365 Days Later...

Published Dec 5, 2024, 2:00 AM

Bring on the champagne and balloons, because Amy & T.J. are celebrating a successful year of their podcast! They share what they've learned from their experience and how they've grown as T.J. reflects on his unpleasant memories from this time last year.

Welcome everyone to a very special edition of and TJ. It is over recording this December fifth, and that is a very special day for us. It is our one year anniversary for the podcast. We'll take. We'll take what we can get and we used.

To do back in the day. It's just a slow class, slow.

Class, right. Yeah, that's ye powerful.

Meaningful anniversary. Wow. We have so many anniversaries we can't yeah, we can't keep them straight. But this is a can't believe we're sitting here a year later. I'm not I'm not saying I can't believe we made it a year during the podcast, but I couldn't imagine I would ever have a one year anniversary of a podcast. That's not something that was in my mind not too terribly long ago. So it's it's it's kind of incredible. And it's been a hell of a year.

Yeah, and I know that, you know, but and anyone who knows me knows I am a big believer in celebrating, in celebrating anniversaries and birthdays, because these are the moments where we can not only feel good about where we are, but reflect back on how far we've come. And I think that's what I wanted to do just for a little bit today. I also wanted to point out we on social media, on our on our social media page, asked all of you to send in your questions and we are going to be answering your questions in just a bit. Andy, how many questions do we get.

You guys got I would say at least I have fifty questions at least right here.

Oh wow, that's a lot of questions. And those were curated questions. We haven't seen them, by the way, but we can't wait to answer what is on your mind. But we wanted to share a little bit about what's on our minds on this day. First. And you know, I was thinking about starting over, and I was looking up starting over in your forties and fifties, and so many people, maybe some of you listening, have had to do that or maybe will have to do it. And anytime you have to start over, it's a daunting task. And I think back to last December fifth, and there were tears, there were fears. I was scared and excited all at once. Do you remember how you feel or.

Felt December fifth of last year. I was frustrated, I was pissed, I was nervous. That became fear later, But it wasn't a celebratory a day at the time, because we learned that they are still forces out there who are after us no matter what we do, and our success and our joy and our happiness and our future is threatening and upsetting to some people. So that was a big day for us a year ago, and others chose to try to attack us on that day. Even so, that's my honest answer. I was I and that's how I was that day, and that was all kinds. We had family stuff going on because of it. That was some ugliness on December fifth last year, and nobody will ever know, and we will never reveal, but it was a difficult day, a very difficult day, and it shouldn't have been.

You know what, I don't know how I forgot about all of that, but you're right, that marked so much of the day, and I do believe looking back, and we have had plenty of tough days in between, and we still will have plenty of tough days going forward. But it's what you learn along the way about what you're made of and how you get through these things, how we get through it together, which is challenging in moments, but it's what brings us together in the end. And I think, gosh, going through darkness gives you the perspective of how great it feels to be in the light, to be in the sunshine. And when you have those moments, man lean into them, celebrate them. But I remember once we got the first podcast launched on December fifth, then became the real challenge of Okay, we're gonna have one podcast a week. What do listeners want to hear from us? What do we want to share with listeners? What is our lane? Is it news? Is it interviews? Is it personal insight? You know, we had all of these questions swirling around, and we struggled initially with just coming up with one podcast a week. Remember staring at each other with our computers up at your dining room table, trying to come up with ideas and feeling like we didn't know what we were doing because we didn't know what we were doing.

Well, I question still if we have any frickin' idea what we're doing. But this was a learn We are very adept at broadcasting. We are trained, we are seasoned. Right with those resumes, you can put us in front of a microphone, and we know what to do. If this was a case where we didn't actually know what to do before getting to the microphone, and then to some degree, we didn't know how comfortable to get on the microphone. We didn't know how. I can give you a hard time all the time about getting into broadcast modes, but this is one place you cannot do that, and we've experienced that as well. And we learned that in conversations we've had in this very studio that wow, there's a warmth here, there's an energy here. We got something out of this interviewee that we never would have gotten in a studio at a network. So there was a huge learning curve and I am very much comfortable now. But you talked about we struggled with one a week, and now we're up to god knows how many.

Well, we're doing at least six a week, sometimes eight, and even this week because we're taping a few ahead of time, I think we're going to be doing nine podcasts this week. So that makes me smile and laugh and also want to go take a nap. What a difference in your makes one a week seemed like a daunting task, and now we're just churning out sometimes nine a week.

But again, not too long ago, we were wondering. We were sitting around wondering when we would have anything to do. Again, we're longing for some like, Wow, nobody's gonna want to work with us, so what are we going to do next? We had those questions, and now it seems I know where you're coming from, obviously because I'm right next to you through it. But it seems odd to complain a single bit about being busy.

Oh please, I'm with you. I'm with you. I you and I both said this from the beginning. Give us work, Let's be busy. That's where we feel our strongest. But I will say, and this is honest, I have not worked this hard since I was in my twenties and thirties, early on in my career, trying to prove myself, trying to work my way up the ladder up to network news. And so in a way, we are doing that again.

No, I've always worked this hard.

You did work harder than I did. It can work, But you know, for me, I had gotten to a place where I knew exactly what I needed to do, and it wasn't just goodbye.

I'm kidding, I'm sorry. I'm actually thrive.

I know, I know, but I would say that now there was this new feeling of having to reprove myself. I can only speak for me, but I felt.

That and still do, which is always a mistake. Exactly And when was the last time I gave you that line?

Probably earlier today?

That line you talked about it when I looked at you and I said, you have nothing to prove.

You said that to me in the marathon when I was very upset at feeling weak and sick and not feeling strong and was worried about my time and worried about ruining your time.

Nothing to prove to anybody.

And that made my shoulders relax. On this podcast, either, can you remind me of that daily? Because that would help.

I nothing improved.

I do feel like that still, for sure, because.

Well, where does that come from? I mean, what did your mom do to you early on in life that got you?

He says that because just full disclosure here, my mom and dad are actually visiting this week and my mom's in the studio with us, so that was a little a little fun Pope at Mama Roeboch. No, I didn't feel that way until we went through what we went through, and then you feel like you have to rebuild something or you have to restart something, and we did, and with that came this feeling of having to reprove I don't know, not just professional worth, but personal worth. And on a personal side, I think back to a year ago and where we were, and that's phenomenal. We weren't. We didn't spend Thanksgiving together, we didn't spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning together because we were being respectful of where our families were. But this year we were together, all of us waking up in Thanksgiving morning, and that's the plan for Christmas as well. And that is a remarkable thing. And I learned I'm learning still always to be more patient. I wanted people to meet me where I was, instead of me being willing to meet them where they were, and so being patient and letting people find their way and accepting where they are. That's a huge part of the process that I learned that I know intellectually, but to actually put it into practice as a whole other thing. And yes, I'm hungry. I don't know if you can hear my stummach.

You'll hear her stuff that was loud enough that it might have picked up to go buy it back and checks. Right, she's going through this whole thing. That's soliloquy. Let me tell you about a life.

You know it's and it's not to say we don't have tough days. Still, we still have tough days. Everyone out there, I think, if they're being honest, is having tough days with their own selves and their relationships and what's going on at work. But my thing that I've been trying to do is I'm forcing myself to quiet my mind when it starts thinking too much about the outcomes. And that's my biggest problem, the outcome of this part, the outcome of our relationship, that can really send you into a mind spiral that isn't healthy. And so the point is to focus on the present moment, right.

I've learned that and had to put that in practice. But it's it's really so they call it stop and smell the roses. If you whatever is going on in your life and your world, if you just stop and just look, make eye contact with the person in front of you and just listen to what they're saying. Just be in the moment, you amazed at how just everything else this life is just stay where you are it is. It's a hard thing to do. It's the easiest thing in the world to do. It sounds like, but it's it's very difficult. But I've been practicing that for a while. I think I got that from you originally one of the books. Yeah, I mean you probably gave me early on with either Michael Singer or Ekar Totley or one of those guys. But but yeah, stand in the moment.

Yeah, and just the outcome is not ever what you're gonna think it's gonna be anyway, So trying to prepare for it or manipulate it so that you can get what you want it doesn't ever work. But it's interesting. I was looking up today, like I said, starting over and gaining wisdom from having to start over, because a lot of times people don't start over because they want to, it's because they have to. And that certainly was our story. And I found the story and I want to read it to you because I found this to be so beautiful. This was on a reddit, like some reddit I guess, I don't know that I found and I just thought it was such a cool story. Once a long time ago, there was a wise zen master. People from far and near would seek his counsel and ask for his wisdom. Many would come and ask him to teach them, enlighten them in the way of Zen. He seldom turned anyone away. One day, an important man, a man used to command and obedience, came to visit the master, and he said, I have come to to ask you to teach me about Zen, Open my mind to enlightenment. The tone of the important man's voice was used, was one used to getting his own way. The zen master smiled and said that they should discuss the matter over a cup of tea. When the tea was served, the master poured his visitor a cup. He poured, and he poured, and the tea rose to the rim and began to spill over the table and finally onto the robes of the wealthy man. Finally, the visitor shouted, enough, you are spilling the tea all over. Can't you see the cup is full. The master stopped pouring and smiled at his guest. You are like this tea cup, so full that nothing more can be added. Come back to me when the cup is empty, come back to me with an empty mind. And that to me was such a beautiful way of putting out there that losing something, or even losing everything, actually can give you a fresh start. And when I was looking at these Reddit threads, someone talked about the story and talked about their journey of having to start over, and he said, my most important advice is empty your cup, leave your ego behind, and be open to learning from and collaborating with people half your age sometimes, but fill that cup with new experiences. And he said, this is difficult. It requires grit, determination, humility, and coping skills. And I have learned more about myself this year than I have any other year of my life, which is that I valued things about myself that were fleeting, that were from outside sources, that were about what I did or what I accomplished versus who I am and how I treat people and how I treat myself. And I had to admit that, and that was hard. And now you have to learn from it and grow from it and get excited about this new chapter where you actually can value relationships with yourself and with others above all else, because all that other stuff that you were valuing all that other stuff that you believed made you important or who you were or created your worth. It all went away. And when it all goes away, you're forced to actually just re examine everything.

Well, it keeps us from taking that examination before it's taken from you. Isn't that the point is and that the hope right, You shouldn't have to have it taken away before you realize this isn't what you need or want or your identity in the first place.

Well, it's funny because, as you point out, I have been reading these books over the years. I was doing the work, so I thought. But it's very easy to do the work when you're coming from a place of empowerment or coming from a place of feeling like you're successful. So it's easy to say, oh, right, But then when actually the bottom drops out and then you actually have to put all that into practice, it's another story. It was for me.

Welcome back everybody to Amy and Tjr. And your anniversary episode one year anniversary of this podcast. We launched it a year ago, can you believe it?

So?

I think we started off. Within the first few podcasts we had people ask us questions, so we had you will send us some more. And they've been coming in and our super producer Andy has curated a list for us. It's gotten it down to fifty. Now we don't think we're gonna get through all of the fifty. Well, it depends if they rabbit fire. But Annie, you tell us if you gave I they have names attached to them. By all means let us know, but less far away.

All right.

The first question is a really nice one. It's very simple. Maybe it's not once you start answering, it's how are you guys doing?

I would say good, but it depends on the day, you know, And we're doing better. And I feel like we are doing the work, because when you're in a relationship it requires work. And I see us rolling up our sleeves and sticking together and trying to figure this out and wanting to get it right. And why, you know, TJ is my best friend and he has been for a long time, and that is always for me, the best foundation to start from. And so I feel really good about where we are and I think we're going to get even better.

Well that was that was a daunting answer.

That was an honest answer.

Well, I didn't there was some, Uh, well, we are apparently not doing as well as I thought after hearing that response, But the how are you guys doing? I would first answer, I'm happy and healthier than ever, and that's kind of it. I don't I don't know. I'm just in a mindset in a place where I appreciate everything that comes with it's a challenge, it's a blessing. Even the challenges are blessings and I get that. So I don't know. I'm not sleeping well. My ra ring has confirmed that I'm actually sleeping worse even than I thought, So I'm trying to deal with that. But I'm doing well all right.

Next question is what is the significance of the ring around your neck? This listener says they sense a story.

I don't know that we're ready to share that, DJ.

It's around your neck, so I didn't know where I was gonna let you go first. But but yeah, I think maybe one day we will. We might reveal. I think somebody asked that last and we haven't given that up yet, so well, something will keep sacred. We're gonna hold onto that one.

It was a nice try that we appreciate it.

I love a tease.

All right.

The next question is will you be on TV soon?

Yes?

I like that, Yes, we very much, We very much miss it. Okay.

Next one is t J. How is your achilles doing?

Not great? Oh man, I have a new issue now with the ligament on top of the foot. The I'm but I'm gonna be off of a four to six weeks. Doctor told me a lot of people familiar with what happened in Chicago couldn't finish that race because of an achilles And now I have a possible torn ligament in my foot, so not running for up to six weeks, wearing a brace everywhere I go, and so I'm on the mint but not running. Okay.

Next question is who would you want to be with on a stranded island?

Who would I want to be with on a stranded island or read it, on a deserted island? Okay, there we go. Uh duh, TJ.

No, I'm trying to think of another and like, who would I prefer to be with? And now no, no, no, no, I'm trying to I'm digging here.

Maybe like your three favorite people, so this way, Amy's one of them?

No? Thanks? Is this because of the way I answered the.

First question Obviously it's you. Obviously it's you. I'm just trying to it's such an obvious answer that I'm trying to think of what anything else come up? And I don't think so. So I get along with better than you. And I wouldn't want Sabine to be out there stranded with me, right. She needs to be in school, all right.

The next question is what is your favorite way to spend a day off?

Mmm? Okay, well, I would love to start my day off with a run. Then I'd love to go to the movies with TJ. A horror movie and then have a wonderful dinner where we're sitting out sitting at the bar, belly up and laughing about the movie and what we saw. And yeah, just the two of us, that would be a perfect day for me.

You know, I'm trying to take issue with anything in there. Maybe I would insert, depending on the time of year, an SEC football game.

That would be great.

Maybe, Yeah, the only other thing I would put in there. But we are very chill folks. We don't want to run around. We don't even go to a museum. We've been talking about a museum forever, but we just like to be together, just to have good food, have good drinks, sea good people, and enjoy good weather. That's u awesome.

This next one is what's the craziest thing you've done in the name of love?

In the name of love, I don't know if I've ever done anything in the name of love.

I don't think we've thought what we were doing was crazy. But clearly choosing each other was probably the craziest thing we've done. But that wasn't a choice of doing something crazy.

It wasn't didn't feel no, it did.

Not at all.

It was crazy well thought out of love. Man, that's a tough one. That's gonna take me a minute. In the name of the love.

You could say, if you look at both of our lives, that the craziest thing we did was get married to twenty three. But I don't know that was in the name of friendship, same or duty or obligation. That was really in the name of obligation crazy though.

Did you jump out of a plane? Did I make a surprise trip? Did I streaked down the Vegas Boulevard? That I did? I something? I did do all that stuff though, but not really. I'm kidding.

To share with me when we get.

Man that I'm the hate We got stumped this early.

I know I can't if it comes to us, we will circle back. But right now that sounds so boring. But I can't think of something I did that was crazy in the name of love and it would probably be with you in some way.

She said, what does that make us if we don't have anything? I mean, shouldn't everybody have that? It seems like that.

No, okay, oh running a marathon, Emma saying running a marathon is crazy in the name of love. But you did I did.

Oh, that wasn't crazy. Let me go on a limb here and stay with the guy I love who's bombity can't walk.

Sorry, babe, I really trained hard for this. I'll see you love the medical tent.

No, that was but thank you Amma forst.

Suggesting that that was crazy. But that was. Yeah. I never even considered for one second not staying and not stop.

We got to go back. Oh that was tough.

I feel like it.

Makes you seen and stable. It's not like you're throwing about windows doing crazy things like that.

Wow, have you done anything like that?

I've never even, like I know people burn letters. I've never done anything with.

A key to guy's car.

Absolutely not. Do you think that I know, got nothing even high school?

Though I'm going back and back and back.

I know I'm trying to think crazy. I don't know.

Sad Well, this one's going different about love, but not as maybe crazy. But what has your perspective on love and how has it changed over the years?

Well?

Change, Love is it's an it's not a passive it's an active verb. Right. You have to show someone that you love them. And I just don't think anymore that love is some feeling like I just get overwhelmed. And a lot of people say, oh, I just feed it, that that whole thing, that feeling is fine with some other things that have to come along with it. I think I've I couldn't imagine I look back soon where I am now. I can't imagine being at this point ever being interested in people that I dated previously, some folks I've dated previously, because it's just that doesn't make anything. No, of course we're not a match. Of course I'm not interested in that, and of course I'm not.

So. Yeah, I've learned about love. I've learned how to love because now I know what love is it's not about you chasing the feeling of receiving love. It's about giving it without expecting something in return. And that sounds obvious, but when you're actually in a relationship, if you think about it, a lot of what we do is we're doing things so that we can get love back, that we can get something to make us feel good back. And it almost is with strings attached, if I'm being honest. But I've now felt like I know what it's like to love someone even when it's hard, even when you don't like them in the moment, or you're having a tough day with them, to say I love them anyway, and I'm gonna and I'm going to act in a way, in a loving way, even if I don't feel it in this moment. And to me, that is love, and it is it's about the hard times. That's when you actually I feel like I know how much I love you, because even when it's hard, I feel so strongly and I have so many loving feelings towards you, even if I'm angry, hurt, or upset like that is a totally new feeling for me, and that to me. I was telling my mom this last night. Actually that that is something I have not experienced before, and that is why I do feel like this relationship I have with you is something I've never experienced before.

Wow, well keep them coming, this is going well.

Tell us about your Thanksgiving with Amy's family, TJ.

No. No, I wasn't with Robox family really for Thanksgiving. I was with a Robox family a couple of weekends prior. They had a death in the family. Unfortunately we had to go back for but it happened that I ended up meeting the family for the first time at a funeral, And so I can tell you about that family, or I can tell you about Thanksgiving. It's funny. But Thanksgiving was great because we did have at least of course overseas, but Ava two of her friends, Ben Montgomery, who's been around I feel like I know her as well as anybody these days. And then Sabine and the two of us had a nice It was a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving. And it was the first holiday that you and I have had a chance to spend together. But to have the girls there and just everybody knowing everybody, and the food was great, the games were great, and it was there was great.

It was the first time either one of us had ever cooked with someone else like our partner and prepared the meal together. You did the turkey and the greens and then I did the sides, and that was like, that was really fun to be working alongside in the kitchen with the person I love. Like that was a really fun We had music playing.

Yeah, so we had a great Thanksgiving. Now the it was it was wild. The meeting Robot's family. It was the circumstances. Again, it was unfortunate we were there for a funeral. But I did take it as a bit of a blessing, Like, what other opportunity were we going to get that I could see all of your family members, because we do end up Thanksgiving or Christmas would probably end up somewhere else, the girls somewhere, so it's probably not likely we get back for a big family thing. So I was I took it as a blessing to be able to meet everybody in the in the family.

And when you say everybody, there were a lot of people.

There's a bunch of folks.

My mom's one of nine, and all the siblings were there, Yes, all the siblings and all the cousins.

Frank, David, Paul, Steven, Patty, Kathy, Oh my dear Annie, I love, There's Leslie. And then then that last one. I can never remember who is it. It's Johnny, of course that's her mom.

That is impressive. You just like like totally went through all those names without any hesitation.

I'm working on the spouses. I'm getting a few of them, and I'm the cousins and the kids next.

That's that's impressive.

Speaking of holidays, what are your plans for Christmas?

So we because we have two New York City apartments that are fairly small, so the only way that we could all be together it would be too good a house. We got a house upstate. All the girls are going to be there. So this is momentous and historic and excited it is. And we have a big fireplace. That was the big That was the big draw. We had to find a house with the fireplace. So we are we are going upstate. We're just gonna kind of hunker down and play games and make hot chocolate and make memories really more than anything, all right.

Next question, was there a moment early on where you thought the podcast was a mistake.

Oh? No, I actually never thought that. I think that's part of it, right, grit, perseverance, that thing. There's something in us. I don't know, but there was never a moment where we we got frustrated plenty, but there was never a moment where we thought we couldn't figure it out. And we kept again, Andy, you know, as you own these these text messages and our team they they're getting stuff and we're firing off questions and please somebody help, and so we are. We were always committed to figuring this out and giving it a long run to not just get frustrated. We are are people listening, Why didn't they react to this? And they reacted to that. We had to get away from that and just let it be a steady, steady beat. And now we literally have three podcasts that we put out regularly.

Yeah, and I the whole time, the first time we sat in front of the mics, it felt right, It felt good. I think even when things are swirling around us outside of this room, when we come into this room in front of the microphones, I feel at home, I feel at peace, I feel happy. I always felt like this was almost a haven for life to be able to come and hear and either talk about other people, or talk about issues, or do these fun quizzes, or even talk and share things that are happening in our lives. It feels right, so I never questioned. It always felt like the best way to build a foundation back, to restart our careers and to take them in a direction that we hadn't anticipated but are really enjoying. All right.

This next question is what is your favorite and least favorite thing about podcasting?

Mmm.

I think my least favorite is being the inability to get guests in the studio all the time, because people are just all over the place and it's hard to catch them so and it's so easy to just get somebody in front of a computer while come into a studio. But I think I miss having it in the times we've had it. We've loved having people in studio and we've had them plenty, but I think I wish we could have more face to face time with our guests. That's my barber least favorite. The most favorite, I guess the freedom. I mean we have a freedom now in all we put out to to shape the outline the podcast, but also just the information we think we should be delivering. And we didn't always get that freedom. And now I'm comfortable that we have enough experience in the business to actually know how to put a rundown together, to know how to point out to the viewers, what's the viewers, the listeners, viewers coming to the listeners, what I don't know. Editorially, I've appreciated being editorially in charge.

Yeah, that has been a new thing for us. That's that has been very gratifying actually to be able to make those choices as a producer. My least favorite part of podcasting is the fact that it's not live. I miss live broadcasting, and I love live broadcasting. With this guy, there was so much fun and energy to knowing you can't you can't edit it, you can take it back and you've got to be on your toes and there's something really fun and enner about that. So maybe that means radio or doing something on television, but I do miss the live element. So that's we try to do that as much as possible here in the podcast. We don't edit hardly anything, but there is that thing when you know it's live, it's just got a little different. Oh yeah, yeah, I know you miss it too.

Oh but it gives you that. I mean, it's just a it's a rush knowing no matter what comes out of your mouth, you gotta go with it. And it's just that's why when I think you, I think you'll admit. I'm not throwing you under the buzz here, but I think you'll admit once you get into a recording mode you stumble. You're like, oh, let's do it again. You keep messing up because yeah, it totally gets in your head and I'm the same way. But when it's live, there will not be a stumble.

I love that I missed it, and my favorite part of podcasting just to be because I do like what you said in terms of having the editorial control, but I like that it's just you and me. I like that you and I get to sit across the mics from each other and just do what we do and it's not really about the news of the day. Necessarily, we do do that, but I feel like it's more about us sharing and the dynamic between us. I've always like my favorite thing about going to work every day when I was at Network was getting to sit next to you and have fun with you and enjoy what we're talking about together. It's the I just I think, and it's fun. In this environment. It feels intimate, it's just the two of us, and I really appreciate it. I look forward to recording every podcast every day.

Oh it's horrible. All right.

The next question is, would you guys ever do a reality show.

Under the right. Yeah, that's a big ask, is there under what circumstances would have to be?

Like if you asked us to do the Amazing Race or something cool like that, where we you know, we would consider, I think a reality show that was based on something fun and active and adventurous. But if you just want to have cameras in our apartments, that's a big hell no, Like absolutely not what we just want to have like you know, Life with Amy and TJ behind the scene. No, but other reality shows possibly, That is my answer.

All right, This next one, I think out of all of them, we got a million of this one. Actually, when are you guys going to get married?

Wow?

Look at the time, looks like we might have to wait until the next episode to answer. This was the most asked question.

Really the most Yeah, it was all over.

Look, let us give it some thought. We'll get back to you.

Tune in Yeah, tune into the next episode. We'll have our answer ready and we can't wait to answer that question and all the other she said it