July 26, 2023 • 42 mins
Do you want to take your entrepreneurial spirit to the next level by starting a business with your spouse? Are you both passionate about creating something together that’s bigger than yourselves and can result in long-term financial success? Turning your dreams into reality can be daunting and nerve-wracking, but it is also extremely rewarding.
In this guest episode, Julia Barbaro, a homeschooling mom of six children, wife, certified life and marriage coach and author helps us look at some of the important factors to consider when taking on the exciting endeavor of starting a business with your spouse.
In this episode we discuss:
{03:05} How Julia decided to start a business with her husband
{06:46} Seeing each other’s gifts and how to let the desire to start a business together happen organically
{09:32} Being supportive instead of trying to fix everything
{11:59} The benefits of starting a business with your spouse
{16:36}The biggest challenges Julia faced when starting a business with her husband
{28:58} How to ensure you have a strong relationship with your spouse outside of work
{33:04} Being intentional with your communication with your spouse
{35:42} Advice for the mompreneur considering starting a business with her spouse
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Websites: https://www.jakeandgino.com, https://www.juliaandgino.com
Connect with Julia:
Facebook - @jakeandgino
Instagram -@jakeandgino @julia_barbaro
LinkedIn - Jake and Gino
YouTube - Jake and Gino
Twitter -@jakeandgino
Ways to Work With Gianna:
Interested in learning more about the Energetically Aligned Content Co-Creation System? Head to https://www.giannadiggs.com/eacc for more information.
You can also watch a demo or book a FREE Voxer call here.
Connect With Gianna Online:
- Gianna's Website- https://www.giannadiggs.com
- Follow Gianna on Instagram- @giannadiggs_
- Follow the show's Instagram- @themompreneurmindsetpodcast
- Follow Gianna's Facebook Page: Gianna Diggs
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gianna Diggs (00:05):
You are listening to the Mompreneur MindTech
Podcast, a show that empowersyou to create a business that's
authentically yours.
Say goodbye to stressful days,juggling multiple priorities and
feeling like you're neverenough.
I'm your host, Gianna Diggs, acertified MindTech coach and
business guide for women and momentrepreneurs.
I'm here to empower, guide, andalign you with the tools and the
(00:27):
mindset needed to build athriving business that's true to
your purpose.
In each episode, we'll explorestrategies, tips, and success
stories designed to help yourise above your obstacles and
level up your mompreneur game.
So whether you're a first timeentrepreneur or a seasoned
professional, grab a cup of tea.
Some quiet time away from thekids and let's dive into the
(00:48):
Mompreneur mindset together.
Are you ready?
Let's get into today's episode.
Welcome back to the MompreneurMindset podcast.
So in today's episode, we'regoing to be talking about
something that I think manypeople, couples think about, but
(01:12):
may feel that it might be toorisky or too uncertain, or that
it may affect your relationshipand that is starting a business
with your spouse.
And my guest today has a lot ofexperience with doing just that
with starting a business withher husband and helping him get
his business started and up andrunning and her name is Julia
(01:34):
Barbaro And a little bit aboutJulia, she is a homeschooling
mama of six children, a wife,certified life and marriage
coach and author.
She is an integral part of thebehind the scenes operations of
her husband Gino's businessventures, including Jake and
Gino and the Rand family ofcompanies.
Julia was inspired to become acertified life and marriage
(01:54):
coach after witnessing the powerof.
Coaching she felt compelled togive back and motivate others to
set goals, seek out their solepurpose and ask what's next in
their life.
Julia's passion is to empowercouples to strengthen their
mind, their communication,overcome obstacles, and seek
clarity.
Together, she helps them createa life plan for themselves, as
(02:15):
well as encouraging parents toguide their children to
adulthood.
Julia is the author of TheCannolis Exploded and Gelato
Blast, children's books aboutdecision making and different
paths we can take in life.
Julia and her family live in St.
Augustine, Florida, where theyenjoy the old city and the
simple beach life.
So without further ado, let'sget into the interview.
Hi, Julia.
(02:35):
Welcome to the show.
Julia Barbaro (02:36):
Gianna, thanks for having me.
Hi.
Gianna Diggs (02:39):
So I'm excited for today's episode because, we're
gonna talk about something thatI think.
You know, a lot of families maythink about and, have the idea,
but might be afraid or are justnot sure if it's gonna work, and
that is starting a business withyour spouse.
and it's something that me andmy husband have been
contemplating.
So I, you know, I feel likeyou're a guru for this, so I'm
(03:02):
excited to hear what you'regonna say.
So, the first question is, howdid you decide to start a
business with your spouse?
Julia Barbaro (03:08):
Well, interestingly enough, Jana, he
started the business and Iwatched him and I helped him as
far as being, you know, we havesix children.
We homeschooled kids.
So we, I had a lot on my platealready, but there were little
things that I could help himwith.
For instance, uh, justsupporting him.
And I know a lot of us wouldlike, that's not really helpful,
but oh my gosh, when our guysare supported by us, they will
Gianna Diggs (03:32):
Mm-hmm.
Julia Barbaro (03:33):
for sure, because they have, we have their backs,
you know what I mean?
I'm, I'm home taking the kids.
I'm watching my husband go fromowning a restaurant to real
estate.
Uh, education.
And I'm like, I don't knowanything about education as far
as real estate.
I don't know anything about realestate.
But somehow he kept asking me tohelp, can you help me with the
videos?
Can you help me with thepodcast?
(03:54):
you help me with these littlethings that I could do?
And I loved to help him.
I loved to work with him.
Um, that's actually how we met.
We met, he bought the restaurantI worked at, so that's actually
how we met.
Working together is kind ofcute, but over 20 years of us
doing this, at one point Irealized, okay.
I, I, my kids were being raisedstill.
(04:16):
Obviously my little one was thetime.
Our oldest one was at a college,and I thought, okay, I wanna do
more with him, but I didn't knowwhat, and so he has these
events.
You know, four or five times ayear where we all go, the kids
and I go and we help him out.
We sell his books.
You know, we're there, and allthe couples that joined his
community, the Jake and Ginocommunity would come up to me
(04:39):
and they said, but we wanna knowhow you do what you do.
I said, that mean?
What does that mean?
Well, we wanna know how youraise your family while
supporting your husband whileyou're here working with him.
You know, whether you know it ornot, you are working together.
You are a team.
You are, you know, partners.
We wanna know more.
And I had to sit back and Ithink, how do we do it?
(04:59):
Because I've been busy my wholelife with raising kids.
Just whatever he needed, I wouldhelp.
And so my husband and I satthere for a little while and
said, okay, what do, where do wewanna go with this?
And we finally had a reason.
To really, really work together.
We wanted to, you know, letother people know the
difficulties of marriage, letpeople know the hard parts of,
(05:21):
of, you know, raising kids andbeing overwhelmed and trying to
figure things out, makingdecisions together.
So we had our why and I, and Ithink that's really the number
one thing was we knew why wewanted to do it.
We wanted to help other people.
And so from there I became alife coach.
And from there I startedcoaching couples or coaching
women.
Now we have a podcast together.
(05:42):
We talk about business andfamily.
You know, we, he just had a, abig event.
We gave a talk in front of 1200people about working together.
That's exactly what we talkedabout.
And people could relate and itwas amazing.
And really how it came about.
It wasn't accidental, but itcame from our experiences and
(06:02):
our difficulties and how weovercame things.
And we still do, let's behonest, that are just really,
challenging, especially when youadd on working together.
It's another layer.
But that's how we got into it.
And you know, now we have kidsbooks.
We have a personal financeacademy to help out the children
out there trying to figure outwhat a bank is, what money is,
just basic
Gianna Diggs (06:23):
Mm-hmm.
Julia Barbaro (06:24):
And that's where it came from
Gianna Diggs (06:26):
Wow.
I love that because I think thefirst thought that came to my
mind was that your husbandrecognized your gifts, right?
Like, you know, usually we don'tsee it that way when it's just
like, oh, can you help me withthat, babe?
Or can you help me with this?
But he saw that I'm not good atthat.
But you are.
Julia Barbaro (06:46):
exactly.
Gianna Diggs (06:46):
And I think that's like, that was the first thought
that came to mind was like, ohwow, he saw you, he saw what you
were good at.
Even though to you it's justlike, I'm just helping my
husband, but it's like, no, Isee that she's good at, excuse
me, I, I see she's good at thisthing and I'm gonna keep, you
know, asking her to help me withthis thing.
And then it's kind of like anevolution.
And I also love too, that's,that's the first thing that came
(07:09):
to mind when you were speaking.
And the second thing, um, wasthat you didn't force it.
and I speak from experience cuzI'm always kind of like, well
babe, you know, we're both goodat these things and like, you
know, trying to bring it up andhe's kind of, he's not there
yet, right.
And I had to realize, okay, Ineed to take a step back and
just let it kind of flow.
And so that's, that's somethingI think is important.
A good takeaway is that you kindof just let it happen,
Julia Barbaro (07:32):
I love that Gianna because it is sometimes
one of us is like ready to go,just like you said, you're ready
to take it on.
Your husband's not there yet,and I love how you put it like
that.
We're not on the same page.
Oh, you have to be a couple.
You have to be on the same page.
No, I, my husband's like twobooks ahead of me.
Sometimes like, I'm like, oh mygosh, where are you?
But it's important as a couple,like you said, first of all,
(07:53):
that we see each other's giftsbecause a lot of times people, a
lot of couples, I, I do talk toa lot of couples that are
working together.
One person wants to dosomething.
They're not very good at it, andthe other one has a gift for it.
But they won't give it up.
They won't let go of it becauseit's their, it was their idea
and they wanna do it.
And so then it seeps into theirmarriage and they get a little
bit resentful and they get alittle bit bitter.
(08:14):
And all of that comes.
And it's different when you'remarried working together than if
you're just a partner.
So now you have to deal withthat, and that's the whole
beauty of.
You know, once we startedworking together, I have to tell
you that our relationshipdefinitely like grew like crazy
because we talked about thingsthat we had to, we didn't mean
to, you know, we, we, I wouldbring up topics on our podcast
(08:35):
that we've never talked aboutbefore, and all of a sudden now
we're opening up between eachother on a podcast front of who
knows how many people, you know.
Gianna Diggs (08:43):
Right.
Julia Barbaro (08:45):
But just to be open, just to be open, to say,
okay, what are my husband'sgifts?
What is he really good at?
Let me give him that and let mestay out of his way.
Because a lot of times I, Ialways say this because this is
me as a woman, as a mother,like, I wanna take over.
I wanna fix it.
If you're not doing it right,let me, let me get in there and
fix that.
(09:05):
And so there's a lot of there.
A lot of growth where I have tostep back and say, let me let
him do it on his own time.
If he needs help, I'm here.
So that's a challenge for sure.
Gianna Diggs (09:16):
Right.
I love you said that we like tofix things.
Cause I think that's, that's afemale energy kind of nature of
like, okay, I'm going to nurtureyou and I see you're struggling
with this.
Let me step in and do it foryou, as opposed to being like,
you know what, I'm gonna let youfigure it out and I'm gonna be
here to support you where youneed me.
Julia Barbaro (09:32):
Isn't that the hardest thing?
And especially as I have a 23year old and I'm, sometimes it's
killing me.
And as I'm not like Gabriela, Ijust wanna help you You know,
please let me explain to youwhat to do.
But at the same time, I, I didit one time and she was really
struggling with something.
She wanted to change collegesand she wanted my advice, but
she didn't.
Do you know what I mean?
(09:53):
Like, remember when you
Gianna Diggs (09:53):
Mm-hmm.
Julia Barbaro (09:54):
you wanted people's advice, but at the same
time you knew what you weredoing.
And I remember walking to herroom and I said, Gabrielle, I
don't know.
This is all new to me.
Having an adult child is new tome.
I've never experienced it.
I don't have a manual.
I don't know what it's like.
I don't know what you're like,you're d different than you used
to be.
I said, I just wanna tell youthat I'm here.
For whatever you need.
I don't know how much to you orhow little to tell you because a
(10:16):
lot of times we're just tryingto win.
Like we don't, we're winging it.
We have no idea what to say orhow to say it or how to fix, or
how to not fix.
And it's it's nice for the kidsto know that, that, you know, we
don't know what to do either.
And if they're going throughdifficult times, and I, and so
when I said that to her, she'slike, you know what, mom?
I actually needed to hear thatbecause I do want help.
(10:36):
at the same time, I wanna beindependent and learn by myself.
And so then I realized, okay, Ihave to change the way that I,
and the same with our husbands.
When we're, when we're workingtogether, we have to change the
way that we talk Here, let mefix that for you here.
Let me take care of that foryou.
You know, obviously you don'tknow what you're doing.
I'll take over that over.
And when we do that, we'reletting the other person know
that we don't think that they'recapable.
(10:58):
gotta
Gianna Diggs (10:59):
Mm.
Julia Barbaro (10:59):
take care of it for you.
And so it's a lot of, thinkingabout what words we're using.
everyone in our life, especiallyour husband and our children,
because we could say, Hey,listen, you're doing a really
amazing job.
I love the new way you're, I'venever even thought to do it that
way.
If you need help of any kind of,you know, want another input,
(11:19):
please.
I'm right here.
I'm always here if you ever needme.
But it's hard for us to let goof that because we wanna be we
wanna take care, we wanna, wedon't want anyone to be in pain
or suffering.
And so it's really challenge forus, right?
Especially when we see ourhusbands suffering.
It's like, oh, can I fix thatfor you?
You know?
But to let them know we're here,I think is really sometimes what
(11:41):
they need.
Cuz a lot of times our, ourhusbands are someone, they come
to us and they're telling ussomething, and our first thought
is, all right, how can I helpyou?
What can I do?
They're not looking a solutionsometimes.
Sometimes people just need totalk.
Gianna Diggs (11:55):
right.
Communication.
Julia Barbaro (11:56):
yeah.
Gianna Diggs (11:57):
Right, right.
Communication.
That's big.
So what are some of the benefitsof starting a business with your
spouse?
Julia Barbaro (12:05):
Well, it's super fun.
Gotta be honest.
We have a lot of laughs.
And you know, I have to say, youknow, we do involve our
children.
We do involve them as far as,you know, like I said, we have,
two little kids books, um, thatI would love to send to your
children.
the Cannolis the gelato blastand it, it basically goes over
(12:26):
responsibility.
You know, it's, it's.
Something bad happens.
What are you gonna do?
And there's three characters.
They choose three differentpaths because we get to choose
what we do and how we react.
And so involve the kids and we,we go to events together and
it's almost like this familyvibe at these real estate
events.
And like I said earlier, I don'tknow anything about real estate.
(12:48):
I don't care about it.
I love the outcome that it, Ilove what it
Gianna Diggs (12:51):
Mm-hmm.
Julia Barbaro (12:52):
but that's my thing.
And I love family and I lovepromoting that, to people that
are, you know, desperately inneed of it and just wanna be a
better mom, wanna be a betterwife.
And, and so there are so manybenefits in it because sometimes
we, you know, I, I do have a lotof friends from back years ago
where the wife either would stayhome or she would work, the
(13:15):
husband would go to work andthey wouldn't see each other all
day, and then they would comehome and, know, it was an okay
marriage.
It was, it was just decent, youknow?
And I'm like, there's gotta bemore than that.
There's gotta be more than thatand, and I thought, well, if we
work together, we're gonna bealways around.
And a lot of people are like,oh, it's gonna be terrible.
You're gonna fight all the time.
You know?
(13:35):
Yes, we argue and yes, we havedifficult times, and yes, you
have hurt feelings, but at theend of the day, it is one of the
best decisions I think I've evermade.
Gianna Diggs (13:45):
Hmm.
I love that, that instead of,you know, cuz I, I just feel
like people always go to thenegative.
Like, oh, you're gonna always bearound them.
Are you sure gonna get tired ofthem?
Or, you know, do you, are yousure you wanna do that?
Right?
It's like, no, this is familytime, right?
Like this is time for.
Me to spend with my husband andwe involve the kids and it
becomes, it evolves into, intofamily time.
(14:06):
And that's what I love cuz I'mbig on family as well, is like,
how can we, you know, cuz whenyou're at work all the time,
it's like you aren't seeing eachother.
And it's like, how can, to me ittalk, it, it speaks fostering
the relationship, And the kidsare gonna be able to grow up and
say, oh wow.
Like we did these things as afamily and those are the things
that they're gonna instill intheir kids.
And then their kids are still intheir kids and it's kind of just
(14:28):
creating this generational love.
Julia Barbaro (14:30):
Mm,
Gianna Diggs (14:31):
That's what just came, that's what I just
downloaded, like a generationallove, um, is what I just kind of
like intuitively downloaded.
but that's what, that speaks tome.
Julia Barbaro (14:39):
No, that's beautiful, Gianna.
I love that, that what, what youjust said because it is that,
and, and you know, my husbandactually worked with his father,
so his father came from Italy,opened a restaurant, and my
husband worked since he waseight at his restaurant.
And then from there my husbandhad a restaurant my kids worked
at that, he sold that.
Now the real estate, and like Isaid earlier, I don't know real
estate, but somehow we'reworking together.
(15:01):
We could always find, and a lotof people are like, oh, we don't
have the same interests.
We're not on the same page witha lot of things my husband and I
Gino is, is so different than Iam.
And it's so funny to watch uswork together.
Sometimes my kids actually get akick out of it because we have
so different ideas, but somehowwe're open to listening to the
other person.
That's the whole communication,I mean, is huge.
(15:22):
Uh, listening to the person,hearing them out, understanding
where they're coming from, so,Bringing in my ideas and somehow
it's worked out where it, it'shere you have real estate and
family working together and it'sso beautiful.
You can make it work if you wantto.
Cuz a lot of times we're, we're,we're trying, we're not sure if
we want to, we're afraid, justlike you said, are you, we gonna
(15:43):
be arguing all the time or we'regonna get sick of each other.
And I, and I, it's important towant to be together.
Shouldn't you want to beworking?
Spouse, what do you, what?
What are you afraid of?
Exactly.
Are you afraid that he mightirritate you?
Does he irritate you at home?
Because if that's the case,that's something to work on,
Gianna Diggs (16:00):
Mm-hmm.
Julia Barbaro (16:01):
we, we forget, wanna work with him because he
irritates me.
Why not work at that part first,work on the relationship a
little bit and say, why am Iirritated?
What, what about this isbothering me?
Let's get down to the deep issuefirst before we step out into
the work.
You know?
Gianna Diggs (16:19):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's cool.
Like I said, communication,that's the, that's like the
center of it right?
It's just the com is, thecommunication is the, well, if
we're having this issue, let'swork on that.
And in all, in some instance,like you said, the business can
actually help you work on it.
So I love that you said that.
So what are the challenges thatyou faced?
(16:39):
You kind of touched on it alittle bit, but.
Julia Barbaro (16:41):
Yeah.
No, I, I really think one of mybiggest challenges with my
husband is, The, as a mom, youknow, as a wife, I, like I said,
at homeschool, I still have fourat home homeschooling.
And I, I get really great ideassometimes and I present them and
I'm like, ah, why did I do that?
Now I have a lot more work do.
(17:01):
And so biggest challenge withworking with him is he is such a
go-getter, Gino is, you know,all about let's, you know,
let's, let's do videos.
We, we have a, we have acoaching program, we have a life
coach program, goal settings.
and it takes a lot of time.
It takes a time and.
So every morning I seriouslyhave to sit and say, okay, we
(17:23):
talked about this earlier, evenwhen we were, before we even got
started, the podcast, you have alittle, you have little
children, and every day it'slike, am I putting too much work
into my business?
Where should I be?
Gianna Diggs (17:33):
Mm.
Julia Barbaro (17:33):
Am I, am I giving them enough of my attention?
You know, where should I betoday?
And, and it's an ongoing, issuethat I've always had, which is
kind of funny because I rememberwhen all my children were
little, they were all little.
I was home a hundred percent ofthe time.
I didn't really go anywhere, youknow?
And at point my, my little one,she's like, mom, you're always
(17:54):
busy.
You're never spending time withme.
And I thought, what?
I'm like, you have a hundredpercent of my day.
And I thought, okay, from thekids' perspective, maybe I am
busy all the time doing laundry,do taking care of babies, taking
care of all these things, andI'm not giving them one-on-one
attention.
And I thought, okay, so ifthey're thinking that back then,
(18:15):
so now it's like, okay, now I'mdoing work outside of the home.
How am I giving that attentionto them?
And so it's one of those thingsback years ago I realized is
that I wasn't sitting with themand actually discussing things
outside of school, outside of,you know, only what they wanted
to talk about.
I didn't go on the little coffeedates that I take them out now
privately, you know what I mean?
(18:38):
So my challenge is really my ownproblem is where I'm, I feel
like I, I don't give them enoughtime.
But I do, it's, it's the momguilt type of feel.
Gianna Diggs (18:49):
Yeah.
Julia Barbaro (18:49):
that we all really have.
But the, the question is, why dowe have it?
I know there's a deeper reason.
I know it stems from like my momwho always worked all the time
and is guilty about working, andshe sees me do something and
she's like, oh, shouldn't you behome So it's like I'm taking on
her.
Gianna Diggs (19:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Julia Barbaro (19:09):
So it goes all over.
But I think that's been thebiggest challenge.
And the funny thing is that thechallenge isn't with my husband,
it's not working with him.
It's my own feeling of I'm notspending enough time with my
kids, even though I know I am.
But it's that feeling that I'mnot, and I know a lot, everyone
I talk to, every woman I talk tofeels the same way.
Gianna Diggs (19:27):
Right.
It's, and I love that you saidthat it's less about the issues
you have with him and more abouteternal.
Because a lot of what I see as amindset coach is that a lot of
times I.
We have those people who they,it's always an outsider thing.
It's always a, well, this personisn't helping me, or This person
caused me to do this thing, orthis always about someone else,
(19:49):
and less about what's going oninside.
And then once you start doingthe necessary work and you, you
start to realize like, oh, thisisn't.
Internal thing.
This is not an external thing,so I'm glad that you said where
it's like, it's no challengewith him.
It's a challenge with me and,and me saying that I need to
spend time with my kids and, andhaving that guilt.
Cuz it's, it's funny you saidthat cuz I, I'm in the process
(20:11):
of, a, a workshop and probablythis, it probably will have
happened by the time thisepisode airs, but I was working
on it, doing the emails and, andmy daughter, you know, she's,
Thanksgiving break.
She's home from a minute andshe's like, mommy, you're always
on the computer.
You're just, you don't play withme.
And I felt so, ugh.
Like my heart just sank.
Cuz I'm like, in my head I'mlike, we do a lot of things.
(20:34):
You have birthday parties comingup and I'm always like, I take
you like we have our littledates.
I go get my nails and I take herwith me.
I'm like, we do a lot of things.
And I'm like, you know what?
In that moment, because herbrother can't play with her cuz
he's too young.
She was just feeling lonely,right?
She just wanted me to sit withher and play dolls with her
because she didn't have anyoneelse to, and I had to recognize
(20:54):
that and say, okay, baby, whenI'm done, I will, I'll play with
you.
Um, and instead of internalizingit and be like, I'm a bad mom,
and all the things that we tellourselves, it's like, you know
what?
Because in this season, thebusiness is, I'm trying to grow
my business, and so I have tofind that balance.
And so I'm glad you said like,Nope, it's not, it's, it's
internal.
It's not external.
Julia Barbaro (21:14):
It is, and I have to tell you, Jana, that I have
asked my older children who are,you know, 20 17, 23, I said,
Tell me how I could have donethings different because, you
know, we are, we are talkingabout what we're, what we're
talking about right now, justnot spending enough time.
And I kind of teased them fromyears ago about h how they used
to say that to me.
And they said, you know what,mom, honestly, you did a great
(21:36):
job.
We were, we're really happy withher childhood.
And I thought, okay, so like yousaid, it's our, it's our
internal issue that we'rehaving, you know, and, some,
some women, um, were talkingrecently about, They wanted to
start a business and they don'tthink their husband supports
them and they use those support.
And I said, well, tell me aboutthat.
What?
What do you mean that yourhusband doesn't support?
(21:58):
And they're just randomlytalking about certain things.
And I said, I have a question.
Do you trust yourself?
Do you trust?
Do you support yourself?
Because a lot of times, justlike
Gianna Diggs (22:07):
Hmm.
Julia Barbaro (22:07):
just said before, we blame other people why we're
not doing things well, myhusband doesn't support that.
He doesn't want us to do that.
Or is it that, that we don'tsupport each other?
We don't, we don't wantourselves to do it.
We need our own.
We need the confidence to do it.
And then every time I talk tothe women, I'm like, ask your
husband, oh, you know, he saysto do it.
I'm like, so, So it is so truethat we are the ones holding
(22:32):
ourselves back.
We are the ones telling us thatwe can't do it, you know?
And that's something to thinkabout, just like you said, that
mindset coaching of what is thereal issue and it's usually
ourselves.
Gianna Diggs (22:43):
Right, right.
And that's funny that you saythat cuz it just, I just thought
about my husband saying like, ifhe sees me struggling, he's
like, what can I do?
Even though he, he doesn't dothe esoteric, the astrology, all
the things that I do.
He's like, well, what can I,what can I do to support you?
And I like, you know, for me,I'm always like, I have to think
about how.
Julia Barbaro (23:01):
Mm-hmm.
Gianna Diggs (23:02):
Uh, he can support me because I am that person
that's like, I'm just gonna doit myself.
Right?
And it's like getting out ofthat.
so I'm glad you mentioned thatearlier of just like, okay, let
me get out of, I need to do itmyself.
And more into, okay, like, Iknow you know nothing about
this, but I know you're good atthat.
Like, this is how you cansupport me.
Track 1 (23:21):
is So
gianna_diggs (23:21):
Um
Track 1 (23:21):
Gianna, I have to tell you, that's the biggest thing, a
biggest challenge, especially alot of women, a lot of moms and
wives, where we are gonna do itourselves.
And I, you know, it will go, itwill go throughout your whole
life because you know, even mygosh, this sounds ridiculous,
but I know you and many womenlisten are gonna know what I'm
talking about.
When my kids load thedishwasher, I watch sometimes
and I cringe.
(23:42):
And so I walk over and say,don't worry about it.
I'll take care of it.
Let me do it myself.
You guys go off and do somethingelse.
And over the years, and itliterally took me 20 something
years to get over this.
I had to go to Life coach schooland realize that that was my
controlling, I was controllingthis.
And I ha own, I'm the only onecapable of doing it.
(24:02):
And I didn't realize that I wasoverstepping their boundaries
because they're
gianna_diggs (24:06):
Oh yeah.
Julia Barbaro (24:07):
learning something and how dare I take
that away from them?
They're learning something thatI, you know, so me saying I'll
take care of it is just mycontrol and I had to let go.
And it's so nice because at thispoint in my life, I just
delegate should see me.
Thanksgiving comes, youmentioned Thanksgiving.
I have my 17 and my 13 year oldcooking everything.
(24:27):
I didn't make anything thisyear.
Like, all right, you do thisnow?
And I, it, it was so hard.
I did it last year the firsttime, but I completely, I'm just
said, I'm gonna let go of thisand let someone else take care
of it.
And Wow.
Is that, was that new for me.
But if you just do by little,it's so freeing.
I'm gonna just tell you it'samazing.
gianna_diggs (24:47):
Wow.
I'm glad you said that.
Cuz funny thing is, uh,Saturday, so right after
Thanksgiving, my daughter's roomhas been a mess and I, and I've
been trying to, she's five, soI've been trying to be like, you
know, you go do it.
And then it's like, I don't knowhow.
And finally she's like, I wentin her room.
I started from one corner,worked my way through, got rid
of some things, and I was liketrying to get her to help me.
(25:08):
And it was just like, And she,it was, I was getting frustrated
with her and I told her, just godownstairs.
I'm gonna do it
Track 1 (25:14):
Mm-hmm.
Gianna Diggs (25:15):
And so of course when she come upstairs, she's
like, oh, it's so clean.
But I realized that, you know,she's five.
So, but I ki I'm glad you saidthat cuz it made me realize that
I kind of took away her justbeing responsible for her room.
Julia Barbaro (25:29):
Yeah.
Gianna Diggs (25:31):
and so I'm like, okay, we're gonna, I'm gonna use
that to work on helping her keepit clean cuz it was just a mess.
Her and her cousin go in thereand just do whatever and I, you
know, I and I let it go a while.
Julia Barbaro (25:43):
girls can make, we have five girls.
We have this, we have an ongoinggirl room for the past 23 years.
And I have funny enough, wecleaned out the girls' room
yesterday and I, this isimportant that I didn't realize
and, and I wanted to share withyou because you have two
children.
When I use the word, let's cleanup, three of my kids know what
(26:03):
I'm talking about, and the otherthree don't.
And I'm one of them years old.
He's the only boy, but itdoesn't matter, And they stand
there and they don't know whatto do.
They don't know what And it tookme, again, many, many years of,
of getting frustrated.
We have to clean up.
It's time to clean up.
What does that mean?
What does clean up mean?
And so Michael, I want you to goonto the table, take one thing
(26:26):
off the table and put that onething away.
And I know that soundsridiculous, but people, some,
some people need direction.
They need to be And I realizethat me saying the word cleanup
is just stressful for some of mykids.
They don't know what that means.
Okay, go just put your shirtsaway, fold just your shirts,
find your sh or just find theBarbies.
Get the Barbie shoes you don'tneed.
(26:47):
Whatever it is, give them anactual step-by-step direction.
And I, and I just wanna telleveryone out there with
children, this is a, a gamechanger because when I started
doing it, all of a suddeneveryone was very helpful and it
was really
gianna_diggs (26:59):
Right,
Julia Barbaro (27:00):
Because we do use these random words, I need help.
Help me clean up.
You know what I mean?
What does that mean?
Everyone's, everyone's stressingme out.
Well, what, what can we do foryou?
You know?
We have to be more specific andwe don't realize it.
gianna_diggs (27:13):
Right.
And I think you, you talk abouthow your mom was with you.
It was because my mom did thesame thing.
Right.
She would get frustrated with meand with my room being a mess,
and she would be like, I'm justgonna do it for you.
Right.
And so, and as an adult attimes, I'm like, I wait till I
just can't take it anymorebefore I clean my room.
(27:33):
Right.
And it's cuz I just never wasthat person.
Like I, I have a certain levelthat I can function in and some
people that's terrible.
But for me it works.
Right?
But going back to husband'sright, my husband is like, okay,
if it gets bad, like then itbecomes a discussion cuz it's
like we live in the same space.
I know you don't like this wayand I don't like, and so now we
discuss it, okay, how can wehelp each other so that it, I
(27:56):
can.
Take away from the things thatI'm used to, right?
The things that I did when I wasjust me and how can we work
together to make it so thatwe're both comfortable in the
same space?
Julia Barbaro (28:07):
Yeah, no, I do love that.
And I, and with our husbands,they do ask, what can I do to
help?
And a lot of times we don'twanna hand it over, um, what I
was saying about just being ableto let go of that, but it is so
beautiful and that's where yourrelationship grows because all
of a sudden now you're trustingyour husband with something that
you normally would take care of.
(28:27):
And so that trust also builds.
Too, you know, so all of asudden you're saying, okay, I,
I'm trusting you.
And they know that, and that's abig deal for them.
So then they're gonna givesomething back to you and say,
okay, I wanna trust you more.
And that's when you're, whenyour trust in the marriage
grows, it is unreal.
It's a beautiful, But it doestake time.
It does take time.
(28:47):
And it's just little by little.
If we just do a little thingday, one little thing every day,
it, it will, it will grow.
Gianna Diggs (28:54):
I love that.
Like a flower, right?
So how do you ensure, and you,again, it's something you kind
of touched on earlier, how doyou ensure that, you still have
a strong relationship, withyour, with your husband, and
even with your kids, likeoutside of the working
environment?
Um,
Julia Barbaro (29:11):
It.
You know, it's tempting when youstart working together.
It's very tempting to go on adate and talk about.
You know your ideas for work andyou know, at nighttime you go
for a walk and it's talk aboutwork.
And that is a challenge because.
You're both doing, everything'sintertwined.
You're doing work, you're doinglife, you're doing kids
everything together.
And it does take an effort.
(29:31):
I'm gonna be honest.
And there are times where I'mlike, listen, let's just go out
on a date and just talk aboutsomething other than work, other
than our great ideas.
And I'm gonna be lot, a lot oftimes we get a lot of value out
of, out of that, you know, we'llthink of great ideas and, and
you know, that's where the, thekids book came from was, was on
one of our dates, So I'm not.
I'm not saying don't talk aboutit, but remember that you also
(29:54):
have to work on yourselves andyou also have to talk about, you
know, challenges that you have.
And it's okay to tell them thatyou are overwhelmed and it's
okay to tell them that you'rescared or that you are, you
know, overworked or you're notsure what to do.
Because a lot of times, like wewere saying before, as women, as
wives, as moms, we, we want to.
(30:15):
Be the supermom.
We don't we don't want otherpeople to know that we're having
a hard time.
We're afraid sometimes to tellour husbands that we're scared
about certain things.
Well, what will they think ofus?
They don't, they're not gonna,you know, and so that is a, a, a
wall we have to slowly breakdown if we don't, if we haven't
already.
Uh, and I, and That really doeshelp it, it helps you connect
(30:36):
with each other, and we cannever stop connecting because
even as with small children, youknow, you know, I, I remember
having all the babies and beingpregnant for all those years.
I would neglect my husband forreal.
You know, it was always aboutthe kids.
always like, I, you know, Idon't have you right now.
And they really do feel leftout.
Let's just be honest.
They're not pregnant.
They feel that.
(30:57):
They don't get to, you know whatI mean?
They don't.
There's a lot of things thatthey do miss out on and.
This happened later on in ourrelationship, but I realized
that he wanted to be part ofthings that he wasn't able to.
Cuz he's the man So I'm like,all right, I want you to help
me, but I, I don't, you know, sowe had different conversations
than we ever had because I saw adifferent side of him, you know,
(31:19):
that he was, you know, thinkabout childbirth for, for
instance, like the men areliterally standing there
helpless.
They can't do anything.
used being the type to be ableto help and fix, and.
And I noticed that at her sixth,at her sixth birth.
I'm sitting there looking at myhusband.
I'm like, he is terrified,petrified, and he doesn't know
what to do.
(31:40):
I saw it differently, somethingdifferent that it was like a
softer side of them, you know?
And afterwards, was theconversation that we had was
what did that feel like?
Like what was that like for you?
Cause it's always about us,right?
we're always having the babies.
Yep.
Like, what was that like foryou?
And so it, it opened up ourconversations when we would go
out to different questions, toopen-ended questions instead of,
(32:03):
you know, how was work today,the basic, you know what I mean?
What'd you do Talk to.
What was that like for you to bein that situation and just to
hear the other side?
So that communication is, is, wehave to remember that that is so
important in our family.
And if we're gonna be successfulin a business, the foundation at
home has to be successful aswell.
(32:25):
And sometimes we forget thatpart of it and work busy working
on running our business andsucceeding in that part that we
forget about the home life.
And how important it is where,where the, you know, you and
your husband are always open andtalking things out, and Yes,
arguing and disagreeing course,but with respect and letting our
(32:48):
children know that we want themto be part of it and, you know,
and spending time with that.
And it takes a lot of effort,let's be honest.
But it's a responsibility thatwe have and, and you know, when
we do it, it's incredible, it'sbeautiful, and then we can go be
successful in our business.
So,
gianna_diggs (33:04):
Right.
And what came to my mind is justbeing intentional.
Right?
that was like, the thought thatcame to mind is that, you know,
Sometimes we think things willbe fixed overnight or that we
want things to be this way and,and something that I've had to
deal with is like, he can't readyour mind.
He doesn't know that you'resuffering from this thing.
(33:25):
You need to be mindful andexpress how you feel.
And, you know, of course do itin a respectful way.
And I've learned, you know,through, of course, my studies
of the modalities that I use inmy business, like human design
especially, and being anemotional authority and knowing
that I need to kind of waitthings out before I, you know, I
speak about certain things andnot.
(33:46):
Coming to him when I'm in likeangry or, you know, even if I
feel sad about it and kind ofcoming to him in a neutral
place.
And when I do that, like thecommunication is better.
And, but I had to be intentionalabout that.
and if, you know, when you'renot intentional about it, that's
kind of when you have the issuesand things like that.
So I'm glad you said that.
Julia Barbaro (34:06):
Yeah.
No, that is so important,Gianna, because a lot of times
we do, we want it all right now.
We want it, we want it, we wantit all and, and a lot of times
it has to be.
In the right time.
You know, it, it has to be inthe right season, whatever word
you wanna use because you know,I, we couldn't be where we are.
I couldn't be where I wa amright now unless I went through
(34:27):
20 plus years of raisingchildren and going through
difficult times.
And before I could help otherpeople in the same situation, I
wouldn't have the knowledge, Iwouldn't have the wisdom of
that, it wouldn't have theexperience.
And so a lot of times we have togo through years and years of
trial and difficulties in orderto understand.
That, okay, there is a solutionand help you because I know
(34:50):
you're in that same situation.
You know what I mean?
So it's like we want everythingto be perfect right now.
You know, there's sometimeswhere we'll be in an argument,
and this is kind of silly, Ididn't tell him this.
I think I've mentioned on acouple of podcasts, but I don't
think I've ever mentioned it tohim.
We would be in, in an actualargument.
And I remember thinking at thetime, like, wow, we're gonna
come out of this stronger andcloser.
(35:12):
And I, sometimes I would have alittle smile on my face and
you'd be like, why are yousmiling I'm like, sorry.
Cause we have to remember thatevery difficult time put, every
difficult, situation we're in isan opportunity for growth, you
know?
And I always to people, God'sputting you in that situation
for a reason.
Just I can't wait to see theoutcome because it's gonna be
(35:33):
amazing.
gianna_diggs (35:33):
Hmm.
Julia Barbaro (35:34):
You know?
And, and so that's something toremember is it does take time
and that's good.
gianna_diggs (35:39):
Right.
I love that you said that.
So, for the mom entrepreneur whois like listening to us and
they're like, okay, I hear you.
Right.
And they're still maybe, youknow, not so sure of like how to
approach it.
you know, what advice would yougive, A mom, entrepreneur, and
even, you know, her husband orher, her spouse, who is thinking
(36:01):
about or who wants to start abusiness and kind of is like
with their husband or theirspouse, and they're like, I'm
not sure.
What would you tell them?
Track 1 (36:08):
I would ask what their why is, what's the reason you
wanna do it?
Because we have to have clarityon the reason and who we wanna
target.
Who is our audience?
What's the purpose of it?
Because a lot of times we justwanna do something, but we don't
know what.
So get your reasoning.
Why, why do you wanna startthis?
Who do you wanna target andwhat, what's the purpose of it?
And I always, this is, this iscrazy.
(36:29):
This is me.
This is me.
But I sometimes will commit tosomething and I'll figure it out
as I go, You know what I mean?
It's, it's the mom in me, Iguess.
I don't know.
But I'll just take a step.
I'll, I'll, I'll put somethingout on Facebook.
Hey, I'm starting this, um,mom's group.
Every Thursday we're gonna talkabout something, you know,
something of, uh, you know, lifecoaching, some kind of life
(36:50):
coaching.
And then afterwards I'm like,wait, what did I just do?
just.
But I'm like, you know what?
I'm just not gonna look at it.
Sometimes my husband's like, youhave to look at the big picture.
Well, sometimes when I look atthe big picture, I get
overwhelmed and I'll just, like,I'm looking at it weekly, like,
all right, what are we gonnatalk about this week?
What are we gonna talk abouttoday?
and that's just the way Ipersonally do it.
(37:10):
But, but I just, I really do, Icommit to something.
I say I'm, this is what I'mgonna do, and I just take it one
piece at a time because I cannotsee the big picture.
Sometimes I get so overwhelmed Iwill shut down.
You know, even websites, forinstance, someone's like, we
gotta start a website, and I'mlike, I have no idea what to do.
I'm just gonna do one thing.
Let me do one thing, and whenI'm done with that one thing,
I'm gonna do the next thing.
(37:32):
So have your plan, get yourclarity on what, why you wanna
do it, and what are the steps.
And break them down as small asyou can make them.
Because moms, we're busy.
We have a lot on our plate.
We have a lot going on rightnow.
gianna_diggs (37:45):
Mm-hmm.
Track 1 (37:46):
But you can do it.
You know, I I'll, before thepodcast, I was folding laundry.
I was helping my, my kids withmath, science, and making
breakfast Why not?
You know, we don't think aboutit, we could do it.
We just, just take a step and dosomething.
gianna_diggs (38:01):
Right.
I love that.
Know your why.
Make a plan, take a step.
And I love that you said youjust like you, you know, cuz
sometimes the plan does feeloverwhelming.
I've cuz I'm the type of person,I am a big picture person.
So I start from that and startmoving down and then, and then
all of a sudden I feel itusually in my chest and I'm
like, oh no, you know, I'm like,no overwhelm.
(38:22):
Oh my gosh, how am I gonna getthis done?
So I love that you said, youknow what?
I just do it and I just take onestep and I just keep it moving
and, and you figured out how todo, how to deal with the
overwhelm by just saying, okay,well instead of me trying to
plan, you know, five weeksahead, I'm just gonna do it week
by week.
And just kind of, I think thelesson in that is just knowing
how you best deal with theoverwhelm too,
Julia Barbaro (38:45):
Oh gosh, you, the overwhelmed part is y you know,
you're, it's almost like youcan't see everything's,
everything's confusing.
You don't want, nobody can talkto you.
You're overwhelmed.
And that when I get like that, Isay, okay, what exactly am I
overwhelmed by?
What exactly am by?
I have to figure out what it isbecause something is affecting
my body.
I have to figure out what thethought is that that made my
(39:06):
body feel this way, and it's,and then I ask myself, okay,
well who can help me?
And I know that we talked aboutthis, we don't wanna let go of
it, but who can actually help mewith this?
Who knows about this?
Whatever it is, whether it'sstarting a, a business, starting
a podcast, starting a website,whatever it is, someone in our
life can help us.
And we have to think about whothat can be because we're not
(39:28):
supposed to be doing this byourselves, you know?
We're not, and there's so manypeople in our life that we don't
even think about that, oh mygosh, they could help me.
Even a little bit of advice.
Or maybe we can hire someone tohelp us with something.
Maybe a, a college kid or some,you know, there's always random
people.
The young people know the, thecomputers so go that.
(39:48):
But that's a good, a good for mewas who can help me?
Because I, it's not just, it'snot just me.
gianna_diggs (39:54):
Right.
I love that.
I love, I think that's a, aperiod to the whole discussion
that you just did.
It's like, who can help me
Julia Barbaro (40:00):
Oh, it's a hard one.
I mean, it's our, it's in oursecond book.
It's, we have a mentor Moose,and, and I love it because, you
know, a lot of times we justwanna do it ourselves, but who
are our mentors?
who, who's in our life that wehaven't asked for help?
And we, you know, we mentionedour moms earlier, and a lot of
times we'll go to our mom foradvice and maybe she's not the
best person.
(40:21):
You know, if, I'm, having amoney issue and I'm going to the
same person over and over again,but they're not good at money,
with money either, I can think,okay, who am I going to?
Who do I need advice?
What do I need advice about?
And who's the best person thatcould maybe, I don't even hardly
even know them.
Maybe I, I know I, I, they're,they're friends, but we're not
really, but they're really goodabout money or they're, they're
(40:41):
having an amazing marriage, orthey're really good at business.
We have to think about who ormentors, who are we hanging out
with?
Who are we talking to?
Because that, and again, all ofthis, Gianna, and I know you
know this, but all of this, weare our kids' ultimate example.
So how we are around ourchildren, that's what they're,
we can tell them anything wewant, but it's our actions.
(41:02):
It's our words.
It's what we do.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Gianna Diggs (41:08):
All right.
Wow, this was such a lovelydiscussion, Julia.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
and so before we wrap up, canyou tell the listeners where
they can find you, online andeven offline?
Track 1 (41:19):
Sure.
Yes.
Um, you can always email me.
I always loved old school email.
Tell me your story cause I dolove to hear
that@juliabarrogmail.com.
You can check out, um, ourbooks, our podcasts Personal
Financeacademy@juliaandgino.com.
You can check out my husband'suh, real estate.
(41:40):
world@jakengino.com and you canfind me on Facebook and
Instagram and Twitter.
gianna_diggs (41:47):
All right, Julia, thank you so much for being
here.
I love this discussion.
Track 1 (41:51):
Thanks Gianna for having me.
Gianna Diggs (41:57):
Thank you for tuning into today's episode of
the Mompreneur Mindset Podcast.
I truly hope that ourconversation has inspired and
motivated you to take charge ofyour entrepreneurial journey.
If you found today's episodevaluable, please take a moment
and subscribe and leave us areview on your preferred podcast
platform.
Your support means the world tome, and it's vital for helping
(42:18):
me to reach more entrepreneurslike you and empower our growing
community to thrive.
Until next time.
Keep pushing boundaries, neversettle.
And remember the world iswaiting for your unique gifts
that only you can offer.
See you in the next episode.
You are listening to the Mompreneur MindTech
Podcast, a show that empowersyou to create a business that's
authentically yours.
Say goodbye to stressful days,juggling multiple priorities and
feeling like you're neverenough.
I'm your host, Gianna Diggs, acertified MindTech coach and
business guide for women and momentrepreneurs.
I'm here to empower, guide, andalign you with the tools and the
(00:27):
mindset needed to build athriving business that's true to
your purpose.
In each episode, we'll explorestrategies, tips, and success
stories designed to help yourise above your obstacles and
level up your mompreneur game.
So whether you're a first timeentrepreneur or a seasoned
professional, grab a cup of tea.
Some quiet time away from thekids and let's dive into the
(00:48):
Mompreneur mindset together.
Are you ready?
Let's get into today's episode.
Welcome back to the MompreneurMindset podcast.
So in today's episode, we'regoing to be talking about
something that I think manypeople, couples think about, but
(01:12):
may feel that it might be toorisky or too uncertain, or that
it may affect your relationshipand that is starting a business
with your spouse.
And my guest today has a lot ofexperience with doing just that
with starting a business withher husband and helping him get
his business started and up andrunning and her name is Julia
(01:34):
Barbaro And a little bit aboutJulia, she is a homeschooling
mama of six children, a wife,certified life and marriage
coach and author.
She is an integral part of thebehind the scenes operations of
her husband Gino's businessventures, including Jake and
Gino and the Rand family ofcompanies.
Julia was inspired to become acertified life and marriage
(01:54):
coach after witnessing the powerof.
Coaching she felt compelled togive back and motivate others to
set goals, seek out their solepurpose and ask what's next in
their life.
Julia's passion is to empowercouples to strengthen their
mind, their communication,overcome obstacles, and seek
clarity.
Together, she helps them createa life plan for themselves, as
(02:15):
well as encouraging parents toguide their children to
adulthood.
Julia is the author of TheCannolis Exploded and Gelato
Blast, children's books aboutdecision making and different
paths we can take in life.
Julia and her family live in St.
Augustine, Florida, where theyenjoy the old city and the
simple beach life.
So without further ado, let'sget into the interview.
Hi, Julia.
(02:35):
Welcome to the show.
Julia Barbaro (02:36):
Gianna, thanks for having me.
Hi.
Gianna Diggs (02:39):
So I'm excited for today's episode because, we're
gonna talk about something thatI think.
You know, a lot of families maythink about and, have the idea,
but might be afraid or are justnot sure if it's gonna work, and
that is starting a business withyour spouse.
and it's something that me andmy husband have been
contemplating.
So I, you know, I feel likeyou're a guru for this, so I'm
(03:02):
excited to hear what you'regonna say.
So, the first question is, howdid you decide to start a
business with your spouse?
Julia Barbaro (03:08):
Well, interestingly enough, Jana, he
started the business and Iwatched him and I helped him as
far as being, you know, we havesix children.
We homeschooled kids.
So we, I had a lot on my platealready, but there were little
things that I could help himwith.
For instance, uh, justsupporting him.
And I know a lot of us wouldlike, that's not really helpful,
but oh my gosh, when our guysare supported by us, they will
Gianna Diggs (03:32):
Mm-hmm.
Julia Barbaro (03:33):
for sure, because they have, we have their backs,
you know what I mean?
I'm, I'm home taking the kids.
I'm watching my husband go fromowning a restaurant to real
estate.
Uh, education.
And I'm like, I don't knowanything about education as far
as real estate.
I don't know anything about realestate.
But somehow he kept asking me tohelp, can you help me with the
videos?
Can you help me with thepodcast?
(03:54):
you help me with these littlethings that I could do?
And I loved to help him.
I loved to work with him.
Um, that's actually how we met.
We met, he bought the restaurantI worked at, so that's actually
how we met.
Working together is kind ofcute, but over 20 years of us
doing this, at one point Irealized, okay.
I, I, my kids were being raisedstill.
(04:16):
Obviously my little one was thetime.
Our oldest one was at a college,and I thought, okay, I wanna do
more with him, but I didn't knowwhat, and so he has these
events.
You know, four or five times ayear where we all go, the kids
and I go and we help him out.
We sell his books.
You know, we're there, and allthe couples that joined his
community, the Jake and Ginocommunity would come up to me
(04:39):
and they said, but we wanna knowhow you do what you do.
I said, that mean?
What does that mean?
Well, we wanna know how youraise your family while
supporting your husband whileyou're here working with him.
You know, whether you know it ornot, you are working together.
You are a team.
You are, you know, partners.
We wanna know more.
And I had to sit back and Ithink, how do we do it?
(04:59):
Because I've been busy my wholelife with raising kids.
Just whatever he needed, I wouldhelp.
And so my husband and I satthere for a little while and
said, okay, what do, where do wewanna go with this?
And we finally had a reason.
To really, really work together.
We wanted to, you know, letother people know the
difficulties of marriage, letpeople know the hard parts of,
(05:21):
of, you know, raising kids andbeing overwhelmed and trying to
figure things out, makingdecisions together.
So we had our why and I, and Ithink that's really the number
one thing was we knew why wewanted to do it.
We wanted to help other people.
And so from there I became alife coach.
And from there I startedcoaching couples or coaching
women.
Now we have a podcast together.
(05:42):
We talk about business andfamily.
You know, we, he just had a, abig event.
We gave a talk in front of 1200people about working together.
That's exactly what we talkedabout.
And people could relate and itwas amazing.
And really how it came about.
It wasn't accidental, but itcame from our experiences and
(06:02):
our difficulties and how weovercame things.
And we still do, let's behonest, that are just really,
challenging, especially when youadd on working together.
It's another layer.
But that's how we got into it.
And you know, now we have kidsbooks.
We have a personal financeacademy to help out the children
out there trying to figure outwhat a bank is, what money is,
just basic
Gianna Diggs (06:23):
Mm-hmm.
Julia Barbaro (06:24):
And that's where it came from
Gianna Diggs (06:26):
Wow.
I love that because I think thefirst thought that came to my
mind was that your husbandrecognized your gifts, right?
Like, you know, usually we don'tsee it that way when it's just
like, oh, can you help me withthat, babe?
Or can you help me with this?
But he saw that I'm not good atthat.
But you are.
Julia Barbaro (06:46):
exactly.
Gianna Diggs (06:46):
And I think that's like, that was the first thought
that came to mind was like, ohwow, he saw you, he saw what you
were good at.
Even though to you it's justlike, I'm just helping my
husband, but it's like, no, Isee that she's good at, excuse
me, I, I see she's good at thisthing and I'm gonna keep, you
know, asking her to help me withthis thing.
And then it's kind of like anevolution.
And I also love too, that's,that's the first thing that came
(07:09):
to mind when you were speaking.
And the second thing, um, wasthat you didn't force it.
and I speak from experience cuzI'm always kind of like, well
babe, you know, we're both goodat these things and like, you
know, trying to bring it up andhe's kind of, he's not there
yet, right.
And I had to realize, okay, Ineed to take a step back and
just let it kind of flow.
And so that's, that's somethingI think is important.
A good takeaway is that you kindof just let it happen,
Julia Barbaro (07:32):
I love that Gianna because it is sometimes
one of us is like ready to go,just like you said, you're ready
to take it on.
Your husband's not there yet,and I love how you put it like
that.
We're not on the same page.
Oh, you have to be a couple.
You have to be on the same page.
No, I, my husband's like twobooks ahead of me.
Sometimes like, I'm like, oh mygosh, where are you?
But it's important as a couple,like you said, first of all,
(07:53):
that we see each other's giftsbecause a lot of times people, a
lot of couples, I, I do talk toa lot of couples that are
working together.
One person wants to dosomething.
They're not very good at it, andthe other one has a gift for it.
But they won't give it up.
They won't let go of it becauseit's their, it was their idea
and they wanna do it.
And so then it seeps into theirmarriage and they get a little
bit resentful and they get alittle bit bitter.
(08:14):
And all of that comes.
And it's different when you'remarried working together than if
you're just a partner.
So now you have to deal withthat, and that's the whole
beauty of.
You know, once we startedworking together, I have to tell
you that our relationshipdefinitely like grew like crazy
because we talked about thingsthat we had to, we didn't mean
to, you know, we, we, I wouldbring up topics on our podcast
(08:35):
that we've never talked aboutbefore, and all of a sudden now
we're opening up between eachother on a podcast front of who
knows how many people, you know.
Gianna Diggs (08:43):
Right.
Julia Barbaro (08:45):
But just to be open, just to be open, to say,
okay, what are my husband'sgifts?
What is he really good at?
Let me give him that and let mestay out of his way.
Because a lot of times I, Ialways say this because this is
me as a woman, as a mother,like, I wanna take over.
I wanna fix it.
If you're not doing it right,let me, let me get in there and
fix that.
(09:05):
And so there's a lot of there.
A lot of growth where I have tostep back and say, let me let
him do it on his own time.
If he needs help, I'm here.
So that's a challenge for sure.
Gianna Diggs (09:16):
Right.
I love you said that we like tofix things.
Cause I think that's, that's afemale energy kind of nature of
like, okay, I'm going to nurtureyou and I see you're struggling
with this.
Let me step in and do it foryou, as opposed to being like,
you know what, I'm gonna let youfigure it out and I'm gonna be
here to support you where youneed me.
Julia Barbaro (09:32):
Isn't that the hardest thing?
And especially as I have a 23year old and I'm, sometimes it's
killing me.
And as I'm not like Gabriela, Ijust wanna help you You know,
please let me explain to youwhat to do.
But at the same time, I, I didit one time and she was really
struggling with something.
She wanted to change collegesand she wanted my advice, but
she didn't.
Do you know what I mean?
(09:53):
Like, remember when you
Gianna Diggs (09:53):
Mm-hmm.
Julia Barbaro (09:54):
you wanted people's advice, but at the same
time you knew what you weredoing.
And I remember walking to herroom and I said, Gabrielle, I
don't know.
This is all new to me.
Having an adult child is new tome.
I've never experienced it.
I don't have a manual.
I don't know what it's like.
I don't know what you're like,you're d different than you used
to be.
I said, I just wanna tell youthat I'm here.
For whatever you need.
I don't know how much to you orhow little to tell you because a
(10:16):
lot of times we're just tryingto win.
Like we don't, we're winging it.
We have no idea what to say orhow to say it or how to fix, or
how to not fix.
And it's it's nice for the kidsto know that, that, you know, we
don't know what to do either.
And if they're going throughdifficult times, and I, and so
when I said that to her, she'slike, you know what, mom?
I actually needed to hear thatbecause I do want help.
(10:36):
at the same time, I wanna beindependent and learn by myself.
And so then I realized, okay, Ihave to change the way that I,
and the same with our husbands.
When we're, when we're workingtogether, we have to change the
way that we talk Here, let mefix that for you here.
Let me take care of that foryou.
You know, obviously you don'tknow what you're doing.
I'll take over that over.
And when we do that, we'reletting the other person know
that we don't think that they'recapable.
(10:58):
gotta
Gianna Diggs (10:59):
Mm.
Julia Barbaro (10:59):
take care of it for you.
And so it's a lot of, thinkingabout what words we're using.
everyone in our life, especiallyour husband and our children,
because we could say, Hey,listen, you're doing a really
amazing job.
I love the new way you're, I'venever even thought to do it that
way.
If you need help of any kind of,you know, want another input,
(11:19):
please.
I'm right here.
I'm always here if you ever needme.
But it's hard for us to let goof that because we wanna be we
wanna take care, we wanna, wedon't want anyone to be in pain
or suffering.
And so it's really challenge forus, right?
Especially when we see ourhusbands suffering.
It's like, oh, can I fix thatfor you?
You know?
But to let them know we're here,I think is really sometimes what
(11:41):
they need.
Cuz a lot of times our, ourhusbands are someone, they come
to us and they're telling ussomething, and our first thought
is, all right, how can I helpyou?
What can I do?
They're not looking a solutionsometimes.
Sometimes people just need totalk.
Gianna Diggs (11:55):
right.
Communication.
Julia Barbaro (11:56):
yeah.
Gianna Diggs (11:57):
Right, right.
Communication.
That's big.
So what are some of the benefitsof starting a business with your
spouse?
Julia Barbaro (12:05):
Well, it's super fun.
Gotta be honest.
We have a lot of laughs.
And you know, I have to say, youknow, we do involve our
children.
We do involve them as far as,you know, like I said, we have,
two little kids books, um, thatI would love to send to your
children.
the Cannolis the gelato blastand it, it basically goes over
(12:26):
responsibility.
You know, it's, it's.
Something bad happens.
What are you gonna do?
And there's three characters.
They choose three differentpaths because we get to choose
what we do and how we react.
And so involve the kids and we,we go to events together and
it's almost like this familyvibe at these real estate
events.
And like I said earlier, I don'tknow anything about real estate.
(12:48):
I don't care about it.
I love the outcome that it, Ilove what it
Gianna Diggs (12:51):
Mm-hmm.
Julia Barbaro (12:52):
but that's my thing.
And I love family and I lovepromoting that, to people that
are, you know, desperately inneed of it and just wanna be a
better mom, wanna be a betterwife.
And, and so there are so manybenefits in it because sometimes
we, you know, I, I do have a lotof friends from back years ago
where the wife either would stayhome or she would work, the
(13:15):
husband would go to work andthey wouldn't see each other all
day, and then they would comehome and, know, it was an okay
marriage.
It was, it was just decent, youknow?
And I'm like, there's gotta bemore than that.
There's gotta be more than thatand, and I thought, well, if we
work together, we're gonna bealways around.
And a lot of people are like,oh, it's gonna be terrible.
You're gonna fight all the time.
You know?
(13:35):
Yes, we argue and yes, we havedifficult times, and yes, you
have hurt feelings, but at theend of the day, it is one of the
best decisions I think I've evermade.
Gianna Diggs (13:45):
Hmm.
I love that, that instead of,you know, cuz I, I just feel
like people always go to thenegative.
Like, oh, you're gonna always bearound them.
Are you sure gonna get tired ofthem?
Or, you know, do you, are yousure you wanna do that?
Right?
It's like, no, this is familytime, right?
Like this is time for.
Me to spend with my husband andwe involve the kids and it
becomes, it evolves into, intofamily time.
(14:06):
And that's what I love cuz I'mbig on family as well, is like,
how can we, you know, cuz whenyou're at work all the time,
it's like you aren't seeing eachother.
And it's like, how can, to me ittalk, it, it speaks fostering
the relationship, And the kidsare gonna be able to grow up and
say, oh wow.
Like we did these things as afamily and those are the things
that they're gonna instill intheir kids.
And then their kids are still intheir kids and it's kind of just
(14:28):
creating this generational love.
Julia Barbaro (14:30):
Mm,
Gianna Diggs (14:31):
That's what just came, that's what I just
downloaded, like a generationallove, um, is what I just kind of
like intuitively downloaded.
but that's what, that speaks tome.
Julia Barbaro (14:39):
No, that's beautiful, Gianna.
I love that, that what, what youjust said because it is that,
and, and you know, my husbandactually worked with his father,
so his father came from Italy,opened a restaurant, and my
husband worked since he waseight at his restaurant.
And then from there my husbandhad a restaurant my kids worked
at that, he sold that.
Now the real estate, and like Isaid earlier, I don't know real
estate, but somehow we'reworking together.
(15:01):
We could always find, and a lotof people are like, oh, we don't
have the same interests.
We're not on the same page witha lot of things my husband and I
Gino is, is so different than Iam.
And it's so funny to watch uswork together.
Sometimes my kids actually get akick out of it because we have
so different ideas, but somehowwe're open to listening to the
other person.
That's the whole communication,I mean, is huge.
(15:22):
Uh, listening to the person,hearing them out, understanding
where they're coming from, so,Bringing in my ideas and somehow
it's worked out where it, it'shere you have real estate and
family working together and it'sso beautiful.
You can make it work if you wantto.
Cuz a lot of times we're, we're,we're trying, we're not sure if
we want to, we're afraid, justlike you said, are you, we gonna
(15:43):
be arguing all the time or we'regonna get sick of each other.
And I, and I, it's important towant to be together.
Shouldn't you want to beworking?
Spouse, what do you, what?
What are you afraid of?
Exactly.
Are you afraid that he mightirritate you?
Does he irritate you at home?
Because if that's the case,that's something to work on,
Gianna Diggs (16:00):
Mm-hmm.
Julia Barbaro (16:01):
we, we forget, wanna work with him because he
irritates me.
Why not work at that part first,work on the relationship a
little bit and say, why am Iirritated?
What, what about this isbothering me?
Let's get down to the deep issuefirst before we step out into
the work.
You know?
Gianna Diggs (16:19):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's cool.
Like I said, communication,that's the, that's like the
center of it right?
It's just the com is, thecommunication is the, well, if
we're having this issue, let'swork on that.
And in all, in some instance,like you said, the business can
actually help you work on it.
So I love that you said that.
So what are the challenges thatyou faced?
(16:39):
You kind of touched on it alittle bit, but.
Julia Barbaro (16:41):
Yeah.
No, I, I really think one of mybiggest challenges with my
husband is, The, as a mom, youknow, as a wife, I, like I said,
at homeschool, I still have fourat home homeschooling.
And I, I get really great ideassometimes and I present them and
I'm like, ah, why did I do that?
Now I have a lot more work do.
(17:01):
And so biggest challenge withworking with him is he is such a
go-getter, Gino is, you know,all about let's, you know,
let's, let's do videos.
We, we have a, we have acoaching program, we have a life
coach program, goal settings.
and it takes a lot of time.
It takes a time and.
So every morning I seriouslyhave to sit and say, okay, we
(17:23):
talked about this earlier, evenwhen we were, before we even got
started, the podcast, you have alittle, you have little
children, and every day it'slike, am I putting too much work
into my business?
Where should I be?
Gianna Diggs (17:33):
Mm.
Julia Barbaro (17:33):
Am I, am I giving them enough of my attention?
You know, where should I betoday?
And, and it's an ongoing, issuethat I've always had, which is
kind of funny because I rememberwhen all my children were
little, they were all little.
I was home a hundred percent ofthe time.
I didn't really go anywhere, youknow?
And at point my, my little one,she's like, mom, you're always
(17:54):
busy.
You're never spending time withme.
And I thought, what?
I'm like, you have a hundredpercent of my day.
And I thought, okay, from thekids' perspective, maybe I am
busy all the time doing laundry,do taking care of babies, taking
care of all these things, andI'm not giving them one-on-one
attention.
And I thought, okay, so ifthey're thinking that back then,
(18:15):
so now it's like, okay, now I'mdoing work outside of the home.
How am I giving that attentionto them?
And so it's one of those thingsback years ago I realized is
that I wasn't sitting with themand actually discussing things
outside of school, outside of,you know, only what they wanted
to talk about.
I didn't go on the little coffeedates that I take them out now
privately, you know what I mean?
(18:38):
So my challenge is really my ownproblem is where I'm, I feel
like I, I don't give them enoughtime.
But I do, it's, it's the momguilt type of feel.
Gianna Diggs (18:49):
Yeah.
Julia Barbaro (18:49):
that we all really have.
But the, the question is, why dowe have it?
I know there's a deeper reason.
I know it stems from like my momwho always worked all the time
and is guilty about working, andshe sees me do something and
she's like, oh, shouldn't you behome So it's like I'm taking on
her.
Gianna Diggs (19:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Julia Barbaro (19:09):
So it goes all over.
But I think that's been thebiggest challenge.
And the funny thing is that thechallenge isn't with my husband,
it's not working with him.
It's my own feeling of I'm notspending enough time with my
kids, even though I know I am.
But it's that feeling that I'mnot, and I know a lot, everyone
I talk to, every woman I talk tofeels the same way.
Gianna Diggs (19:27):
Right.
It's, and I love that you saidthat it's less about the issues
you have with him and more abouteternal.
Because a lot of what I see as amindset coach is that a lot of
times I.
We have those people who they,it's always an outsider thing.
It's always a, well, this personisn't helping me, or This person
caused me to do this thing, orthis always about someone else,
(19:49):
and less about what's going oninside.
And then once you start doingthe necessary work and you, you
start to realize like, oh, thisisn't.
Internal thing.
This is not an external thing,so I'm glad that you said where
it's like, it's no challengewith him.
It's a challenge with me and,and me saying that I need to
spend time with my kids and, andhaving that guilt.
Cuz it's, it's funny you saidthat cuz I, I'm in the process
(20:11):
of, a, a workshop and probablythis, it probably will have
happened by the time thisepisode airs, but I was working
on it, doing the emails and, andmy daughter, you know, she's,
Thanksgiving break.
She's home from a minute andshe's like, mommy, you're always
on the computer.
You're just, you don't play withme.
And I felt so, ugh.
Like my heart just sank.
Cuz I'm like, in my head I'mlike, we do a lot of things.
(20:34):
You have birthday parties comingup and I'm always like, I take
you like we have our littledates.
I go get my nails and I take herwith me.
I'm like, we do a lot of things.
And I'm like, you know what?
In that moment, because herbrother can't play with her cuz
he's too young.
She was just feeling lonely,right?
She just wanted me to sit withher and play dolls with her
because she didn't have anyoneelse to, and I had to recognize
(20:54):
that and say, okay, baby, whenI'm done, I will, I'll play with
you.
Um, and instead of internalizingit and be like, I'm a bad mom,
and all the things that we tellourselves, it's like, you know
what?
Because in this season, thebusiness is, I'm trying to grow
my business, and so I have tofind that balance.
And so I'm glad you said like,Nope, it's not, it's, it's
internal.
It's not external.
Julia Barbaro (21:14):
It is, and I have to tell you, Jana, that I have
asked my older children who are,you know, 20 17, 23, I said,
Tell me how I could have donethings different because, you
know, we are, we are talkingabout what we're, what we're
talking about right now, justnot spending enough time.
And I kind of teased them fromyears ago about h how they used
to say that to me.
And they said, you know what,mom, honestly, you did a great
(21:36):
job.
We were, we're really happy withher childhood.
And I thought, okay, so like yousaid, it's our, it's our
internal issue that we'rehaving, you know, and, some,
some women, um, were talkingrecently about, They wanted to
start a business and they don'tthink their husband supports
them and they use those support.
And I said, well, tell me aboutthat.
What?
What do you mean that yourhusband doesn't support?
(21:58):
And they're just randomlytalking about certain things.
And I said, I have a question.
Do you trust yourself?
Do you trust?
Do you support yourself?
Because a lot of times, justlike
Gianna Diggs (22:07):
Hmm.
Julia Barbaro (22:07):
just said before, we blame other people why we're
not doing things well, myhusband doesn't support that.
He doesn't want us to do that.
Or is it that, that we don'tsupport each other?
We don't, we don't wantourselves to do it.
We need our own.
We need the confidence to do it.
And then every time I talk tothe women, I'm like, ask your
husband, oh, you know, he saysto do it.
I'm like, so, So it is so truethat we are the ones holding
(22:32):
ourselves back.
We are the ones telling us thatwe can't do it, you know?
And that's something to thinkabout, just like you said, that
mindset coaching of what is thereal issue and it's usually
ourselves.
Gianna Diggs (22:43):
Right, right.
And that's funny that you saythat cuz it just, I just thought
about my husband saying like, ifhe sees me struggling, he's
like, what can I do?
Even though he, he doesn't dothe esoteric, the astrology, all
the things that I do.
He's like, well, what can I,what can I do to support you?
And I like, you know, for me,I'm always like, I have to think
about how.
Julia Barbaro (23:01):
Mm-hmm.
Gianna Diggs (23:02):
Uh, he can support me because I am that person
that's like, I'm just gonna doit myself.
Right?
And it's like getting out ofthat.
so I'm glad you mentioned thatearlier of just like, okay, let
me get out of, I need to do itmyself.
And more into, okay, like, Iknow you know nothing about
this, but I know you're good atthat.
Like, this is how you cansupport me.
Track 1 (23:21):
is So
gianna_diggs (23:21):
Um
Track 1 (23:21):
Gianna, I have to tell you, that's the biggest thing, a
biggest challenge, especially alot of women, a lot of moms and
wives, where we are gonna do itourselves.
And I, you know, it will go, itwill go throughout your whole
life because you know, even mygosh, this sounds ridiculous,
but I know you and many womenlisten are gonna know what I'm
talking about.
When my kids load thedishwasher, I watch sometimes
and I cringe.
(23:42):
And so I walk over and say,don't worry about it.
I'll take care of it.
Let me do it myself.
You guys go off and do somethingelse.
And over the years, and itliterally took me 20 something
years to get over this.
I had to go to Life coach schooland realize that that was my
controlling, I was controllingthis.
And I ha own, I'm the only onecapable of doing it.
(24:02):
And I didn't realize that I wasoverstepping their boundaries
because they're
gianna_diggs (24:06):
Oh yeah.
Julia Barbaro (24:07):
learning something and how dare I take
that away from them?
They're learning something thatI, you know, so me saying I'll
take care of it is just mycontrol and I had to let go.
And it's so nice because at thispoint in my life, I just
delegate should see me.
Thanksgiving comes, youmentioned Thanksgiving.
I have my 17 and my 13 year oldcooking everything.
(24:27):
I didn't make anything thisyear.
Like, all right, you do thisnow?
And I, it, it was so hard.
I did it last year the firsttime, but I completely, I'm just
said, I'm gonna let go of thisand let someone else take care
of it.
And Wow.
Is that, was that new for me.
But if you just do by little,it's so freeing.
I'm gonna just tell you it'samazing.
gianna_diggs (24:47):
Wow.
I'm glad you said that.
Cuz funny thing is, uh,Saturday, so right after
Thanksgiving, my daughter's roomhas been a mess and I, and I've
been trying to, she's five, soI've been trying to be like, you
know, you go do it.
And then it's like, I don't knowhow.
And finally she's like, I wentin her room.
I started from one corner,worked my way through, got rid
of some things, and I was liketrying to get her to help me.
(25:08):
And it was just like, And she,it was, I was getting frustrated
with her and I told her, just godownstairs.
I'm gonna do it
Track 1 (25:14):
Mm-hmm.
Gianna Diggs (25:15):
And so of course when she come upstairs, she's
like, oh, it's so clean.
But I realized that, you know,she's five.
So, but I ki I'm glad you saidthat cuz it made me realize that
I kind of took away her justbeing responsible for her room.
Julia Barbaro (25:29):
Yeah.
Gianna Diggs (25:31):
and so I'm like, okay, we're gonna, I'm gonna use
that to work on helping her keepit clean cuz it was just a mess.
Her and her cousin go in thereand just do whatever and I, you
know, I and I let it go a while.
Julia Barbaro (25:43):
girls can make, we have five girls.
We have this, we have an ongoinggirl room for the past 23 years.
And I have funny enough, wecleaned out the girls' room
yesterday and I, this isimportant that I didn't realize
and, and I wanted to share withyou because you have two
children.
When I use the word, let's cleanup, three of my kids know what
(26:03):
I'm talking about, and the otherthree don't.
And I'm one of them years old.
He's the only boy, but itdoesn't matter, And they stand
there and they don't know whatto do.
They don't know what And it tookme, again, many, many years of,
of getting frustrated.
We have to clean up.
It's time to clean up.
What does that mean?
What does clean up mean?
And so Michael, I want you to goonto the table, take one thing
(26:26):
off the table and put that onething away.
And I know that soundsridiculous, but people, some,
some people need direction.
They need to be And I realizethat me saying the word cleanup
is just stressful for some of mykids.
They don't know what that means.
Okay, go just put your shirtsaway, fold just your shirts,
find your sh or just find theBarbies.
Get the Barbie shoes you don'tneed.
(26:47):
Whatever it is, give them anactual step-by-step direction.
And I, and I just wanna telleveryone out there with
children, this is a, a gamechanger because when I started
doing it, all of a suddeneveryone was very helpful and it
was really
gianna_diggs (26:59):
Right,
Julia Barbaro (27:00):
Because we do use these random words, I need help.
Help me clean up.
You know what I mean?
What does that mean?
Everyone's, everyone's stressingme out.
Well, what, what can we do foryou?
You know?
We have to be more specific andwe don't realize it.
gianna_diggs (27:13):
Right.
And I think you, you talk abouthow your mom was with you.
It was because my mom did thesame thing.
Right.
She would get frustrated with meand with my room being a mess,
and she would be like, I'm justgonna do it for you.
Right.
And so, and as an adult attimes, I'm like, I wait till I
just can't take it anymorebefore I clean my room.
(27:33):
Right.
And it's cuz I just never wasthat person.
Like I, I have a certain levelthat I can function in and some
people that's terrible.
But for me it works.
Right?
But going back to husband'sright, my husband is like, okay,
if it gets bad, like then itbecomes a discussion cuz it's
like we live in the same space.
I know you don't like this wayand I don't like, and so now we
discuss it, okay, how can wehelp each other so that it, I
(27:56):
can.
Take away from the things thatI'm used to, right?
The things that I did when I wasjust me and how can we work
together to make it so thatwe're both comfortable in the
same space?
Julia Barbaro (28:07):
Yeah, no, I do love that.
And I, and with our husbands,they do ask, what can I do to
help?
And a lot of times we don'twanna hand it over, um, what I
was saying about just being ableto let go of that, but it is so
beautiful and that's where yourrelationship grows because all
of a sudden now you're trustingyour husband with something that
you normally would take care of.
(28:27):
And so that trust also builds.
Too, you know, so all of asudden you're saying, okay, I,
I'm trusting you.
And they know that, and that's abig deal for them.
So then they're gonna givesomething back to you and say,
okay, I wanna trust you more.
And that's when you're, whenyour trust in the marriage
grows, it is unreal.
It's a beautiful, But it doestake time.
It does take time.
(28:47):
And it's just little by little.
If we just do a little thingday, one little thing every day,
it, it will, it will grow.
Gianna Diggs (28:54):
I love that.
Like a flower, right?
So how do you ensure, and you,again, it's something you kind
of touched on earlier, how doyou ensure that, you still have
a strong relationship, withyour, with your husband, and
even with your kids, likeoutside of the working
environment?
Um,
Julia Barbaro (29:11):
It.
You know, it's tempting when youstart working together.
It's very tempting to go on adate and talk about.
You know your ideas for work andyou know, at nighttime you go
for a walk and it's talk aboutwork.
And that is a challenge because.
You're both doing, everything'sintertwined.
You're doing work, you're doinglife, you're doing kids
everything together.
And it does take an effort.
(29:31):
I'm gonna be honest.
And there are times where I'mlike, listen, let's just go out
on a date and just talk aboutsomething other than work, other
than our great ideas.
And I'm gonna be lot, a lot oftimes we get a lot of value out
of, out of that, you know, we'llthink of great ideas and, and
you know, that's where the, thekids book came from was, was on
one of our dates, So I'm not.
I'm not saying don't talk aboutit, but remember that you also
(29:54):
have to work on yourselves andyou also have to talk about, you
know, challenges that you have.
And it's okay to tell them thatyou are overwhelmed and it's
okay to tell them that you'rescared or that you are, you
know, overworked or you're notsure what to do.
Because a lot of times, like wewere saying before, as women, as
wives, as moms, we, we want to.
(30:15):
Be the supermom.
We don't we don't want otherpeople to know that we're having
a hard time.
We're afraid sometimes to tellour husbands that we're scared
about certain things.
Well, what will they think ofus?
They don't, they're not gonna,you know, and so that is a, a, a
wall we have to slowly breakdown if we don't, if we haven't
already.
Uh, and I, and That really doeshelp it, it helps you connect
(30:36):
with each other, and we cannever stop connecting because
even as with small children, youknow, you know, I, I remember
having all the babies and beingpregnant for all those years.
I would neglect my husband forreal.
You know, it was always aboutthe kids.
always like, I, you know, Idon't have you right now.
And they really do feel leftout.
Let's just be honest.
They're not pregnant.
They feel that.
(30:57):
They don't get to, you know whatI mean?
They don't.
There's a lot of things thatthey do miss out on and.
This happened later on in ourrelationship, but I realized
that he wanted to be part ofthings that he wasn't able to.
Cuz he's the man So I'm like,all right, I want you to help
me, but I, I don't, you know, sowe had different conversations
than we ever had because I saw adifferent side of him, you know,
(31:19):
that he was, you know, thinkabout childbirth for, for
instance, like the men areliterally standing there
helpless.
They can't do anything.
used being the type to be ableto help and fix, and.
And I noticed that at her sixth,at her sixth birth.
I'm sitting there looking at myhusband.
I'm like, he is terrified,petrified, and he doesn't know
what to do.
(31:40):
I saw it differently, somethingdifferent that it was like a
softer side of them, you know?
And afterwards, was theconversation that we had was
what did that feel like?
Like what was that like for you?
Cause it's always about us,right?
we're always having the babies.
Yep.
Like, what was that like foryou?
And so it, it opened up ourconversations when we would go
out to different questions, toopen-ended questions instead of,
(32:03):
you know, how was work today,the basic, you know what I mean?
What'd you do Talk to.
What was that like for you to bein that situation and just to
hear the other side?
So that communication is, is, wehave to remember that that is so
important in our family.
And if we're gonna be successfulin a business, the foundation at
home has to be successful aswell.
(32:25):
And sometimes we forget thatpart of it and work busy working
on running our business andsucceeding in that part that we
forget about the home life.
And how important it is where,where the, you know, you and
your husband are always open andtalking things out, and Yes,
arguing and disagreeing course,but with respect and letting our
(32:48):
children know that we want themto be part of it and, you know,
and spending time with that.
And it takes a lot of effort,let's be honest.
But it's a responsibility thatwe have and, and you know, when
we do it, it's incredible, it'sbeautiful, and then we can go be
successful in our business.
So,
gianna_diggs (33:04):
Right.
And what came to my mind is justbeing intentional.
Right?
that was like, the thought thatcame to mind is that, you know,
Sometimes we think things willbe fixed overnight or that we
want things to be this way and,and something that I've had to
deal with is like, he can't readyour mind.
He doesn't know that you'resuffering from this thing.
(33:25):
You need to be mindful andexpress how you feel.
And, you know, of course do itin a respectful way.
And I've learned, you know,through, of course, my studies
of the modalities that I use inmy business, like human design
especially, and being anemotional authority and knowing
that I need to kind of waitthings out before I, you know, I
speak about certain things andnot.
(33:46):
Coming to him when I'm in likeangry or, you know, even if I
feel sad about it and kind ofcoming to him in a neutral
place.
And when I do that, like thecommunication is better.
And, but I had to be intentionalabout that.
and if, you know, when you'renot intentional about it, that's
kind of when you have the issuesand things like that.
So I'm glad you said that.
Julia Barbaro (34:06):
Yeah.
No, that is so important,Gianna, because a lot of times
we do, we want it all right now.
We want it, we want it, we wantit all and, and a lot of times
it has to be.
In the right time.
You know, it, it has to be inthe right season, whatever word
you wanna use because you know,I, we couldn't be where we are.
I couldn't be where I wa amright now unless I went through
(34:27):
20 plus years of raisingchildren and going through
difficult times.
And before I could help otherpeople in the same situation, I
wouldn't have the knowledge, Iwouldn't have the wisdom of
that, it wouldn't have theexperience.
And so a lot of times we have togo through years and years of
trial and difficulties in orderto understand.
That, okay, there is a solutionand help you because I know
(34:50):
you're in that same situation.
You know what I mean?
So it's like we want everythingto be perfect right now.
You know, there's sometimeswhere we'll be in an argument,
and this is kind of silly, Ididn't tell him this.
I think I've mentioned on acouple of podcasts, but I don't
think I've ever mentioned it tohim.
We would be in, in an actualargument.
And I remember thinking at thetime, like, wow, we're gonna
come out of this stronger andcloser.
(35:12):
And I, sometimes I would have alittle smile on my face and
you'd be like, why are yousmiling I'm like, sorry.
Cause we have to remember thatevery difficult time put, every
difficult, situation we're in isan opportunity for growth, you
know?
And I always to people, God'sputting you in that situation
for a reason.
Just I can't wait to see theoutcome because it's gonna be
(35:33):
amazing.
gianna_diggs (35:33):
Hmm.
Julia Barbaro (35:34):
You know?
And, and so that's something toremember is it does take time
and that's good.
gianna_diggs (35:39):
Right.
I love that you said that.
So, for the mom entrepreneur whois like listening to us and
they're like, okay, I hear you.
Right.
And they're still maybe, youknow, not so sure of like how to
approach it.
you know, what advice would yougive, A mom, entrepreneur, and
even, you know, her husband orher, her spouse, who is thinking
(36:01):
about or who wants to start abusiness and kind of is like
with their husband or theirspouse, and they're like, I'm
not sure.
What would you tell them?
Track 1 (36:08):
I would ask what their why is, what's the reason you
wanna do it?
Because we have to have clarityon the reason and who we wanna
target.
Who is our audience?
What's the purpose of it?
Because a lot of times we justwanna do something, but we don't
know what.
So get your reasoning.
Why, why do you wanna startthis?
Who do you wanna target andwhat, what's the purpose of it?
And I always, this is, this iscrazy.
(36:29):
This is me.
This is me.
But I sometimes will commit tosomething and I'll figure it out
as I go, You know what I mean?
It's, it's the mom in me, Iguess.
I don't know.
But I'll just take a step.
I'll, I'll, I'll put somethingout on Facebook.
Hey, I'm starting this, um,mom's group.
Every Thursday we're gonna talkabout something, you know,
something of, uh, you know, lifecoaching, some kind of life
(36:50):
coaching.
And then afterwards I'm like,wait, what did I just do?
just.
But I'm like, you know what?
I'm just not gonna look at it.
Sometimes my husband's like, youhave to look at the big picture.
Well, sometimes when I look atthe big picture, I get
overwhelmed and I'll just, like,I'm looking at it weekly, like,
all right, what are we gonnatalk about this week?
What are we gonna talk abouttoday?
and that's just the way Ipersonally do it.
(37:10):
But, but I just, I really do, Icommit to something.
I say I'm, this is what I'mgonna do, and I just take it one
piece at a time because I cannotsee the big picture.
Sometimes I get so overwhelmed Iwill shut down.
You know, even websites, forinstance, someone's like, we
gotta start a website, and I'mlike, I have no idea what to do.
I'm just gonna do one thing.
Let me do one thing, and whenI'm done with that one thing,
I'm gonna do the next thing.
(37:32):
So have your plan, get yourclarity on what, why you wanna
do it, and what are the steps.
And break them down as small asyou can make them.
Because moms, we're busy.
We have a lot on our plate.
We have a lot going on rightnow.
gianna_diggs (37:45):
Mm-hmm.
Track 1 (37:46):
But you can do it.
You know, I I'll, before thepodcast, I was folding laundry.
I was helping my, my kids withmath, science, and making
breakfast Why not?
You know, we don't think aboutit, we could do it.
We just, just take a step and dosomething.
gianna_diggs (38:01):
Right.
I love that.
Know your why.
Make a plan, take a step.
And I love that you said youjust like you, you know, cuz
sometimes the plan does feeloverwhelming.
I've cuz I'm the type of person,I am a big picture person.
So I start from that and startmoving down and then, and then
all of a sudden I feel itusually in my chest and I'm
like, oh no, you know, I'm like,no overwhelm.
(38:22):
Oh my gosh, how am I gonna getthis done?
So I love that you said, youknow what?
I just do it and I just take onestep and I just keep it moving
and, and you figured out how todo, how to deal with the
overwhelm by just saying, okay,well instead of me trying to
plan, you know, five weeksahead, I'm just gonna do it week
by week.
And just kind of, I think thelesson in that is just knowing
how you best deal with theoverwhelm too,
Julia Barbaro (38:45):
Oh gosh, you, the overwhelmed part is y you know,
you're, it's almost like youcan't see everything's,
everything's confusing.
You don't want, nobody can talkto you.
You're overwhelmed.
And that when I get like that, Isay, okay, what exactly am I
overwhelmed by?
What exactly am by?
I have to figure out what it isbecause something is affecting
my body.
I have to figure out what thethought is that that made my
(39:06):
body feel this way, and it's,and then I ask myself, okay,
well who can help me?
And I know that we talked aboutthis, we don't wanna let go of
it, but who can actually help mewith this?
Who knows about this?
Whatever it is, whether it'sstarting a, a business, starting
a podcast, starting a website,whatever it is, someone in our
life can help us.
And we have to think about whothat can be because we're not
(39:28):
supposed to be doing this byourselves, you know?
We're not, and there's so manypeople in our life that we don't
even think about that, oh mygosh, they could help me.
Even a little bit of advice.
Or maybe we can hire someone tohelp us with something.
Maybe a, a college kid or some,you know, there's always random
people.
The young people know the, thecomputers so go that.
(39:48):
But that's a good, a good for mewas who can help me?
Because I, it's not just, it'snot just me.
gianna_diggs (39:54):
Right.
I love that.
I love, I think that's a, aperiod to the whole discussion
that you just did.
It's like, who can help me
Julia Barbaro (40:00):
Oh, it's a hard one.
I mean, it's our, it's in oursecond book.
It's, we have a mentor Moose,and, and I love it because, you
know, a lot of times we justwanna do it ourselves, but who
are our mentors?
who, who's in our life that wehaven't asked for help?
And we, you know, we mentionedour moms earlier, and a lot of
times we'll go to our mom foradvice and maybe she's not the
best person.
(40:21):
You know, if, I'm, having amoney issue and I'm going to the
same person over and over again,but they're not good at money,
with money either, I can think,okay, who am I going to?
Who do I need advice?
What do I need advice about?
And who's the best person thatcould maybe, I don't even hardly
even know them.
Maybe I, I know I, I, they're,they're friends, but we're not
really, but they're really goodabout money or they're, they're
(40:41):
having an amazing marriage, orthey're really good at business.
We have to think about who ormentors, who are we hanging out
with?
Who are we talking to?
Because that, and again, all ofthis, Gianna, and I know you
know this, but all of this, weare our kids' ultimate example.
So how we are around ourchildren, that's what they're,
we can tell them anything wewant, but it's our actions.
(41:02):
It's our words.
It's what we do.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Gianna Diggs (41:08):
All right.
Wow, this was such a lovelydiscussion, Julia.
Thank you so much for beinghere.
and so before we wrap up, canyou tell the listeners where
they can find you, online andeven offline?
Track 1 (41:19):
Sure.
Yes.
Um, you can always email me.
I always loved old school email.
Tell me your story cause I dolove to hear
that@juliabarrogmail.com.
You can check out, um, ourbooks, our podcasts Personal
Financeacademy@juliaandgino.com.
You can check out my husband'suh, real estate.
(41:40):
world@jakengino.com and you canfind me on Facebook and
Instagram and Twitter.
gianna_diggs (41:47):
All right, Julia, thank you so much for being
here.
I love this discussion.
Track 1 (41:51):
Thanks Gianna for having me.
Gianna Diggs (41:57):
Thank you for tuning into today's episode of
the Mompreneur Mindset Podcast.
I truly hope that ourconversation has inspired and
motivated you to take charge ofyour entrepreneurial journey.
If you found today's episodevaluable, please take a moment
and subscribe and leave us areview on your preferred podcast
platform.
Your support means the world tome, and it's vital for helping
(42:18):
me to reach more entrepreneurslike you and empower our growing
community to thrive.
Until next time.
Keep pushing boundaries, neversettle.
And remember the world iswaiting for your unique gifts
that only you can offer.
See you in the next episode.
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