100 Episodes! Thanks to my incredible husband Jeff for doing all the behind the scenes to make my podcast happen.
Jeff shares love and relationship insights today and how you can do it your way.
Welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law Podcast, where my mother-in-law, relationship expert and master certified coach, LeAnn Austin, will help you create more love and connection with your daughter-in-law and everyone else you care about.
Hey y’all, welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law, Episode #100: Do It Your Way with Jeff Austin
I love observing and connecting with other humans, especially noting how they feel and implement love into their lives and their relationships. And since today is episode #100, who better to have on the podcast than the guy who helps make these podcasts happen, my cute Jeffrey. He does the editing, he adds the intro and outro, he makes it happen. And I am so grateful for him for helping me on this podcast journey, and helping me get them done, and out, and sounding great. So here we go…
we have my incredible husband Jeff, sharing some beautiful love and relationship insights with us today. All right, hon, tell us a little bit about you.
There’s nothing really to tell about me. I’m just a misfit on the world, trying to figure things out. It’s a good thing I have a life coach wife that coaches me through life.
Perfect, honey. All right, question number one: How do you incorporate love into your business and life, and how does that impact your relationships?
Well, I try to be someone who people want to be around. They love to be around. In doing that, I like to look at people as individuals. We all have different needs. We have different desires. We have different paths, different things, their tastes and it’s good that we all have those different, you know, ways we want to be or paths we want to take.
I think sometimes there are good paths, there are better paths, there are bad paths. And when we’re with someone that we love and others, of course, we want them to be on the good path, the better path. But sometimes what we consider a better path may be a bad path for somebody else. So, it’s good to just let everybody find their own paths. At the same time, you know, we should all be willing to understand there may be better paths out there too, not just so honed in on just our own one little path.
So often we can learn from each other. That’s one thing I really try to do is if someone’s doing something, I like to wonder why are they doing that? Why are they acting that way? Or why are they that way, which really brings me to another thing that I really like in relationships and people is, I’m often interested in someone’s story.
Now, sometimes you might see someone, maybe they have tattoos all over them and you’re like, why would they do that? Or, you know, they may dress a certain way or whatever. A lot of times I become very intrigued and what is that person’s story? And when I’ve actually been able to find some people’s stories out. They become very interesting. And you kind of can connect with that person. If you can, you know, find out what what makes them tick. What what is their history?
Some people have some amazing histories. And if you can learn about that person’s history, you can actually connect with them a lot deeper and stuff. One thing I do not like, I don’t like cookie cutter situations where everybody is in a situation where they have to be the same. They have to dress the same, you know, they had to act the same. They do things in the same order, all this stuff. And there are times when, of course, that is important and that is, you know, part of that situation or whatever that you all wear a uniform or whatever, but I like it when when you’re in situations where everybody can kind of be themselves a lot more, instead of be kind of a cookie cutter type thing.
And as I’m thinking about that, one thing that does come to mind is, it seems like in society, a lot of times we’re told this is how you have to do this. And you have to do it this way, and I’ve always been a person, once someone tells me this is the only way to do something, I’m going to, like, find out a different way to do something just to prove that it can be done a different way. And I don’t necessarily mean I’m doing it in a defiant, rebellious type of way, but it’s, I’m almost doing it in a way of, hey, maybe there is a different way, maybe we need to like, expand our thinking, the way we look at things, and if I can share a couple stories that are on that.
My mom wanted me to play the piano so bad, and I don’t know if it’s because she wanted me to play the piano that I fought her on it, or if I just didn’t want to play the piano. I think more that I just didn’t want to play the piano. And I remember working with several piano teachers and it was always, you got to sit up straight and you got to keep your fingers curled, and you got to do all this and do all this and do all this.
And I still remember, you know, the sit up straight one. Why does sitting up straight have anything to do with whether you can play a piano? And I had the opportunity to go to a concert with Dudley Moore. If you remember Dudley Moore, an actor, he was in the movie Arthur. I got to see him perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto 21 at the Salt Lake City Symphony Orchestra. And when he sat down at the piano, he was humped over, had very bad posture, but he was an amazing piano player. One of the, you know, the best live performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto 21 that I’ve ever seen.
And also looked at one of my favorite guitar players is Eddie Van Halen. When he was starting the guitar teachers would teach him you can’t wrap your thumb around the neck of the guitar and you can’t you can’t crank your amps up you’re going to blow them out. And all these things he wanted to do they were telling him he can’t do, but he went ahead and did them anyway and he became one of the best guitar players there are out there. He also showed other guitar players there’s a whole different way to play guitar.
Another one of my guitar heroes was Gary Richrath from REO Speedwagon. He has a beautiful guitar solo in one of the songs where he drags the pick of the guitar down the string and makes kind of a scratchy sound.
And so these kinds of people, they kind of did things outside of the box, and it worked. And so sometimes yes, there is a better way to do something. There may be an only way to do something, but sometimes just because this is the way we were told it has to be done this way, it doesn’t mean it always has to be done that way. So go ahead and be yourself and find your own paths.
In kind of wrapping this question up, the other thing I love is I love different cultures. I love different races. I love different nationalities. I love different religions. I love all these different people doing different things, different ways.
And I’ve said this before, it’s kind of like, if you’re making that pot of soup, you add all the different spices in to make the soup good. That’s how I look at all the different people in the world. If we were all the same, it’d be a very bland, nasty tasting soup. So, everybody else and all their ways, all their cultures to me is like the spice of the soup of life in the world.
I love that. And I love that about you babe, that you do love so many different things and try in different ways and it just makes life more fun for us too. Yes, it does. Awesome.
All right: question number two: what is something you love about you and why? This is one of those feely questions that you got me into. I’d much rather answer just a technical question, good stuff. I think one thing I do love about me is I’m very comfortable with me. And that doesn’t mean that I’m the way I am so I don’t have to change because I feel good about it. I’m always trying to change and we all always should be trying to become just a little bit better. We should be trying to learn how to be a better person in our relationships. Always trying to be better. So that’s not what I’m saying at all, but it’s okay if this is who you are to be who you are. Now obviously, if it’s, you know, if you are a negative, who you are, then that needs to be changed, but don’t be afraid to just kind of be yourself.
I don’t like , you know, I don’t like big groups of people, you know, big crowds. It just drives me crazy when there’s lots of people and chaos. I prefer very small, intimate groups of people. I love being around family, doing things with family and friends, but I also at the same time, I prefer just, you know, two friends or two family members or three or four, you know, smaller groups of family and friends.
So even though I do like to be around people, I love to be around family and friends, I like it in smaller groups of family and friends. Because I feel like when you’re in a smaller group, you can have that more one on one intimate, you know, relationship with people. You get to know their stories a lot better and get in touch with them.
I also enjoy just being alone, just by myself. And that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be around people, I enjoy my my alone time too. Yeah. So it doesn’t matter if I’m with someone, I’m good. If I’m alone, I’m good.
Some of my favorite times, are’s just out on a river fly fishing. And if I’m alone, I’m happy. But if I’m with small groups, if I’m out with our sons, I’m out with my brother, my dad, his family, you know, these small groups, it’s just that solace and just kind of the oneness with either myself or with the others that I really enjoy. Nice. Well, and you love to be with Nutmeg too. And I do love to be with Nutmeg.
All right, number three: I love talking all things daughter-in-law. Any thoughts you have about having a daughter-in-law? Yeah, I’ve always joked many times that I’m glad we didn’t have daughters, because sons were easy to say no to to me, but I’m afraid if we would have had daughters, all they would have to say is, Daddy, can I have this? And I would have been, yes, you can, before they can finish the sentence. I don’t know if I could have said no to daughters. And so having daughters-in-law is very fun. I like the fact that we have two amazing daughters-in-law right now, of course, that, you know, and you’ve talked about them before, but I feel like both of them have helped given our son’s direction. And I think a lot of times a woman in a relationship can help provide direction for a man. So I appreciate that with our daughters, and not that either one of our sons didn’t have any direction. I’m not trying to say that, but there just can be a connection there, you know, between a couple. Yes.
But with our daughters-in-law, I honestly feel like they are our family. Yes. I don’t look at them as someone who’s just joined the family. They are a part of our family. And I want to be, you know, a dad to them. And I want to treat them like a dad should. By any means, I’m not trying to become their dad. I would never, you know, that’s not what I’d want to do. And I don’t think that’s the message I’m portraying either. But, I also want them to know that as far as I’m concerned, they are one of my daughters and I would treat them just like I would a daughter. I respect them just like I would one of my own daughters.
We’ve talked about this before, I’m not a huggy person. I’m not gonna run up and just hug somebody I’m just not a huggy person. Now I will welcome a hug from somebody, if you are a huggy person I’m not gonna shut, you know, push you away from your hug. So I have a hard time just hugging our daughters, you know, just running up and hugging them. At the same time, if they were huggy girls and they were wanting to hug me every time we met, I would surely welcome that, but I want to give them space, because I want them to be able to have the relationship how they see it too, not just how I see it. So if they’re not hugging people, then I’m not going to run up and be the one that initiates a hug to them.
And so I hope they know that I love and appreciate the strength they are to our whole family, especially to our sons. Yes. And fortunately, we’re probably going to have grandkids. In fact, we got one on the way. And those grandkids are going to be like, if we hadn’t had daughters, they’re going to be extremely hard to say no to. I’m afraid grandkids are going to get just about whatever they want from grandpa. But we’ll just keep that a secret. Absolutely. I love it. All right. Anything else you want to share? Uh, nope.
All right, so last question, what is your favorite question or quote about love, and how have you used it for yourself and in your relationships? Can I do two quotes? Yes. Okay.
So the one kind of comes to back what I was talking about, being comfortable with yourself, who you are, and be comfortable with being by yourself sometimes too.
And so that quote that I like it’s: “Always be yourself, but always be your better self.” And that’s from Karl G. Maeser. And then the other one is really not a quote, but I do like this one. It’s that any two people in a relationship, any kind of relationship, any two people can have a strong, healthy, loving relationship if they’re following the teachings and gospel of Jesus Christ. Hmmm, nice.
All right, well thank you, babe, for being here on my hundredth podcast. I cannot believe it. We couldn’t have made this happen, I couldn’t have made this happen without Jeff. He has made it happen and I’m so grateful and it’s fun to have him on my hundredth one.
So, as he said, be your better self. Something to think about y’all. Have a good one, and thanks babe for sharing your love insights with us today. Here’s to doing it your way and love.
Just a reminder, this is your last call to receive a $50 Amazon gift card. If you’ve purchased my Lovin My Daughter-In-Law book and leave a review on Amazon by December 31st, you’ll be entered in a drawing to receive a $50 gift card.
So just screenshot me the Amazon review with your name and email it to lovinmydil@leannaustin.com.
Thanks so much for listening to the podcast y’all, and here’s to another hundred.
If you enjoyed this podcast, check out LeAnn’s Lovin My Daughter-in-law program, where she coaches and teaches a variety of ways to have more fun and connection in our relationships. LeAnn also shares the five secrets she uses to create a beautiful relationship with me and her other daughter-in-law. She’s the real deal. I highly recommend you check this out.
And, if you want one easy question you can keep in your back pocket and use to increase the love you feel for your daughter-in-law today, go to leannaustin.com and get the one question.
