Game-Changing Strategies for Couplepreneurs Who Refuse to Choose Between Love and Success

Speaker 1: 0:00

Imagine waking up every day, feeling energized and aligned with your spouse, both at home and at work. Our goal with Couplepreneurs is to help you build life and business and love all together without having to sacrifice one or the other.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Alright, welcome back Uncommon Freedom Fighters. I'm Kevin Tinter, joined by my beautiful and brilliant co-host and my wife Becca Tinter. Hey Beck. What do we have going on today?

Speaker 1: 0:33

We have got five unconventional strategies for couplepreneurs who want an amazing partnership in love and business.

Speaker 2: 0:41

That's right. We definitely know running a company with your spouse comes with unique challenges, but it also comes with incredible opportunities when you get it right and these aren't your typical date night tips.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Oh no, we are talking about the behind the scenes nitty gritty, habits and mindset shifts that make all the difference.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Imagine waking up every day, feeling energized and aligned with your spouse, both at home and at work. No more tension and we're stepping on each other's toes and even when there's friction, being able to resolve it peacefully our show is called uncommon freedom because we're fans of unconventional approaches.

Speaker 1: 1:21

So we'll dive into five game changing strategies you can use right away. First, why divide and conquer can be terrible advice for couplepreneurs. The critical conversation you need to have ASAP for your relationship. Our non-negotiable practice for staying in sync. The uncommon way we manage our energy for peak performance. And why an abundance mindset is non-negotiable for success.

Speaker 2: 1:47

Alright, so the first one ditch the divide and conquer mentality. Bek, what advice do we have for people who think from that standpoint?

Speaker 1: 1:55

You know we struggled with this one, because we do actually divide and conquer within our household, but we also can see pitfalls, and so we want to talk about how it can often backfire, and one of the things that comes to mind is that it can often create separation for people instead of unity. So you're building a life, you're building a business together and you end up rowing two different directions and building two different things instead of actually finding that unity. So what we think is that you can choose areas to be in charge of, but there should always be a unified mission direction that you're going, so that you are rowing the same direction and also that you're making time to make sure that you are staying on the same page yeah, and I think communication is really important.

Speaker 2: 2:35

Absolutely, I will say that this year I feel like we've actually intentionally divided and conquered over the past year with some of our professional development. You joined Brooks Queen's Table. This is actually your second year of doing that Well.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Second year of the Mastermind, first year, correct.

Speaker 2: 2:53

And that comes with a bunch of ladies trips. Guys, husbands sometimes will join and just hang out at the hotel. But because we travel enough as it is, we're very sensitive to being away from our kids and so we just kind of decided that that's gonna be the way that you do professional development. I've done a number of things with the John Maxwell group, which typically guys or I mean it's co-ed some of them, but but I'm doing them by myself and once again, that is us dividing and conquering, but still on the same mission of you know, hanging around high level running with lions, as we say, and working on ourselves.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Well, we're bringing a lot of great content in as well, because we're in two different spheres of influence.

Speaker 1: 3:35

We're getting to know two different groups of people and learning different skill sets that we can bring in to work together. I will say it's both enjoyable to do it that way and also a little more challenging because, like, I'll have these incredible epiphanies and I'll try to explain it to you and it's not exactly the same as experiencing it. And I also think that when our kids are older and out of the house or just much further along, we'll probably do more joint mastermind types of things, because we'll just enjoy traveling more together.

Speaker 2: 4:01

I think and and once again, we talked last episode about seasons and so right now, the season we're in, we've got teen boys. You know one's about well, one is learning to drive, and we're just in the season where it's good for us as parents to be around more. Yeah, it helps reduce teenage temptations when mom and dad around versus a great babysitter or nanny. You know, if it was just Evie, our six-year-old, we could probably travel more and it wouldn't be the same type of thing. But just once again, looking at our season, that's what makes sense.

Speaker 1: 4:34

We also don't want to be gone from our kids too long and, as you know, many of you know, you know graduating kids being prepared for them to launch. You can also see that timing coming so quickly that, like we have very precious time left with some of these teenagers. So again, we want to raise our kids, we want to be around for it, and I think we're just making ourselves aware of that Now. We also travel together for our business a couple different times a year. If you have a business that you don't travel for or you don't travel together for, then you might find a little more freedom going to a mastermind together and doing some of that personal growth development together, just for us. That's the way it works.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Yeah, and the great thing anytime we do an event like that, we've all seen if we haven't been there ourselves we've seen the couple that's been married for a couple of decades sitting at dinner and there's like zero conversation going, and what we enjoy about events like this being a part of them, especially together is that it just creates a ton of Topics of conversation for us.

Speaker 1: 5:29

So let's talk about what is?

Speaker 2: 5:31

the power of identifying and leveraging complementary strengths.

Speaker 1: 5:39

Yeah, so complementary, meaning like you may not have the same strengths, but they're needed in your business or your family life, and one of you has it stronger than the other does. And so the first thing is figuring out what are you naturally good at needed in your business or your family life, and one of you has it stronger than the other does. And so the first thing is figuring out what are you naturally good at? You know I joke that I don't like spreadsheets. I don't really like numbers and finance. Could I do it?

Speaker 1: 5:53

Yes, have I done some of it? Yes, do I enjoy it? Absolutely not. It makes my eyes roll back in my head. And so it's not that you have to be the numbers guru in the family, but you are naturally good at it and you enjoy it, and so it's an easy lane for you to run in. And because I have you, I don't choose to be as involved as you know I have to be while I still have to have a pulse on those kinds of things. So, um, you had kind of like the concept of a sports team. What are you thinking with that?

Speaker 2: 6:19

yeah, so just understanding that, just like, especially, you think of a baseball team, a soft softball team, or a soccer team or a football team or, heck, even a basketball team.

Speaker 1: 6:30

Basically any team we can think of.

Speaker 2: 6:32

Yeah, yes, good point.

Speaker 1: 6:34

Any group sport.

Speaker 2: 6:35

Right. But specifically, you know, in baseball and football there's very specific positions that people play and there's different factors that make you a better or worse player at that position Size, speed, agility, your jumping ability, your throwing arm. You know different things like that. And just realizing, when it comes to a business, even just between a husband and wife, that we're probably going to have some differences Some will have more than others but realizing that, just like a coach needs to put people you know it's the Jim Collins not only got to get the right people on the bus, but we have to get them on the right seat on the bus and a lot of times, and you know we've had a lot of conversations with couples as they're coming into the business together.

Speaker 2: 7:18

They're like well, what does it look like? And our answer is it looks different for everybody. What's essential is communication, figuring out what you like to do, what are you good at doing, because some people might be good at something but they don't necessarily enjoy it. And there's a balance of sometimes you're going to do things you don't like because it's necessary, but maybe some of that stuff you can delegate. So just having that mindset. And then the other piece is you know you want to outsource everything else. So the things that need to be done that either you're not good at or you don't enjoy doing, or that they're just not high leverage, outsource it. Pay someone else to do it so that they can work in their genius and make you better than you would be if you were to do it yourself.

Speaker 1: 8:03

Exactly Like in our business. You know, making training graphics and things like that can eat up a lot of time, but they don't make us any money and I can do them. So I might for short term things, but most of the time we delegate that to our assistant, who does them better. And, um, it's just not, again, a good use of my time when I know how much I'm paid to do my job and I know how much I can pay someone else to do it. It's easy for you to delegate when you understand your value and what you contribute to your business, so that you're not just working on your business but you're working in your business and your strengths and also you're spending time with family when you're not working.

Speaker 2: 8:36

Right, right, and then we talk about you know what gives you energy versus what drains you. You know, this is something we actually still sometimes have some conflict about. This has to do with like collaboration and committees and things like that, and it took me a while to like I am not a good collaborator Some people might say perfect for a marriage.

Speaker 2: 8:59

Well, we've got that part. I can collaborate when necessary. However, I hate committees. I used to go nuts as a staff officer in the Marine Corps, where you have weekly staff meetings and you have staff meetings for staff meetings, for staff meetings, and that kind of stuff just drove me nuts and one of the reasons I realized I was not equipped to be a career Marine because the further you go up in rank, the more time you're going to spend in that and that kind of stuff drained me. It drove me nuts. It was so inefficient. And then I actually figured out through some type of assessment I don't remember which one it was, but it literally specifically stated you're not suited for committees and collaboration. I was like ding ding, ding, ding ding. It makes sense. Now, sometimes I will still collaborate if it's a project or a topic that I'm really passionate about. But understanding that that kind of stuff drives me nuts has allowed me to only participate when absolutely necessary in those types of things. What are your thoughts? What are some things that either give you energy?

Speaker 1: 10:07

or drain you.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Teaching and training others is definitely something that gives me energy Meetings without movement.

Speaker 1: 10:14

I'm someone who really appreciates efficiency, and one of my top five strength finders besides responsibility which is why I do some of those things that you don't like doing, probably out of responsibility is I'm also an activ activator, and so I love to help people take action.

Speaker 1: 10:29

So one of my passions like when I get something in my head that I want to see done I really want to do it quickly and I want to do it well and I want to see it to come to completion. I love finished projects, and so one of the things I get challenged with is when it's just discussion time and it lasts a long time, or I have an idea but I don't have the ability or I'm not the one making the decision to execute on it. That can drain me or bring me frustration. So I think for me, just being an activator means I want to see an engagement in someone that I'm teaching or training that they can take action on, or I want to be a part of something where I can see that it's going to be actionable in a short amount of time something where I can see that it's going to be actionable in a short amount of time.

Speaker 2: 11:07

Yeah, that's really good, and I think it's also a great reminder to not be afraid of assessments, because assessments have helped us make sense of a lot of things that didn't make sense until we took the assessment. Because whether it's the Enneagram, the DISC, myers-briggs, strength Finders. There's a lot of different things we've taken, but you take them and they talk about. Okay, these are things that you're going to thrive at and others that might you know things that just drain you.

Speaker 2: 11:30

They help you learn about yourself and you know, when you're in a position where maybe you're invited to a lot of like for me collaboration and committees and things like that and you don't understand, okay, I literally it sucks the life out of me Understanding that there's actually a reason for that. And then there's other people who just thrive on it, right, and it's helpful to have kind of this outside validation of there's a reason for that. And, granted, sometimes you just got to suck it up and do things, yeah, but realize you want to minimize the amount of time or only do that for high leverage things.

Speaker 1: 12:05

As we understand, you're not just a poopy pants exactly, exactly, but again when it comes to responsibility.

Speaker 1: 12:10

You know, one of our rugs or an area that I can lack emotional intelligence is when we're late to things. I hate to be late, I hate to let people down. I hate to not turn something in on time. I hate to not show up where I'm supposed to be. We've joked that one of my nightmares is not like a bad guy chasing me with a knife or one of my kids getting taken. No, I have nightmares that, like I'm supposed to be speaking at an event and I'm totally not prepared and I can't find my clothes or my shoes and I don't have makeup on and I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do. That's responsibility is somehow one of my top five strengths.

Speaker 2: 12:49

I. When you can't find your clothes, it's because I've hidden your clothes.

Speaker 1: 12:53

I'm never late for those types of appointments, so yes it's usually without you involved, so I can't blame you for that. But when you might be more laid back about getting somewhere on time, like Easter Sunday morning, it's for me I have pure anxiety because I hate not showing up. But I also really don't appreciate it when other people waste my time, and so I have to show grace in that area or be kind to people who, you know, just take life more easily than I do, and so that intensity can also be a challenge to work with all right, let's talk about, uh, delegation, because we talk about figure out, you know what, between the two of us, our strengths are delegate.

Speaker 2: 13:29

Everything else, there has to be a permission for imperfection. Now, it's also really important that we train people to do things the way that we want, as we have had different employees over the last 13 years. We've realized, you know, sometimes the fault is on us because we I didn't do a good job of saying hey, it's really important to me that my clothes get folded this way or hung back this way, or you know that this person this task does this, you know.

Speaker 2: 13:59

But the bottom line is, when you're the employee, you have the right employer, you have the right to ask for things to be done a certain way, but what we don't have the right of is expecting that people will read our mind and how to do it. There has to be an allowance for imperfection.

Speaker 1: 14:16

Yes, which we've learned the hard way and through growth. I think the other thing is just we've learned that saying I can't remember if it was Brene Brown or someone else who says you know communication of the results that you get, and so that saying is a reminder that most of the time when we don't get what we expect or want out of something we did not communicate well, and it puts that personal responsibility back on us instead of constantly being, you know, upset with an employee or a child or a spouse, because you know, if we're communicating well and checking for comprehension or understanding, then hopefully there's fewer rubs in that area and it moves you forward.

Speaker 1: 14:50

And then the other thing about delegation is regular feedback loops. So with different employees we've had, you know we can let too much time go by before we said, hey, how are we doing? How are they doing? But having a regular feedback loop, like a weekly meeting, is what we normally do with our main employee and that makes it a lot easier for us to just figure out if anybody's feeling off and to clarify expectations, hopefully before things get too challenging all right.

Speaker 2: 15:17

Let's talk about how to create synergy instead of silos in your life and business so good because we have been watching.

Speaker 1: 15:23

Unfortunately, a lot of marriages fall apart in this season of life and um, you know, we're in our mid, mid 40s and we've been married 25 years, and so we have kind of friend groups that are in that probably the same rough amount of marriage time, rough age, and we're watching it happen and not all of them are even at the empty nester stage yet, and it's really, really breaking our heart and it's happening for multiple different reasons. But I think one of the things that we see is when, when people who are committed and married to each other start to build silos in how they do their life and or their business, it's really easy to start feeling like you don't need the other person or that they don't belong or understand you. And there's a real danger there, because our goal with Couplepreneurs is to help you build life and business and love all together without having to sacrifice one or the other, and so for us, a mission is first right Aligning on that.

Speaker 2: 16:14

Absolutely. Yeah. So just aligning on mission, and we talked about the fact that it's okay to work in your area of expertise, but conversation and collaboration are a must, Otherwise we're going to end up going two different directions. And you know, for people we've we talked about this it's okay to have different interests and things like that, but when your life, when you start growing in different directions, that's when things end up.

Speaker 1: 16:39

And we'll give you a practical example. If you don't mind, it's going to be related to the two of us, I'll just share it.

Speaker 2: 16:44

I don't mind, but I don't know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 16:46

It's like when people say hey, would you mind?

Speaker 2: 16:48

doing something for me. I was like it depends on what that is, I know so, but last year, go ahead.

Speaker 1: 16:53

It was a great example of just a challenge that we went through, because Kevin has a lot of hobbies and he has a list. That is it.

Speaker 2: 17:01

Your live list Is that what you call it, instead of your bucket list, which I love and I probably need to work on adding more things to mine.

Speaker 1: 17:15

I just maybe my personality tends to be happier with like the way things are and not always wanting to shake everything up. But last year Kevin decided to commit to both writing a book which is quite a process and time consuming endeavor and take his private pilot's license, um, and work towards that, which is also a giant endeavor, and we had like discussed these in general, but we didn't really have a good heart to heart about what that would entail, the commitment on both ends, and we didn't really have a hey, are you cool with me doing both in the same year? You just kind of jumped in and committed to both things and then notified me, which isn't how we normally run our family.

Speaker 1: 17:46

And it was like normally I'm supportive because it's one of your things and I can handle one at a time. But last year, and even it has bled into this year, it's still, it's an area of contention. So we're sharing things like this because we're authentic. We do not have it all figured out Okay, we've just we're learning along the way.

Speaker 1: 18:02

I want to support both of those endeavors, but it has been a drain mentally and emotionally in some of our areas of working together and it wasn't our ideal situation, wasn't my ideal situation, where we literally laid out positives, negatives commitments and we're like I said to you, I can stand behind both of these adventures for the next one or two years, you know. So that's just a reminder that it doesn't mean I want to keep Kevin from doing those things, or he would keep me from doing something. But when it comes to big commitments like that time or finances, it's important to have those honest conversations and make sure you've got at least a support for or he would keep me from doing something. But when it comes to big commitments like that time or finances, it's important to have those honest conversations and make sure you've got at least a support for each other. You may not fully agree, but I'm in it with you.

Speaker 2: 18:39

Absolutely Just a great life experience. Thank you. I'm glad that we could provide a learning opportunity for everyone Real world experience.

Speaker 1: 18:47

I'm sure you'll have something to share on behalf of me sometime in a podcast.

Speaker 2: 18:53

Do we have any real world success examples, uh, either from our life, about coming together and not living a divide and conquer life?

Speaker 1: 19:03

I feel like most of our life we've had the joy of kind of figuring that out on our own.

Speaker 1: 19:06

I mean, even when we first got married, we were 21 years old.

Speaker 1: 19:09

Um, we were both in college, both working, and we could have easily just been like you're going to do this, I'm going to do this, but we just had a partnership and I don't know, honestly, how we figured it out together, but we just I think we were young, dumb and also, um, committed to each other, committed to our marriage, and we saw it as like a joint venture.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Yeah, and even though we both came from like stay at home moms and dads who traditionally went to work, um, what I appreciated about you is it wasn't like you said to me I expect you to do these things for me at the home, and then I didn't say to you I expect you to do these things for me outside the home. Like we just came together and said, hey, if there's dishes they need done, done, if laundry needs done, if the apartment needs cleaned, if you go to work, I'll go to work. You know, we just jumped in together. So we didn't do it perfectly, but I would say, because we started there, it was easier, when we brought you home as a police officer, not to feel like we couldn't figure collaboration out.

Speaker 2: 20:03

Yeah, even when I go back to when we first got married, you were a full-time student. I was not a student, but our shared mission was for both of us to finish our degrees because we had we had career aspirations that required a college degree. And so you you worked part-time, went to school full-time, I worked full-time and then eventually went to school part-time, but it was just. Once again, it wasn't like you're a student, I'm going to work. It was we. We had this shared mission together that just helped it be more of a team effort for everything that we were doing.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Yeah, and in our business we've seen couples do it really well and then we've seen them not do it very well. And sometimes they don't do it well because they come one spouse, you know, starts a business, another one comes home and they don't have a role to fit into or their skill sets don't transfer well to the business or their communication is a little bit off.

Speaker 2: 20:53

Or a spouse comes home thinking that they're basically retired now. They're a know-it-all. Yeah, either a know-it-all or that they're now retired and going to work when they want.

Speaker 1: 21:08

And the reality is, if you don't put the effort into a business, your business is gonna go backwards, so a lot of communication has to happen with that. And then we've had some teams to come into our business and bring come home and I think the ease for them is like their skills that they used in the real world translates into the business. Well, their communication is healthy and so they came in willing to do the work and also to learn. That was the other thing that you did when you were coming into our business. From being a police officer you had a lot of skill sets I mean Marine Corps officer, police officer, college degree. You know, dad, you already were successful in so many areas. But when you came into our business you were like, hey, teach me what I need to know, because I was a little bit ahead of you and I'm sure we had some friction there, but I don't remember a lot of it because you were so humble even though you were already very well accomplished. It made that transition easy for us.

Speaker 2: 21:55

A rare moment of humility for me.

Speaker 1: 21:57

Nah, we've always.

Speaker 2: 21:58

I feel like we've had a great journey, all right moving on to two and it's a perfect segue into the roles and goals conversation, Supporting to have that as soon as possible. What are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 1: 22:17

Well, again, I mean, there are critical conversations that many couplepreneurs avoid and we would suggest that they happen at your peril, because you just won't have them. And the longer you delay hard conversations, the worse things get. To be honest, I mean, even in our business we talk about this with our kids. We talk about it. Um, you know it's better to really self-assess things early, and often so we ask ourselves things like you know, how are we really doing? And also, do I have any blind spots that I'm not seeing?

Speaker 1: 22:43

Um, it's easy, easy to point out each other's blind spots, but we often don't see them, even saying things like hey, can I share something with you? You know what I mean. I think when either of us get asked that question, probably inside we're like sure you know, but if it's done well, then hopefully the communication goes smoothly. Also, giving someone else permission to give you feedback unless they already have it. You know, in a high trust relationship you probably don't need to say each time hey, can I give you some feedback? You know that takes time to build, but once you have it it's like hey, here's my observation. Um, and we've both done that a lot in our own parenting journey with each other and then also in our business. What about like the consistency of feedback and doing it early and often?

Speaker 2: 23:22

yeah, I mean, I think quick, regular, ideally as soon as the point of an issue coming up, having the conversation is better. Granted, it's also this is where making a list is important, because having difficult conversations right away and even in parenting, this is really important.

Speaker 2: 23:41

Um and like, for you, you're, you're not a night person yeah um, and so like having a conversation like this at night you know, after eight, nine o'clock with you, it's not a good time to do it um, and I'm not a first thing in the morning person as well. So you know, realizing okay, um, we want to have this soon, but it might need to be within 24 hours so you can find a better timing and I can just tell you, walking my faith out with Jesus.

Speaker 1: 24:08

That's not always easy for me because I like, again, closed loops. I like my windows and my computer brain to close down and when we have conflict or we haven't resolved something like, going to bed that night is hard and sleeping is hard. It's been a long time since we've had anything that serious, but when it is serious it's hard. Sleeping is hard. It's been a long time since we've had anything that serious, but when it is serious it's hard. Um, and I think, just trusting that the time we wait to have the conversation is worth it so we can come out better on the other side of it, if needed, and also knowing each other's personalities. Some people want and will try and need to process something right away, and some people they completely shut down and they're like I don't want to talk to you right now and I'm not ready. Yeah, and what we can see happen is one person chases the other and it just creates total conflict.

Speaker 2: 24:48

So, all right, let's talk about how to clearly define roles, responsibilities and expectations. How do you do this well?

Speaker 1: 24:57

how do we do?

Speaker 2: 24:58

this. It definitely conversation. It has helped us over time to identify our strengths and our weaknesses, especially as we worked together, especially within the business and within the family and the household. Figure out you know what needs to be done and who is better at a certain thing. You know there's a lot of you know roles that we kind of we slip into. But we start to understand okay, becca's taking care of you know this kid's school scheduling. I take care of car maintenance, exactly Because I don't understand anything about cars, exactly so don't care.

Speaker 2: 25:36

So having the conversations understand what needs to be done, who needs to do it and certainly within our business, you know, knowing who needs to do things is really important and then Delegating everything else that either we don't have the skill set for, we don't have the passion for, is really important and and trying to do things that we enjoy as much as possible.

Speaker 1: 25:57

Yeah, and also just knowing things are seasonal, like there might be a season where one person is going to do more of something in the Householder business than they used to do and that's just because they need to the other person's at capacity again thinking about Kevin last year a lot less capacity to do some of the things he would normally have done, and we've we've switched that out based on the season that we're in, and so it's just a good to not write that in concrete. Let it be written in pencil many times and then also to test it and iterate like, hey, we've been doing it this way for a while. Is it working? Great, keep going. If it's not, let's switch it around.

Speaker 2: 26:30

So, all right, some things that make it tough is family of origin. Uh, you know we've talked about this and we you know we just when we're, when we come into adulthood, most of us tend to think that the way our family did things is how everyone does things. Right, and you see, this pop up very frequently at holidays and how holidays are celebrated. Uh, but this, it affects all of our life.

Speaker 2: 26:53

So just identifying that, the roles that your family of origin had and the expectations that they placed on either you know, boys and girls, or husband, wife, or just anything, I mean this this is a real issue that needs to be addressed. The other potential challenge is not having diversity of strengths. I don't think this is a super common problem, because most people marry someone that has different strengths than them, or maybe as a couple, they don't have a strength that's necessary, and so it might be an important strength that neither one of them really has, like if you're two people who have no structure and you don't desire it you're going to struggle to have work-life balance and to build really or design a life like we're describing, where your business doesn't take over your family and your family doesn't take over your business.

Speaker 1: 27:43

So if you have two unstructured people married to each other, you need to get some help quickly.

Speaker 2: 27:48

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:49

Or if you're two very structured people like we are, then you need counseling for how you parent your children, because you know we parent our children with a lot of structure, a lot of design and a lot of organization and we have four very different kids and we need to also make sure our kids feel like they're in a home where they're cherished and they're valued and they have some flexibility and they can make some messes and things like that. So no matter where you come in from, you're gonna need some assistance, but if you don't have a balancing act going on between the two of you, you're going to struggle more in this area. So what are some things that we have found to make it easier to sort of navigate the differences?

Speaker 2: 28:23

And even just to figure out what they are. Yeah, I mean, we've talked about personality tests, you know strength finders, different things that are out there, even just the disc, which is super helpful. We've both gotten familiar enough with the disc, where we can very quickly identify with a high degree of accuracy if someone is a D, an I, an S or a C and just within our marriage, and it's super helpful to have that perspective and some of those assessments.

Speaker 1: 28:50

Well. So I think the disc is the one where it's like this is who you are in natural and then this is who you are in stressful situations. Because you know again, we're all at our best when we're like going with the flow, but when stress comes up which it always will in business, marriage, family life then we often our personalities shift a little bit and it can be like why are you acting that way? Well, that high stress is causing you to go into being a driver where you want to control everything and everyone, um, where someone else might go a different direction under that same pressure.

Speaker 2: 29:18

Coaching and counseling are two other things, oh my gosh, very helpful in counseling, you know, just getting that objective third party that can identify currents, you know, the under the, under the surface currents that tend to surface over and over and cause a lot of conflict is really, and then being a part of, like a mastermind or a high level group.

Speaker 1: 29:40

You know your eagles group that you referenced. The point is, when you're trying to run with lions, they will expect you to grow and help you grow, versus being around people that are not interested in that and they will let you sit and wallow and they'll watch you destroy your family or your business and not necessarily want to participate in contributing to you being a better version. So a lot of it is who we surround ourselves with and whether we have the ability and the desire to get better in some of these areas.

Speaker 2: 30:09

And then on the downside, unspoken expectations are deadly. Expectations are very dangerous. Unspoken expectations are especially dangerous because they lead to significant amounts of resentment. So we just want to make sure that you know we try when we have, we try to communicate expectations and and and then talk through them. So I have an expectation that you're gonna do something and I need to communicate that number one and then we need to figure out is that something you're on board with or not, or do I need to adjust my number one? And then we need to figure out is that something you're on board with or not, or do I need to adjust my expectations?

Speaker 1: 30:47

Exactly, and this is where we can see with like work-life balance. You know, someone may be super committed to the business and diving in and headlong and loving it, but the family may be feeling a little bit neglected and, without an honest conversation, that one spouse is going balls to the wall and the other person's building up resentment over time and they're not having an actual conversation about it or even in the business, like hey, I'm working a ton, you're not working a ton. I thought we were doing this together. So having that honest conversation will help you either get out of that messy situation or getting ahead of it is even better so you can prevent it and that's why the quarterly check-in is such an awesome tool to help us stay on track and hold us accountable right.

Speaker 1: 31:27

Yeah, it's really the power of the time together and using quarters to break up the rest of the year, right. So the goal is that we go from year to year, actually moving the dial forward in business, marriage, parenting, community faith. Like I hope I'm not the same person next year that I am this year. I hope I'm a slightly better version. But looking a year ahead is really far out in the future. And then the day by day is like it's hard to see changes.

Speaker 2: 31:52

It's hard to see improvements.

Speaker 1: 31:53

It's hard to catch the blind spots and one of the things we've learned through our coaching is just that there's a medium frame of reality which is not super far in the future and not right in front of your face, and I feel like monthly is kind of the most natural to work through. But it helps to break it into quarters so that you're not um, it's not too far ahead or too far behind for you.

Speaker 2: 32:12

Yeah, and then, um, some action steps for having this conversation in your relationships. Uh, is making an appointment to connect? Uh, we've done this. Typically it's driven by you, but you'll literally send me a calendar invite for kevin back connect time. Um, and this is not a physical connection, the fun type that's why it goes on the calendar exactly.

Speaker 1: 32:32

You don't have to do the physical.

Speaker 2: 32:33

I'll take it and shake my butt or something, I'll take it but the literally just saying once again we say, if it's important, calendar it. Yeah right, it doesn't decrease the importance, uh, by having to calendar something right, it just actually shows this is a placeholder, this is important, it doesn't mean we haven't talked at all, that I have to make a calendar appointment with my husband.

Speaker 1: 32:55

That's not what we're saying. It's not like I never talk to you and the only way I can talk to you is with a calendar. It's like I usually have a stacked up list of things that I've been writing down for a couple of days, like these are things I need to make decisions on, we need to make decisions on, but we have to have conversation and we talk to each other. But we don't always get like uninterrupted conversation time where we can make a decision and move forward on something um, or gain clarity or prepare for something that's coming up in the schedule, and so sometimes it's like, hey, I need you, I need 15 minutes with you sometime today. When can we do it?

Speaker 1: 33:24

And the other thing is just speaking to the physical. If you're calendaring these kind of appointments but you're letting your sex life go, or the intimacy side, then either get that on the calendar or start making that more of an automatic connection, because neither one is more important than the other. You need to have the relational connection time to make life go around and you absolutely need the intense intimate time to Make everything stick together and protect what is most important. So for us, our relationship with Jesus is first, our relationship with each other is second, and whenever we get out of order in that whether it's parenting or business it gets really messy yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:03

All right, guys, we have so much material we're to have to split this episode into two episodes. So today we talked about ditching the divide and conquer mentality to create true synergy. We also talked about having the roles and goals conversation as soon as possible and to revisit it quarterly. Next episode we're going to talk about starting a daily alignment practice so that you can stay in sync. We're going to talk about managing your energy like a pro athlete for peak performance and how to cultivate an unshakable abundance mindset in life and business. So think about the two that we talked today. Pick one of these and then be prepared next week to compare all five and figure out what is the one that you need to focus on.

Speaker 1: 34:48

Now, if you found this episode helpful, please share it with another entrepreneur couple in your life. Plus, if this was up your alley, you have to get a copy of Kevin's latest book, the Seven Disciplines of Uncommon Freedom, and I love that book so very much because it's not only written by my best friend, but it is chocked full of incredible principles that will revolutionize your life, your family, your faith and your business. It actually it does have the potential to help pretty substantially.

Speaker 2: 35:14

The feedback has been very positive. So, yes, and one of the things I'm most proud of is having a hero and now a friend of mine, someone I've looked up to for many years john c maxwell. Endorse the book, if you like him I think you will love the book. It'll be right up your alley. So you can grab a copy on amazon. Make sure you leave a review for me. Five star, we'll see you. Yes, a five star review, or don't leave one at all. Yep, and we'll see you next week for part two.