We Had No Idea What We Were Building

Today Brian and I have been married for 22 years, and I spent part of the day doing something that will really make you feel every single one of those years: digging through old pictures.

I wanted to make a video for our anniversary, so I started pulling photos from different parts of our life together. There we were ridiculously young, looking like we had any idea what we were doing. Then came babies, toddlers, little kids and eventually teenagers. There were different houses, different jobs, vacations, nights out, ordinary afternoons and more than a few fashion choices that probably should have stayed buried wherever I found them.

By the time I finished, though, I wasn’t really thinking about how much we’ve aged or how funny some of the old pictures were. I kept thinking about how much life exists between the people in those first pictures and the people we are today.

We have come so far.

Not in the straight-line, followed-the-plan, checked-all-the-boxes kind of way. I don’t think we ever really had that kind of plan. We were young, we loved each other and we started building a life. Most of the time, we were making decisions based on whatever season we happened to be in and whatever our family needed from us at the time.

There were years when Brian worked his nonprofit job during the day and played music at night while I pieced together work around our family. I worked at a golf course before sunrise. I booked bands. I made hundreds of mason jar salads in our kitchen and tried to turn that into a business. We raised babies while trying to pay bills, build careers and somehow remain actual human beings ourselves.

None of that felt particularly profound while we were living it. It was just life. You get up, you go to work, you take care of the kids, you figure out dinner, you worry about money, you make another decision and you hope it was the right one. When something doesn’t work, you try something else.

There were plenty of times when we didn’t know what the next step was. Somehow, “We’ll figure it out” became less of a statement and more of a way of life.

“We’ll figure it out” became less of a statement and more of a way of life.

And we did figure it out. Then life changed and we figured it out again.

Growing Together Doesn’t Mean Growing the Same Way

I think that’s one of the things 22 years has taught me about building a life with someone. Working together doesn’t mean always moving in the same direction at the same speed. Sometimes it means creating enough room for two people to become who they’re supposed to become without losing what they’re building together.

Brian and I have taken very different paths professionally. He has spent decades committed to the same nonprofit organization, growing within it and dedicating a huge part of his career to work that matters to him. There is something I deeply admire about that kind of commitment.

My path could probably best be described as the scenic route.

I’ve changed jobs, changed industries, tried businesses, followed ideas and occasionally launched myself toward something new before I had completely worked out what the something new actually was. Eventually I found HR. Then leadership and coaching. I wrote a book. I started a podcast. I built an indie author bookstore. Motivated Savages grew from an idea into something that has become a very real part of my life.

There has never been a moment when Brian looked at my latest idea and told me I needed to become more like him. He has let me be the person who changes direction and gets excited about possibilities. When I’ve come to him with another one of my “Okay, hear me out” ideas, he has listened. Sometimes he asks questions. Sometimes I’m pretty sure he’s wondering what I’ve gotten us into now. But when something matters to me, he has consistently given me the space to find out where it might lead.

I’ve learned to appreciate that more as I’ve gotten older. Supporting someone doesn’t always mean understanding why they need to do something. Sometimes it means knowing them well enough to recognize when they need to find out for themselves.

Supporting someone doesn’t always mean understanding why they need to do something. Sometimes it means knowing them well enough to recognize when they need to find out for themselves.

We’ve had to learn how to do that for each other, and we certainly didn’t get it right from the beginning. There have been times when we were incredibly good at being a team and times when we had to work much harder to remember that we were one. That’s part of 22 years too, and I wouldn’t want to rewrite our story to make it prettier than it was.

The Years That Didn’t Look Important

The difficult years count. In fact, I think they count for quite a lot.

It’s easy to look at your life from where you’re standing today and give all the credit to the big decisions or the obvious accomplishments. Looking through these pictures reminded me how much of our life was actually built during periods when nothing particularly impressive was happening.

It was built when we were tired. It was built while we were working jobs that served a purpose even if they weren’t part of some grand career plan. It was built when money was tight and the kids needed something and there were more responsibilities than hours in the day. It was built in conversations at the kitchen table, in compromises, in mistakes, in changing our minds and in getting up the next morning and doing it all again.

Those years weren’t the space between the important parts of our life. They were the important parts.

Those years weren’t the space between the important parts of our life. They were the important parts.

What Our Kids Saw Us Build

Our kids grew up in the middle of all of this, which is something I think about more now that they’re older. They didn’t grow up watching two people who had adulthood figured out. They watched us figure it out in real time.

They’ve seen Brian show up year after year for work he believes in. They’ve seen me completely change the direction of my career. They’ve watched us work hard, get tired, try again and occasionally decide that something we thought we wanted wasn’t actually right for us. They’ve watched me go back to learning as an adult, write a book and then somehow decide that wasn’t enough and start building a hundred other things around it.

I’m glad they saw that version.

I don’t want them to think adulthood is about choosing the correct path early enough and then staying safely on it forever. I want them to know that they are allowed to become different people as they learn more about themselves. They can change direction. They can start something before they’re completely sure how it ends. They can fail at something without making themselves a failure. They can build a life that makes sense to them even if it doesn’t look exactly like everyone else’s.

I don’t want them to think adulthood is about choosing the correct path early enough and then staying safely on it forever.

Most importantly, I hope they’ve learned that the people who love you should make room for your growth, not require you to stay the version of yourself they first met.

The people who love you should make room for your growth, not require you to stay the version of yourself they first met.

Maybe Motivated Savages Started Long Before I Knew It

Maybe that’s why our anniversary feels so connected to Motivated Savages this year.

When I first started Motivated Savages, I thought I was creating something new. The longer I do this, the more I realize I was really giving a name to something that had been developing throughout my entire life. The resilience, curiosity, willingness to change directions, obsession with people’s stories, belief that we can become something different and refusal to accept that where we are today has to be where we stay all came from somewhere.

They came from these years.

They came from our family, from the jobs and side hustles, from raising kids and paying bills, from the people who believed in me and from the times things didn’t go according to plan. They came from learning that there is rarely one correct way to build a meaningful life.

I didn’t fully realize that when I recorded the first four episodes of the Motivated Savages Podcast, but looking back now, those episodes tell a surprising amount of the story behind these pictures.

The first episode, Hard Truths, Leadership Lessons, and Personal Growth, goes back much further than our marriage and explores the experiences and people that shaped me long before I understood how much they would influence the wife, mother and leader I would eventually become.

The second, From Survival to Strength, moves into the years when Brian and I were deep in the work of building a family. Those were the parenting and hustle years, when life was less about chasing some perfectly defined purpose and more about doing what needed to be done. I understand those years differently now. What felt like survival at the time was teaching us resilience, creativity and how to keep moving when we couldn’t see very far ahead.

By the third episode, Career Growth, Learning to Lead with Purpose, the story begins shifting again. I had found HR and started recognizing strengths in myself that I hadn’t always known were there. New opportunities began appearing, and I had to decide whether I was willing to take them before I felt completely ready. Brian was there through those decisions too, reminding me in his own way that sometimes you don’t need to know exactly where the road leads before you start walking down it.

Then came Episode 4, From Idea to Movement, and suddenly this thing called Motivated Savages had entered the story.

I love that those four episodes exist now because together they capture something I couldn’t have known when I recorded them. Motivated Savages wasn’t the beginning of a new story. It was another chapter in one Brian and I had already been writing for years.

Motivated Savages wasn’t the beginning of a new story. It was another chapter in one Brian and I had already been writing for years.

You Don’t Usually Know You’re Building Your Life While You’re Building It

We tend to measure our lives by the moments that are easy to name: the wedding, the babies, the new job, the promotion, the book, the business, the big decision. But most of a life happens between those things. It happens on completely ordinary Tuesdays when you don’t know you’re creating a memory. It happens when you’re worried about a bill, sitting beside someone on the couch, driving a kid somewhere, laughing about something stupid or talking through another decision you aren’t sure how to make.

You don’t usually know you’re building your life while you’re building it. You’re just living.

Then, if you’re lucky, you get a day like today. You sit down with 22 years of photographs and see the whole thing compressed into a few minutes. Suddenly, the distance between where you started and where you are becomes visible.

Most of a life happens between the things that are easy to name.

Look How Far You’ve Come

So maybe there is something in our anniversary that belongs to anyone who happens to be in one of those messy middle chapters right now.

Don’t discount where you are because it doesn’t look impressive yet. You don’t have to have everything figured out. Your path is allowed to change, and the person beside you is allowed to change too. Some seasons will be about growing and others will simply be about getting through, and you may not understand what either one gave you until years later.

Keep building anyway.

Every once in a while, turn around and look at where you started. Not because you should live in the past, but because it’s incredibly easy to forget your own progress when you’re always looking toward whatever comes next.

Today, I looked back.

I saw two very young people who couldn’t possibly have understood what 22 years together would contain. I saw our babies become adults. I saw careers take shape, dreams change, ideas become real and two people become many different versions of themselves while somehow continuing to choose each other through all of them.

We had no idea what we were doing. Sometimes we still don’t.

But Brian, look what we built.

Happy 22nd anniversary.

We’ve come so far, and I can’t wait to see what we build next.

Want to Start at the Beginning?

If you’d like to hear more of the story behind these 22 years and the experiences that eventually became Motivated Savages, the first four episodes of the podcast are a pretty good place to start.

Episode 1: Hard Truths, Leadership Lessons, and Personal Growth
Where the story begins, with the early experiences and lessons that shaped who I became.

Episode 2: From Survival to Strength
The marriage, parenting and hustle years, and what those seasons taught me about resilience.

Episode 3: Career Growth, Learning to Lead with Purpose
Finding HR, learning to trust myself and discovering what leadership meant to me.

Episode 4: From Idea to Movement
The point where years of experiences, ideas and lessons finally started taking shape as Motivated Savages.

Twenty-two years later, I can see something I couldn’t have seen from the beginning.

None of it was wasted.