January 13, 2025 • 44 mins
Merideth and Craig Bennett are a couple that have made it their mission to help other couples to achieve a great and thriving marriage. As they say: A thriving marriage is the cheat code for leveling up every other area of your life.
They will share key strategies to achieve, and repair if necessary, your marriage.
www.roadoflifecoaching.com
Inspire Vision Podcast is broadcast on K4HD Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Inspire Vision Podcast TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Inspire Vision Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
They will share key strategies to achieve, and repair if necessary, your marriage.
www.roadoflifecoaching.com
Inspire Vision Podcast is broadcast on K4HD Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Inspire Vision Podcast TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Inspire Vision Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek
(00:22):
the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any
suggested ideas.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
At the end of the day, it's not about what
you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what
you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up,
who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.
Thanzel Washington, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is
to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Do the same.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Meredith and Craig Bennett, Hey, welcome to the show.
Speaker 5 (00:58):
Thank you so happy to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Yeah, I'm excited about this and as I have so
often shared with other folks, I don't like doing a
formal introduction because I think it's more important for you
to share your story with the audience and definitely less boring,
So if you don't mind, I love for you to
kind of share your story and how on earth did
(01:21):
you get to this point of doing what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
It's a great question. It's an interesting story.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
Yeah, it's funny too, because we talk all the time
about we're going to tell the story here in a second.
But had we planned this story ahead of time, it
never would have ever turned out this way. But when
you look back, you're like, oh, I can connect the
dots to how we got here, but you never would
have been able to plan all that out to get
to this point. So, yeah, we're former corporate employees nine
(01:50):
to five. We met at the same company. We worked
for the same company. That's where we met. And you know,
during the pandemic, companies deciding what they were doing and
everything was in turmoil, and our company was no different.
And they decided that they were going to close the
office that we were both working in and they wanted
to relocate us further away from back out West, further
(02:14):
away from all our family and friends, and and so
they said, if you want to move back out West,
you have a job, and if you don't, then you're
gonna have to, you know, find other arrangements for yourself.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Kind of a bye bye, yeah kind.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Of yeah, And so we really had a decision on
our hands. And initially that was a really difficult decision
for us because we were very much the grew up
with the mentality of you know, you go to school,
you get good grades, you graduate, you go to school again,
you get good grades, and then you graduate, you get
a good job, and you say for retirement, and you
have the corporate job, you climb the ladder, all that
(02:51):
good stuff, and so that's the that was the life
plan that we were on, and it was a kick
and stomach when that was almost like, I guess we
were forced to make a decision whether we wanted to
continue that further away and be unhappy, potentially unhappy, I
guess we don't really we were already a little bit
unfulfilled in our roles and so yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
And so it's interesting because we were on that sort
of default life plan that we'd learned growing up, and
we were checking all those boxes right, like by all
of society's milestones and measures, we were successful. But to
Craig's point, you know, inside we weren't feeling super fulfilled
in those corporate roles. And then when this opportunity came up.
(03:35):
It was a very stressful decision. We didn't really know
what we should do. And at that same time, my
dad was diagnosed with cancer and it had spread, and
we thought it was going to be his last Christmas.
And so we drove home seventeen hours to be with
my family for Christmas that year, and on that seventeen
hour drive back to where we lived, we made the
(03:58):
decision that we were not going to move west and
move farther away from our family, because, you know, we
were given that the gift of perspective with my dad's
my dad's sickness, and that really helped us make the decision.
Like our parents weren't getting any younger, and his grandmother
is certainly not getting any younger, and we moved out west,
we're going to see a lot less of them, And
(04:19):
so it really gave us the perspective we needed to
make what was a very difficult decision. And I can
remember we were walking around our neighborhood after we had decided,
and we're both very plan oriented people, like we like
to have a checklist and work our way through a
plan when we're just trying to figure something out. And
even though we didn't have a plan of what we
(04:40):
were going to do next. It just felt like the
right decision inside to leave the company, even though we
didn't know what we were going to do. Even though
it was very scary, there was something almost peaceful about
the decision that it just felt like the right thing.
And interestingly enough, after we made that decision, my dad
(05:02):
got to I guess, with the second cancer, which is
actually good news, and he got treated for both of
his cancers and for the next almost four years was
very healthy. And so we got those four years with
my dad because we moved home and he passed a
couple of weeks ago, but it was a gift to
get those last few years with him. So it's interesting
when you look back how that all worked out for us.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
It's amazing sometimes how serendipitous life can be. And obviously
we can attribute that to a higher power.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Very much, very much. So yeah, yeah, it was interesting
because it was one of the biggest lessons I took
from that part of our journey was that intuition listening
to your guy. Even though, like she said, we're very
planful people. We like to have a we like to
have our ducks in a row. Before we execute on
something you know, and that's you know ingrained in us
(05:52):
since we were kids, and fortified through our corporate world,
our corporate jobs. But going through this journey, it really
unearthed in me this power of my intuition and starting
to listen to it more and trusting that if you
follow what your if you follow your guy, you follow
(06:14):
your happiness, everything else just starts to click into place.
It just starts to align for you. And so that
was a really big lesson I.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Took out as part of the journeyfication and what type
of business were you in? I mean, you probably had
different roles, but what were you doing where It sounds
like you both had master's degrees or at least close
to that, But what were you doing.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
We were working for an energy company and so I
was working in the inclusion and diversity group within HR
and he was working in health and safety.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
All right, So, how on earth did you get to
where you are now? And what were the experiences and
so forth that brought you to the point where you
felt like you had the ability in the background to
teach what you're teaching.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Well, we actually started, like we said, we had zero
plan and so we started doing some research and it
seemed like most people that were jumping into entrepreneurship at
that time were jumping into real estate, and so we
jumped into real estate investing, trying to replace our corporate income.
So we started a business. We hired a business coach,
we got a website, we did the marketing, you know,
(07:23):
we invested a bunch of money to do all the things.
And as we started trying to build that business, we
realized that we were miserable, like absolutely hated what we
were doing, and it was starting to bleed into our relationship,
which had historically been very very strong.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Yeah, it was a strength that for me, our relationship
has always been the rock, the foundation for everything else.
Like it's always been a strength. And when we started
this real estate investing company and we started becoming miserable
and a little bit snippy with each other, and like
there was a little bit of friction between us, which
is not normally that that's when it was like, okay,
time out, this is not good. This is this is
(08:03):
a non starter for us. We have to have a
conversation and what are we doing here? And we were
really unhappy because like it wasn't fulfilling to us. It
was similar to the corporate world we had just left,
except we just weren't making the corporate salaries that we
had just left behind, so it was even worse, really,
and yeah, so we just said, you know, we had
a hard discussion and said, look, this is not working
(08:25):
for us. We needed we need to pivot. And what
we realized was we didn't do the work at the
front end when we left our corporate jobs to understand
because we're embarking on this whole new life for ourselves, Yeah,
what is it that we actually want? What are we
going after? And who do we want to become in
the process, Like, who do we want to be in
this world? We didn't do that work at all, and
so we just jumped in willy nilly into like chasing
(08:49):
chasing income, which is never the right move. And what
we realized was this is what needs to happen. So
when we we we closed up shop, we put that
company to bed. We called that money that we invested
investment payment for a lesson learned, Yes, and we embarked
on a journey of personal growth and understanding what it
(09:13):
is that we want this world to be for us.
So what we want out of this world, who we
want to be in this world, what we want to
give back to this world. And so that was the
journey we went on for the next I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
For years, but we spent We closed that business and
spent the next six weeks traveling around the southwestern US.
We went to a couple of conferences, we went hiking
in Zion National Park. You know, we just kind of
gave ourselves permission to just be ourselves and decide who
we want to be so we could figure out what
we want to do. And it's a little wonder the
(09:43):
first business fails since we had no idea what any
of those answers were at that point. So it's of
course in hindsight that business failed. We didn't know the
kind of life we wanted to live, so how are
we going to build a business to support that? And
so we spent the next couple of years really trying
not to focus the income, but trying to focus on us,
who we were becoming, what we wanted our life to
(10:05):
be like. And in that process, we were attending various
conferences and retreats and seminars and things like that, and
people kept coming up to us and asking like, hey,
you're doing this together. It's very cool. You seem to
have a very strong relationship. What's your secret, how do
you do it? What do you do that makes you
so connected? And so we would, you know, have those
(10:26):
conversations because they were really fun for us. But it
wasn't until at one of these events one of the
people hosting the event said, I'd like you to speak
on stage at my next event about relationships. And that's
when we said, huh, maybe that we do have something
to offer in this space more than just these ad
hot conversations all over the place.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
And it was.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Almost a validation that we needed that we do have
something valuable to offer. And because of that request, we
had to sort of take a step back and almost
codify how we do relationships. And that was the first
step I would say, into this into this space.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
That we're now.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Isn't it interesting that you know, we go through college
for those that do or whatever it is that we're doing,
and we get that degree and we're out there working
and yeah, we can be successful at that, and yet
what really comes out is those life experiences, and at
some point in time, those life experiences help us to
(11:29):
develop an entirely different.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Approach completely one percent, like one eighty degree difference.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Yeah, So so now you're just really helping marriages. You're
helping folks and marriages relationships to.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
Do what strengthen the relationships, reconnect, bring fun and joy
back to their marriage so that they can build their
dream life together. Because like it's our superpower. Like we've
leveraged our relationship to build our dream life and we're
still building it obviously, but it's when you have a
relationship that is basically you're not spending all your time
(12:07):
fixing problems, but you're just maintaining you're maintaining the relationship.
It requires so much less effort, which frees up all
that energy to build your dream to focus on the
things that matter in your life. And not only just
do you have that energy, but you've got someone else
with that energy, and it's exponential. So you've got an
(12:28):
exponential force that's now building towards something greater. And it's
just a really cool.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
It's a cheat code.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
It's a cheat code for life, and that's what we
help people with.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah, and you have that, you have that quote in
you on your website Thriving Marriage is the cheat code
for leveling up every other area of your life. So
here comes the question to my mind. You know, research
is showing that marriages are diminishing. In other words, our
younger generations are not getting married. They're they're preferring to
be single. And that type of thing. Have you found
(13:00):
and is your experience that literally marriage is a better
situation to be in if in fact it's a healthy one.
And as you say, does a thriving marriage really level
up every other area in your life versus just being single.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yes, that's my experience because I was single for a
decade before I met him, and it's a complete transformation
in how my life feels and what I'm working toward,
and the support that I have to know that you've
got someone on the same team, rowing in the same direction,
like locked arms with you, walking walking up this mountain together.
(13:43):
It just just the the peace of mind that you
get that you're not in it by yourself. It's a
game changer. It was a complete game changer for me.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Interesting. So, you know, another question that comes to my mind,
and we always talk about, you know, here we are
in this situation, how do we repair our marriages? What
advice would you give our young people or even older
people that are still single, that are thinking of getting married.
What advice would you give them when they're developing that
(14:15):
relationship to make sure that that marriage is going to
be more on a positive note than potentially negative note,
because there's so many people that rush into it, get
married thinking that, Okay, here's who I'm marrying, and within
a year's time or less, all of a sudden they
married someone who was literally an impostor or they themselves
(14:40):
were living in an impostor's life, and the other person
realized that too. So do you ever work with single
individuals who are thinking of getting married or getting into
that relationship and what are some of the things that
they really need to look for and do.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
In terms of what they need to do? Yeah, for me,
the number one is they need to be themselves. They
need to not be who they think the other person
wants them to be. And so one small example of
this for us early on. It's funny, it's a simple thing,
but to me it was a big aha moment that
(15:17):
when we were getting to know each other, he was
asking me do I like Star Wars? And in my experience,
most guys seem to like Star Wars. Again, all the
TV shows and movies make it seem like all the
dudes love Star Wars. I'm not a giant Star Wars fan,
so I wasn't sure how to answer the question. Do
I say yes and just suffer through all the Star
(15:38):
Wars movies with him, because you know that's what you do.
Or do I actually show up as who I am
and he can decide if that's, you know, an important
thing or not. And so I hesitated with how to
answer that question, and then I decided to be brave
and to be myself and answer it honestly and said,
you know what, Star Wars is not really my jam
(16:00):
and he's like, ah, maybe neither, which was not the
answer I was expecting. But you know, had I not
shown up as myself and given him a dishonest answer,
you know, part of our very beginning foundation would have
been built on not true to me, inauthenticity for me.
(16:20):
And so that's just a very you know, small, minor example,
but you can see how those things easily pile on
when you're trying to be the you know, I really
liked this guy. I wanted him to like me. So
you want to be the person that he is going
to be accepted. And I think that's also just human nature.
One of our deep intrinsic desires is to belong and
(16:42):
sometimes we get a little confused in that, and we
show up as who we think will be accepted and
feel a sense of belonging. And when we do that,
what we're actually doing is fitting in to a group
or into a relationship. And when we fit in, the
person who's receiving that love is actually not us, it
is the person we're pretending to be. And so even
(17:03):
if he were to love me as the Star Wars
loving human, I'm not going to receive that love and
I'm not going to feel worthy of that love because
I know he's putting that love on someone who likes
Star Wars is not actually on me. And so I
think the most important thing to do when you're starting
our relationship is to be yourself. And even as we
(17:23):
progress through a longer term relationship have longer term marriage,
usually the number one reason we find disconnect and distance
in a marriage is we're not letting each other in,
We're not being honest with each other, We're trying to
protect the other from the stress and what's keeping you
up at night. And you know, you think you're helping
(17:44):
by not putting that stress on the other person, but
the other person can feel that there's something going on
and that you're not sharing it. So as humans, we're
meaning making machines too. We make stories up. You're going
to make up a story, but why I'm not sharing
that And I'm doing it the goodness of my heart
to try and protect you. But that's creating a distance
between us. And so it's that willingness to be brave
(18:07):
and be vulnerable and be uncomfortable and share the things
that you know. Maybe you're a bit worried that the
other person isn't going to like in you, but showing
up as your authentic self is literally the only way
to build a strong relationship and be able to feel
love from another human.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Well, and you mentioned that you went through some personal
development and you both decided to do that. What type
of process was that for you?
Speaker 5 (18:33):
So it was really we didn't really have a plan
for it. It was really just kind of a like
a shotgun approach almost like we just we didn't really
other than we knew that we needed to know what
it was that we wanted our life to be like
so we need to do some of that work. But
one of the things we eventually discovered on this process
was just going to conferences, reading books, listening to podcasts,
(18:56):
and the things that resonated for us. We pull on
that a little bit more. One of the things that
really came up for me in particular was learning about myself,
understanding who I am. And I think that would be
my answer to your previous question would be not just
be who you are, but actually do the work to
understand who that person is and then stay true to
(19:18):
that person, because I think staying true to that person
is one thing, but if you don't know who that is,
then that's really tough to do. So I think the
first step is one step further beyond that is like
do the inner work, do the personal growth, read the books,
listen to the podcast, go to the personal growth events,
and learn about who you are and what makes you you?
What are your values? What do you want to be
(19:40):
seen in this How do you want to be seen
in this world? Who do you want to become in
this world? What do you want to give to this world?
What is your gift? And what do you want to
be known for and do all of those things, and
understand that about yourself and then never let that go
and it'll evolve and it'll grow as you grow, but
never comprom those things about yourself. And so that was
(20:03):
the journey that we.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Went on, and in the spirit of full disclosure, we
almost stumbled backwards into personal growth in the beginning because
we went to a real estate conference that we thought
was like just a regular run of the middle of
real estate conference that really had a lot of personal
growth to it. And then we were part of a
real estate mastermind that had a lot of personal growth.
So we didn't in the beginning seek out the personal
(20:24):
growth so much as seek out the real estate information.
And with that came back the personal growth. And once
we sort of got a taste for that, then to
his point, we started pulling on those threads.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
It's really funny when you go on this journey of
entrepreneurship and figuring out kind of a different way than
maybe how you grew up to live your life. It's
funny how things line up for you. We talked about
like you can't connect the dots looking backwards or sorry,
looking forwards, but you definitely can looking backwards, and personal
growth and the amount of work required on yourself was
(20:58):
something that I did not I did not understand that
that was going to be the biggest part of this journey.
I thought it was going to be, Oh, you're just
going to create a business and make some money and
go on and do your thing. But your business and
what you end up creating in this world is going
to be limited as far as what you're able to
(21:19):
as a person or able to do. And so you
really need to work on yourself, get yourself to a
higher level so that you can then bring all your
business and everyone else around you to a higher level.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Well, and you know, when you talk about personal growth,
and again, as we talk about people that are in
relationships right now, marriages, we talk about people who are
considering it, how important is it that both parties are
really open to and willing to go through that personal
growth Because, as you say, this is not that I'm
(21:51):
going to do this tomorrow and be done. I mean
I've been doing this for years and years and years
and years and still not even where I want to be.
And I look at that and I think, you know,
what what happens if you're in a relationship where the
other person isn't only to do that.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
It's huge because let's think about it for a second, Like,
if you're growing and the other person isn't, you're literally
growing apart. You're literally growing apart. If one person is
becoming a different person, they're growing and becoming the best
version of them, and the other person kind of stays
where they're at. There's a distance that's growing between you.
But if you both grow and become the people you're
(22:28):
supposed to be, you grow together. And so I think
it's I think it's critical in a relationship. And we've
seen it in this entrepreneurial world as we've joined different
masterminds in different groups and all our peers, and there's
a very very big difference between the entrepreneurs that are
going on this journey with their spouse and how they're
(22:50):
growing and those that are doing it on their own
and their spouse. Their spouse has no interest in that
side of it, and the difference in the quality of
the those relationships that we see firsthand.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Well, and you know, in your case, you kind of
both have decided to do things together. I mean, that's
kind of the impression I get, But what do you
How do you help couples that are very individual, very independent.
One person may really have a love for X y Z,
whereas the other person really has a love for ABC.
(23:26):
How do you help them to find that commonality and
really develop that strength And obviously with the personal development,
it may be that Okay, this is what I really
love and know this is what I really love.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
How do you help.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Them to get to the point where they are literally
connecting in a way that still allows them each to
maintain that individuality and accomplish the things that are important
to them.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, I think it's a both, and I think for
your relationship it's really important and that you feel, you
feel fulfilled and you do the things that fill you up,
fill your cop make you, you know, enjoy life. So
if you love ABC and your partner loves x y Z,
that's okay. You both need to go and do those
things separately if the other you know, you can also
(24:16):
bring the other one along or join the other one
and what they do if that works. If it doesn't,
that's okay. You need to do the things that you
love to do, even if that's separately, and you need
to find something that you can both enjoy doing together,
because it's important that you both feel fulfilled and your
cup is full and you have a strong sense of
self and do the things that you love to do
that's important for you as a person, so that you
(24:38):
can bring the best version of you into your relationship.
And you also need to find that dedicated quality time
together to do the things that you enjoy doing something together,
some way to have fun and I feel a sense
of adventure together And back to the personal growth. It's what,
especially with entrepreneurs, when there's only one person you know
(25:00):
in that entrepreneurial space and the other one is corporate,
because that is the biggest difference I have found between
the corporate existence and the entrepreneuri Your existence is my
corporate success wasn't limited by my level of personal growth
in development, but my entrepreneurial success is limited by my
growth my level of personal growth in development. So if
you've got one corporate and one entrepreneur, the corporate one
is probably going to be less invested in the personal growth,
(25:22):
but they still have to be open to it. They
still have to be willing to come along and do
the work. They don't have to be the driver of it,
but they have to be open and willing otherwise, to
Craig's point, you get that big distance.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
So how does an individual and I think you know
this is an important point, at least in my mind,
you had talked a little bit about really being who
you are, true to yourself, and if you're not that
that energy kind of gets fed over to Craig and
he's sensing and based on his perception, he's creating a
story on that. How do you help people to understand
(25:56):
that not only am I heading this direction and you're
heading that direction, but how do you help them to
understand that they are supportive and that literally, you know,
if you two had different things you wanted to do,
Craig was really supporting you. Although he was going his way,
he was really supporting you and vice versa. And how
(26:17):
important is that?
Speaker 5 (26:19):
It's critical? Like you, when you join forces with someone,
you're their teammate, but you're also their biggest cheerleader, and
so there are times where you're going to be their teammate.
You're joining forces. Like we do a lot of things together,
we're on the same team. We do that, but sometimes
we do we go on solo missions like life is
a solo journey. For we're being honest, Like, you come
into this world alone and likely are going to die alone.
(26:41):
Like you are the one relationship you have from start
to finish, and so you need to be you need
to maintain that relationship and be okay with that relationship.
And so when you go on that journey and you
go and run a marathon by yourself because that's something
you like to do but your partner does not want
to do that, then your partner is there to cheer
(27:01):
you on and say, hey, congratulations, how can I support you?
What can I do to help you? Like you know,
it's just being the person there to help them achieve
their goals. You don't necessarily have to run the race
with do it with them, but maybe you clap and
cheer them all when they cross the finish line.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
And you know what, at least in my experience, that
is so essential that you're doing that personal development work
so that you have the ability to be present and
to recognize that, you know what, I'm going to support
them because I love them. This is important to them.
And in no way am I feeling jealous or you know,
ignored or any of those things. You know, one of
(27:40):
the interesting things that I've come across as I've interviewed
so many people, as we get into you know, psychological
things and all these type of things relationships, is there's
always kind of that tendency to talk about what isn't working.
And to be fair with the professionals that have on
to college that have those degrees that are in there
(28:02):
doing marriage counseling or whatever counseling they're doing. Uh, there
are those that are just so excellent and they figured
it out. But there's also that situation where the traditional counseling,
the traditional coaching doesn't work. And what has been your
experience with that? And I know that you talk about
(28:23):
five different categories where it's not working, so.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Things like so we're talking broken trust and emotional disconnection,
those sorts of things. It's I think it's critical that
when I'll let you go, I'm gonna, I've got to
I gotta get my thoughts together.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
There's the there's the value of a marriage relationship.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
That's right, I'm gonna, I want to get my thoughts together,
that's right.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
I think we're all shaped by our past, right, we
all bring our experiences of the world the experiences that
we've had every into our marriage, of course, but into
every relationship that we're in, and we see the world
through the lens of our experience. And one thing I've
had to come to grips with is there is no
(29:20):
objective reality. There is no one universal truth because every
situation that everyone experiences is experience, is experienced through the
lens of their life to this point, and so there's
a lot of value in understanding what that experience has
been for you and how it's shaping your life today.
There's less value in living in the past and re
(29:43):
experiencing all of that. You need to understand how the
past has shaped you today and how you can change
those stories that you have. Because we all tell stories
that we talked about before, or humans, we make up
stories when we don't necessarily know the full hope of
the facts, but especially as kids, because as kids we
(30:04):
don't really understand life yet, and so when things happen
to us as kids, we tell stories, and that story
almost becomes truth in our brain, and we bring that
truth into our marriage, and so everything we experience day
to day we experienced through the filter of that story,
of that truth that we have and so that's why,
you know, I can get triggered by him not taking
(30:24):
the garbage out because of my past experience of I
don't have a good explanation for that one, but you know,
we we can. Sometimes something can happen in the present
that takes us back to a feeling we've had a
long time ago, because it triggers that feeling in us,
and it's important that we trace that and understand why
we're feeling that so we can reprogram that story.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Great example of this is we were hiking in Arizona
and he was hustling down the mountain. He's a billy goat,
He's very surefooted.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
On the mountain.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
I'm not quite so fast, and so he's kind of
jogging down the mountain and I'm having a hard time
keep and I'm getting really frustrated, really annoyed with him.
And why won't he's turn around? Does he not know
I'm not right there? Why won't he wait for me?
And so I'm getting really annoyed, and so then I'm
taking a deep breath, like logically, I know he's not
(31:15):
going to run down the mountain, hop in the car
or drive away and leave me here. Like, I know
for a fact that won't happen. So why am I
so upset with him in this moment? And I gave
myself some quiet time to trace that feeling, and I
had this sudden realization that I actually have a fear
of abandonment very deep inside from my past experiences. So
(31:36):
I'm seeing this situation today through the lens of my
fear of abandonment. And now I'm angry with him that
he's abandoning me on this mount and even though he's not.
And so then fast forward a few days, I have
to share with him that I have this fear of abandonment,
so that he knows that I have that, and going forward,
we can, you know, work on that together. He can
try to not abandon me and trigger that abandonment feeling
(31:59):
on them, and I can try not to feel that
trigger of abandonments. We both have an accountability there. The
point of the story being he was not abandoning me
on the mountain, but that's how I was feeling in
that moment, because I was experiencing that situation through the
lens of an old story. And so those old stories,
those old experiences are valuable from the perspective of how
(32:20):
are they shaping my experience with him today, and how
can I change that story, that narrative in my head
so that the next time we're going down a mountain,
I don't feel abandoned by him, because that's my accountability.
And I feel like historically, a lot of marriage counseling
spends a lot of time in the creation, in the
situations that created those stories, where we don't spend as
(32:42):
much time in the situations that created those stories as
much as we do in the awareness of those stories,
and then retelling reprogramming those stories so that going forward,
I don't feel abandoned coming down the mountain.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Yeah, And I think that's so true what you said.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
You know, it's a treaty.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I meditate. I try to meditate every day, and I
do a walking meditation for an hour. And one of
the affirmations that I do while I'm there is I
basically speak out loud to myself that those subconscious triggers
in my mind and the subconscious in my soul no
longer affect my emotions or my behavior. And it's interesting
(33:24):
that you know, as you say, they're there, they exist,
they come up, but to be able to get to
the point of mindset and consciousness to where when they
come up, you look at them and you go, Okay,
that's really a past experience that is not necessarily reality
here and now, and so you're able to put that aside.
(33:46):
And I love the fact, as you talk about, so
many times people keep focusing so much on that pass
rather than looking at the past, recognizing when those triggers
are coming up and then ignizing that that's all they are,
and that they do not have to affect our emotion
and they don't have to affect our behavior exactly.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
Yeah, you don't want to live there. We don't want
to live in the past. Happiness is in the now.
We want to live in the now. We just want
to go back to get to get through the issue
and learn the lesson and take the good from it
so that we can enjoy the past and build for
the future. And that's what that's what coaching does. That
Sometimes I think therapy maybe misses the mark on a
little bit. It's more living in the past and dealing
(34:27):
with that and judging up that a little bit more
and sitting in it a little bit more than maybe
you know that we would like to do so equipping.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
Yeah, what are some of the key strategies that you
use as you're working with couples.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
One of the key strategies one of my favorite. Two
of my favorite strategies actually, they're both around communication, and
the first one is what we call a connection conversation.
It's it's basically the letting them in conversation. It's going
back to what we talked about earlier. When we don't
share what's keeping us up at night, what we're afraid of,
what's stressing us out, what our dreams and our goals are.
(35:04):
When we don't share that stuff with our partner, they
start to make up stories and then those stories get triggered.
And so when you get on a regular basis, we
like to do this weekly. When you can weekly have
that conversation kind of at the end of a week,
download what was good about this week? Where did I
struggle this week? What's keeping me up at night? What
am I afraid of, and really let your partner in
(35:26):
on what's going on in your head. Then you can
start the next week sort of really aligned and on
the same page and not feel like you're got a
distance growing between you, but you feel really aligned at
the end of every week and to start the next week.
So that's fake my favorite connection building tool. And then
(35:47):
from a connection sort of maintaining perspective, I love the
check in question. So every night, as we're kind of
laying our heads down to go to bed, we'll usually
ask a very specific question. This doesn't work if you
say how is your day? Because how is your day
is going to probably get you a fine like a
very generic answer, or it's going to get you a
(36:07):
complete debrief download on the entire every single detail of
every single event of the whole day. When you ask
a really specific question of like what was the best
part of your day today, or what was your favorite
lesson you learned today, or you know, something really specific,
you'll get a really specific answer that you will actually
learn something about your partner. And especially when you've been
(36:27):
together a long time, it feels like sometimes you don't
always learn new things about your partner all the time.
But if you can ask really good questions, you're going
to learn. It's going to, you know, bring more color
to the context of your partner, and it's going to
keep you feeling connected. Because when you approach that check
in question with a genuine curiosity. Your partner feels like
you actually care and want to be a part of
(36:48):
their day, so they're feeling validated and you're learning about them.
So you're building a tighter and tighter connection by doing
this daily check in.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
And I think another strategy is going back to what
we tell talked about when we left our corporate job
and not knowing who we were. So one of the
strategies is and the relationship you have with yourself is
first and foremost the most important relationship you're going to
have in life. You have to get that right because
the love that you are able to give is limited
by the love you have for yourself. So it's really
(37:17):
working on and let's be honest, there's a worthiness epidemic
in the world, like most people do not feel worthy
of the things that they want in this life. And
so one of the strategies is really working on making
sure that we change the narrative, the stories, the things
(37:38):
that that little voice in our head comes up and
tells us we're not good enough. We need to address
that voice. We need to name that voice, and we
need to disassociate from that voice and make and understand
that we're not that voice, we're not those thoughts, and
that we are worthy of all those things that we
want in life. And there's a very you know, specific
exercises we do to make sure that we, you know,
(37:59):
start to address that voice and put that voice in
the passenger seat so that we can drive and get
to the destination that we actually ultimately want to end up.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Because when you don't worthy of love, when you don't
feel worthy of that relationship, you're going to sabotage in anyway.
So the all the communication tools in the world aren't
going to help if you're actually sabotaging your own self.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
And isn't it interesting how we don't feel worthy, there's
that whole sense of I'm not good and so forth.
In fact, it's interesting. I was before we got on
this podcast. I was working with an individual who has
a couple of young children and has an eight ten
year old son who was asking a number of questions
about religion, and he went to his English teacher because
(38:43):
I'm in Thailand, right, and so he went to his
English teacher and was asking some things, and the teacher
turned around and basically said to him, you're evil, you
were born in sin and boom boom boom, And so
you know, another is actually texting me and saying what.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
Do I do?
Speaker 4 (39:02):
And I thought about that. I thought, you know, how
often society, religion, philosophies teach us that we're not good?
And yet how do we help people? I mean, I
know how I do it, but how do we help
people to understand that, you know what you are not
only just good, but basically you are really good. You
(39:27):
have that internal eternal light within you that you just
need to recognize is there and start to take away
all of those other things that are impinging on that
and starting to remove them away. So you come to
that realization and Craig, as you said, you know, learning
to really love yourself.
Speaker 5 (39:44):
Yeah, it's all about changing that narrative because to your point,
we learned it in school. Like schools are set up
that we're in a competition and we're marked with red
ink can we get the F and we're not good
enough where? And I remember going home with a test
ninety five percent on that test, I got a ninety
five percent. That's pretty good, and I take it home
(40:05):
and out of the goodness of their heart, they're great parents.
But my parents would be like but what happened to
the other five percent. And so even from that point,
like I got a ninety five percent, I got a
really great grade on that test, but the message I
took was it wasn't good enough. I'd be perfect and
so and if they have the best of intentions, it
(40:25):
was coming from a place of love. It was them
just telling me that I was I was capable, and
that they were proud of me, and that they knew
that I was. I was capable to take on the
world and get one hundred percent on this test. But
that wasn't how the message landed. And I think that's
what a lot of people get as they grow up,
is that message that they're not good enough. Whether it's
a test, or religion or schools or wherever, you know, sports,
(40:48):
it's it's about changing that narrative. And we have to
just be consistent about it because it's it's been ingrained
in us for me forty years and for others, you know,
fifty sixty, seventy years, twenty years, it depends on how old,
but chances are it's really deeply ingrained in you. And
so it's gonna take consistent daily action of really going
(41:08):
in and doing that mindfulness and meditating and sitting with
those thoughts and really getting curious with them, not judging them,
but just getting curious with them and saying, Okay, why
do I feel this way? And asking yourself some really interesting,
curious questions, and then changing that narrative, changing that story
(41:29):
and being consistent with it, and finding finding stories and
things that you can tell yourself that are actually believable,
and reminding yourself of all your greatness, reminding yourself of
the home run you hit in Little league to win
the win the championship, reminding yourself of the spelling bee
that you won, reminding yourself of that time that you
came to that kid's defense when the bully was picking
(41:52):
on them, reminding yourself of how you've been a good
person throughout your life and doing all these amazing things.
That's what it's all about, is being consistent about rewriting
that narrative of how you are in this world.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Oh amen to that. And you know what amazes me
is time goes by so fast, and I think we
could go on for another couple of hours easily, but
my manager won't let me do that. So there you go.
So as we close, I have a final question that
I'd love for you to share with the audience, and
that is, what's the number one thing someone can do
(42:28):
right now to improve their relationship.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Take one hundred percent accountability for your relationship, whatever it is.
If it's your marriage, if it's your business partner, your colleague,
your girlfriend, your mother, or your sister, whoever it is,
take one hundred percent responsibility for the state of that relationship.
Because we grew up believing a good marriage is fifty
to fifty and any good relationship is fifty to fifty.
Fifty to fifty introduces a gray area whose job is
(42:54):
that who apologizes first. If each of you take one
hundred percent responsibility for the state of your marriage, you
don't keep score, you don't feel defensive, you don't feel attacked.
It creates a two hundred percent marriage where you're each
taking that one hundred percent responsibility and you feel like
teammates again.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Hey, thank you
so much for being on the show. And like I say,
there's so much we haven't even gotten into. I'd love
to have you on the show again if you decide
you'd like to do that, ladly, But meanwhile, I really
appreciate your comments, what you've shared, and it's not easy
always to share those type of things and to be transparent,
(43:33):
so I appreciate that too. And most importantly, you're making
a difference. I am convinced in the lives of many people,
and I think that's what's important.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
Absolute joy. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Well, thank you and folks, thanks for listening. Hope you
enjoyed it. Look forward to having you join us again soon.
This is doctor Dex saying no mistay
Speaker 3 (44:00):
At his days Ris Year
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek
(00:22):
the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any
suggested ideas.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
At the end of the day, it's not about what
you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what
you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up,
who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.
Thanzel Washington, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is
to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Do the same.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Meredith and Craig Bennett, Hey, welcome to the show.
Speaker 5 (00:58):
Thank you so happy to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Yeah, I'm excited about this and as I have so
often shared with other folks, I don't like doing a
formal introduction because I think it's more important for you
to share your story with the audience and definitely less boring,
So if you don't mind, I love for you to
kind of share your story and how on earth did
(01:21):
you get to this point of doing what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
It's a great question. It's an interesting story.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
Yeah, it's funny too, because we talk all the time
about we're going to tell the story here in a second.
But had we planned this story ahead of time, it
never would have ever turned out this way. But when
you look back, you're like, oh, I can connect the
dots to how we got here, but you never would
have been able to plan all that out to get
to this point. So, yeah, we're former corporate employees nine
(01:50):
to five. We met at the same company. We worked
for the same company. That's where we met. And you know,
during the pandemic, companies deciding what they were doing and
everything was in turmoil, and our company was no different.
And they decided that they were going to close the
office that we were both working in and they wanted
to relocate us further away from back out West, further
(02:14):
away from all our family and friends, and and so
they said, if you want to move back out West,
you have a job, and if you don't, then you're
gonna have to, you know, find other arrangements for yourself.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Kind of a bye bye, yeah kind.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
Of yeah, And so we really had a decision on
our hands. And initially that was a really difficult decision
for us because we were very much the grew up
with the mentality of you know, you go to school,
you get good grades, you graduate, you go to school again,
you get good grades, and then you graduate, you get
a good job, and you say for retirement, and you
have the corporate job, you climb the ladder, all that
(02:51):
good stuff, and so that's the that was the life
plan that we were on, and it was a kick
and stomach when that was almost like, I guess we
were forced to make a decision whether we wanted to
continue that further away and be unhappy, potentially unhappy, I
guess we don't really we were already a little bit
unfulfilled in our roles and so yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
And so it's interesting because we were on that sort
of default life plan that we'd learned growing up, and
we were checking all those boxes right, like by all
of society's milestones and measures, we were successful. But to
Craig's point, you know, inside we weren't feeling super fulfilled
in those corporate roles. And then when this opportunity came up.
(03:35):
It was a very stressful decision. We didn't really know
what we should do. And at that same time, my
dad was diagnosed with cancer and it had spread, and
we thought it was going to be his last Christmas.
And so we drove home seventeen hours to be with
my family for Christmas that year, and on that seventeen
hour drive back to where we lived, we made the
(03:58):
decision that we were not going to move west and
move farther away from our family, because, you know, we
were given that the gift of perspective with my dad's
my dad's sickness, and that really helped us make the decision.
Like our parents weren't getting any younger, and his grandmother
is certainly not getting any younger, and we moved out west,
we're going to see a lot less of them, And
(04:19):
so it really gave us the perspective we needed to
make what was a very difficult decision. And I can
remember we were walking around our neighborhood after we had decided,
and we're both very plan oriented people, like we like
to have a checklist and work our way through a
plan when we're just trying to figure something out. And
even though we didn't have a plan of what we
(04:40):
were going to do next. It just felt like the
right decision inside to leave the company, even though we
didn't know what we were going to do. Even though
it was very scary, there was something almost peaceful about
the decision that it just felt like the right thing.
And interestingly enough, after we made that decision, my dad
(05:02):
got to I guess, with the second cancer, which is
actually good news, and he got treated for both of
his cancers and for the next almost four years was
very healthy. And so we got those four years with
my dad because we moved home and he passed a
couple of weeks ago, but it was a gift to
get those last few years with him. So it's interesting
when you look back how that all worked out for us.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
It's amazing sometimes how serendipitous life can be. And obviously
we can attribute that to a higher power.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
Very much, very much. So yeah, yeah, it was interesting
because it was one of the biggest lessons I took
from that part of our journey was that intuition listening
to your guy. Even though, like she said, we're very
planful people. We like to have a we like to
have our ducks in a row. Before we execute on
something you know, and that's you know ingrained in us
(05:52):
since we were kids, and fortified through our corporate world,
our corporate jobs. But going through this journey, it really
unearthed in me this power of my intuition and starting
to listen to it more and trusting that if you
follow what your if you follow your guy, you follow
(06:14):
your happiness, everything else just starts to click into place.
It just starts to align for you. And so that
was a really big lesson I.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Took out as part of the journeyfication and what type
of business were you in? I mean, you probably had
different roles, but what were you doing where It sounds
like you both had master's degrees or at least close
to that, But what were you doing.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
We were working for an energy company and so I
was working in the inclusion and diversity group within HR
and he was working in health and safety.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
All right, So, how on earth did you get to
where you are now? And what were the experiences and
so forth that brought you to the point where you
felt like you had the ability in the background to
teach what you're teaching.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Well, we actually started, like we said, we had zero
plan and so we started doing some research and it
seemed like most people that were jumping into entrepreneurship at
that time were jumping into real estate, and so we
jumped into real estate investing, trying to replace our corporate income.
So we started a business. We hired a business coach,
we got a website, we did the marketing, you know,
(07:23):
we invested a bunch of money to do all the things.
And as we started trying to build that business, we
realized that we were miserable, like absolutely hated what we
were doing, and it was starting to bleed into our relationship,
which had historically been very very strong.
Speaker 5 (07:42):
Yeah, it was a strength that for me, our relationship
has always been the rock, the foundation for everything else.
Like it's always been a strength. And when we started
this real estate investing company and we started becoming miserable
and a little bit snippy with each other, and like
there was a little bit of friction between us, which
is not normally that that's when it was like, okay,
time out, this is not good. This is this is
(08:03):
a non starter for us. We have to have a
conversation and what are we doing here? And we were
really unhappy because like it wasn't fulfilling to us. It
was similar to the corporate world we had just left,
except we just weren't making the corporate salaries that we
had just left behind, so it was even worse, really,
and yeah, so we just said, you know, we had
a hard discussion and said, look, this is not working
(08:25):
for us. We needed we need to pivot. And what
we realized was we didn't do the work at the
front end when we left our corporate jobs to understand
because we're embarking on this whole new life for ourselves, Yeah,
what is it that we actually want? What are we
going after? And who do we want to become in
the process, Like, who do we want to be in
this world? We didn't do that work at all, and
so we just jumped in willy nilly into like chasing
(08:49):
chasing income, which is never the right move. And what
we realized was this is what needs to happen. So
when we we we closed up shop, we put that
company to bed. We called that money that we invested
investment payment for a lesson learned, Yes, and we embarked
on a journey of personal growth and understanding what it
(09:13):
is that we want this world to be for us.
So what we want out of this world, who we
want to be in this world, what we want to
give back to this world. And so that was the
journey we went on for the next I don't know what.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
For years, but we spent We closed that business and
spent the next six weeks traveling around the southwestern US.
We went to a couple of conferences, we went hiking
in Zion National Park. You know, we just kind of
gave ourselves permission to just be ourselves and decide who
we want to be so we could figure out what
we want to do. And it's a little wonder the
(09:43):
first business fails since we had no idea what any
of those answers were at that point. So it's of
course in hindsight that business failed. We didn't know the
kind of life we wanted to live, so how are
we going to build a business to support that? And
so we spent the next couple of years really trying
not to focus the income, but trying to focus on us,
who we were becoming, what we wanted our life to
(10:05):
be like. And in that process, we were attending various
conferences and retreats and seminars and things like that, and
people kept coming up to us and asking like, hey,
you're doing this together. It's very cool. You seem to
have a very strong relationship. What's your secret, how do
you do it? What do you do that makes you
so connected? And so we would, you know, have those
(10:26):
conversations because they were really fun for us. But it
wasn't until at one of these events one of the
people hosting the event said, I'd like you to speak
on stage at my next event about relationships. And that's
when we said, huh, maybe that we do have something
to offer in this space more than just these ad
hot conversations all over the place.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
And it was.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Almost a validation that we needed that we do have
something valuable to offer. And because of that request, we
had to sort of take a step back and almost
codify how we do relationships. And that was the first
step I would say, into this into this space.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
That we're now.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Isn't it interesting that you know, we go through college
for those that do or whatever it is that we're doing,
and we get that degree and we're out there working
and yeah, we can be successful at that, and yet
what really comes out is those life experiences, and at
some point in time, those life experiences help us to
(11:29):
develop an entirely different.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Approach completely one percent, like one eighty degree difference.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Yeah, So so now you're just really helping marriages. You're
helping folks and marriages relationships to.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
Do what strengthen the relationships, reconnect, bring fun and joy
back to their marriage so that they can build their
dream life together. Because like it's our superpower. Like we've
leveraged our relationship to build our dream life and we're
still building it obviously, but it's when you have a
relationship that is basically you're not spending all your time
(12:07):
fixing problems, but you're just maintaining you're maintaining the relationship.
It requires so much less effort, which frees up all
that energy to build your dream to focus on the
things that matter in your life. And not only just
do you have that energy, but you've got someone else
with that energy, and it's exponential. So you've got an
(12:28):
exponential force that's now building towards something greater. And it's
just a really cool.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
It's a cheat code.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
It's a cheat code for life, and that's what we
help people with.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah, and you have that, you have that quote in
you on your website Thriving Marriage is the cheat code
for leveling up every other area of your life. So
here comes the question to my mind. You know, research
is showing that marriages are diminishing. In other words, our
younger generations are not getting married. They're they're preferring to
be single. And that type of thing. Have you found
(13:00):
and is your experience that literally marriage is a better
situation to be in if in fact it's a healthy one.
And as you say, does a thriving marriage really level
up every other area in your life versus just being single.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yes, that's my experience because I was single for a
decade before I met him, and it's a complete transformation
in how my life feels and what I'm working toward,
and the support that I have to know that you've
got someone on the same team, rowing in the same direction,
like locked arms with you, walking walking up this mountain together.
(13:43):
It just just the the peace of mind that you
get that you're not in it by yourself. It's a
game changer. It was a complete game changer for me.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Interesting. So, you know, another question that comes to my mind,
and we always talk about, you know, here we are
in this situation, how do we repair our marriages? What
advice would you give our young people or even older
people that are still single, that are thinking of getting married.
What advice would you give them when they're developing that
(14:15):
relationship to make sure that that marriage is going to
be more on a positive note than potentially negative note,
because there's so many people that rush into it, get
married thinking that, Okay, here's who I'm marrying, and within
a year's time or less, all of a sudden they
married someone who was literally an impostor or they themselves
(14:40):
were living in an impostor's life, and the other person
realized that too. So do you ever work with single
individuals who are thinking of getting married or getting into
that relationship and what are some of the things that
they really need to look for and do.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
In terms of what they need to do? Yeah, for me,
the number one is they need to be themselves. They
need to not be who they think the other person
wants them to be. And so one small example of
this for us early on. It's funny, it's a simple thing,
but to me it was a big aha moment that
(15:17):
when we were getting to know each other, he was
asking me do I like Star Wars? And in my experience,
most guys seem to like Star Wars. Again, all the
TV shows and movies make it seem like all the
dudes love Star Wars. I'm not a giant Star Wars fan,
so I wasn't sure how to answer the question. Do
I say yes and just suffer through all the Star
(15:38):
Wars movies with him, because you know that's what you do.
Or do I actually show up as who I am
and he can decide if that's, you know, an important
thing or not. And so I hesitated with how to
answer that question, and then I decided to be brave
and to be myself and answer it honestly and said,
you know what, Star Wars is not really my jam
(16:00):
and he's like, ah, maybe neither, which was not the
answer I was expecting. But you know, had I not
shown up as myself and given him a dishonest answer,
you know, part of our very beginning foundation would have
been built on not true to me, inauthenticity for me.
(16:20):
And so that's just a very you know, small, minor example,
but you can see how those things easily pile on
when you're trying to be the you know, I really
liked this guy. I wanted him to like me. So
you want to be the person that he is going
to be accepted. And I think that's also just human nature.
One of our deep intrinsic desires is to belong and
(16:42):
sometimes we get a little confused in that, and we
show up as who we think will be accepted and
feel a sense of belonging. And when we do that,
what we're actually doing is fitting in to a group
or into a relationship. And when we fit in, the
person who's receiving that love is actually not us, it
is the person we're pretending to be. And so even
(17:03):
if he were to love me as the Star Wars
loving human, I'm not going to receive that love and
I'm not going to feel worthy of that love because
I know he's putting that love on someone who likes
Star Wars is not actually on me. And so I
think the most important thing to do when you're starting
our relationship is to be yourself. And even as we
(17:23):
progress through a longer term relationship have longer term marriage,
usually the number one reason we find disconnect and distance
in a marriage is we're not letting each other in,
We're not being honest with each other, We're trying to
protect the other from the stress and what's keeping you
up at night. And you know, you think you're helping
(17:44):
by not putting that stress on the other person, but
the other person can feel that there's something going on
and that you're not sharing it. So as humans, we're
meaning making machines too. We make stories up. You're going
to make up a story, but why I'm not sharing
that And I'm doing it the goodness of my heart
to try and protect you. But that's creating a distance
between us. And so it's that willingness to be brave
(18:07):
and be vulnerable and be uncomfortable and share the things
that you know. Maybe you're a bit worried that the
other person isn't going to like in you, but showing
up as your authentic self is literally the only way
to build a strong relationship and be able to feel
love from another human.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Well, and you mentioned that you went through some personal
development and you both decided to do that. What type
of process was that for you?
Speaker 5 (18:33):
So it was really we didn't really have a plan
for it. It was really just kind of a like
a shotgun approach almost like we just we didn't really
other than we knew that we needed to know what
it was that we wanted our life to be like
so we need to do some of that work. But
one of the things we eventually discovered on this process
was just going to conferences, reading books, listening to podcasts,
(18:56):
and the things that resonated for us. We pull on
that a little bit more. One of the things that
really came up for me in particular was learning about myself,
understanding who I am. And I think that would be
my answer to your previous question would be not just
be who you are, but actually do the work to
understand who that person is and then stay true to
(19:18):
that person, because I think staying true to that person
is one thing, but if you don't know who that is,
then that's really tough to do. So I think the
first step is one step further beyond that is like
do the inner work, do the personal growth, read the books,
listen to the podcast, go to the personal growth events,
and learn about who you are and what makes you you?
What are your values? What do you want to be
(19:40):
seen in this How do you want to be seen
in this world? Who do you want to become in
this world? What do you want to give to this world?
What is your gift? And what do you want to
be known for and do all of those things, and
understand that about yourself and then never let that go
and it'll evolve and it'll grow as you grow, but
never comprom those things about yourself. And so that was
(20:03):
the journey that we.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Went on, and in the spirit of full disclosure, we
almost stumbled backwards into personal growth in the beginning because
we went to a real estate conference that we thought
was like just a regular run of the middle of
real estate conference that really had a lot of personal
growth to it. And then we were part of a
real estate mastermind that had a lot of personal growth.
So we didn't in the beginning seek out the personal
(20:24):
growth so much as seek out the real estate information.
And with that came back the personal growth. And once
we sort of got a taste for that, then to
his point, we started pulling on those threads.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
It's really funny when you go on this journey of
entrepreneurship and figuring out kind of a different way than
maybe how you grew up to live your life. It's
funny how things line up for you. We talked about
like you can't connect the dots looking backwards or sorry,
looking forwards, but you definitely can looking backwards, and personal
growth and the amount of work required on yourself was
(20:58):
something that I did not I did not understand that
that was going to be the biggest part of this journey.
I thought it was going to be, Oh, you're just
going to create a business and make some money and
go on and do your thing. But your business and
what you end up creating in this world is going
to be limited as far as what you're able to
(21:19):
as a person or able to do. And so you
really need to work on yourself, get yourself to a
higher level so that you can then bring all your
business and everyone else around you to a higher level.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Well, and you know, when you talk about personal growth,
and again, as we talk about people that are in
relationships right now, marriages, we talk about people who are
considering it, how important is it that both parties are
really open to and willing to go through that personal
growth Because, as you say, this is not that I'm
(21:51):
going to do this tomorrow and be done. I mean
I've been doing this for years and years and years
and years and still not even where I want to be.
And I look at that and I think, you know,
what what happens if you're in a relationship where the
other person isn't only to do that.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
It's huge because let's think about it for a second, Like,
if you're growing and the other person isn't, you're literally
growing apart. You're literally growing apart. If one person is
becoming a different person, they're growing and becoming the best
version of them, and the other person kind of stays
where they're at. There's a distance that's growing between you.
But if you both grow and become the people you're
(22:28):
supposed to be, you grow together. And so I think
it's I think it's critical in a relationship. And we've
seen it in this entrepreneurial world as we've joined different
masterminds in different groups and all our peers, and there's
a very very big difference between the entrepreneurs that are
going on this journey with their spouse and how they're
(22:50):
growing and those that are doing it on their own
and their spouse. Their spouse has no interest in that
side of it, and the difference in the quality of
the those relationships that we see firsthand.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Well, and you know, in your case, you kind of
both have decided to do things together. I mean, that's
kind of the impression I get, But what do you
How do you help couples that are very individual, very independent.
One person may really have a love for X y Z,
whereas the other person really has a love for ABC.
(23:26):
How do you help them to find that commonality and
really develop that strength And obviously with the personal development,
it may be that Okay, this is what I really
love and know this is what I really love.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
How do you help.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Them to get to the point where they are literally
connecting in a way that still allows them each to
maintain that individuality and accomplish the things that are important
to them.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah, I think it's a both, and I think for
your relationship it's really important and that you feel, you
feel fulfilled and you do the things that fill you up,
fill your cop make you, you know, enjoy life. So
if you love ABC and your partner loves x y Z,
that's okay. You both need to go and do those
things separately if the other you know, you can also
(24:16):
bring the other one along or join the other one
and what they do if that works. If it doesn't,
that's okay. You need to do the things that you
love to do, even if that's separately, and you need
to find something that you can both enjoy doing together,
because it's important that you both feel fulfilled and your
cup is full and you have a strong sense of
self and do the things that you love to do
that's important for you as a person, so that you
(24:38):
can bring the best version of you into your relationship.
And you also need to find that dedicated quality time
together to do the things that you enjoy doing something together,
some way to have fun and I feel a sense
of adventure together And back to the personal growth. It's what,
especially with entrepreneurs, when there's only one person you know
(25:00):
in that entrepreneurial space and the other one is corporate,
because that is the biggest difference I have found between
the corporate existence and the entrepreneuri Your existence is my
corporate success wasn't limited by my level of personal growth
in development, but my entrepreneurial success is limited by my
growth my level of personal growth in development. So if
you've got one corporate and one entrepreneur, the corporate one
is probably going to be less invested in the personal growth,
(25:22):
but they still have to be open to it. They
still have to be willing to come along and do
the work. They don't have to be the driver of it,
but they have to be open and willing otherwise, to
Craig's point, you get that big distance.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
So how does an individual and I think you know
this is an important point, at least in my mind,
you had talked a little bit about really being who
you are, true to yourself, and if you're not that
that energy kind of gets fed over to Craig and
he's sensing and based on his perception, he's creating a
story on that. How do you help people to understand
(25:56):
that not only am I heading this direction and you're
heading that direction, but how do you help them to
understand that they are supportive and that literally, you know,
if you two had different things you wanted to do,
Craig was really supporting you. Although he was going his way,
he was really supporting you and vice versa. And how
(26:17):
important is that?
Speaker 5 (26:19):
It's critical? Like you, when you join forces with someone,
you're their teammate, but you're also their biggest cheerleader, and
so there are times where you're going to be their teammate.
You're joining forces. Like we do a lot of things together,
we're on the same team. We do that, but sometimes
we do we go on solo missions like life is
a solo journey. For we're being honest, Like, you come
into this world alone and likely are going to die alone.
(26:41):
Like you are the one relationship you have from start
to finish, and so you need to be you need
to maintain that relationship and be okay with that relationship.
And so when you go on that journey and you
go and run a marathon by yourself because that's something
you like to do but your partner does not want
to do that, then your partner is there to cheer
(27:01):
you on and say, hey, congratulations, how can I support you?
What can I do to help you? Like you know,
it's just being the person there to help them achieve
their goals. You don't necessarily have to run the race
with do it with them, but maybe you clap and
cheer them all when they cross the finish line.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
And you know what, at least in my experience, that
is so essential that you're doing that personal development work
so that you have the ability to be present and
to recognize that, you know what, I'm going to support
them because I love them. This is important to them.
And in no way am I feeling jealous or you know,
ignored or any of those things. You know, one of
(27:40):
the interesting things that I've come across as I've interviewed
so many people, as we get into you know, psychological
things and all these type of things relationships, is there's
always kind of that tendency to talk about what isn't working.
And to be fair with the professionals that have on
to college that have those degrees that are in there
(28:02):
doing marriage counseling or whatever counseling they're doing. Uh, there
are those that are just so excellent and they figured
it out. But there's also that situation where the traditional counseling,
the traditional coaching doesn't work. And what has been your
experience with that? And I know that you talk about
(28:23):
five different categories where it's not working, so.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Things like so we're talking broken trust and emotional disconnection,
those sorts of things. It's I think it's critical that
when I'll let you go, I'm gonna, I've got to
I gotta get my thoughts together.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
There's the there's the value of a marriage relationship.
Speaker 5 (28:55):
That's right, I'm gonna, I want to get my thoughts together,
that's right.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
I think we're all shaped by our past, right, we
all bring our experiences of the world the experiences that
we've had every into our marriage, of course, but into
every relationship that we're in, and we see the world
through the lens of our experience. And one thing I've
had to come to grips with is there is no
(29:20):
objective reality. There is no one universal truth because every
situation that everyone experiences is experience, is experienced through the
lens of their life to this point, and so there's
a lot of value in understanding what that experience has
been for you and how it's shaping your life today.
There's less value in living in the past and re
(29:43):
experiencing all of that. You need to understand how the
past has shaped you today and how you can change
those stories that you have. Because we all tell stories
that we talked about before, or humans, we make up
stories when we don't necessarily know the full hope of
the facts, but especially as kids, because as kids we
(30:04):
don't really understand life yet, and so when things happen
to us as kids, we tell stories, and that story
almost becomes truth in our brain, and we bring that
truth into our marriage, and so everything we experience day
to day we experienced through the filter of that story,
of that truth that we have and so that's why,
you know, I can get triggered by him not taking
(30:24):
the garbage out because of my past experience of I
don't have a good explanation for that one, but you know,
we we can. Sometimes something can happen in the present
that takes us back to a feeling we've had a
long time ago, because it triggers that feeling in us,
and it's important that we trace that and understand why
we're feeling that so we can reprogram that story.
Speaker 5 (30:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Great example of this is we were hiking in Arizona
and he was hustling down the mountain. He's a billy goat,
He's very surefooted.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
On the mountain.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
I'm not quite so fast, and so he's kind of
jogging down the mountain and I'm having a hard time
keep and I'm getting really frustrated, really annoyed with him.
And why won't he's turn around? Does he not know
I'm not right there? Why won't he wait for me?
And so I'm getting really annoyed, and so then I'm
taking a deep breath, like logically, I know he's not
(31:15):
going to run down the mountain, hop in the car
or drive away and leave me here. Like, I know
for a fact that won't happen. So why am I
so upset with him in this moment? And I gave
myself some quiet time to trace that feeling, and I
had this sudden realization that I actually have a fear
of abandonment very deep inside from my past experiences. So
(31:36):
I'm seeing this situation today through the lens of my
fear of abandonment. And now I'm angry with him that
he's abandoning me on this mount and even though he's not.
And so then fast forward a few days, I have
to share with him that I have this fear of abandonment,
so that he knows that I have that, and going forward,
we can, you know, work on that together. He can
try to not abandon me and trigger that abandonment feeling
(31:59):
on them, and I can try not to feel that
trigger of abandonments. We both have an accountability there. The
point of the story being he was not abandoning me
on the mountain, but that's how I was feeling in
that moment, because I was experiencing that situation through the
lens of an old story. And so those old stories,
those old experiences are valuable from the perspective of how
(32:20):
are they shaping my experience with him today, and how
can I change that story, that narrative in my head
so that the next time we're going down a mountain,
I don't feel abandoned by him, because that's my accountability.
And I feel like historically, a lot of marriage counseling
spends a lot of time in the creation, in the
situations that created those stories, where we don't spend as
(32:42):
much time in the situations that created those stories as
much as we do in the awareness of those stories,
and then retelling reprogramming those stories so that going forward,
I don't feel abandoned coming down the mountain.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
Yeah, And I think that's so true what you said.
Speaker 5 (32:58):
You know, it's a treaty.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I meditate. I try to meditate every day, and I
do a walking meditation for an hour. And one of
the affirmations that I do while I'm there is I
basically speak out loud to myself that those subconscious triggers
in my mind and the subconscious in my soul no
longer affect my emotions or my behavior. And it's interesting
(33:24):
that you know, as you say, they're there, they exist,
they come up, but to be able to get to
the point of mindset and consciousness to where when they
come up, you look at them and you go, Okay,
that's really a past experience that is not necessarily reality
here and now, and so you're able to put that aside.
(33:46):
And I love the fact, as you talk about, so
many times people keep focusing so much on that pass
rather than looking at the past, recognizing when those triggers
are coming up and then ignizing that that's all they are,
and that they do not have to affect our emotion
and they don't have to affect our behavior exactly.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
Yeah, you don't want to live there. We don't want
to live in the past. Happiness is in the now.
We want to live in the now. We just want
to go back to get to get through the issue
and learn the lesson and take the good from it
so that we can enjoy the past and build for
the future. And that's what that's what coaching does. That
Sometimes I think therapy maybe misses the mark on a
little bit. It's more living in the past and dealing
(34:27):
with that and judging up that a little bit more
and sitting in it a little bit more than maybe
you know that we would like to do so equipping.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
Yeah, what are some of the key strategies that you
use as you're working with couples.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
One of the key strategies one of my favorite. Two
of my favorite strategies actually, they're both around communication, and
the first one is what we call a connection conversation.
It's it's basically the letting them in conversation. It's going
back to what we talked about earlier. When we don't
share what's keeping us up at night, what we're afraid of,
what's stressing us out, what our dreams and our goals are.
(35:04):
When we don't share that stuff with our partner, they
start to make up stories and then those stories get triggered.
And so when you get on a regular basis, we
like to do this weekly. When you can weekly have
that conversation kind of at the end of a week,
download what was good about this week? Where did I
struggle this week? What's keeping me up at night? What
am I afraid of, and really let your partner in
(35:26):
on what's going on in your head. Then you can
start the next week sort of really aligned and on
the same page and not feel like you're got a
distance growing between you, but you feel really aligned at
the end of every week and to start the next week.
So that's fake my favorite connection building tool. And then
(35:47):
from a connection sort of maintaining perspective, I love the
check in question. So every night, as we're kind of
laying our heads down to go to bed, we'll usually
ask a very specific question. This doesn't work if you
say how is your day? Because how is your day
is going to probably get you a fine like a
very generic answer, or it's going to get you a
(36:07):
complete debrief download on the entire every single detail of
every single event of the whole day. When you ask
a really specific question of like what was the best
part of your day today, or what was your favorite
lesson you learned today, or you know, something really specific,
you'll get a really specific answer that you will actually
learn something about your partner. And especially when you've been
(36:27):
together a long time, it feels like sometimes you don't
always learn new things about your partner all the time.
But if you can ask really good questions, you're going
to learn. It's going to, you know, bring more color
to the context of your partner, and it's going to
keep you feeling connected. Because when you approach that check
in question with a genuine curiosity. Your partner feels like
you actually care and want to be a part of
(36:48):
their day, so they're feeling validated and you're learning about them.
So you're building a tighter and tighter connection by doing
this daily check in.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
And I think another strategy is going back to what
we tell talked about when we left our corporate job
and not knowing who we were. So one of the
strategies is and the relationship you have with yourself is
first and foremost the most important relationship you're going to
have in life. You have to get that right because
the love that you are able to give is limited
by the love you have for yourself. So it's really
(37:17):
working on and let's be honest, there's a worthiness epidemic
in the world, like most people do not feel worthy
of the things that they want in this life. And
so one of the strategies is really working on making
sure that we change the narrative, the stories, the things
(37:38):
that that little voice in our head comes up and
tells us we're not good enough. We need to address
that voice. We need to name that voice, and we
need to disassociate from that voice and make and understand
that we're not that voice, we're not those thoughts, and
that we are worthy of all those things that we
want in life. And there's a very you know, specific
exercises we do to make sure that we, you know,
(37:59):
start to address that voice and put that voice in
the passenger seat so that we can drive and get
to the destination that we actually ultimately want to end up.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Because when you don't worthy of love, when you don't
feel worthy of that relationship, you're going to sabotage in anyway.
So the all the communication tools in the world aren't
going to help if you're actually sabotaging your own self.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
And isn't it interesting how we don't feel worthy, there's
that whole sense of I'm not good and so forth.
In fact, it's interesting. I was before we got on
this podcast. I was working with an individual who has
a couple of young children and has an eight ten
year old son who was asking a number of questions
about religion, and he went to his English teacher because
(38:43):
I'm in Thailand, right, and so he went to his
English teacher and was asking some things, and the teacher
turned around and basically said to him, you're evil, you
were born in sin and boom boom boom, And so
you know, another is actually texting me and saying what.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
Do I do?
Speaker 4 (39:02):
And I thought about that. I thought, you know, how
often society, religion, philosophies teach us that we're not good?
And yet how do we help people? I mean, I
know how I do it, but how do we help
people to understand that, you know what you are not
only just good, but basically you are really good. You
(39:27):
have that internal eternal light within you that you just
need to recognize is there and start to take away
all of those other things that are impinging on that
and starting to remove them away. So you come to
that realization and Craig, as you said, you know, learning
to really love yourself.
Speaker 5 (39:44):
Yeah, it's all about changing that narrative because to your point,
we learned it in school. Like schools are set up
that we're in a competition and we're marked with red
ink can we get the F and we're not good
enough where? And I remember going home with a test
ninety five percent on that test, I got a ninety
five percent. That's pretty good, and I take it home
(40:05):
and out of the goodness of their heart, they're great parents.
But my parents would be like but what happened to
the other five percent. And so even from that point,
like I got a ninety five percent, I got a
really great grade on that test, but the message I
took was it wasn't good enough. I'd be perfect and
so and if they have the best of intentions, it
(40:25):
was coming from a place of love. It was them
just telling me that I was I was capable, and
that they were proud of me, and that they knew
that I was. I was capable to take on the
world and get one hundred percent on this test. But
that wasn't how the message landed. And I think that's
what a lot of people get as they grow up,
is that message that they're not good enough. Whether it's
a test, or religion or schools or wherever, you know, sports,
(40:48):
it's it's about changing that narrative. And we have to
just be consistent about it because it's it's been ingrained
in us for me forty years and for others, you know,
fifty sixty, seventy years, twenty years, it depends on how old,
but chances are it's really deeply ingrained in you. And
so it's gonna take consistent daily action of really going
(41:08):
in and doing that mindfulness and meditating and sitting with
those thoughts and really getting curious with them, not judging them,
but just getting curious with them and saying, Okay, why
do I feel this way? And asking yourself some really interesting,
curious questions, and then changing that narrative, changing that story
(41:29):
and being consistent with it, and finding finding stories and
things that you can tell yourself that are actually believable,
and reminding yourself of all your greatness, reminding yourself of
the home run you hit in Little league to win
the win the championship, reminding yourself of the spelling bee
that you won, reminding yourself of that time that you
came to that kid's defense when the bully was picking
(41:52):
on them, reminding yourself of how you've been a good
person throughout your life and doing all these amazing things.
That's what it's all about, is being consistent about rewriting
that narrative of how you are in this world.
Speaker 4 (42:06):
Oh amen to that. And you know what amazes me
is time goes by so fast, and I think we
could go on for another couple of hours easily, but
my manager won't let me do that. So there you go.
So as we close, I have a final question that
I'd love for you to share with the audience, and
that is, what's the number one thing someone can do
(42:28):
right now to improve their relationship.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Take one hundred percent accountability for your relationship, whatever it is.
If it's your marriage, if it's your business partner, your colleague,
your girlfriend, your mother, or your sister, whoever it is,
take one hundred percent responsibility for the state of that relationship.
Because we grew up believing a good marriage is fifty
to fifty and any good relationship is fifty to fifty.
Fifty to fifty introduces a gray area whose job is
(42:54):
that who apologizes first. If each of you take one
hundred percent responsibility for the state of your marriage, you
don't keep score, you don't feel defensive, you don't feel attacked.
It creates a two hundred percent marriage where you're each
taking that one hundred percent responsibility and you feel like
teammates again.
Speaker 4 (43:10):
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Hey, thank you
so much for being on the show. And like I say,
there's so much we haven't even gotten into. I'd love
to have you on the show again if you decide
you'd like to do that, ladly, But meanwhile, I really
appreciate your comments, what you've shared, and it's not easy
always to share those type of things and to be transparent,
(43:33):
so I appreciate that too. And most importantly, you're making
a difference. I am convinced in the lives of many people,
and I think that's what's important.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
Absolute joy. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Well, thank you and folks, thanks for listening. Hope you
enjoyed it. Look forward to having you join us again soon.
This is doctor Dex saying no mistay
Speaker 3 (44:00):
At his days Ris Year
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