Erik + Emily Orton:
Today we're gonna talk about the one thing every kid wants to hear from their parents. For their whole lives. For their whole life. Welcome to the What Could Go Right podcast. I'm Emily. And I'm Erik. And here we talk about personal growth, family connections, and parenting adult kids.
After recording that podcast episode, we realized that we did not turn on these really beautiful, luscious sounding microphones. So the sound is a little bit less awesome, but still totally easy to hear. I think it sounds great. Thanks for bearing with us in our imperfections. Enjoy.
Oh man, speaking of parenting adult kids, it has been a week. I just wanna take a second here to look back because first of all, It's a changing of a season in the air. I feel like winter has arrived, which is, I feel like Doubleday having just been in the Caribbean recently, coming back to these, it's started to snow here. Eric has been taking people sailing on some scouting trips to find new areas where we can take people sailing to talk more about life design and life planning, and he looks just too back to back. groups in St. Lucia. So don't feel bad for him. But yes, winter's coming on hard. It was good. If you want the skinny, go check out social media, Instagram and Facebook. Lots of pictures there. But it was, it's a little bit of work, but it's also a lot of awesome. So anyway, it's good to be here. And also, I'm just thinking because we're in this space and we had a party here for our son, Eli. turned 18. And for us, that makes four adult kids over the age of 18. And it's just been, and it's been coming fast. We're doing weddings, we're doing, you know, getting into college and, you know, starting classes. And it's just been a lot of... Let me just try to recap. So, in this past eight weeks... And most of it happening in the past one week, we had a daughter who came home from an 18 month service mission. Nine days later, she got engaged to be married. Think whatever you want about that. This guy's incredible. And they've been friends for a long time. And then he got his bachelor's degree. And then our son, Eli, turned 18. And he's like, okay, now I'm gonna... adult and who's wrapping up with high school and just really eager to know all the skills he needs to have to be independent. Anyway for us we've been like, oh we're celebrating this, we're celebrating that. I call it our season of jubilee. So it's the perfect way for us to go into the Christmas season. It's already so much celebration. You know? Hey, at the very least. Four out of four, our kids made it to adulthood. We're starting to think, do we still need life insurance? Those are the kinds of questions that we're asking ourselves now. Anyway, okay, I'm gonna tell a story. All right, a long time ago, I turned 16. And when I was turning 16, I knew that I wanted to have a car. I wanted to buy a car, because one of the things that I valued the most in my young teenage years was my... independence and just so you know prior to that I one of the prior to having my driver's license I would just ride a bicycle everywhere so that I didn't have to ask for a ride and I can just go whenever I wanted and I would ride dozens and dozens of miles all over the area to see friends and come and go to school anyway I but I was pretty excited to get my driver's license which I did And I had a friend in high school whose grandparents were selling a old 1974 brown Volkswagen Rabbit, which I think if I were to buy it now, it would be considered a classic car. But in the... It was not considered classic. It was just considered an old car at the time. It was an old car. And it was stick shift. and it had seats that had all the padding had gone out. It was just like springs with fabric over it. And you know. I can witness to that because I did take like a 10 hour road trip with you sitting on one of those springs. Lucky you. Yeah. Lucky lady. That's love. Okay. So, and they were selling it for $500, which I happened to have because I was delivering these things that we used to have called newspapers. and I would get paid for that. Anyway, I mowed lawns and had a newspaper route. So I had some cash and I was buying this car. I can't even remember how I got to their house now that I think about it. But I got over to their house. Maybe you rode your bike. You know what? I might have because I was there by myself and I gave them $500, which was everything I had in savings. It was all my money. I'm already kind of getting a little emotional about this. Okay, it was a big deal. I bought this car and one thing that hadn't really occurred to me was that I didn't know how to drive stick shift and this was a manual car. It had not occurred to anybody apparently. Yeah, nobody was like, oh yeah. It was assumed everyone knew how to drive a manual transmission in those days. And so my dad had said the first thing you want to do is just drive it from your friend's house to the DMV and registry to make it legitimate and insured and all that. I was like, okay, so I get the car and I think my friend's grandfather just sort of gives me some instruction verbally, like clutch out, and I was like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah. And I barely make it out of the parking lot onto, because they lived in this apartment complex, and I get out of the parking lot and they go onto the main road, which is big. It's... It's six lanes, three each direction. It's a main road, but I stay in the right-hand lane. And I'm telling this partly because it happened around Christmas time. And I was driving down this road, sort of going with the flow of traffic. And once you're going, obviously with a stick shift, you just gotta keep your momentum going. It's when you slow down and when you're starting up that you have to really know what you're doing. Anyway, the route between where I bought the car and the DMV drove straight past the mall. The mall. The mall. And the mall, and this was also happening around rush hour. So I'm going to sort of, to paint a picture here, it was probably 4 30, four o'clock, you know, between four and five in the Washington DC area. And it was also just a couple days before Christmas. So imagine sort of- At the mall. And I came to stop at this intersection that was three lanes each way on the road that I was on and then three lanes crisscrossing. And red light. I'm behind a few cars, it turns green, they all go and I'm like putting it in first and letting out the clutch and tukum tukum. Anyway, I stall out. before I get into the intersection and everyone's honking. But I'm like, okay, I got to the front of the line and then I get it back in neutral, go to first and then I get a green light. I start to ease out on the clutch and tchoo, tchoo. And this time I stall out right in the middle of the intersection. And now everybody from four directions is honking at me because I'm completely jamming up traffic. I'm completely flustered, I'm by myself, and not that I would call anyone, but this was before the days with cell phones where it's like, hey, can you come help me? I'm just, I think I contemplated getting out of the car and just pushing it through the intersection, which probably would have been even more dangerous. Anyway, all the honking and yelling, and finally I just, I get going enough that I'm out of the intersection, and I continue the other half of the way to the DMV. and I'm just sweaty and I'm rattled and I'm just thinking to myself, for how much I wanted a car, I thought this is such a bad idea. This is so dumb. and I get to the DMV and have a quarter. And so I put in the payphone and I call my dad and my dad, I bought the car and I'm here at the DMV and I tell him the whole story about what happened. I'm just like, dad, I think I should just take your car back. This is such a dumb thing. And he said to me, the thing that every kid wants to hear throughout their whole life, he says, it's gonna be okay. You've got what it takes. Just go ahead and register the car. Every kid doesn't wanna hear, go ahead and register the car. What they wanna hear is. You've got what it takes. I believe in you. And my dad didn't say those exact words, but that's what he was saying. His message was. He said, I believe in you. You've got what it takes. He told me, go ahead and just register the car. It's gonna be fine. Sorry, I got a lump on my throat. Anyway, I did register that car. And as Emily can attest, I had that car for a long time. And because I didn't meet her when I was 16. But when I came back from my freshman year of college, she and I took a road trip up to New York and that's when she rode those five hours back in that car that had no padding. Anyway, so just to bring it back to Christmas, I bought that car and I registered it and my parents' Christmas gift to me that year was a new radio, a stereo system for the car, like a cassette player. Ooh. Yeah. With like. Automatic rewind and some other cool features. You could play your mixtapes in there. Totally. And I got new speakers and my dad, he helped me over the Christmas break, cut holes in the back where I could mount the new speakers. And anyway, so it was a rough ride, but it sounded real good. The tune sounded real good. And I made a lot of really beautiful, fun, fun adventure, adventurous memories in that car. And you were there for a lot of them. So, okay. So anyway, Emily. Thank you for listening to me tell that story. Sorry, I got a little teary, but it just hits home every time I talk about it. I can say one of the things that I love about that story, and I wasn't expecting it when you started telling, is how you said you gave all your savings to buy that car, and just how you had this idea of what a car could mean to you and what kind of life you could have if you stepped into car ownership and you were willing. take all those hours and gamble everything on this used car with no sound system and no padding, that this trade-off was going to be worth it. And then once you cross the threshold and you actually had... So first of all, I love that you were like, I'm willing to trade what I have, what I know, my security, everything I've saved up so far in life. to level up in this way. And I just think that's awesome. That takes a lot of courage. And then I love that once you got the car, you were like, this is way different than I was expecting. This is way harder. I'm not ready for this. I don't have the skillset required to be the owner of this car. And I just wanna go back to the way things were. I think what a lot of people don't realize is that so many times, When you get what you've been working for and what you've been dreaming of, there are some surprises and you have to become a new person. You have to develop some new skills to be able to adapt to living your dream. We recognize that as part of a template that we teach in our Navigator Framework private coaching program, but it's just so clear. It comes up in almost every story and I just noticed it. so clearly in this one. So, and then obviously the best thing of all and what makes it so emotional is that it was so hard and it was so scary to get what you wanted, to give everything to get what you thought you wanted and then have someone there who loves you and says, I believe in you and encourages you to move forward and get you over that horrifying obstacle because those people were so nice. They probably would have been like, okay, here's your five. back, we'll just relist it in the newspaper. You could have taken it back. Easily. Yeah. Actually, as you're talking Emily, two things came to mind. One is I had that exact same feeling when we bought our sailboat. Oh my gosh. It was like, there's a chapter in our book, Seven at Sea, called, whose dumb idea was this? And it was for the same reason that once we bought the boat and moved aboard and took it out, we're like, oh my goodness, this was... We... This was a bad idea. What are we doing here? Same kind of a thing. We don't have the skills. We don't. So there's that. Just that you're right. That getting what you want is really hard and it does require you to level up because you have to become a new kind of person to sort of absorb into your life the thing that is new. Even if you want it and it's good, you can't be the same person you were before and have this new thing in your life and have it be harmonious. You have to level up. for it to be integrated into your news, to where you want it, the kind of person you want to be. And I want it to be a car owner. Yeah, you have to make some trades. And actually, it makes me think of just a few months ago, we had our first wedding and prior- Tell the story, but then I wanna come back to the other- Oh yeah, so just related to the first thing. We had our first wedding of one of our children in July. And prior to that season, our daughter and her- fiancee were dating long distance for like eight months, right? And when she made, they decided they were going to get married and she made the call to live in the same place as him and transfer schools and all those things. Before she came out, he said to me, I'm going to have to adjust my calendar. I'm going to have to make time for her when she's going to be here in person. That's different than setting up a Zoom call. Right, to have someone who lives near you and can be integrated into your life. And I mean, I knew he was right. I just thought that was so insightful of him to realize as a young man, this relationship is important to me. My dream is now gonna come true and she's gonna live very near to me and I'm gonna have to change my life to make room for her in it. Yeah, and so it's like, what are you willing to trade and change to have something that you... believe will be better. And now they've been married for a few months and I'll say it is better. They're so fun. They're so cute. They're great together. They're such a good match. So, okay, the second thing. Okay, as we were talking, I remembered that you're talking about like giving all of my money to this, to this car. My dad, before I bought the car, was, I don't want to say he was a little bit of a stinker about it, but he was just kind of trying to prepare me. And he's like, you know, Eric, Buying a car isn't just the cost of purchasing the car. And all of us adults know that. We know that there are oil changes and you have to buy gas to put into it. Registration. But you know, there's car insurance and all the things that I was oblivious to as a new 16 year old. And so in some ways, I don't wanna say he was discouraging me, but he was sort of laying a groundwork for this is, this might be more than you are bargaining for. But then once I made the decision and I went ahead and bought the car, he switched. Oh. Not that he... I mean he was still the same. He was saying the same things, but like he's the one that encouraged me to buy. It went from saying, hey you need to know that there's these other costs involved. You gotta wash it, you gotta clean it, you gotta maintain it, you gotta fuel it, you know all these different things. And then... to say, yeah, and it's still, even with all that, it's still gonna be okay, you should go ahead and get it. You can handle it, you can afford gas, and if you wanna talk about how we handle who would pay for what, we have a previous episode somewhere called, who pays for what? We'll put it in the show notes. But this is one of those junctures. And anyway, just that my dad doesn't just whitewash it and just always say, you know. You'll be great. You can do whatever you want. It's you've got this. Yeah, he wants to help me. He wanted to help me see around corners and not be blindsided by unexpected this and that. And so I just wanted to. Yeah, I think that's really important. And that was the way that when he was encouraging you, he was saying, given all this, I know you've got what it takes. Yeah. OK. So that's the thing that every. wants to hear throughout their entire life. I believe in you, you've got what it takes. Well, encouragement, we always say, is the greatest gift we can give each other. There's never a person that we don't appreciate receiving encouragement from. We receive it from our kids, we receive it from our parents, we receive it from each other, and we're never like, wait, why are you encouraging me? I've had enough, I've heard enough about what I'm capable of and... and how much you believe in me and I've kind of hit my max. It's the gift that we always want to be receiving. And I like to think about that. When we're with, to say our kids for example, are they going away feeling encouraged, like, hey, my parents believe in me or some other message. And that keeps me on track when I like to talk about. doing the things that matter most, that's one of the things that matters most to me. And I would just say that the Orton kids know how to fill in this blank. The greatest gift you can give somebody is blank. It's encouragement, our kids know that. And the beautiful thing about it is that it can be quick, it's free, it can be ongoing, but it can be a one-time thing. Encouragement, it requires so little of us. to give it and it can mean so much to the recipient. I was just, this morning I got an encouraging email from somebody who wants to work with us and the first thing I wanted to do was share it with Emily. I was like, hey, can I read you this great email? And, you know, cause we love working with you and your stories inspire and fill us up. So anytime somebody is into it and all about it, you know, it gives us energy. So we feel good, we feel encouraged by you and hopefully you feel encouraged by us. Is there anything else that you wanna say about encouragement? There is, and I think it's that maybe my theory is the reason we always are happy to receive encouragement and we always need it and it always feels like it's coming at a good time is because the default setting of the world that we live in is worry, fear, distraction. and increasingly just comparing ourselves with others in a negative way and always feeling like small or what am I here to offer? What do I have to give? Am I enough? Things like that. And that message is constantly flooding over us. So whenever somebody sends us a little buoy that's like, hey, I think you're amazing generally, specifically, ongoing right now, in whatever context, it's never too much. We always. We always love to get encouragement. And even this coming year, I will turn 50 years old. I'm hoping that's my halfway mark. And I- You make 49 look really good. Thanks, love. And I always still want encouragement. I, you do not outgrow it. You don't outgrow it. So however old your kids are, they wanna hear that you believe in them. I was on the phone with my dad this weekend. We don't talk all the time. you know, a couple times a month. But we got on the phone this weekend and he once again was encouraging. He was like, oh man, you're doing great stuff. Well, you know, and so, yeah. And I'm guessing that even after I'm 50, because Emily and I turned 50 about the same time, that even post 50, I'm still gonna wanna feel encouraged by my dad or whoever. And so what is the one thing that every kid wants to hear throughout their entire life? I believe in you. You've got what it takes. What could go right? Thanks for listening.
