 This weekend we went on grandpa's boat and given the successful trips that we did this year and last year, I had nothing to worry about. Of course there were gonna be some challenges. It's a tight space, we were on time constraints. The wind, but we were prepared. We had drinks and snacks and hats and towels and again, we've done this before. But the second we got out of the car, we should have known that things were gonna get ugly. Judah started crying the second I handed him over to Mima so that I could go to the bathroom. He's not normally like that, bad sign. Once we got all loaded up and driving away, I don't know where my watch started buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. Like I was getting a thousand text messages, wouldn't stop buzzing, another bad sign. And then the floodgates opened from there. Judah wouldn't let me put him down, which resulted in a solo tubing ride, which resulted in a tube getting capsized, which resulted in going underwater and swallowing a lot of lake water and getting really scared, which resulted in more tears, which resulted in us realizing that hand foot and mouth had spread to everyone in the house. Even though that's mostly an innocuous virus, it makes everyone cry. Oh, and did I mention the wind? 30 mile an hour gusts or more, 35. A stressful experience, doesn't even do it justice. The only picture I got from the trip was when we were all loaded up in the car and just almost like a joke like, hey, fun boat day guys. So why recount this really trying experience? Well, on our way back to the dock when we were done, I tried to shed some light on the morning. I said, grandpa, you remember the 2001 NFC championship game when the Vikings played the Giants and they lost 41-0, 41 doughnut, nobody saw it coming. A well-performing team gets to the game before the Super Bowl and they show up and they play their worst game of the year, not even close. What's crazy is that within five minutes of kickoff, anyone watching the game knew that this is what was going to happen. This game is over, this game is over, first one. It was going to be a disaster. You could just feel it. That was today on the boat, 41 doughnut. We had a laugh and everyone felt a little better about it. And then grandpa said, you know, after that game, you know what happened next fall? The fans were back in the stands, loving the team, ready to cheer them on. You don't forget that it happened, but they're still your team. And in that moment, an analogy really helped. When we got Judith's diagnosis in March of 2020, several people sent us a poem about Holland, about how when you have a child with disabilities and it's like planning a trip to Italy and then the plane lands and you end up in Holland. It's not what you expected. It's not as romantic as you thought it would be. But Holland's really nice and the people are nice. And once you take a second to step back, you're still on vacation. Analogies are super helpful with your kids to say, the sleep and the water and the food that we're insisting that you eat. Why do you need it so your body can turn that into calories and recharge and run the complex systems to make you a happy, healthy human being? No, you relate to something that's familiar. You gotta charge your battery. If you don't have any battery, I love car analogies and back in the day when I was beginning this health and wellness journey starting to eat better and take good care of myself, I said that my body was a Ferrari. And no, I don't want that donut because I wouldn't put sugar into the tank of my Ferrari. I think this is a Ferrari. Another car analogy, you're born with one body. Think of it like a car. You don't get to switch cars every five years like you do in real life. Put good fuel in it. Get a car wash every now and then. And yeah, of course, like take it on some trips. Go see the world. In our work now, we use analogies to help people understand the product that we sell, the Vitamix. What's up with the programs? Do I need them? Are they automatic? And so for this, we use a microwave analogy quite a bit. You know, the popcorn button on your microwave, push the button, walk away. Well, it's gonna get your bag of microwave popcorn if that's even a thing anymore. Cooked pretty good, but it's just a timer. It starts and stops automatically. Same thing with the programs on the Vitamix. You still kinda gotta be there to monitor it so your popcorn doesn't burn. Another way we rely on the microwave to explain the Vitamix is setting the timer to get walk away blending. You put something in the microwave, 30 seconds start, walk away, same thing with the Vitamix. When we make our green juice, 90 seconds start, turn up to high speed and walk away and it'll stop when it's done. Another work analogy that we use. What is it that you guys do exactly? We're like the guys that you see at the State Fair that demonstrate the Vitamix and sell to people walking through the fair, but we do that on YouTube. We're like demonstrators, pitchmen. How do you find the right analogy if you just notice what you're feeling in the moment of a difficult situation, something that's complex and challenging to explain that feeling or that sort of situation? I don't need to explain to you how to come up with an analogy. It just kinda happens. And what's, I wanna know, what's some analogies that you lean on that you say in your head that helps you understand and get through the world? Leave a comment, love to see it. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next week.