November 12, 2024 • 42 mins
How do married entrepreneurs build a successful business and a successful marriage?
In this revealing episode, host Nicole Jansen dives deep with Robert and Kay Lee Fukui, founders of i61 inc. Their unique business approach aids married entrepreneurs in achieving a harmonious work-life balance by efficiently structuring their businesses while working on important relationship dynamics. The episode unpacks their journey, strategies, and the critical role of communication in both business and marriage. Robert and Kay Lee are co-authors of Tandem: The Married Entrepreneurs' Guide for Greater Work-Life Balance, a must-read for entrepreneurs navigating this twin challenge.
Join us as Robert and Kay Lee share powerful insights on improving business efficiency, fostering intimacy through daily practices, and the importance of creating a "safe space" for open communication. This episode also explores mindset shifts, role understanding, and the delicate balance of personal and professional relationships.
What We Discuss in this Episode
- How did you transition from corporate roles to founding i61 inc?
- What inspired you to target married entrepreneurs specifically?
- How does your daily prayer practice impact your work-life balance?
- Can you explain the concept of a “safe space” in communication?
- What are effective strategies for role allocation and delegation in a business partnership?
- How do you manage the challenges of separating business and personal life?
- Why do you discourage compromise in relationships, and what’s your alternative?
- How does mindset influence an entrepreneur’s ability to delegate and grow?
- What is the "80/20 rule" in the context of maintaining efficient business operations?
- What free resources do you offer to help married entrepreneurs achieve balance?
Podcast Highlights
0:00 - Introduction to married entrepreneurship.
6:22 - Midlife questioning: corporate ladder or new business?
7:19 - Relationships impacted business and personal life dynamics.
10:47 - Optimize time for effective solopreneur productivity.
15:12 - Embrace change for growth; foster constructive communication.
18:18 - Conflict created anxiety before implementing communication plan.
21:47 - Balancing marriage and business partnership dynamics.
22:58 - Understand strengths, set proactive deadlines collaboratively.
27:43 - Opposites attract, important to know roles.
29:38 - Understand situations; don't take things personally.
34:11 - Marriage isn't about compromise; it's finding the best solutions.
36:39 - Set foundation, delegate tasks, hire, increase profits.
39:32 - Take transformative action; prioritize meaningful connection.
Favorite Quotes
"Time is our most valuable resource. It's crucial to focus on productive activities rather than just putting in more hours." – Robert Fukui
"Never compromise in your relationship. Aim for the best decision that benefits both partners equally." – Kay Lee Fukui
"Entrepreneurs need to shift from a survival mindset to an executive mindset to truly grow their businesses." – Robert Fukui
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the leaders of transformation podcast. The number one
show for business leaders and entrepreneurs passionate about uplifting
others and making a greater impact in the world. Now here's
your host, transformational coach, speaker, and business
advisor, Nicole Jansen.
(00:21):
How do married entrepreneurs build a successful business and a successful
marriage? Our guests today are Robert and Kaley Fukui. They
are the founders of I61 Inc, which is a
business consulting company. And they specifically
work with married entrepreneurs in creating better work life balance
by structuring their business to scale and
(00:43):
giving back precious time so that they can invest in their
marriage and their life and all the things that are important to them. So I'm
really excited to have them here. They are co authors of the new
book, Tandem, which I have read and it is excellent.
The married entrepreneurs guide for greater work life balance.
And highly recommended. It's very relatable. It's very practical,
(01:07):
fantastic resource. And so, yeah. Robert and Kaylee, we're
excited to have you here. Welcome to the lead transformation. Thank you for having us,
Nicole. Yeah. Thanks, Nicole. And it's so great to see we have so many people
in common. So that's crazy. When you're
so
close.
(01:30):
Yeah. Well, you know what? It's funny because you reached out and I'm like, wait
a second. I know this guy. Right? Like, I've seen him in pictures. Yeah. I
mean like, I've seen youon Facebook with in pictures with Tim Porter and so that
was just I was like, wow. That's so cool. So yeah. It's cool that
we're both on the same kind of journey where God is just leading us. And
I love how he's making those divine appointments. I see this as a divine appointment.
So yeah. Cool. Well, let's talk about this work life
(01:52):
balance that you reference. As a married entrepreneur, is it
even possible to create work life balance? What does that even
mean? Work life balance? Maybe let's start there. Yeah. Yeah. That that's where
you gotta start because you gotta be able to define it. Otherwise, you won't be
able to achieve it work toward achieving it. So I think the misnomer around
work life balance is about quantity of time. Spending x amount of hours
(02:14):
in business versus marriage versus volunteer work. It's not a quantitative
measurement, it's a qualitative measurement. It's about quality of time.
So, you can be with your spouse for 4 hours running
errands, but that's not quality time. But 5 minutes looking her in
the eye and telling her how special she is and she means the world for
me and what can I do today to make your day special? Is more than
(02:34):
those 4 hours. And so, quality of time is that much more important. So,
when we define work life balance, it's helping the couples and even helping us
when we started this for ourselves. Is defining what does that look like?
And then break it down into the most. Think about the most stressful
time you can have in your life and your business. And in the midst of
that, during that week, how do you make sure Katie and I stay
(02:56):
connected? Right? Yeah. It doesn't take like I just shared 5 minutes
a day. We spend 15 to 20 minutes a day in prayer first thing in
the morning. Right? That's our first place of connection. And so regardless of what happens
the rest of the day, you know, we're good. I mean we want more but
even if you know we're in a busy stretch, just that 15 minutes a day
to pray and bring number 1 God in the center of our marriage, connecting
(03:18):
emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, and of course physically, and then just
blessing each other, like that carries you. Right? Yeah. And I just still
wanna say to the men out there, there's nothing like having your husband pray for
you. It's just so uplifting. And sometimes it can carry you through the whole week
because, you know, we have a lot going on, and it's just nice to have
that blessing. Yeah. I was gonna say, Robert, as you were sharing that about the
(03:39):
5 minutes looking in her eyes and just connecting and praying
together, I was thinking you just want all the women. They're all like,
who is this guy? Can I introduce him to my husband?
Yeah. Yeah. We said earlier, and I'm sure we can say this as adults,
but, you know, guys, you want more sex, connect with your wife.
Yeah. Like, you don't have to ask for it or demand it. I mean, if
(04:00):
you literally just connect her with your wife, it's just a natural
next step. I mean, it's not like right at the moment, but you know it's
going to be a lot of times as we get further and further in our
years of marriage, and we get further and further disconnected because we're not doing those
simple things. That's where the intimacy starts to erode.
Because it's not because we don't find any others sexual, but
(04:21):
we kind of do in a sense because we're not feeling connected. And that's why
guys have a hard time figuring that out. Well, it was funny because I was
telling my husband, we were talking to somebody in our church, and I forget
what the context was. But anyway, I said, you know, honey, it's just good for
business.
I'm just saying. Yeah. Well, it's great it's great for the
(04:42):
marriage too because statistics show what are the statistics that people that pray
together? Oh, praying together? Only about 8% of Christian couples pray
daily together. You know, I was referring to the business of intimacy, but yes Yeah.
Also the business. So but yeah. And
that's the sad thing is is that so often we are disconnected
and it's not meant that way. What's the saying? Right? A family that prays together
(05:04):
stays together. A couple that prays together stays together. And
what is really at the essence of that? It is the that emotional,
spiritual, mental, that connection, the physical connection, but it's
alignment. We're in alignment. You mentioned maybe even
it lasting a whole week when he prays for you cause you're aligned, you
know, you're grounded. And so that's so powerful. Tell us a
(05:27):
little bit about your backstory and kinda like how did you come
together? I know you have a business background, Kaleigh and
Robert. You're in marketing. How did you gel that
together? And just to kind of help our audience just a little get to know
you a little bit more. Yeah. Well, I'm a PK actually at heart. Not at
heart. I was literally a PK, pastor's kid. And then Kaylee grew up in entrepreneurial
(05:48):
background. But when we met, I was in Fortune 500. I was working for a
pharmaceutical company in marketing and sales, and she actually said,
I can see you having a business. He thought I was completely crazy because I'm
3rd generation entrepreneur family, and I just knew so many
entrepreneurs. They're all around me, and so I just totally saw it in him and
he's like, oh my gosh. No way. Yeah. Because that's too risky.
(06:09):
I'm risk averse and my dad just said go to
school, stay out of debt, get a job. And so that's kind of what I
did. And you know, it's nice to have the regular paycheck and then you get
the bonuses and the company car and all the benefits. So, you know, health insurance,
that's pretty comfortable. But as I got into my kind of my mid forties, you
know, right on there, you start kind of questioning about long term. Like, what do
(06:30):
you really want to do and what are you supposed to do? And especially in
our church talking about the 7 mountain mandate and you know how we're supposed to
make an impact and doing our part to help transform society for the
kingdom. You know I started really asking what's my role? Am I supposed to stay
in the corporate ladder or is it supposed to be something different? That's when I
started to entertain having a business, but I didn't know what kind of
(06:50):
business it would be. So, I just remember just printing out all the
different industries, the chart of all the industries, and I just checked off all these
industries 1 by 1. Nope. Nope. Nope. Don't want to do that. Definitely don't want
to do a restaurant. Just like nope, nope, nope. So, I was left
with nothing. So, maybe my background is in marketing and sales. Maybe I'll just do
some consulting work with some businesses, like different types. Maybe I'll find
(07:12):
something that I really want to start or do. And so what
happened I just started really enjoying the consulting process.
Seeing the results on the business is one thing. But it was really the
relationships I was having with the business owners and seeing how much of
an impact the results were having on their life. Then of course, you get to
know the employees. I mean, when you're dealing with small business versus a
(07:33):
multinational company there's a different level of intimacy, right?
With the leaders and the stakeholders. And so having that relationship was
awesome and then as you get to know them they started sharing about their
personal life and how their marriage was struggling in different
areas. And what else I made the connection was you're
working number 1 you don't really have much of a marketing issue as you have
(07:55):
an efficiency and productivity issues and a margin issue. And I noticed
that you're working way too hard than you need to for the results you're getting.
And therefore, it's also keeping you away from being at home when you'd want to
be at home. You start this business to have more freedom but then next thing
you know you're more enslaved than I was at a W2 position. And
something's not connecting here. So really started noticing the trend
(08:18):
of all these married entrepreneurs really struggling with work life
balance. And how do we do business well but still prioritize marriage and
family? And so that's when I kind of kept Kaleigh. You know we kind of
compare notes about me growing up in a pastor's home versus her growing up in
an entrepreneur home and we felt the same lack of balance in our life.
How our dads were so focused on growing their organizations
(08:39):
that the family was basically taking a ta the back seat. Yeah. In my
childhood, the business became the mistress. It was really challenging on the
family. It was really taxing my dad work 6 days a week. To this day,
I don't think he made it to my high school graduation. That's tough.
And Robert had the marketing corporate experience where a lot of the
entrepreneurs were wearing a 100 different hats, and our go to is just
(09:01):
put more time in. But we're not, like, measuring things and keeping track of the
performance in what's working. Usually, we don't have time or money to
hire someone. Or if we hire someone, we don't wanna train them. We just want
them to be, you know, come already trained. So Yeah. Well, and
you mentioned something that was really interesting when you talk about the time
and the money margin. And and I think that there's a lot of, like you
(09:22):
mentioned even in your book, there's business consultants and then there's
marriage counselors. But there's not usually the
same consultant working on both of those things and
recognizing the how one is affecting the other so
significantly. You know, it's like, well, you're having marriage problems because you're not
communicating and it's like, well, you're not communicating
(09:44):
because you're stressed out. Why are you stressed out? And I love in the book
where you talk about time margin. Because if we think about it, we
think about it in terms of money margin, profit margins, but
not time margin. So talk a little bit about that and
the importance of scaling in terms of so like you wanna
grow a better marriage? It's not about just making more money. It's about
(10:06):
actually having more time, leverage, right? Having money and
time that helps to build that better marriage. Yeah.
We treat time as like a throwaway, like Kleenex. We don't really value it
like the asset that it really is and it's not renewable. Once it's gone, it's
gone. So, we just put more and more time into trying to
fix and grow the business without really evaluating what kind of return am I
(10:28):
getting for the time I'm putting in. Right, instead of putting, so
just give you a sales example, to get more sales we're going to put more
time, try to get more leads, or whatever. My question is always, what
if we just increase the close rate? Right. You're already getting leads, what if we
just increase the close rate? Unless you're at 100% close rate, right, we've got room
to grow. And so let's start there. So that's a prime
(10:50):
example of increasing your money margins. Basically getting more
results with the time you're putting in. Not just putting more time in.
And really to protect the time. And
even as a solopreneur, if you're working by yourself, you have to wear a lot
of hats, right? Obviously. But even in the midst of that, the question
is, are you spending your time in the most productive way? Or are you just
(11:11):
spinning your wheels doing everything and not getting anything done? Right? And so that's
where you really have to assess where you're spending your time and evaluate
where's the best use of your time. Because most business owners you
know you heard the term on the business or in the business. When you're working
in the business you're just in a daily grind. Working on the business is focusing
on the most productive activities like getting new contracts, getting new leads,
(11:33):
doing some research and development, testing menus for a restaurant. All
those big things that don't provide immediate returns but
provide long term benefit. And those are the type of things that we start to
kick the can down the road because we want to deal with immediate issues. And
so we have to like really evaluate that was like, okay, how do we address
this? And really ask the question and get more critical about how we're using
(11:55):
on time so that you can be more productive with the time you have. Because
a lot of the general stuff, you can hire somebody to do that. But when
you're in your zone of genius, usually only the owner can do that. And that's
what's moving the business forward. Yeah. And we don't spend as much
time there or any time there sometimes. What is it? The
80 20 rule. Right? Dan Sullivan talks about most entrepreneurs from
(12:16):
strategic coach. Most entrepreneurs are spending
80% of their time doing things that they're not
actually good at. Maybe 20% of the time doing the thing that's
doing your unique ability and need to flip that around. And I hear that in
what you're saying too. It's like flipping that around. So we're doing the thing that
we're in their zone of genius and we're hiring out. But that
(12:37):
takes a mindset shift. Right? It's like when you're in it, you're
surviving, which a lot of entrepreneurs are in that survival mode. Right.
You're like, I don't have time for this. I don't have time to work on
this. I don't have time to work on my business. I don't have time and
how you do anything is how you do everything. I don't have time to work
on my marriage. I'm too much in it. So how do you
(12:58):
get them out of that mindset where it's like, so to stop.
Like, if they're in it and they can just take a month off and take
time to or whatever or even a week off to get in. How where do
you start with them? You go into a business and they're just drowning in
busy day to day operations. How do you start carving
back that time and determining what to carve back? Where to
(13:20):
carve it back? You know what I mean? Yeah. So that's the first big question.
The mindset issue. Right? That's the most challenging piece. Because all the changes
that need to happen and to do are actually very simple. It's actually very easy.
It's just mentally. Like business is simple. It's just the mental and emotional
block. Having a virtual assistant to take 10 hours of work off your
plate is very simple, but emotionally and mentally, it's
(13:42):
very hard to let go of control those things. Especially when
you start the business by yourself, or maybe with a small team, and you're wearing
multiple hats. You get so used to just doing everything, even though you're
complaining about it, but you're comfortable in your own misery. And so, we just have
to start by asking a question. How long do you want to continue down this
road? Right? Because it's not going to change. It doesn't even matter how much more
(14:02):
money you make. We've had some of our clients, financially, they're already
doing well. It's just the mental and emotional get out of your own way, get
out of the business' way was the key. And so it has to start with
asking the question, how long do you want to keep going? Because clearly, the money
is not going to solve the problem. And one of our clients really struggled with
that. He had great employees that he just loved and bragged about him all the
(14:22):
time, and then his health started deteriorating. And then it got to the
point he just couldn't do it keep up like he was. And so he
had he was kinda forced to let it go, the micromanaging. Because, you know,
we all say business owners, I don't micromanage.
And when he did let it go, the employees were so happy, and he said,
oh my gosh. I got so much more done when I wasn't involved in all
(14:43):
this. And then he was able to go do the things that he loved to
do. So the quote I use from him all the time is more things get
done when I'm out of the way. Yeah. It's amazing how
much more gets done when I'm not working, when I'm doing it. Yeah. So it's
really, yeah, adjusting the mindset is the first key. And, you know, short of
referring them to a counselor or something like that to really work in the mindset,
(15:05):
it's like we said earlier, we're in survival mode. That's where we spend most of
our time. And it's like, okay, how do we get you into executive mode? Yes.
Right? Making big, long term decisions, moving the vision
forward. And your way is not working, so we got to make a
change. And that change is gonna hurt a little bit because it's like
a new muscle that you got to work out. It's going to hurt a little
(15:25):
bit, but let's trust the process and that's kind of where the accountability
piece holds. And then, you know, we're usually working with husband and wife, so we
already got a built in accountability partner and helping them develop
tools of how to communicate well without triggering each other.
That's one of the first pieces of our work with them because you can look
at your spouse and see what the gap challenges are and the gaps are. But
(15:46):
when you say, hey, you should be doing this or maybe you should scale back
a little bit, there's gonna be a conflict. Even though they're speaking total truth. So
we gotta empower the accountability partners, built in accountability partners to know how
to communicate in a way that doesn't trigger the other person to have some kind
of negative reaction. Yeah. I wanna talk about that because conflict,
obviously, is a really important issue is as most people don't know how to
(16:07):
deal with that. And so they just avoid, avoid, avoid. And again,
mindset. Right? Being open to that. Before we do that, I do wanna say what
you said about executive to understand take the executive role. What I
heard in that too is is that we need to understand our role in
the business. Because I think a lot of times to reference
Michael Gerber, and he talked about the visionary, the or the entrepreneur,
(16:30):
the technician, and the manager. A lot of times people
will they're working for someone else. They're doing a really great job and
they're saying, I could do this for myself. They start their own business and what
they end up with is their own job. And they're just
still taking that same mindset, the employee mindset, if you
will, versus the business owner mindset. And so that shift
(16:51):
in understanding what my role is in this business, sometimes it's scary
because we don't wanna let go of it because it's like it's our baby. Right?
I can't let go of my baby. I've had clients, you know, they're they're empty
nesters, and they're just like, no. I don't. But it's
like with business. Right? It's like just to be able to let it shine and
let it flourish on its own. We don't wanna do that. I'm glad you mentioned
(17:13):
that. That's I think really important just knowing what that shift. It changes
everything in the way that we look at our business. Well, and if you don't
shift to the executive mode, then your business isn't gonna go past
you. No. There's no way. Yeah. You're gonna be the blockage of it.
Yeah. And you're always gonna have a job. So let's talk about conflict.
How do we resolve conflict? Because specifically when we're talking about
(17:34):
married entrepreneurs and you mentioned solo entrepreneur, and I know in your book, you also
talk about solo entrepreneur versus couple entrepreneur. So explain
that or couplepreneur, however you say that, the difference. And
then how do you deal with that conflict? This is your baby, honey. You love
this stuff. The conflict, it stems from
childhood. In my upbringing, we didn't do conflict well. We
(17:56):
would just walk out the door on each other, just slam the door, hang up
on you, get in the car, and storm out the driveway. So as soon as
conflict was to arise with us, it was pretty tricky and it was
hard. And we did pre premarital
counseling, which is a whole another story in itself. It's in the book. And
that we came up with rules of engagements, and it's what we take our
(18:17):
clients through. So since my family would walk out the
door, Robert and I would get into a conflict, and I would think to
myself, oh my gosh. Is he gonna leave me? Like, is he gonna walk out
and never come back? I don't know. So that created a lot of anxiety
and fear in me. And so for each couple, it's different
what our triggers are and rules of engagement is. So we came up with a
(18:39):
plan so that if we are in a heated discussion, if somebody
needs a break, they'll say like, hey. You know what? I love you. I need
to take a break. Go on a walk or whatever. I'll be back in such
and such time, and then we'll resume this conversation. So then
if he's mad and he walks out or needs a time out, I know I
can kinda calm down being alright that he's gonna come back, not
(19:01):
wondering is he coming back or not. Yeah. So, you know, some keys
to resolving conflict or dealing with conflict or
preventing disagreements to become like a big issue is stay off those
landmines, those things that trigger emotional triggers. And she just talked
about one is walking out. Right? That's not going to help anything. Right? It's
just going to piss her off or get her more worried if I'm coming back.
(19:23):
And like for me, the one trigger I need to stay away from is being
sarcastic. Making a sarcastic comment. So we know that
80% of how we interpret information is based on how it was
said and not what was said. So it's that nonverbal. And so
with those nonverbal cues and if it's a negative trigger next thing you
know we're really the conflict is really about the emotional issue. It's not even about
(19:45):
the topic anymore. We're really upset at how you make you
feel. And so if you stay away from emotional triggers, that's why we call it
in the rules of engagement out of bounds. I think we all know how we
trigger the others your spouse. We know each other's buttons. So we make
that goes in the list. Right? Out of bounds. And then in bounds are those
things that how do we provide a healthy conversation to create a safe
(20:06):
space to be able to talk? Right? A lot of times you talk about avoidance
and Kaylee and I both grew up as conflict avoidant because we're
afraid of what the conflict might result in our relationship. And
so we need to save space so we have to talk about that. What creates
a safe space? And so, like for example, like Kaylee
will come up to me. She's gonna present an issue to me that she kinda
(20:27):
has suspicion that it might trigger me. That she'll say, honey,
I need to say something, but guard your heart. And so when she says that,
it means this could be a touchy subject, but don't react. Or try
not to react. And how do you not react to that? You're like, what? Well,
I don't want to catch him off guard. If I catch him off guard totally,
like not expecting it, then he's reacting. It's better to have a
(20:48):
shot over the bow and be prepared than to for her to
just lean in on it. Right? And you've made those agreements upfront that you know
what that means. And that it's being said in love Yeah. Off the
So I literally have to go I
gotta prepare myself. Don't react. Don't react. Don't react. And I just have to
prepare myself. And I said, okay. Go ahead. And then you just got to put
(21:10):
yourself in that situation. So what that does, it creates a safe space for
her. Right? She's already warned me. And I'm already kind of in that mode
of okay. Don't overreact. Let's just listen and let's just talk. And
then that's a safe space. So that's kind of a, you know, inbounds. It's like,
okay, warn me if you can. Sometimes we don't remember.
But, you know, asking clarifying questions as opposed to just jumping to
(21:32):
conclusions. Ask a couple of clarifying questions first because a lot of times
we react too quick and we make assumptions and then we're off to the
races. Right? And we're going around and racing. And a little thing turns into a
big thing. And all it was was a miscommunication a lot of the time or
maybe I just didn't hear them correctly. Well, and this is relevant for
couples in general. And then you add on the fact that you're actually
(21:53):
operating a business and now your business partners,
in that case, sometimes it's one's an entrepreneur and the other one's working at a
job. And so there's that dynamic. But even like in the business, you're both
business partners. And now you've got the pressure
of maybe some deadlines and things happening and
this needs to be done. And you just wanna get it done,
(22:15):
and you fire a shot off over the bow of your
spouse. And, you know, so how do you deal with that? And
even like from that accountability standpoint of getting things
done differentiating, right, between we're spouses, we love
each other, we're married, and we're business partners. And knowing, do you
delineate between that? And if you do or don't, how do
(22:37):
you navigate that where you're not one area is not
spilling over into the other area? How you just prevent one area like
business spilling over into personal is really about not taking things
personal. It doesn't matter whether it's a business decision or if it's a home
decision. When you start making things personal that's when emotions flare
up and then nothing gets done. Right. And so whether it's at home or in
(22:59):
business, because since you brought up business we talked about deadlines. First thing is let's
be more proactive about this. I don't wait to an hour to
say hey Kaley have you done this yet? That kind of stuff. So what we
do is one, we just understand and every couple should do this anyway
regardless if you work together or not. But, understanding the strengths and weaknesses.
Like we use a disc profile. And Kaley needs a little bit more time to
(23:21):
stew on certain things than I do based on certain situations.
And so one thing we do is whatever the issue is or whatever
the issue is whatever deadline we have obviously we say okay here's what needs to
get done and here's the deadline. But we also kind of just keep checking
in. And part of that check-in is we have a weekly meeting on Mondays at
3:30 just to go over both personal and business issues. What's going on? What's
(23:43):
coming down the pipe? And how are we doing? How are we progressing on this?
Do you need more help or what? And just those regular check ins
also helps prevent those coming up to the nth hour when
things aren't getting done. Also, you got to understand each other's strengths and
weaknesses when it comes to the task at hand. Is this something that Kaylee should
be doing or I should be doing? Since you read the book, you'll know that
(24:03):
I put Kaylee in charge of QuickBooks. Things are getting done. Of
type. I like color. You know? And numbers, you can't really
aren't that colorful. So I
highlight. I didn't wanna tell him no. I thought, oh, I could do
it. He really needs me. But it turned into a cheese
cut. Yes. Because he would be, honey, did you get the
(24:25):
QuickBooks done? And I'd be like, no. Because I'd put it off because it's something
I don't like to do. And so then he's like, did you get it done?
No. So then, eventually, I'd go do it, and then he'd come back to
me and say, honey, this is all wrong. It's gotta be perfect. There's no
wiggle room. And then it triggers me because I feel like, oh my gosh.
I put all this time and I really tried, and you don't appreciate me.
(24:46):
And then he gets triggered because it does need to be perfect, but
So in in business And it's a vicious cycle. Yes. So
it kinda starts with making sure you're in the right role. You know, when you
look at my disc profile and all that, I'm the analytical one. Mhmm. I'm the
one that deals with the numbers. I just didn't want to do Quickbooks because I
thought it was a pain in the rear end. And so, hence, how
we addressed this was don't be cheap, hire a bookkeeper. Right? Simple solution.
(25:10):
But again, sometimes in business, especially when you're a small business
starting out, you kind of just to save a buck, You have your spouse do
it or something else. You just try to piecemeal stuff. It might not be Quickbooks,
it might be something else. But you try to save a buck and it ends
up turning into a worse thing than if you just spent the money.
And kept the peace and you also have somebody that's good at what they're doing
(25:31):
to get it done faster than you. So we're actually paying
somebody to do something that's really investment in our time and our money to free
up an area so that we can work more in our zone of genius so
we can get our business moving forward. So yeah, roles understanding roles and
responsibilities are also a good way to start to prevent those conflict issues.
Well, and I wanna say too, if there's something like time sensitive we need to
(25:52):
talk about or I feel like it's important and, you know, we've already had our
meeting for the week, Making sure you catch him at the right time. Because sometimes
I could just burrow into his office. Oh, honey, I mean, da da da da
da. And what do you think? And he's in the middle of writing this content.
You know what I mean? It's totally wrong time. So then, you know Like
yesterday? Yeah. So he gets triggered, then I'm like,
(26:12):
I'm trying to make a decision. You're not helping me. And then I get triggered,
and then it's like as opposed to, was now a good time? If not, when
would be a good time to talk to you about this? Yeah. So mind you,
like, all these are tools that you have to use probably for your lifetime.
It's not like what we're saying is everything we do is perfect, like we always
carve out the right time. Like she said, sometimes she'll interrupt me, like
(26:33):
yesterday I was writing content Oh, really? For e blast. And she was
yelling from the other room, like, hey, what's this? She was asking questions. She was
asking questions from the other room. And so one question was fine, but then it
was 2, and then it was 3. Then it became a pattern, and I'm like,
honey, can we do this later? I'm in the middle of something before me
just blowing up. It's like, ah, stop. Just like, okay, honey, can we just do
(26:53):
this later? So just being mindful of those kind of things is helpful.
Well, I'm married to an engineer. And so we had
this conversation just recently because I was asking his opinion
on something. And I said, hey, can you just, And he's like, I'm
watching something. He was studying some course or doing something. I was like,
well, you can stop and just help me. There's a pause
(27:15):
button. There's a pause button. He's like, but I'm in thought, you
know. Okay. But understanding so I grew up in
an entrepreneurial household and my parents owned a
business. My dad owned the business. My mom worked in the business essentially as the
bookkeeper. And then as they started a home based business as
well, I got involved in the business and my brother helped in
(27:37):
my dad's garage business and I helped in the home based business. And so we
were kinda like knee deep in this. And I'm just laughing as you were talking
about the different personalities. Right? There's this saying, opposites attract and then
they attack. So when after they get married, right? Because like, why
aren't you more like me? So my dad is like, we would never
want him to do anything with the bookkeeping at all. Even
(27:59):
before computers, it was like, just don't even touch it. Just stay
away. He's the talker. It was amazing what he does,
present the opportunity, sale, do all the things,
but not the paperwork. And so just knowing the roles,
like you talked about, knowing those roles was really important. And then I had the
interesting dynamic of being in the midst of that. Even as a
(28:22):
kid, always being the referee in our household. So we didn't avoid conflict. I had
these in my household. So I do use the disc and strength finder as well.
So they're all d's. Right? My dad's a d I. My mother's a
d c. My brother's a d I, and I'm the youngest. And I'm
also a d, but there was no room for that in the household.
I remember saying, when do I get to be right? When do I get to
(28:43):
be you know, my brother's like, you don't. It's like, well, I'm glad we're clear
on that. And so it was like, everybody had a point. I remember dating a
guy who came in. He was an s personality, and he came in as c
personality. And he's like, you all just wanna make a point. Like, everybody's gotta be
right. Everybody's and we're and we're looking at him and going in, what is your
point? Who am I here
(29:04):
this conversation? What's wrong with this? So it's an interesting dynamic.
And then as an adult, being partners with them, with my
parents in the business and the 3 of us. And when they were in fight,
I'd be like the referee in the middle. Like, okay, you go to your court.
You go to your corner and time out. And so it was
interesting dynamics in that. And learning how to deal with
(29:26):
that conflict, learning how to you you said something so valuable
in there is not taking it personally. I think that's so important.
We take things personally, or it's like my dad in the
garage business. He might be yelling over a bunch of cars
and whatever and going, hey, do such and such. And it's like, who do you
think you're talking to? That doesn't work because then you end up right? It's
(29:47):
just understanding the situation and not taking it personally.
I think is so important. A good lesson, I think, a reminder for all of
us. So, yeah. It's good. How do you deal with
speaking of conflict included in your book, you included it
in some of the material. And I thought it would be great to touch on
this cause I can almost hear some people saying, okay, but what
(30:10):
do you do with the person who's the provoker? How do you deal with the
passive aggressive person? How do you deal with some of these personalities who
maybe or it's not really personality, but the way that they're showing up.
They're not playing by the rules of engagement. You know what I mean? Like, they
got their own rules of engagement. Maybe there's multiple family members
in that business. How do you do that? Maybe somebody
(30:30):
who's sabotaging, somebody who's likes to stir my dad was the
provoker. And when there's the peacemaker. How do you deal with that? Well, first, I
mean, start with husband and wife. You know, we create those rules of engagement and
we've agreed to it. You sign your name if you need to sign your name.
Some couples have gone as far as notarizing it. And so we make an agreement
and I would think as husband and wife your reward is your bond. And especially
(30:51):
when it's written. And if you want me to live by this,
then you need to. And so, there's that sense of accountability. And in the
beginning, it's a little rough, right? I mean, it's again, you're learning a new skill
of how to communicate. And so literally, we just advocate towards, you
know, you really got to create a routine on how you have these
discussions. Sometimes it's being in a certain place
(31:14):
in the house or not the house, or it's outside, or outside the
business, or in a specific room. But you got to create some kind of
routine or habit to start getting in the sense of being able to stick to
rules of engagement. And then later on you can do it on the fly. But
you got to train yourself a little bit. Yeah, you got to train yourself and
hold each other accountable. But, when you hold each other accountable, it's not by shaming
(31:34):
them and say, you intimidated it. It's just a start because it's probably a trigger
that's probably in the most occasion. So, that's why having it out and printed is
helpful because the spouse could say, hey, you're just triggering me. You're just you're going
against. You're trying to hold me accountable to get you to do. You know, so
it's like, hey, let's time out here and let's stay away from these triggers. And
so let's start over. But also, a lot of times when we're in this
like cycle of insanity, we're in conflict. And
(31:58):
regardless of the personality type, I think one of the things you can do
even like Katie shared earlier about prefacing the conversation ahead of time to
let so I know what's needed. But sometimes in the midst of an argument,
you know maybe she didn't preface it ahead of time but in the midst of
an argument I'll stop or she'll stop and I'll say what do you need from
me? Do you need me to hear, listen, and empathize or do you need a
solution? Because as men, we just go in solution mode right away, come the
(32:21):
80 20 rule. A lot of times with women, 80% of time, it's listen and
empathize and 80 20 for men are, let's solve this problem.
And it frustrates me. And then I'm like, you know, listening to me, then he
comes up with another idea, and I get more frustrated. And I know one time
he asked me, what do you need? And I totally caught him off guard, you
guys, and I said a hug. And he's like, what? I'm like, a hug. So
(32:42):
he gave me a hug. I was on my merry way. I think he was
all upset. He was shocked. He's like, that was easy. No. He
wanted me to hug. Too easy. Yeah. You had, like, a 100 solutions. I was
a little skeptical. I'm like, what is she doing? Is she setting me up for
something? Like, wait. Come back. I have all these solutions.
And so I went on my way, and he's like, what just happened?
(33:03):
I don't know about this. Yeah. So the start with the rules of engagement. If
you need a third party to witness it and all that, I mean, you gotta
this sounds it can sound very, like, businesslike, but it's needed. I
mean, we gotta create a safe space for people to talk. And so the
passive aggressive person just doesn't feel safe to raise up an issue. Right?
Because I can be passive aggressive because I feel like she's not gonna like
(33:24):
me if what I say upsets her. So we go avoidant
this space is an an avoidant route. A passive aggressiveness is an avoidant route and
because we don't feel safe. So creating that safe space and then, of course, then
rules of engagement and have a witness if you need to. And then always just
ask, hey, what do you need from me? Because if you feel the passive aggressive
person go into their shell, how Kaylee brings me out is, like, what do you
(33:46):
need? Well, and I think we all need to be adults. You know, I mean,
it's easy for me to wanna go back into my childhood when I was 5
years old. I just want my way, and I want you to listen to me,
and I just wanna win at all costs. You know what I mean? But that's
not good for either one of us to get my mind and dig my heels
into that position because, like I said, I could've just made a miscommunication, and
then I'm all upset about this little thing that didn't happen, you know what I
(34:08):
mean? That I thought in my mind that it did. So Yeah. And she kind
of alluded to something and you didn't ask this question but I wanna bring it
up anyway. You know, there's this word called compromise that they talk about
marriage about compromise. We say no it's not about compromise because
compromise by definition is tearing the good pieces of both
parts and making it something acceptable. It's basically accepting what's less than
(34:28):
great. And so, what we look at is how do we make a good decision?
And then sometimes it's going to be going to her idea, or my idea, or
sometimes it's pieces of both, or sometimes just through the conversation. We come up
with a solution that's different from either one of ours, and has nothing, and it
may have bits and pieces of it, but really we're trying to create the best
solution. So instead of thinking about compromise in a disagreement, so
(34:49):
what's the best decision we can make for us? Well, I'm glad you brought
that up actually because that was something that stood out in the book because you
talk about the resentment that develops out of that. If I
sacrifice something or give up something and the other person is as
well, let's say my husband, then we're both feeling like we're missing
something that might be important to us. And
(35:10):
recently we were talking to somebody and he said, Oh, I'm just gonna do
what she wants me to do kind of thing. And and I was like, that's
not gonna work. You know, that's not gonna work. It may work for the moment,
but it's not gonna work long term and you're gonna get resentful. It's actually
creating a bigger rift than talking it out. And like you said,
coming up with a good decision and coming back to that whole idea of not
(35:32):
taking it personally. When we take it personally, we go into that
childhood mode, the trigger, and I just want my way.
Yeah. Just being able to look at it objectively. It's like I think I look
at the observer. Right? Like stepping out and going, what's actually happening here? Even for
myself, it's like, of course, I'm a coach, but it's like still anybody just
looking and saying, what's actually going on right now? Mhmm. Get
(35:54):
curious about I know a leader just right now, they're splitting. I was having
lunch with him, and he's basically alluding to the fact that, you know, he's
gonna give and let her have her way all these years. She's controlling and let
her have her way. And now it's all those years of resentment that have
just piled up, and now we're irreconcilable differences, and we need to split.
And I'm like, because you're not happy? I'm like, well, it's because we really haven't
(36:15):
addressed the issue. This is a fixable issue, but now we've just got this big
pile of stuff that we've let go on without really addressing it because we've
let them have their way. And that's unhealthy for anybody. That's so good. So
what have we not talked about today that we need to talk
about in this topic of how do you build a
successful business and a successful marriage as a
(36:38):
married entrepreneur? Well, one thing for the sake of time, you know, on the business
side is you built this business to have more freedom and yet you're
tied down to it. And we talked about the control issue those kind of things.
And kind of the grand scheme of things in order for your business to be
able to scale and grow beyond your own capacity you have to set the
foundation for it to do that. Right? Again, if you're in control of
(36:58):
everything that means the capacity growth falls on you. Which means we got to
just get rid of as much stuff as possible off our plate so we can
focus on what we're good at and have a team or whatever to do that.
So it's hiring the right people, right position to fit, systems and
processes, and then making sure on the money side you're working with good
margin. So real quick, you know, the typical business
(37:21):
is average business is running off about a 7.7% net profit
margin which is okay but that's not great. So
15 to 20 percent for our clients is where we want them and that means
we have adequate bottom line to be able to continue to invest back into the
business to grow take care of unexpected issues to be reinvest
into business to hire more people hire more help. And when we get to that
(37:42):
point, now when we get to a healthy margin, then you're going to be able
to build a business that's scalable. So that's usually the first place to start. And
that's actually very fixable pretty quick because it's just adjusting margin. We're not
adjusting sales. We're not trying to get more sales. We're just addressing margins. So it's
increase in price looking for ways to be more efficient and productive. So you basically
lower your cost per and then or a combination of 2. And when we get
(38:03):
to that, then we'll have the adequate margin to be able to hire that 1st
virtual assistant or assistant or that salesperson or whatever that you need
that first piece to start getting your business more into growth phase
and taking a lot more pressure off of the business owner. So looking at your
time, looking at your money, and then measure performance are the 3 things that
will help you position your business to be able to scale so that you'll have,
(38:25):
you know, be able to have the freedom that you wanted. Awesome. Thank you. Free
gifts. You've got a link that we're gonna include in the show notes
where you've got some gifts for the listeners. Kay Lee, do you wanna
talk about that? Yeah. That's married entrepreneur.co
leaders of transformation. Slash leaders of transformation. Yeah. So
there's a free download for work life balance, and then there's
(38:47):
also our access to our book, Tandem, the Baron Entrepreneur's Guide for Work Life
Balance. And if you want to talk this live and pick our brain, there's actually
a link for that too. Right? Right on that landing page. So, yeah, married
entrepreneur.c0/leaders of transformation. So hopefully they remember that
because it's the name of your podcast. Awesome. Well, and you also your podcast
because you also have a podcast called thriving in tandem. And
(39:08):
so we'll make sure that's I know it's also on that page, and
it'll also be in our show notes separately so people can check out
your podcast and just continue to learn from you and what you're doing.
So, yeah, this has been great. It's like reliving my childhood. Thank you
so much for being here, both of you. It's been such a pleasure. And I
look forward to getting a chance to meet you in person because you're not that
(39:30):
far away, and I'm sure we'll do some fun things together. So, yeah, it'll
be good. And I always say leaders of transformation take
action. So for audience out there, if you're listening, if you're watching,
take action on something that you learned today. Sometimes taking action
is making time to stop and look at where you're
at. So it's not necessarily doing doing doing doing more. Maybe it's
(39:52):
just stepping out and saying, let's just actually take a moment together
to maybe it's eye contact. When's the last time so this is
for somebody I know because I just thought of this. When's the last time
you actually looked into your spouse's eyes and it wasn't about, like,
telling them what they need to do or ships passing in the night,
but literally spending 5 minutes and having eye contact
(40:15):
quality eye contact and connection with your spouse. If you haven't done that, it's
your first action. I highly recommend it. It's really important to start
there. And then you can look at what are the next steps from
there. How do we have that conversation? How do we rediscover
our values, rediscover those rules of engagement, what we may have agreed to at some
point, but one away from it. Or maybe you've never created those rules of engagement,
and it's now time that you need to do that. I encourage you also to,
(40:36):
of course, go back to the married entrepreneur
dotcoforward/leadersoftransformation. Go book a time. If
you're having challenges in your business, if you're having challenges in your marriage
as a married entrepreneur and you need some support, get the support
(40:59):
that you need. Robert and Kaylee are here. They've been through it. They go through
it on a day to day basis. They have the tools, invest in
yourself, and at least do the discovery call and learn
more about what they can do to help you and your spouse along the way.
Get a copy of their book, tandem. It is excellent,
very relevant, very practical. You'll relate. Their
(41:20):
stories are in there. There's so much value in this. So I just encourage you
to take action because you know what? You can listen to podcast all day and
it's wonderful on your drive back and forth, but it's when
you actually apply what you learned that transformation happens. So I
encourage you to do that. We'd love to hear your stories. You can go on
leaders at transformation.com. Reach out to us there and, of course,
(41:41):
find us on social as well. I hope you enjoyed it. Next week, we're gonna
have another episode, another amazing guest. Join us next week. We
look forward to seeing them. Have a great day. Thank you for listening to
the Leaders of Transformation podcast with Nicole Jansen. If
you're enjoying the show, please click the follow or subscribe button, and
leave a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
(42:03):
And remember to join us on social and get connected. Together,
we can make this world a better place for everyone. We'll
see you next time.
Welcome to the leaders of transformation podcast. The number one
show for business leaders and entrepreneurs passionate about uplifting
others and making a greater impact in the world. Now here's
your host, transformational coach, speaker, and business
advisor, Nicole Jansen.
(00:21):
How do married entrepreneurs build a successful business and a successful
marriage? Our guests today are Robert and Kaley Fukui. They
are the founders of I61 Inc, which is a
business consulting company. And they specifically
work with married entrepreneurs in creating better work life balance
by structuring their business to scale and
(00:43):
giving back precious time so that they can invest in their
marriage and their life and all the things that are important to them. So I'm
really excited to have them here. They are co authors of the new
book, Tandem, which I have read and it is excellent.
The married entrepreneurs guide for greater work life balance.
And highly recommended. It's very relatable. It's very practical,
(01:07):
fantastic resource. And so, yeah. Robert and Kaylee, we're
excited to have you here. Welcome to the lead transformation. Thank you for having us,
Nicole. Yeah. Thanks, Nicole. And it's so great to see we have so many people
in common. So that's crazy. When you're
so
close.
(01:30):
Yeah. Well, you know what? It's funny because you reached out and I'm like, wait
a second. I know this guy. Right? Like, I've seen him in pictures. Yeah. I
mean like, I've seen youon Facebook with in pictures with Tim Porter and so that
was just I was like, wow. That's so cool. So yeah. It's cool that
we're both on the same kind of journey where God is just leading us. And
I love how he's making those divine appointments. I see this as a divine appointment.
So yeah. Cool. Well, let's talk about this work life
(01:52):
balance that you reference. As a married entrepreneur, is it
even possible to create work life balance? What does that even
mean? Work life balance? Maybe let's start there. Yeah. Yeah. That that's where
you gotta start because you gotta be able to define it. Otherwise, you won't be
able to achieve it work toward achieving it. So I think the misnomer around
work life balance is about quantity of time. Spending x amount of hours
(02:14):
in business versus marriage versus volunteer work. It's not a quantitative
measurement, it's a qualitative measurement. It's about quality of time.
So, you can be with your spouse for 4 hours running
errands, but that's not quality time. But 5 minutes looking her in
the eye and telling her how special she is and she means the world for
me and what can I do today to make your day special? Is more than
(02:34):
those 4 hours. And so, quality of time is that much more important. So,
when we define work life balance, it's helping the couples and even helping us
when we started this for ourselves. Is defining what does that look like?
And then break it down into the most. Think about the most stressful
time you can have in your life and your business. And in the midst of
that, during that week, how do you make sure Katie and I stay
(02:56):
connected? Right? Yeah. It doesn't take like I just shared 5 minutes
a day. We spend 15 to 20 minutes a day in prayer first thing in
the morning. Right? That's our first place of connection. And so regardless of what happens
the rest of the day, you know, we're good. I mean we want more but
even if you know we're in a busy stretch, just that 15 minutes a day
to pray and bring number 1 God in the center of our marriage, connecting
(03:18):
emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, and of course physically, and then just
blessing each other, like that carries you. Right? Yeah. And I just still
wanna say to the men out there, there's nothing like having your husband pray for
you. It's just so uplifting. And sometimes it can carry you through the whole week
because, you know, we have a lot going on, and it's just nice to have
that blessing. Yeah. I was gonna say, Robert, as you were sharing that about the
(03:39):
5 minutes looking in her eyes and just connecting and praying
together, I was thinking you just want all the women. They're all like,
who is this guy? Can I introduce him to my husband?
Yeah. Yeah. We said earlier, and I'm sure we can say this as adults,
but, you know, guys, you want more sex, connect with your wife.
Yeah. Like, you don't have to ask for it or demand it. I mean, if
(04:00):
you literally just connect her with your wife, it's just a natural
next step. I mean, it's not like right at the moment, but you know it's
going to be a lot of times as we get further and further in our
years of marriage, and we get further and further disconnected because we're not doing those
simple things. That's where the intimacy starts to erode.
Because it's not because we don't find any others sexual, but
(04:21):
we kind of do in a sense because we're not feeling connected. And that's why
guys have a hard time figuring that out. Well, it was funny because I was
telling my husband, we were talking to somebody in our church, and I forget
what the context was. But anyway, I said, you know, honey, it's just good for
business.
I'm just saying. Yeah. Well, it's great it's great for the
(04:42):
marriage too because statistics show what are the statistics that people that pray
together? Oh, praying together? Only about 8% of Christian couples pray
daily together. You know, I was referring to the business of intimacy, but yes Yeah.
Also the business. So but yeah. And
that's the sad thing is is that so often we are disconnected
and it's not meant that way. What's the saying? Right? A family that prays together
(05:04):
stays together. A couple that prays together stays together. And
what is really at the essence of that? It is the that emotional,
spiritual, mental, that connection, the physical connection, but it's
alignment. We're in alignment. You mentioned maybe even
it lasting a whole week when he prays for you cause you're aligned, you
know, you're grounded. And so that's so powerful. Tell us a
(05:27):
little bit about your backstory and kinda like how did you come
together? I know you have a business background, Kaleigh and
Robert. You're in marketing. How did you gel that
together? And just to kind of help our audience just a little get to know
you a little bit more. Yeah. Well, I'm a PK actually at heart. Not at
heart. I was literally a PK, pastor's kid. And then Kaylee grew up in entrepreneurial
(05:48):
background. But when we met, I was in Fortune 500. I was working for a
pharmaceutical company in marketing and sales, and she actually said,
I can see you having a business. He thought I was completely crazy because I'm
3rd generation entrepreneur family, and I just knew so many
entrepreneurs. They're all around me, and so I just totally saw it in him and
he's like, oh my gosh. No way. Yeah. Because that's too risky.
(06:09):
I'm risk averse and my dad just said go to
school, stay out of debt, get a job. And so that's kind of what I
did. And you know, it's nice to have the regular paycheck and then you get
the bonuses and the company car and all the benefits. So, you know, health insurance,
that's pretty comfortable. But as I got into my kind of my mid forties, you
know, right on there, you start kind of questioning about long term. Like, what do
(06:30):
you really want to do and what are you supposed to do? And especially in
our church talking about the 7 mountain mandate and you know how we're supposed to
make an impact and doing our part to help transform society for the
kingdom. You know I started really asking what's my role? Am I supposed to stay
in the corporate ladder or is it supposed to be something different? That's when I
started to entertain having a business, but I didn't know what kind of
(06:50):
business it would be. So, I just remember just printing out all the
different industries, the chart of all the industries, and I just checked off all these
industries 1 by 1. Nope. Nope. Nope. Don't want to do that. Definitely don't want
to do a restaurant. Just like nope, nope, nope. So, I was left
with nothing. So, maybe my background is in marketing and sales. Maybe I'll just do
some consulting work with some businesses, like different types. Maybe I'll find
(07:12):
something that I really want to start or do. And so what
happened I just started really enjoying the consulting process.
Seeing the results on the business is one thing. But it was really the
relationships I was having with the business owners and seeing how much of
an impact the results were having on their life. Then of course, you get to
know the employees. I mean, when you're dealing with small business versus a
(07:33):
multinational company there's a different level of intimacy, right?
With the leaders and the stakeholders. And so having that relationship was
awesome and then as you get to know them they started sharing about their
personal life and how their marriage was struggling in different
areas. And what else I made the connection was you're
working number 1 you don't really have much of a marketing issue as you have
(07:55):
an efficiency and productivity issues and a margin issue. And I noticed
that you're working way too hard than you need to for the results you're getting.
And therefore, it's also keeping you away from being at home when you'd want to
be at home. You start this business to have more freedom but then next thing
you know you're more enslaved than I was at a W2 position. And
something's not connecting here. So really started noticing the trend
(08:18):
of all these married entrepreneurs really struggling with work life
balance. And how do we do business well but still prioritize marriage and
family? And so that's when I kind of kept Kaleigh. You know we kind of
compare notes about me growing up in a pastor's home versus her growing up in
an entrepreneur home and we felt the same lack of balance in our life.
How our dads were so focused on growing their organizations
(08:39):
that the family was basically taking a ta the back seat. Yeah. In my
childhood, the business became the mistress. It was really challenging on the
family. It was really taxing my dad work 6 days a week. To this day,
I don't think he made it to my high school graduation. That's tough.
And Robert had the marketing corporate experience where a lot of the
entrepreneurs were wearing a 100 different hats, and our go to is just
(09:01):
put more time in. But we're not, like, measuring things and keeping track of the
performance in what's working. Usually, we don't have time or money to
hire someone. Or if we hire someone, we don't wanna train them. We just want
them to be, you know, come already trained. So Yeah. Well, and
you mentioned something that was really interesting when you talk about the time
and the money margin. And and I think that there's a lot of, like you
(09:22):
mentioned even in your book, there's business consultants and then there's
marriage counselors. But there's not usually the
same consultant working on both of those things and
recognizing the how one is affecting the other so
significantly. You know, it's like, well, you're having marriage problems because you're not
communicating and it's like, well, you're not communicating
(09:44):
because you're stressed out. Why are you stressed out? And I love in the book
where you talk about time margin. Because if we think about it, we
think about it in terms of money margin, profit margins, but
not time margin. So talk a little bit about that and
the importance of scaling in terms of so like you wanna
grow a better marriage? It's not about just making more money. It's about
(10:06):
actually having more time, leverage, right? Having money and
time that helps to build that better marriage. Yeah.
We treat time as like a throwaway, like Kleenex. We don't really value it
like the asset that it really is and it's not renewable. Once it's gone, it's
gone. So, we just put more and more time into trying to
fix and grow the business without really evaluating what kind of return am I
(10:28):
getting for the time I'm putting in. Right, instead of putting, so
just give you a sales example, to get more sales we're going to put more
time, try to get more leads, or whatever. My question is always, what
if we just increase the close rate? Right. You're already getting leads, what if we
just increase the close rate? Unless you're at 100% close rate, right, we've got room
to grow. And so let's start there. So that's a prime
(10:50):
example of increasing your money margins. Basically getting more
results with the time you're putting in. Not just putting more time in.
And really to protect the time. And
even as a solopreneur, if you're working by yourself, you have to wear a lot
of hats, right? Obviously. But even in the midst of that, the question
is, are you spending your time in the most productive way? Or are you just
(11:11):
spinning your wheels doing everything and not getting anything done? Right? And so that's
where you really have to assess where you're spending your time and evaluate
where's the best use of your time. Because most business owners you
know you heard the term on the business or in the business. When you're working
in the business you're just in a daily grind. Working on the business is focusing
on the most productive activities like getting new contracts, getting new leads,
(11:33):
doing some research and development, testing menus for a restaurant. All
those big things that don't provide immediate returns but
provide long term benefit. And those are the type of things that we start to
kick the can down the road because we want to deal with immediate issues. And
so we have to like really evaluate that was like, okay, how do we address
this? And really ask the question and get more critical about how we're using
(11:55):
on time so that you can be more productive with the time you have. Because
a lot of the general stuff, you can hire somebody to do that. But when
you're in your zone of genius, usually only the owner can do that. And that's
what's moving the business forward. Yeah. And we don't spend as much
time there or any time there sometimes. What is it? The
80 20 rule. Right? Dan Sullivan talks about most entrepreneurs from
(12:16):
strategic coach. Most entrepreneurs are spending
80% of their time doing things that they're not
actually good at. Maybe 20% of the time doing the thing that's
doing your unique ability and need to flip that around. And I hear that in
what you're saying too. It's like flipping that around. So we're doing the thing that
we're in their zone of genius and we're hiring out. But that
(12:37):
takes a mindset shift. Right? It's like when you're in it, you're
surviving, which a lot of entrepreneurs are in that survival mode. Right.
You're like, I don't have time for this. I don't have time to work on
this. I don't have time to work on my business. I don't have time and
how you do anything is how you do everything. I don't have time to work
on my marriage. I'm too much in it. So how do you
(12:58):
get them out of that mindset where it's like, so to stop.
Like, if they're in it and they can just take a month off and take
time to or whatever or even a week off to get in. How where do
you start with them? You go into a business and they're just drowning in
busy day to day operations. How do you start carving
back that time and determining what to carve back? Where to
(13:20):
carve it back? You know what I mean? Yeah. So that's the first big question.
The mindset issue. Right? That's the most challenging piece. Because all the changes
that need to happen and to do are actually very simple. It's actually very easy.
It's just mentally. Like business is simple. It's just the mental and emotional
block. Having a virtual assistant to take 10 hours of work off your
plate is very simple, but emotionally and mentally, it's
(13:42):
very hard to let go of control those things. Especially when
you start the business by yourself, or maybe with a small team, and you're wearing
multiple hats. You get so used to just doing everything, even though you're
complaining about it, but you're comfortable in your own misery. And so, we just have
to start by asking a question. How long do you want to continue down this
road? Right? Because it's not going to change. It doesn't even matter how much more
(14:02):
money you make. We've had some of our clients, financially, they're already
doing well. It's just the mental and emotional get out of your own way, get
out of the business' way was the key. And so it has to start with
asking the question, how long do you want to keep going? Because clearly, the money
is not going to solve the problem. And one of our clients really struggled with
that. He had great employees that he just loved and bragged about him all the
(14:22):
time, and then his health started deteriorating. And then it got to the
point he just couldn't do it keep up like he was. And so he
had he was kinda forced to let it go, the micromanaging. Because, you know,
we all say business owners, I don't micromanage.
And when he did let it go, the employees were so happy, and he said,
oh my gosh. I got so much more done when I wasn't involved in all
(14:43):
this. And then he was able to go do the things that he loved to
do. So the quote I use from him all the time is more things get
done when I'm out of the way. Yeah. It's amazing how
much more gets done when I'm not working, when I'm doing it. Yeah. So it's
really, yeah, adjusting the mindset is the first key. And, you know, short of
referring them to a counselor or something like that to really work in the mindset,
(15:05):
it's like we said earlier, we're in survival mode. That's where we spend most of
our time. And it's like, okay, how do we get you into executive mode? Yes.
Right? Making big, long term decisions, moving the vision
forward. And your way is not working, so we got to make a
change. And that change is gonna hurt a little bit because it's like
a new muscle that you got to work out. It's going to hurt a little
(15:25):
bit, but let's trust the process and that's kind of where the accountability
piece holds. And then, you know, we're usually working with husband and wife, so we
already got a built in accountability partner and helping them develop
tools of how to communicate well without triggering each other.
That's one of the first pieces of our work with them because you can look
at your spouse and see what the gap challenges are and the gaps are. But
(15:46):
when you say, hey, you should be doing this or maybe you should scale back
a little bit, there's gonna be a conflict. Even though they're speaking total truth. So
we gotta empower the accountability partners, built in accountability partners to know how
to communicate in a way that doesn't trigger the other person to have some kind
of negative reaction. Yeah. I wanna talk about that because conflict,
obviously, is a really important issue is as most people don't know how to
(16:07):
deal with that. And so they just avoid, avoid, avoid. And again,
mindset. Right? Being open to that. Before we do that, I do wanna say what
you said about executive to understand take the executive role. What I
heard in that too is is that we need to understand our role in
the business. Because I think a lot of times to reference
Michael Gerber, and he talked about the visionary, the or the entrepreneur,
(16:30):
the technician, and the manager. A lot of times people
will they're working for someone else. They're doing a really great job and
they're saying, I could do this for myself. They start their own business and what
they end up with is their own job. And they're just
still taking that same mindset, the employee mindset, if you
will, versus the business owner mindset. And so that shift
(16:51):
in understanding what my role is in this business, sometimes it's scary
because we don't wanna let go of it because it's like it's our baby. Right?
I can't let go of my baby. I've had clients, you know, they're they're empty
nesters, and they're just like, no. I don't. But it's
like with business. Right? It's like just to be able to let it shine and
let it flourish on its own. We don't wanna do that. I'm glad you mentioned
(17:13):
that. That's I think really important just knowing what that shift. It changes
everything in the way that we look at our business. Well, and if you don't
shift to the executive mode, then your business isn't gonna go past
you. No. There's no way. Yeah. You're gonna be the blockage of it.
Yeah. And you're always gonna have a job. So let's talk about conflict.
How do we resolve conflict? Because specifically when we're talking about
(17:34):
married entrepreneurs and you mentioned solo entrepreneur, and I know in your book, you also
talk about solo entrepreneur versus couple entrepreneur. So explain
that or couplepreneur, however you say that, the difference. And
then how do you deal with that conflict? This is your baby, honey. You love
this stuff. The conflict, it stems from
childhood. In my upbringing, we didn't do conflict well. We
(17:56):
would just walk out the door on each other, just slam the door, hang up
on you, get in the car, and storm out the driveway. So as soon as
conflict was to arise with us, it was pretty tricky and it was
hard. And we did pre premarital
counseling, which is a whole another story in itself. It's in the book. And
that we came up with rules of engagements, and it's what we take our
(18:17):
clients through. So since my family would walk out the
door, Robert and I would get into a conflict, and I would think to
myself, oh my gosh. Is he gonna leave me? Like, is he gonna walk out
and never come back? I don't know. So that created a lot of anxiety
and fear in me. And so for each couple, it's different
what our triggers are and rules of engagement is. So we came up with a
(18:39):
plan so that if we are in a heated discussion, if somebody
needs a break, they'll say like, hey. You know what? I love you. I need
to take a break. Go on a walk or whatever. I'll be back in such
and such time, and then we'll resume this conversation. So then
if he's mad and he walks out or needs a time out, I know I
can kinda calm down being alright that he's gonna come back, not
(19:01):
wondering is he coming back or not. Yeah. So, you know, some keys
to resolving conflict or dealing with conflict or
preventing disagreements to become like a big issue is stay off those
landmines, those things that trigger emotional triggers. And she just talked
about one is walking out. Right? That's not going to help anything. Right? It's
just going to piss her off or get her more worried if I'm coming back.
(19:23):
And like for me, the one trigger I need to stay away from is being
sarcastic. Making a sarcastic comment. So we know that
80% of how we interpret information is based on how it was
said and not what was said. So it's that nonverbal. And so
with those nonverbal cues and if it's a negative trigger next thing you
know we're really the conflict is really about the emotional issue. It's not even about
(19:45):
the topic anymore. We're really upset at how you make you
feel. And so if you stay away from emotional triggers, that's why we call it
in the rules of engagement out of bounds. I think we all know how we
trigger the others your spouse. We know each other's buttons. So we make
that goes in the list. Right? Out of bounds. And then in bounds are those
things that how do we provide a healthy conversation to create a safe
(20:06):
space to be able to talk? Right? A lot of times you talk about avoidance
and Kaylee and I both grew up as conflict avoidant because we're
afraid of what the conflict might result in our relationship. And
so we need to save space so we have to talk about that. What creates
a safe space? And so, like for example, like Kaylee
will come up to me. She's gonna present an issue to me that she kinda
(20:27):
has suspicion that it might trigger me. That she'll say, honey,
I need to say something, but guard your heart. And so when she says that,
it means this could be a touchy subject, but don't react. Or try
not to react. And how do you not react to that? You're like, what? Well,
I don't want to catch him off guard. If I catch him off guard totally,
like not expecting it, then he's reacting. It's better to have a
(20:48):
shot over the bow and be prepared than to for her to
just lean in on it. Right? And you've made those agreements upfront that you know
what that means. And that it's being said in love Yeah. Off the
So I literally have to go I
gotta prepare myself. Don't react. Don't react. Don't react. And I just have to
prepare myself. And I said, okay. Go ahead. And then you just got to put
(21:10):
yourself in that situation. So what that does, it creates a safe space for
her. Right? She's already warned me. And I'm already kind of in that mode
of okay. Don't overreact. Let's just listen and let's just talk. And
then that's a safe space. So that's kind of a, you know, inbounds. It's like,
okay, warn me if you can. Sometimes we don't remember.
But, you know, asking clarifying questions as opposed to just jumping to
(21:32):
conclusions. Ask a couple of clarifying questions first because a lot of times
we react too quick and we make assumptions and then we're off to the
races. Right? And we're going around and racing. And a little thing turns into a
big thing. And all it was was a miscommunication a lot of the time or
maybe I just didn't hear them correctly. Well, and this is relevant for
couples in general. And then you add on the fact that you're actually
(21:53):
operating a business and now your business partners,
in that case, sometimes it's one's an entrepreneur and the other one's working at a
job. And so there's that dynamic. But even like in the business, you're both
business partners. And now you've got the pressure
of maybe some deadlines and things happening and
this needs to be done. And you just wanna get it done,
(22:15):
and you fire a shot off over the bow of your
spouse. And, you know, so how do you deal with that? And
even like from that accountability standpoint of getting things
done differentiating, right, between we're spouses, we love
each other, we're married, and we're business partners. And knowing, do you
delineate between that? And if you do or don't, how do
(22:37):
you navigate that where you're not one area is not
spilling over into the other area? How you just prevent one area like
business spilling over into personal is really about not taking things
personal. It doesn't matter whether it's a business decision or if it's a home
decision. When you start making things personal that's when emotions flare
up and then nothing gets done. Right. And so whether it's at home or in
(22:59):
business, because since you brought up business we talked about deadlines. First thing is let's
be more proactive about this. I don't wait to an hour to
say hey Kaley have you done this yet? That kind of stuff. So what we
do is one, we just understand and every couple should do this anyway
regardless if you work together or not. But, understanding the strengths and weaknesses.
Like we use a disc profile. And Kaley needs a little bit more time to
(23:21):
stew on certain things than I do based on certain situations.
And so one thing we do is whatever the issue is or whatever
the issue is whatever deadline we have obviously we say okay here's what needs to
get done and here's the deadline. But we also kind of just keep checking
in. And part of that check-in is we have a weekly meeting on Mondays at
3:30 just to go over both personal and business issues. What's going on? What's
(23:43):
coming down the pipe? And how are we doing? How are we progressing on this?
Do you need more help or what? And just those regular check ins
also helps prevent those coming up to the nth hour when
things aren't getting done. Also, you got to understand each other's strengths and
weaknesses when it comes to the task at hand. Is this something that Kaylee should
be doing or I should be doing? Since you read the book, you'll know that
(24:03):
I put Kaylee in charge of QuickBooks. Things are getting done. Of
type. I like color. You know? And numbers, you can't really
aren't that colorful. So I
highlight. I didn't wanna tell him no. I thought, oh, I could do
it. He really needs me. But it turned into a cheese
cut. Yes. Because he would be, honey, did you get the
(24:25):
QuickBooks done? And I'd be like, no. Because I'd put it off because it's something
I don't like to do. And so then he's like, did you get it done?
No. So then, eventually, I'd go do it, and then he'd come back to
me and say, honey, this is all wrong. It's gotta be perfect. There's no
wiggle room. And then it triggers me because I feel like, oh my gosh.
I put all this time and I really tried, and you don't appreciate me.
(24:46):
And then he gets triggered because it does need to be perfect, but
So in in business And it's a vicious cycle. Yes. So
it kinda starts with making sure you're in the right role. You know, when you
look at my disc profile and all that, I'm the analytical one. Mhmm. I'm the
one that deals with the numbers. I just didn't want to do Quickbooks because I
thought it was a pain in the rear end. And so, hence, how
we addressed this was don't be cheap, hire a bookkeeper. Right? Simple solution.
(25:10):
But again, sometimes in business, especially when you're a small business
starting out, you kind of just to save a buck, You have your spouse do
it or something else. You just try to piecemeal stuff. It might not be Quickbooks,
it might be something else. But you try to save a buck and it ends
up turning into a worse thing than if you just spent the money.
And kept the peace and you also have somebody that's good at what they're doing
(25:31):
to get it done faster than you. So we're actually paying
somebody to do something that's really investment in our time and our money to free
up an area so that we can work more in our zone of genius so
we can get our business moving forward. So yeah, roles understanding roles and
responsibilities are also a good way to start to prevent those conflict issues.
Well, and I wanna say too, if there's something like time sensitive we need to
(25:52):
talk about or I feel like it's important and, you know, we've already had our
meeting for the week, Making sure you catch him at the right time. Because sometimes
I could just burrow into his office. Oh, honey, I mean, da da da da
da. And what do you think? And he's in the middle of writing this content.
You know what I mean? It's totally wrong time. So then, you know Like
yesterday? Yeah. So he gets triggered, then I'm like,
(26:12):
I'm trying to make a decision. You're not helping me. And then I get triggered,
and then it's like as opposed to, was now a good time? If not, when
would be a good time to talk to you about this? Yeah. So mind you,
like, all these are tools that you have to use probably for your lifetime.
It's not like what we're saying is everything we do is perfect, like we always
carve out the right time. Like she said, sometimes she'll interrupt me, like
(26:33):
yesterday I was writing content Oh, really? For e blast. And she was
yelling from the other room, like, hey, what's this? She was asking questions. She was
asking questions from the other room. And so one question was fine, but then it
was 2, and then it was 3. Then it became a pattern, and I'm like,
honey, can we do this later? I'm in the middle of something before me
just blowing up. It's like, ah, stop. Just like, okay, honey, can we just do
(26:53):
this later? So just being mindful of those kind of things is helpful.
Well, I'm married to an engineer. And so we had
this conversation just recently because I was asking his opinion
on something. And I said, hey, can you just, And he's like, I'm
watching something. He was studying some course or doing something. I was like,
well, you can stop and just help me. There's a pause
(27:15):
button. There's a pause button. He's like, but I'm in thought, you
know. Okay. But understanding so I grew up in
an entrepreneurial household and my parents owned a
business. My dad owned the business. My mom worked in the business essentially as the
bookkeeper. And then as they started a home based business as
well, I got involved in the business and my brother helped in
(27:37):
my dad's garage business and I helped in the home based business. And so we
were kinda like knee deep in this. And I'm just laughing as you were talking
about the different personalities. Right? There's this saying, opposites attract and then
they attack. So when after they get married, right? Because like, why
aren't you more like me? So my dad is like, we would never
want him to do anything with the bookkeeping at all. Even
(27:59):
before computers, it was like, just don't even touch it. Just stay
away. He's the talker. It was amazing what he does,
present the opportunity, sale, do all the things,
but not the paperwork. And so just knowing the roles,
like you talked about, knowing those roles was really important. And then I had the
interesting dynamic of being in the midst of that. Even as a
(28:22):
kid, always being the referee in our household. So we didn't avoid conflict. I had
these in my household. So I do use the disc and strength finder as well.
So they're all d's. Right? My dad's a d I. My mother's a
d c. My brother's a d I, and I'm the youngest. And I'm
also a d, but there was no room for that in the household.
I remember saying, when do I get to be right? When do I get to
(28:43):
be you know, my brother's like, you don't. It's like, well, I'm glad we're clear
on that. And so it was like, everybody had a point. I remember dating a
guy who came in. He was an s personality, and he came in as c
personality. And he's like, you all just wanna make a point. Like, everybody's gotta be
right. Everybody's and we're and we're looking at him and going in, what is your
point? Who am I here
(29:04):
this conversation? What's wrong with this? So it's an interesting dynamic.
And then as an adult, being partners with them, with my
parents in the business and the 3 of us. And when they were in fight,
I'd be like the referee in the middle. Like, okay, you go to your court.
You go to your corner and time out. And so it was
interesting dynamics in that. And learning how to deal with
(29:26):
that conflict, learning how to you you said something so valuable
in there is not taking it personally. I think that's so important.
We take things personally, or it's like my dad in the
garage business. He might be yelling over a bunch of cars
and whatever and going, hey, do such and such. And it's like, who do you
think you're talking to? That doesn't work because then you end up right? It's
(29:47):
just understanding the situation and not taking it personally.
I think is so important. A good lesson, I think, a reminder for all of
us. So, yeah. It's good. How do you deal with
speaking of conflict included in your book, you included it
in some of the material. And I thought it would be great to touch on
this cause I can almost hear some people saying, okay, but what
(30:10):
do you do with the person who's the provoker? How do you deal with the
passive aggressive person? How do you deal with some of these personalities who
maybe or it's not really personality, but the way that they're showing up.
They're not playing by the rules of engagement. You know what I mean? Like, they
got their own rules of engagement. Maybe there's multiple family members
in that business. How do you do that? Maybe somebody
(30:30):
who's sabotaging, somebody who's likes to stir my dad was the
provoker. And when there's the peacemaker. How do you deal with that? Well, first, I
mean, start with husband and wife. You know, we create those rules of engagement and
we've agreed to it. You sign your name if you need to sign your name.
Some couples have gone as far as notarizing it. And so we make an agreement
and I would think as husband and wife your reward is your bond. And especially
(30:51):
when it's written. And if you want me to live by this,
then you need to. And so, there's that sense of accountability. And in the
beginning, it's a little rough, right? I mean, it's again, you're learning a new skill
of how to communicate. And so literally, we just advocate towards, you
know, you really got to create a routine on how you have these
discussions. Sometimes it's being in a certain place
(31:14):
in the house or not the house, or it's outside, or outside the
business, or in a specific room. But you got to create some kind of
routine or habit to start getting in the sense of being able to stick to
rules of engagement. And then later on you can do it on the fly. But
you got to train yourself a little bit. Yeah, you got to train yourself and
hold each other accountable. But, when you hold each other accountable, it's not by shaming
(31:34):
them and say, you intimidated it. It's just a start because it's probably a trigger
that's probably in the most occasion. So, that's why having it out and printed is
helpful because the spouse could say, hey, you're just triggering me. You're just you're going
against. You're trying to hold me accountable to get you to do. You know, so
it's like, hey, let's time out here and let's stay away from these triggers. And
so let's start over. But also, a lot of times when we're in this
like cycle of insanity, we're in conflict. And
(31:58):
regardless of the personality type, I think one of the things you can do
even like Katie shared earlier about prefacing the conversation ahead of time to
let so I know what's needed. But sometimes in the midst of an argument,
you know maybe she didn't preface it ahead of time but in the midst of
an argument I'll stop or she'll stop and I'll say what do you need from
me? Do you need me to hear, listen, and empathize or do you need a
solution? Because as men, we just go in solution mode right away, come the
(32:21):
80 20 rule. A lot of times with women, 80% of time, it's listen and
empathize and 80 20 for men are, let's solve this problem.
And it frustrates me. And then I'm like, you know, listening to me, then he
comes up with another idea, and I get more frustrated. And I know one time
he asked me, what do you need? And I totally caught him off guard, you
guys, and I said a hug. And he's like, what? I'm like, a hug. So
(32:42):
he gave me a hug. I was on my merry way. I think he was
all upset. He was shocked. He's like, that was easy. No. He
wanted me to hug. Too easy. Yeah. You had, like, a 100 solutions. I was
a little skeptical. I'm like, what is she doing? Is she setting me up for
something? Like, wait. Come back. I have all these solutions.
And so I went on my way, and he's like, what just happened?
(33:03):
I don't know about this. Yeah. So the start with the rules of engagement. If
you need a third party to witness it and all that, I mean, you gotta
this sounds it can sound very, like, businesslike, but it's needed. I
mean, we gotta create a safe space for people to talk. And so the
passive aggressive person just doesn't feel safe to raise up an issue. Right?
Because I can be passive aggressive because I feel like she's not gonna like
(33:24):
me if what I say upsets her. So we go avoidant
this space is an an avoidant route. A passive aggressiveness is an avoidant route and
because we don't feel safe. So creating that safe space and then, of course, then
rules of engagement and have a witness if you need to. And then always just
ask, hey, what do you need from me? Because if you feel the passive aggressive
person go into their shell, how Kaylee brings me out is, like, what do you
(33:46):
need? Well, and I think we all need to be adults. You know, I mean,
it's easy for me to wanna go back into my childhood when I was 5
years old. I just want my way, and I want you to listen to me,
and I just wanna win at all costs. You know what I mean? But that's
not good for either one of us to get my mind and dig my heels
into that position because, like I said, I could've just made a miscommunication, and
then I'm all upset about this little thing that didn't happen, you know what I
(34:08):
mean? That I thought in my mind that it did. So Yeah. And she kind
of alluded to something and you didn't ask this question but I wanna bring it
up anyway. You know, there's this word called compromise that they talk about
marriage about compromise. We say no it's not about compromise because
compromise by definition is tearing the good pieces of both
parts and making it something acceptable. It's basically accepting what's less than
(34:28):
great. And so, what we look at is how do we make a good decision?
And then sometimes it's going to be going to her idea, or my idea, or
sometimes it's pieces of both, or sometimes just through the conversation. We come up
with a solution that's different from either one of ours, and has nothing, and it
may have bits and pieces of it, but really we're trying to create the best
solution. So instead of thinking about compromise in a disagreement, so
(34:49):
what's the best decision we can make for us? Well, I'm glad you brought
that up actually because that was something that stood out in the book because you
talk about the resentment that develops out of that. If I
sacrifice something or give up something and the other person is as
well, let's say my husband, then we're both feeling like we're missing
something that might be important to us. And
(35:10):
recently we were talking to somebody and he said, Oh, I'm just gonna do
what she wants me to do kind of thing. And and I was like, that's
not gonna work. You know, that's not gonna work. It may work for the moment,
but it's not gonna work long term and you're gonna get resentful. It's actually
creating a bigger rift than talking it out. And like you said,
coming up with a good decision and coming back to that whole idea of not
(35:32):
taking it personally. When we take it personally, we go into that
childhood mode, the trigger, and I just want my way.
Yeah. Just being able to look at it objectively. It's like I think I look
at the observer. Right? Like stepping out and going, what's actually happening here? Even for
myself, it's like, of course, I'm a coach, but it's like still anybody just
looking and saying, what's actually going on right now? Mhmm. Get
(35:54):
curious about I know a leader just right now, they're splitting. I was having
lunch with him, and he's basically alluding to the fact that, you know, he's
gonna give and let her have her way all these years. She's controlling and let
her have her way. And now it's all those years of resentment that have
just piled up, and now we're irreconcilable differences, and we need to split.
And I'm like, because you're not happy? I'm like, well, it's because we really haven't
(36:15):
addressed the issue. This is a fixable issue, but now we've just got this big
pile of stuff that we've let go on without really addressing it because we've
let them have their way. And that's unhealthy for anybody. That's so good. So
what have we not talked about today that we need to talk
about in this topic of how do you build a
successful business and a successful marriage as a
(36:38):
married entrepreneur? Well, one thing for the sake of time, you know, on the business
side is you built this business to have more freedom and yet you're
tied down to it. And we talked about the control issue those kind of things.
And kind of the grand scheme of things in order for your business to be
able to scale and grow beyond your own capacity you have to set the
foundation for it to do that. Right? Again, if you're in control of
(36:58):
everything that means the capacity growth falls on you. Which means we got to
just get rid of as much stuff as possible off our plate so we can
focus on what we're good at and have a team or whatever to do that.
So it's hiring the right people, right position to fit, systems and
processes, and then making sure on the money side you're working with good
margin. So real quick, you know, the typical business
(37:21):
is average business is running off about a 7.7% net profit
margin which is okay but that's not great. So
15 to 20 percent for our clients is where we want them and that means
we have adequate bottom line to be able to continue to invest back into the
business to grow take care of unexpected issues to be reinvest
into business to hire more people hire more help. And when we get to that
(37:42):
point, now when we get to a healthy margin, then you're going to be able
to build a business that's scalable. So that's usually the first place to start. And
that's actually very fixable pretty quick because it's just adjusting margin. We're not
adjusting sales. We're not trying to get more sales. We're just addressing margins. So it's
increase in price looking for ways to be more efficient and productive. So you basically
lower your cost per and then or a combination of 2. And when we get
(38:03):
to that, then we'll have the adequate margin to be able to hire that 1st
virtual assistant or assistant or that salesperson or whatever that you need
that first piece to start getting your business more into growth phase
and taking a lot more pressure off of the business owner. So looking at your
time, looking at your money, and then measure performance are the 3 things that
will help you position your business to be able to scale so that you'll have,
(38:25):
you know, be able to have the freedom that you wanted. Awesome. Thank you. Free
gifts. You've got a link that we're gonna include in the show notes
where you've got some gifts for the listeners. Kay Lee, do you wanna
talk about that? Yeah. That's married entrepreneur.co
leaders of transformation. Slash leaders of transformation. Yeah. So
there's a free download for work life balance, and then there's
(38:47):
also our access to our book, Tandem, the Baron Entrepreneur's Guide for Work Life
Balance. And if you want to talk this live and pick our brain, there's actually
a link for that too. Right? Right on that landing page. So, yeah, married
entrepreneur.c0/leaders of transformation. So hopefully they remember that
because it's the name of your podcast. Awesome. Well, and you also your podcast
because you also have a podcast called thriving in tandem. And
(39:08):
so we'll make sure that's I know it's also on that page, and
it'll also be in our show notes separately so people can check out
your podcast and just continue to learn from you and what you're doing.
So, yeah, this has been great. It's like reliving my childhood. Thank you
so much for being here, both of you. It's been such a pleasure. And I
look forward to getting a chance to meet you in person because you're not that
(39:30):
far away, and I'm sure we'll do some fun things together. So, yeah, it'll
be good. And I always say leaders of transformation take
action. So for audience out there, if you're listening, if you're watching,
take action on something that you learned today. Sometimes taking action
is making time to stop and look at where you're
at. So it's not necessarily doing doing doing doing more. Maybe it's
(39:52):
just stepping out and saying, let's just actually take a moment together
to maybe it's eye contact. When's the last time so this is
for somebody I know because I just thought of this. When's the last time
you actually looked into your spouse's eyes and it wasn't about, like,
telling them what they need to do or ships passing in the night,
but literally spending 5 minutes and having eye contact
(40:15):
quality eye contact and connection with your spouse. If you haven't done that, it's
your first action. I highly recommend it. It's really important to start
there. And then you can look at what are the next steps from
there. How do we have that conversation? How do we rediscover
our values, rediscover those rules of engagement, what we may have agreed to at some
point, but one away from it. Or maybe you've never created those rules of engagement,
and it's now time that you need to do that. I encourage you also to,
(40:36):
of course, go back to the married entrepreneur
dotcoforward/leadersoftransformation. Go book a time. If
you're having challenges in your business, if you're having challenges in your marriage
as a married entrepreneur and you need some support, get the support
(40:59):
that you need. Robert and Kaylee are here. They've been through it. They go through
it on a day to day basis. They have the tools, invest in
yourself, and at least do the discovery call and learn
more about what they can do to help you and your spouse along the way.
Get a copy of their book, tandem. It is excellent,
very relevant, very practical. You'll relate. Their
(41:20):
stories are in there. There's so much value in this. So I just encourage you
to take action because you know what? You can listen to podcast all day and
it's wonderful on your drive back and forth, but it's when
you actually apply what you learned that transformation happens. So I
encourage you to do that. We'd love to hear your stories. You can go on
leaders at transformation.com. Reach out to us there and, of course,
(41:41):
find us on social as well. I hope you enjoyed it. Next week, we're gonna
have another episode, another amazing guest. Join us next week. We
look forward to seeing them. Have a great day. Thank you for listening to
the Leaders of Transformation podcast with Nicole Jansen. If
you're enjoying the show, please click the follow or subscribe button, and
leave a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
(42:03):
And remember to join us on social and get connected. Together,
we can make this world a better place for everyone. We'll
see you next time.
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