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📍   📍 I'd grabbed, like, a sweater when we were running out the door just in case and like, sure enough, I go to put my arm in the sleeve and the fucking cardboard penis is in there. Like, it's six years later, and yeah, it's had some repairs.

There's actually two. Spoiler alert. There are two cardboard penises.

it never fails to bring a laugh.

Yeah.

Like, never fails.

You've built the business, you're crushing it in your career, you've scaled your impact. But are you winning at home? Welcome to the 200% Marriage podcast. We're Meredith and Craig, and we're here to help you kill that domestic drag and turn your partner into your most elite teammate. From Russian taxi mishaps to hailstorms on the summit, we're sharing the raw and real stories and tactical drills you need to move out of roommate-ville and into your 200% life.

So grab your gear. It's time to build an unstoppable team. Let's dive in

📍 Another episode of the 200% Marriage podcast with Meredith and Craig. We're reading our book, The 200% Marriage: Your Winning Playbook to Be an Unstoppable Team. We're reading every chapter. The person who wrote the chapter is reading the chapter. We're in chapter 26. We're kicking off part five, The Commitment to Fun and Adventure.

You're kicking it off.

And I did happen to write chapter 26, so I will read it for you. Here we go. Part five: The Commitment to Fun and Adventure. "Fun is good." Dr. Seuss Chapter 26, Hide the Penis. You don't stop laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop laughing. Michael Pritchard. With a chapter title like that, you might be thinking you've reached the sex chapter.

You haven't. Hang in there, you spicy nugget, it's coming. First, we're gonna let you in on a little secret here. Laughing together is massive for your marriage. It's not a nice-to-have, like, "Oh, I wish we could laugh together and have fun." No, it's a must-have. If you're not laughing and having fun together, your marriage is in choppy waters, and we need to navigate to smoother seas.

So if that's you, you're in the right place, because we're about to inject some fun and adventure into your life, and let's be honest, we can all use more fun and adventure in our lives. If you've noticed a theme in this book, we've done our best to turn creating a thriving marriage, navigating difficult conversations, and working through conflict into a fun experience.

That's not by accident. On the surface, those are dry, not so fun topics, and because of that, most people never stick with the work or even start. Then divorce becomes inevitable. When something isn't fun, we avoid it. If your marriage isn't fun, you disengage, you stop participating. And when the work to fix your marriage sucks, you won't do it.

Pull away long enough and divorce follows. But that's not the end of it. Those same issues will resurface in your next relationship. Cue the repeat cycle. That's why we've committed to doing it differently. We want people to want to do the work, so they actually will do it. Reconnecting in your marriage does not have to be like passing a kidney stone.

It can actually be fun if you have the right attitude. And once you do the work, we want you to see and experience your marriage as the most joyous, fun, and adventure-filled relationship you could ever imagine. That's why d- that's why we don't just talk... That's why we don't just tuck fun and adventure into a paragraph or even just a page.

Not even one chapter. We've dedicated an entire section to it. We've made fun and adventure a core pillar of the Two Hundred Percent Marriage. That's how important it is. But the sad thing is, as we grow into adulthood and collect responsibilities, our childlike wonder, our thirst for fun, and our sense of adventure are the first things to fade.

Careers, families, and bills join the party, and suddenly the entire weight of the world feels like it's on top of our shoulders, and suddenly the entire weight of the world feels like it's on our shoulders. We forget to laugh. We forget to enjoy the journey. We had clients who had been together for over thirty years.

The vast majority of the time, they were just going through the motions. They were surviving. They stopped having fun a long time ago. They had put fun on the back burner in their marriage for so long that they didn't even know how to have fun anymore. And because they weren't having fun, they were pulling away from each other.

They weren't communicating effectively or much at all. When we initially explained the importance of having intentional fun and adventure in their marriage, they couldn't grasp the concept. They didn't even know what fun was for them anymore. They kept asking us what they should do for fun. It had been so long since they had fun together, they didn't even know what it felt or looked like anymore.

They didn't even know what it looked or felt like anymore. That's what can happen when you neglect fun and adventure. It's like a muscle that if you don't use it... It's like a muscle that if you don't use, you're in danger of eventually losing it. The good news is that with some intentional focused work on injecting fun and adventure, they were able to rebuild that fun muscle and are now the happiest, most connected they've ever been in their marriage.

They are now enjoying the journey together They are now enjoying the journey together, and we're about to do the same here now. Because right here, right now, you and I, and Mer, are committing to doing it differently. Are committing to do it differently. We're committing to enjoying this journey. We're committing to having more fun and adventure, and trust me, like our clients, when you do, everything changes.

Mer and I committed years ago to laugh together at least once per day, and we haven't missed a day. Some days are more fun and more adventurous than others, sure, but even during challenging or stressful days, we find something to smile about. It's all about finding joy and laughter in the mundane, or as our friend...

or as our dear friend Kayla Kimble calls it, fundane. Most people wait for the big stuff: vacations, weddings, bucket list adventures, to plan their fun, and honestly, many people don't even fully enjoy those moments either. But life isn't primarily made up of the big stuff.

95% of life is the mundane, day-to-day stuff you do to make life happen. It's doing laundry, paying bills, building your business, making meals, trekking kids all over God's creation to every dance recital, basketball game, tiddlywinks tournament, or insert whatever thing your kid is into. It's easy to let the mundane get the better of you.

Like everything we've been building here, it takes intention. That's the theme. Your marriage requires you to be intentional. We have to stop just drifting through life and our relationships. Drifting leads to average, average leads to disconnection, and too often, average leads to divorce.

The antidote? Get intentional in all areas of your relationship, especially the fun and adventure area. What's more fun than playing a game? Nothing. Especially when it's my favorite game to play with Mer: hide the penis

Mer here, jumping in real quick to add some important context. The penis is cardboard

Craig here, jumping back in to put it on the record.

We play and I enjoy both versions of the game. We'll only go into detail about the cardboard version... We'll only go into the det- We'll only go into detail about the cardboard version.

We'll only go into-

Let me water my lips

We'll only go into detail about the cardboard version though for now. Back in 2020, the pandemic era, when we were all locked down, hoarding toilet paper, perfecting our sourdough recipe, and binge-watching the worst television shows ever made... I can't unsee Tiger King. One day, we received some face masks in the mail.

The packaging looked suspiciously like a penis. With a minor modification, it looked exactly like one. Naturally, I got my arts and crafts vibe on and made said modification. Now, with penis in hand, cardboard penis in hand, I was about to proudly call out to my darling wife, because who else, because who else could appreciate such quality craftsmanship?

But then, as if Zeus himself hurled a bolt of lightning upon me, inspiration struck. A voice, not creepy at all, whispered, "Hide the penis." Brilliant. So I did, in her pillowcase. That night, I could barely contain myself. I was grinning, giggling, watching her every move as she got ready for bed. She caught on to my weird, even for me, behavior, but chalked it up to it's just how God made me.

She popped in her retainer and laid her head down. Seconds later, "What the hell is... Bennett?" She sat up, hit the light, pulled the cardboard penis from her pillow, and exclaimed, "Why is there a penis in my pillowcase?" I couldn't contain myself. I was howling. She laughed, too. Mostly at me, I think. And just like that, the cardboard penis game was born.

The next morning, I found it in a folded pair of pants. Since that night, we've hidden it back and forth literally hundreds of times. It's traveled in luggage, crossed country borders, and popped up in hotel rooms and suitcases. It's survived moves and even a few repairs. I'm waiting for the day that airport security pulls it out of our suitcase.

They will have questions. We will have answers. Oh yeah, and I almost forgot. Back to that first night. After that big laugh together, we looked into each other's eyes. I suavely suggested to Mer that she remove her retainer and we take things to the next level. She smiles at me, leans in, and gently kisses my cheek, politely declines, and says with a lisp, "Good night, sweetie."

I go to sleep, still very satisfied with my day. That one silly craft has transformed countless mundane little moments into fun-filled joyous big ones. We're still having them today, and now we're making others laugh with it, too, on stages, on podcasts, and in this very book. That's the power of finding fun in the mundane and using it as a springboard to deeper connection and joy in your marriage.

That's a great little chapter

Chapter 26. It's not the longest chapter, but it's got a lot of bite.

Yeah. Fun-dane, man.

Fun-dane. I, uh, we said it all in the book, so there's not a whole bunch more to add other than y- it's, it... So much of our life is, is the mundane stuff. Mm-hmm. The chores, the laundry, the getting the kids to wherever they need to be, the food prep, all the things, running a business.

Just day-to-day life. Ch- Mm-hmm ... d- running errands. And m- more responsibility heaped on you over time as adults, we let fun and adventure kind of fall by the wayside. Mm-hmm. But it doesn't have to be that way. Yeah. You can find those little moments.

Like, we all think we gotta put fun at the bottom of the to-do list, because all the other things are so much more important.

And one, they're not, and we'll get to that, but two, you can embed fun in them all.

Literally, laundry, cardboard penis falls out-

Yeah ...

while you're doing the laundry.

Yeah.

It's, yeah, it, it just, uh, the, the, one of the... The couple that laugh together, stay together. For sure. Like, it just-

Like, getting dressed in the morning is more fun-

When you aren't sure if you're gonna get hit with a cardboard penis or not

Where were...

This happened just the other day. I was in the car. I'd grabbed, like, a sweater or something when we were running out the door just in case I needed it for later, and like, sure enough, I go to put my arm in the sleeve and the fucking cardboard penis is in there. Like, it's six years later, and yeah, it's had some repairs.

There's actually two. Spoiler alert. There are two cardboard penises. I haven't seen one in, I don't think, in quite a while. I only, I don't know where either of them are now. I had one for a while. I don't, I don't... I must have hid it up on your stuff somewhere. I don't, I don't know.

It'll crop up someday-

'But-

at

some point ...

, it, never fails to bring a laugh.

Yeah.

Like, never fails.

And it's, what's f- like, if you put it in someone's pants or shirt, and you can remember-

Yeah ...

what, and then you see them in that shirt later that day- ... you're like, "Ah, i got them." I gotcha. But that also means that I'm g- It's coming back

I'm, I'm getting it in a minute. Yeah. I don't know where it's gonna be, where it's gonna pop out. Drawer, cupboard, pants. I usually

try to put it, not in the top pair. Like, a couple pairs down so that,, you stumble upon it, a week later.

Yeah. Just finding the joy and the fun and the adventure, and we're gonna get into all the different ways we can do that.

This was just one, story and concept of the f- the fun and the mundane.

And for the record, the cardboard penises are white cardboard, just if anyone was wondering. Because- Don't know if every- everyone else needs glasses to see it, but on the front cover of the book, I think we talked about our friend Lora created the cover

Yes.

She, uh, and-

She added a little Easter egg ...

yes. Mer is hiding... That's a, that's a great point. This is a great, uh, depiction of Mer is actually placing- Just sliding that

cardboard

penis ... placing the cardboard penis in my back pocket. It is- It's purple ... purple in, on the cover of the book, I think just so you can see it better.

Um-

But in, in real life it's white, and in real life it's actually not, that's not to scale.

It's, it's, it's-

They're both quite

large ... it's a bigger penis in real life. But yeah, that is a fun little Easter egg on the cover of the book, Mer is hiding it in my back pocket.

Yeah.

Um, the, another Easter egg on the cover while we're here- While we're here

while we're talking about this, is that there's a little Canadian red- A maple leaf ... maple leaf in the bottom- Left wing ... right corner next to my leg on the cover. Just a little shout-out to our Canadian roots, if you will. But, uh, yeah, this chapter is the introduction to the fun and adventure chapter, and it's going to get more fun and more adventurous as we take you on a journey through part five The commitment to fun and adventure.

Anything else?

Nope.

See you in the next one.

Look, knowing the strategy is one thing. Executing it in the trenches of daily life is another. If you're ready to stop listening and start doing, we have a challenge for you. It's the 33 Day Unstoppable Team Challenge, 33 days of micro drills delivered right to your inbox for just 33 bucks. It's designed to snap you out of roommate-ville and get you back into a life.

Go to the200percentmarriage.com/challenge and take the first step toward your 200% life. Your team is worth the investment