Childhood friendships are often the most formative of our lives. But they change and evolve as we get older and enter different seasons.  Maureen, Anne and  Amanda have been friends since kindergarten. As adults, their friendships ebbed, and flowed as they went to college,  started careers, fell in love and got married. Amanda even became a pretty famous Hollywood actress. But then the three women found themselves pregnant with their first babies at the same time and it was a life change that brought them closer than ever.  That's when they decided to take their commitment to the next level.  They decided that the three of them would start a business together.  

Today we're talking about how to maintain a lifelong commitment, a lifelong friendship that starts at five years old and then evolves in so many different ways.  And how do you balance that friendship with launching a business together? 

Today's episode is something pretty magical.  Literally.  Today we're talking to Francis and Lindsey, a couple of married magicians who make magic together both on and off the stage.

What was supposed to be a few months of travel for Garrett and Jessica Gee quickly turned into a lifestyle and a career. The couple figured out how to become travel influencers, how to get brands to pay them and their young family to travel the world. Part of me wanted to find out that this wasn’t a dream...that traveling with three small children was actually exhausting and tedious, but the truth is that Jessica and Garrett make it seem easy, and beautiful. And in a time when we are all stuck at home for the foreseeable future, their nomadic family feels like the escapism we desperately need.

What would it take for a sixteen year old boy to hike the entire Appalachian trail with his mom? That's what we are talking about today with Jessica and Largo, the mother and son duo we chatted with last week about traveling the world as a family. 

Jessica and Largo saw their relationship and their bond change and evolve during their months together on the trail. Sometimes Jessica was the caregiver and sometimes it switched to Largo. Sometimes they talked about everything under the sun and sometimes they were silent for days on end.

They bother emerged from this journey changed and ready for the next phase in their relationship when Largo leaves the family nest.

As a parent, how do you transcend the regular run of the mill parent/child relationship? How do you turn your bond into a real friendship? When Jessica's two kids were young, she pulled them out of traditional school, began homeschooling them and started traveling abroad.  They left the U S a decade ago in search of a more authentic path. Since then they've lived in an RV in Europe for three years, learned to sail and crossed the Atlantic together as a family.

This has been challenging and insane and also delightful and wonderful.

Today we're talking to Jessica and Largo, her 17-year-old son, about how this lifestyle has strengthened their bond. This is the first in a two-part episode. In the first episode we dig into the foundation of their relationship and next week are getting into the mother-son duo's decision to hike the Appalachian trail together.

Janae and Tricia are sisters in law.  That means they're related by marriage, but they didn't have to choose each other. They didn't have to choose their bond or their commitment or their friendship. But they did. And for years, the two of them have been each other's rock.  Back in September of 2023, this bond helped them get through an unimaginable tragedy.  

Trisha was camping with her family in upstate New York when her nine-year-old daughter Charlotte was abducted from the campground. Over the next 47 hours Trisha and her family went through the worst possible thing that parents can go through. Janae, took over the reins of the investigation.She knew that she had to be the strong one. This is a story of courage and bravery and love. It’s also the story of the commitment between two women who would stop at nothing to bring a little girl home.

Vince and Madison met the way a lot of millennials are meeting these days—on Hinge. 

Vincent Madison, it met in the way that a lot of millennials are meeting these days.  On hinge.  They went on one date and they've spent every single day together since then a year and a half ago.  

Vince and Madison are still young and they're still toeing the waters of this commitment thing, but they are in it! Not too long after they got together their relationship went viral when Madison posted a video of Vince crying on TikTok. It went viral and racked up more than 4 million views. 

Buddy Woodall is serving three life sentences for murder. In January he'll celebrate his 22nd wedding anniversary to his wife Kristy. When Buddy was sentenced he asked Kristy to divorce him, he begged her to divorce him. She refused. She says she will stay with him until the very end. This is their love story. It starts when they were 15 years old and Kristy hit Buddy in the head with a volleyball in gym class. It takes them through the difficult early days of their marriage when they were just trying to make ends meet and it follows them through Buddy's arrest, his trial, his sentencing and now his time in Telfair State Prison. Buddy and Kristy believe they have a love that transcends the prison walls. 

Back in 2018 we talked to Kristy and Buddy Woodall. If you don't remember that episode, on March 16, 2001 Buddy Woodall was arrested for the double murder of Lavelle Lynn and Robert Van Allen which would be known in Georgia as the Labor Day Murders.  Buddy is currently serving three consecutive life sentences and still claims his innocence. This week are are catching up with Kristy to talk about how she still holds onto hope for Buddy's release even though it gets harder every single day.

Erica Cerulo and Claire Mazur met in college in 2002.  They bonded instantly.   Fast-forward to 2010 when they founded the popular fashion and design website Of a Kind.  Since then the two women have created many, many things together, most recently the publishing company, 831 Stories. 

They are business partners and lifelong friends.   This season we're expanding the scope of Committed.  Because not all commitment resides within a marriage.  In many ways a business partnership is like a marriage and frankly, a marriage is also like a business partnership. 

There's so much we can learn from all different kinds of commitment. And that's what we'll be exploring in the coming months. Today, we're going to talk to Claire and Erica about creating and building things together and the lessons a business partnership can give a romantic partnership.