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 Welcome back to another episode of The Road to Life podcast with Meredith and Craig. Today we're talking about something near and dear to my heart. Adventure.

Let's start with a question right outta the gates Hot.

When's the last time you and your person, you and your teammate, you and your partner, did something new and exciting together?

Did something together for the first time? How long has it been for real? How long has it been?

Relationships can easily fall into routines, and that whole new novel experience sometimes becomes less of a priority. So we're gonna talk about how that happens, why that happens, and why adventure is so important and how to bring it back. So.

Early days, it feels great. You're with your person that you're dating, , everything's new and exciting. You're exploring, figuring each other out. You're exploring and having adventures with each other, trying to figure out each other, but also just like what you like, what you dislike, and it's just a really cool time.

And then.

As time goes on, we start to learn those things and life starts to happen and we just join the real world, I guess, essentially work. Bills, kids, all the things. School work and fun and adventure seem to fall by the wayside. They become less of a priority

it's like in the early days it was exciting to plan on your first few dates.

It was exciting to plan what you were gonna do. Planning a date was fun and exciting. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And as time goes by and you go on lots of dates, planning a date night starts to become just something else on your to-do list. So like early days it was fun and exciting. Now it feels like a chore. So that's how life can evolve.

When we're not, paying attention for the adventurous stuff to become mundane,

We just fall into a routine. Mm-hmm. Like a comfort zone, and then eventually life happens. And. You know, you get stuck in your ways eventually. Mm-hmm. And then it's just like, well, now we're in this routine and it's just this comfortable, this Yeah.

It's almost this, you know, fear of change if you will. Mm-hmm. At some point. So it feels

like a lot more effort.

Yeah.

As time goes by to plan new and fun things to do. Yeah. It's more work.

Yeah. And, one of the things I find that, . A lot of people seem to believe is that it's a nice to have.

Mm-hmm. Like it's not something that's a priority, because while all these other things that we talked about, kids life, bills, school work, all those things have a higher priority mm-hmm. Than taking an adventure with your, mm-hmm. Person. They just believe that it has to be the first thing that goes Yeah.

When there's something like there's a laundry list of things that we need to take care of. Well, obviously this one has to be cut right first.

I think another misconception about adventure is that it has to be a really big extravagant trip to a faraway land, or even like a, big fancy dinner that you've never done before.

Mm-hmm.

And I think people get intimidated by adventure because that's how they think of it.

Yeah for me, adventure is just , having an attitude of adventure. Like if you go to the grocery store, you can make that an adventure. If you go with the attitude of adventure that we're gonna go and maybe we're gonna try a different food, or we're gonna go. You know, and have some fun walking the aisles or like, I'm gonna pick a food for you and you pick a food for me.

And we have to try like what are like, it's just really random, silly things, but it doesn't have to be big extravagant things. To your point, some of my favorite adventures have been literally, we've gotten in the car and we've just gone and we end up where we end up. Mm-hmm. And we don't know where that's gonna be at the beginning.

And it's just a fun time.

Yeah. We just go on an adventure. Yeah. When I say left and I mean Right. And we end up going Right. When we should have gone left, we're on an adventure. Totally. And so , what's the point? Like we've made the case that sometimes adventure falls away and, the ways it falls away, but who cares?

Yeah. But it's really important for your relationship. For a lot of reasons. One being that, you know, it rekindles that excitement that you felt in the early days when you were just starting out and trying to figure out who is this person? Do I like this person? Let's go see, have experiences with them in different, , settings and situations to see how they react, how I react, how we get along together.

It's the same thing. That

spark and that excitement of the early days can be rekindled by taking adventures together.

Yeah. It doesn't have to get stale. Mm-hmm. Like a lot of times we hear from people and it's like, yeah, but you know, it's not like it was in the early days, things have gotten stale and we're in routine and it's like, yeah, because there's no adventure.

Mm-hmm. We need to

reintroduce adventure. Yeah. Because it also strengthens your bond, like when you share experiences together. That shared experiences creates a stronger connection between you. So when you're doing something outside of your ordinary or with an attitude of adventure, that you make it more fun, , that experience that you've created together strengthens the connection between you.

Yeah. And when you go on adventures, you're literally releasing chemicals in your brain like dopamine and endorphins and happy hormones. Basically it reduces your stress and increases your happiness levels. Mm-hmm. Like you are happier when the science, you're happier when you go on adventures.

Mm-hmm. Like, , it's

scientifically fact. So trying something new at the end of a long week, like taking SSA dancing lessons or trying paddle boarding or like just something that's completely outside of your normal can be a great way to reinject adventure and. If that feels like a lot at the end of a long week, like adding something like that feels like, oh my God, I couldn't imagine.

Adding that at the end of a long week probably just means you need it even more. You'll be surprised how much that re-energizes you and,

Also if you do the thing and you don't enjoy it, then that do so just means it's not for you. Mm-hmm. , it's trial and error. There's gonna be some things that you try and you're like, for sure not for me.

I tried that adventure, did not like it.

Try something else. It also keeps the relationship. Fresh. 'cause it brings in a little spontaneity into the relat, takes a routine.

, it eliminates some of the routine. Gets you out of routine, put it that way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And discovering new things around you.

Mm-hmm.

Because when you take an attitude of adventure, even at the grocery store, you're gonna see things differently. You're gonna experience. Same old, boring grocery store in a different way. Like I said, it's a novel experience.

Going to the grocery store sucks most of the time, like who wants to be there?

But if you inject a little bit of fun and adventure and say, okay, look, we're gonna pick three things that should try. We literally tried Chestnut the other day at the grocery store and love of 'em. They're not great. Like I said, yes, you don't win 'em all. You don't always, when you step up to the plate.

Sometimes you strike out, you're not gonna hit a home run every time. Hey, listen, hall of Famer hits bat 300.

Yeah.

Like, they're right. , they're good 30% of the time. Yeah.

A hall of Famer. Yeah. 70% of the time. They're not, they, they miss. It's a miss. Yeah. So, you know, take a couple shots and see what happens.

, plus, when you do new things together, you face new challenges together. , it reinforces the team aspect and , it's good practice in flexing that muscle so that when there is a challenge, that life froze at you. You've been working through challenges already. Yeah. You're prepared for it.

You've been on a hike together and you figured it out. , you took a cooking class to learn a new style of cooking or cuisine or something and you figured that out together. when you work through challenges together as an adventure, then it's good practice for when life throws challenges at you.

'cause you've got that muscle already sort of. Primed and flexed for sure.

So some easy ways to bring adventure back into your relationship. obviously , if adventure is a muscle that we have not been flexing, we're gonna wanna start a little bit small. For sure. And like we said, it does not have to be a big trip across the world.

Go to Peru, Machu Picchu. It does not have to be that big. Mm-hmm. It can literally be the grocery store example that we used a couple minutes

ago. Trying a new restaurant, going to a different ice cream place. Just introducing some variety and novel experience. Hop in

the car and go for a drive. And in fact, before you get in the car, say, we're gonna take two left turns, five right turns. Three left turns, four right turns. Just like map out a bunch of turns that you're gonna take and see where you end up. Like it could be random as that. That's his

adventure style.

Get in the car and go for a drive and just see where you end up.

My adventure style would be to Google what's the world's largest, anything near me. And then we go on a random road trip to some weird little small town. 'cause that's always where they are. And we find the world's largest golf tee, the world's largest.

Fishing lure 'cause I Googled. Those things are all within a few hours of us, so we might be checking those out. But that's how we ended up at the world's second largest rocking chair. For real. That's where we went. It was fun.

Just off Route 66 misery. You'll love it. Check it

out. Highly recommend

it's, I don't even know there's a town there, there's a store, there's a, but there's gas station there.

I don't know that there's anything else there, but the chair's there. Mm-hmm.

So just like you can act like a tourist in your own city and you will see it differently and you will move through your. Regular surroundings in a different way, and that's one way to start small.

So just plan little adventures together, like I said, , regularly.

Yeah.

Step outta your comfort zone. Step out of your comfort zone. Don't stay in your same old neighborhood all the time. Get out and explore a little bit. There's so much world out there, even just beyond your neighborhood. , you know, not far from here. There's a park that most people around here don't even go to.

And it's

lovely.

It's a beautiful park and it, goes for a long time. We explored it the other day. It was beautiful. Just get out and explore. Get outta your comfort zone. Mm-hmm. And sometimes it helps to just be spontaneous. One day just wake up and be like, Hey babe, hop in the car. Let's go. We're going for a ride.

And then just go for a drive and see what's around.

Remember when we did that? , we were heading for a lighthouse down east that we like, and we stopped at that new pizza place and we ended up, while we were waiting for pizza, just playing checkers on the picnic table and then taking our pizza and eating it, looking over the ocean next to a big lighthouse.

That was fun. That was fun. Completely spontaneous. Had no plans,

totally.

Just that,

that some of my, favorite adventures have been spontaneous, unplanned events. Like, I love when , you plan a trip and you go and you explore. Mm-hmm. Something like Machu Picchu. I love it, but I also love the little times where we've just gone and drove the shore and saw the beach and the lighthouse and the pizza and mm-hmm.

All the things that you just mentioned, like those are some of my favorite, adventures. Mm-hmm. they didn't cost a lot. They weren't expensive, they didn't take a lot of time. Mm-hmm. It was just an afternoon. Mm-hmm. Spontaneously. We need more of that in our lives.

Yeah. , we all need more spontaneity in our life.

And the last way to, to bring it in, like we talked about in a little bit related to starting small, but just look for it. What you look for, you find more of. So if you're looking for an adventure, , you'll find more adventure. like keep that lens on those sunglasses that look for adventure and you'll find adventure everywhere you look.

We were recently at an event in la.

Mm-hmm

And one of my favorite parts of the whole thing had nothing to do with the event or really LA in general. It was just some of the people that we were there with. Mm-hmm. We went on an adventure to find, 'cause LA is known for. Having invented the French dip sandwich.

Mm-hmm. And there's two restaurants in LA who kind of argue over , , who invented the sandwich first. Mm-hmm. And so. One of them, one of those restaurants, we looked them up and one of them is actually closing like two weeks from when we were there. Yeah. And so we were like, oh my God, if we're ever gonna try a sandwich, we have to try it while we're there.

We're never gonna get to try it. Mm-hmm. So we made it our mission to try that sandwich. Yeah. And we didn't have a lot of extra time to fit that in, but we made it our mission to go on an adventure and try to have that sandwich. Mm-hmm. And on day one. There were six of us on that adventure. We, recruited some friends, got in a Uber and went down there.

We had an hour before we had to be somewhere, and we get there and we cannot get in this, there's a line up around the block, massive line. There's a line up the block, and just to get in the restaurant was an hour. We didn't have the time, so we, we bailed on that.

We went in a little taco adventure instead.

That was fun.

We went and had some Mexican food. Mm-hmm. It was great. With some friends. That was a fantastic little adventure.

Yeah.

But we weren't done. We wanted to have that sandwich. Yeah. Remember it closes. So then the second day we, it's been

open since 1917, by the way. It's gone. 1908. 1908. It's 117 years.

It's been around.

Yeah. And so then the second day we're like, okay, again, we have another hour, but it's at a different time of day. The restaurant opens at three. We figure if we get in line at around two 30 or three o'clock, we should be able at the front, we should be at the front end of this and get in.

Yeah,

no. No. So we, go there at like, I think we get there like quarter to three. Maybe there's a line, it's even longer than yesterday. People have wisened up. they're on the same adventure plan that we are. No go. We, we cannot do it. So we skip that. We skip out on it and we can't.

We go to the event day three. We have not given up. The event is over, it's eight o'clock at night, late way later than we normally eat. Yep. We got in

line at 8 45,

, by the time we get there, it's 8 45. We're in line. We wait an hour to get to the restaurant door. Yep. And then we get, they're of beef,

by the way, and we know that when we get in line,

they're outta beef, but they have the other options, pork, pastrami, and lamb.

And we get to the front of the line, we get into the restaurant, there is absolutely no seats in this restaurant. There's five of us. Mm-hmm. There's no seats in this restaurant. We eventually start walking around and people are moving and leaving and we finally commandeer a seat. Mm-hmm. And we get our order in and we are literally, as the last person in our group puts their order in, they ring the bell to say that there is no more kitchen service.

Mm-hmm. We literally got in under the wire, no lamb, no beef, had a pork, beef dip, astronomy, beef dip, whatever the options were. And. It was fine. The sandwich. The

sandwich.

The sandwich was fine. It was, but the adventure was awesome. Yeah. Like the experience of going out and being in that la institution of, the old 1908.

Mm-hmm. Like, , it was a cool

spot. It was a cool vibe. It was

almost like an old speakeasy easy kind of speakeasy. So it was literal, like a really cool opportunity to one, the adventure of tr going through the process of trying to get that sandwich. Mm-hmm. But then two, that when we actually, the night of having that sandwich, by the time we ate it, it was like 10 30.

Mm-hmm. 10 45. We got our food. Yeah. It was two hours before we got wine. It was like, so I was eating at 11:00 PM I'm usually in bed asleep two hours at this point, but I'm eating beef dips. Yeah. Pork dips and pork dip. That's right. , but that was a really fun adventure. Mm-hmm. And that is the, level of adventure that we're, talking about, talking about is, going into something with an attitude of adventure, because we could have been frustrated.

Yeah. And we could have just went to some random shop, we had a sandwich. Yeah. But where's the fun in that? Yeah.

Create adventure. . It's everywhere. Look for it and create it. It is going to strengthen your relationship. You're gonna feel the sparkle like you did in the early days.

You're gonna feel more connected. All the dopamine and all the chemicals are gonna flow, and you will feel more connected, and your relationship will be stronger for whatever comes for it later. If you start going on adventures more often, more regularly now. So that was fun. Especially that story with the adventure.

That's a nice little chitchat. What's the one action you're gonna take? How are you gonna implement adventure in your life going forward? Share this episode with a friend and someone else who will find it super fun too. Maybe an

adventure buddy that you can go on your next adventure with.

Yeah, send it to your adventure buddy, and we will see you next week.

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And as always, thank you so much for being a part of our journey on The Road of life. And remember, you've got this, and we're here to help you every step of the way. So we'll see you next week. Bye for now.