[00:32:02] Jennifer: Okay. I think that’s what I’m realizing, is I’m looking and hoping for you to also just take some, um, just have some excitement and take some authority and just step in and help me with this mission and help me move us forward.
[00:32:25] Ramit: Andrew.
[00:32:27] Andrew: So there’s missing pieces to this. So, um, it’s four years now. Four years ago, she had leukemia, so we’ve been dealing with that. So my–
[00:32:40] Ramit: Jennifer did?
[00:32:41] Andrew: Jennifer had leukemia.
[00:32:42] Ramit: Oh, okay. I didn’t know that.
[00:32:42] Andrew: Yeah. So she’s in remission. So, um, my goal has just been keep plowing forward.
[00:32:52] Ramit: Hmm.
[00:32:53] Andrew: If we need something, just plow forward.
[00:32:55] Ramit: Because what? Plow forward because?
[00:33:02] Andrew: If she gets sick again and we don’t have insurance, or if we don’t have enough to cover the cost of medications, or if we don’t cover the cost of a hospital bill, I just need to continue to plow forward, so the excitement isn’t there. I can’t get excited because if I get excited and something happens and we’re not prepared, it’s just going to be that much more crushing.
[00:33:28] Ramit: It sounds like you’re a soldier right now. You’re an infantryman. You’re in battle, and it’s not about excitement, it’s not about feeling good. It’s just about one foot in front of the other, over and over, up that hill. That’s all you got to do. Would that be fair?
[00:33:45] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:33:46] Ramit: Okay. So there’s a time and a place for that. Sometimes we have to go into financial battle. If your partner has leukemia, yeah, I’m not interested in how you feel about your job, uh, you just need to have a job. I respect that. And Jennifer, I’m really thankful to hear that you’re in remission. Now that you’re in remission, do you think it maybe feels like it’s time to re-characterize this from a battlefield to something else?
[00:34:21] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:34:23] Ramit: What would it be? Give me an analogy.
[00:34:27] Andrew: Planting a seed.
[00:34:29] Ramit: Okay. Talk it through.
[00:34:31] Andrew: Starting over and just trying to reestablish a barren wasteland.
[00:34:38] Jennifer: I like the idea of a garden because it takes time too, and attention, and intention.
[00:34:46] Ramit: Give me some more. I want to hear. Time. It takes time, attention, intention. What else, Andrew? What is a garden? What are the implications of a garden?
[00:34:56] Andrew: Patience. Um, you have to take care of it. You can’t just let it go wild. So it needs attention.
[00:35:03] Ramit: Yes.
[00:35:04] Andrew: It needs to be fed. It needs to be looked after. It needs to be fertilized.
[00:35:09] Ramit: Mm-hmm. Does every plant you plant grow 10 feet tall?
[00:35:13] Andrew: No.
[00:35:14] Ramit: Do some of them die?
[00:35:15] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:35:15] Ramit: And is that okay?
[00:35:17] Andrew: Yeah.
[00:35:18] Ramit: Yeah, that’s life. That’s okay. You took a great crack at it. We’ll tweak a couple things. We’ll get some different seeds and we’ll try it a different way. What do you think?
[00:35:28] Andrew: Sounds fantastic.
[00:35:30] Jennifer: I love that.
[00:35:31] Ramit: Okay. I’m getting excited. You’re getting excited. Okay.
[00:35:33] Andrew: That sounds nice.
[00:35:35] Ramit: Okay. So this is cool. We are now rewriting our story together, and each of you has the capability to do this. Sometimes we have stories that we articulate for ourselves. Uh, Jennifer, you explicitly said, “I’m changing the cycle.” That was a story you created and you made it come true.
Amazing. Sometimes we create stories that we never articulate. They just happen. Uh, I’m in battle. I need to keep moving forward. Andrew, that’s a story you told yourself, but you may not have explicitly said it out loud. And now what you two have done is you’ve created a new story together.
