Erik + Emily Orton:
What are three gift ideas that you can give that are not stuff? That's what we're going to talk about today. Giving gifts that are not stuff. Welcome to the What Could We Write podcast. My name is Eric Orton. My name is Emily Orton. Here we talk about personal growth, family connection, and raising adult kids. So one of the things that can get me the most stressed about holiday seasons are all the expectations that I have. believe other people have around them. And that I feel like I want to meet all those expectations, especially for my family, my husband, kids. And I used to just really have a hard time with Christmas. I called it the Christmas Crankies. And I would like start going into tailspin in those last weeks prior to Christmas because I felt in, it was almost like my report card as a mom, like how happy everybody was. Christmas and I know it's all just not logical and emotional, but we have come up with over the years a variety of ideas about gift giving. And what it's actually meant to do is to say like, I see you, I'm happy that we are sharing life, you know, and, and that I want to support you and your goals in some way. Like it's a giving a gift is a way to make a connection. And so these ideas have been some of the favorites. We do still, we give gifts. That's often a thing that we do. Here have been some of the, and what I mean, we do still give objects that you're gonna wrap up and then unwrap that morning. Stuff. Yeah, stuff. Things. We give stuff. That's definitely something that still happens in our family. but we also have some other options to choose from. And one of my favorites is experiences. All right, so let's start with experiences. One example, and this was not a Christmas gift or a birthday gift or anything, but it was a gift from my mom and it was the gift of an experience. If you listen to the previous episode, I talk about how much I used to ride a bicycle. to get around before I turned 16. And this was especially true when I was 14 years old. I would ride everywhere. I had a 10-speed bicycle, and I rode long, long distances to get where I wanted to go, to the point where my, actually my dad had a really nice road racer bike that he never used, and I sort of took it over. And I was, you know, like the black spandex shorts and the little small visor hat, and... I had a little jersey with a place to... I wish I would have been there in those days. To see me in my black Spandex hats. Or the hat with the small visor, most of the Spandex. I'll hook you up. And I had the little jersey where you could stick a banana in the back and stuff like that. So I was pretty legit. I was a little bit hardcore. I had the pedals that were that your feet would clip into, your shoes clipped into the pedals. And I would read... Cycling magazine things like that. So I was you know Which it I was legit. So my mother's from Finland and we were going there to spend the summer and I was a 14 year old that didn't speak Finnish and My mom was a little worried that I would be bored So but she also knew that I was planning to bring my bicycle Which I was and when I showed up because she went ahead and I had to finish school, you know, I had to have the school year and I joined her and my sister and I, when we got over there and she said, Hey, Eric, I've registered for you for the tour to Finlandia. And, you know, you might've heard of the tour de France. It's basically the same thing except in Finland. Just kidding. It's no, it was a one day event and it, the course was way beyond a distance that I had ever ridden in one go. But my mom registered me for it. And I said, well, when is it? And she said, well, it's in two weeks. I was like, oh, so I've got lots of time to prepare. Just let me get over my jet lag. Yeah, so I slept for two days, woke up, and then went into training. And training consisted of this. My mom would identify, I would say, this is about how far I wanna ride today. And she would pick a small town outside of where we were, my grandma's town, she would drive out, drop me off, and then I would ride home. That was the whole training regimen. And I would ride one day, take a rest day, ride again the next day, and to increasingly distant towns to the point that, and I would love these rides because I was just by myself. Finland's a pretty flat country, beautiful countryside riding past fields and lakes. And I didn't speak the language. And so it was really easy, you know, to just like pass my day, riding long distances to the point where on the last trip, I was going to ride from Lothian, which is the town where my, my grandmother lived to Helsinki, which you've probably heard of. And this was going to be roughly a hundred miles, 105 miles. And it was going to be my final training trip before we. before the race. Do I need to get into this part of the story? Or is that too? I mean, it's just here how sweet your mom is. Okay. But this was all part of the experience that she gifted you. Fair enough. Okay, so. The plan is I'm gonna ride my bicycle to Finland, sorry, to Helsinki, and my mom, this was far enough that it didn't make sense for her to drop me off and meet me right home. So this was gonna be a one-way, and she was gonna meet me in Helsinki and kind of as a celebration, we were gonna go out for Pizza Hut because there was one Pizza Hut in Finland, or at least there was at the time, and I really loved pizza. And so I rode all the way there to Helsinki. many, many hours of cycling. I get there and I get to the spot that's designated and to date the whole thing. This is again, long before the internet, long before cell phones and all that. And so it was just like, meet me at the intersection of this road and this road. I'm like, okay. And I did and I got there and we didn't know how long it would take me. So I just waited. I figured my mom would be along eventually. And I kept waiting and I waited like an hour. And then I think I waited two hours and It was starting to get dark and it was also the skies were darkening because rain was coming. And this intersection was not really close to anything. It was just meant to be like a meeting point and then we would go from there. And so I had my little biker jersey and my spandex pants and my very lightweight plastic mesh shoes. Nothing about it was warm, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And that's when kind of like the sky's open and the rain started to come down and I'm just there getting wet. There's nothing to stand under. So I'm just by the side of the road getting soaking wet. And you're like, why is this a gift? Anyway, eventually, I'm like, well, I'm just going to start riding towards, I'm going to ride back because then I'll warm up and then I'll meet up with my mom sooner. And and the rain is just pounding. I'm riding on this country road, two lanes, just riding, and cars are going by and, you know, spray and splash. And I'm just kind of miserable and feeling sorry and sad for myself because this is not sitting in a booth at Pizza Hut, which is what I really wanted. And I ride for hours. And then finally, a little red, old, old BMW. drives past and I recognize that that's the car that we're borrowing from my grandfather while we're there. And I stopped because I think it's them and then I turn around and I see that the car has stopped and hangs a Yui and comes and picks me up and it is my mom. And I promise I'm not going to cry. I promise I'm not going to cry. But it was, man, she just jumped out and wrapped me up in a blanket. and gave me a big hug and said, I'm so happy you're okay. We didn't know what happened to you. And we broke my bicycle down and put it into the trunk of the car. And I honestly, I don't remember who went to Pizza Hut or not. I don't think we did. I think we just went home. We were just all so exhausted. And anyway. I think I did like the full 120 that day, if you add up all the extra miles that I rode. Anyway, we got home and I was warm and cleaned up and my mom was like, what happened? And I was like, we talked and I was like, cause she's like, I went all the way to Helsinki and you weren't there and I drove back. I drove back home and you weren't there and so I drove to Helsinki and then I was on my way to Helsinki again. And turns out that there were two highways with the same number. The old highway. and the new highway. And I was on the old highway and she was obviously on the new highway and we just missed each other. Total honest miscommunication. Why is this a gift? Actually, Emily, why is this a gift? Well, I just love that your mom wanted you to have an experience. And that is not where the story ends. I mean, you actually ride the tour de Finlandia and they call you American American boy and you're like with the team of Finnish writers and you're like the youngest writer there and you actually complete it and your family's there cheering for you and you feel this great sense of accomplishment that has become one of your. Backstories that you core memory of some core memory that you turn to both in what you're capable of and your relationship with your mom and your love for Finland and so what I love is that this is Not something that we pack in a cardboard box and haul from place to place or put in storage when we're traveling Although this week I did open a box in our storage unit and I had those little visor hats that I wore. I found two of them and anyway, we're probably gonna give them away but yeah. But it's a it's a gift where you got to learn more about yourself and more about the country and draw closer in your relationship with your mom. It's a memory that continues to inform your life as you go forward and I think that's Really what I love about giving an experience is it's a gift on so many levels. First you can have the gift of anticipation because you had the... I got to enjoy it for two weeks before I even got it. Yeah, you're looking forward to it and that's a great thing. If you're planning a trip or a retreat or some kind of travel, you just draw closer to the people you're either planning to gather with or you're planning to go with as you make your... your plans and your preparations for the experience. So that is a time of connection and that's such a gift. And it's, you know, there's an enthusiasm there. And then you get to actually have the experience and then it keeps giving because if it's a really like a good kind of experience, it continues to unfold and ripple out into your life informing you know, decisions you might make in the future or what you think you're capable of. And so I just think it allows for just connection and encouragement before, during, and after. Having experiences can have that kind of effect. We've seen that on grand scales when we've maybe traveled for many, many months in a row. And we've also seen it on very... small scales and we're like, hey, we've never tried this before. Let's just try this thing together and see how it goes. And in fact, this year we have, uh, at Christmas we will have two new sons in law. Yeah. This will be our first sons in law or son in laws, because it's not multiple laws, it's multiple sons. Sons in law for all, for all those of us entering this space, sons in law. And so. And our kids are mostly adults. Our youngest is 16 and everyone else is 18 or over. And so we thought, let's do an experience together. And we haven't decided exactly what it's gonna be, but. We've got some fun ideas. Everybody's in on it. They all said, yes, let's do that. Let's pick an experience, something that will create a new memory and help us bond together. And then it will carry us forward in those relationships and be a connection. And it'll probably be a kind of thing that we wouldn't do. every week or every year, it would probably be something unique and different than what we would normally put our resources into, but we want to do it so that it will stand out as a connecting season. It will be something for us to look forward to doing together, to do together, and then to remember the time and the inside jokes and the story, and that will be a common point of reference for all of us going forward. So I love that about experiences. Also, you don't have to store them anywhere. Right, you can have pictures to remember them and you can have memories. They don't break. And as Emily and I are fond of saying, the only investment that always goes up in value is our memories. And when you give and receive experiences, you're creating some of those things, those memories that are always gonna last. And sometimes even a bad experience can be a good memory. Like you were telling about how miserable you were on that bicycle ride. And yet it's such a beautiful and cherished memory. That's really true. And if you think about like, if you want to like, get into the money part, I have no idea what this cost. Maybe maybe it was $50, maybe it was $150. I have no idea. But I'm sure it wasn't a bunch of money. And yeah, the value to. Like the value proposition of giving experience, it's like the joy to dollar ratio, super high, super high with an experience. And you can even have experiences that you plan out that don't even cost money at all. So for example, when I was a little girl, my family used to do this experience, I don't know, every couple of months, my mom or my dad would say, let's go for a penny walk. but you don't even spend the penny. We would just take the penny and we would walk to the end of the sidewalk and you flip the penny and it's like heads you go right, tails you go left. And every time we would just, at every corner we would just flip the penny and that's how we would decide where we were gonna go. And in the end we still kept the penny. But we made all the memories and it was just like, hey, we're just kind of hanging out together. It's a little bit of an adventure because we don't know where we're gonna go. but we're gonna go together. I love it. So. You don't even have to spend a penny, you just have to have one. Okay, so we actually have three ideas of gifts that are not stuff and experiences is the first one. And sort of like the biggest, most involved one. So that's why we've taken some time to talk about it. But there are two other ones that are super easy and super free and super, I think super cool. Okay, here's one that I think is probably the most unusual that I've actually never heard of anybody else doing. And you can do it for Christmas or you can do it for a birthday or just a weeknight or any time for fun. And to get a little technical, there is stuff involved, but there's no keeping of stuff that occurs. And this is one where we... took our great love for local libraries. And what we do is every person just goes into the library and you pick out a book that you think the other person is going to like. So in our family, I pick six books for the six other people that are in our family. And you could pick more than one book for each person if you found them. So for example, we went one year we did this and my... daughter found this book that was in Japanese that she thought her sister who speaks Japanese would really like. And she found great books for every person. Anyway, we were able to go and we still got to wrap it up and unwrap it. And like, this is a library book. It's due back in three weeks. You can renew it. But this is basically either it's a joke, right? Like this is so funny. or it's something that I genuinely thought you would enjoy. And it's showing like, I know you, and you can choose to- Or I'm thinking about you. I'm thinking about you, and you can choose to spend time in this area or not, but either way we had this little moment together. It was really fun because one, yeah, some of them were just a joke. This is a book that obviously you wouldn't wanna read, but for whatever reason, I got it. But also you can give- one or multiple books to each person. There's no limit because there's no cost and you have a mountain of stuff under the tree to open up. And then also it's kind of like if somebody got you a book that you're not really that interested in, you don't actually feel that bad because you're like, I've got six books or however many, you know, and I'm really, I'm going to read these two or three and I'm going to return the other ones. But you still feel seen and known and loved. but you don't feel the guilt of like, I'm actually gonna return these books. And I guess if you really love a book, then you buy it. At that point, you buy it. They can then buy it for you as a gift, or you can buy it for yourself, but you know. And then in the end, all the library books go back, and so there's not any more stuff in your life, in your house to deal with. So it's kind of an elegant. one that we had a lot of fun with one year. I actually wonder if we got the idea from one of our favorite movies, which is Dan in Real Life. And kind of one of the beginning incidents, the meet cute is in a bookstore and she thinks he works at the bookstore and she's asking for recommendations and he just goes around randomly picking books from all different genres, children's books, novels, nonfiction, poetry, and then he kind of makes up this big explanation for why everything have this like beautiful connection and laughing. And anyway, we particularly love going to libraries. Anywhere we go in the world, we go to libraries. It's a little window into the community. There's usually a board saying all the experiences you could have there if you're interested in experiences. But we also just love, love books and having them flow through our lives and not necessarily stay on our shelves. So. That's a really fun one. I've never heard of anybody else doing it until we tried it out and a couple of people have tried it and have really enjoyed it in their families. So if you want to try that one out, that one's so fun. You have to maybe let go of some expectations and ideas around what gift giving is all about, but that is a really fun one and no one feels burdened by it. Okay. So that's... So experiences is one. The third one is actually, you guys know the song, If I Had a Million Dollars. We did this one year and we just said, if I had a million dollars, I would give you. And we literally just read our list off to each other. Yeah, I made like a picture list for each person and I had everybody sitting on the couch and I was like, Eric, if I had a million dollars, these are the presents that I would wanna buy for you. And I just showed every single one of them. Like a slideshow. Yeah, and nobody unwrapped anything that year, but it was super fun because we all just had so much fun dreaming and just what-if-ing. And again, we felt seen and known and loved. And I think that was the real, that's the real gift of a, or the real treasure of a gift is, you know, when it, aside from it might be like, oh, this would be useful. I could use some new theater. Here's a picture of deodorant. If I had a million dollars, I would buy you a deodorant factory so you'd never run out. No, just the idea of feeling seen and known and loved. And so making those lists, everybody had fun playing with the idea. It was really playful and whimsical. It was so fun to create it too because I didn't feel any kind of... financial inhibitions, right? Money was no object in this case. I'm just saying, here's what I wish that I could give you. So for example, I could tell Eric, like I wish I could get you a seat on a rocket into outer space to go stay at the space station. I would love to give you that gift. And he's like, I know you're not getting that from me. Like he didn't feel like, oh, Emily, what a cheapskate. You didn't get me the, you know, $50 million seat on a. You might have to say, if I had a billion dollars, this is what I would give you. Yeah, you can set the threshold. And I would also say that it's really fun for the kids too, because then they get to be a little bit spendy. Yeah. And you just have a fun thing like, I would buy you this beach house, or I would buy you this helicopter, or whatever. Like your supply of Trader Joe's lime chili chips, or whatever it might be. I know what you like. I know what you like and if I could, I would love to give this to you or I would donate a library to some country in your name. Yeah, it's really fun. So okay, so anything else about those three ideas? I just think that it was such a relief to be able to open my heart wide, you know, and say this is what I would love to give you. Like I see you, I know what you would love. I would love to give it to you and help, even though I couldn't actually give those gifts, just saying I wish I could give you these gifts that let this flow of generosity. And so I think that's all I have to say about that. Well, and I'm also gonna throw it out there. We have a couple of unconventional gift ideas. You can give the gift of sailing. You can give the gift of coaching. You can also give the gift of our book. I wasn't thinking about that one earlier, but if you know, 7 to C is actually you can even check it out from your library and give it for free. So either one if you they don't have it at your library. Just tell the library and I want you to order this book. That's true. They can make sure it's on the shelves and then you can read it and be like, I love this book so much. I want to buy it. want to copy for everybody I know or you might say, that's a fun story, I feel inspired and return based on that I want to have a more nimble lifestyle and getting this book back and getting rid of lots of other stuff too. So Emily, why do you think going sailing might be a fun experience type gift? I think this one is especially like the ideal scenario I think is if you can go with someone you love, like go with your. spouse your partner or if you can go as a whole family those have been some really incredible trips when the whole family will come out together and Not only do we get in a completely new environment where they see themselves in a new way, but we have these incredible Conversations, it's a two-for-one in the sailing because we do On some of our coaching on the same trips not When we're going to an area that we're familiar with and we know we can give like the full meal, we do the coaching too. So it's a chance to really reset, refresh, reconnect and come away with some new ideas and plans for the future. But we've just seen families connect like crazy through these experiences. It's so much more than just a vacation in a beautiful place as delightful as that can be. We have really deep, meaningful conversations and come away with new ideas about what you might hope to seek for in your future and to be able to support each other in those goals and you have also the shared language around it. So it's a really efficient way to connect. I didn't know this about adventure before we started going on trips. like this and seeking out experiences, but it is a super efficient way to connect as a family and to grow as a person and in your relationships. So I think, you know, I'm a relationship girl, so that's what I love most about it. I mean, the pictures look great on Instagram, but that's not what you carry in your heart. That's not what affects your life for the next two decades. So that's not what connects you to your new in-laws. Yeah, so if you want to go sailing, we're taking people sailing this year. And we would love to talk and see if being on the crew for one of these trips is a good fit, whether it's a scouting trip or we currently don't have any life design retreats on the calendar. But if, if you want to put together a boat of people, we'll do if it's a full boat. Great. We'll do it. A full boat is eight people in 2024. Right now we have, um, on the docket, Bahamas, in February, New Zealand in April. and Greece in July. So if any of those are an adventure to you, drop us a note, email us, message us on social media. You can reply to any one of the emails that we send out. If there's something you have in mind that you want to do for your family, we're considering, you know, you might say, yeah, we could open up a spot. Yeah, like I say, if it's a full boat, a lot of times we'll just put, yeah, if you wanted to do it as a whole family or a group of siblings. partners. Yeah. Okay. And the last thing about coaching, um, we love helping people discover what's possible in their lives. And I'll do the whole thing about discovery calls at the end, but coaching, working with people and helping them take their what if, first of all, identifying what their what if is, and then breaking it down into how they're going to make it happen. We love it. We love it. And, and we love to push you on your what. your what if. We want you to choose something that feels genuinely impossible. That's what we like to get you to. Kind of like this, if I had a million dollars, like what kind of thing would you do or what kind of person would you want to become? That's the kind of thing that we want to help you pick and then we start to help you break down the process of getting there. And we love helping people move from it feeling impossible to it becoming inevitable. I think that's probably my favorite point in the coaching. I love getting to know everyone and getting clear on the ideas, but when they actually start taking action, they're reporting back the wins every time we meet. And then they come to a point where they say, oh, this is definitely going to happen. It's so obvious if I just keep going in this direction, then this thing is definitely going to happen in our life. And it's across, you know, maybe it's a kind of travel or maybe it's a kind of... thing you want to build in your community or maybe it's a new lifestyle that you want to create for yourself and you know for the people who are looking at you and saying is this really possible? Like when I'm thinking mostly of kids, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, it ripples out to those other generations and other people in your life. Yeah and I think it's been so fun. Like most recently my favorite thing that I heard was We were talking about this for years and now just in these last few weeks working together, we're actually... Months, it was a few months. Yeah, several weeks, 12 weeks, whatever. Now actually we're doing it. It's happening. It's definitely going to happen. That just feels amazing. I know that's how it was for us too because when we started talking about living on a boat, we were talking about it for... years when our daughter was like, are you actually ever going to do anything about it? Do you really have the guts to do this? And there's just a world of difference when we started taking those committed action steps and climbing into the new reality that was living our dream. You know what I just realized as we're talking today, and when we're working with individuals and couples, I know that they feel like something has moved from impossible to inevitable when they start, we'll get on a call and they'll say, you know, okay, so there's this other thing. And it's like, because the goal is to teach a process and a framework that can be applied to dozens of ideas or opportunities, dozens of what ifs. Like an adventure or that you're aiming for. And so, and usually we'll get to one, two, or maybe three in the course of coaching. And when somebody says, oh yeah, that one I know, that one's on track, I know what's gonna happen, then they say, here's another one that I'm interested in. Yeah. And once they say, there's this other thing, then it's like, okay, they've turned the corner, this one is, this train has left the station, and that thing has already occurred, or it will occur. Yeah. And it has definitely become inevitable. and then say, okay, now what else do I want to apply it to? So anyway. That's, I think what I love about coaching too is because you coach it once, you learn the template and how it works, and then you can, then you have now this new level of confidence and you can run that circuit as many times as you want in the years to come. So, okay, so quick recap. We love giving the gift of experiences for the reasons of anticipation, the event or. moment itself and then the memories and the ripple out. We love giving library books for free and we also love making lists of what you would do if you had a million dollars and somehow sharing or presenting that. And if we can be helpful in the experiences department with an adventure, a sailing adventure or coaching and if you want our book and you can buy it or you can just get it from your library and wrap it up and give it to somebody. So those are our holiday gift ideas. Anything else, Emily? Hey, happy holidays. What could go right? Thanks for listening.
