Married for over 11 years, we have found a way to creatively grow together as a couple. More than just traveling together, we’ve added learning together to help us continuously grow. After all, how we think can determine who we are.
When my husband asked me if I wanted to attend a 3-day seminar on learning about millionaire mindsets in Singapore, my eyeballs practically rolled all the way to the back of my head. He loves to learn, and while I admire that, I’m not fond of sitting for hours in an air-conditioned function room hip to hip with people I barely know. Where’s the fun in that?
I fixed my mind on not going, in fact, I gave him so many reasons on why I couldn’t go. Unfortunately for me, he can be very persuasive.
During his last seminar, he met this couple, and he asked them why they attended talks together, what he really meant to ask was-Why not just echo what you’ve learned to your wife? the gentleman said to him, “If you go as a couple, then when you come home, you are already aligned to each other’s thinking on whatever new things you’ve learned”.
Well, those were the magic words right there, there might as well have been some smoke and string music that came with his response, because immediately after that, for every seminar my husband attended, he really went out of his way to involve me.
As I write this, we are sitting in a coffee shop at KLIA2 enroute to Manila. We’ve just concluded our 4th learning date. Yes, he calls it a date, because that’s exactly how my husband packaged and sold the idea of going to the seminar with me in the first place, He told me that it would be fun to go and learn together as a couple, and that it would be like an extended date.
I love to travel, and I still think that it’s still the best way to learn and experience the rich and interesting culture of a country. To see it through the eyes of a local, and to hear their colorful stories instead of reading it from a book gives me a better understanding of what their life is really like in the present.
So going back to how it’s actually still a date, I feel very blessed to be married to a husband who makes sure that every learning date is fun and interesting for both of us. A day before the talk, we took a short city tour and ended with an italian dinner at Marini’s on the 57th Floor of Petronas. It had a grand view of the other Petronas Towers, and that was definitely the highlight of this trip.
I’ve only heard about 12 course meals. So it was like making an imaginary tick on my bucket list. Each course was elegantly and carefully described as it was served. Instructions were even provided on how to eat certain dishes, or else you would wonder why you were having your pasta served in front of you wrapped in “food grade” plastic tied with a satin bow, or find breaded and deep fried olive balls hanging off a plant, as the server tells you that only the olive balls are edible, and that we should not eat the plant. I had to stop myself from bursting out laughing at the thought of us actually eating the plant. That was definitely one for the books. This was one of my husband’s many surprises that makes our learning trips more memorable.
In the seminars that we’ve attended together, I’ve discovered that we pick up different learnings. He picks up only what resonates with him, and the same goes for me. I think it’ a good thing that we’ve started going together, because I’ve realized that some things I’ve experienced in the workshops had to be experienced personally in order to gain a deeper understanding of how it really affects me. While it’s easier to explain what you know, it’s harder to explain how some learnings affect you subconsciously.
My husband and I celebrate being together as a couple ,and we love learning together. We go out and bring back new ideas that help us grow. We apply what we can to our work and to our family to bring things to the next level.
When we start seeing things in a different perspective, and have the awareness to change things for the better, we grow. Once we complete a seminar together, our new found knowledge gives us the freedom to choose whether we are willing to make the necessary changes to improve our lives.
When we travel together on these extended dates, my husband and I spend so much time talking, bonding and just learning more about each other, and we’ve been married for over 11 years.
It takes a lot of time and effort to grow together, because good marriages take a great deal of work, and you must want to work things out, but according to my very wise husband, if we learn even just one new thing that can make our life better, then everything would have been worth it.
On one of our learning dates, we met Christine Foong Wong, who is a life coach and Trauma psychotherapist who has done works on over 30,000 people. We attended her seminar and workshop in Singapore, and it has helped changed our mindset as we discovered how a lot of what we do as adults are affected by our childhood.
It is an eye-opening session that allows us to find out what is stopping us from achieving the results we want in different areas of our lives. If you are interested in understand more about how childhood traumas affect your relationship with money and family in order to become a better parent and a better partner, you should definitely attend this seminar.
Date : June 27, 2015 ( Saturday )
Venue: Ortigas Foundation Library
Time : Doors open 12:30 – 5:45 ( Talk starts 1pm )
The Ticket Price is Php8,000 per person, but if you register now, thru http://bit.ly/kidtrauma you can still avail of the Buy One and Bring One friend promotion for the same price. Enter “GrowingwithJenny” on the discount code field during registration and get an additional Php1,500 discount.
You can check out the Spectrum Education Official Facebook Page for more information.
Growing with Jenny 
