicole:

So can you explain the difference between the two for people right now are like, Well, my love language is buying gifts, but that’s not necessarily an attachment style, like I’m attached to nice things to y’all. But that’s not the only thing that equates love.

Dr. Morgan:

So yeah, and we’ll definitely get into all the styles, but to make that distinction is so important. Your love language helps you create secure attachment. If somebody knows what your love language is, you’re going to feel more securely attached. But it’s not the way that you show up in a relationship to get your needs met.

Nicole:

That’s good that yeah, that’s good. So these four attachment styles, the first one you keep referring to as secure, which sounds like it’s the sane.

Dr. Morgan:

It’s where we all want to be.

Nicole:
So stands for saying, you want a secure attachment to be secure, secure is sexy. I received that. Okay, I received that. Okay. And so, what? What are the other ones?

Dr. Morgan:

Okay, so we’ve got anxious.

Nicole:

That’s me. That’s my baseline. My baseline is anxiety. I live in a perpetual state of anxiety. It reflects in everything I anxiously order at Cheesecake Factory like everything I do. So okay,

Alex:

So secure and anxious.

Dr. Morgan:

Avoidant, and then disorganized.

Nicole:

Oh, I’ve never heard of disorganized before or avoidant.

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah, so we’ll get into it.

Nicole:

Yeah, let’s get let’s get into it. Okay, tell me about, well, let’s start with secure.

Dr. Morgan:

Okay, so secure is where we all want to be. This is where I matter you matter your needs matter my needs matter. I can set boundaries I can communicate how I feel. I’m able to feel secure in the relationship knowing that it’s going to last and my partner offers me reassurance to create that security and the connection.

This also makes you feel so independent and empowered. And it allows you to go out into the world and really do what you want to do because you have that secure base. You know you have your partner.

Nicole:

That sounds parental as well.

Dr. Morgan:

Oh it is.

Nicole:
That like as the foundation that’s what I would want from that’s what I aim to give my kids. I want them to be like Oh yeah, home is always here, but like please go out into the world. You’re capable, you’re able, like yo, but like, I love you, you matter and I care but also you’re not gonna do whatever you want in this house. You know what I mean? Like healthy boundaries, you know? So it’s like that. That sounds like a parenting thing.

Dr. Morgan:

And Nicole, it did start with parent child is where attachment theory started with was studying parent child relationships. And then it was applied to romantic relationships.

Nicole:

Makes a lot of sense because I listen, I am nobody’s mama and I have found a lot of men. A lot of men. I know they’re women here nodding their heads right now looking to be raised. I’m not raising a good husband. Yeah, that’s not the move.

Dr. Morgan:

So in interdependence, not codependence, not hyper independence, interdependence. I depend on me and I know I can depend on you. Right. So that’s a healthy romantic relationship. So the insecure styles all the others I listed, we have anxious attachment. Anxious is where I have prioritized the relationship over myself.

Nicole:

Oh, I’ve done that. That is like, I was like me before, I’ve done that.

Alex:

I’ve had personal issues where they’ve done that to me. <laughs>

Nicole:
<laughs> I was like you did that!

Alex:

I’ve experienced that from the other side. And it creates a lot of stress on the relationship. You’re not paying enough attention to this relationship. You’re not doing enough and I’m like, I feel like I am.

Dr. Morgan:

You put someone on a pedestal.

Alex:

I also have my own life. And that’s okay, too, you know, and they didn’t have their own life. You know what I mean? It’s like this balance, but it’s all about the relationship. Yeah, there’s no independence there.

Dr. Morgan:

It’s fear of abandonment. Right, we talked about fear of abandonment, and you will think about all the ways that you’re going to be abandoned, and you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop all the time. sending those 17 text messages when you don’t get a reply.

Nicole:

Oh, oh, someone right now is like…

Alex:

All the memories, all the memories.

Nicole:
I’m hoping here like, wow, get out of my therapy sessions. But I was joking with him this morning. I was like, Look, you have no idea. This is who I used to be like, and not like, I wasn’t the 17 text messenger. I wasn’t like that. Because I’m well therapy, thank God, you know, but in my head, like, I’ll hear and feel these feelings where I’m like, Am I okay? Is this secure? Is this safe? What do I need to do? How do I need to change things? But I just take it to therapy, you know, and I say like, I’m feeling this type of way. I don’t think it’s valid, you know, what do I need to do? What should I be communicating? You know, and that sort of thing. So you don’t see my crazy because a lot of it lands with my therapist.

Alex:
You keep telling me there’s a lot of crazy. I’m starting to get a little worried. <laughs>

Dr. Morgan:

No, this is healthy.

Nicole:

You just enjoy what you’re getting. You’re getting the filtered, healthy version.

Alex:

Okay, so far, so good.

Dr. Morgan:

And I want to just say to that, everything we do in a relationship is to get connection and love and we need that to survive. So we had to remember like, these are the things that we learned to do at one point, it was helpful for us to use these strategies to get love this way.

But then trying to create healthy adult relationships, those same strategies that you had to use in your childhood are sabotaging you, right? So compassion.

Nicole:
That’s so good. Be nice to yourself as you learn as you learn in therapy, Lord, therapy for those who are Christians, and you’re seeing yourself out therapy and Jesus, you can do both. Yeah, both are already helping. So okay, that’s good. So, and it sounds like people can kind of float through these in the relationship, right? So even if you’re mostly secure, you could have moments of anxious attachment. If you’re because I will honestly say, like, we’ve I’m not gonna tell all of our business. But we have had times where we, I would say, we hover insecure, you’re giving me the light, which about to say, face?

Alex:
I’m on the edge of my seat.

Nicole:
No, I would say we definitely are consistently in the secure area. But if you know that I’m going into an environment that you may be less than thrilled about, you know, whether it’s like an event or a certain type of trial, which is rare. Usually you’re like, go be out in the world, whatever. But if it’s something that you have particular concerns about, I know that if I even if we’re just like my safety, you know, you’ll be like, hey, when you get in, reach out to me, and if you don’t, then you’re a little bit more like anxious about it.

Alex:

That’s happened for sure. Like, I remember, I remember there was one time where you went to an outing, and I was out of town on a gig, and I didn’t know where it was she was going, you know, it was nighttime. It was late, you know, like, you know what I mean? And I was just, I don’t know, I just had this feeling of a layer of anxiety, and I knew she’d be okay. Yeah, you know, and I had this feeling of anxiety because I can’t check in if anything happens, I can’t be around to like help out or whatever. But like, everything was okay. You know, when you checked in, you know, when you could.

Nicole:

So is that anxious attachment, because also a whole adult, or is that just anxiety?

Dr. Morgan:

So I think it’s really important to clarify that. Yeah, insecurely attached relationships will have those moments. But you’ve just moved back to secure quickly,

Nicole:

Right. Yeah, it was just kind of oh, I’m okay. And then it was we were able to talk about what could I have done differently? Yeah, just help. Make sure, like more check ins. And actually, we haven’t had a moment like that since once we learned.

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah, I think it’s helpful to remember like, climate versus weather.

Nicole:
Oh tell us more about that.

Dr. Morgan:

The climate of your relationship is secure. But you can have little bouts of rain showers.

Alex:

Yeah. Yeah. And ever since we started, got a really good balance. I mean, for example, I just got off the road. Like, last night, I was gone for like four days, doing some shows up north. Yeah, I just got in this morning, for the morning. Oh, my God for being here. And even during all those times, I’ve really been intentional about being good about checking in. I have arrived at my destination. I’m on the road. I’m back at my hotel.

Nicole:

He wasn’t in the beginning at all.

Dr. Morgan:
This is a great example for everybody listening, this is a great example of reassurance, you’re offering reassurance to help create the secure attachment.

Alex:

Right? And it’s I feel like it’s not even out of any kind of insecurity. But we’re generally worried about our partner, like, did you make it they’re safe? Just let me know. It’s like, it’s like, it’s like taking a flight somewhere. Let me know when you landed. It’s just like, you know, just reassuring. I’m okay, everything’s okay. You’re on through life. Yeah, I’ll be checking in with you. And then when you don’t check in, that’s when you know…

Nicole:

There’s an issue because probably not the norm. And it wasn’t like this. In the beginning, I think to be fair, part of what I hear from some of my friends who like you’re saying those 17 text messages, and now the guy doesn’t want to be around you because you were teamed too much in the beginning. But like when we first got together, neither one of us came from a place where we had to check in with people. I didn’t have to check in because I wasn’t in a partnership where my partner cared if I was okay or not. You weren’t in partnership, you were just single. So it just didn’t, you didn’t have to check in with anyone.

So when we first got together, it was kind of like he would go off. And I’d be like, hey, like, did you make it? Did you not you know, because now we’re with people that we care about, you know, and he like, had to say, Oh, this is something that I should do, because it helps. And then the fact that he does it without prompting now, like literally don’t even worry.

Alex:

Well, that’s what I was gonna say was that it’s not like a requirement that we’ve set for each other. We do it because we want to do it. You know what I mean? It’s not like you must call me or I’m gonna, like forgotten or like, it’s not even that energy. It’s just like, oh, yeah, I’ll call you when I get in.

Nicole:

Yeah I even thought you were checking in a lot. You could do less.

Alex:

I’m going to remember that one!

Dr. Morgan:

He’s going to go dark. <laughs>

Nicole:

Oh, no, I would show up. You know it, I would pop up like that. So good. So that’s secure and anxious. I love that we’re able to give real world application I know whenever I listen to podcasts, I’m always like, I get what you’re saying in theory, but how does that look in practice? So this is and y’all if you have not read Dr. Morgan’s book, Love magnet. What’s great about it, there are exercises. There’s action and it’s like a good quick read. We’re not talking about like a 5000 page book where we can’t just highlight and use it. This is like 90% actionable. So like the stuff we’re talking about here. There’s stuff you can apply in the book. It’s called Love magnet. It’s out now you can grab it, but let’s keep going. So the other two types.

Dr. Morgan:

So avoidant attachment style, and this is where you feel like you might lose yourself in the relationship, and you prioritize yourself over the relationship and a lot of times, this comes from fear of, I could be a bad partner, I’m not good at relationships, I might let people down.

Nicole:

Wow.

Dr. Morgan:

And then it also comes from just fear of like, this person is going to just take up too much of my time, and I’m going to lose myself and lose the things that I really care about.

Nicole:

I hear this a lot from guys in this generation. Oh, yeah. Like, it seems like it’s a very like, like, this is what I hear from I mean, fortune, I didn’t have to date for long. But like, I’ll hear from my girlfriends who are out who are like, look like these 35-45 year old men are not trying to settle down because they’re like, No, I don’t want to spend my whole life taking care of a family, blah, blah, and I just want to travel and it’s like, but you also want to be with a girl or be in a relationship. It sounds like they may have some avoidant tendencies versus because also people are justifying, like, No, you should be able to be free, and you should live your own thing. But the truth is, I’m better in my partnership, I really am.

Alex:

I will, I will say as the as the male in the room with a mic. I will, I will say, I mean, I totally understand it. And I totally understand what you’re saying, because I feel like there’s a lot of guys and who are afraid of letting go of the way that they have been, that bachelor lifestyle, if that’s bad, I can sleep in, I can play video games, like hang with my boys, I can go out, I can do all this stuff. And all that stuff is cool. And if you’re in a secure relationship, you should still be able to do those things right? It just might look a little different. And I feel like that’s the misconception of like losing yourself in the relationship. It’s like yeah, you might not be able to do those things as often as you might want or have done before. But like if you want a successful relationship you also need to find like a balance. You don’t have to lose yourself but your life is gonna look a little different inherently if you’re in a partnership.

Nicole:

Tell them Alex, tell them! The man in the room!

Alex:

I still make time for my boys. I make time for my video games or board games or whatever.

Dr. Morgan:

And I will say this I think men are socialized to be avoidantly attached in relationships.

Nicole:
Really? Really? Yeah. Do you think it’s gotten worse?

Dr. Morgan:

I think it’s I actually think it’s getting better.

Nicole:

Really? Tell me more about that because women right now they’re like, No, it’s gotten worse. Like these guys don’t want these relationships. You know, and I think almost there’s I’ve noticed a response of some women being like, well, I don’t want that either. You know what I mean? Like he’s just the fun thing. You know?

Dr. Morgan:

I think more women are becoming avoidantly attached than ever before. The hyper independent I don’t need a man, you know, no scrubs. Yeah.

Nicole:

Yeah. I’m Ss the opposite. I’m like, I love it. I love being a mom, I ship. I love it. Like, it keeps me It keeps me from being too independent. You know what I mean? Like the right partner actually keeps me grounded. You know?

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah, I don’t know, I think a lot of men grew up in families where it wasn’t safe for them to cry, right? It wasn’t safe for them to be vulnerable. It wasn’t safe for them to really need someone so then they learn Oh, that’s weakness. And they don’t really feel comfortable expressing themselves. So then they’re terrified to do it with a significant other, and they think they’re gonna fail at it.

So they would just they’re so much more comfortable in their career. Career is I work harder. It’s on paper. So yeah, so just their, you know, inputs equals outputs, whereas this world of relationships and be vulnerable.

Nicole:

And it’s still input equals output, I guess it’s just different feels more like it to figure it out. Like the rules of the game are harder to figure out.

Dr. Morgan:
A different kind of input. Sure. Sure.

Nicole:
Yeah. Oh, Dr. Morgan’s over here preaching to the people right now are like, oh, so I will say Do you mind? I don’t know. Do you mind me saying this? I’m about to say it.

Alex:
Do I have an option? <laughs>

Nicole:

I’m about to say this. I was considerate of it. I decipher. So I’m because I’m in a relationship with someone who has no problem being vulnerable, like and he’s always been like,

Alex:

I’ve always been an open book. I mean, I don’t really care. I feel like you know, talking about the things that most people are afraid to talk about are things that people can learn from in you know, like if nobody talks about being those things like how can anyone just deal with that stuff?

Nicole:

It’s weird, it’s odd. I mean, coming from my cultural backgrounds, my parents being African and you know, coming from us strong male you know, almost toxic masculinity prototypes are like a thing that you know, perpetuated and encouraged you know, but I will say that you know, it’s interesting because I’m in relationship with someone who is not like that. I wouldn’t say Alex is not a softy by any definition like you push the wrong buttons and you will you will meet the beast. Okay, like he really is firm. Yeah, to me. he’s firm in all the right places, you know, and like, that’s what I love and required I’m attracted to, you know, oh, come on. Oh, come on. Fro the mamas, headphone warning, I mean, not because it’s actually a spicy chat, but just because I had clearly in the room.

Look, gather yourself.

Alex:
Gather yourself.

Nicole:

That’s what I meant. What I meant, I meant he’s got what moving. The point is that, you know, he understands who he is, you know. And that also means that there are times where he can be incredibly soft and like authentically, you know, showing me how he feels, you know, without worrying about whether or not he’s going to be ridiculed or made fun of, but I will tell you sometimes when he is, like, more emotional, I don’t even know what to do with that.

You know what I mean? Like, in a way where I had to say, Yes, this is huge. So yeah, I have to, like, I know that it’s, I respond differently. But there been times I’m like, I don’t know what to do with this. I’ve said that to you.

Alex:

Sometimes. I mean, we all have our days, ya know? Like, I had an experience the other night at a show.

Nicole:
Okay, not with me. I was about to be like, I don’t want nobody knowing my business. <laughs>

Alex:

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, that long story short. I did the show. And I met and I met this girl afterwards. And she, she was the older child, she was with her younger sister. And she told me after the show, it was such an amazing night. And she was like, today is the seven year anniversary of our middle sisters passing. And the little sister was obviously upset. And also I was like, how are you? I was like, must be holding it together for your younger sister. I was like, you’re such a good sister and all this stuff.

And she just just the waterworks started coming. And I told her, I was like, you know, it’s okay to like, not be okay, sometimes, you know, and then just like more waterworks, you know, because people are used to being strong and holding it together. And I’m the same way but over the years, I’ve tried more to let myself, if I have, if I’m having those days, you know, just just have it, you know what I mean? Just have the day otherwise, it’s just gonna, that day could turn into a week or longer or like, whatever. So just, you know, just let it go. Let it go. You know what I mean?

Nicole:

But it’s been different being in a relationship with someone like that.

Dr. Morgan:

I think women have to get comfortable with that. Yeah, because we haven’t been around.

Nicole:

You know, like, safe and knowing that, like, whatever He’s showing us authentic. So I think part of just because, uh, since we gonna talk about trauma, my trauma is that, you know, I worry about those emotions being manipulative. And that’s because I’m aware of my previous trauma and people using it in that fashion. But I know that that’s never the case here with him. And so when I see it, I can literally feel myself saying, Oh, no, like, the person I love is clearly having an emotional response.

And this is legitimate, we got to figure this out, you know, but not one, not immediately, I guess the way someone might naturally be like, Oh, my God, you know, like, it’s not like there’s an extra processing step because of my past. But thank God for therapy, rather than me being like, this is fake or walking away, or whatever, you know, based on my trauma, I’m able to actually be there to support him in the way that he needs or even asked him sometimes I said, What do you need, you know, and not in any, like, negative way, but like, How can I help? How do I need to respond?

Dr. Morgan:

That is the best way to respond is, you know, how can I support you not? How can I fix this? 

Alex:

Yeah, right. And that’s something we regularly held tight to all at all brace. I’ll go ahead and say, I’d say it. No, no, it’s cool. Like, I’m gonna say it though. This is very applicable. It is. So because sometimes there have been certain things that come up, and she’ll respond as like, almost as like the mother figure, like, how can I fix it? And then I’ll get like, a little upset towards that angle. Because I’m like, I don’t need you to fix it. Just let me vent and be this be my girlfriend and just like support me in this. I don’t need you to fix it. Like, I’ll deal with it.

Nicole:
It’s happened more than once.

Alex:
I don’t need a solution. I just need someone to talk to you right now.

Dr. Morgan:

This is the high-functioning successful woman. Like I’ve been there too. Yeah, it can be…

Alex:

She has solutions for a lot of people. People pay a lot of money for her solutions.

Dr. Morgan:

My poor boyfriend dating a psychologist. I’m like tell me more.

Alex:

Yeah, I’m not paying for this, I’m not with you for that. I’m with you to be with you.

Nicole:
And sometimes he’s like just give me a hug.

Dr. Morgan:

It’s beautiful that you get to that place because so many couples never get to the bottom of what they actually need. So the fact that you’re vocal about that, and then you do it. That’s great.

Nicole:

No childhood trauma. So you know, he hasn’t had to carry the bag, or the trash and then the rest of us have had to sort through.

Dr. Morgan:

My boyfriend’s family in Columbus, Ohio, went to their neighborhood. It’s all beautiful horse, like, the West Wing of the home. I’m like, Oh, wow like wings. We had different childhoods. Yeah, so I hear you.

Nicole:
Yeah I get it girl. So okay, there is another attachment. Disorganized, I’ve never heard of this one.

Dr. Morgan:

So the actual term is disorganized. A lot of people call it fearful avoidance. You’ve probably heard that.

Nicole:

Yeah, I’ve heard that one. But that’s a smash. I guess I’ve always put it under avoiding then as well. Yeah. Tell me more about it.

Dr. Morgan:

So disorganized attachment is only 5% of the population. It is correlated with childhood trauma. And this is a very painful attachment style. This is when you go from anxious to avoidant very quickly. So you pendulum swing between the two.

Nicole:

Like, oh, I really need you. Nevermind, you’re nothing.

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah, we had a great date. Bye, I’m going to Cabo tomorrow, like, I don’t want to talk to you, like, so it’s like the, here I, you know, get close to me. And then I’m going to push you away.

Alex:

In that moment, we can have a really great experience. But in the grand scheme, like, this doesn’t matter, I’ll move on to the next great experience with somebody else or like, just do something else.

Dr. Morgan:

For sure. Or you come back to that person. It’s very chaotic isn’t the word that comes to mind? You maybe have dated somebody like this?

Nicole:

It’s weird, because I mean, that just doesn’t work with my life. So it’s very easy for me to be like, Oh, I don’t have time for this. Yeah, it’s just, it’s just too much. It’s like the demand. But then also dealing, I will also say, because this is relationship in general, I’ve had friendships that were similar to this as well, you know, like, where the person pops up regularly. And they’re using different angles to try to get into your life, you know what I’m talking about?

Alex:

Right? Right. Right, popping up a different thing. Yeah. And I will say, I think I think I’ve talked to you about this before, and it kind of makes me think of, I think I talked about in terms of friendship, but I imagine it can also be towards relationships and whatever.

Like, if you’re the kind of personality and I imagine, for this particular style, you have to be a very outgoing person, you’re probably like, very social, you’re probably very outgoing and all that stuff. So you can probably have a great experience or a great time with anybody you meet. But so like, what define self to that person, it can be like what defines a genuine good experience that’s worthwhile exploring if I can have that with anybody, or anywhere?

Nicole:

Just bouncing around. Yeah.

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah.

Alex:

I mean, yeah, like, if I can have that with you. Okay, great. That was great. Let me move to the next thing. I can hop over here too.

Dr. Morgan:

And to go a little bit deeper below, as this person is scared of intimacy, they’re scared of being able to maintain intimacy and to be vulnerable.

Nicole:

So chasing the high of that initial is so much better than the hard work of the deeper connection.

Dr. Morgan:

This is the person that you meet at the coffee shop, and they tell you their entire life story, and you hang out for hours, right? And then you never hear from them.

Nicole:

Like we had this amazing connection, right?

Alex:

Because they were probably at another coffee shop the day before doing the same thing with somebody else. <laughs>

Nicole:

Feels so good, right?

Dr. Morgan:

And once again, this is people who had a really chaotic childhood. Sure. People in and out of their lives, they might have been the foster system, like there’s a really

Nicole:

Big and deep but then they’re nothing. Wow. It’s like I definitely I know people like for sure.

Dr. Morgan:

And I help a lot of them because they’re in a lot of pain.

Nicole:

And that’s where it really is. I mean, I think what I love about everything you’re saying here is that, look, we all fit into one of these categories, or have been one of these categories where they pop up for us at various times.

But everything that you said in everything that’s in your book, Love magnet really emphasizes that we have the ability to apply tools to change, and to show up the way we want to if we’re willing to work on ourselves.

Dr. Morgan:

Thank you for saying that. That’s what makes me different than other books. Because there’s the book attached to the big attachment theory book.

Nicole:
Yes.

Dr. Morgan:

And he’s kind of like, oh, you’re avoidant, you’re avoidant for the rest of your life.

Nicole:
Like, listen, this is my least favorite thing about therapy is that people will go to therapy for 1000 years and be like, I know what’s wrong with me says, but are you working on it? Yeah, you know, what I do? Difference, like people will be in therapy all day know, their definition, and then walk around thinking that that is the work is that oh, I got to the bottom. That’s so annoying, or like people like, I mean, you have friends where it’s like, they’re well aware that they like don’t do anything, or that they have areas of growth, but it’s like, what are you doing to actually change that thing? But you know, also that you could speak to it all day, the core belief of like, do you believe you can, you know, so?

Alex:

So what would you say for anyone who’s identifying with any of these types? Like what I mean, I’m sure it’s all in the book. But like, what is the first step? Is it just therapy to like, kind of like work on these issues? Or like, how do you tackle these things?

Nicole:

I was like, I don’t even have therapy money like that. Do you have issues, we only have room for one set of these issues.

Dr. Morgan:

I love this too, because having a securely attached partner helps us build a secure relationship because you do have that one person who has the model, although so to start to work on yourself, right, besides looking for that secure person, which is out there, but if you want to work on yourself, I have this exercise that I love called the relationship inventory.

And I have you look at all your past relationships, and we write out where you heard? Were you seen? Did you feel loved? How did you know you were loved? Wow, what was the attachment dynamic?

Nicole:
Can you do this by yourself? I feel like that’s like scary to do on your own.

Dr. Morgan:
It’s really scary. Which is why I have my program, right? Because people do need support. Yes. But hey, if you’re brave, it’s in the book like yeah.

Nicole:

So the program that Dr. Morgan talks about. She has an eight week program that you can go through that’s a guided experience to help support you with this. So grab the book and get the course so you can go through this and get the experience too.

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah, with coaching and group coaching and support and you know, it is helpful.

Nicole:

It’s the foundation. I can’t tell you how many times people don’t realize that like, just to get back out there. I mean, before I started dating, like, and I’ve talked about this on the podcast before my divorce, I had to do so much self work coming out of my previous relationship, figuring out like, what went wrong, you know, and I mean, me and Alex have talked about this on the podcast before, one of the things we’re so happy about was we met each other at the right time. If I had met him here before or a year later, I don’t even know.

Alex:

Oh, yeah, there was, yeah, there were certain lifestyle changes that I made just right in time that coincided with our, you know, the life that we have now. And it just like, worked out timing wise. Really great. Yeah.

Nicole:
Yeah.

Dr. Morgan:

You know, and it is that combination of can you get yourself to a place where you can show up in a healthy way. You can show up imperfectly.

Nicole:
Yeah I’m still a mess, like, sure clear, it’s just that I feel myself getting better. Oh I don’t want to get teary about it. I feel myself getting better in this relationship, if I bring my mess, because every time I’m messy and it doesn’t like burn anything down, you know, or messy, and I’m forced to step up and grow past the behavior that I’d used before. You know, like, it improves me, you know?

Dr. Morgan:

I’m so happy for you. I’m in the same boat. So I really get just how powerful that is.

Nicole:
Thank you for saying that too. Because like a lot of times people forget that experts are people. Yeah. And you know, it’s really good to hear you say that you’re also applying what you know, to get the results and then teaching people too.

Dr. Morgan:

Oh, yeah, to two years with my man and like, I just never thought that somebody like him existed.

Nicole:

I love love so much! Everyone get married.

Dr. Morgan:

I wanted to tell you the clinical term for what you just described.

Nicole:
Oh you know, I love a clinical term. I’m going to write this down.

Alex:
I love a clinical term <laughs>

Dr. Morgan:

So it’s a corrective emotional experience.

Nicole:

I’m gonna put it on a shirt. My whole life is a corrective emotional experience. My money is a corrective emotional experience. My man is a … this is a shirt right now.

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah, because you’re healing. A lot of people don’t realize that they’re like, oh, I have to be fully healed. No, you heal in a relationship a lot.

Alex:

Oh, yeah. And there was a lot of things in the beginning, where, you know, we would bring certain things from our past experiences with partners into this relationship where like, this is something that I dealt with in my last relationship, so this must be a thing. Let me deal with it in the same way, but it’s like, no, I’m not the same person. She’s not the same person. And so you can’t bring those same things into your Yeah, you gotta love him. But you got it. You’ve got to deal with the person that’s in front of you. Yeah. Do the things are that in front of you not the things that you’ve dealt with before.

Nicole:
I don’t even feel like you had stuff?

Alex:

I had some stuff. And also you <laughs>

Nicole:

I really don’t remember no, that’s great. Yeah.

Alex:

You’re so excited that I had stuff.

Nicole:

In my eyes, like not pedestal you but the stuff that you have for me is so like, not worth even I’m just so grateful you don’t I mean that I’m like oh these things I deal with for a lifetime like they’re not you know, like…

Alex:

We were talking about earlier it’s some of these like little detail things that like just make…

Nicole:

You have things that are like one big thing you entertain me but they’re so they’re not like you don’t I mean? Like he’s messy. Man like are messy, meaning he’s not dirty, which is like dirty which is a factor for me like I don’t want to it’s actually like filthy. He’s just not tidy. You’re not a man but like that’s not like I’m not throwing you out for like listen, we can pay for help. He looks good. Ten points.

Dr. Morgan:
He looks good, he smells good. I can vouch for it.

Alex:

Who knew the standard was so low <laughs> he bathes.

Nicole:

So listen in this world, guys just fade swipe right world. Okay, right now we have really adjusted. So we’ve gone through all these attachment types. Now let’s go we’re gonna do our therapy session. Oh, good. Okay. I am so into this dude. And my biggest fear. I’m just gonna start with the fear because that’s a good place to start.

Dr. Morgan:

Just start with your core fear.

Nicole:
Let’s just get vulnerable. This is Oh, you have a podcast? What’s your podcast called?

Dr. Morgan:

Let’s get vulnerable.

Alex:
Right on time <laughs>

Nicole:

So my biggest fear, I’m not even kidding. And I say this all the time to my therapist, but I’m gonna say it out loud to my friends because if Alex was in here, I talked about this too, is that I am so worried about not getting it right. Because I was in the wrong thing for 12 years, and I knew it was the wrong thing from year one, you know, but I’m a fierce fixer, corrector like, and honestly, like, I professionally deal in hope, you know, so I’m always like, oh, there’s always another way. There’s always another strategy. Let’s and I had a partner who was team move the goalposts, you know, so and for for tons of his own reasons, I have a lot of forgiveness, because I’m aware of like, his background.

So it’s like, we just weren’t a good match, you know, we literally enabled the worst parts of each other, which, you know, is not good. So it’s not really, like, it’s not a terrible person, you know, altogether. It’s just, you know, stuff didn’t work out in the relationship. But with, with Alex, my biggest concern is really like, I don’t want I know, he’s a great person. I don’t want to mess it up. But I worry sometimes about like, will we be together long term, will I because I’ve never felt anything. Sometimes the highs feel so high that I worry about it. And my therapist always says like, well, has he been consistent? Yeah, is he consistent. And the truth is, it’s been so consistent that I am increasingly anxious about the steep decline. I’m like, This is so dang good. There’s no possible way this will continue at this rate, you know, like, what’s gonna happen, you know, and I don’t want to it’s that other shoe dropping? It’s the worst part of the lowest developed form of me. Yeah, you know, and it doesn’t show up. I’m trying not to let it affect. Yeah. But what do I do? Because he’s just kind of he’s so chill. He’s literally like, No, it’s good. I love it. Everything’s fine.

Dr. Morgan:

I definitely have so much I can tell dive.

Nicole:

Do you feel this from me?

Dr. Morgan:
Yeah, I want to check in with him.

Alex:

I have felt that from you. But what the funny thing about it is kind of takes me back to the things that you know, what I was saying before, like bringing certain things into the relationship and that kind of like anxiety. Yeah. But like, frequently, you know, we’ve come up with the term like, don’t think for me. Yeah, yeah, that’s something that we that we say for each other all the time. 

Less nowadays, because we’ve, like, gotten better about it. But sometimes we will try so hard to anticipate the other’s needs, that we end up messing up even more. Like, let me just like we’ve learned to just do the thing that we feel is right. And if there’s a problem, we will expect our partner to say that there’s a problem.

Nicole:

Yeah, like there’s a face on your face.

Alex:

I’ll say to her, there’s a face on your face. If I’m not there, she’s like, I can you know what I mean? That’s, that’s like a phrase.

Nicole:
So or say it messy. That’s another one.

Alex:
She tells me. She tells me say it messy if I don’t know how to phrase something, she’ll just say it just say messy.

Dr. Morgan:

This is so good. So I’m proud of you all.

Nicole:
Yeah. Doing relationship. And then this is just because you haven’t done a lot of therapy. This is how it starts. Next will be like, but here are some areas where you can grow, right?

Dr. Morgan:

Here we go with the sandwich technique. <laughs>

Alex:

Yeah yeah yeah.

Nicole:

Here are some areas you can grow, it’s all a hot mess. But also keep at it keep at it. That’s therapy.

Dr. Morgan:

No, like, like, seriously that so many good things that you shared. So for you recall, I would say remember that when you are different, you get different results in a relationship, different inputs, different outputs. It’s science. Yeah, yeah, that you show up different, you get different results. You are so different from that version of you before.

Nicole:

So, true. So true.

Dr. Morgan:

So you got to remember that and then I would say and I feel like you’ll like this, I want you to lean into your relationship vision of how you want to feel. Ooh. So I want you to think about what are your core emotions and how you want to feel in your relationship with Alex.

Nicole:

Skinny. <laughs> Youthful. You’re laughing at me!

Dr. Morgan:

I love that that’s what you come up with. You want to feel adored. I want to feel adored, safe, emotionally safe. Yeah, that’s true all the all day believe yourself, too. Yes. So you do that. And then here’s the cool part, you write out what that looks like in practice. Like all the ways that those core feelings that you desire, your Northstar. Your emotions of how you want to feel good.

Nicole:

You know, he does a lot of that. Wait do I have to give him that list? Or is it just for me?

Dr. Morgan:

Well, it depends. You could give it to him.

Nicole:

Like are these action items or is it more like, like, a practice? So like, if I want to feel respected? Yeah. Right. And in order for me to feel respected, he manages the budget, you know, or something, I don’t know how to like abstract or whatever, would I then say I need to communicate that or is that something where it’s just like, I can keep it in my mind and if it happens, I can say yes, I am respected. Like so

Dr. Morgan:

It’s a little bit of both. It helps you know, okay, this is how I want to feel right. So it helps you know what to give feedback on and then it also helps you go oh my gosh, this is exactly how I want I feel and he’s doing this thing and wow, this is my, this is my relationship vision. I feel this way.

Nicole:
So here’s how I feel. Oh okay, so here’s how I feel all the time because I’ve never done this exercise, I will pop up in my house and this fellow will be in there. And I will find lots of little ways where I’m just like, holy cow, he loves me. So things like what’s the thing that you’ve been doing very consistently that you know, if I come home and see it, I’m gonna be like, best boyfriend in the world.

Alex:
It’s so simple.

Nicole:
I tell you, I see this and I will, I will dang near tear up because it’s just so loving. So loving.

Alex:
Making the bed.

Nicole:
Making the bed. Let me tell you how it came up, though. So we move in together. And when we move in, I up until moving in not to make the bed person. He didn’t even know I was that person. But it was because I was coming off of a divorce, a state of my life like I just like.

Alex:

We were together for almost a year, never. I had no idea it was a thing.

Nicole;

But a part of it was the represent you’ll love this as a therapist, like I had just bought a new house full of lots of furniture. So the things I had before were like, not mine, I didn’t feel permanent. It just the level of care I was putting into my life was not reflective of the best version of myself.

But in this new relationship, this new foundation, we’re building a home together and like my kids are with me and like I really wanted to show up the way that I my best evolved self, which includes making my bed in the morning, you know, and like I was returning to myself, you know, and so I felt bad because I literally looked at him. I was like I need to tell you something. I’m a make the bed person and I was like, really? Yeah, and I was like I’m so tell me more about this on you. I know that this is not what I mean. This is like when we first started dating I told him I was like, I lose socks in like laundry and…

Alex:

The stress you had over socks MY GOD because I enjoy fun socks. I enjoy a fun good pair of socks because nobody sees them. They’re just for me. They’re silly.

Nicole:
You can mismatched fun socks. I buy all solid black ones so I don’t need the pressure of matching.

Alex:

I mean, but it turned into like a real conversation. I was like maybe they’re just socks like it’s okay.

Nicole:

I’ll never get it right, it’ll be mismatched. Like how committed are you to like the hamburgers with the bananas. But it’s because I’ve been overdoing it also, like I literally end because I’ve had the the one relationship that didn’t pan out the way I wanted it to. Plus I’ve been super therapy. So I am so tender with this fella. Yeah.

Alex:

To me about the funniest thing, laughable. Because I’m just like, it’s socks. Like, it’s cool. I’ll buy new socks.

Nicole:

From a healing standpoint is watching him be not dismissive, but not as serious about things that I’m so nervous about heels. Me too, because I’m like, Oh my gosh, it’s kind of like, you know, being a Christian like, you know, the Bible talks about how God cares about the big and the small, you know, like for God to give me a million dollars, but also give me green lights on the way home. You know, it’s one of those things where you’re like gosh he really is everywhere and cares about me on all levels.

And so with Alex Yes, like he does big things like bring me flowers, you know, and he does big things like for every holiday occasion birthday anniversary, even things that I’m like, I don’t even care like or I have like a big deal I sign or something this guy was the first person to say we will celebrate. Yeah, and I will plan it I will surprise you like to celebrate each other in those moments. I don’t even know what that is, though. That was like not my previous relationship. I literally didn’t get birthday gifts it and get Mother’s Day gifts. I you know, for over a decade.

Dr. Morgan:
You’ve got to just soak up how good this feels. So stinking good.

Nicole:

I literally have to say to myself, You know what, even if this whole thing is going to be a mess, he is setting a new bar, the next guy is gonna have to be amazed. Because I am learning.

Alex:

Because I what I will add to what you just said and I have talked to other friends in relationships who have had this particular problem, who’s been together for like, a long time, like when you’re with somebody for a while, like you evolve in certain ways, and you change in certain ways. And then it’s very easy to be like, Well, you’re not the person I married or you’re not the person that I first got with it’s like, you shouldn’t be. You shouldn’t be the person to say 10 years ago or five years where you know, there should be certain changes and so, you know, when you were like I’m gonna make the bed person I’m like, Okay, if this is we’ve evolved you are now I’m like, Okay, I accept you. Oh for you you even if you are make the bed. But it’s like those little things. You know what I mean?

Nicole:
Like we didn’t finish the whole story, he’s become a make the bed person.

Alex:

Because I’ll walk in and I’d be like, You know what, it is nicer when you walk in the bed space. It wasn’t really a thing that I did because like my parents tried to get me to make the bed and I was always very resistant. Sorry, I’ve made like, this is my space. I don’t care about this. Who cares? But now that I’ve done it on a regular basis, I see where that simple act of making the bed translates into other parts of your life. Just making sure this one thing, bed, you know, like, yeah, just yeah, just translates into different work keeping your room tidy, or like it translates to professional life in these weird ways that you didn’t see coming, but it does.

Nicole:
I love you so much! I mean healing. Like the stuff you’re saying right now. Like, I have been dismissed for things that, like, he’s just saying, like, I mean, I would say, hey, this thing is important to me. And here’s why. And the idea that you understand, you know, being seen, heard and understood, like, I get that from this man, you know, and then to know that, like, just simple things, he was leaving for tour, and I came back and I know what it’s like when he’s running out the door. This is the king of I forget all my stuff. I’m scrambling. I don’t want to be late, like a mess, right? He is worried about leaving his instruments and his mic, right.

So I know what it’s like with him running out the door. I came back after, you know, he’d left after the work day and the bed was made. I don’t want to cry about it. But it’s true. It’s like knowing that like even in that chaos of him leaving out the door and worrying about all his stuff. He still was like, I could do this one thing. So she can come back to a neat bed. And it was just any even said to me, I don’t know if I make it the way that you make it. But if you want to show me like I can do that too.

Dr. Morgan:

I love it.

Nicole:
Like I was, he’s a professional boyfriend.

Dr. Morgan:
So good. This is attunement, attunement to you and to what your needs are.

Nicole:

And I’m like, there’s no way I could be this good of a girlfriend to adult like there’s no way.

Alex:

You are. We both are, we help each other out when we need to. I mean, like we, we need to. I mean, I even remember I got into a conversation with this random guy on an airplane. And he was like, literally this guy was sitting next to me. Yeah, this guy was sitting next to me. And like, I don’t know, if I put the energy like, I’m an open book. You know, I’m like, let’s talk about this stuff. I don’t care. And he was just like, he let out this sigh. I looked at him. I was like, bro, you okay? And he was like, I’m just, I’m just getting into it with my girlfriend. I’m like, can you look at this text? Can you show me like, what’s going on?

Nicole:
This is his life.

Alex:
I’m like, Alright, let me see. Let me see.

Nicole:
He also likes the tea. He’s like, looking at the drama.

Alex:

I’m nosy, nosy. But so he started showing me his texts. I’m like reading this stuff. I’m like, you know, I was like, Well, where did this come? Where he’s like, Well, you know, I’ve been on this trip. I was with my boys. And I didn’t pick up calls and stuff and all this stuff. And I was like, Well, did you ever like send a text or call or just check ins I was like, I’m just like out like, what do I have to do all that I’m like, you don’t have to but like, like, this is like, you’re gonna get some of this.

You know what I mean? Because like they think like, like the women were saying, out of sight out of mind, you’re not thinking of them. All she wants to know is that when you’re gone, you’re still thinking about her. That’s really all she probably wants to know.

Nicole:
Professional boyfriend I’m telling you.

Alex:

I was like, just drop a text be like, hey, love you. Like, think about you. I’m out with my boys. I’ll talk to you later, or pick up the call and be like, Hey, I’m out. I love you. I’ll talk to you later. Simple.

Dr. Morgan:

And the deeper level is you’re creating secure attachment when you do that. Most arguments are because you feel like you might have some insecure attachment.

Nicole:

So when a woman asked for stuff like that, you know, first help us with some levels on this. You know what I mean? Because guys will say all the time you’re clinging. Like that’s too much. Why are you obsessed with me? Why are you trying to control me? Other women will say like, Am I too needy? Am I asking for too much? Do I need to, I shouldn’t have to do all that like, yeah, I should be able to trust it, like help us level set that because like, I know that I one thing we’ve always said in our relationship since the beginning is we don’t care what other people’s definition is. Like, if this is what we need. This is it. Like if he told me Look, the way that I can feel loved is every day I come home have a hot plate ready for me. And for me, that is negative nothing to do because it is he knows like I don’t care about that at all like and, like I’ll do it. You know what I mean? That’s the and I’ll apologize if it’s not done. If I said that that’s an expectation that you know, I’m going to do so in our relationship. We definitely have some things spoken about and unspoken about, that we do for each other. That is, may not be what other people would do. You know?

Dr. Morgan:
You are talking about one of my favorite things. Relationship culture.

Nicole:

Ooh, tell us about that.

Dr. Morgan:

Every relationship has a culture you have spoken norms, unspoken norms and customs.

Nicole:
That’s so interesting. So when we hear from people who are saying like, Oh, that’s clinging Oh, that’s this. Maybe they just haven’t defined what works in their relationship or

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah, I think well, I will say like, there is a point where you have to learn how to show up as securely attached as possible, right? And create that open, honest direct communication. I believe that should be a part of every you know, every person’s relationship. Open, honest direct communication. You do have to be able to get to a place where you say, what is helpful for the relationship, you know how you were talking about filtering.

So many people need to learn this.

Nicole:

I have a therapist. So I never feel like I really have to Filter Filter, because there’s always a place I can put it.

Dr. Morgan:

Exactly, yeah, and I don’t even really like that term. But it’s this idea of, I’m going to be intentional when I go to my partner, I’m going to bring to the relationship, what’s helpful in creating secure attachment. And I’m going to do that intentionally because I really care about this person, I care about our relationship.

So there’s some things that are just about me, or maybe even about my childhood or about my past relationships, I could spiral out of control and send those 17 text messages. Or I could work on that for myself, because I need to work on it, and bring to my partner what is needed for us to create secure attachment.

So it’s both right when people say that, Oh, they’re so clingy. They’re needy, it’s like they probably just don’t know how to express or the other person is very avoidantly attached doesn’t have capacity to hear them. Right. So there’s just so many different factors.

Nicole:

How do you know you’re dealing with a crazy though?

Alex:
A crazy, what is it? That’s the worst way to word it <laughs>

Nicole:

Red flags? Are we saying to ourselves, no. Red flag. So Sis, I want to let you know your avoidant personality attachment style is showing and I need you’re anxious, and I need you to understand that you either put that away and get secure, or we can’t be together because Alex will do that with me. Like, I’ll do stuff that I’m sure for some guys might be like red flag, you know, but Alex will be like, you don’t think that you’re gonna have any red flags? That’s why we together. Yeah, you liked green to him. He’s colorblind. He can’t see the difference.

But all that being said, like, you know, is it just that you have to find a partner where you know, the red flags work for you? Cause a narcissist, a narcissist, right? And our system will send you those 17 messages. And it’s like, I don’t want to go to them be like, Hey, this isn’t working for me on this level. And, you know, or is it their response to the boundaries that tells you they’re crazypants.

Dr. Morgan:
So there’s, there’s so much here, I feel like we could do another three hours.

Nicole:
We could, we could. I mean, I love this.

Alex:
Me too.

Dr. Morgan:

But I mean, you have to be able to give feedback. I feel like in our culture, especially with the abundance of people on the dating apps, people are so quick to just be like, this is an uncomfortable conversation. I’m just gonna ghost.

Nicole:

That’s right. I’ll just swipe right to just go find someone else.

Dr. Morgan:

So I would say I challenge you to give feedback, allow people to grow with you and give people feedback. And then once you give feedback, if they’re still not able to course correct, or you know, they don’t respect your boundaries, then hey, you have your evidence, and they can’t grow.

Nicole:
You are so healthy Alex. Did you know he does that? Remember, when I told you I was like, how will we know this isn’t? How do I know you’re not harboring? I’m telling you, I mean, I really needed therapy. Let me tell you, when we got into this relationship, the first thing I said to you was like, Well, how do I know you’re not secretly like harboring and you don’t want to talk about it? Like you’re not because just because of my previous relationships like resentment, resentment, and then all of a sudden it to spill, you know.

Alex:

And I am guilty of that. Sometimes I don’t always speak up when something kind of rubs me the wrong way are amazing as you are. And I know you don’t think you’re ever annoying, but sometimes blessing everyone, no noise, everybody sometimes. That’s just like a relationship. So you say, you’re perfect, you’re perfect.

Nicole:

And I’m a blessing. No, but no, but like, we would have things you know, to him. And then he would say, look like even in a relationship you give them feedback, yeah, feedback, then eventually, if it doesn’t change, then you know, it’s not a good fit, because he’s had long term relationships.

Alex:

And I would always have a long term relationship. Yeah, five years, three years.

Nicole:
I’m like, How do I know you’re not just gonna be with me for five years? And then leave me yesterday? Me and like, what is like, how do I know that you’re not just like, perfectly satisfied, then you’re not. Because I’m the type where I’m like, it’s like a business. You know what I mean? I’m like these, this math ain’t mathing I don’t need five years. Right. But he’s not like that. So I was like, what’s going on and he told me.

Alex:

I was also like that, it was circumstantial. So I was also like, 22, you know, that? You know, there was also like, 22. And, yeah, right. And I was also like, since the beginning of that particular relationship, you know, she was from the East Coast, and you know, in LA, and she was constantly telling me from the get go, Oh, we’re probably doomed to fail. I’m going to end up moving back to New York. Ladadika. So, and she said, That was a phrase she said a lot. And so in my mind, I was like, Okay, I’m gonna be with you because I like you are you work hard? I can learn from you. This is something good, but also, I don’t know how much stock I can put in this because it feels like it’s going to end. Yeah, you know what I mean? So if you’re setting that expectation from the beginning, you know, she was also the type where it was like, even over time, if we had any issues, there was no transparency there. Communication are any Yeah, cuz she was from a background where it was like, that’s how he did where it was like she’s the perfect housewife like she cleaned, she cooked, she worked hard, she did all this stuff.

And I was like, she was like, This is what she was brought up to be from her from her mother with immigrant mother. And I was just like, that’s all fine and great. But that’s not like what I’m looking for. 

Nicole:
And I was raised this way too.

Alex:
And maybe this is the ideal, but this isn’t what I want. And we’re having this and this and this and issues. And every time I bring it up, she wants to sweep it under the rug, literally pretend like it doesn’t exist. Otherwise, there’s not like this picture perfect relationship. And like, I don’t want a picture perfect relationship and I want a real one.

Dr. Morgan:

I love you brought this up. Because I always say you got to find someone where you want to build the same kind of relationship. You wanted a vulnerable, connected real relationship.

Alex:
If we’re having issues let’s talk about and pretend they don’t exist.

Dr. Morgan:

Some people want perfect. Some people want the surface level, let’s just be in our roles, you know, but you want to build with somebody that wants to build the same kind of relationship that you want.

Nicole:

But you also want to be safe, too, you know, like, and it’s crazy. I mean, we watch White Lotus, there are some people who are okay with the surface level perfect. And that is really what they want is I just want to be perfect. And we all do our own thing.

Alex:
We look perfect, but behind the closed doors.

Dr. Morgan:
Oh I gotta watch it.

Nicole:
So I know we could stay here forever. Honestly, I appreciate all of the feedback. Alex, do you have any final pieces that will help affirm how much of a catch you have? Go?

Alex:
She is amazing, and beautiful and smart and I’m dumb, and she’s beautiful and I’m ugly.

Nicole:
The secret to staying in a relationship? Right there.

Dr. Morgan:

I want to give you two feedback. I just feel like…

Nicole:
Oh wait a minute now.

Dr. Morgan:
Can I?

Nicole:

Please, please, this is amazing. Thank you for giving us free feedback. For this, y’all seriously buy the book, I’m telling you I feel like I should pay for this. So yes, feedback. Tell us all the things because we also want to stay together. Yeah, that is the goal.

Dr. Morgan:

Yeah. Well, I feel like you have a great foundation, it’s so clear that you care so much about each other. And I think that you’re very good at allowing each other to still be individuals and supporting each other in that. And I would say just enjoy what you have and continue to find ways that’s all about you. Yeah.

Nicole:

She’s talk to me. <laughs> Here’s a feedback. So Nicole, calm down girl. Okay.

Dr. Morgan:

Here’s, here’s my phrase for you are okay. You’ll remember, it’s short. It’s super short. Yes. The better it gets, the better it gets.

Alex:
I like that.

Nicole:

Like, my nine year old right now was like, yes. No, it’s true. Yes, Ah, it’s so true.

Dr. Morgan:

And you too, are such a light. And I’m just excited for you to grow and just even what you’re going to do in the world and the examples that you’re going to be for the young kids in your life, with your relationship. So it’s beautiful. Yeah.

Nicole:

Not Dr. Morgan putting babies at me. I’m ready for it. On this note, Morgan, you are incredible. You are brilliant. I am so grateful. You’re in this world doing the work you’re doing just because there’s got to be a next generation. You’re speaking our language, and we need it. We really, really need it. So thank you so much. And where can we find you? We’re all listening to your podcast. Let’s get vulnerable already. That’s already happening. So where else can we find you? And how can we work with you?

Dr. Morgan:

So I’m on Instagram. It’s Dr. Morgan coaching. I have a daily posts on there with information. The podcast let’s get vulnerable. The book Love magnet, available everywhere books are available. And that’s it, honestly, but I love to hear from people.

Nicole:

Are you taking any patients?

Dr. Morgan:

Oh, yeah. So I am. My program is the only way to work directly with me. So I still I work with inside of the program. It’s empowered, secure, loved. There’s an application because we just want to make sure it’s a good fit. Sure. So I can get you that link. But it’s all on my Instagram. 

Nicole:
Yeah, it’ll be in the show notes. Yeah, one if you are finding yourself desiring a relationship, or if you’re even in that waiting season, which is very real, where you’re like, I don’t even know when it’s coming or what I’m looking for. But this is a great time to ready yourself. You know, and, and I think a lot of us take that for granted, you know.

Alex:
It seems like they’re already in one and there’s something they want to identify.

Dr. Morgan:

I do help people who are already married. It’s right. But it’s kind of like so if you need help doing the work and you’re like what the hell is the work right? Because as we’re saying, like you have so much awareness but if you want to actually move beyond awareness and take action and learn how to show up differently. That’s what my program is.

Nicole:

I love that. You know, I love a tool. So thank you so much. You are a gift, a blessing, a light. Everyone check out the show notes, listen to the podcast, get the book and get better because it only gets better, if you better.

Alex:

Wise words from Nicole Walters. <laughs>

Dr. Morgan:

The better it gets, the better it gets.

Nicole:

The better it gets, the better it gets. Thank you so much, Dr. Morgan.

Dr. Morgan:

Thank you. Thank you for having me. So fun.

Nicole:

Hey friend, we have been having some crazy good chats. This year is off and running. I cannot even believe that we are almost to summertime break with these kids. Y’all pray for us <laugh>, it’s gonna be insane, but oh my gosh, I know we’re gonna blink and we’re gonna be in 2024 and it’s why I just wanted to have a chat with you about progress.

I think that a lot of times we have an inclination to not really evaluate how we’re doing on our goals and our New Year’s resolutions until a year has gone by, a year being like a marking of time. But I wanna let you know that really effective people and high performers evaluate themselves regularly. They’re always looking at how am I progressing on my goals? How am I, you know, hitting my marks? How am I doing the things that I want to do?

And they’re doing it in a 90 day timeframe. So usually quarterly they are looking at where they are, what they’ve done, what have they gained, what haven’t they done, and, um, evaluating how to approach it for the next 90 days. So what I wanted to talk to you about was the fact that one, if you feel like you have fallen off the wagon with your goals, with your accomplishments, with things that you’ve wanted to do, grace, grace, grace, you know I’ll say it all day. Grace, grace, grace. And part of the grace of that is knowing that it is just hard to keep it all up because life is throwing us curve balls.

As much as we can plan and anticipate for our families and for ourselves and for, you know, our general schedules. It is so difficult to plan and anticipate for the rogue things that life is gonna give us, you know, and general life circumstances. So cut yourself some slack. All of us are a little further off from our goals at the top of January. We’re all bright eyed and bushy-tailed, you know, by then, but then we’re all jaded and war torn by March. You know, so I understand and I relate.

But that doesn’t allow us to escape doing the work of uh, looking and seeing what tools have we missed? What could we do differently and um, how are we gonna approach this next season? So that’s what I want you to do. Um, and I just want you to also, and I just gave this advice to, you know, some of my clients in my community, but it’s so easy to look at our goals and say, well, oh my goodness, I didn’t accomplish this goal so I just need to work harder at this goal for these next three months.

And I wanna let you know that’s actually not the most effective way to get your goal done. And if you never heard this before, I hope this changes your life cuz it’s a biggie. What you wanna do if you’re looking back and evaluating having not hit your specific goal for the years, not say, okay, I really wanted to get into the gym. I didn’t go to the gym. This week, I’m going to go to the gym three times a week. And that was my goal in the beginning. So this week I’m gonna start doing it. Look Fran, let’s just tell the truth. If you weren’t doing it before, what has changed besides your awareness of the fact that you didn’t do it? Nothing is going to happen suddenly that’s going to make you achieve this goal effectively. What I want you to do instead, to help you get closer to actually achieving this goal, is look at the past 90 days.

Ask yourself, why didn’t I go to the gym every three weeks? Why didn’t I accomplish this goal? And I want you to do this from a standpoint of being very honest with yourself, being very forgiving, being very grace-filled and just recognizing that we just want to identify what the barriers were.

So if you’re saying to yourself, well the reason why I didn’t hit these goals was because I had to do afterschool pickup every day. That wasn’t originally in the cards. We were going to go ahead and pay for an afterschool program, but we shifted those funds to pay for, you know, an extra tutor and now I’m doing pickup and that was gonna be my gym time. Well friend, that is a very valid reason for why you didn’t go to the gym. So if that is the case now what does that mean? Do you need to shift your gym time to the morning time? Is there someone else that you can support? Do you still need to shift those funds or now that she’s had or your little one has had three months of tutoring, can those funds go back towards the afterschool program?

The reason why I’m asking you to do this is because we all have an inclination to just go with inertia, right? My wasband used to say this all the time. Inertia is the strongest force around free will or well something, something to that effect, probably not together cuz I don’t even remember his quotes. Look at us, look at me <laugh>. So, but that said an inertia, right? Like once you start moving, once you start going in motion, it’s really difficult to change course. And so, you know, I wanna let you know that it’s less difficult than you would think, as long as you’re willing to take times regularly to stop and evaluate.

And so instead of trying to tackle hitting that same goal in the exact same fashion, in this exact same way, I would love to see you try to tackle shifting and recognizing what are the things that were impediments, that were barriers that stood in my way and kept me from hitting that goal. 

Because if you take the next 90 days and you say, look, instead of me worrying about getting in the gym to get my dream body or my ultimate health by 40 or whatever it is, I would love to see you say to yourself, look, I am going to make sure that I’m better about my time management. I’m going to ask for more help from, you know, my partner. I’m going to create a tighter schedule for my kids and really stick with it. I’m gonna go ahead and just get those great gym clothes because the reason why I never went to the gym was every time I went to go get dressed, I felt so gross that I ever actually went.

If those are the things that were actually standing in your way, you will actually make more progress if you take the next 90 days to remove those barriers. Cuz if you remove those barriers, and guess what? Now you might actually get six months of the year hitting that goal versus trying to do it again now and then making it to December and saying to yourself, I never actually went to the gym.

Now this is the first part of really getting back on track and making the most of your year because friend, I’m not kidding, we’re gonna blink, it’s gonna be June and the year it’s gonna be half gone. And then you’re gonna start having people throwing journals at you and, and plans and apps and you’re gonna be like, yeah, that’s just what I need. You don’t need all that. You can actually make progress if you just do this. 

Now the other thing is something that I think is really important and when I tell you it never occurred to me how widespread this behavior is. And I am certain that you are doing, have done, or are going to do this. And I wanted to call it out to you because I had a conversation with the Misterfella about it and he’s someone that I admire because he really is a go-getter when it comes to his goals and his aspirations. And you have to be, when you live in Los Angeles and you’re a musician and you’re in the entertainment industry, no opportunity is gonna wait for you, you gotta go get it.

And fortunately he’s grown up and has that personality, but when he told me the other day when we were talking that he always has an inclination to pass up opportunities first. I had to pause for a minute and the reason why I say that is because he’s had a lot of great opportunities. He’s been on Jimmy Fallon, he’s been on NPR Tiny desk, he’s recorded sessions with Megan Trainor, Jill Scott. I mean this is a guy who is not hurting for good work. You know, he does a great job in this space, but I’m not kidding when I say, when I found out he was passing up opportunities, you know, I was like, wait a minute now, not you giving away our money <laugh>, right? Not you passing up on our future. You know? So we had a real talk about it and it turns out he was doing a thing that ultimately I was like, hand raise, I’m guilty for this too.

So he was telling me about how, and I’m sure he doesn’t mind me sharing this story, but if he does, it’s already out there, it’s okay. It’s just my friends. So <laugh>, what he was telling me was that he’d gotten a phone call about a really great tour and I gotta tell you, he’s become one of the go-tos, right? Like people call him whenever they need, um, a certain role he plays trombone and he’s also a producer or they need to like get connected with someone. And I I y’all are like me, where you know how you make it to a certain place in your life where people just kind of always use you as the reference. Like even if it’s just our kids, mom, where’s a catch up? Like just people always know that we kind of have the answers in certain categories or spaces or we have relationships or we, we can point them in the right direction.

And that’s really awesome to be that type of person but it also means that you get first look at a lot of opportunities and you may not even realize it because you’re such a doer. Hear me out, this is, I’m telling you this is gonna change your life. So he told me he got a phone call about a tour that they’re looking to cast and I’m not gonna share all the details of, you know, who the artist and all that, but we’re talking big, right? A big artist was looking to cast someone and they wanted someone who had a very specific set of skills. And I don’t mean like a Liam Neeson Taken sort of skills, <laugh>, I mean like could play certain instruments and could play them well enough to, you know, follow along with what is required from the artist and also had the flexibility and schedule, although this artist is the type of artist where people would change their schedule, <laugh> to be able to go do this.

And then also at a certain, look, not gonna lie to you in this industry, that is a thing, you know, if it is a like cool hip band, they want someone they think looks cool and hip. If it is a younger band, they want someone who’s young. Like if they, if you’ve ever seen Lizzo’s you know, backup band, she chooses uh, women who are curvy because she wants to be a reflection of what she doesn’t see in the world. You know? Um, or what she doesn’t see celebrated in the world. Or if you um, see Taylor Swift’s, you know, backup dancer, she gets a lot of girls cuz she’s all about girl power, you know, like that is really common. And so that was a factor as well. So I love this cuz they called my fellow, they were like, you hit all the marks for what we need y’all, this is where it’s getting real this and closely you hit all the marks for what we need. We were wondering if you were available.

That was what they reached out to him for. But his takeaway was, oh yeah, yeah, I know somebody, let me see who I know. Sir, they didn’t ask you who you know, they said, are you free? Are you hearing me right now friend? When an opportunity comes your way, when you hear about a gig, a performance, a showcase, a sale, a pitch, an onstage, an appearance, an article, a blurb, y’all, I’m going down the list because I want it to trigger something in you. When you hear about an opportunity, how quick are you to say, oh, I know someone who’d be great for that or yeah, I don’t, let me see, let me see what’s available, rather than how can I make this happen for me?

Listen, if you’re not gonna be the biggest advocate for yourself, who is? Every time an opportunity comes across your plate, you better be evaluating it for yourself first. The determining factor of whether or not I’m going to shift an opportunity to someone else is if I evaluate it and it doesn’t make sense for me. Now that is where integrity lies and here’s what has happened. A lot of us for four different reasons have an inclination to pass up an opportunity that serves us.

Those reasons are first, fear, we hear about a great opportunity, something big, something we never could have expected. Whether it is a mentor who wants to work with us, a event that we’ve been invited to, a uh, board, that we could be on a volunteer thing, something that really feels like a manifestation of all of our prayers, all of our dreams, we cannot believe it landed on our plate and out of fear we’ll say, oh my gosh, I can’t do this because the opportunity seems too big or because we just can’t see ourselves in that position.

So we instantly pass the buck. Another reason is readiness. Now when I say readiness, I mean both legitimate readiness and perceived readiness. Legitimate readiness is, I actually don’t have the tools to do this. Like we know right away like hey, you are asking me to be on stage. You want to perform three songs, I don’t have those songs ready. That is legitimate readiness. You just did not stay ready so you didn’t have to get ready. That’s on you. Conversation for another day. Another thing is perceived readiness, which is more applicable to this. It’s this idea that you don’t think you are ready for the opportunity that showed up. You don’t think that you’re prepared.

Another reason is downright insecurity. You might be scared to be in a room with people that you don’t feel you are worthy to be in a room with. And the last reason that we pass up on these opportunities is society valuing, sharing, over keeping. Now I have to let you know since we’re in kindergarten, we’re told the importance of sharing. But society has inundated us that there is so much more pride in helping others and we don’t view our helping ourselves as a means to also help others.

So I want to let you know that for all of you who are saying, I don’t feel like I am as far as I’d like to be this year, part of it may be what I addressed earlier. You just need to reevaluate your goals, remove barriers, and start tackling them properly. But for a lot of you it may be that opportunities have been knocking down your door and you have not been saying yes.

Now if it’s fear, I want you to know that if you’re waiting for fear to not be present, to say yes to opportunities, well guess what friend? You need to learn how to do it afraid because I only want to receive opportunities that scare me. Because if it doesn’t scare me then it means that it’s something I’m already acclimated to do and it means that it’s not new and it’s not gonna take me into new places. I want to go into the unfamiliar. I want to get deeply comfortable with the idea of doing the unexpected.

As much as I can train myself to do that, then I can be limitless in where I’m able to go. I don’t want to just do what is status quo. I want to make sure that I am doing things that align themselves with innovation. And what that means is if an opportunity comes my way to the point where I’m like, holy cow, can I do this? I really need to evaluate how I’m going to do this.

The next thing is readiness. If you already heard me say it, stay ready so you don’t have to get ready. If the one thing you need to do this year is start putting things into places in preparation for that opportunity, do it. I live in a state of perpetual expectancy. What does that mean? It means that I expect that I will be wildly successful. I anticipate that I have nothing but huge opportunities coming to me. I treat myself like someone who is the best thing that people just haven’t heard of.

Now I recognize that for a lot of people that is uh, difficult because we have our own self-worth issues, we have confidence issues. And I want you to know I have all those too. I absolutely have my awkward hot mess, I can’t handle this pit stains crying in a target parking lot moments. I have those too. But when it comes down to knowing my truth, I always try to return to the place of awareness that look, God has very specific things that he has spoken over my life and that have been revealed time and time again. And I refuse to stray from believing in him. I want what he wants for me and not what I want from me because what he wants is greater.

And I can’t tell you how many times over when I make decisions from the standpoint of where I want to be and not where I am today, that’s where I actually move forward. So as an example, and this is, I mean people in my life have become acclimated to my ridiculousness around that mindset. But it’s true. In college, one of the things that was a running joke all the time was you couldn’t find pictures of me with solo cups in my hand. It’s not that I never went to a party, although I’m neither confirming nor denying I drank any substances <laugh>, but it was a running joke that they just could not snap pictures of me doing anything that seemed even the slightest bit off.

And the reason why was because at the time I wasn’t sure if I wanted to run for office. So I was like, the last thing you’re gonna do is have any photos of me in college doing anything weird or compromising that could be an issue, right? Now, doesn’t mean that I was perfect about that, no, I mean thanks to the Facebook, I’m sure we could probably dig up a funny picture here or there. But you know, I really did try my best to make sure that I was living with an expectancy. I wanted to be the person who was in their twenties thinking about what I was going to do and accomplish and live a legacy in my forties.

Even now, my assistant laughed the other day because uh, she was packing up some items from my headquarters in Atlanta, uh, to ship over to my Los Angeles offices that I’m opening. And as she was packing things up, she was like, well, do we need this or do we need this personal effect or what do you think of this item? And I would tell her, I would say, well no, that can get donated or that can get sold. Actually we should pack that up in a box for a Smithsonian and that one should go over here. And she stopped me and she said, I’m sorry, what Nicole? And I said, yeah. I was like, well those items need to get packed up for the Smithsonian.

And she is like, what, what are you saying right now? And I explained to her that I keep a Smithsonian box. Because once I have an exhibit in the National Museum of African American history, I wanna make sure they have good items for that exhibit. You’re not just going to put into the exhibit my toothbrush because I didn’t carefully curate, you know, the flyer for my first live event. You know, I wanna make sure they have all the items to be able to tell an appropriate story. You know, like that is really like, so I have certain dresses where I’m like, oh, this could get donated but I should keep this one because it might be a good artifact for the exhibit. I’m thinking about my legacy on today. Okay?

And I know that that sounds bananas to people who don’t think that way, but I wanna let you know that if I am thinking with that level of big, then that means that wherever I fall short is still gonna be bigger than the person next to me. And I want you to know that that is the same attitude I carry to accepting opportunities that show up on my plate. And the next one is insecurity. I have to let you know that I feel that too. I pray that I am invited into rooms and tables and I only sit at tables with people who have accomplished more than I have. That is a prayer that I genuinely have for my heart. It is also a prayer that terrifies me.

The idea that I only sit and I’m only invited to banquets of people who’ve accomplished so much more than I have and what I aspire to do is overwhelming, but it means that I’m being invited into rooms that I am worthy of being in. And I need you to want that for yourself as well.

And what that means is that we don’t let our anxiety and our insecurity make decisions for us around opportunities. We let the self that is sitting at that table make the call around the opportunity that’s in front of us. Cuz you’ll never make it to that table if you’re saying no with the mindset of the person who hasn’t arrived there yet.

And then of course, society valuing sharing over keeping. I’m gonna have a very, very real conversation with you here. If you are a woman, if you are a minority, if you are an immigrant, if you are first generation, if you grew up in poverty, if any of those things apply to you, I want you to know that it is a lie that has been perpetrated and told to us year after year after year and passed down through generations that there is some sort of admiration or respect over having humility around not accepting what you deserve.

That it is cute to turn down a paycheck, that it is admirable to do certain things for free, that it is respectable to say no and stay humble in certain places. Listen, the only person I am required to have humility in front of is God. Outside of that, it is my job to take the opportunities that are presented to me, to elevate myself, to elevate my community, to elevate my friends, to elevate my children, to elevate my family.

How will you get to the next level if your humility is keeping you where you are? Humility does not serve you when it comes to growing in your opportunities. No one is going to brag for you. No one is going to elevate for you. No one is going to want your dream more than you do. And I can tell you that the powers that be absolutely are terrified about the women, the minorities, the immigrants, the first generation, the poor people, ever believing that they have enough talent, that they deserve the opportunities that come in front of them.

Pausing on that, I want that to marinate. People who are already in places of power do not want the threat of the people who are not in places of power or historically have been told that they need to be humble and that is their greatest attribute. People in power do not want you knowing your own power. Which means they need you saying no. Even if an opportunity shows up that you earned, that you worked for, that you deserve. They need you feeling like there is pride in saying no to that. It’s a lie. Do not do it.

I want you to understand that it is important for you as you go through this year, as you remove those barriers that have kept you away from your goals, that you also recognize that God is constantly, constantly moving mountains to send you what you deserve and what you need. Friend, nothing is missing. If you open your eyes right now, you know somebody, you have something in your inbox you are sitting on and just are too scared to respond to. You have a friend who has a contact or an opportunity. You have a relationship that just came back into your life. You have networking. You are following someone that you admire on the internet that you have yet to reach out to. There are opportunities out there that you are not capitalizing on and you’re not capitalizing on them for one of these four reasons that does not serve you.

This year will be and can be what you make of it. You 100% can believe that right now I am living a life so that when Oprah finally gets up out her room and decides to finally call me because I know she’s talking about me, understand that any opportunity before it arrives to you is already being discussed somewhere else. So you are already being discussed about in rooms that you have yet to enter.

So what that means is you need to get yourself ready and then when the invite comes, you need to say yes. Friend, if there’s anything that I can tell you to make the most of 2023 when all of these other influencers and gurus and everyone else, they’re not gonna start talking to you about this stuff until fall. Your real friend, Nicole, is talking to you about it. Now what I need you to do going forward as we close out this quarter, get ready for summer and try to make the most of the rest of the year that we have friend, is say yes to yourself.

Nicole:

Hey, friends. Before we kick off today’s chat, I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you. I know that it is so easy for us to get caught up in the day to day and I just want you to know that I really cherish our relationship, I cherish the ability to have a place to speak into your lives and the fact that you trust me to do so. I appreciate that you give me feedback and that you chat with me in the DMs over on Instagram at Nicole Walters. And I just want to let you know that this is really important to me that we’re able to communicate and learn and grow together.

And that is always my intention behind this time that we spend, is that we’re able to, you know, rise to the levels and do bigger things and share industry secrets and laugh about the difficulties of life and momming and growing and self care and all of those things. So this time is really important. And I say all of this because we’re going to have one of my legendary tough talks. And I always like to give you a heads up on whenever we’re about to do those, mostly because sometimes they’re a headphone warning situation. And you know, I try not to use too much spicy language here. But I am going to be talking about subject matter that might be a little bit tougher for the little years, but is really important. And I want to make sure that you can gather that info and then filter down accordingly.

So if you don’t have the headphones on, grab them. If the littles are within earshot, let’s shift them to the side. And let’s just get started.

So friends, I want you to know that it is difficult to come and talk to you yet again, we’ve had previous chats about this, about another school shooting. And I want you to know that I’m not going to go into the heavy details of what happened, how it happened, at the recent tragedy in Nashville, because I know that it’s already been on our hearts and minds. And everywhere we turn this week.

And I also know that some of you listen to this chat as an opportunity to sort of escape and feel a little light hearted and get a laugh. And you know, and I don’t want to take that away from you. But what I do want to talk about are some issues outside of that core issue. And some things I’d like to call out about what we can learn from not just this shooting in particular, but from the conversation and dialogue around it.

This is actually applicable in business. It’s applicable in our everyday lives. It’s applicable in our marriages and in our relationships. It’s also applicable in how we absorb things on social media, and it’s something that we need to learn, not just for ourselves, but for our children. So I want to talk to you about some of the things that I’ve noticed in conversation around difficult issues and how we can avoid doing it ourselves and also how we can make sure that we don’t become victim to some of this language.

Now, friends you already know and I’ve said many times over, that I am a person that believes in grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, it abounds with me. If there’s anything that I am very, very good at, it is doing my darndest to see the absolute best in people. I mean, to a fault, you know, I mean, ask my therapist. I will see the best in someone all the way, you know, where they honestly should have been cut years before because I’m like, Ah, but I still see that smidgen of potential. I still see that sparkle of hope, you know, and, and honestly, it’s, you know, my best and worst attribute, you know. It’s something that I’m really proud of, you know, because it means that I am a bright side person. But it also is something that I have to make sure I manage, because I don’t ever want that to be taken advantage of. And I know that some of you guys can relate to that.

What I want to address is that having this ability also allows me to be able to see perspectives on issues where other people may not be able to. I am very, very good, this is honestly one of my god gifts and it served me well in corporate, I’m very good at being able to stand in a room with people on many different sides, or having different values, different systems, different perspectives, different backgrounds, and truly listen to their perspectives and kind of understand here and filter out the common ground. That is easily one of my biggest gifts. It makes me a negotiation maven, it makes me really, really great at knowing how to adapt in different rooms. It makes me useful at networking.

And honestly a lot of it is attributed to my background, you know, for those of you who are new here or may not know much about me or are learning about me, you know, I am the child of first generation immigrants, you know, both from Ghana, West Africa. I’m a black female. I have been married to a white male, I have adopted children, I seek to carry my own children. You know, I am a sibling. I grew up in abject poverty. I currently live as the 1%. I am a self-made millionaire, I’m an entrepreneur. I mean, I really fit into a lot of different spaces. I have lived internationally, in a third world country for multiple years. I speak multiple languages, you know, and I say all of these things just sort of a bullet point of letting you know there are rarely rooms that I enter that I don’t understand or can connect with people on some level.

I mean, having lived on the east coast on the West Coast, in rural Pennsylvania, like y’all I know how to artificially inseminate a cow. I can breed sheep. I have grown my entire Thanksgiving dinner. I mean, I’ve never gone hunting but I do know how to skeet shoot so I absolutely know how to handle a rifle and you know and shoot trap I mean, I really I know how to knit crochet like when I tell you I really have like a real suite of skills if you will, if there was ever an apocalypse I you know everyone joke’s on my friends like Nicole is your go-to you want to be trapped in a bunker with her she will keep you going.

So I say all of this to let you know that strangely enough I mean if you put me in a room with anyone politically or with like very strong and intense views, I can probably understand where they’re coming from or how their experiences or background may inform that opinion. Right, that value, that morals so I say this to you to let you know that it makes me one who doesn’t condemn people just because they don’t believe the way that I believe. Now, does it mean that I agree with everyone? No. Does it mean that I don’t have my own personal morals, values opinions, and you know, voting record and political ideals and all of that you better like I have absolutely my own person who has my own thoughts around kind of what I think may be best for not just me but my my neighbor and the the greater world. And the world I like to see my children grow up in but I also am very good at listening and hearing and understand where people come from without getting angry.

And so I say that to let you know that developing this trait and having it as a core attribute has been so useful in this crazy pants world. Am I right? Y’all the fighting on Facebook, the fighting on Instagram is out of control. I have never in my life been in a world where people are so openly aggressive about their way being the right way and feeling such a need for other people to align with it, in order to I don’t know, if it’s to get validation or justification or understanding around their perspective, I don’t know. But, you know, you better believe that somebody else agreeing with you is not going to be the thing that creates change necessarily, right.

And the thing that I want to call out here is a lot of you have, you know, watch my content, or came to me on social media one way or another, because he found some of my videos that I’ve done that are tough talks, where I have addressed issues that tend to be fairly inflammatory. And I’ve chosen to use the language of grace in order to explain them in the best way possible to hopefully incite understanding rather than anger. And one of those videos went viral, shortly after the, I’ll call it the racial reconciliation movement of 2020. I don’t know how much was accomplished, you know, at that time, but that’s a conversation for another day, I will say that, you know, I’d like to think that there were some strides in awareness, is the best way that I could describe it. You know, I don’t know how much progress we’ve made, unfortunately, in terms of actionable change, and not performative conversation. But if you want to know more about that, we can talk about that the DMs.

But I will say, though, you know, during that time where there was sort of a groundswell of people sort of awakening to concepts that may have been, you know, introduced to them, regularly discussed, or, you know, in their present for truly, maybe absorbing a different understanding around the experience due to the murder of George Floyd, I did a video, and that in that video, you know, I described in the simplest of terms that this really is real, you know, and I think that what made that video so impactful based on the feedback that I’ve heard, because that video was, it went super viral. And it was used as a teaching tool in corporations, the video was used in conversations in women’s groups, in churches, especially particularly in areas where they may not have been as open or prepared for some of the more academic-style conversation around it, because they just weren’t in a position to understand or on a base level, it was difficult to understand the data and the information, or they were just so tied to some of their initial ideals and they just needed a conversation that felt more practical, if you will, and tied to a face.

You know how sometimes when you’re learning something, there’s learning it in a lecture style in collegiate but then there’s also learning it through real world application. So I can tell you and describe all day what an orange is. But if someone walks you to a market and puts one in your hand, it’s a lot easier to understand. And I think that for some people, that was an opportunity through my video, when I explained look, I want you to know that this is a real thing. That racism is absolutely a thing that occurs and here are some other ways that you can look at it that may help you have a better understanding of the emotion that black people are trying to express, you know, when we say that we are subject to carrying this weight with us everywhere we go. And in providing a couple of different analogies and situations and examples, you know, of how it is not just impacted my own life, but the lives of my children, and is a continuous thing that I have awareness around wherever I go, it really did help, you know, kind of have some lightbulb moments for people and, and I want you to know that this is something that is, that I’m working on, you know, and that I’m working to use at the right moments around the right issues to allow everyone to hear and experience more.

And essentially, when it comes to gun safety, I had a conversation about this online as well. And this relates to, you know, what I’m talking about here today, you know, it’s an inflammatory issue, because America, they love that we I mean, I’m an American, right? So America, we love our guns. It is such a thing here, you know, and when I say we, I’m not speaking about myself specifically, you know, but just really passionate about gun ownership. And, you know, passionate about the rights within our Constitution and what they’ve been afforded to us, and just really picking up a banner around being protective over those rights as part of how they identify us as being different from the rest of the world. As being a portion of what we believe democracy to be. And I just want to say that I think that sometimes we confuse language with our values, and we get away from actually thinking of how things look in practice, and we get so caught up in the language around it and here’s what I mean by that.

I believe that we have confused the right to own a gun, and the right to have guns with the ability to protect our families. And when someone says that they want to take your guns away, the feeling that I believe that people are experiencing when they hear that is, I don’t have a right to protect my family, and/or myself. And I just I say this out loud, because if you are someone who is big on gun ownership, and that is something that you’ve even grown up with culturally or, you know, you have an experience of living in, you know, rural country and hunting is where you have some of the best memories that you have with your family or, you know, even if you are interested in guns as a hobby or you know, military as a hobby. You know, when you hear that, I imagine that it probably triggers some like, yeah, Heck, yeah, you know, I, it is my right, you know, to be able to protect my family, from any forces, you know, that may come in, whether that is the, you know, a rogue government or a burglar or any type of threat, it is my right as an American to do that.

And I feel good about being in a place, you know, and in a country where I have that right, and it is protected by law. And that is the last thing I want to give up is the right to protect my family. And on the other side of it, you know, I think that we have people who say, Look, you know, I’m not saying that I want to take your guns, I’m saying I also want to protect my family, and in protecting my family, because it is my right to also not own guns, and, and guns appear to fall into the hands of people who should not have them. For whatever reasons, I know that, you know, people say, Well, this, you know, and mental health and all that we’re just saying just facts of it all, for whatever reasons guns are falling into the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. I’m concerned, you know about how these guns are being cared for, stored, handled, training, what have you. And I want there to be additional safety measures, so my family’s protected.

So the thing I want to call out here is that when I hear these conversations, the biggest thing that’s being echoed and shared is that everyone wants to protect their family. But unfortunately, because of the language and underlying divisiveness, and the naturally inflammatory nature of the fire that us mamas and parents have for protecting our babies, it’s so heightened. Because even the conversation feels like a threat. And if there’s anything I can do to de-escalate that emotion, as we are trying to figure out how to move forward, after tragedy, after tragedy. It’s that I want us to keep at the forefront that we are actually on the same side. And I know that sounds absolutely bonkers, because it sounds like how could we be on the same side if one person wants me to give up something and another person is saying that, you know, I’m not comfortable with you having this thing. And I want you to know that it’s because of language. 

There are parties and people, you know, that benefit from divisiveness and they benefit financially. They benefit in terms of power, they benefit in terms of the ability to be vocal around their own ideals and advance their own personal goals. And those parties whether they are lobbying firms or government institutions, or individual politicians. They benefit from people remaining divisive because people when unified, create change. People when divided do not. And the best way to continue divisiveness is to insert inflammatory language that creates heightened emotions and prevents conversation. I really want to emphasize that again. The best way to retain control and power is to insert divisive language that creates inflammatory conversations and prevent people from becoming unified and creating change.

And particularly when it comes to issues of gun control, right control being one of those words that makes people feel uncomfortable. I don’t want to be controlled that makes me feel uncomfortable, or gun bands. Ban is a word that makes you feel uncomfortable. You’re saying that you don’t want me to be able to do anything. It sounds very totalitarian like no I can’t have it at all.

These are words that are far more frightening to you know and inflammatory than gun safety, gun restrictions, gun legislation. None of those words sound anywhere near as none of those words incite the need to be protective, as much as words that sound like they are all or none. And I have to tell you, I keep seeing this as a pattern.

Immediately after the George Floyd murder, the conversation shifted, as soon as people started being very unified. And I think a lot of you, I’m just, I’m just taking it back. So you can kind of walk with me and see what I saw, which was that almost instantly unified, we all were like, this is bad. It’s not good. This makes people uncomfortable. No one is okay with this. And we need to do something different because this can never happen again. I don’t know anyone who didn’t feel that way after watching that video, or hearing the pleas and the cries of the black community to say, can this please be enough?

Unified, we were all just like, this is horrific. This cannot happen. This is terrible. It is wrong, and it shouldn’t have happened. And if we’re saying that it’s happening more often than not, we have a problem with it collectively as a community. When I tell you, as that groundswell of conversation started in a grassroots way, and we were so incredibly unified, things started to happen. There was cancellation, they were bans, some money was shifting and moving into certain places that could cause real long lasting and impactful change. There were calls for legislation, I mean, a lot of things were happening, that were shifts, that people in power, and people that were accustomed to things being the way we’ve always done them, you know, we’re very uncomfortable with.

And so here’s what happened, there started being an insertion of language that is divisive language that even the word divisive is being used to imply that if I think differently than you, I am trying to cause a problem. It’s not that, I’m talking about divisive language, meaning we’re talking about the same thing, but I’m going to call it something different to make you feel like we’re not on the same side, hear me clearly on that. We are talking about the same thing but I am going to call it something different to make you think we are not on the same page.

An example of that, from that timeframe will be the language around defund the police. I don’t know if you heard that at all. I don’t know if that was something that you that might have made you uncomfortable, or if it was something that you supported. And you were like, oh, yeah, no, I totally remember this. And I remember thinking to myself, Okay, this thing is getting out of hand, you know, like right out of the gate. And I can understand when hearing that language, particularly if you are a military family, or if you have a family member that serves or if you grew up in a rural community, or if you don’t have a lot of experience interacting in major cities or with minorities, that you hear that language and you’re like, are you kidding me? People are saying we should get rid of police systems? We should completely just get rid of it? We should defund like not give them money?

Y’all, when I tell you, it was so saddening to me to hear that language use because it isn’t an accurate representation of what it actually means. Defund the police is an oversimplification of what was actually a fairly simple concept. When explained, what was being asked for in that context was, can we reallocate funds? Meaning can we take the lump sum of money, let’s say that we give a million dollars to the police, and instead of spending $250,000 on overtime, because so many officers are working 60-80 hour weeks, just utterly exhausted, but half the crimes are responding to aren’t even crimes their cat stuck in trees or a family member who’s unwell and needs, you know, take into a psychiatric situation for an evaluation or a, you know, an unruly kid or, you know, they’re responding to this huge set of community issues that are really not suited, or even the best use of police officers time and and can create situations where they can escalate. And also our officers are tired because they’re working this many hours and tired is not a good place to be if you’re gonna hold a weapon, you know, and defunding meant let’s move some funds from this overtime situation of responding to things that get these officers less hours. And let’s take these funds and apply them in creating a trained semi volunteer workforce, you know, that is available to respond to these issues and is qualified to do so.

So let’s create a group of mental health professionals. And instead when those calls come in, instead of routing them to expensive overtime hours police officers who aren’t even fairly equipped to handle, you know, an unruly teen, let’s route that to an overtime or an extra dedicated, hired mental health professional, who is able to go and respond to that and then tap a professional, you know, officer if indeed it is required. You know, and so you hear this term defined. And what they meant was, let’s defund things within the policing system that aren’t able to be used properly and don’t serve anyone. They don’t serve the neighborhood. They don’t serve the officers, they don’t serve the officers’ families, they don’t serve the community, they don’t serve the systemic behaviors that have always been, let’s start rerouting it as we have evolved as a society into building out the infrastructure that helps our society.

Mental health issues have always been around since the beginning of time, we’re just finally getting the tools and understanding on how to address them. And what’s unfortunate is we’re not changing our systems to be able to address them accordingly. So since the beginning of time, we’ve had police officers and mental health, you know, if it came up as an issue, we just threw people in jail. While we’re still doing that, even though we have a better understanding around mental health, even though we have a better understanding around where these people need to go, and how we can help support them and tools that can be provided. But we’re not implementing it.

So when you heard all this language around, defund the police. It’s nerve racking, I mean, no one wants to hear that if there is a situation much like these school shootings, we need police officers. We need someone who can come in and do something. However, if there’s a situation where your teen is getting out of sorts, and as a parent, you’re concerned about their safety, their well being or the wellbeing of others, an officer may not be the right person to call in around a kid’s tantrum. We need an alternative that is qualified to be able to go do that. And how much would we love to send our officers home early, at the end of a 40 hour work week, instead of giving them overtime to show up with an unruly teen?

I’d much rather if it was my baby, have a professional come in and see funds allocated for that. That’s what that meant. But man, oh, man, you better believe that that was not what people’s takeaway was. And then we get into these arguments around the belief of what we think the term is or what the concept is, rather than actually discussing how to move forward. And that’s how we say the same. And, friend, I want to let you know that people get so exhausted in those conversations that we actually stop doing. We actually stop creating change. We actually get so confused, that we end up just staying in the same position till the next tragedy occurs.

And it’s my hope that after tragedy after tragedy, I’m trying not to get choked up. But after seeing tragedy after tragedy of kids, holding hands, exiting schools and dealing with the trauma of school safety drills, and just being desensitized. Being told that there’s nothing we can do, that we don’t believe that, because choosing to do something about gun safety isn’t political. It’s choosing policy over politics. It’s choosing people over money. It’s choosing principle over party, as my good friend Sharon always says.

It’s making sure that we recognize that enough is enough and we’re all on the same side, when it comes to wanting to protect our families. Friend, believe it or not 92% of us in all surveys, some of the surveys come in around 87. But either way, the vast majority of us I mean, overwhelmingly are absolutely in 100% agreement that we need gun safety. As a matter of fact, if you’re a gun owner and you’re listening to this, you actually are some of the biggest advocates believe it or not for safety roles because you are a responsible gun owner.

And I know right now, if you’re listening to this you’re nodding your head, you’re like, actually, yes, you know, I want to make sure I can keep my weapon because I did the training and I got the license and I bought it legally and I protected and lock it up. And I make sure my kids are educated and not to touch it. And I make sure I mean heck, some of y’all don’t even own assault rifles. You’re like listen, the last thing I want to see are bands over my you know, tiny weapon that I use or my you know, my hunting tool or whatever, you know, because I am not even part of this, right? So it’s why we have got to find this unifying language, you know, and stick with what we know which is we’re all looking for safety. We’re all looking to see that there are restrictions placed around assault rifles. Everybody agrees on this. Everyone agrees on this, that there’s no use for an everyday citizen to carry around an assault rifle.

You don’t use them for hunting, you don’t use them for personal protection. You’re not carrying them around as a concealed weapon because frankly, they don’t fit, right. I wear spandex and Spanx. Okay, no ar 15 can fit up underneath that. All right, I can barely fit up underneath it. Okay, friend, seriously. So we’re all in agreement, especially because this is the weapon that is primarily used in most mass shootings, that this is a weapon we don’t really need. It is a weapon of war, it is meant for accelerated situations the same way that it may be your right to own a tank, but where are you going park that? Especially with these gas prices in this economy?

We don’t need tanks. You know, it’s that simple, right? So we’re all in agreement on that. That’s actually something that most of us are nodding our head saying, Yep. Yeah, I’m pretty cool with that being fine, especially if it means I get to keep my personal defense weapon. Outside of that we’re all in agreement that there needs to be tighter background checks. All of us on the same page with that, frankly, I found that a lot of us didn’t even realize how easy it is to get a weapon without a background check.

That you’re able to just go and purchase it. And they’ll let you take it home while you wait for three days for it to come through. And the background checks may not even look into previous crimes, they may not look into a huge category, which is domestic violence. And you may not know this, but you know, domestic violence is actually a pretty big predictor of whether or not that person is likely to engage in violence in a public way as well. And some of these background checks, don’t even check to see if there have been calls every week to your home about whether or not you’ve engaged in domestic violence. You know, that’s something that is readily available information that we’re not even screening for.

Can you imagine how many wives, moms, children and families, you know, and husbands to be honest, because domestic violence goes both ways, you know, lives could be saved. If we just did that check. The last thing you want to do is put a gun into someone’s hands, who’s dealing with mental health struggles and stressors at home? You know, especially in the case of suicide as well, you know, so that is something that we all agree on. Tighter background checks.

Most of us agree on mandatory wait time frames, meaning if you want to buy a gun, you don’t get to take it home that day. I mean, there’s a very rare circumstance where it’s like, I bought this gun today, and I need to get it home today that isn’t a concern. Right? You know, there’s no reason why you can’t purchase your gun. We wait a couple days while we do our checks. While we make sure our licenses come in, while we make sure everything checks out before you come and pick up your weapon.

I think that’s a good move. It just makes sense. Right? I think that if anything, if someone’s saying no, I need this gun right now, immediately. That’s more like a red flag. Yeah? It’s kind of a red flag situation. I’ll just letting you know, from my personal perspective, growing up and going to boarding school, you know, and living in rural Maryland, and, you know, also living in inner city DC and the major city of Atlanta and LA, I know gun owners. When I tell you most of them hope they never have to use their weapon. That is like the mindset of most gun owners. They never want to use their weapon. They hope and pray that they don’t have to use it outside of people who hunt. And people who hunt, they’re like, I take my gun out during hunting season and then I don’t see it again all year.

I know that gun owners who hear this right now are like yeah, like all of this stuff feels like a no brainer. What do you mean that this is what people are talking about? And I want to let you know that, you know, as someone who is a mom, you know, and someone who is a major, absolute, deep passionate auntie and lover of the littles you know, including yours. I am passionate about gun safety, because it makes sense. It just makes sense. Guns are not something that you leave out on the counter. Guns are not something that you just give to anybody. Guns are something that if someone goes in and checks themselves in for a mental health break or evaluation or that they are having extra issues, and we are aware that they have weapons, we should be taking those away for their own safety, if not just everyone else’s.

I mean, the truth of the matter is there is a way to allow people to have their self defense tools to protect themselves and their families if the need arises. And we hope and pray it never does. But there’s also a way to make sure that everyone feels safer, that we are all protecting our families and that we’re making sure that we’re creating a world that isn’t continuing to experience tragedy after tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. The trauma of that is too much to bear. It is affecting our psyche, it is affecting our children.

How many of you when you go into movie theaters or public spaces, mentally plan an exit route? How many of you look to the doors? How many of you look up and down at people? You know, when they enter spaces to try to read their face or their body language to determine if there’s an issue? How many of you are extra extra grateful whenever you pick up your kids from school every day? How often do you have to hear, I’m sending my thoughts and prayers, gug your kids a little tighter tonight. I hug my kids tight every night. And I don’t want to be extra thankful that they’re here just because someone else’s kids are not. The answers aren’t as complicated as they seem.

And the beautiful thing about who we are as people is that we have more shared values than we do differing ones. We love our families. We love our kids, we want to be safe. And we want to protect the people that are closest to us. And we want the freedom to be able to do that as intensely as possible. But none of us want to see the type of loss that we’ve become accustomed to. We don’t want to become desensitized to it. We don’t want to believe that there’s nothing to be done. We don’t ever want to believe that it’s gone too far. That is the very lie that keeps us from growing as a collective. And I want to tell you growth is possible. If anyone knows that it’s me. I’ve seen it in my babies, I’ve seen it in myself, it is possible to grow and change. So that’s what I call on you to do, friend.

I want you to know that your lawmakers work for you. And as a corporate professional, I can tell you that they all could go on performance improvement plans. They all need some feedback to know that if they don’t start making change, their jobs are up for termination. Friend, we can all agree. We have to keep our babies safe. So demand it. Don’t settle. And let your politician know that this is a priority issue. Engage in organizations that are reaching out and trying to fight money with money. They’re out there trying to advocate and say, Look, this makes sense. It’s a top issue. Support these organizations. Those organizations are not political at all. They’re simply trying to fight against all the campaign dollars that these politicians are getting to continue to fight and advocate for something that none of us really care about or want. What we want is to see change. So together, we’re going to have to go out and get it. I’m with you friend. Let’s make it happen.

Nicole:

Hey friends, I have got to talk to you about this. And this is a big one because it comes up all the time. I have had quite the week and I don’t know if it’s just that I’m an emotional person or I’ve just been dealing with a lot but I feel like I have just been churny in my relationships. And part of it obviously is because relationships are churny, right? They have highs and lows, we’re always trying to navigate new boundaries and figure out how to interact with people. But the other part of it, I think, is I’m learning more about how I expect the people closest to me to show up in my life.

And one of the things that became really evident was after I had a conversation with a friend of mine, and it was really clear that this friend was seeking a friendship where I’d be more present. You know, where I’d be at every party and I would travel and I would do getaways. And this is their definition of friendship. And what was tough for me is in the season I’m in, and I think a lot of y’all, you know, because we’re so the same can relate to this, we have kids, we have jobs, careers, a million things we’re balancing, and, you know, I do believe in the saying, you make time for what matters to you. But after we consider, you know, kids, personal health, God, relationships, you know, sometimes there just isn’t much left, you know, at the end of the day in various seasons.

And it was tough for me, because boundaries are something I’ve always struggled with. When I tell you, I don’t know if it’s something you’ve ever run with, you know, some of us are like, Oh, no, I’m really good at saying no, I won’t do that. But saying No, for me has been hard. I am a fixer. I am a solver. I am a giver. I always want to make sure that the people around me are thriving, and I want to do whatever I can to help. And sometimes I do that to my own expense. I’ve seen it in my relationships, my partnerships, even at my employee-employer relationships, just everyone always becomes a mentee, or I’m always trying to, you know, make sure that people are doing really well and not necessarily giving them enough that they’re supposed to carry on their own.

And because of that, you know, it’s just been something I’ve had to work on. A great resource for that, if you’re really looking to work on your boundaries is there’s a great book by Dr. Netra. Tawab and it’s called Set boundaries, find peace. And it’s a New York Times bestseller. She just released her second book called drama free relationships, it’s all about families and just kind of getting the drama out of them, also a New York Times bestseller, she is crushing it, grab both books are available on Amazon, they are quick reads, but they have great tools on where boundaries show up and how, you know, you’ve got to use it. And the biggest takeaway that I’ve always gotten from her work is that boundaries are for me.

And one of the things that is a common misconception around boundaries is that we are setting them for other people. So that’s what makes it feel all cringy and weird. And IK is that, oh, I’m going to have to tell this person no, or I’m going to have to tell this person stop. Or I’m going to have to say you can’t do this and all that languaging can feel really uncomfortable if you are a recovering people pleaser. But what I can tell you is that being able to be very clear about what you can do, what you can’t do, what you have capacity for and what’s going to be too much for you is a really powerful tool.

So if you’re like me, and I know we’re the same in this, we never like to come up short. If we know we’re going to do something for a friend, if we know we’re going to help someone out, we want to be able to feel like we were able to show up completely. We want to make sure that we’re able to see things through. We want to make sure that we’re giving the best of ourselves. And the answer to that isn’t oh, to say yes to everything and then apologize if we fall short but guilt ourselves and feel shameful if we do. No, we’ve done enough of that. The answer to that is to only help out where we know we actually can only sacrifice and create space where it’s actually possible.

And for me, that has been everything. You’ve heard me talk about this in our previous chats. I literally was throwing my boundaries to the wind and working myself to death to high blood pressures to facial paralysis. I mean, I talk about this in my book, which is coming out this fall. And I go into detail about just all the things that I was going through and the root cause of it was yes, you know, a lot of different relationship things but it was boundaries. I just didn’t create them. My work was allowed to go as far as it wanted to, my partner was allowed to go as far as they wanted to, my kids were allowed to go as far as they wanted to. I just literally extended myself at no and and so now, as I’m building new relationships in Los Angeles, as I’m building new relationships as a girlfriend in this role, you know, who is dating someone who has their own family and their own friends. As I’m building new relationships as a recent divorcee, you know, like a lot has changed. And while I build these relationships, boundaries are at the forefront, because I found that one of the core reasons that I struggled with maintaining these boundaries, and I would get the most frustrated whenever they were crossed, was because I had expectations for others if I was able to show up for them in a certain capacity.

I always felt like if I showed up for you 100 times, I could definitely count on you to show up for me once. That if I showed up for you in a million ways doing this thing, or even in one really big way, in a way that you could never find anywhere else, that if I asked for one tiny thing, even if that tiny thing wasn’t something back, but it was grace, or ease, or a break, or space, or help that would benefit you, that I would certainly get that. And oh, friend, that isn’t the case. That is not how that works. And I know you know what I’m talking about.

It is that friend, that you do everything for, plan the Baby shower, plan all the things, and then you say to them, Hey, would you mind just picking up this thing for me at the store, and they’re like, Well, I can’t do that for you. And you’re like, Girl, I do all these things, I can’t even. And when I tell you if your brain is even processing it that way, because you’re upset that this happened, you have to remember that, if you never set a boundary, that you’re not going to go to the ends of the earth for a friend, they’re gonna keep asking you to go to the ends of the earth.

I have a funny story that happened to the little one, to Puffin, my 11 year old. And she gave me permission to tell this one. But basically, she had a friend, you know, in her class, and they went on a field trip. And as part of the field trip, they were allowed to stop by the gift shop. Now, Puffin has been doing little chores and odds and ends around the house in order to make extra cash, we don’t do allowances in our home, everybody works to make money. So she has managed to earn a nice bit of change, especially for an 11 year old and she asked for permission, you know, during the field trip to go ahead and be able to take a little bit of that with her to the gift shop. So she did. And she gets to the gift shop and her friend who did not bring any money was like, Oh, can you buy me something? Now Mama’s I know right now you’re all like, oh, here we go. Here we go.

Well, here’s what happened. Of course, you know, Puffin is just learning the value of money. She’s learning how money works. She’s learning about people, you know, she’s at that age, going into middle school where she’s really starting to navigate some of these friend relationships on her own. And her experience in our household with money is that, you know, if we go to a store, or if you’re given a budget, and you’re said, hey, you know, you have $20 to spend, you spend what you need to get what you want, and you bring back the change, right? That is in our family, we don’t try to live in excess. I’m so grateful and blessed that I have girls who really are kind, considerate, thoughtful and generous. And I mean, I literally could give them $100. And they will come back with $80, you know, because they will only ever get what they need because we do understand that money isn’t everything. And what’s interesting is, my little one didn’t realize that that may not be how the rest of the world works, you know? And so she was gonna learn that today. So she tells her friend while your budget is $30. Well, when her friend came back, and spent $24.99 plus tax, oh, she was hot. She was hot, I tell you.

And so when she comes back and tells us a story, you know, at the end of the school day, because I could tell she was a little upset about something. She was like, Yeah, you know, and it was like $27.99 after tax, and I just, I can’t reach them at all, I thought she was just gonna get like a pencil or something. And she didn’t even buy anything of high value. It was just a tiny stuffed animal. What’s the point? She already has six stuffed animals. I mean, she went on and on and on about how this person did exactly what she said they could do. And we had to have a conversation with her about, you know, boundaries. Saying, hey, you know, you set a boundary for her, and she walked right up to it. But she didn’t really do anything wrong. She did exactly what you said.

And so what that means is whenever you are going to set a boundary, that you’re hoping someone’s going to abide a boundary that you’re you’re wanting to be met, you need to check with yourself, what is your true boundary? Was your limit really $10? Or $5? And if so, then that’s really what you should have communicated. And furthermore, because y’all she expected this girl to pay her back and shout out to the girl she did pay her back. I will say we were all surprised, plot twist. Spoiler alert. None of us expected that to happen, right? But the girl did pay her back. And, you know, we also made clear to her that look, if you’re only lending money out to people in hopes that you get it back. Well, that is a quick way to lose a friend, sister, you know, you’ve got to understand that you only lend what you don’t expect to see back.

And she learned a very valuable lesson that day and I could see in her face and it all dawned on her. But what was nice was we coupled that with generosity. We said look, you know there’s nothing wrong with pursuing your dreams and pursuing your goals but I can’t have you always expecting someone to have your back and help you do it. Which brings us to today’s point, I know that part of what is being sold to us online is that we’ve got to have community and it is true. Life is hard when you’re doing it by yourself. It’s why I’m so thankful that we do so much here together. But it’s not just about buying into masterminds, or business groups, or joining clubs or being part of PTA. It’s also recognizing that building community only matters where it counts, you don’t necessarily need someone’s support for everything, especially if it’s not the right type of support.

So let me unpack that a bit. I have finally started realizing especially after hearing it so often from y’all in my DMs and just throughout my own life, that no one on this planet, even in your fancy pants business mastermind, is ever going to be as excited about your life, your idea, your relationship, your baby, your house, your new car, you name it, as you are. No one is ever going to be as invested, or as willing to protect it as willing to grow it as willing to do anything that helps you succeed and thrive the way that you are.

Now, let me tell you what that means. So many of us will feel really upset if we feel like even our partners or our spouse, or our parents or our best friends don’t get our idea, or they aren’t willing to commit and invest. And when I tell you the amount of energy, we will expend being upset at the fact that this person doesn’t seem to get it, or that they aren’t willing to be on board or Oh, we don’t support our friends the way we do these other artists or whoever. I mean, people will literally just get so turned upside down about this, that we’re not even doing our craft without realizing that listen, if you’re not ready to go at it and do it on your own, then you’re not ready. 

When I tell you that when I first started building my business 12 years ago, in the quiet moments of the night, where I had up one laptop, showing me YouTube videos on how to code and I was sitting in front of my desktop trying to figure out where I needed to plug in that backslash and that colon to make sure I didn’t mess something up because I was programming my own site because I didn’t have the coins to get it done. Y’all who was there with me? Not a single person. It was literally up to me to not only find the drive to do it, but to celebrate myself when I got it right.

Now, I’m not saying that I don’t have a great girl squad, Jen, Jada, Nikki, these women hold me up, they have championed me, they have shown up for me in ways that I could never imagine. They have just beyond been helpful in all things that I do. But ultimately, when it comes time to the real grunt work, when it comes time to the times where I’m feeling the most dejected or the most confused, or I’m trying to work myself out of a problem, or I have to do the hard work like terminating an employee or showing up for an event when I’d rather just be at home with my kiddos. Ain’t nobody coming to save you. <laughs> Okay, friend.

So while you’re sitting there saying to yourself all day, gosh, it’s so frustrating to feel like I have to go at this alone. That is a valid feeling. It is a real feeling. It is frustrating to have to do this stuff alone. Don’t be surprised if that’s going to be the case at several points during your journey. And also know that in a lot of ways, there’s something to be said for being able to do it alone. And this is what I’ve learned. I don’t need every single voice in my ear as I’m trying to make really tough decisions. And there’s no better place that I’ve learned this than starting a new relationship. I am in a relationship with an incredible man. And I talk about him a lot, because I love him a lot. And I care about him a lot, because he’s good to me. And he’s good to my daughters, and he’s good to my business. And it’s one of those things where I have to recognize that other people aren’t going to be as excited about it and they shouldn’t be because they’re not in it, you know, and other people aren’t going to experience the outcome of that relationship the same way because again, they’re not in it and your relationships, your business, anything you do, you are the person who’s going to experience the maximum fruits of that work.

So understand that if people only want to give the minimum contribution, that’s appropriate for the output they’re going to receive. So it really isn’t something that I’ve started turning to other people for their advice or their feedback. I mean, there’s one thing to have a really good friend kind of point out something and make sure that two and two adds up and you better believe that when I first started dating the misterfella that he went on tour, he met my sister, he met everyone before he had to get the stamp of approval. But after that, we hash out our own issues. You know, we leverage therapy and professionals for perspectives. And anyone who has a perspective outside of that, well, they can keep it. We don’t need to be cheered on in order to be successful. And I want to let you know, that’s the same way that I approach my business.

It was really difficult because being in a partnership with someone who wasn’t an entrepreneur, it also meant that they didn’t quite have an understanding of some of the stressors or the mindset things. Like Lord, how many times have we wanted to close our businesses or run the other way? You know, and when you consider that you’re talking to someone who may not understand all the nuances and the things you are going through? Why are we putting so much weight on their opinion, or their perspective or their validation, when they don’t even understand where we’re coming from? And the same thing applies with raising our kids, I mean, we will get turned upside down when someone has an opinion about what we feed our kids, is it GMOs or BPA is or you know, or what the bedtime is, or how we style them, or dress them or where we’re sending them to school, or you’re not teaching them a language yet? I mean, we will get turned upside down, because someone has an opinion, and especially if that someone is close to us, but remember, it’s your life to live. And even better, this is the greatest thing about our own lives, they aren’t required for you to be successful. Their validation isn’t required for you to be able to get where you want to go. And once you get there, especially when you did it without their validation, my God how much better does it taste?

I can’t tell you just think back with me for a moment friend of those moments where you were like, You know what, I sat around, and I never did this laundry, this pile kept growing. And then one day, I was just like, I’m just gonna get up and do it. I’m gonna get it done, because I kept waiting for other people to pitch in, or for the kids to help out or for something to change. And finally, I was like, I’m just gonna knock this out and get it done. How good did it feel? Don’t lie, you went over to your linen closet, and you open it and you looked at those folded towels more than once because it felt good. Because you put them there and you did it. I cannot wait for the day that I get to see my youngest baby cross the graduation stage. I cannot wait for the day that my youngest baby comes in and says Mom, I accomplished the thing that I meant to do, and I get to celebrate her. Because there are so many people who will always have opinions on how you do things and where you get there. But the moments of celebration that you get to have with the people you love the most because you did it anyways, is everything.

I want you to know that I’ve been leaving messages for you on Instagram, I call them my little lessons. And in these little lessons every single day, I’m dropping just a little note, something that I am either experiencing myself or two lines that finally connected and they’re making sense. Or something that was said to me that I’m like, Oh my gosh, that’s a gem, that’s gold, and everyone needs to know it. And I want to let you know that one of the things that I shared recently was this one. And this went lowkey viral just because people were like, Oh my gosh, like you are absolutely dead on.

“Maybe your ideas, dreams, goals, aspirations, beliefs aren’t too big. Maybe the rooms that you’re in, the person you married, the city that you live in, the friends that you’ve made, the job that you have, are too small. Sometimes we don’t choose to move forward, not because we’re afraid that the dream will fail, but because when it works, we’ll discover that we’ll have to change our life.”

Friend, don’t let other people keep you from pursuing what you should pursue simply because they can’t understand the magnitude of where you are going to go. You cannot take directions from people who don’t know your destination. Continue to move forward. Recognize that you don’t need the backup, the support, the validation, the perspectives, because ultimately, you are doing the work. Go get um friend.

Nicole:

Hey, everyone, I am ready to chat with y’all because today’s chat is going to be one for the record books. I found out that you all love, love, love, love when I have this guest in. This guest is the top rated most popular guest we have ever had in the room chatting with us and he is back again. And I’m super excited to share the Misterfella. Hey Alex.

Alex:
Hey Nicole…

Nicole:

<laughs> 

I love Why are you laughing? It’s true.

Alex:
<laughs>

I love having me here. I really do.

Nicole:

Oh, but he’s gonna do stuff like this. This is what happens. This is the energy. Look, this is a real job. And he literally, literally is like, Oh, you’re going into work today? This is your podcast voice. What do I sound like to you? What do you think I’m doing when I come in?

Alex:

It’s like thank you so much, everyone for being here. It’s so special. You know, it’s just I can’t even recreate it.

Nicole:

Oh my gosh, if this is your first time joining for one of our chats, Alex is my boyfriend of over a year, and the love of my life.

Alex:

Facts, facts

Nicole:

Light of my world, light of my life.

Alex:

<sings together>

Light of my life

Nicole:

He is going to be my second husband in a series of three to 5.

Alex:

Facts.

Nicole:

Oh you like that part in a series of three to five, that second and last right?

Alex:

Oh, I didn’t hear that part, nah.

Nicole:

Shut that down. Put that down. He’s like, he’s going to be my second husband. I’m very excited to be married to this incredible man someday. But that said, I’m really excited to have him here. If you haven’t heard our previous chats, we have made announcements about our growth in our relationship. He’s been here to just chat about what it’s like when we started our relationship and how we got together to begin with.

And he’s also been here talking about his business and sharing some of what he’s learned in the past. But today, we are doing a Q and A. Why? Because if you follow along on my instagram at Nicole Walters, it’s at Nicole Walters all over social. You’ve been keeping up with our hijinx, whether it is you know, the tinies painting his toenails or him learning the worm.

Alex:
Oh I did the worm.

Nicole:
You did, objectively, it was really good. You were exhausted. You got to stop trying to keep up with kid.

Alex:
I almost hurt myself.

Nicole:
Yes you did! You forget you getting old, that over 30 life.

Alex:

My knees, my back.

Nicole:
Your knees. So, you know, we’re sharing our hijinx, the things we’re doing, how we’re learning and loving together. So if you want to keep up, head over to Instagram, where you can catch all of that. But today, we are taking questions from y’all that have come in around what you want to know. Now, I have to tell you, I’m not gonna lie. It is uncomfortable sharing my relationship like this. I think a lot of people think that, you know, oh my gosh, you share so much or you put a lot out there. But the truth is, I keep a lot to myself. I really, really do. And I just, I don’t know how to share. I’m excited and I love being in love. But it is weird talking about you. I’m not gonna lie.

Alex:
Is it weird?

Nicole:
It is. It is like this being like, Oh, I’m just gonna take questions and whatever. But I also am so proud of you. And I’m like excited too. Because, so here’s what happens. And y’all know this because you know, you send me the messages but people tell me that our relationship gives them hope.

Alex:

I mean, I’m glad that it does that for people.

Nicole:
Yeah, that’s like the number one thing people say is like, they have gone through divorce or…

Alex:
Yeah I’ve seen some of those comments.

Nicole:

Yeah, where it’s like, and they have kids or they’re older, you know, because as y’all know, I’m no spring chicken. I’m a seasoned chicken. And…

Alex:
I mean, nobody wants plain chicken. <laughs>

Nicole:
Nobody wants plain chicken – that’s why I love you! That’s right, baby. And so when people say you know, seeing someone with three kids going through a divorce and you know someone with a strong personality, and they’re just like, it’s just nice to see that you can find someone who treats you well and all that.

So I’m happy to share it because as you all know, I’m always really big on turning back God is out here still in the blessing business and doing great things. So that said, let’s get to some of these questions, because then I have questions on my own.

Alex:
Uh oh.

Nicole:

No, they’re good! So to catch people up, we’ll just do the quick ones over how do we meet?

Alex:

We met, we met on Bumble.

Nicole:

We met on the internet apps, hey, Bumble if you’re looking to sponsor a podcast, this, this might be the one be the one. We met on Bumble. And on our first date, if you guys didn’t hear about our first date, I talked about that in a previous chat. You can find the details in the show notes. But we met on Bumble and when we met on Bumble, we went on that first date and how did I feel about you? And how did you feel about me, sir?

Alex:

Well, as we have previously discussed on the episode, we clearly felt different at the time. I was… 

Nicole:

But you don’t believe that?

Alex:
I don’t. I don’t I thinkit was good vibes. We had a good time. And apparently, you almost walked out several times.

Nicole:

I did, I did, I’m telling y’all if you have not listened to that chat, you should because it’s a good one. Definitely, almost walked out. But I’m glad I didn’t.

Alex:

I also am that.

Nicole:
But yeah, and then, you know, little by little over time, I introduced you to my tinies and all my peoples and now we are what’s crazy, it’s like, I feel like fairly quickly, but not like weirdly quickly, but fairly quickly. We did all the relationshipy things, you know, like meeting my people.

It was a while before he met my kids who are kind of like, well into the relationship at that point. In time, there’s a good amount of time, but yeah, I mean, you met the wasband, you know, like you really did meet everybody. And then, now I mean, like I don’t even know if there really are any other milestones. Like what comes next? I mean.

Alex:

I mean that’s everyone.

Nicole:

Now we’re just in our daily life, which is, I guess what’s fun about this chat, because we’ll talk about that.

Alex:

It’s our daily life.

Nicole:
I’m going to tell you and I’m going to be really candid when I talked about this two episodes ago about fighting fair, you know, and about how I think almost like, literally every other chat, I’ve been talking about how you annoyed me in something. You know, I was like the other day, but here’s the thing. And I’ll tell you though, you didn’t listen. You didn’t hear last week’s chat yet. 

Alex:
Oh, God, what?

Nicole:

Well, so I talked about how you get on my nerves, even when you get on my nerves…

Alex:

Yeah, you came in and said this.

Nicole:
I can’t get mad because I’ll be like, Oh, he’s so hot. Oh, he’s so cute. And like all this stuff. And like, I love him so much. But like you do get on my nerves. That’s like, and it’s weird, because I don’t remember you getting on my nerves when we first got together.

Alex:

It’s funny because I felt the same way. I didn’t remember you get on my nerves either yet here we are!

Nicole:
You’re saying that sarcastically.

Alex:
It’s happening currently! I’m just kidding!

Nicole:
The reason you don’t remember is it doesn’t happen because it doesn’t happen.

Alex:
Oh, is that, is that true?

Nicole:

So why is that just like a relationship thing? Or is it because we spend more time together now or the daily mundane? What do you think is the reason?

Alex:

Why sometimes we get on each other’s nerves?

Nicole:
Yeah, I mean, you’re the professional boyfriend!

Alex:
That’s life!

Nicole:
Y’all if you don’t know this, he’s a professional boyfriend. Like I have not had a lot of relationships at all.

Alex:
I’ve had several long term relationships. So I am dubbed as the professional boyfriend.

Nicole:

And you’re very good at boyfriend-ing. You are, you’re an excellent boyfriend!

Alex:
I’ve got experience under my belt. <laughs>

Nicole:

You are an excellent boyfriend! You’re very good at it. Like y’all. He’s thoughtful. He’s considerate. He’s kind. He’s empathetic. Like, these are all really true things. I just say them, like independent of his actual personality.

Alex:
<laughs>

Nicole:

I like your personality! It’s my favorite thing. I like it. Like you suits me. Your my type!

Alex:

Again, it’s like the thing you say no offense, but it’s like, but that’s the thing.

Nicole:
No but serious. I’m serious. So, but you are so good at the act of boyfriending, like you’re so good at it like, and I feel so I feel really blessed to be like, the beneficiary of that.

Alex:
Well, I’m good. I’m good at it. I think I’m better at it with you because I want to be better at it with you. You know, yeah, I want to go out of my way and do those things for you or, you know, be there for you in those ways, because I love you.

Nicole:

Oh I love you too. That’s sweet. I like that.

Alex:
I was this way to an extent I think with my past partners, but not as much.

Nicole:

Do you think that your exes would even believe who you are now?

Alex:
Oh, no.

Nicole:
Really?

Alex:

I mean, I’m still me.

Nicole:
Not mister night and day, switching it up!

Alex:

It’s not night day per se.

Nicole:

Oh, tell me more about that.

Alex:

Not night and day but you know like I’ve matured in a lot of ways.

Nicole:

Yes we all have right? You know I don’t know if the was-band would recognize me. Oh we get real rea, I don’t know if the was-band would recognize me being completely honest like because I am I mean honestly all of y’all who are on social you talk about it all the time the number one of the number one comments they make about like, our relationship is Nicole, it feels so good to see you so happy. You are so joyful, like, and we’ve been together a while now. And it’s not this is not like a 60 days, three month fling, whatever, you still make me so happy.

Like I’m, I’m happy when I talk about you. I’m like, smiley whenever I go. But even if I think about I’m just like, Yeah, it’s like a little surge. I literally have had medical evidence that you’re like good for my spirit. So my previous, you know, partnerships that I’ve been in. I’m not kidding, high blood pressure, right? When I go to the doctor’s office, and I’m trying to do my blood pressure reading I think about you. And when they take my blood pressure, it actually is like lower it goes down. They have like seen it drop as I am thinking about you. Isn’t that crazy?

Alex:
Think about that next time you get upset at me.

Nicole:
No, wait!

Alex:
This man is good for my health!

Nicole:
It does not feel like that in the moment, in that moment, because you’re always leaving the shower door open. <laughs> Do you think that that’s like what I think that’s probably like, it’s weird. It’s you’re not messy. You’re actually really especially considering that you’re not naturally like, automatically, like tidy. You’re really good about keeping things the way they are, like you do okay with that. But you have like certain habits.

Alex:
Yeah. I mean, everyone’s got certain little things. You know what I mean? When you live in when you live with somebody? Right? You know what I mean? Like those things come out. And you see them in their daily lives. And yeah, people got habits and things. Yeah, but like, you know, I mean, you’ve you’ve seen how I live before wasn’t the cleanliness.

Nicole:
Which is also crazy. First talk about that. Yeah, you want a truth moment?

Alex:

Yeah!

Nicole:
You’re really wow, really? Oh, no, whenever people like, see how you live now, you know, like, like, how we live and whenever they are, like, aware of my living habits like how, you know, tidy I am and stuff. They’re always like, wow, you’re like so clean now, Alex? That’s like a regular comment people make by like, the cleanliness of your life now.

Alex:

Yeah. Because like, I mean, I was proud of where I lived before. Ya know what I mean by that? Because that’s the thing for me. I’m like, it.

Nicole:

It was a nice building.

Alex:
It was a nice building. You know, it was like, a nicer, nice amenities, a nice amenities. You know what I mean? And I was proud of the square footage of the place, but like, at the same time, like, I don’t know, I just didn’t. I didn’t know what nice was, I didn’t know what real cleanliness was.

Nicole:

Do you think that you live better with girlfriends? Overall? Like, are you someone who you think is prone to partnership?

Alex:
I think I do better in partnership.

Nicole:

Really? Tell me more about that.

Alex:
Yeah, I think I’m better in a partnership or when I’m held accountable.

Nicole:

Really, tell me more about that. What do you think a partnership affords you, that helps you be better?

Alex:

Well, at the end of the day, if we both come home from work, and sit on the couch and be like, how was your day and I say, oh, you know, I just play video games all day, or I just whatever, that’s not going to sound or feel very good. But at the end of the day, if I can, if I can come back be like, Yeah, I got some really good practice done, I accomplished this and this and that. It feels good to be able to say that to my partner. You know what I mean? It’s kind of, like, you know.

Nicole:

So that’s how you think like, a partnership gives you an accountability person that you aspire to be better with?

Alex:

Yeah, I mean, especially somebody like you, you work, you work so hard all the time.

Nicole:
I appreciate you.

Alex:

And I don’t think that you would even want to be with somebody who like, after working so hard, and you come home and be like, I just, you know, I had a VIP day and I did this and this call and this contract. And I can’t and I’d be like yeah, I played some Super Smash Brothers, you know, watch couple shows, you know, that’s not gonna go well.

Nicole:
Yeah, it’s definitely not a turn on. Not a turn on. And, you know, I mean, I’ve definitely redefined what is important to me. And that is not a behavior that I tolerate.

Alex:

Right. I mean, you know, especially with having, you know, Ally around.

Nicole:
Yeah being a good example, you know.

Alex:
I mean. You’re an amazing example, but I also want to be one in my own in my own right. So I want to, I want to work hard. So, you know, set my own examples like, but it’s true. It’s the stuff that you do when nobody’s watching. Yeah, that really counts.

Nicole:
Yes. Oh, speaking of stuff you do, we have these Q and A’s that are so good. I mean, we could literally just chat. Alright, so when you look back, I guess the question for both of us when you look and reflect on your life is this where you see yourself careers, relationships, all that stuff? Do you want to go first?

Alex:
No. <laughs>

Nicole:
Really?! Because you wanted to be a trombone player since you were a wee bit little baby.

Alex:

Yeah, I’ve always wanted to be a trombone player.

Nicole:
So that’s the only part that’s right? <laughs>

Alex:

I’ve always wanted to do music. I’ve always wanted to do music. I knew that much.

Nicole:
When did you know that because that was another question. Someone said, When did you know that you wanted to do music

Alex:
Okay we’ll combine them.

Nicole:
Yeah, combine them, smush them together.

Alex:

Sure. I mean, I, I’ve always known I wanted to do music. I mean, I started playing piano when I was five. And I was in band growing up and I’ve just always really gravitated to music. And I got really competitive with my older brother because he got put in lessons.

Nicole:

Does he do music?

Alex:
He used to. He was a very good pianist. And he used to be a very good drummer. Like he was a very talented drummer. He did drum corps.

Nicole:
And big deal. Shout out DCI.

Alex:

Wow! Yeah. Look at you dropping terms, dropping names.

Nicole:
Like a pro.

Alex:

Look at you! You see one field show and you’re a pro.

Nicole:

I know nothing about that, y’all. This is what it looks like to be a supportive girlfriend. Like, right, we like the drums! So you always know you wanted to play.

Alex:
I always knew I wanted to do music. And…

Nicole:
So that part’s consistent with you know…

Alex:

That part is consistent with my life. Now, I did envision myself doing a lot of the things I wanted to do. But it took some turns along the way. You know, like, you know, even in college I ended up changing my major to there was a major called professional music major, which is just…

Nicole:
But you went to Berklee School of Music so isn’t that everyone’s major? <laughs>

Alex:
Exactly. Exactly. It’s okay, if I graduate with a degree in professional music Am I declared a professional musician? Like, what does that mean?

Nicole:

Because there are also people who have never right?

Alex:

And so anyway, so you know, when I was like, I’m playing trombone, regardless, I’m playing in this band, and then doing sessions and stuff like that. But, you know, let me learn something else while I’m here. And I kind of had an interest in film music. And so I started taking beginner film scoring classes and stuff like that. And I ended up getting my major in film composition.

Nicole:

And you scored some films before.

Alex:
I’ve scored some films, I’ve done shorts. I’ve worked for music, libraries, and done sync licensing stuff.

Nicole:
What is sync licensing, because we’re regular people.

Alex:
So sync licensing is just creating tracks that capture specific moods, or topics. And you create a library. So I can create a library of things that capture action/adventure, things that capture…

Nicole:

For what? It’s the background music and the way I always describe what you do to people, because y’all know this. And every single girl out there is going to understand this when you’re dating somebody, you kind of know what they do, but you don’t know what they do. Right? So you like come up with a context to try to explain, I’m always like, okay, so you know, like, like, when you’re like watching Law and Order, and Olivia opens a door, and it’s the crime scene and you hear that in the background, and then all of a sudden, body, like, you know?

Alex:

Or like they go on, they go on… Not the sound effects but you almost got it.

Nicole:
The music that would make you feel uncomfortable.

Alex:

Yeah, that makes feel uncomfortable, or like, you know, they go on a car chase, and they play some rock music for like this car chase, that music could have been created for a library and the music supervisors for the show will go into certain libraries. They’ll go through a catalogue of all they’re like, Okay, we want a rock song. Let’s go to this library. And let’s, let’s look at they have like 100 different rock songs from 12 different composers, and they just go through and they’re like, Okay, like this one. Let’s use this for our scene. Now that composer gets paid for every time it gets played on television.

Nicole:
Which is dope. We love that residual recurring residual income.

Alex:
Mailbox money, baby!

Nicole:
And an even better, I think that now a lot of us are familiar with this, because it’s kind of like tick tock. When you create your content, you’re scrolling through looking for a sound that matches up with the feeling of what you’re watching. Right? It’s that but on a professional, much bigger scale.

Alex:

Right? So my life doesn’t look the same. It looks the same in terms of me doing music, it looks a lot different in terms of me, you know, having a home life and you know, stepkids.

Nicole:
Yeah.

Alex:
And, you know, trying to wrap my brain around, trying to balance a home life that I you know, I knew I wanted it but I didn’t know if I would ever have it.

Nicole:

OH! Tell me about that. You thought you wouldn’t have a home life?

Alex:
I didn’t know if I would have a spouse or if I would settle down. I don’t know if I was ever gonna have kids.

Nicole:
Did you know you wanted to get married someday?

Alex:
I mean, someday, but you know, I always do. It’s just always on the grind of hustling gig to gig. What kind of schedule? It’s hard to date.

Nicole:
But you were a professional boyfriend. What do you mean it was hard to date?

Alex:

I mean, yeah, I was boyfriend thing, but the priority was always the music. The priority wasn’t, you know, establishing home life and, you know. There’s a different balance I’m trying to strike now because I’m a little older and my priorities have shifted. And so now I’m trying to balance you know, gigging, and music and work and home life and the kids and just like…

Nicole:
How’s that going for you?

Alex:
It’s going great!

Nicole:

Yeah, it’s good.

Alex:
It feels really good. Especially because I am, you know, I enjoy Ally and Dahlia, you know, and like, it’s, it’s, it’s nice to have them around. And you know, I want to be around. So I’m not really trying to hop gig to gig to gig, which is what I thought I would do, right in the beginning, I’m like, I could do this forever. This is so much fun.

Nicole:
You enjoyed it.

Alex:
I enjoyed it. But now I’m like, I want to be around, I want to be home, I want to be present in the household, as well as you know, pursue professional milestones and things, you know, and establish my career, you know, and do more sync licensing, and do more writing and composing.

Nicole:
So you’re working for yourself now but in a more at home traditional setting.

Alex:

Yeah. And more at home.

Nicole:
But you have a studio.

Alex:
Yeah and it’s hardly traditional, I guess. <laughs>

Nicole:
Yeah, not I mean, nothing about our life is.

Alex:
Nothing is.

Nicole:
Which I think is funny, because we’ve kind of come to terms with I think at the very beginning, we were both kind of try to try to hold on to some semblance of well we still want to do things the right way or a certain way or wanted to look a certain way, or we want to hit these traditional marks. But we’ve kind of given up and said you know what, like, I’m a divorcee. I’ve got three kids, I adopted them to my kids are older, like, it’s just, one went to rehab one had stage four cancer, like, we met on the internet. You’re a musician, like it’s look, we are a hot mess bag of wonderful. Yeah, we’re just going to live and do the best we can to just, you know, honor our gifts and show up in a big way and just be happy.

Alex:
Yeah. And you know, I’m glad the way things are turning out and I’m happy to be doing, you know, everything I’m doing in home life and professional and, you know, certain doors are opening and, you know, I knew things would work out because there’s no other option.

Nicole:

That’s right. So that no other option that’s a big, like, I would honestly say that in our household, we have a couple of values. You know what I mean? Like, one is like, take care of your skin. Skincare is a high value in our household.

Alex:
We do.

Nicole:
We all value skincare. We exfoliate. We moisturize, like that’s really important, too. I would say we generally care about like our health and our bodies, you know, like so we’re just not reckless about I mean, you’re better than I am like you.

Alex:

<laughs> But it’s not gonna matter.

Nicole:
What was that laugh?

Alex:
Because it’s not gonna matter. You’re still gonna look better than me in the long run.

Nicole:

<laughs> I love you for that doesn’t matter. And literally, it’s so annoying. He goes to the gym daily, like, I mean, he like I would say no less than three times a week. Sometimes it’s often as five times a week. And he is so so good. And he’s at the gym, y’all for like two hours and nobody is there for two hours. What are you even doing? You know what I mean? But he’s like, oh, like I did this. I did that. Like he is so good about it. And like protein shakes and pre workout and like, he does all the things to take care of himself and like stay hot, and I literally will be home eating chicken. I’m not lying. I am not lying to y’all.

Alex:

And I’m like that’s my baby. <laughs>

Nicole:

No, he’s like, that’s enough chicken and when we going to the gym, like you know, like, balance, but um, but we always joke about the fact that like, between skincare and Botox, I’m going to look like this forever. It’s just like, but I love you.

Alex:
I love you.

Nicole:
I love you. You keep at it, baby.

Alex:

Thank you.

Nicole:
You look good to me. I appreciate and receive you. So, next question, what has been your favorite part of our journey with each other?

Alex:

Favorite part?

Nicole:
Yeah, I don’t know. Like, do you do you think of this is like, singular experience? Or just the know the I guess part of the journey is like, what what you’ve enjoyed about being together? Oh, my gosh, that’s so good, a good question.

Alex:
What I’ve enjoyed about being together…

Nicole:
It feels good to think about it.

Alex:

Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of really good things that have you know, that I’ve really enjoyed being with you. There’s so many things that I’ve gotten, like out of being with you. I’ve improved, you know, like my life vastly just my time management. You know, time management alone is amazing.

Nicole:

We’re saying this, no joke, as my Podcast Producer right now is like, Well, can you improve hers? Because she stays late. He’s out here chuckling right now. Like, really? Really? Is that what your time management went? Because you must have given it all. I stay late for my podcast. Bless your heart. If you guys don’t know. My Podcast Producer Josh is just a saint. So he’s the one who can make sure that this gets to you every day. He’s amazing. So no, time management. Sure.

Alex:

You know, I’ve gotten a lot a lot more productive, you know, and just like organized and just like all these amazing things.

Nicole:

The Nicole Walters effect, people around me they make money, credit scores go up…

Alex:

What have I enjoyed? I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the fact that me and you can go anywhere, and it’s up party can go into any situation. And the best part is, I don’t have to say nothing. I just got to sit there and show them the role. And people will laugh and sit there and watch like a live TV show.

Nicole:

Oh my gosh, no. Which funny is amazing, because I love that whenever I go places with you in other environments, like you’re taking the lead, I can sit back and it’s like a good old time. You know what I mean? Like so no, that’s, that’s true. We have a lot of fun by ourselves. Like it’s completely unnecessary. We have such fun.

Alex:

But it’s really enjoyable. I can bring you any different environment and we know how to operate in each other’s space. We’ve talked about that before.

Nicole:

Yeah, that is a big one. Yeah.

Alex:

I mean, like, I can come into your work world and not act crazy and I brought you into mine.

Nicole:
And I can act like your girlfriend. I like it. Like people are like, Oh, what do you do? I’m like, nothing really?

Alex:
Yeah, literally. I always have to hype up what you do because you say nothing about it.

Nicole:
Yeah. I say I just hang out..

Alex:
I just do this and that.

Nicole:
I say I write a little bit here and there.

Alex:

I’m like, no, she has a podcast, she has a book coming out.

Nicole:
Yeah you gas me up.

Alex:
She has a financial firm. Like…

Nicole:

You’re so sweet. I love you so much, ya know? And then But then obviously, when, you know, you’re in my spaces, they’re like, oh, you know, what is he doing? You don’t understand? All the Grammys, Beyonce is 33. What does that even mean? Okay, he’s collected them all. Right, like, just so I because also I know your talent, you know what I mean? And I also know your work ethic. And if there’s anything I have learned from relationships, and from work and from clients, it’s that it’s not just about talent, it’s about work ethic, and no one can beat you there.

So, no, that’s a good one. I think that the thing I’ve enjoyed the most about our journey is the ease, like the ease and the peace. So, you know, whether that is, you know, because of previous experiences, or because of something unique to what we have, it just feels so easy, even though it isn’t easy. You don’t I mean? Like it’s hard to always be vulnerable, you know, with someone when you’ve had trust issues with vulnerability in the past, and it’s hard to, you know, really trust someone when life didn’t work out the way you thought it would, especially when, I mean, you know, how I am about the kid owes me we’ll talk about that next, but like, I’m crazy about my kids, like, I’m absolutely, utterly.

Alex:
Mamabear.

Nicole:
I’m a bear. I am a mama bear, like insane. And that includes you, you know what I mean? Like, I will get you together when it comes to my babies because I like, which has never been an issue. Honestly, thank god like, you were so so good with them. Like when I tell you of all the prayers answered, that’s one of the greatest, you know, aside from your face.

But that said, you know, like, I mean, I truly truly, truly, like it’s such an amazing experience, to be with someone that when I’m with them, it feels like home. Like I understand what people are saying, like, just feels comfortable. You know, and, and I think that that’s probably the thing I’ve enjoyed the most is that like, that’s grown over time, you know, like, I felt it right away. It was actually part of how I knew that this was something different because, you know, I’ve been in obviously relationships for 12 years and not necessarily felt like home. I felt like a renter. You know what I mean? Like, even though it was decorated to look like my place, I felt like I was renting the space, you know, and like now I feel like no, like I am an owner. This is my place. It feels like it was built for me. And that’s like, I don’t even know how to describe it. Like I don’t even know you know, I if you don’t if you’ve never felt it before, like I wish it for you.

Alex:
Right. And sometimes, it’s so funny because the things that make us think that are not always like the big things, it’s like a lot of tiny stuff. Like it makes me think of the first time we went grocery shopping together… <laughs>

Nicole:
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Alex:
You’re like, I don’t know is like, how is this gonna be okay, like, is this gonna be an issue? You know, and I was like, we’re just gonna grab a couple things.

Nicole:
I didn’t know how it was going to go. I didn’t know if it was going to be weird or if it was gonna be like, Oh my God, he’s gonna grab like crap food or or like, you know not to there’s good food or bad food, you know, for my nutritionist out there like, I don’t mean it that way. But if he’s gonna grab things I don’t like. Like we’re gonna walk through the pickle aisle and he’s gonna be like all of these. Like, oh, this in some mushrooms is a meal. Like, I don’t know how it’s gonna play out but it went really well.

Alex:

Really well. In that and that has kind of been the trend.

Nicole:

All the tiny moments, you know? Or like, I’ll make like a joke or you know, say something inappropriate or like, we’ll be out like, you know, in line and for the mamas listening with littles you know, we may get a little spicy from here forward, but like will be in line or something and you’ll like grab my butt and I’ll be like, oh, and I’ll be like, but that’s why I love him.

Like, you know, little things like that, you know, that are super cute, you know? And I’m like, I don’t know. It’s just, it’s comfortable? I just feel really comfortable. I feel like not only you know, can I be myself, you know with you completely but there’s just an ease there. Ya know like, I feel like I’m not just myself but I’m the best version of myself.

Alex:
That’s how it should be.

Nicole:
Which is great. I don’t have much to compare it to, you know, but based on previous experiences, it’s just, it’s really, really nice. What’s your favorite thing about Nicole? I liked this question. Shout out to get a call at the company that did it. Tropical shores popcorn. My favorite popcorn company in the world.

Alex:
It’s so good.

Nicole:
It’s so good. My favorite flavor is movie time. I also liked their kettle corn. What’s your favorite flavor?

Alex:
Caramel, so it’s so good. It’s fire.

Nicole:
If you haven’t had tropical shores popcorn, please go to tropical shores. popcorn.com Grab some. If you’ve seen on my social I am obsessed with them. They’re on Instagram at Tropical shores.

Alex:
It’s really good. I don’t even like popcorn like that. But it is good.

Nicole:

I’m not gonna lie to you. I didn’t like popcorn like that. And then during the pandemmy, I probably put on 22 pounds of Tropic Shores popcorn weight alone and get this without regret. I loved it. I loved it. And here’s another reason why I love them team pop, Mama pop, pop pop. You know baby pops. They all reach out and say what is your favorite thing about Nicole? Because they love me.

Alex:
That she gets free tropic shores. <laughs>

Nicole:

That’s right. That’s your favorite thing is that I come with unlimited popcorn. Right? No. I don’t get free tropical shores. You know I buy it right? I buy that popcorn. I buy it. It’s so good. I pay for it. I have probably, I’m not kidding.

Alex:
I thought they just sent it to you. <laughs>

Nicole:
No, I buy that popcorn. The reason why he thinks this is because I buy it like nine bags at a time. I buy it.

Alex:
And you always get swag from companies.

Nicole:
People send me free stuff all the time. I paid for that. They’re also small family owned businesses. And you know how I feel about that. No, I paid for that. Oh, everything I no joke probably spent. I would say no less than $5,000 in popcorn.

Alex:

You got a whole part of your budget, dedicated for popcorn.

Nicole:
Dedicated, and my annual popcorn budget allotment is 5k. Five to $10,000 depending on my emotion.

Alex:
That’s fair.

Nicole:
That’s fair. That math is mathing. So stop avoiding the question.

Alex:

<laughs> Favorite thing about Nicole.

Nicole:

Keep it appropriate or do I need to say headphone warning to the mamas?

Alex:

I’m filtering in my head right now. Because we’ve been together long enough, you know when you need to get ahead of it.

Nicole:
I know exactly what you’re about to say. I know exactly what to say. And like y’all, I’m telling I told you it could get spicy.

Alex:
No, my favorite thing about you… you’re just so easy to be around. And…

Nicole:

That’s so funny because that’s like the opposite of what people say. I’m a lot. I am a lot. I literally apologize for my a lot-ness on a regular basis.

Alex:

I mean, sure you’re a lot. I mean, yeah, it’s part of what I love. Yeah, but you’re easy to be around because I mean, you’re very level headed. You’re rational, you know?

Nicole:

That’s so annoying though, like the opposite of funny. People will be telling a joke and I’ll be like, I’m the one in the room like that’s not really scientifically aligned.

<both laugh>

Alex:

Right? Actually, there was a study…

Nicole:
There was a case study…

Alex:
If you would just bother to look it up. <laughs>

Nicole:

Literally I’m annoyed being with myself okay, I regularly I’m like can I get out of my own head? I’m the worst. Oh my gosh, no, that’s sweet. Thanks. Listen I’m telling you this is what people are talking about when they say like you’re lucky to be with the right person like I’m well matched with you because you look if you like it I love it because this is what it’s giving.

Alex:

Exactly. And you know, sometimes I can be more chilled but all in all I think we match each other’s energy pretty well.

Nicole:
Yeah, no. We definitely do. We do so well sometimes there are days where it’s like, like this morning like…

Alex:
You were just on one.

Nicole:
I was just on one. I still am. I still am.

Alex:

I’ve caught up. I needed to wake up and get there.

Nicole:
Y’all and I’ll just be like, what was I doing? I was calling you lover all morning. Lover!

Alex:
Lover!

<both laugh>

Alex:

And I’m just like waking up I’m like, why is this happened?

Nicole:
I will tell you, I love this about you. And maybe this is like I have a lot of favorite things about you but this would easily be one of them that I think of often one of my favorite things about you oh it almost makes me a little teary cuz I love you so much. Is that whenever you wake up the first thing you do is you smile. Like without fail you are a disproportionately, predisposed to joy person.

Alex:
That’s accurate.

Nicole:
Like it is like, your baseline setting is one of happiness.

Alex:
That’s accurate. I smile pretty much all the time.

Nicole:
Yeah, you are just a pleasant person. Like I mean, it doesn’t mean I have seen you angry you know before and it takes a lot to get you there. And you’re so good at communicating and like managing it, you know, but like, you’re like baseline setting is happy. And like, it’s so nice to be with someone who, when they wake up in the morning, literally looks over and smiles. Like it’s just like your default. And I’m just like, Why is he so damn happy? All the time.

Alex:
Cus I get to wake up and see you.

Nicole:

Oh, good answer.

Alex:

That was good. Right?

Nicole:
I saw it coming. I love you. And then what has being in this relationship taught you about yourself?

Alex:

Man, first thing that comes to mind is honestly that I am, I’m capable of a lot more than I give myself credit for?

Nicole:

Yes. Oh, my gosh, I could shout that one out for you. Like woohoo. So true. You’ve done so much. Like, the time I’ve been with you.

Alex:
I know. I mean, I’ve told you and I’m pretty, you know, open about it. You know, I mean, like, there’s always a voice in the back of your head. It’s like, oh, I’m only seen in this light. And therefore I can only accomplish X, Y and Z, you know what I mean? But like, the longer you know, we’ve been kind of, you know, doing this, the longer I’ve been exploring, you know, my options and thinking into things. And realizing and thinking about more of the things that I can do rather than things that I can’t, you know. I’ve just realized that I can do more than I think I can, and I’m capable of a lot more.

Nicole:
That’s so true. And you’ve done a lot like in our timeframe that we’ve been together, I’ve been so impressed with your growth, because one thing I love about you, and then I just, it’s so interesting, because when you’re dating is I’ve never obviously dated, you know, like I was, you know, I had one one or two boyfriends before my ex. And I got married, I got engaged within six months, like so I’m not one to just sort of date, date, or whatever. But one of the things I’ve noticed that I really admire about you is that, like, when you’re dating someone, it’s almost like you see them twofold, right? There’s my romantic partner, but you also need to like them, it’s the love and like factor, right?

So like, I love you, obviously, you know, like, you’re good to me, we’re good together, blah, blah, blah, like all that is great. And I’m attracted to you. But I like you too, you know, because like, I just like you as a person, you know, and it’s because I admire you so much. When you say you’re going to do something, you really do it. Like you try your best to actually do it.

Alex:

And, I mean I told you that that was an issue for me in the past.

Nicole:
And that is literally all I’ve ever known.

Alex:

I’ve said like, you know, I would say I’m gonna do this and that, and then I just, you know, wouldn’t a lot of the times, and that’s always bothered me that I was that way, and I didn’t want to be that way with you. And I think that’s one of the biggest things I’ve changed is like.

Nicole:
You said that when we first met.

Alex:
Yeah, I remember that it was me in the past. But you know, and it’s funny, because I’m thinking from the perspective now of all the listeners and the people, you know, consuming this right now. Like, how I mean, for all the listeners, like how motivated do you feel when you just listen to Nicole speak? Or when you hear one of her speeches or her things, the content she puts out? Imagine living with that. <laughs>

Nicole:

It’s got to be obnoxious. Literally, like I mean, tired of myself. I mean, not everything is a motivational speech.

Alex:

Not everything is, but also like having that constant reinforcement and positivity in your life. It does something for you.

Nicole:
I love you, I appreciate that. Thank you like, but I do think that what’s cool about our relationship and how it shows up in our relationship is we’re a solutions-focused household. You know what I mean? So it’s not like toxic positivity, where everything is like, oh, let’s bypass the emotion. Let’s not hold it as valid. It’s like, no, like, we feel crappy today. Like, I’ll have days, no joke, and you have lifted me up out of a puddle. I actually haven’t had any recently. It was kind of like a hump sort of, I think in the divorce process where it got really dark for a while.

Alex:
For sure.

Nicole:

But like, you know, if I have those days, on some level, you’ll say, hey, you know, it’s a crummy day. Let’s go get ice cream. Let’s, you know, sit and watch movies, let’s just be in a puddle. But some days you’re like, hey, I get that it’s a crummy day. We have work to do, you know what I mean?

Alex:

Right. I mean, because sometimes you jus,t you got to get your stuff done regardless.

Nicole:

And you’ll literally, there have been days where you have put your stuff on the side. I don’t want to cry about it. But like you’ve put yourself on the side, you’ve literally just walked me through my day of stuff I needed to do, like, I will drive you to this thing. We’re gonna get this task done.

Alex:

I’m like, don’t think about all this stuff just what’s the next thing? Oh this task, okay, just go do that.

Nicole:
That’s right. And like, I’ve never had anyone do that for me in my whole life. You know? And, like, it’s the definition of someone like literally being someone you can lean on, you know, and I can tell you that like, that has totally changed me, you know, and I mean, it has totally changed me so I know that you said like, oh, it’s motivating and all that but like the same way that I may be the verbal motivation in your life, you know, like you have been the physical manifestation of like carrying me when I couldn’t walk on my own. So I’m, like, super grateful for that.

Alex:
Of course, I luv you!

Nicole:
I luv you… Okay, so let’s do a couple q&a questions, you know, because I mean, we pretty much went through most of them. Yeah, they haven’t had and y’all if you have any more questions, feel free to submit them on Instagram, or just keep up with us. Like, we’re pretty like, open. I’m not kidding, I have nerves about sharing our relationship just because like, you know, you show your relationship and it’s like, public scrutiny and like, oh, you know, what, if things change.

Alex:

People gonna say what they’re gonna say anyway.

Nicole:
Yeah. And also, like, I don’t know, it’s just, it’s so cool being in love. And like, I literally don’t care, like what the future holds. Because this season right now is so great. You know what I mean? I feel so frickin lucky to like, be in a relationship with you and like to experience what this feels like. And it’s the type of thing where I’m like, if I only had this for, like, two years, or 10 years or five years, like, how cool is it that I got to experience it at all? You know?

Alex:

I mean, I know I’m gonna marry you, you know, but like…

Nicole:

You say it with such certainty. <laughs> I receive that.

Alex:

I am certain.

Nicole:
I receive that. It’s like you’re putting people are notice. AND.

Alex:
AND. <laughs> Anybody trying to slide into the DMs.

Nicole:

Slide into the DMS, it’s not happening.

Alex:

Denied. Denied, but no matter how it ends up, you know, we’re, I think we’re both better for it.

Nicole:
Yeah, which is what it’s about, you know, like, I really feel like I’m better for being with you. And it’s exciting because I’m like, I still get to be with him. You know, like, every day I really feel better for being with you. Even when we have disagreements cuz we fight you know, like, we’ll have disagreements about stuff. I think that I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, I’m gonna call it out. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this. But whenever we have fights, almost always we get to a stalemate where we’re like, we don’t like this. I don’t like this. This is dumb.

Alex:

Right? We might, we might still disagree, but we both just were just like, don’t like fighting.

Nicole:

We both become putty. Can we just go back? So what’s the thing? Let’s just figure it out. Because I love you. This is annoying.

Alex:

Right. Right.

Nicole:
Yeah, we just don’t like our like, this doesn’t feel good to be like, every single time. And it’s true, because it just like, like, we’re not gonna break up over this.

Alex:
Well, that’s the thing. It’s like, it’s like, okay, there is a solution. If we’re not gonna break over this, you know, if it’s a deal breaker, let’s just try it out. Let’s just figure it out, you know, and if not, then there’s that.

Nicole:
But I don’t think we’ve run into too many deal breakers. If anything, it’s always been like, this is a tough one. We need to figure this one out. You know, like this is important to me.

Alex:

We always figure it out. Because we just talk about it until, you know, until it solve,

Nicole:
Which is the hard part too. Sometimes I’m like, I feel like I’m so tired. I’m sorry for this. But yeah, it’s always worth it. Yeah. Alright, so I’m gonna ask some rapid firey questions there or questions. So it’s like, okay, this or this. Okay, okay. Sleep in or rise early?

Alex:

Well, I mean, I would prefer to sleep in but I have been a very frequent rising early person.

Nicole:
It’s funny I used to sleep in till like noon or one.

Alex:

Because I had crazy insomnia. And I would stay up to like six in the morning sometimes.

Nicole:
You were playing video games.

Alex:
No, no. I just had insomnia. But my sleep hygiene has improved vastly.

Nicole:
Yeah, it’s crazy.

Alex:
And so I go to bed earlier and I wake up earlier and so early rise.

Nicole:

Yeah, early rise and also like, Y’all don’t may not know this, but like he has taken point on all things physical parenting, like when I tell you I’m in for the activity days, but I do like what I call like the latent parenting and like, not, like not implying that it’s not critically important, but like, I’m doing paperwork, filing, doctor’s appointments, stuff like that cooking, you know, meal prep, making sure stuffs together, working on assignments, asking questions, like that type of stuff, but he does all the schlepping back and forth to school and like playdates and like activities and like errand. Like that is all this guy like he is full on hands on pick up drop off like champion and I so appreciate you for that. But hence the rise early. That is that.

Alex:

Yeah I mean that’s a good reason to get up in the morning. You know, take the kids to school, go to the gym, go to work.

Nicole:

She loves your school time. She always told me like in the car Alex said, Alex said.

Alex:
Yeah we have our morning talks.

Nicole:
Read a book or watch TV?

Alex:

Well, I’ve been trying to read more.

Nicole:
You have been reading more.

Alex:
I have been reading more. And I do enjoy watching TV.

Nicole:
Yeah, we do. We do shows in the evening. It’s part of our routine.

Alex:
I mean, honestly, if it’s like entertainment to zone out. I’d choose TV.

Nicole:

Kiss or hug?

Alex:

I like a good hug.

Nicole:

Really? I thought you’d pick kiss.

Alex:

I really enjoyed a hug.

Nicole:
I’m really surprised by that.

Alex:

I don’t know. But really…

Nicole:

I guess hugs are universal, you can get more of them.

Alex:

I guess I don’t know.

Nicole:
Like everyone can give you a hug. Not everyone can give you a kiss. You can even get a hug from a dog.

Alex:

And it feels really good though doesn’t it.

Nicole:

I heard that hugging dogs isn’t good. It makes them panicked. It gives them anxiety.

Alex:
Don’t tell me that, I’m never gonna hug them again. <laughs>

Nicole:
Why are you squeezing my body? It makes a lot of sense. If someone just came and grabbed your midsection and squeezed it and you didn’t understand.

Alex:
They’re just looking at you like, dude…

Nicole:

Right? It’s crazy. Strength workout or cardio?

Alex:
Strength.

Nicole:
Ocean or lake?

Alex:
Ocean.

Nicole:
Isn’t it nice living in California because we don’t have to choose?

Alex:
Exactly.

Nicole:
Winter or summer?

Alex:
Summer.

Nicole:
Family or friends?

Alex:
Family.

Nicole:

Something you’ve always wanted when you were a child, but never had? I have an answer for this.

Alex:
You have an answer for this?

Nicole:
Yeah, on the count of three let’s say what we think it is. Do you know? 1,2,3… <silence> <laughs>

I was going to say it but you didn’t. Okay do you have something in your mind to see if we say the same thing? Something you always wanted when you were a child but never had… I’m gonna zip it into your brain. Okay, so now, we’re gonna say it. Do you have something in your head that you’re gonna say?

Alex:
Well, I’m just gonna say the first thing that comes to mind.

Nicole:
Okay. All right. Perfect. 123 cable TV.

Alex:

Six pack. <laughs>

Nicole:
Six pack? You wanted a six pack when you were six?

Alex:
Yeah. I’m a man.

Nicole:

Cable TV?

Alex:

I got cable.

Nicole:

I know. But you always wanted it when you’re a child. But you never had it.

Alex:
I got it in high school.

Nicole:
Yeah, but you didn’t have it when you were a child. It was a sore spot.

Alex:

I have experienced the answer to the question…

Nicole:
You talk about it all the time. Okay, if I were in the witness protection program, what would my nickname be?

Alex:

Mine or yours?

Nicole:
Mine? Well, if I were in the witness protection program, what would my nickname be?

Alex:

Your nickname?

Nicole:

MC paper stacks. My DJ name, MC paper stacks. That’s me!

Alex:

I could not have come up with something better. That’s it.

Nicole:
Literally my name. Like if I’m president.

Alex:
My God.

Nicole:

MC paper sacks on air force one. That’s right. Listen, wait and see.

Alex:
That’s it.

Nicole:
Oh, these are so good. Okay, if I could resurrect a famous person who would I choose? Or would you choose? If a famous person, recently deceased.

Alex:
Is the question for you?

Nicole:
Lee Thompson Young. Jet Jackson. Is my one of my favorite Disney movies. And keep going. 

Alex:

Wow.

Nicole:
If I could travel back in time, where would I go? Keep in mind that I’m black. <laughs> So not very far is the answer. Yes. It’d be it’d be a very local trip in time.

Alex:

Right.

Nicole:
Where?

Alex:

We’re so where would you go to travel back in time?

Nicole:
Not that far. I don’t think so. Maybe the 90s The 90s are really good.

Alex:

You go back oh yeah, probably go back to the 90s.

Nicole:

Oh my god federal surplus laws. So California. Yeah. Oh my gosh, yeah. Federal Surplus. Pretty good. All the clothing is the same. These kids don’t know.

Alex:
Right.

Nicole:
I love these because these are all questions from the internet. What would I be willing to do for a million dollars? Not much. A million dollars doesn’t impress me much. I mean, there’s stuff I would do for a million dollars like I’d write a book. Yes, I did. <laughs> What else do I do for a million dollars? Launch a business. Did! What else would I do for a million dollars?

Alex:

A TV show?

Nicole:
Did! <laughs> But yeah, no. I mean, like, you know, yeah, yeah. There’s a lot I’d say no to for a  million dollars. It’s funny because whenever I watch like shows, like true crime shows and people are like, oh, yeah, he that he agreed to murder his business partner for $7,000 I’m like, what? I was like people need to know their worth. What is this low rate?

Alex:
People have gotten murdered over $20/

Nicole:
$20 on the street like from someone who’s not mentally well, it’s so different from someone saying no, I I am a contract killer for $7,000. Sir, do you know how much lawyers are? At least charge what your what your legal fees will be if you need to get away with this crime sir.

Alex:
I love how you’re still thinking about the logistics, overhead of that business of being a contract killer. <laughs>

Nicole:

The type of person I am…

Alex:
You’ll need insurance. You’re gonna need a legal team just in case.

Nicole:
Supply, labor.

Alex:
Bullets can’t be cheap.

Nicole:

Your profit and loss statement needs to be tight. Okay, you need to know what these expenses are. And when I was younger growing up when I watched the Godfather, I didn’t want to be the godfather. I wanted to be the consigliere. Like I wanted to be the person next to him managing the books, right? That’s the person actually in charge. Chief of Staff, right? That’s right. That’s right. If I were home on a rainy Sunday afternoon, what movie would I be likely to watch?

Alex:

What movie? Well, for one you don’t really watch too many movies.

Nicole:

That’s the answer. That’s what I would have said. What would I be watching though?

Alex:
Love after… <speaking over each other> we said the same thing, we’re so alike, it’s crazy!

Nicole:
What would you like to be spending more time on?

Alex:

Music, always.

Nicole:
Yeah, that sounds like you. Yeah. What’s my favorite color?

Alex:
Yellow.

Nicole:
Good job.

Alex:

Easy.

Nicole:

Do I have any allergies?

Alex:
Nope. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from our excursions.

Nicole:

Listen, that is what happens if you live in LA. I don’t think you can walk in any place that they’re like, Are there any food allergies that we need to know about? That’s like, like a very like California question. Right? Right. Right in the South. They’re like, we have three things on the menu. Pick one.

Alex:

Right. It’s gotten to the point I’ll sit down and it’s like, you will have this, also no food allergies. We just get in front of it.

Nicole:

Even better. If you’re like, Yeah, I have a gluten allergy. They’re like, Okay, is it cross contamination?

Alex:
Right. They know alot about it.

Nicole:
What is my zodiac sign?

Alex:

I have no idea. I really don’t know.

Nicole:
When is my birthday?

Alex:
November 6.

Nicole:
Okay, good. As long as you know that, right?

Alex:

I don’t know.

Nicole:
What do I do in my free time?

Alex:

You don’t have free time.

Nicole:

That’s right! I really don’t. I use it all.

Alex:

It’s law and order, Love after lockup, 90 Day fiance,

Nicole:
Even then I’m probably working.

Alex:
Yeah doing stuff for them sprinkled in.

Nicole:
What’s my favorite food?

Alex:
Well…

Nicole:
I like a lot of foods. I’m uh, you can talk about my food habits. I am. I don’t know if anyone knows this, I’m weird. Like, I’m difficult.

Alex:

You are very particular, very particular about your food.

Nicole:
Why is that?

Alex:

You have a very refined palate.

Nicole:
Because I cook!

Alex:
Because you cook and to your credit, your food is amazing.

Nicole:
I mean, do you know what. My was-band said it was the one thing he’d miss. <laughs> I was like DANG.

Alex:
I mean, it’s it’s really good. Like, it’s really exceptionally good.

Nicole:
Thank you.

Alex:

Um, but your favorite food. I mean, when we first started dating we established that our favorite food is beef ribs.

Nicole:

That’s true barbecue, which is barbecue.

Alex:
But we don’t really have it that much. Honestly, if I had to say your favorite food, I might, because of how frequently you request it, I might say Thai.

Nicole:

I love Thai food. It’s also because I have been, even though I know that there’s a whole Thai town. I just don’t think I found the right Thai here. But overall, I’ve been very like iffy on my LA Asian cuisine.

Alex:

Anna Jack Thai shout out.

Nicole:
Yeah shoutout. I wish we hadn’t done that shout out now. Like it matters. Anyway, so good. But um, but yeah, like it’s just I you know, I’ve had to learn to make a lot of my favorites just because of that.

What day of the week do we meet for the first time?

Alex:

I feel like it was like, the middle of the week. Was it was like a Wednesday?

Nicole:

Wednesday. Wednesday, Wednesday. Anyway, good job. What’s the first thing I do in the morning when I wake up?

Alex:
Annoy me. <laughs> I’m just kidding.

Nicole:
No, you’re not.

Alex:
No, that was just this morning.

Nicole:

But what’s the first thing I do?

Alex:
First thing you do? Roll over, we usually look at each other or first position.

Nicole:

Ah! I was wondering if you would say it!

Alex:

First position.

Nicole:

We have cuddle positions and we’ve numbered them. There’s number one through four.

Alex:
That’s right.

Nicole:

So first position is him spooning me.

Alex:

Right. I’m the big spoon.

Nicole:
Yeah second position is me in the pocket, with me laying on his chest. Third position is me spooning you.

Alex:
Right. I turn into a little spoon.

Nicole:

That’s right. What’s fourth position? They’re really isn’t a fourth position.

Alex:

Us facing each other?

Nicole:
Maybe I guess but that’s not really a cuddle position. I guess we have three positions.

Alex:
I guess.

Nicole:
It’s always first position though, it’s always almost always first position. Yeah, if it’s our first position I’m like livid.

Alex:

Right.

Nicole:
I’m like this does not work.

Alex:

Wake up, first position. Yeah.

Nicole:

All right, next question. When it comes to the baby question. How do you feel? Do you want kids?

Alex:
I do.

Nicole:
That was quick. How many kids do you want?

Alex:

I think two would be nice.

Nicole:
Boys or girls? Or one of each?

Alex:

I think girls. I think I think I don’t know. I kind of want one of each because I do want like one boy. But I think a girl I think like you said I’m a girl, Dad.

Nicole:
You are a girl da, you’re a very good girl dad. 

Alex:
Yeah, I think the girl is probably easier.

Nicole:
I’m sure, we’ll see. No matter what I think I mean you’ll be an excellent Dad, like literally, I seriously hope I get the privilege of caring and having your babies. But whomever you are with, whatever that looks like in the future for you. They’re going to be very lucky to have such an excellent man as a father of their children.

Alex:

Wow. Thank you.

Nicole:
Yep. You are an excellent man. Like that is, without question. It’s really nice to be with something I’m not kidding. I admire you as an independent person. Like you are just an excellent human. The world is better because you’re in it. Who was your childhood best friend?

Alex:

Childhood best friend? Shout out Adolfo.

Nicole:

Adolfo. How do you avoid conflict with me?

Alex:

I am working on certain things. We are pretty good about avoiding conflict mostly.

Nicole:
I don’t think we avoid it. I think we just address it.

Alex:
We address it and deal with it. But you know, I do have to keep in mind that I know you’re on my team.

Nicole:
Yes. Yeah, I know. Because honestly, that’s a trigger for me. Yeah. Because I mean, like, it’s crazy. Because the one thing I mean, you do so many things that offset and have healed me from things that were triggers before. But that is one thing that was a major trigger for me before not feeling like I was on the same team with my partner, that you also have that like we just have to work on. Yeah, you know what I mean? Because what’s nice, though, is you affirm me and our relationship in so many other ways that even when that trigger flares up, I’m like, Nope, I know who I’m with. You know what I mean? And I know that this is just independent to this situation, emotion, this feeling. It’s not reflective of like how he is.

Alex:
Yeah, for sure.

Nicole:
But that one’s tough.

Alex:
Yeah, that was tough. But um, yeah, I mean, we don’t actively try to avoid conflict. If it arises, we just deal with it. You know, we don’t usually because we get along, and we see eye to eye on a lot of things. But when we don’t we just deal with it.

Nicole:
Hammer it out. And when we don’t, I mean, we really don’t like literally we’ll be looking at each other like, are you crazy? And you’ll be like, yes.

Alex:
I’m like, no, no, you don’t understand.

Nicole:

Really, though, and I’m like, I’m like, You can’t be serious. Yes. I’ll be looking at you like you are not, there is no possible way that you really believe this. I mean, this is really how we’ll talk to each other. I’m like, You can’t be serious. I’m dead serious. And I’m like, No, I was like, no, no, no. In my head. I’m like, No, we about to not be together because this doesn’t make any damn sense. He is nuts. Absolutely. Oh, my gosh, so funny. So okay, we’re gonna wrap up here, because we have a very special thing to go do from here, that we’ll be sharing more about later, because we are in the midst of planning cool new things for our life.

And so we’ve got a lot to share about that in the future. And hopefully, Alex will come back and share more about that. But before we go, you have anything that you want to say words of wisdom, kind of things that we’ve brought you back to the pod?

Alex:

Well, it’s also cool to like, be on this podcast. You know, I enjoy our talks. Yeah. I don’t know. I think for everyone listening and wondering if they’re gonna find their person, you know, their person that you know, like, you will and it will happen, you just have to be honest with yourself and be honest with your partner and you know, and you’ll find, you know, people will look at us and be like, Wow, you guys are so like, good. It gives us hope and stuff like that.

Nicole:
People do that in real life and it’s so affirming and nice, because I’m not gonna lie. One of the things I’ve always struggled with was my previous partnerships, all my friends, all my family, all my peers, anyone who got to know me would always say, it feels like there’s a mismatch, like we’re sensing discontent. We’re sensing that, you know, there’s something here that’s not fitting into the mismatch wasn’t again, it’s not a feeling of either party. It’s just, you know, round peg in the square hole, you know what I mean? It just didn’t go together. And, you know, even if something is 97% right, you know, it just isn’t, you know, and it’s so nice being with you. Because when we go places, like, when we share news of a new chapter in our relationship, other people are excited for us.

Alex:

Yeah. And I love seeing and, you know, you’ve told me a lot of comments of other women who have kids and are finding difficult to date and stuff and yeah, you know, for those women, you know, in those situations, like, you know, you’ll find your person because whoever’s with you will find that you’re worth it.

Nicole:
Absolutely.

Alex:

You know what I mean?

Nicole:
But you also have to believe it yourself.

Alex:

And you have to believe it yourself. And so once you do, like, it’ll just happen. You know.

Nicole:
That’s so good. I’m so grateful you happened to me. I love you.

Alex:

I love you too.