Are you afraid of your romantic relationship getting in the way of your career and vice versa? What if I told you that your relationship could be the secret weapon behind your biggest professional success, rather than the thing holding you back?
Welcome to The Ripple Effect Podcast! In this episode, I sat down with the incredible Gabriela Embon. She is an inspiring speaker, relationship coach, and author of Becoming a Power Couple. We discussed one of the most overlooked dynamics in modern life: how your career and your relationship are deeply connected, whether you realize it or not.
As someone who’s been through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship and marriage at the same time, this conversation hit me right in the heart. Gabriela has a gift for breaking down the emotional and practical challenges that ambitious couples face, especially when life feels overwhelming, communication breaks down, or resentment starts to creep in. Her coaching approach doesn’t just focus on fixing problems. She helps you engineer a relationship that fuels your career and creates the kind of love you don’t just survive, but thrive in.
We talked about everything from managing stress at work without bringing it home to the unspoken expectations that can quietly destroy a connection. Gabriela’s four-pillar framework for building a legendary marriage is packed with actionable insights that you can start using today!
If you’ve ever felt like you’re sacrificing your relationship to chase your goals, or like your partner just doesn’t “get” what you’re building, trust me. This episode is for you. It’s honest, relatable, and packed with the kind of wisdom I wish I’d had years ago. And if you’re in a relationship and trying to balance ambition, stress, and love, do not miss this one.
So, what’s one thing you’ve done to better integrate your career and your relationship?
Ripple with Gabriela Embon
Website: gabrielaembon.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/gabrielaembon
Ripple with Steve Harper
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Join our ever-growing community of Ripplers in The Pond: https://ripplecentral.com/pond
#becomingapowercouple #therippleeffectpodcast #worklifeintegration #entrepreneurshipandrelationships #marriagecoaching #gabrielaembon #steveharper #powercouplecoaching #relationshipadviceforentrepreneurs #careerandlove
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey guys, I'm Steve Harperwith The Ripple Effect Podcast, I'm
your host, as you know, I amsuper excited for you to join us
for this episode, because, man,oh man, I wish I had known about
this guest's work years ago.Would have saved me so much
struggle and frustration tryingto help and work through as an
(00:20):
entrepreneur, how to get on thesame page as my partner, my
wife, we went through sometrials and tribulations, as a
lot of couples do, andfortunately, because she's
amazing, was probably carryingthe biggest amount of the
emotional baggage and weight forour our relationship. And even
though I was going through a lotof stress and struggle as an
(00:41):
entrepreneur, she never gave upon me, and today's guest,
Gabriela Embon is the author of"Becoming a Power Couple," and she
is a coach. She is a keynotespeaker. She is a lightning rod
for understanding the dynamicsbetween managing your career and
your professional aspirationsand how that must tie directly
(01:06):
to the relationship you havewith your romantic partner or
your spouse. And I just had anamazing conversation with her. I
enjoyed it so much. There wereso many different ways that we
could take this challenging thisconversation to talk about this
challenging dynamic, and I feltlike at the end that there was
just so much more that we couldexplore we're going to have to
(01:28):
in a future conversation.Gabriela is really, really
awesome at explaining why thisis a hand in glove situation. In
fact, we talked a little bitabout this. I don't see a lot of
coaches actually explore bothsides of the coin, both your
personal and your professionallife, but specifically around
(01:49):
the dynamic of thatrelationship, and I personally
have experienced it throughfriends and also former clients
that have gone through thedifficulties of starting and
growing a business, or, youknow, climbing the corporate
ladder, and that being theirprimary focus, in that becoming
their more important componentto invest their time and energy,
(02:10):
and how it ultimately leads to alot of resentment and mistrust
and lack of momentum inrelationships. And sadly, I've
watched too many people, toomany couples break up because
they didn't understand oneanother. They understand the
pressures, the challenges, theissues that they were going
through. And had they hadsomeone like Gabriela in their
(02:31):
corner, I think things wouldhave been vastly different. And
I love the fact that as her as acoach, she is focusing on both
sides of the coin and helpingpeople understand that you it's
a package deal. And she talksabout a word that I love so so
much in that there is acommitment that you go through
and you have to do certainthings, even though you may not
(02:53):
necessarily want to, they justhave to be done. And she uses
the analogy of when you have ababy at home, you don't have a
choice when you have to get upat two o'clock and do a feeding.
It's just what you do. It's whatyou signed up for. Well, believe
it or not, if we approach ourrelationships in a similar
capacity, it's amazing how ourentire perspective of how that
impacts our professional successand our career aspirations, just
(03:19):
it's mind blowing in terms ofher approach and how she takes
it. I think there's going to bea ton that you'll be benefiting
from in terms of her greatadvice, her good stories, her
strategies and her model. Iwould have a pin at the ready
for all the nuggets and morselsof awesomeness that she dishes
out. You will be grateful tocapture those and think about
(03:42):
them and explore them, and then,more importantly, take the time
to reach out to her, if she ifyou feel like she can bring some
value to what your journey is. Icouldn't recommend her more. She
is just a dynamic individual,and I have talked way too much.
So with no further ado, let'sdive into this conversation with
Gabriella.
(04:19):
Guys, I am super excited to bejoined by Gabriela Embon this
morning with The Ripple EffectPodcast. Gabriela, how are you
doing?
Fantastic and excited to behere, Steve.
I'm excited too. I'vebeen looking forward to this
interview because, as I said,before we started recording, I
feel like we speak the same lovelanguage. I love how you put
(04:42):
your attention on relationshipsand connection, how you look at
that through the lens of yourprofessional life, but also what
you bring home and obviouslyinto your personal life. And so
I don't normally spend a lot oftime, you know, diving right
into this conversation. Youknow. People, because I want to
get to know you, but I know youhave a very limited schedule
(05:05):
today. I want to I want to berespectful your time, and I just
want to start by, I want to knowmore about this book, becoming a
power couple and your take onit, because it looks I have not
gotten an opportunity to readit, but I am anxiously awaiting
a copy, and I can't wait tolearn more about it. What tell
us about the book and whatinspired you to write it, and
(05:26):
then we'll dive into the otherelements of your work.
Yeah, absolutely. So I'll startwith what inspired me to write
it. So I've been a coach for thepast 15 years, and I have
coached couples, but I've alsocoached individuals, and
specifically leaders andprofessionals. And what I
(05:46):
noticed is that when theconversation we were talking
about career, right? Whenthe conversation shifted to
family life, home life, marriagerelationship, I could see a
shift in them that I couldn'tignore their voice will would
soften, and I could even hear awhisper of regret, yeah, or
(06:09):
shame. And I realized that ascertain as they fell at work, as
uncertain as they fell at home,and of course, that broke my
heart, because it shouldn't bethat way, right? We can have we
can thrive in both one doesn'tcome at the expense of each
other. In fact, I believe thatour relationship is supposed to
(06:32):
fuel our career, our purpose.That led me to the desire to
share the messages that wassharing with other couples. But
not everybody was contacting mefor a couples coaching. So I
said, What if I can share thesemessages of how to do marriage
and how to engineer what I sawprimarily is that people
(06:53):
expected love to be a strategythat the moment they they said,
Yes, that should take you, youknow, through the entire journey
with life, you and your partnerand I kept realizing that people
don't know that love is not astrategy. They don't know how to
engineer and how to build thatlasting relationship, because,
(07:17):
to be honest, not everybody hadthe best model at home, right?
Yeah, and there are bestpractices and their do's and
don'ts and how to fully embodythe identity of a committed
relationship. Because when a mana woman doesn't matter, man,
(07:41):
man, woman, woman, when peopleare single and you are a man and
a woman, the moment you enter acommitted relationship, and
let's call it marriage, to makethis easier, you shift your
identity to being husband andwife. It's today. I was talking
with, we'repreparing a Couples Retreat. And
(08:06):
he said, such a beautiful line.He said, It's like saying the
father is born when the child isborn. Well, husband and wife are
born when the commitment, whenyou make that commitment,
whether it's the wedding day,the vows, whatever, in any way
you commit. But I find that manytimes we are resisting that new
(08:29):
identity, and we try our best tokeep the old identity. Yeah, so
what's the purpose of it? Infact, the new identity of
husband and wife and how tobuild a life together. It's the
whole purpose. You are notlosing yourself. You are
building something new andstronger, and that's what the
(08:49):
book is all about. How to buildthat synergy, how to build that
power, cup of synergy, andengineer with commitment and
with the best practices andmarriage that thrives alongside
your career and it it offers abeautiful framework of four
pillars.
(09:10):
I love that. There's so manyquestions that are bubbling
around my head right now,because I think a your work is
absolutely essential andimportant. What I find, and
quite honestly, very impressedwith with you, is the fact that
you are taking on both of thesevery heavy, heavy topics and
(09:31):
trying to recognize that, youknow, independent of one
another. I mean, there's alifetime of work for a lot of
people right in in whether it'stheir career and their
professional ambitions and thecoaching that goes around, you
know, maximizing that value forthem, and then the how to exist
with another human being, rightin this romantic relationship,
(09:52):
and I have not yet met a coachwhich tackles both and looks at
it as sort of an arm in glovesituation, although it's very
obvious, it is right, it's it'sa circumstance that one
definitely impacts the other.And if you don't do it right, or
(10:12):
you don't have a plan or somestrategy, or, like you said,
engineering, a an approach toit, then left to your own
devices, that's where a lot ofthings really start to fall
apart. Professional careerpaths, you know, you know, are
affected, obviously, personalrelationships and the stress you
bring home from work, and allthose challenges create a whole
different dynamic and layer. Andif you're not communicating with
(10:35):
your partner, all the stress andproblems that you're dealing
with at work and all theinsecurities and scare, you
know, scared feelings that youmight have about the future
that's going to manifest in waysthat might be untenable on your
personal life. And how did youcome up with that? I just love
the fact that you're approachingboth of it and saying, Hey,
look, there's we have to addressboth because it's so essential.
(10:56):
I'm so happy you're asking methat question, because nobody
ever did actually
that's good. Nobody ever givesme credit for actually being
smart to ask a really, you know,a question nobody else
asked. So interview, grace isyour questions, right? So, first
of all, I strongly believe that.Okay? So I believe we should
(11:19):
create a life of no regrets.That's our purpose, right? Love
it to build a life that it's thebest that we can do. We didn't
compromise. But when we talkabout the word compromise is
compromised on what, in mybelief, a life of no regret, is
the life in which you don'tcompromise on the two most
important aspects of an adultlife. One is your purpose, the
(11:43):
way you're here to serve,ideally, that will be your
career too, right? Aligning withyour purpose, aligning your
career the way you provide foryourself with your purpose,
that's number one and numbertwo. Or maybe that should be
number one, is your primaryrelationship, right? Simply
because, why these two? Becausethese are the two aspects of our
(12:09):
lives in which you actuallyserve. You're here to serve and
to build. Yeah, so in yourrelationship, you build. Also,
if you have children, you builda family. And you also have a
lot of choice. You can coursecorrect your your parents, you
can course correct you're borninto your family. It's not it's
a choice at the soul level, ifyou want to look at it, but not
(12:31):
consciously, your children, youget what you get, you can return
them, right? So yourrelationship and your career are
the two areas that give you themost amount of growth, because
there's the most amount ofpotential for you to make it in
(12:53):
great so this is where you'regoing to be triggered the most,
and where you can work onyourself the most and grow the
most. So that's I believe in theintegration of these two. If I'm
a physiotherapist, I wouldn'ttell the client, I work on your
legs, your hands are not myresponsibility. Well, that
doesn't really work, right? Weare one body, and we have to
(13:15):
integrate all parts of it. Sothe the common work life
balance, looks at career andrelationship as two different
forces that normally compete andyou need to juggle. You need to
balance them. I believe thismodel is not feasible for people
(13:35):
with high, demanding careers,stressful careers, or high
ambition. Really, if you want tocreate a lot, that's not going
to work for you. Yeah, thealternative, a much more
realistic approach, would be tointegrate the two, and to view
your career and yourrelationship not as two
competing forces, but two partsof one mission that fuel each
(14:01):
other, right? So that's why Ifocus on both and the
intersection between both.
Yes, it makes total sense. Thisis why I was so fascinated to
have this conversation, becauseI think that a lot of people
look at these things as isolatedsituations and they don't cross
(14:22):
over, and there is, there's noreason to think that, right? But
I know, even with my owncoaching clients, when I find
somebody who's going through arough period, or they have a
level of dissatisfaction withwhere their career path is
taken, or they're just not, youknow, happy in the world that
they're in, oftentimes, much ofwhat is occurring, I call it in
(14:44):
their eight to five lifetime,right? You know, the eight to
eight to five space of the day,that frustration, that
challenge, those issues, theydon't just automatically clock
out when you do right? Theyfollow you home. And oftentimes,
if. Not communicating, or you'renot you don't have that level of
communication with your partnerso that they you don't just come
(15:07):
home and unload and, you know,bitch and complain all day about
what happened that particular,you know, all night about what
happened all day, but thatthere's some mutual
understanding of the challengesthat you're facing, or the
dissatisfaction or frustrationand and you're coming at it from
you're coming into anenvironment where someone's
there to support you and loveyou through it, and and they
(15:29):
recognize when you've had a goodday or a bad day, and they can
almost sort of intuitively pickthat up the moment you walk in
the door. How vastly differentthose home lives and those
personal lives are then peoplethat keep it isolated, bundled
up, but it almost always bubblesup over in ways that you can't
expect. You're eitheraggressive, you're
(15:49):
disrespectful, you're shut down,you're quiet, or you're
argumentative all the time,because that's what you're
accustomed to on yourprofessional side. And then you
have a spouse or a significantother who is receiving that in
your personal life, and they'rekind of like, Where the heck did
this come from? This is not theperson I agreed to be with. This
is not the environment I signedup for. And you see how many
(16:10):
marriages, or otherwisepromising romantic relationships
are headed for the edge of thecliff, and they don't even know
it, and don't recognize the thatthere is a controllable element
of that, and part of that isletting that other person in to
understand what's going on, butcommunicating in a way that
isn't just constantlydownloading and complaining. It
(16:32):
has to be a conversation, andyou have to pull that person in
even though they're not at yourjob day to day. They can be as
critical to your daily success,as you know, as just about
anything, because they lay thefoundation for what sends you
back to work tomorrow.
Absolutely, and you said it sowell, Steve, look, one thing
(16:53):
that is important to realize isthat commitment in the
relationship or showing up isnot fueled by love or feelings.
So I don't doubt that if you hada difficult day at work, when
you come home, your feelings areLeave me alone, right? But
commitment is not fueled byfeelings. Commitment is fueled
(17:16):
by intentions that are followedby rituals, action. Yeah, right.
So the mind, right has to befirst, mind over heart, right?
Now we understand that when itcomes to parenthood, because
when you have a baby, you don'tfeel like waking up every two
hours, but you do it becauseit's mine over heart, right? Do
(17:38):
it because you're committed,yeah? So somehow in
relationships, we we lose trackwith that concept, and then we
say, well, I don't feel likebeing a husband or or or a wife
or a parent today, and I willdisconnect now, if I'm committed
and I practice the rituals ofintegration, communication,
(18:00):
collaboration, I can come homeand say to my spouse, I had a
really difficult day. Do youmind if I just take I'm going to
take an hour for myself? Or youmay even say that happens
sometimes with our children thatthey say, can I just eat on my
own today? Because we havesupper as a family. But
sometimes they had a day athome. Can I just eat in my room,
(18:20):
I need, really, to decompress.And of course you can, because
you ask you, can we understand?But it requires understanding
and communication and thepractice of the rituals, like
you said, if I had a difficultday at work, and then I come
home, and at the end of the day,I will do a debrief with my
(18:41):
spouse. We will sit over a cupof tea once I'm rested a little
bit, a glass of wine, and youshare with each other. You know
your day, yeah, when you'resharing your day and you're
sharing your emotions, first ofall, you feel help, supported,
understood. So if I had acomplaint to you about I don't
(19:03):
know the way you left thelaundry today, but now you're
sharing with me your day. I'mjust not going to mention that.
Yeah, but if I don't know what'sgoing on with you, then I'm
going to focus on myself. Yeah,I want to be compassionate. I
want to be your best friend too.I want to be understanding, and
I want to be generous, but Icannot be generous if you don't
(19:24):
let me in. Yep or understanding.So these are the rituals that we
are usually lecturing in techconferences. We we have two
types of rituals. We haveoperational rituals that help us
run the home life as smooth aspossible, like a well oiled
machine. And then we haveconnection rituals. And
(19:47):
connection rituals are are meantto keep the connection alive,
even when life is busy,difficult, very challenging.
This is what makes you feel youare in this two. Together, and
problems are solved together.You know, I give you an example.
(20:08):
About a month ago, we spend aweek at the hospital because my
husband had a spine issue thatended in spine surgery. And what
a lock the process of finally,you know, being put in the queue
for surgery. We were in limbo.We were in standby for a few
(20:28):
days. Was that I asked him onequestion. I asked him, in a
moment, I said, What do youtruly want? I didn't solve his
back problems. I just asked him,What do you truly want? And him
getting clear about what hetruly wants and the intention.
The next day, things moveforward. Just there was a
breakthrough. The surgeon came,things started to move forward.
(20:52):
So we might not have thesolutions for our partners, but
it is through that sacred unionthat sometimes we we can provide
exactly what the other oneneeds. Yeah,
I love that. And I think one ofthe things that I mean, there's
so many great points that youmade there, Gabriela, about the
(21:14):
importance when, when I hearwhat you're talking about, you
know, marriage or couplingdoesn't come with an owner's
manual, right? There's not maybeit does now with your book, and
we can be recommending it tolots of people. I can I can feel
it. But then the thing is, isthat we're often left our own
devices to figure these thingsout. And you touched on this at
(21:36):
the very beginning. Most of ourreference points come from how
we were raised, or the familyenvironment, and I know that one
of the phrases that I heardoften in my home was you just
wouldn't understand. I'm noteven going to get into it right,
because my dad had a verystressful, challenging job, but
(21:58):
just that statement, you'retelling your partner, and I can
see where it manifests inresentment. I always tell my
audiences resentment is thesuper secret promise of revenge,
right? Because at the end, if Ihave it, I'm going to get you
back somehow. You may not seeit, you may not know it, but
it's coming, and it's it'sinevitable. And when you create
situations like that by sayingyou're not smart enough to
(22:19):
understand what what I'm goingthrough or what's happening,
even though that may not havebeen the intention. That's what
the person hears, right? Andthen, you know, I'm not even
getting into it, is actuallyclosing off an entire part of
that partner's life, which thenmakes it even more isolating and
more challenging, which then thenatural impact there, the
(22:39):
negative ripple effect, to usemy own terminology, is that
they'll close off and be moresecluded and more private, or
more not as forthcoming or asmuch shareable as or sharing as
as they could. And then you endup having two people that are
operating in this environmentthat aren't even speaking a
common language any longer. Andand then you wonder why couples
(23:02):
start to drift apart. I knowthat the work you do has got to
be so so powerful and soimportant. I wish I had
discovered it early on, when Ifirst became an entrepreneur, I
got married and started abusiness within basically two
months of each other, and it wasthe worst decision I could have
ever made how my wife stayedwith me for we're going to
(23:22):
celebrate, you know, our 32ndyear of marriage. Don't, don't
tell her, not sure, but it'sbeen a long time. But we had
rough, rough times because wecouldn't communicate, because we
didn't know the rules ofengagement, we didn't know how
to treat one another withrespect and dignity, enough to
let one another in on thestresses that were going on. And
(23:43):
being entrepreneurs that wasjust a recipe for disaster,
right? Creates conflict, createschallenges. And what I what I
love about what you're proposingthrough your work and your
coaching and obviously the bookis that you're giving a game
plan, like, hey, you know, weknow where things will end if
(24:04):
you don't do something positiveand you don't set some
parameters, right, you know, andtreat one another with dignity
and respect and let them in. Weknow where it'll end up because
almost everybody ends up there,and it's not not a good
destination. But imagine howdifferently things would be if
you started today, even ifyou've been together forever,
(24:24):
and you could recast this in away that says, you know, and I'm
a bit I've really, I maybe it'smy age. You're very young
compared to me. But you know, II've like age and wisdom has
told me something aboutconnecting is we're just not
good at verbalizing what wereally need in the moment. And
so I have gotten very committedto being like, you know what I
need right now, like you said,is I need that hour. I just need
(24:46):
to decompress. I had a reallystressful day. I don't want to
take it out on you. So could youjust give me the space and then
when I'm done, I'll come share alittle bit if you still want to
hear it. What occurred, but youset the table so that. Not a
complaint session, it's aconversation opportunity, and
you do it vastly different in away that isn't isolating to your
(25:07):
partner and doesn't create thatlevel of resentment. And so I
think that it's so important forpeople that are going to see
this episode and to hear thisthis this is so essential for
any kind of relationship, butespecially the people that you
choose as your life partner oryour current romantic partner,
is clear, honest communication,but setting the parameters about
(25:30):
what that looks like, especiallyin those high tense, high stress
moments,
yeah, I love the way you phraseeverything, and I want to
reflect back on two points youtalked about. You talked about
resentment, which I love the wayyou said, it's the promise of
revenge or something.
(25:51):
Yeah, super secret promise ofrevenge. I want you back, yeah.
So what happens in the beginningof the relationship? A
relationship usually goesthrough three stages. Obviously,
the first stage is the fallingin love, the honeymoon. What
happens there is that we build aconnection, right? Yep. And then
when we move to the secondphase, which is the phase when
(26:13):
we start, when all thathoneymoon fades away and we
start triggering each other, westart building resentment, yeah.
And the resentment, if, if welearn to live with it,
unfortunately, what it does, itsecretly erodes, like
underwater, the bond ofconnection we have. And the more
(26:34):
water stays, the more damage youhave. And then we end up, start
growing apart, as you said. Sovery important in that phase to
actually work through the fourpillars, if I can, have to say
the four pillars are theframework to make sure you are
able to go through the secondphase and grow out of it to
become a power couple. Yeah. Sowe always want to protect the
(26:58):
connection. The connection comesin for communication. When
people are connected, theycommunicate differently. They
solve problems together. Theybecome each other's best friend
and lovers. It's all aboutconnection, yep. And then you,
you said that sometimes we haveto ask. Say, let me give me just
an hour to decompress, and thenI can share what's going on if
(27:20):
you still want to hear, yup, ifyou still want to hear what's
powerful. Because as part of thesecond pillar, which is the you
pillar, we have four me, you ourand us, I love. That is the
concept of respect. So when Iwant to have a conversation, a
(27:41):
deeper conversation with myspouse, especially if I see he's
in the middle of something. Buteven if he's not, I will say, I
want to talk to you aboutsomething. Is this a good time?
I actually do the same with mywe do the same with the kids
too. They're not so so kidsanymore, and I'm not as young as
you think. But thank you forthat. So you know, my oldest is
(28:05):
23 Oh, okay, I didn't getmarried when I was 12. Okay, so
we asked, Is this a good timebecause, and we're also okay to
say sometimes, when we aretalking and talking to say,
Okay, I got it. I really need topause right now, right? So many
(28:29):
times people come and juststart, you know, complaining or
renting, and maybe you're in themiddle of something, or maybe
you are not in the right mindspace, right? So we have to be
mindful of space and time. Yeah,when we want to have deeper
conversations and truly connectthrough communication, is to
(28:50):
ask. It's not even permission.Is is this the right time? Yeah,
I want to call it permission. Soyou said it differently, but
it's the same if you still wantto hear about it, because the
time you feel like talking, Imight say, You know what? Now my
head is all in, I don't know,supper time, yeah, let's just
(29:11):
sit together with a cup of tea,with a glass of wine, a beer,
whatever you need. After we putthe kids to sleep, I really want
to be there for you. And then werealized that sometimes people
say, I don't have time to domarriage development. Yeah, I'm
like, well, was that hard to sitwith your spouse at the end of
(29:32):
the day over a glass of wine andjust share your day? That's not
hard. So it's really a questionof intention. You have time to
do personal development, you dobusiness development, career
development, marriagedevelopment, is so yeah, the
first so essential,
yeah. I mean, when you thinkabout as you go, go through
(29:53):
life, which is, you know, sadly,this is the real reality that we
we live in these days, that, um.Right? We have a lot of
distraction, lot ofdistractions. People are way too
willing to give up. They feellike there's too much heavy
lifting and work to do it. And Ihave one particular friend of
mine that went through adivorce, blamed it wholly on,
(30:16):
you know, didn't understand whathe was doing, what he's
building. He's an entrepreneur,and the company, the venture,
became the excuse, but he, helet that be not only the excuse,
but ultimately the reason whythe relationship ended. She, for
her part, was just trying to bea supportive spouse, but had no
(30:38):
way to plug in and know how todo it, and then you build up
these walls of resentment, andthey spend less and less time
together, and they spend moreand more time with other people.
And, you know, things happen,right? And the reality is, he
said, you know, now lookingback, it's probably been five,
seven years, he could see that,had he just said, Yeah, I could
(31:00):
use your help, I could use yourinput, or I could, I could
really use an ear. Now, I don'tneed necessarily the feedback or
an opinion, but if he could havejust been kinder, and how he
rolled that out, becauseeverything, when you think about
it, and he and I talked aboutthis in great detail, is that,
you know, you guys were married,not only to each other, but to
(31:22):
your finances and to the futureof the enterprise of your
marriage, and that ties directlyto the venture that you are
working on, because all of youryou know your financial security
is tied to what you're building.And yes, the stress and the
pressure and the issues thatyou're going through were
certainly not insignificant, butat the same time, you make them
(31:45):
even more challenging by dealingwith them and isolating alone,
and then all you do is tell yourother partner that you know,
even though it very much affectstheir life in every respect,
you're not giving them the seatat the table to have that
discussion or that opportunityto ask questions, or even just
be there to let you unload onwhat's going on and then ask,
(32:08):
you know, for Well, what do youthink? What would you what would
you think I should say or do?Or, you know, how would I
approach this? And you know, inthe case of this individual, he
has a lot of regrets. He's nowseen, you know, the love of his
life. Now move on with somebodyelse. And he knows that it was a
huge swing and a miss, and heended up selling the company
anyway, and the company that hethought required all this time
(32:30):
and energy and attention and waslike his baby, now he's left
with nothing right, you know, nocompany, no team, no spouse, no
law, no longer a strongerrelationship with the kids that
they had, and now he's resentfulof being an entrepreneur and not
even sure he wants to go downthat path again, right? So you
think of all the decision treesand all the potential ripples
(32:52):
that happened if you just went alittle bit one way and opened up
your purview a little bit, orhad a framework like what you
are talking about and becoming apower couple, something to guide
you and direct you, or have acoaching relationship with
someone as brilliant as you, howmuch pain and anguish you could
have avoided, and really, at theend of the day, all the stress
(33:12):
and challenges you were goingthrough, it's better to go
through it together, whereyou've got a supportive partner
that's, you know, committed to.That's what you sign up that's
exactly right, the better orworse, right?
That's what you sign up for.That's the the all or nothing.
You know, really inrelationships, people are one
foot in, one foot out, I'm in,but I'm not fully. That will
(33:35):
never work in marriage. That'sright, because it's the
foundation to an entire lifeyou're building, you have to be
fully in. And the paradox isthat, because I have so many
problems at at work or in mycompany, right, I don't have the
time to let you in. Well, here'sthe thing, when you work as when
(33:58):
you have the synergy of unity,you can create way more. So
you're really shooting yourselfin the foot. And in certain
religions, respecting your wife,it's seen as a secret for
financial success. Can youimagine that it's seen as the
(34:18):
secret for financial success? Soit's a paradox here, that people
think not a paradox, but a miss
misperception, right? Yeah,
that people think that bringingmy partner in takes me away from
this. No, no, no, no. Everythingis energy, right? When you do
(34:39):
the right thing. It has a rippleeffect. Your relationship has a
huge ripple effect. I had tocancel two speaking engagements
that I had when my husband wasin the hospital. One was
traveling seven hours to gospeak at a tech conference. But
there was no regret, because.Know that I wouldn't want it to
(35:03):
be other way. Yeah, there's wayI'm going to leave him, and I
know that I didn't missanything, because when I do the
thing that aligns with myvalues, that is the person that
I want to become. Yeah, then italways works. Well. The idea, I
think, is to understand thatwhen we are in pain, we are
(35:26):
worried, we're scared, we arestressed, our tendency, and it's
completely normal, right? It'stoo default to our coping
mechanisms and look for instantgratification, yes. But if,
rather than seeking that, actingfrom instant gratification,
which is, let's just leave mealone, I don't have time to talk
(35:48):
to you, we think about, okay,what kind of person do I want to
be remembered for? What kind ofwife do I want to be remembered
for? Husband? Do I want to thenwe act from where we always want
to be and be remembered, hencecreated a life of no regrets,
then we realize that the rightthing to do is probably very
(36:09):
different than what I feel likedoing right now, and that's what
I say, that commitment is notfueled by feelings. I know you
feel like doing a but thinkabout the person you want to
become. Think about when youlook a few years back and act
from that intention, not fromwhere you are, but from where
you want to be. It's reallyabout seeing a whole cake and
(36:34):
feeling like eating the entirecake because it's delicious, but
you go, yeah, but I don't wantto be that person that has zero
self control. Yeah, well, that'seasy to understand. But when it
comes to relationships, it'scrucial we view the marriage as
its own entity. I am committedto that entity, and it's if, if
(36:56):
this, you know, forentrepreneurs, this is easy.
Your business is not you. It'san its own entity. Yep, and you
show up even on days you don'tfeel like it. You inspire your
team, even on days that youdon't feel like it, because you
are committed to it. You'recommitted to that entity.
Marriage is the same. You'recommitted, not even to your
(37:18):
wife. You're come or to yourhusband. You're committed to the
entity of your marriage.
I think the way you frame that,and how you started, when we
first started talking about whenyou have a baby, not getting up
is not an option. It is acommitment you made when you had
it. And if you reframed yourmarriage and said, This is what
you signed up for, how to how toparaphrase that back to you, is
(37:41):
that is also a commitment, andit should come before anything
else, and it should be the firstthing. When you do that now, you
have a foundation from which togrow as a person and good, bad
or indifferent that happens inyour career path. You've got a
somebody at home that's there tolove you and support you through
whatever it is, right, whetherit's a layoff, a job transition,
a, you know, challengingcoworker leadership situation,
(38:05):
whatever it is, they've, they'rekind of your ride or die.
They've got your back right, andthey're, they're the person that
will always be there to listen,be there to offer advice when
you ask for it, but they won't,necessarily, you know,
interject, unless it'sappropriate to do so, and
they're there to be your biggestsupporter, which is, I always
(38:28):
tell people like one of thereasons that you need a coach,
right is having somebody in yourcorner that will look at you
without judgment, who will bethere to be a guide. They won't
give you all the answers to thetest, but they're there to
support you 100% because theyhave a commitment to seeing you
through whatever it is that youmight need to tackle. Imagine
(38:48):
having that person at home, 24/7always there to support and
guide you and to be that person,your your biggest cheerleader,
your person that my wife does anexceptionally great job of this.
She will tell me when I'm notbeing very ripply, right? I'm
not being consistent with mybrand, or I'm not being
consistent with who I am, or Ijust need to knock it off
because I'm being too aggressiveor just too big of a jerk. And
(39:11):
she is that litmus test toremind me that, yes, she is the
person that I chose to help mebecome a better person. And when
I'm willing to let that in, itseems like everything seems to
fall in line. No matter how badthings might be going back at
the office or whateverchallenger I might be facing,
everything else sort of takes aback seat, which means when I do
(39:33):
come to the office or I do haveto tackle that project, or I've
got that issue that I need towork through, it seems less
intimidating and lesschallenging, because I feel like
I went home, like I'm a I lovegaming, right? Yeah, yeah,
exactly. Well, I was just gonnasay when I go home and that's
where my power up is, and I comeback fully, you know, charged
(39:56):
and ready to roll, and I willlive to five. It another day and
get through the issue and theproblem. But because I know I've
always got that safe place to goand and be able to have have
that person in my corner, Ithink is really, really
powerful. Very how is it thatyou got interested in this
(40:17):
entire direction for work? Iwant to hear a little bit of
that origin story. What Whatturned you on to this? And what
is it that excites you aboutwhat you get to do every day?
So I'm a former engineer, and 15years ago, I I needed to realign
(40:38):
my career. That's the me pillar,the personal responsibility for
my happiness. Yeah, you know, Iit's written in the book your
partner is not your punchingbag, and you cannot outsource
your happiness to them. Okay? SoI went through that need for
realignment and finding Why am Iunhappy? Because I was, even
(41:01):
though I was, I had everythingelse, the family, the husband
and I needed to realign mycareer. So it goes back to the
two aspects of your life thatyou can course correct, and
yeah, and I, after going throughmy own searching, I decided that
I wanted to certify and work asa coach. Looking back, it's
(41:24):
always been there. Obviously, Iremember when I chose to study
engineering that was debatingbetween engineering psychology,
and even as an engineer, I did alot of work training other
people, you know, mentoring. Sowas always been there. And I,
yeah, my husband, actually, thisis an interesting point. My
(41:48):
husband didn't believe in that.We're both engineers. He's a
software engineer. I was achemical engineer. He didn't
believe in coaching. So we are,you know, we were very left
brain people. And he said, Look,I don't think you can make money
with that. That's maybe a hobby.I don't see how you make a
career of this, but, but youdon't. I don't need to believe
(42:08):
in it. You need to believe init. I'm supporting you. So that
was huge, because he not onlysaid, I'm supporting you, we
actually practice what it startin the third pillar the hour we
we made a plan because we knewwe would have to compromise our
lifestyle for a while, you know,going down in order to go up.
(42:32):
And we made a list of the thingswe are willing to to let go,
like going to restaurants,vacations, and the things that
were non negotiable, that we arenot going to compromise, like
our children's private schoolsand stuff like that. Yeah, and
we made that plan, we look atthe budget and we realize that I
have two years of grace to buildthe coaching because, you know,
(42:53):
unlike some coaches say, Youdon't build a six figure
business overnight. No, it's notone AI template that will get
you a list of clients. Yeah. Sothat was important, because
first of all, I needed I didn'tneed him to believe in it, but I
needed him to support me, and weneeded to coordinate. Because
(43:17):
what I see is that, hadn't wedone that, he could easily come
to me after six months or a yearand say, Where's the money?
Aren't you making any money,right? So, because it was we
prepare ourselves, we plan, heknew so, so we avoided all that.
I don't know what you're doing,yeah. So, so that's the
(43:40):
coordination aspect. I talkabout the 3c in the third
pillar, communication,coordination, collaboration,
right? So he collaborated,because we coordinated. And then
I, obviously I took the time tobuild the practice one brick at
a time and and that's how Istarted. So in the beginning I
(44:00):
was mostly coaching for career.Then I started also in parallel,
coaching couples. And basicallyI did a detour. I started
coaching school, which stillgoes on. It's called the
Coaching Academy. So there aretwo pillars to my business.
(44:20):
That's my private practice, andthere's the coaching academy
that where I certify othercoaches. That was because my
private practice, after fiveyears, exploded. I had two
locations. I had, I will have 40clients a week. I couldn't keep
up, so I hired other coaches towork with me. I had to teach
(44:41):
them my way of coaching. Peoplewanted to learn, and that's how
my academy was born.
That's awesome.
So, that's basically how you know,in the beginning, the desire was
not to teach coaching.Obviously, you know, and our
coaches become members ofinternational coaches for.
Duration, they build their ownpractices. So I'm very
(45:02):
passionate about that, but I'mmost passionate about helping
people have both a fulfillingcareer and a thriving
relationship, and undo the myththat you have to wait for
retirement to invest in yourrelationship? No, you don't, and
if you do that, might be toolate. Yeah, you might end up
(45:25):
without your job and without apartner, or you have to wait
until the children leave.Obviously, no, and in the book,
there's a quote that do not putyour relationship on the back
seat because of your children,because then when they leave,
you end up empty, nested andempty relationship aspect. So
(45:46):
this is what I'm most passionateabout. You know, you cross the
50, you start thinking about,what is the impact that I want
to live in this world? Whatpassionate me the most for me,
the work of love, the labor oflove is helping people build
both and not compromise likereally, believe truly, truly
(46:11):
believe that it's possible forthem to build the most delicious
relationship. If I could have aan IV where I transfer to people
this consciousness, this belief,this knowingness that I have,
that I know it's possible thatnot only that, I live it, I've
(46:33):
seen it in my clients. That'swhat I would create. I would
create a product that it's an IVliquid that you plug in, and you
get that belief that if youinvest with the right guidance,
no matter where yourrelationship is, if you are
committed, that's all it'srequired from you, the desire,
(46:53):
the commitment, you can buildthat most delicious relationship
that you say someone can pinchme to know this is true. Yeah,
am I living a dream, or is thistrue? Like really that? I hope I
was clear enough. It's hard tofind that the the words for what
(47:14):
I feel right,
yeah, no, you were very, veryclear. The thing I really
resonated with at the onset ofwhat you shared was the fact
that you knew where you wantedto go, what you wanted to do,
and rather than I'm doing it,regardless of whether you
support me or not, you involvedyour partner, even if they
didn't necessarily understand orexactly get the vision. Like a
(47:35):
good entrepreneur, you sawsomething that needed to be
done, and almost nobody seeswhat you see, which is what
makes entrepreneurs,entrepreneurs right. And rather
than take offense to it, youallowed that conversation to
evolve, and you brought them,brought your husband, into the
process of the conversation ofwhat this would look like and
(47:56):
how much runway we have. Andeven though they may not be
necessarily directly get thebusiness or even an active
participant in it. They have toknow how it impacts them,
because it does right? Andhaving that conversation was, I
think, a really brilliant move,I know, for my wife and I,
whenever I've started somethingor done, you know, an
(48:17):
entrepreneurial venture, I tryto and not always, well, try to
explain what I'm doing and whatI see, and then I naturally get
defensive, because I'm likeevery other entrepreneurs, like,
how can you not see what I'mdoing and I can see how age and
wisdom has improved over theyears, where now, when I
(48:37):
actually share something withher, I share it in a way that
allows her to see the end gameand where it could be and what
it could do, and why it wouldmake a positive impact our
lives, and potentially how itgets us closer to our own
individual goals, rather thanhere's this great, lofty idea. I
don't know how I'm going to getcustomers. Don't know how I'm
going to get the product orservice out the door. Don't know
(48:59):
anything, but by God, we need toput all our money towards this
right. Completely differentapproach. Well, you can imagine
how one goes versus the other,right? And I liked how you
went through that process, andthen look what you did. I loved
how you said, you know, youbuilt a practice, brick by
brick. You were to a point whereit started to explode. So proof
of concept, way beyond thatsuccess, you know, barometer is
(49:22):
off the charts. And then yousaid, Hey, okay, I get to this
point now. How do I expand andcontinue to grow this in a way
that's consistent with what Iwant to deliver out to the world
and to the client experience,and do it in a way where I can
actually essentially scalemyself and my skill sets in a
way that I don't necessarilyhave to do 80 clients a month.
(49:43):
I've got a team of folks thatcan do that, or they can pay for
my system and my approach, andthen they can go build their own
business and in the ripples thatyou've created just through the
work and the model and now yourbook is just super inspiring,
because it is what I think. Can,you know, we kind of touched on
this a little bit, but it's whatmost coaches don't go into
(50:04):
coaching to think about. Theydon't think about the
repeatable, proven process, theapproach, the model that needs
to be built, and then how topull other people into it. I
can't tell you how many divorcecoaches I know that love what
they were doing, but theirpartner didn't understand or get
it, and then when the moneywasn't coming in, that caused
conflict, and then they hadrelationships that ended because
of it. So your approach isbrilliant and just so
(50:26):
refreshing, because it has somany lessons just interwoven
there for our audience to learnfrom. So I mean, I'm I knew I
was going to love thisconversation, but I didn't know
I was going to love it thismuch. So thank you for sharing
so much,
and I want to tell you thatsometimes our partners will kind
of push us to the wall a littlebit, and that's the best thing
(50:47):
we need at the moment. Because Irecall after two years, he said,
Well, my middle one was going toprivate school at that point,
starting Elementary. He says,you know, if by next year, you
are not making X amount of moneyper month, we will have to
reevaluate this choice. And I'mso grateful he said that,
(51:10):
because my answer to him was,there's no question that by
then, I will do it, and I had noclue how, but that's the
entrepreneur, right? The visionis in your mind and and I needed
to hear those words, not to beresentful of him, but to kind of
get a reality check and see,okay, I need to make this
happen. So I didn't know the howI knew what I want. But you know
(51:34):
the how always presents whenyou're clear about the what? I
always say that clarity is avery strong force. So you see
how the power couple, right? Wehelp each other. We help each
other get unstuck. We show eachother what we don't want to see.
(51:55):
It's if you are open for thedialog, it will always take you
to the next step.
It will. I love it. There is somuch that we could explore, and
we're going to have to do afollow up episode. There is
absolutely no doubt I've got togo through your book, and I'm
sure I'm going to have abajillion more questions for
(52:16):
you, but I want to be respectfulof your time, and we always get
to this point of the podcastwhere I ask a couple of Ripple
Connection Questions. They'refun to ask, fun to answer. Are
you okay with that? Yes. Sowhat's the best? What's the best
thing about being a first timeauthor now
is to say I'm an author, youknow? Because I'll tell you,
(52:39):
when I started as a coach,people were saying, You need to
write a book to succeed as acoach. And I was like, I'm not
an author. No, I don't do that.I think the sweetest part of
being an author is was for me togive the book to my mom, because
this book is also a tribute tomy parents and my grandparents.
(53:01):
My parents were a great rolemodel, I have to say, and my
grandparents were also fantasticrole models when it comes to
strong relationships. So for me,I had to translate it to
Spanish. I wrote it in English,but for my mom and translated to
Spanish to give her the book wasthe sweetest, the thing I every
time I was writing the book, Iwas imagining that moment where
(53:23):
I give her the book and I willget tears. So that was the best
part of being a publishedauthor, really.
That's cool. You and I share avery similar story there I'll
have to share with another time.But yeah, I love that, and I'm
sure they are so very, veryproud of you. What did the seven
year old version of Gabriellawant to be when she grew up.
Oh, that's easy, a biochemist.
(53:46):
No kidding, at seven,
yeah, I became a chemicalengineer. Yeah, I had a love for
chemistry, even though I didn'tknow what it was from a very
early age. That's awesome. Oh,wait, my mom said, I said I want
to be a mom.
Okay,
I love that, that too.
Yeah, yeah, tick both boxes.Technically, even then made the
shift. So okay, so I'm gonna askyou this question just slightly
(54:09):
different. So if you weren'tcoaching today and you weren't
speaking and training on yourbook, or you weren't defaulting
back to your engineeringbackground, what would Gabriela
want to do if she wasn't doingany of that, what else would we?
Would you we find you doing
i i would just mentorentrepreneurs like when they
need a sounding board, yep, needsomebody from the outside that
(54:31):
will give them a differentperspective. I do that, but I
would do that full time and probono.
I love that. I love that. Whatis your secret power or your
genius.
My genius. It's the way Ipresent concepts. You know, I'm
(54:52):
trained look at soil. Gift mineis divine wisdom. It's the way I
translate knowledge into veryconcrete and. A concept through
analogies that people can grasp.
That's good. I like that and sonecessary in every aspect, but
especially in coaching. I
like simplicity and pragmatism,so I like taking concepts into
(55:14):
very simple words that peoplecan understand. Usually, I use
analogies.
I love I love that it's aperfect way for it to be
memorable for clients and foryour audience. For sure, if
there was an opportunity for youto put a message on a billboard
that everybody saw on the way towork or school and home again,
what would that message be?
(55:35):
Don't compromise on less thanhappiness, especially in
relationship and career, don'tcompromise. Don't settle. Don't
settle. Please. Don't settle formediocre. Always strive for
extraordinary. But I'm nottalking about its scale of
success. Whatever that means foryou.
Love that. I love that a lot.What is the question that you
(55:59):
wish I had asked you, but Ididn't,
how did I meet my husband?
Okay, how did tell me? How'd youmeet your husband?
So that's because you didn'tread the book yet. But so I was
engaged with someone else to bemarried. I can see your face,
(56:21):
and a month before the wedding,I canceled the wedding because I
had a dream that, in my dream,as I was walking towards the
altar, the person that waswaiting for me was my husband,
not my fiance. Wow. The nextday, I canceled the wedding, and
pretty much quickly starteddating my husband, which I knew
only six months
(56:42):
Wow, that's that's a cool story.And you guys have been together.
How long
we've been together? 30 andmarried? 27 See,
we're very similar. That'sawesome. I love that. Ah. What
is the legacy that you want toleave behind? Yet you mentioned
your kids. What do you want themto think of mom 2030, years from
(57:03):
now.
I think our marriage is ourlegacy to our children. Yeah,
really, I think that's part ofthe reason why I also wrote this
book, and I have two boys and adaughter, for my daughter to
realize that you can embodyfeminine and masculine energy,
that you can be very successfulat work, whether you're an
(57:25):
engineer that you know, was avery more male she was, she's in
law school, so she probablywon't be an engineer, but, but
you can also embody feminineenergy and be a mother and a
wife and enjoy both. You don'thave to compromise. And for my
voice the same. You know, youcan have a partner, you can
(57:46):
support them and and risetogether.
I love that. That's that's agreat, great legacy, for sure,
and no doubt you're going toachieve that without question.
Last two questions, what doesThe Ripple Effect mean to you
when you hear those words, wasit conjure up in your mind?
For me, Healthy Marriage is ahuge ripple effect. Yeah, it's a
(58:07):
ripple effect on our childrenand what they will do in their
relationships and to oursociety.
I love that. And last question,what Ripple, positive Ripple,
can I create for you?
Oh well, this is amazing, possibleripple effect, right? You're
sharing this with yourcommunity, yeah, and once you
(58:33):
read the book, if you want toshare more about and give it to
people who can benefit from it,that's that's be very grateful
for that. I absolutely willthere. There's, I don't know
what it is, but you and I aregoing to find something to do
together, other than just thispodcast, because you and I speak
a very similar language, and wehave a passion for helping
people realize all the potentialthat can be had in their life,
(58:58):
personally and professionally,when you have the right people,
and especially, you know, theright partner with you, I can't
wait to, you know, continue theconversation. Sadly, you're
stuck with me as a friend. Sothat's just, you know, that's
just the takeaway here, right?So we're gonna find some ways to
work together. But I am sograteful so the way that people
(59:20):
can learn about the book and gettheir copy. Is for your website.
Do you want to share what thatis for everybody?
Yes, they can visit my website,gabrielaembon.com
and there's a tabfor the book. It has all the
international Amazon links, butthey can also find it on Amazon
(59:41):
directly becoming a powercouple, or just put my name on
Amazon. So becoming a powercouple, four pillars to engineer
legendary marriages.
I love it. And for those thatare out there watching and
listening, if you hear anythingthat Gabriela has
shared with you today thatpiqued your interest, I highly
(01:00:03):
recommend you go to her website.She has some great resources.
She also has some invitations onhow to get engaged and involved
in working with her. And I cantell you, just by spending the
time with her, you would be inreally good company to have her
as your coach. So I highlyencourage you to check out her
website. Are there any othersocial media links that you'd
like to share or,
(01:00:24):
well, I'm on LinkedIn, okay, I'mon Facebook and Instagram. Not
very, not very savvy on thesetwo, but LinkedIn is always the
best way
Okay, and then just typeyour name in and they'll be able
to find you. So that'd be great.So if you do reach out to her,
be sure to let her know that youyou learned about her work
through The Ripple EffectPodcast. But guys, we will be
back again with another episodeof The Ripple Effect Podcast.
(01:00:46):
But in the meantime, Gabriela,thank you so much for your time,
and as always, Ripple On!!!
Steve, thank you for being sucha great company, such great
company. Oh, thank you. Iappreciate it. I did. I enjoyed
this so much.
Hey guys, I'm Steve Harperwith The Ripple Effect Podcast, I'm
your host, as you know, I amsuper excited for you to join us
for this episode, because, man,oh man, I wish I had known about
this guest's work years ago.Would have saved me so much
struggle and frustration tryingto help and work through as an
(00:20):
entrepreneur, how to get on thesame page as my partner, my
wife, we went through sometrials and tribulations, as a
lot of couples do, andfortunately, because she's
amazing, was probably carryingthe biggest amount of the
emotional baggage and weight forour our relationship. And even
though I was going through a lotof stress and struggle as an
(00:41):
entrepreneur, she never gave upon me, and today's guest,
Gabriela Embon is the author of"Becoming a Power Couple," and she
is a coach. She is a keynotespeaker. She is a lightning rod
for understanding the dynamicsbetween managing your career and
your professional aspirationsand how that must tie directly
(01:06):
to the relationship you havewith your romantic partner or
your spouse. And I just had anamazing conversation with her. I
enjoyed it so much. There wereso many different ways that we
could take this challenging thisconversation to talk about this
challenging dynamic, and I feltlike at the end that there was
just so much more that we couldexplore we're going to have to
(01:28):
in a future conversation.Gabriela is really, really
awesome at explaining why thisis a hand in glove situation. In
fact, we talked a little bitabout this. I don't see a lot of
coaches actually explore bothsides of the coin, both your
personal and your professionallife, but specifically around
(01:49):
the dynamic of thatrelationship, and I personally
have experienced it throughfriends and also former clients
that have gone through thedifficulties of starting and
growing a business, or, youknow, climbing the corporate
ladder, and that being theirprimary focus, in that becoming
their more important componentto invest their time and energy,
(02:10):
and how it ultimately leads to alot of resentment and mistrust
and lack of momentum inrelationships. And sadly, I've
watched too many people, toomany couples break up because
they didn't understand oneanother. They understand the
pressures, the challenges, theissues that they were going
through. And had they hadsomeone like Gabriela in their
(02:31):
corner, I think things wouldhave been vastly different. And
I love the fact that as her as acoach, she is focusing on both
sides of the coin and helpingpeople understand that you it's
a package deal. And she talksabout a word that I love so so
much in that there is acommitment that you go through
and you have to do certainthings, even though you may not
(02:53):
necessarily want to, they justhave to be done. And she uses
the analogy of when you have ababy at home, you don't have a
choice when you have to get upat two o'clock and do a feeding.
It's just what you do. It's whatyou signed up for. Well, believe
it or not, if we approach ourrelationships in a similar
capacity, it's amazing how ourentire perspective of how that
impacts our professional successand our career aspirations, just
(03:19):
it's mind blowing in terms ofher approach and how she takes
it. I think there's going to bea ton that you'll be benefiting
from in terms of her greatadvice, her good stories, her
strategies and her model. Iwould have a pin at the ready
for all the nuggets and morselsof awesomeness that she dishes
out. You will be grateful tocapture those and think about
(03:42):
them and explore them, and then,more importantly, take the time
to reach out to her, if she ifyou feel like she can bring some
value to what your journey is. Icouldn't recommend her more. She
is just a dynamic individual,and I have talked way too much.
So with no further ado, let'sdive into this conversation with
Gabriella.
(04:19):
Guys, I am super excited to bejoined by Gabriela Embon this
morning with The Ripple EffectPodcast. Gabriela, how are you
doing?
Fantastic and excited to behere, Steve.
I'm excited too. I'vebeen looking forward to this
interview because, as I said,before we started recording, I
feel like we speak the same lovelanguage. I love how you put
(04:42):
your attention on relationshipsand connection, how you look at
that through the lens of yourprofessional life, but also what
you bring home and obviouslyinto your personal life. And so
I don't normally spend a lot oftime, you know, diving right
into this conversation. Youknow. People, because I want to
get to know you, but I know youhave a very limited schedule
(05:05):
today. I want to I want to berespectful your time, and I just
want to start by, I want to knowmore about this book, becoming a
power couple and your take onit, because it looks I have not
gotten an opportunity to readit, but I am anxiously awaiting
a copy, and I can't wait tolearn more about it. What tell
us about the book and whatinspired you to write it, and
(05:26):
then we'll dive into the otherelements of your work.
Yeah, absolutely. So I'll startwith what inspired me to write
it. So I've been a coach for thepast 15 years, and I have
coached couples, but I've alsocoached individuals, and
specifically leaders andprofessionals. And what I
(05:46):
noticed is that when theconversation we were talking
about career, right? Whenthe conversation shifted to
family life, home life, marriagerelationship, I could see a
shift in them that I couldn'tignore their voice will would
soften, and I could even hear awhisper of regret, yeah, or
(06:09):
shame. And I realized that ascertain as they fell at work, as
uncertain as they fell at home,and of course, that broke my
heart, because it shouldn't bethat way, right? We can have we
can thrive in both one doesn'tcome at the expense of each
other. In fact, I believe thatour relationship is supposed to
(06:32):
fuel our career, our purpose.That led me to the desire to
share the messages that wassharing with other couples. But
not everybody was contacting mefor a couples coaching. So I
said, What if I can share thesemessages of how to do marriage
and how to engineer what I sawprimarily is that people
(06:53):
expected love to be a strategythat the moment they they said,
Yes, that should take you, youknow, through the entire journey
with life, you and your partnerand I kept realizing that people
don't know that love is not astrategy. They don't know how to
engineer and how to build thatlasting relationship, because,
(07:17):
to be honest, not everybody hadthe best model at home, right?
Yeah, and there are bestpractices and their do's and
don'ts and how to fully embodythe identity of a committed
relationship. Because when a mana woman doesn't matter, man,
(07:41):
man, woman, woman, when peopleare single and you are a man and
a woman, the moment you enter acommitted relationship, and
let's call it marriage, to makethis easier, you shift your
identity to being husband andwife. It's today. I was talking
with, we'repreparing a Couples Retreat. And
(08:06):
he said, such a beautiful line.He said, It's like saying the
father is born when the child isborn. Well, husband and wife are
born when the commitment, whenyou make that commitment,
whether it's the wedding day,the vows, whatever, in any way
you commit. But I find that manytimes we are resisting that new
(08:29):
identity, and we try our best tokeep the old identity. Yeah, so
what's the purpose of it? Infact, the new identity of
husband and wife and how tobuild a life together. It's the
whole purpose. You are notlosing yourself. You are
building something new andstronger, and that's what the
(08:49):
book is all about. How to buildthat synergy, how to build that
power, cup of synergy, andengineer with commitment and
with the best practices andmarriage that thrives alongside
your career and it it offers abeautiful framework of four
pillars.
(09:10):
I love that. There's so manyquestions that are bubbling
around my head right now,because I think a your work is
absolutely essential andimportant. What I find, and
quite honestly, very impressedwith with you, is the fact that
you are taking on both of thesevery heavy, heavy topics and
(09:31):
trying to recognize that, youknow, independent of one
another. I mean, there's alifetime of work for a lot of
people right in in whether it'stheir career and their
professional ambitions and thecoaching that goes around, you
know, maximizing that value forthem, and then the how to exist
with another human being, rightin this romantic relationship,
(09:52):
and I have not yet met a coachwhich tackles both and looks at
it as sort of an arm in glovesituation, although it's very
obvious, it is right, it's it'sa circumstance that one
definitely impacts the other.And if you don't do it right, or
(10:12):
you don't have a plan or somestrategy, or, like you said,
engineering, a an approach toit, then left to your own
devices, that's where a lot ofthings really start to fall
apart. Professional careerpaths, you know, you know, are
affected, obviously, personalrelationships and the stress you
bring home from work, and allthose challenges create a whole
different dynamic and layer. Andif you're not communicating with
(10:35):
your partner, all the stress andproblems that you're dealing
with at work and all theinsecurities and scare, you
know, scared feelings that youmight have about the future
that's going to manifest in waysthat might be untenable on your
personal life. And how did youcome up with that? I just love
the fact that you're approachingboth of it and saying, Hey,
look, there's we have to addressboth because it's so essential.
(10:56):
I'm so happy you're asking methat question, because nobody
ever did actually
that's good. Nobody ever givesme credit for actually being
smart to ask a really, you know,a question nobody else
asked. So interview, grace isyour questions, right? So, first
of all, I strongly believe that.Okay? So I believe we should
(11:19):
create a life of no regrets.That's our purpose, right? Love
it to build a life that it's thebest that we can do. We didn't
compromise. But when we talkabout the word compromise is
compromised on what, in mybelief, a life of no regret, is
the life in which you don'tcompromise on the two most
important aspects of an adultlife. One is your purpose, the
(11:43):
way you're here to serve,ideally, that will be your
career too, right? Aligning withyour purpose, aligning your
career the way you provide foryourself with your purpose,
that's number one and numbertwo. Or maybe that should be
number one, is your primaryrelationship, right? Simply
because, why these two? Becausethese are the two aspects of our
(12:09):
lives in which you actuallyserve. You're here to serve and
to build. Yeah, so in yourrelationship, you build. Also,
if you have children, you builda family. And you also have a
lot of choice. You can coursecorrect your your parents, you
can course correct you're borninto your family. It's not it's
a choice at the soul level, ifyou want to look at it, but not
(12:31):
consciously, your children, youget what you get, you can return
them, right? So yourrelationship and your career are
the two areas that give you themost amount of growth, because
there's the most amount ofpotential for you to make it in
(12:53):
great so this is where you'regoing to be triggered the most,
and where you can work onyourself the most and grow the
most. So that's I believe in theintegration of these two. If I'm
a physiotherapist, I wouldn'ttell the client, I work on your
legs, your hands are not myresponsibility. Well, that
doesn't really work, right? Weare one body, and we have to
(13:15):
integrate all parts of it. Sothe the common work life
balance, looks at career andrelationship as two different
forces that normally compete andyou need to juggle. You need to
balance them. I believe thismodel is not feasible for people
(13:35):
with high, demanding careers,stressful careers, or high
ambition. Really, if you want tocreate a lot, that's not going
to work for you. Yeah, thealternative, a much more
realistic approach, would be tointegrate the two, and to view
your career and yourrelationship not as two
competing forces, but two partsof one mission that fuel each
(14:01):
other, right? So that's why Ifocus on both and the
intersection between both.
Yes, it makes total sense. Thisis why I was so fascinated to
have this conversation, becauseI think that a lot of people
look at these things as isolatedsituations and they don't cross
(14:22):
over, and there is, there's noreason to think that, right? But
I know, even with my owncoaching clients, when I find
somebody who's going through arough period, or they have a
level of dissatisfaction withwhere their career path is
taken, or they're just not, youknow, happy in the world that
they're in, oftentimes, much ofwhat is occurring, I call it in
(14:44):
their eight to five lifetime,right? You know, the eight to
eight to five space of the day,that frustration, that
challenge, those issues, theydon't just automatically clock
out when you do right? Theyfollow you home. And oftentimes,
if. Not communicating, or you'renot you don't have that level of
communication with your partnerso that they you don't just come
(15:07):
home and unload and, you know,bitch and complain all day about
what happened that particular,you know, all night about what
happened all day, but thatthere's some mutual
understanding of the challengesthat you're facing, or the
dissatisfaction or frustrationand and you're coming at it from
you're coming into anenvironment where someone's
there to support you and loveyou through it, and and they
(15:29):
recognize when you've had a goodday or a bad day, and they can
almost sort of intuitively pickthat up the moment you walk in
the door. How vastly differentthose home lives and those
personal lives are then peoplethat keep it isolated, bundled
up, but it almost always bubblesup over in ways that you can't
expect. You're eitheraggressive, you're
(15:49):
disrespectful, you're shut down,you're quiet, or you're
argumentative all the time,because that's what you're
accustomed to on yourprofessional side. And then you
have a spouse or a significantother who is receiving that in
your personal life, and they'rekind of like, Where the heck did
this come from? This is not theperson I agreed to be with. This
is not the environment I signedup for. And you see how many
(16:10):
marriages, or otherwisepromising romantic relationships
are headed for the edge of thecliff, and they don't even know
it, and don't recognize the thatthere is a controllable element
of that, and part of that isletting that other person in to
understand what's going on, butcommunicating in a way that
isn't just constantlydownloading and complaining. It
(16:32):
has to be a conversation, andyou have to pull that person in
even though they're not at yourjob day to day. They can be as
critical to your daily success,as you know, as just about
anything, because they lay thefoundation for what sends you
back to work tomorrow.
Absolutely, and you said it sowell, Steve, look, one thing
(16:53):
that is important to realize isthat commitment in the
relationship or showing up isnot fueled by love or feelings.
So I don't doubt that if you hada difficult day at work, when
you come home, your feelings areLeave me alone, right? But
commitment is not fueled byfeelings. Commitment is fueled
(17:16):
by intentions that are followedby rituals, action. Yeah, right.
So the mind, right has to befirst, mind over heart, right?
Now we understand that when itcomes to parenthood, because
when you have a baby, you don'tfeel like waking up every two
hours, but you do it becauseit's mine over heart, right? Do
(17:38):
it because you're committed,yeah? So somehow in
relationships, we we lose trackwith that concept, and then we
say, well, I don't feel likebeing a husband or or or a wife
or a parent today, and I willdisconnect now, if I'm committed
and I practice the rituals ofintegration, communication,
(18:00):
collaboration, I can come homeand say to my spouse, I had a
really difficult day. Do youmind if I just take I'm going to
take an hour for myself? Or youmay even say that happens
sometimes with our children thatthey say, can I just eat on my
own today? Because we havesupper as a family. But
sometimes they had a day athome. Can I just eat in my room,
(18:20):
I need, really, to decompress.And of course you can, because
you ask you, can we understand?But it requires understanding
and communication and thepractice of the rituals, like
you said, if I had a difficultday at work, and then I come
home, and at the end of the day,I will do a debrief with my
(18:41):
spouse. We will sit over a cupof tea once I'm rested a little
bit, a glass of wine, and youshare with each other. You know
your day, yeah, when you'resharing your day and you're
sharing your emotions, first ofall, you feel help, supported,
understood. So if I had acomplaint to you about I don't
(19:03):
know the way you left thelaundry today, but now you're
sharing with me your day. I'mjust not going to mention that.
Yeah, but if I don't know what'sgoing on with you, then I'm
going to focus on myself. Yeah,I want to be compassionate. I
want to be your best friend too.I want to be understanding, and
I want to be generous, but Icannot be generous if you don't
(19:24):
let me in. Yep or understanding.So these are the rituals that we
are usually lecturing in techconferences. We we have two
types of rituals. We haveoperational rituals that help us
run the home life as smooth aspossible, like a well oiled
machine. And then we haveconnection rituals. And
(19:47):
connection rituals are are meantto keep the connection alive,
even when life is busy,difficult, very challenging.
This is what makes you feel youare in this two. Together, and
problems are solved together.You know, I give you an example.
(20:08):
About a month ago, we spend aweek at the hospital because my
husband had a spine issue thatended in spine surgery. And what
a lock the process of finally,you know, being put in the queue
for surgery. We were in limbo.We were in standby for a few
(20:28):
days. Was that I asked him onequestion. I asked him, in a
moment, I said, What do youtruly want? I didn't solve his
back problems. I just asked him,What do you truly want? And him
getting clear about what hetruly wants and the intention.
The next day, things moveforward. Just there was a
breakthrough. The surgeon came,things started to move forward.
(20:52):
So we might not have thesolutions for our partners, but
it is through that sacred unionthat sometimes we we can provide
exactly what the other oneneeds. Yeah,
I love that. And I think one ofthe things that I mean, there's
so many great points that youmade there, Gabriela, about the
(21:14):
importance when, when I hearwhat you're talking about, you
know, marriage or couplingdoesn't come with an owner's
manual, right? There's not maybeit does now with your book, and
we can be recommending it tolots of people. I can I can feel
it. But then the thing is, isthat we're often left our own
devices to figure these thingsout. And you touched on this at
(21:36):
the very beginning. Most of ourreference points come from how
we were raised, or the familyenvironment, and I know that one
of the phrases that I heardoften in my home was you just
wouldn't understand. I'm noteven going to get into it right,
because my dad had a verystressful, challenging job, but
(21:58):
just that statement, you'retelling your partner, and I can
see where it manifests inresentment. I always tell my
audiences resentment is thesuper secret promise of revenge,
right? Because at the end, if Ihave it, I'm going to get you
back somehow. You may not seeit, you may not know it, but
it's coming, and it's it'sinevitable. And when you create
situations like that by sayingyou're not smart enough to
(22:19):
understand what what I'm goingthrough or what's happening,
even though that may not havebeen the intention. That's what
the person hears, right? Andthen, you know, I'm not even
getting into it, is actuallyclosing off an entire part of
that partner's life, which thenmakes it even more isolating and
more challenging, which then thenatural impact there, the
(22:39):
negative ripple effect, to usemy own terminology, is that
they'll close off and be moresecluded and more private, or
more not as forthcoming or asmuch shareable as or sharing as
as they could. And then you endup having two people that are
operating in this environmentthat aren't even speaking a
common language any longer. Andand then you wonder why couples
(23:02):
start to drift apart. I knowthat the work you do has got to
be so so powerful and soimportant. I wish I had
discovered it early on, when Ifirst became an entrepreneur, I
got married and started abusiness within basically two
months of each other, and it wasthe worst decision I could have
ever made how my wife stayedwith me for we're going to
(23:22):
celebrate, you know, our 32ndyear of marriage. Don't, don't
tell her, not sure, but it'sbeen a long time. But we had
rough, rough times because wecouldn't communicate, because we
didn't know the rules ofengagement, we didn't know how
to treat one another withrespect and dignity, enough to
let one another in on thestresses that were going on. And
(23:43):
being entrepreneurs that wasjust a recipe for disaster,
right? Creates conflict, createschallenges. And what I what I
love about what you're proposingthrough your work and your
coaching and obviously the bookis that you're giving a game
plan, like, hey, you know, weknow where things will end if
(24:04):
you don't do something positiveand you don't set some
parameters, right, you know, andtreat one another with dignity
and respect and let them in. Weknow where it'll end up because
almost everybody ends up there,and it's not not a good
destination. But imagine howdifferently things would be if
you started today, even ifyou've been together forever,
(24:24):
and you could recast this in away that says, you know, and I'm
a bit I've really, I maybe it'smy age. You're very young
compared to me. But you know, II've like age and wisdom has
told me something aboutconnecting is we're just not
good at verbalizing what wereally need in the moment. And
so I have gotten very committedto being like, you know what I
need right now, like you said,is I need that hour. I just need
(24:46):
to decompress. I had a reallystressful day. I don't want to
take it out on you. So could youjust give me the space and then
when I'm done, I'll come share alittle bit if you still want to
hear it. What occurred, but youset the table so that. Not a
complaint session, it's aconversation opportunity, and
you do it vastly different in away that isn't isolating to your
(25:07):
partner and doesn't create thatlevel of resentment. And so I
think that it's so important forpeople that are going to see
this episode and to hear thisthis this is so essential for
any kind of relationship, butespecially the people that you
choose as your life partner oryour current romantic partner,
is clear, honest communication,but setting the parameters about
(25:30):
what that looks like, especiallyin those high tense, high stress
moments,
yeah, I love the way you phraseeverything, and I want to
reflect back on two points youtalked about. You talked about
resentment, which I love the wayyou said, it's the promise of
revenge or something.
(25:51):
Yeah, super secret promise ofrevenge. I want you back, yeah.
So what happens in the beginningof the relationship? A
relationship usually goesthrough three stages. Obviously,
the first stage is the fallingin love, the honeymoon. What
happens there is that we build aconnection, right? Yep. And then
when we move to the secondphase, which is the phase when
(26:13):
we start, when all thathoneymoon fades away and we
start triggering each other, westart building resentment, yeah.
And the resentment, if, if welearn to live with it,
unfortunately, what it does, itsecretly erodes, like
underwater, the bond ofconnection we have. And the more
(26:34):
water stays, the more damage youhave. And then we end up, start
growing apart, as you said. Sovery important in that phase to
actually work through the fourpillars, if I can, have to say
the four pillars are theframework to make sure you are
able to go through the secondphase and grow out of it to
become a power couple. Yeah. Sowe always want to protect the
(26:58):
connection. The connection comesin for communication. When
people are connected, theycommunicate differently. They
solve problems together. Theybecome each other's best friend
and lovers. It's all aboutconnection, yep. And then you,
you said that sometimes we haveto ask. Say, let me give me just
an hour to decompress, and thenI can share what's going on if
(27:20):
you still want to hear, yup, ifyou still want to hear what's
powerful. Because as part of thesecond pillar, which is the you
pillar, we have four me, you ourand us, I love. That is the
concept of respect. So when Iwant to have a conversation, a
(27:41):
deeper conversation with myspouse, especially if I see he's
in the middle of something. Buteven if he's not, I will say, I
want to talk to you aboutsomething. Is this a good time?
I actually do the same with mywe do the same with the kids
too. They're not so so kidsanymore, and I'm not as young as
you think. But thank you forthat. So you know, my oldest is
(28:05):
23 Oh, okay, I didn't getmarried when I was 12. Okay, so
we asked, Is this a good timebecause, and we're also okay to
say sometimes, when we aretalking and talking to say,
Okay, I got it. I really need topause right now, right? So many
(28:29):
times people come and juststart, you know, complaining or
renting, and maybe you're in themiddle of something, or maybe
you are not in the right mindspace, right? So we have to be
mindful of space and time. Yeah,when we want to have deeper
conversations and truly connectthrough communication, is to
(28:50):
ask. It's not even permission.Is is this the right time? Yeah,
I want to call it permission. Soyou said it differently, but
it's the same if you still wantto hear about it, because the
time you feel like talking, Imight say, You know what? Now my
head is all in, I don't know,supper time, yeah, let's just
(29:11):
sit together with a cup of tea,with a glass of wine, a beer,
whatever you need. After we putthe kids to sleep, I really want
to be there for you. And then werealized that sometimes people
say, I don't have time to domarriage development. Yeah, I'm
like, well, was that hard to sitwith your spouse at the end of
(29:32):
the day over a glass of wine andjust share your day? That's not
hard. So it's really a questionof intention. You have time to
do personal development, you dobusiness development, career
development, marriagedevelopment, is so yeah, the
first so essential,
yeah. I mean, when you thinkabout as you go, go through
(29:53):
life, which is, you know, sadly,this is the real reality that we
we live in these days, that, um.Right? We have a lot of
distraction, lot ofdistractions. People are way too
willing to give up. They feellike there's too much heavy
lifting and work to do it. And Ihave one particular friend of
mine that went through adivorce, blamed it wholly on,
(30:16):
you know, didn't understand whathe was doing, what he's
building. He's an entrepreneur,and the company, the venture,
became the excuse, but he, helet that be not only the excuse,
but ultimately the reason whythe relationship ended. She, for
her part, was just trying to bea supportive spouse, but had no
(30:38):
way to plug in and know how todo it, and then you build up
these walls of resentment, andthey spend less and less time
together, and they spend moreand more time with other people.
And, you know, things happen,right? And the reality is, he
said, you know, now lookingback, it's probably been five,
seven years, he could see that,had he just said, Yeah, I could
(31:00):
use your help, I could use yourinput, or I could, I could
really use an ear. Now, I don'tneed necessarily the feedback or
an opinion, but if he could havejust been kinder, and how he
rolled that out, becauseeverything, when you think about
it, and he and I talked aboutthis in great detail, is that,
you know, you guys were married,not only to each other, but to
(31:22):
your finances and to the futureof the enterprise of your
marriage, and that ties directlyto the venture that you are
working on, because all of youryou know your financial security
is tied to what you're building.And yes, the stress and the
pressure and the issues thatyou're going through were
certainly not insignificant, butat the same time, you make them
(31:45):
even more challenging by dealingwith them and isolating alone,
and then all you do is tell yourother partner that you know,
even though it very much affectstheir life in every respect,
you're not giving them the seatat the table to have that
discussion or that opportunityto ask questions, or even just
be there to let you unload onwhat's going on and then ask,
(32:08):
you know, for Well, what do youthink? What would you what would
you think I should say or do?Or, you know, how would I
approach this? And you know, inthe case of this individual, he
has a lot of regrets. He's nowseen, you know, the love of his
life. Now move on with somebodyelse. And he knows that it was a
huge swing and a miss, and heended up selling the company
anyway, and the company that hethought required all this time
(32:30):
and energy and attention and waslike his baby, now he's left
with nothing right, you know, nocompany, no team, no spouse, no
law, no longer a strongerrelationship with the kids that
they had, and now he's resentfulof being an entrepreneur and not
even sure he wants to go downthat path again, right? So you
think of all the decision treesand all the potential ripples
(32:52):
that happened if you just went alittle bit one way and opened up
your purview a little bit, orhad a framework like what you
are talking about and becoming apower couple, something to guide
you and direct you, or have acoaching relationship with
someone as brilliant as you, howmuch pain and anguish you could
have avoided, and really, at theend of the day, all the stress
(33:12):
and challenges you were goingthrough, it's better to go
through it together, whereyou've got a supportive partner
that's, you know, committed to.That's what you sign up that's
exactly right, the better orworse, right?
That's what you sign up for.That's the the all or nothing.
You know, really inrelationships, people are one
foot in, one foot out, I'm in,but I'm not fully. That will
(33:35):
never work in marriage. That'sright, because it's the
foundation to an entire lifeyou're building, you have to be
fully in. And the paradox isthat, because I have so many
problems at at work or in mycompany, right, I don't have the
time to let you in. Well, here'sthe thing, when you work as when
(33:58):
you have the synergy of unity,you can create way more. So
you're really shooting yourselfin the foot. And in certain
religions, respecting your wife,it's seen as a secret for
financial success. Can youimagine that it's seen as the
(34:18):
secret for financial success? Soit's a paradox here, that people
think not a paradox, but a miss
misperception, right? Yeah,
that people think that bringingmy partner in takes me away from
this. No, no, no, no. Everythingis energy, right? When you do
(34:39):
the right thing. It has a rippleeffect. Your relationship has a
huge ripple effect. I had tocancel two speaking engagements
that I had when my husband wasin the hospital. One was
traveling seven hours to gospeak at a tech conference. But
there was no regret, because.Know that I wouldn't want it to
(35:03):
be other way. Yeah, there's wayI'm going to leave him, and I
know that I didn't missanything, because when I do the
thing that aligns with myvalues, that is the person that
I want to become. Yeah, then italways works. Well. The idea, I
think, is to understand thatwhen we are in pain, we are
(35:26):
worried, we're scared, we arestressed, our tendency, and it's
completely normal, right? It'stoo default to our coping
mechanisms and look for instantgratification, yes. But if,
rather than seeking that, actingfrom instant gratification,
which is, let's just leave mealone, I don't have time to talk
(35:48):
to you, we think about, okay,what kind of person do I want to
be remembered for? What kind ofwife do I want to be remembered
for? Husband? Do I want to thenwe act from where we always want
to be and be remembered, hencecreated a life of no regrets,
then we realize that the rightthing to do is probably very
(36:09):
different than what I feel likedoing right now, and that's what
I say, that commitment is notfueled by feelings. I know you
feel like doing a but thinkabout the person you want to
become. Think about when youlook a few years back and act
from that intention, not fromwhere you are, but from where
you want to be. It's reallyabout seeing a whole cake and
(36:34):
feeling like eating the entirecake because it's delicious, but
you go, yeah, but I don't wantto be that person that has zero
self control. Yeah, well, that'seasy to understand. But when it
comes to relationships, it'scrucial we view the marriage as
its own entity. I am committedto that entity, and it's if, if
(36:56):
this, you know, forentrepreneurs, this is easy.
Your business is not you. It'san its own entity. Yep, and you
show up even on days you don'tfeel like it. You inspire your
team, even on days that youdon't feel like it, because you
are committed to it. You'recommitted to that entity.
Marriage is the same. You'recommitted, not even to your
(37:18):
wife. You're come or to yourhusband. You're committed to the
entity of your marriage.
I think the way you frame that,and how you started, when we
first started talking about whenyou have a baby, not getting up
is not an option. It is acommitment you made when you had
it. And if you reframed yourmarriage and said, This is what
you signed up for, how to how toparaphrase that back to you, is
(37:41):
that is also a commitment, andit should come before anything
else, and it should be the firstthing. When you do that now, you
have a foundation from which togrow as a person and good, bad
or indifferent that happens inyour career path. You've got a
somebody at home that's there tolove you and support you through
whatever it is, right, whetherit's a layoff, a job transition,
a, you know, challengingcoworker leadership situation,
(38:05):
whatever it is, they've, they'rekind of your ride or die.
They've got your back right, andthey're, they're the person that
will always be there to listen,be there to offer advice when
you ask for it, but they won't,necessarily, you know,
interject, unless it'sappropriate to do so, and
they're there to be your biggestsupporter, which is, I always
(38:28):
tell people like one of thereasons that you need a coach,
right is having somebody in yourcorner that will look at you
without judgment, who will bethere to be a guide. They won't
give you all the answers to thetest, but they're there to
support you 100% because theyhave a commitment to seeing you
through whatever it is that youmight need to tackle. Imagine
(38:48):
having that person at home, 24/7always there to support and
guide you and to be that person,your your biggest cheerleader,
your person that my wife does anexceptionally great job of this.
She will tell me when I'm notbeing very ripply, right? I'm
not being consistent with mybrand, or I'm not being
consistent with who I am, or Ijust need to knock it off
because I'm being too aggressiveor just too big of a jerk. And
(39:11):
she is that litmus test toremind me that, yes, she is the
person that I chose to help mebecome a better person. And when
I'm willing to let that in, itseems like everything seems to
fall in line. No matter how badthings might be going back at
the office or whateverchallenger I might be facing,
everything else sort of takes aback seat, which means when I do
(39:33):
come to the office or I do haveto tackle that project, or I've
got that issue that I need towork through, it seems less
intimidating and lesschallenging, because I feel like
I went home, like I'm a I lovegaming, right? Yeah, yeah,
exactly. Well, I was just gonnasay when I go home and that's
where my power up is, and I comeback fully, you know, charged
(39:56):
and ready to roll, and I willlive to five. It another day and
get through the issue and theproblem. But because I know I've
always got that safe place to goand and be able to have have
that person in my corner, Ithink is really, really
powerful. Very how is it thatyou got interested in this
(40:17):
entire direction for work? Iwant to hear a little bit of
that origin story. What Whatturned you on to this? And what
is it that excites you aboutwhat you get to do every day?
So I'm a former engineer, and 15years ago, I I needed to realign
(40:38):
my career. That's the me pillar,the personal responsibility for
my happiness. Yeah, you know, Iit's written in the book your
partner is not your punchingbag, and you cannot outsource
your happiness to them. Okay? SoI went through that need for
realignment and finding Why am Iunhappy? Because I was, even
(41:01):
though I was, I had everythingelse, the family, the husband
and I needed to realign mycareer. So it goes back to the
two aspects of your life thatyou can course correct, and
yeah, and I, after going throughmy own searching, I decided that
I wanted to certify and work asa coach. Looking back, it's
(41:24):
always been there. Obviously, Iremember when I chose to study
engineering that was debatingbetween engineering psychology,
and even as an engineer, I did alot of work training other
people, you know, mentoring. Sowas always been there. And I,
yeah, my husband, actually, thisis an interesting point. My
(41:48):
husband didn't believe in that.We're both engineers. He's a
software engineer. I was achemical engineer. He didn't
believe in coaching. So we are,you know, we were very left
brain people. And he said, Look,I don't think you can make money
with that. That's maybe a hobby.I don't see how you make a
career of this, but, but youdon't. I don't need to believe
(42:08):
in it. You need to believe init. I'm supporting you. So that
was huge, because he not onlysaid, I'm supporting you, we
actually practice what it startin the third pillar the hour we
we made a plan because we knewwe would have to compromise our
lifestyle for a while, you know,going down in order to go up.
(42:32):
And we made a list of the thingswe are willing to to let go,
like going to restaurants,vacations, and the things that
were non negotiable, that we arenot going to compromise, like
our children's private schoolsand stuff like that. Yeah, and
we made that plan, we look atthe budget and we realize that I
have two years of grace to buildthe coaching because, you know,
(42:53):
unlike some coaches say, Youdon't build a six figure
business overnight. No, it's notone AI template that will get
you a list of clients. Yeah. Sothat was important, because
first of all, I needed I didn'tneed him to believe in it, but I
needed him to support me, and weneeded to coordinate. Because
(43:17):
what I see is that, hadn't wedone that, he could easily come
to me after six months or a yearand say, Where's the money?
Aren't you making any money,right? So, because it was we
prepare ourselves, we plan, heknew so, so we avoided all that.
I don't know what you're doing,yeah. So, so that's the
(43:40):
coordination aspect. I talkabout the 3c in the third
pillar, communication,coordination, collaboration,
right? So he collaborated,because we coordinated. And then
I, obviously I took the time tobuild the practice one brick at
a time and and that's how Istarted. So in the beginning I
(44:00):
was mostly coaching for career.Then I started also in parallel,
coaching couples. And basicallyI did a detour. I started
coaching school, which stillgoes on. It's called the
Coaching Academy. So there aretwo pillars to my business.
(44:20):
That's my private practice, andthere's the coaching academy
that where I certify othercoaches. That was because my
private practice, after fiveyears, exploded. I had two
locations. I had, I will have 40clients a week. I couldn't keep
up, so I hired other coaches towork with me. I had to teach
(44:41):
them my way of coaching. Peoplewanted to learn, and that's how
my academy was born.
That's awesome.
So, that's basically how you know,in the beginning, the desire was
not to teach coaching.Obviously, you know, and our
coaches become members ofinternational coaches for.
Duration, they build their ownpractices. So I'm very
(45:02):
passionate about that, but I'mmost passionate about helping
people have both a fulfillingcareer and a thriving
relationship, and undo the myththat you have to wait for
retirement to invest in yourrelationship? No, you don't, and
if you do that, might be toolate. Yeah, you might end up
(45:25):
without your job and without apartner, or you have to wait
until the children leave.Obviously, no, and in the book,
there's a quote that do not putyour relationship on the back
seat because of your children,because then when they leave,
you end up empty, nested andempty relationship aspect. So
(45:46):
this is what I'm most passionateabout. You know, you cross the
50, you start thinking about,what is the impact that I want
to live in this world? Whatpassionate me the most for me,
the work of love, the labor oflove is helping people build
both and not compromise likereally, believe truly, truly
(46:11):
believe that it's possible forthem to build the most delicious
relationship. If I could have aan IV where I transfer to people
this consciousness, this belief,this knowingness that I have,
that I know it's possible thatnot only that, I live it, I've
(46:33):
seen it in my clients. That'swhat I would create. I would
create a product that it's an IVliquid that you plug in, and you
get that belief that if youinvest with the right guidance,
no matter where yourrelationship is, if you are
committed, that's all it'srequired from you, the desire,
(46:53):
the commitment, you can buildthat most delicious relationship
that you say someone can pinchme to know this is true. Yeah,
am I living a dream, or is thistrue? Like really that? I hope I
was clear enough. It's hard tofind that the the words for what
(47:14):
I feel right,
yeah, no, you were very, veryclear. The thing I really
resonated with at the onset ofwhat you shared was the fact
that you knew where you wantedto go, what you wanted to do,
and rather than I'm doing it,regardless of whether you
support me or not, you involvedyour partner, even if they
didn't necessarily understand orexactly get the vision. Like a
(47:35):
good entrepreneur, you sawsomething that needed to be
done, and almost nobody seeswhat you see, which is what
makes entrepreneurs,entrepreneurs right. And rather
than take offense to it, youallowed that conversation to
evolve, and you brought them,brought your husband, into the
process of the conversation ofwhat this would look like and
(47:56):
how much runway we have. Andeven though they may not be
necessarily directly get thebusiness or even an active
participant in it. They have toknow how it impacts them,
because it does right? Andhaving that conversation was, I
think, a really brilliant move,I know, for my wife and I,
whenever I've started somethingor done, you know, an
(48:17):
entrepreneurial venture, I tryto and not always, well, try to
explain what I'm doing and whatI see, and then I naturally get
defensive, because I'm likeevery other entrepreneurs, like,
how can you not see what I'mdoing and I can see how age and
wisdom has improved over theyears, where now, when I
(48:37):
actually share something withher, I share it in a way that
allows her to see the end gameand where it could be and what
it could do, and why it wouldmake a positive impact our
lives, and potentially how itgets us closer to our own
individual goals, rather thanhere's this great, lofty idea. I
don't know how I'm going to getcustomers. Don't know how I'm
going to get the product orservice out the door. Don't know
(48:59):
anything, but by God, we need toput all our money towards this
right. Completely differentapproach. Well, you can imagine
how one goes versus the other,right? And I liked how you
went through that process, andthen look what you did. I loved
how you said, you know, youbuilt a practice, brick by
brick. You were to a point whereit started to explode. So proof
of concept, way beyond thatsuccess, you know, barometer is
(49:22):
off the charts. And then yousaid, Hey, okay, I get to this
point now. How do I expand andcontinue to grow this in a way
that's consistent with what Iwant to deliver out to the world
and to the client experience,and do it in a way where I can
actually essentially scalemyself and my skill sets in a
way that I don't necessarilyhave to do 80 clients a month.
(49:43):
I've got a team of folks thatcan do that, or they can pay for
my system and my approach, andthen they can go build their own
business and in the ripples thatyou've created just through the
work and the model and now yourbook is just super inspiring,
because it is what I think. Can,you know, we kind of touched on
this a little bit, but it's whatmost coaches don't go into
(50:04):
coaching to think about. Theydon't think about the
repeatable, proven process, theapproach, the model that needs
to be built, and then how topull other people into it. I
can't tell you how many divorcecoaches I know that love what
they were doing, but theirpartner didn't understand or get
it, and then when the moneywasn't coming in, that caused
conflict, and then they hadrelationships that ended because
of it. So your approach isbrilliant and just so
(50:26):
refreshing, because it has somany lessons just interwoven
there for our audience to learnfrom. So I mean, I'm I knew I
was going to love thisconversation, but I didn't know
I was going to love it thismuch. So thank you for sharing
so much,
and I want to tell you thatsometimes our partners will kind
of push us to the wall a littlebit, and that's the best thing
(50:47):
we need at the moment. Because Irecall after two years, he said,
Well, my middle one was going toprivate school at that point,
starting Elementary. He says,you know, if by next year, you
are not making X amount of moneyper month, we will have to
reevaluate this choice. And I'mso grateful he said that,
(51:10):
because my answer to him was,there's no question that by
then, I will do it, and I had noclue how, but that's the
entrepreneur, right? The visionis in your mind and and I needed
to hear those words, not to beresentful of him, but to kind of
get a reality check and see,okay, I need to make this
happen. So I didn't know the howI knew what I want. But you know
(51:34):
the how always presents whenyou're clear about the what? I
always say that clarity is avery strong force. So you see
how the power couple, right? Wehelp each other. We help each
other get unstuck. We show eachother what we don't want to see.
(51:55):
It's if you are open for thedialog, it will always take you
to the next step.
It will. I love it. There is somuch that we could explore, and
we're going to have to do afollow up episode. There is
absolutely no doubt I've got togo through your book, and I'm
sure I'm going to have abajillion more questions for
(52:16):
you, but I want to be respectfulof your time, and we always get
to this point of the podcastwhere I ask a couple of Ripple
Connection Questions. They'refun to ask, fun to answer. Are
you okay with that? Yes. Sowhat's the best? What's the best
thing about being a first timeauthor now
is to say I'm an author, youknow? Because I'll tell you,
(52:39):
when I started as a coach,people were saying, You need to
write a book to succeed as acoach. And I was like, I'm not
an author. No, I don't do that.I think the sweetest part of
being an author is was for me togive the book to my mom, because
this book is also a tribute tomy parents and my grandparents.
(53:01):
My parents were a great rolemodel, I have to say, and my
grandparents were also fantasticrole models when it comes to
strong relationships. So for me,I had to translate it to
Spanish. I wrote it in English,but for my mom and translated to
Spanish to give her the book wasthe sweetest, the thing I every
time I was writing the book, Iwas imagining that moment where
(53:23):
I give her the book and I willget tears. So that was the best
part of being a publishedauthor, really.
That's cool. You and I share avery similar story there I'll
have to share with another time.But yeah, I love that, and I'm
sure they are so very, veryproud of you. What did the seven
year old version of Gabriellawant to be when she grew up.
Oh, that's easy, a biochemist.
(53:46):
No kidding, at seven,
yeah, I became a chemicalengineer. Yeah, I had a love for
chemistry, even though I didn'tknow what it was from a very
early age. That's awesome. Oh,wait, my mom said, I said I want
to be a mom.
Okay,
I love that, that too.
Yeah, yeah, tick both boxes.Technically, even then made the
shift. So okay, so I'm gonna askyou this question just slightly
(54:09):
different. So if you weren'tcoaching today and you weren't
speaking and training on yourbook, or you weren't defaulting
back to your engineeringbackground, what would Gabriela
want to do if she wasn't doingany of that, what else would we?
Would you we find you doing
i i would just mentorentrepreneurs like when they
need a sounding board, yep, needsomebody from the outside that
(54:31):
will give them a differentperspective. I do that, but I
would do that full time and probono.
I love that. I love that. Whatis your secret power or your
genius.
My genius. It's the way Ipresent concepts. You know, I'm
(54:52):
trained look at soil. Gift mineis divine wisdom. It's the way I
translate knowledge into veryconcrete and. A concept through
analogies that people can grasp.
That's good. I like that and sonecessary in every aspect, but
especially in coaching. I
like simplicity and pragmatism,so I like taking concepts into
(55:14):
very simple words that peoplecan understand. Usually, I use
analogies.
I love I love that it's aperfect way for it to be
memorable for clients and foryour audience. For sure, if
there was an opportunity for youto put a message on a billboard
that everybody saw on the way towork or school and home again,
what would that message be?
(55:35):
Don't compromise on less thanhappiness, especially in
relationship and career, don'tcompromise. Don't settle. Don't
settle. Please. Don't settle formediocre. Always strive for
extraordinary. But I'm nottalking about its scale of
success. Whatever that means foryou.
Love that. I love that a lot.What is the question that you
(55:59):
wish I had asked you, but Ididn't,
how did I meet my husband?
Okay, how did tell me? How'd youmeet your husband?
So that's because you didn'tread the book yet. But so I was
engaged with someone else to bemarried. I can see your face,
(56:21):
and a month before the wedding,I canceled the wedding because I
had a dream that, in my dream,as I was walking towards the
altar, the person that waswaiting for me was my husband,
not my fiance. Wow. The nextday, I canceled the wedding, and
pretty much quickly starteddating my husband, which I knew
only six months
(56:42):
Wow, that's that's a cool story.And you guys have been together.
How long
we've been together? 30 andmarried? 27 See,
we're very similar. That'sawesome. I love that. Ah. What
is the legacy that you want toleave behind? Yet you mentioned
your kids. What do you want themto think of mom 2030, years from
(57:03):
now.
I think our marriage is ourlegacy to our children. Yeah,
really, I think that's part ofthe reason why I also wrote this
book, and I have two boys and adaughter, for my daughter to
realize that you can embodyfeminine and masculine energy,
that you can be very successfulat work, whether you're an
(57:25):
engineer that you know, was avery more male she was, she's in
law school, so she probablywon't be an engineer, but, but
you can also embody feminineenergy and be a mother and a
wife and enjoy both. You don'thave to compromise. And for my
voice the same. You know, youcan have a partner, you can
(57:46):
support them and and risetogether.
I love that. That's that's agreat, great legacy, for sure,
and no doubt you're going toachieve that without question.
Last two questions, what doesThe Ripple Effect mean to you
when you hear those words, wasit conjure up in your mind?
For me, Healthy Marriage is ahuge ripple effect. Yeah, it's a
(58:07):
ripple effect on our childrenand what they will do in their
relationships and to oursociety.
I love that. And last question,what Ripple, positive Ripple,
can I create for you?
Oh well, this is amazing, possibleripple effect, right? You're
sharing this with yourcommunity, yeah, and once you
(58:33):
read the book, if you want toshare more about and give it to
people who can benefit from it,that's that's be very grateful
for that. I absolutely willthere. There's, I don't know
what it is, but you and I aregoing to find something to do
together, other than just thispodcast, because you and I speak
a very similar language, and wehave a passion for helping
people realize all the potentialthat can be had in their life,
(58:58):
personally and professionally,when you have the right people,
and especially, you know, theright partner with you, I can't
wait to, you know, continue theconversation. Sadly, you're
stuck with me as a friend. Sothat's just, you know, that's
just the takeaway here, right?So we're gonna find some ways to
work together. But I am sograteful so the way that people
(59:20):
can learn about the book and gettheir copy. Is for your website.
Do you want to share what thatis for everybody?
Yes, they can visit my website,gabrielaembon.com
and there's a tabfor the book. It has all the
international Amazon links, butthey can also find it on Amazon
(59:41):
directly becoming a powercouple, or just put my name on
Amazon. So becoming a powercouple, four pillars to engineer
legendary marriages.
I love it. And for those thatare out there watching and
listening, if you hear anythingthat Gabriela has
shared with you today thatpiqued your interest, I highly
(01:00:03):
recommend you go to her website.She has some great resources.
She also has some invitations onhow to get engaged and involved
in working with her. And I cantell you, just by spending the
time with her, you would be inreally good company to have her
as your coach. So I highlyencourage you to check out her
website. Are there any othersocial media links that you'd
like to share or,
(01:00:24):
well, I'm on LinkedIn, okay, I'mon Facebook and Instagram. Not
very, not very savvy on thesetwo, but LinkedIn is always the
best way
Okay, and then just typeyour name in and they'll be able
to find you. So that'd be great.So if you do reach out to her,
be sure to let her know that youyou learned about her work
through The Ripple EffectPodcast. But guys, we will be
back again with another episodeof The Ripple Effect Podcast.
(01:00:46):
But in the meantime, Gabriela,thank you so much for your time,
and as always, Ripple On!!!
Steve, thank you for being sucha great company, such great
company. Oh, thank you. Iappreciate it. I did. I enjoyed
this so much.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.