00:00:00:00 - 00:00:16:11
Erik Orton
My mom used to ask me this question when I was little, which is Eric, do you know the best way to get over a fence? And I would say no. And she said the best way to get over a fence is to throw your hat over it, because then you have to figure out a way to get over the fence.
00:00:16:13 - 00:00:23:05
Erik Orton
That is what we're going to talk about today. Throwing your hat over the fence. Welcome to the work of Great podcast. My name is Erik Orton.
00:00:23:05 - 00:00:24:08
Emily Orton
I'm Emily Orton.
00:00:24:08 - 00:00:38:19
Erik Orton
And here we talk about personal growth, family connection and raising adult kids because we want you to make the most of your mid-life. So, Emily, today we're going to talk about this, this concept. Where do we teach this?
00:00:38:21 - 00:01:03:19
Emily Orton
Okay. I did not grow up with this idea of throwing your hat over the fence and I didn't wear a big head, so I just always imagined Indian and Jones because for whatever reason, he has this, like, really strong attachment to his hat and and, you know, he might be just getting out of a death trap by the skin of his teeth.
00:01:03:19 - 00:01:26:21
Emily Orton
And he'll realize his hat fell off and he'll, like, reach back and grab his hat out before the trap door closes or, you know, something like that. So I always imagine that the hat being like this hat that you just love so much that you can't you're not willing to lose it. And that's how the metaphor works, because you're you're throwing out there something that you really care about.
00:01:26:21 - 00:01:52:08
Emily Orton
You're putting something on the line that you're like, I now have to figure out how to make this work. This and this is a concept that we teach in our private one on one coaching. If you're, you know, doing a life designer, you have some big project and mostly helping you break through the fears that are and worries that are getting you in your own way.
00:01:52:10 - 00:02:14:07
Emily Orton
And this is one of the strategies that we have or principles really, that we've used throughout our life to do it. I'll share a very simple, basic example of how I use the throwing your hat over the fence approach to things that are challenging to me.
00:02:14:09 - 00:02:23:10
Erik Orton
Can I jump before you tell the story? Can I give an example of a hat store like an Indiana Jones had story that's not an Indiana Jones hat story.
00:02:23:12 - 00:02:25:13
Emily Orton
I mean, I have no idea what you're about to say.
00:02:25:13 - 00:02:30:01
Erik Orton
So we were we were taking our kids out sailing for the first time overnight. Do you remember this? We were in.
00:02:30:03 - 00:02:30:04
Emily Orton
The.
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Erik Orton
Florida Keys. It was right after Christmas. And our son Eli had actually just gotten as a Christmas gift. And Indiana Jones fedora.
00:02:38:11 - 00:02:43:02
Emily Orton
Yeah, it was it was something like that, I think is a different character. But but it was adventure. It was a.
00:02:43:02 - 00:02:49:09
Erik Orton
Fedora. Yeah. Anyway, we were out sailing. It was our first night and we were kind of racing to get to our anchorage before dark.
00:02:49:13 - 00:02:51:00
Emily Orton
Because we did not know how to anchor in the.
00:02:51:00 - 00:03:20:12
Erik Orton
Dark and we didn't anyway. So there was a lot of tension in the air and Eli was running around dark. He was so excited and he had his hat on. And then next thing we know, he's screaming his head off. And we thought he had cut his arm off or something. And we check on him and he's looking back behind the boat and his hat is floating in the water because it blew off his head and he cared about that hat maybe more than Indiana Jones.
00:03:20:14 - 00:03:36:08
Emily Orton
Maybe. Well, we definitely went to extremes to try to chase it down. I remember that is when we discovered that our boat, which should have been equipped with at least one, if not two boat hooks, was equipped with zero boat hooks.
00:03:36:08 - 00:03:37:00
Erik Orton
True story.
00:03:37:00 - 00:03:45:17
Emily Orton
And so then we had to think like, what else could we use? And thankfully he had also been gifted a Nerf sword.
00:03:45:19 - 00:03:48:21
Erik Orton
With a hilt that had a hokey kind of design to.
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Emily Orton
It. And so and so our captain, Captain, dad.
00:03:54:00 - 00:03:54:21
Erik Orton
Captain, Dad.
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Emily Orton
Flipped the boat around to do.
00:03:56:12 - 00:03:58:00
Erik Orton
We did a man overboard drill.
00:03:58:00 - 00:04:00:08
Emily Orton
Yep. To do the requisite figure eight.
00:04:00:12 - 00:04:07:03
Erik Orton
And that we had somebody on deck pointing at the hat so that we could we would not lose track of our, our hat overboard.
00:04:08:08 - 00:04:11:10
Erik Orton
We did the figure eight and we came around and we scooped it up with.
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Emily Orton
The help of this Nerf sword.
00:04:14:04 - 00:04:15:05
Erik Orton
The hat was recovered.
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Emily Orton
Triumph.
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Erik Orton
So to your point, the hat has to be something that you care about. Maybe not as much as Eli cared about this hat, but it has to be something that you that that's it's skin in the game. It's some kind of risk or investment on your part. Yeah.
00:04:28:21 - 00:04:31:01
Emily Orton
Once you put that on the line, you want to get it back.
00:04:31:01 - 00:04:35:06
Erik Orton
So I'm very sorry to, to kind of like jump in right before your story. So now I want.
00:04:35:06 - 00:04:36:04
Emily Orton
You to panic.
00:04:36:06 - 00:04:42:00
Erik Orton
So I want you to. Because. Because in this story, there's something that you care about and I just want to highlight that.
00:04:42:02 - 00:05:10:02
Emily Orton
So an example in my story, my small example of how I use this is in planning birthday parties for my kids because I want them to feel that we're happy they were born, that we want to celebrate them, that we want to make it a party and a good time. But I sort of dread planning the celebrations, coming up with the the food and the games and the gifts.
00:05:10:02 - 00:05:16:13
Erik Orton
And I bet you there are no parents out there that can relate to your feelings on this subject alone in a category of your own.
00:05:16:15 - 00:05:36:14
Emily Orton
That's just me. I'm the only one. Like I love my kid and I want them to feel that love. But I haven't always loved planning the parties. And so what I would do is I would send out the invitations, I would pick a date and a time, and I would send out the invitations to all of the invitees.
00:05:36:16 - 00:06:00:13
Emily Orton
And then I would think, well, now I have to plan a party just because people are going to come and and I and I have to be ready to to meet them. And, you know, and it mattered to me because I did want our kids to feel that love. But that just helped me get get out the door and get things happening and get a little fire under my butt.
00:06:00:15 - 00:06:15:09
Erik Orton
All right. So to because I want to follow through on this, because I think this is an excellent example. You said I'm going to throw this is this is the classic save the date invite. We're going to have a party. And then if you didn't follow through with it, then what?
00:06:15:11 - 00:06:28:08
Emily Orton
Then people would show up at our house at that time and there nothing would be happening. Or I would have to call everybody and cancel and say, We've actually decided not to celebrate our child's birthday this year.
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Erik Orton
We don't or we're.
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Emily Orton
Not going to be.
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Erik Orton
Born.
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Emily Orton
That's like it went to a you know, there were these two conflicts, right? My my deep mothering instincts and and what I want to do for them. But also this like not loving to planned parties. And it's a good thing I did because of this past year. I ended up having to plan two weddings and I did something pretty similar where I had to have a few things in place because four weddings, your invitations have to be like matching see me and whatnot.
00:06:58:10 - 00:07:14:12
Emily Orton
So I would get a few ideas under my belt, but I would send out the invitation mean, okay, now I got to collect, you know, you had to have the venue and send out your invites. But after that I was like, okay, now I have to fill in all the blanks between here and there so we can celebrate these occasions.
00:07:14:12 - 00:07:35:10
Emily Orton
Anyway, those are just some really typical kind of everyday examples that might be relatable to anybody because we all have special cell, you know, things to celebrate and we all are the host at some point. Whether we love that role or whether it's a little more of a challenge like it is for me.
00:07:35:12 - 00:07:58:18
Erik Orton
So example, another example of throwing your hat over the fence. This is also this was an opportunity where I had something I really, really wanted to do in college. I really wanted to write a musical, and I had gotten myself in a situation where I was in a playwriting class, which felt like a really cool opportunity for me.
00:07:58:18 - 00:08:07:06
Erik Orton
I had never taken a playwriting class and it feel it felt risky because I didn't know what I was doing.
00:08:07:08 - 00:08:16:06
Emily Orton
Maybe that's why they had a class for me. For people who don't know how to write plays, you should take this class called playwriting.
00:08:16:08 - 00:08:35:21
Erik Orton
Yeah, and I think it was playwriting one on one, whatever. But there was maybe ten of us in there, and one of the students was a grad student. You know, I was a young underclassman, didn't know what that was exactly. So but one day she came into class and she said, Hey, you know, so I'm writing a play, but I'm not writing a musical.
00:08:35:22 - 00:08:52:02
Erik Orton
This is like a baby step to writing a musical. And so she said, Hey, I want to do this thing called Platform Productions, where we just take student written projects that are a work in progress, and we present them in a very minimal way in a theater in front of an audience. And I'm going to be organizing it.
00:08:52:02 - 00:09:13:19
Erik Orton
It's going to be a series of new works. Does anybody have anything that they would like to share? You know, it has to be a one act piece. And I raised my hand and I said, I do. And she said, Great. And she said, What's it called? I said, Esther.
00:09:13:21 - 00:09:15:17
Emily Orton
I didn't even know if you had a title yet. When?
00:09:15:19 - 00:09:16:05
Erik Orton
really?
00:09:16:05 - 00:09:18:20
Emily Orton
You volunteered because you came home and were like.
00:09:18:21 - 00:09:27:23
Erik Orton
Is it maybe I didn't even have a title. So I was like, I do. It's going to be a musical. And she's like, Okay, great. I'll put you down for one musical coming right up.
00:09:28:05 - 00:09:30:00
Emily Orton
Yeah, like on this day at this time.
00:09:30:00 - 00:09:42:18
Erik Orton
And she set a date on the calendar. Like, this is when we'll be doing the performances. And I came home and I told them I was like, I, I, my musical is being performed. And I told her the date and the venue and. And I think you said you.
00:09:42:21 - 00:09:48:14
Emily Orton
Then you asked me, like, what do you think I should write about? Like, like I have to write a musical now.
00:09:48:16 - 00:09:54:21
Erik Orton
And we ended up settling on the Old Testament story of Esther, which is why, you know, that's, that's how it played out. But I can't.
00:09:54:23 - 00:10:07:19
Emily Orton
Yeah, I just remember, like, I don't want to come up with something from scratch. Let's tell a story that's been told. This one has lots of exciting reversals and it's short enough. You could do it as a one act. And and it has female leads, which was like it.
00:10:07:19 - 00:10:09:00
Erik Orton
Was easier to sing.
00:10:09:02 - 00:10:13:16
Emily Orton
At the time because we wanted to give, you know, more women have opportunities to play leads.
00:10:13:22 - 00:10:33:07
Erik Orton
And so by throwing my hat and the hat that I threw over was my reputation, I guess by saying, Hey, I'm going to do this, and I committed to it. And it really did motivate me. And I wrote that musical so fast. And so, like to this day, I've never actually written out all the music like notated it.
00:10:33:07 - 00:10:48:09
Erik Orton
It's just like chicken scratch. That's enough for me to remember it. And I recorded it onto, you know, a tape at the time. And so they're in there recording and I could I could play it from my chicken scratch, but to this day, like it's never actually been notated.
00:10:48:11 - 00:11:14:11
Emily Orton
And the whole the whole process was just repeatedly throwing your hat over the fence because after you set that date on the calendar and committed out loud to another person and organization, you then you had to post something saying, Hey, I'm writing a musical and you know I have a musical and I need you to come rehearse it and and you scheduled rehearsal space and time.
00:11:14:13 - 00:11:24:02
Emily Orton
And then like basically every week before rehearsal, you were just finishing up the scenes and music for that week and then racing over to the room to run it.
00:11:24:04 - 00:11:24:18
Erik Orton
To teach it.
00:11:24:18 - 00:11:30:13
Emily Orton
Yeah. Yeah. You're like, Well, people are coming to rehearsal, so I better have something ready for them.
00:11:30:15 - 00:11:31:05
Erik Orton
Yeah.
00:11:31:07 - 00:11:38:09
Emily Orton
And you did the whole you did the whole thing by the hat over the fence methodology.
00:11:38:11 - 00:11:38:22
Erik Orton
It worked.
00:11:38:22 - 00:11:39:19
Emily Orton
Mom. Thanks, Mom.
00:11:39:19 - 00:11:41:05
Erik Orton
It worked. So.
00:11:41:05 - 00:12:01:19
Emily Orton
Okay, you know what? I would actually say this. One thing that I love is that before Eric was ready to talk to me about possibly getting married, he had a brave moment, and he decided to write it in a letter. But the letter said like, do not open until some future date. But yeah, he wrote the letter when he was feeling brave, kind of threw his hat over the fence.
00:12:01:19 - 00:12:21:16
Emily Orton
And then at that future date, when we were going to open it, I was going to see what was inside. And he was either going to have to make good on that or be like, I changed my mind. But he just like you put it out there so that you couldn't talk yourself out of it because you knew you maybe would get nervous in the future.
00:12:21:22 - 00:12:22:10
Erik Orton
Okay. Yes.
00:12:22:10 - 00:12:25:02
Emily Orton
Let's drop. I don't want to tell the whole story, but that's okay.
00:12:25:02 - 00:12:26:10
Erik Orton
And, well, we ended up getting married.
00:12:26:10 - 00:12:28:17
Emily Orton
So where marriage really worked.
00:12:28:19 - 00:12:57:16
Erik Orton
So if you want to get married, throw your hat over the fence. Is that No? Anyway, I think that it's important that it's something that that requires either follow through or a loss. Because lots of people, let's say that let's say you set a a dental appointment and if you don't follow through, if there's a consequence.
00:12:57:16 - 00:13:00:23
Emily Orton
They're going to charge you $75 for not showing up.
00:13:01:01 - 00:13:08:00
Erik Orton
Yeah. Whereas if you know and let's say let's say you sign up for a webinar and you don't show up.
00:13:08:02 - 00:13:09:12
Emily Orton
You get the replay.
00:13:09:14 - 00:13:27:23
Erik Orton
They like, you know, hey, sorry I didn't make it. Here's the replay, watch it. There's no consequence for not showing up really, except you might miss the live Q&A or something like that. But throwing it, you know, signing up for a webinar is not throwing your hat over the fence. And so there are things that you can do where, like you're committing and you stand to lose if you don't follow through.
00:13:27:23 - 00:13:50:02
Erik Orton
And that's what motivates us to to do the thing that we want to do. Because if we do this strategically, we're throwing our hat over the fence for something that we actually want in our lives, but we're just a little bit scared and it helps us get enough courage. We teach this under the section of our framework called Casting Off, because casting off is actually a very emotionally scary experience.
00:13:50:02 - 00:14:11:11
Erik Orton
It's actually separating from the thing that you know or have done before in launching into the new. And once you once you make that separation, it's very hard to undo it. And so when when you cast when you throw your hat over the fence, it's a way of sort of giving yourself the courage to take the leap you obligate yourself.
00:14:11:11 - 00:14:12:16
Emily Orton
So, yeah.
00:14:12:18 - 00:14:14:14
Erik Orton
A couple more. Should we talk about a couple more examples?
00:14:14:16 - 00:14:27:07
Emily Orton
So yeah, tell us like two of your favorite throwing your hat over the fence stories. And I think everyone who has the idea and can well try to apply it.
00:14:27:08 - 00:14:32:02
Erik Orton
Let's talk. Did you mention the Boehner moment mentioned buying our boat earlier?
00:14:32:04 - 00:14:53:10
Emily Orton
I didn't. But I mean, for us, for example, like I'll say one and you say that just signing up so. Okay hey new listeners where the audience and we didn't know anything about sailing when we decided we're going to live on a boat for a year. It took us a little while to get ready and we wrote a book about it called Seven at Sea, which came out five years ago.
00:14:53:10 - 00:15:18:02
Emily Orton
And we're celebrating all the months, the month of March that we did this. And this is one of the you know, we we went and lived on this sailboat for a year with our five kids. And one of the ways that we threw our hat over the fence was by signing up to take sailing classes. It was a for us, it felt like a high financial threshold.
00:15:18:04 - 00:15:43:04
Emily Orton
And Eric, we were very poor. Eric signed up for the classes in the end up signing up for all four of us to take like me and our two oldest daughter so that we could get a captain to go out with us and teach us. And we weren't sure how we were going to afford it. He signed up for the lessons and then he went and found a second job to make it happen.
00:15:43:09 - 00:15:52:11
Emily Orton
Because if you didn't go find a second job, you were not going to get to take those sailing lessons. You wanted to learn how to do it, so you put it on the calendar.
00:15:52:13 - 00:15:54:13
Erik Orton
We already paid for them. And so it was like.
00:15:54:16 - 00:15:55:21
Emily Orton
Yeah, we had to figure it out.
00:15:56:02 - 00:15:57:15
Erik Orton
How to pay our credit card bill.
00:15:57:21 - 00:16:06:14
Emily Orton
yeah, maybe that's how it was. Anyway, that was one of the things where we threw our hat over the fence and put ourself on the line.
00:16:06:16 - 00:16:12:15
Erik Orton
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. We did have to figure out how to how to how to afford it after we'd made the commitment.
00:16:12:19 - 00:16:23:14
Emily Orton
Just to get started. Yeah, yeah. To get out the gates. So fast forward a few years. We had some sailing skills.
00:16:23:17 - 00:16:30:09
Erik Orton
Sorry. Just that example was also making me think of all the some of the theater productions I've done where I just said, I'm going to put this on my credit card.
00:16:30:09 - 00:16:53:19
Emily Orton
And this isn't we're not trying to give you financial advice on this show, but we will. Yeah, it's true. We Eric wrote a musical that was so well-received in the university setting that we went back to Washington, D.C., where we both grew up. And you signed up to get on a, you know, like a local or regional. It was a local theater.
00:16:53:19 - 00:17:00:23
Erik Orton
It was, yeah, it was local. But yeah, yeah, same kind of a thing. Like, Hey, I have a show and I'm sure I'll figure out a way to cast it and.
00:17:00:23 - 00:17:01:10
Emily Orton
Produce.
00:17:01:10 - 00:17:07:09
Erik Orton
It, produce it and fund it. And so I just committed to the theater for the weeks, the days.
00:17:07:11 - 00:17:08:14
Emily Orton
That they had available.
00:17:08:14 - 00:17:10:09
Erik Orton
And then I went to work figuring out how to do it.
00:17:10:10 - 00:17:30:01
Emily Orton
Yeah, how it flew and our cast and, and all that stuff, which it worked out. You, you figured it out and you paid back our credit card. And for our friends in our age group had enough money left over to purchase a CD burner so we could make CDs of the musical to sell at Future Productions.
00:17:30:01 - 00:17:52:14
Erik Orton
We reinvested the profits into our business. Yes. So. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, producing a musical was another producing. It was another throwing your hat over the fence. I think the one that you're thinking of was when we bought our boat, because I don't know how many people listening have ever bought a boat, a sailboat, but we had never done it and we didn't really know anybody that had done it.
00:17:52:14 - 00:17:55:02
Erik Orton
And so we were very scared to pull the trigger.
00:17:55:03 - 00:17:57:04
Emily Orton
We had never even bought a house.
00:17:57:06 - 00:17:57:20
Erik Orton
That's true.
00:17:57:20 - 00:18:02:04
Emily Orton
So we had like we had bought groceries and shoes and gas.
00:18:02:10 - 00:18:27:02
Erik Orton
And never had a mortgage. And so we were buying this boat and this boat was in the Caribbean, and we'd never actually laid eyes on it. We'd hired somebody to go do an inspection, which they did. And we saw pictures and a whole report, but we'd never actually seen it. And here we were getting ready to wire money to an offshore bank account for a boat that we'd never seen.
00:18:27:04 - 00:18:46:13
Erik Orton
And we did it. You know, there's a whole thing about figuring out what could go right that actually caused us to pull the trigger on this. But the point is that once we had done that, we were committed to what we're going to do for we were going to go live on a sell it for a year with our kids.
00:18:46:15 - 00:18:54:09
Erik Orton
We, if we, if we decided to not do that, we still had purchased a boat and would have to deal with that. And so.
00:18:54:11 - 00:18:54:20
Emily Orton
Yeah.
00:18:54:20 - 00:18:56:05
Erik Orton
We were very committed.
00:18:56:05 - 00:18:58:10
Emily Orton
We were on the hook, as they say, we.
00:18:58:10 - 00:19:28:16
Erik Orton
Were on the hook and we had to figure out how to make this work. And we did. And the story is in the book Seven at Sea, both buying the boat, everything leading up to it, and then the whole play out afterwards. And so anyway, here's here's the invitation to you, dear listener. If there is something that you really want in your life and you need to give yourself a little bit of courage to get started, find a way to throw your hat over the fence.
00:19:28:18 - 00:19:56:13
Erik Orton
It might be sending out to save the date for a birthday party or a wedding, or it might be committing to deliver a script or, you know, I'm just referencing the examples that we've shared. But whatever the thing is that you want to do, find a way to commit something that's an investment where you you would hate to lose whatever it is and it's just it just makes it that much easier because you're motivating yourself to do the thing that you actually want to do.
00:19:56:15 - 00:20:22:03
Erik Orton
Because here's a little secret. It's actually really hard to get what you want. It's really hard for you to, to allow your dreams to come true. And, and we talk ourselves out of it all the time. And so if you commit yourself in this way, you prevent yourself from talking yourself out of letting your dreams happen. And that's a good thing, in my opinion.
00:20:22:05 - 00:20:23:09
Emily Orton
Yeah, well said.
00:20:23:14 - 00:20:27:02
Erik Orton
Thank you. So that's all I got.
00:20:27:04 - 00:20:52:09
Emily Orton
But I think that's important. And if you want to throw your hat over the fence to come sailing with us on one of the try a week, living on a sailboat trips that we are offering in 2024, we are trying to make it as easy for you as possible. We're going to some beautiful destinations. You can click on the link below and see where we are, where we might be going.
00:20:52:11 - 00:20:57:23
Emily Orton
But if you put down your deposit before March 15th.
00:20:58:01 - 00:20:58:16
Erik Orton
yeah, that's right.
00:20:58:16 - 00:21:07:05
Emily Orton
You get $500 off. And I mean, is it really throwing your hat over the fence because the deposits are refundable.
00:21:07:09 - 00:21:08:19
Erik Orton
For a little bit.
00:21:08:21 - 00:21:37:20
Emily Orton
Yeah. For, for like the first 30 days. 30 days. So I guess you could talk yourself back out of it again. But if you if you need help talking yourself into it, you want to throw your hat over the fence. You want to come on one of these mind changing, heart expanding, gorgeous trips that we go on, We just make it that much easier for you by giving you a sweet deal through the middle of March.
00:21:37:22 - 00:21:40:13
Erik Orton
One caveat is you have to jump on a call with me first.
00:21:40:15 - 00:21:48:12
Emily Orton
yeah. Come on. You got to go through the gantlet of having a 1 to 1 conversation with Eric, who's like, What would be your dream trip?
00:21:48:15 - 00:21:52:02
Erik Orton
Very rough. Very rough on anybody in life that you know you have.
00:21:52:05 - 00:21:54:09
Emily Orton
What kind of activities would you like to do?
00:21:54:11 - 00:22:08:13
Erik Orton
Yeah, So no, but I do talk with everybody before they come on the trip. You can't just sign up to talk with me. And then but if you talk with me and we find a trip that's a fit and you put your deposit down by March 15th. Yes, you get $500 off. So there's that to look forward to.
00:22:08:14 - 00:22:13:16
Emily Orton
Yeah. Throw your hand over the fence sooner rather than later, if that's something you're curious about.
00:22:13:18 - 00:22:19:01
Erik Orton
Yeah. To fill it up. So we'd love to. You know, if it's something you want to do.
00:22:19:03 - 00:22:19:21
Emily Orton
Let's make it happen.
00:22:19:23 - 00:22:23:10
Erik Orton
Make it happen? Yeah. All right. What could go right?
00:22:23:15 - 00:22:28:06
Emily Orton
That's how we love to end this podcast is just asking what could go right?
