June 13, 2024 • 17 mins
Running a business with your spouse can be incredibly rewarding, but also uniquely challenging. How do you optimize your time and energy to grow your enterprise while still being present for your marriage and family?
In this episode, powerhouse couple Kevin and Bekah Tinter let you in on their proven formula for doing just that. Known as the "Double Double D", this approach helps you be intentional about what you choose to do, delegate, delete, or "draft" by partnering up.
With 13 years of experience as couplepreneurs under their belts, the Tinters have navigated the ups and downs of integrating their work and home lives. They share practical tips for defining clear roles, defusing conflict, making time for the activities that give you energy, and leveraging each other's zone of genius.
Whether you're just starting out in business with your spouse or looking to take your venture to the next level, this episode will give you the tools to design a life and business you love, step by step. Join Kevin and Becca to learn how to master the art of the double double D and experience the power of true partnership!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome back Uncommon Freedom Fighters Kevin Tinter,
here with my amazing wife andco-host.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Becca Tinter.
Today we're diving into apowerful formula for
couplepreneurs to optimize theirbusinesses and personal lives.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
That's right.
It's all about mastering thedouble, double D, and we're not
talking about bra sizes here,folks.
It's do delegate, delete anddraft.
As spouses who run businessestogether, it's crucial that we
focus our time and energystrategically.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Absolutely so.
Here's what we will unpackUnderstanding what tasks to do
ourselves, what to delegate andwhat to delete.
How to balance growing yourbusiness with nurturing your
marriage and family,communication, tips for managing
your roles as both life andbusiness partners, and
leveraging the unique strengthsthat couplepreneurs bring to the
table.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Bam.
We'll also point you to somehandy tools and resources to
help you put this into practice.
So if you're ready to worksmarter, not harder, as a couple
in business, stick around.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Absolutely so.
We're going to start by talkingabout some of the key
principles in Kevin's book fromchapter nine in the seven
disciplines of uncommon freedom,and this chapter is called
lifestyle design.
So basically, one of the thingsthat we have practiced and
lived out is knowing thatdesigning our life intentionally
is very key to buildinguncommon freedom, which means
(01:31):
being purposeful about ouraligning our time and activities
, our activities, with our corevalues.
I think most people they don'tthink about their values, then
they don't think about wheretheir time is going and so all
of a sudden there's like acognitive dissonance happening
when the things they spend theirtime and energy and money on
don't align with the things thatreally matter to people.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh yeah, it's one of our favorite sayings from our
friend John Maxwell rightLeading the life you want
instead of accepting the lifeyou were given.
So it's so important to beintentional, right?
If you just drift, godownstream, you're not going to
like where you end up.
It takes effort to go upstream,it takes intentionality, but
boy is it worth it.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Absolutely.
And then there are people whoare trying to do everything and
spend all the plates and,especially as couplepreneurs, we
don't have capacity or time forthat.
We need to be doing what we arethe best at, so that's what
we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah.
So another principle fromchapter nine is that it's so
important to have an abundancemindset because when you have
that abundance mindset you'llsee opportunities as being
limitless.
You realize that there's anendless number of pies in the
world and the communist typephilosophy is there's only one
(02:44):
pie and if you have more than methen I can't get them.
And the reality is that's nottrue, right?
Communism has failed miserablyevery time it's been tried.
Every type of socialist type ofgovernment and economy has
failed miserably and ultimatelycapitalism has shown itself to
be the way for things to prosperand for people to truly thrive.
(03:08):
The bottom line is there is nolimit to the number of pies that
can be made.
When I'm successful, what wehave learned actually is that
I'm not actually taking awayfrom anyone.
I am actually helping otherpeople build their pies.
We pump so much more money intothe economy the more we make
(03:30):
than we did when we werescraping by $13,000 per year
back in 1998, in the first yearof our marriage.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Absolutely, and so the other thing that comes to
mind from that philosophy andthe way you were talking is for
me to win, you don't have tolose.
So it's really we each get todecide how much effort we're
going to put in, and we seeopportunities around the corner
and as something we can approachand build a life around.
So approach your business andlife goals with faith, with
generosity and with wisestewardship.
(04:00):
These are principles that welive by and we feel have
completely blessed our businessand our family life.
So regularly evaluate how youspend your time and manage your
energy.
So we want to delegate oreliminate anything that we
consider energy takers to focuson things that are energy givers
.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Well, so good, so good.
We just recently brought onanother part-time employee to
make up for an awesomeseveral-year nanny that we had,
who is moving on to otherendeavors, and the great thing
that we're experiencing rightnow is the benefit of delegation
.
Lots of little tasks that justweren't getting done.
(04:40):
That in the past we would do,and we can delegate them to our
assistant.
Done that in the past we woulddo and we can delegate them to
our assistant.
And it's wonderful because forthe most part, these activities
are not life-giving activitiesand they're not high leverage
for us.
So we can pay someone very wellto do these low-level type
tasks for us and then we canfocus on things that truly are
(05:02):
life-giving and just get uspumped up.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Absolutely so.
One of the resources that wehave available it's in the book
as well is basically an energyaudit and to figure out which
things give you energy, whichthings take your energy.
Sometimes it's people, and sowe need to you need to look at
associations but other timesit's tasks and commitments that
we make and so really taking anaudit of that and figuring out
which things do I want to keep,which things do I want to
(05:25):
eventually give to someone else,and which things should I just
stop doing altogether.
So it's okay to design yourlife and your business as you go
.
Few things are permanent, soreally embracing the freedom to
make those changes.
We are living drasticallydifferent decision making.
We have made drasticallydifferent decisions now than we
would have made 15 years ago,when we didn't have the
(05:46):
resources or even the mindset tomake some of these decisions.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, I think it's important to have that one,
three and five-year vision and Iwould say we've, for the most
part, always been moving towardswhatever our five-year vision
was.
But a lot of times inside thatone-year vision, we have to make
some adjustments because, youknow, evidence and flows in
business, parenting creates alot of unpredictability.
(06:11):
Some people are dealing with,you know, maybe aging parents
and things like that.
They can be a disruptor, ormaybe it's your own personal
health.
So, just understanding that,it's important to give yourself
the flexibility and freedom toredesign as you go through and
this is once again we talk aboutkind of breaking things into
(06:31):
quarters, and that's a reallyhelpful benefit of breaking
things into quarters and if youcan get ahead of your
decision-making, that is ideal.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So what's really painful is when you and
sometimes we just don't seethings coming, but when we know
like school is going to be outfor the season or we've got a
different change in our familydynamics coming and we don't get
ahead of it with childcare,assistance, you know, commitment
to work and other things thatwe're committing our time and
energy to, then we can oftenfeel like we're drowning.
So if you can look ahead andaround the curve a little bit by
(07:02):
looking to the quarter ahead ofyou and having those regular
meetings and conversations, youwill feel much more at peace
about really the pivots thatneed to happen in both work and
home life.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
All right.
So I'm going to ask you somequestions that I know our
listeners will have.
Go ahead and answer, and thenI'll jump in as well.
So the first question is howcan we effectively separate our
business roles to preventoverlap and conflict?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Wow.
So I think we've talked inprevious episodes about really
figuring out what we're good at,what we enjoy doing, and then
which things do we both need tohave our hands and fingerprints
on and which things can weseparate out?
So, for each of us, we coachour own clients.
When it comes to coaches, wemeet together and we figure out
which coaches we're going towork with directly.
You handle finances, I handlesome of the training and once we
(07:51):
have made those decisions,unless we come together to make
a different pivot, we now run inour own lanes, which prevents
us from having to have likeregular ongoing conversation or
conflict about those things.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, and just a couple of things to add is just
understanding personality types,strengths and weaknesses.
So strengths, finders, discsare things that we've talked
about a lot, but to reallyidentify what is the things that
give you life versus the thingsthat like, for example, there's
things in the business that,like I love being the CFO role
(08:23):
that would suck the life out ofyou.
And there's other things thatyou're phenomenal at that I
don't really enjoy, and so justidentifying those and making
sure that we both focus on thoseis really helpful.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
The other thing that came to mind was just like when
we delegate to an assistant orour children or somebody else,
it's also having the ability tohave permission for imperfection
for especially a season.
Like maybe we're transitioningroles and I'm giving you this
thing that I was doing and I'mgoing to let you figure out how
to do it your way or the bestway, or you're learning from me
(08:54):
how to do it, and many times wesee people not able to give up
that control and so they'rehaving this constant conflict
because they need it done acertain way, they need it done
perfectly, and we've just foundthat there has to be permission
for imperfection and then aregular feedback loop will
really prevent conflict overtime, because then you're making
those 1% changes and notwaiting until it becomes
(09:15):
something that is reallyirritating or, you know, becomes
a very challenging situation todeal with.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
All right.
Next question what are somepractical steps to delegate
tasks without losing controlover our business quality?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
So, again, I think that would be covered by a lot
of the regular feedback loops.
So, again, I think that wouldbe covered by a lot of the
regular feedback loops.
So, again, we use sharedcalendars, we use shared
delegation lists, we use voicetexting.
We have a weekly meeting withour assistant to go over things
and usually once you get into agood rhythm and there's high
trust, that need for consistentconversation and clarification
(09:51):
goes down.
But at the beginning it's toover-communicate expectations
and even just to check, like,okay, will you please do this
project and then send it to usso we can take a look.
And then down the road it's nolonger needing to be sent back.
We can just say you do it, youtake it, we trust you.
And that's where we are with alot of the things in our
business nowadays, which createsjust such a streamlined
(10:12):
approach and a lot easier andmore fun to work in those
situations.
But at the beginning, highquality conversations, regular
feedback loops.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah and this is something that we said in the
military all the time, but Iknow it's not unique to the
military and that is to inspectwhat you expect.
So if you're delegatingsomething to an assistant or
anyone else, it's important thatyou do the follow-up and check
how did they do?
Because we have learned thatcommunication is the results you
get, and you see this inparenting, you see it in
(10:43):
marriage, right, hey, I want youto do X, y or Z, and someone
does X, y or Z, but that is notthe way that you intended for it
to be done, and so it's soimportant to number communicate
clearly, as clearly as you canon the front end, and then do
the inspection on the back endto make sure that it was done
properly, and then to have thatfollow up conversation to say,
(11:04):
hey, thank you so much for doingX, y or Z.
There's some things I wouldlove to have you adjust, and
here's the bottom line If you'rewriting the paycheck, for the
most part you get to determinehow things were done.
There's going to be some thingsthat you're going to want to be
very specific about.
Other things you're going to bemore flexible on, but don't
feel bad about expecting thingsto be done a certain way if
(11:26):
you're writing the check.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Right Now, if we're talking to couplepreneurs and
you write checks to each otherin other words, you work
together this is where you'regoing to have to get your
marriage to a place of hightrust, so that there's not a
constant conflict every timethere's a request to do
something differently or acritique, and so it's having
that open-mindedness, definitelywith employees.
What we've found is, even onthe front end, when we prepare
(11:48):
to hire them, or we startworking with them, or we're
doing the regular feedback loops, the evaluations, it's hey,
we're pretty particular aboutcertain things, and so we're
going to ask you to do things acertain way or course correct.
And please understand thatwe're not meant to be critical.
It's not meant to be critical,we just want to communicate as
effectively as possible and so,going into it that way, they
(12:09):
also expect feedback, and that'sa lot healthier, I think, than
surprising someone with feedback.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Absolutely.
How do?
Last question how do weidentify which tasks to delete
from our daily businessoperations to improve efficiency
?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Wow.
So delete, meaning like we'llnever do them again, or delete
them like we're going todelegate them to someone else.
I think this goes into twocategories.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Well, I guess the one delegate.
There's going to be some things.
We delegate Right and well, sodelegate.
How do we decide what todelegate?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Right To delegate.
I would say again which thingsdo not give us a high ROI.
They don't need our personaltouch, our talent, our
personality.
We don't enjoy them.
That can be a long list, fromeverything from household tasks
to running errands to creatinggraphics, things like that.
The other thing is, even ifyou're a creative and you enjoy
making graphics, but your timecan be used elsewhere, it's
(12:58):
being willing to say is thisworth my time right now?
If I could do this, or I couldgo play a game with one of my
kids, which one would be abetter legacy, long-term choice.
So that's what I would say forthat.
And then, as far as deleting, Imean I think it's doing an
audit of your time, yourcommitments and your ROI on a
regular basis to figure outwhich things are we spending
(13:18):
time on that, honestly, are notgiving us a good return on our
investment.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
That's so good.
All right, let's recap.
So, master, and then, oh, realquick, we mentioned the
double-double draft.
I know we didn't get to yes.
Do you want to touch on draftreal quick?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Sure.
So I mean part of this comesfrom Rory Vaden's, the focus
funnel and really learning tomultiply time.
So it's knowing that whenthings come across our to-do
lists which we all have weeither need to do them because
they're ours to do, we need todelegate them to someone else,
or we need to just delete them.
Because many of us rewritethings on our list like three,
(13:55):
four, five, eight times, and weonce heard a personal organizer
say if you have to rewritesomething or reschedule
something more than three times,at that point the decision is
now do it, delegate it or deleteit.
Just be done.
But drafting is when you cancome behind someone else who's
sharing an experience with youwhether it's a training or
carpooling or something andbasically utilize the same
amount of energy by partneringwith someone instead of always
(14:18):
doing everything on your own.
Do you have some examples ofthat?
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Well, just as an example, like a home-based
business model, what we see isfrequently people team leaders
want to do their own type oftraining, and it can feed their
ego.
Sometimes they might be reallygood at something, so it makes
sense for them to do it, butit's what we have seen over 13
(14:45):
years is it's not a businessbuilding activity.
It doesn't have to be you, andfor sometimes it should be you.
Many times, though, there'ssomeone in your mentorship team
that is also doing somethingthat checks the box, and it's
just our ego that is causing usto work harder than really makes
sense and focus on things thataren't growing our business, and
(15:06):
what we're also teaching ourteam members is oh, I got to be
a hero as well, so that's asimple example.
When it comes to household typethings, carpooling is actually
a great example, instead of andthere's the double-edged sword
(15:27):
here, because there's timeswhere I've had some great
conversations and we've sharedsome of them with our kids,
especially when they wereyounger in the car.
So I don't want to give up allof those travel opportunities,
but especially as they becometeenagers, the conversation
quality goes down and you don'tnecessarily have to take your
kids to everything and home fromeverything.
So a great way to draft is tocarpool with another family
(15:50):
Could save you easily 20, 40, 60minutes per day, or at least
per week.
So that's a very rudimentaryexample of drafting.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yep, and if you have any other examples, send them to
us, throw them in our socialmedia posts underneath this
episode and let us know what youthink of, because we don't know
all the different kinds ofbusinesses represented here, but
we're just saying if you canfind a way to batch or draft
parts of your life, that you'regoing to create efficiency and
it's going to make things awhole lot easier.
(16:19):
So other part of our recap isto balance your business growth
with investing in your marriageand family.
Again, we don't want all of ourenergy going one direction or
the other.
We want to learn how tocounterbalance and then to
communicate clearly, to manageall of our dual roles that we
play within a work-life balancewhich is never really balanced
we hate to use that word butbasically an integrated life
(16:40):
where you have family and youwork from home or you work
together.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, and don't forget to capitalize on the
unique strengths of beingcouplepreneurs.
Yeah, and don't forget tocapitalize on the unique
strengths of beingcouplepreneurs, as well, as
don't forget to access tools andresources to work more
efficiently as a couple.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So, as couplepreneurs , we have incredible potential
to build thriving businesses andfamilies.
That's really what we'repassionate about.
The key is being intentionalabout how we invest our time and
our energy.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
So start putting the do, delegate, delete and draft
approach into action and, ifthis episode resonated with you,
share it with a couple you knowwho could use these principles
in their life, business andfamily.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Until next time, keep designing that life of uncommon
freedom together.
Welcome back Uncommon Freedom Fighters Kevin Tinter,
here with my amazing wife andco-host.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Becca Tinter.
Today we're diving into apowerful formula for
couplepreneurs to optimize theirbusinesses and personal lives.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
That's right.
It's all about mastering thedouble, double D, and we're not
talking about bra sizes here,folks.
It's do delegate, delete anddraft.
As spouses who run businessestogether, it's crucial that we
focus our time and energystrategically.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Absolutely so.
Here's what we will unpackUnderstanding what tasks to do
ourselves, what to delegate andwhat to delete.
How to balance growing yourbusiness with nurturing your
marriage and family,communication, tips for managing
your roles as both life andbusiness partners, and
leveraging the unique strengthsthat couplepreneurs bring to the
table.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Bam.
We'll also point you to somehandy tools and resources to
help you put this into practice.
So if you're ready to worksmarter, not harder, as a couple
in business, stick around.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Absolutely so.
We're going to start by talkingabout some of the key
principles in Kevin's book fromchapter nine in the seven
disciplines of uncommon freedom,and this chapter is called
lifestyle design.
So basically, one of the thingsthat we have practiced and
lived out is knowing thatdesigning our life intentionally
is very key to buildinguncommon freedom, which means
(01:31):
being purposeful about ouraligning our time and activities
, our activities, with our corevalues.
I think most people they don'tthink about their values, then
they don't think about wheretheir time is going and so all
of a sudden there's like acognitive dissonance happening
when the things they spend theirtime and energy and money on
don't align with the things thatreally matter to people.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh yeah, it's one of our favorite sayings from our
friend John Maxwell rightLeading the life you want
instead of accepting the lifeyou were given.
So it's so important to beintentional, right?
If you just drift, godownstream, you're not going to
like where you end up.
It takes effort to go upstream,it takes intentionality, but
boy is it worth it.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Absolutely.
And then there are people whoare trying to do everything and
spend all the plates and,especially as couplepreneurs, we
don't have capacity or time forthat.
We need to be doing what we arethe best at, so that's what
we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah.
So another principle fromchapter nine is that it's so
important to have an abundancemindset because when you have
that abundance mindset you'llsee opportunities as being
limitless.
You realize that there's anendless number of pies in the
world and the communist typephilosophy is there's only one
(02:44):
pie and if you have more than methen I can't get them.
And the reality is that's nottrue, right?
Communism has failed miserablyevery time it's been tried.
Every type of socialist type ofgovernment and economy has
failed miserably and ultimatelycapitalism has shown itself to
be the way for things to prosperand for people to truly thrive.
(03:08):
The bottom line is there is nolimit to the number of pies that
can be made.
When I'm successful, what wehave learned actually is that
I'm not actually taking awayfrom anyone.
I am actually helping otherpeople build their pies.
We pump so much more money intothe economy the more we make
(03:30):
than we did when we werescraping by $13,000 per year
back in 1998, in the first yearof our marriage.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Absolutely, and so the other thing that comes to
mind from that philosophy andthe way you were talking is for
me to win, you don't have tolose.
So it's really we each get todecide how much effort we're
going to put in, and we seeopportunities around the corner
and as something we can approachand build a life around.
So approach your business andlife goals with faith, with
generosity and with wisestewardship.
(04:00):
These are principles that welive by and we feel have
completely blessed our businessand our family life.
So regularly evaluate how youspend your time and manage your
energy.
So we want to delegate oreliminate anything that we
consider energy takers to focuson things that are energy givers
.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Well, so good, so good.
We just recently brought onanother part-time employee to
make up for an awesomeseveral-year nanny that we had,
who is moving on to otherendeavors, and the great thing
that we're experiencing rightnow is the benefit of delegation
.
Lots of little tasks that justweren't getting done.
(04:40):
That in the past we would do,and we can delegate them to our
assistant.
Done that in the past we woulddo and we can delegate them to
our assistant.
And it's wonderful because forthe most part, these activities
are not life-giving activitiesand they're not high leverage
for us.
So we can pay someone very wellto do these low-level type
tasks for us and then we canfocus on things that truly are
(05:02):
life-giving and just get uspumped up.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Absolutely so.
One of the resources that wehave available it's in the book
as well is basically an energyaudit and to figure out which
things give you energy, whichthings take your energy.
Sometimes it's people, and sowe need to you need to look at
associations but other timesit's tasks and commitments that
we make and so really taking anaudit of that and figuring out
which things do I want to keep,which things do I want to
(05:25):
eventually give to someone else,and which things should I just
stop doing altogether.
So it's okay to design yourlife and your business as you go
.
Few things are permanent, soreally embracing the freedom to
make those changes.
We are living drasticallydifferent decision making.
We have made drasticallydifferent decisions now than we
would have made 15 years ago,when we didn't have the
(05:46):
resources or even the mindset tomake some of these decisions.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, I think it's important to have that one,
three and five-year vision and Iwould say we've, for the most
part, always been moving towardswhatever our five-year vision
was.
But a lot of times inside thatone-year vision, we have to make
some adjustments because, youknow, evidence and flows in
business, parenting creates alot of unpredictability.
(06:11):
Some people are dealing with,you know, maybe aging parents
and things like that.
They can be a disruptor, ormaybe it's your own personal
health.
So, just understanding that,it's important to give yourself
the flexibility and freedom toredesign as you go through and
this is once again we talk aboutkind of breaking things into
(06:31):
quarters, and that's a reallyhelpful benefit of breaking
things into quarters and if youcan get ahead of your
decision-making, that is ideal.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So what's really painful is when you and
sometimes we just don't seethings coming, but when we know
like school is going to be outfor the season or we've got a
different change in our familydynamics coming and we don't get
ahead of it with childcare,assistance, you know, commitment
to work and other things thatwe're committing our time and
energy to, then we can oftenfeel like we're drowning.
So if you can look ahead andaround the curve a little bit by
(07:02):
looking to the quarter ahead ofyou and having those regular
meetings and conversations, youwill feel much more at peace
about really the pivots thatneed to happen in both work and
home life.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
All right.
So I'm going to ask you somequestions that I know our
listeners will have.
Go ahead and answer, and thenI'll jump in as well.
So the first question is howcan we effectively separate our
business roles to preventoverlap and conflict?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Wow.
So I think we've talked inprevious episodes about really
figuring out what we're good at,what we enjoy doing, and then
which things do we both need tohave our hands and fingerprints
on and which things can weseparate out?
So, for each of us, we coachour own clients.
When it comes to coaches, wemeet together and we figure out
which coaches we're going towork with directly.
You handle finances, I handlesome of the training and once we
(07:51):
have made those decisions,unless we come together to make
a different pivot, we now run inour own lanes, which prevents
us from having to have likeregular ongoing conversation or
conflict about those things.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, and just a couple of things to add is just
understanding personality types,strengths and weaknesses.
So strengths, finders, discsare things that we've talked
about a lot, but to reallyidentify what is the things that
give you life versus the thingsthat like, for example, there's
things in the business that,like I love being the CFO role
(08:23):
that would suck the life out ofyou.
And there's other things thatyou're phenomenal at that I
don't really enjoy, and so justidentifying those and making
sure that we both focus on thoseis really helpful.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
The other thing that came to mind was just like when
we delegate to an assistant orour children or somebody else,
it's also having the ability tohave permission for imperfection
for especially a season.
Like maybe we're transitioningroles and I'm giving you this
thing that I was doing and I'mgoing to let you figure out how
to do it your way or the bestway, or you're learning from me
(08:54):
how to do it, and many times wesee people not able to give up
that control and so they'rehaving this constant conflict
because they need it done acertain way, they need it done
perfectly, and we've just foundthat there has to be permission
for imperfection and then aregular feedback loop will
really prevent conflict overtime, because then you're making
those 1% changes and notwaiting until it becomes
(09:15):
something that is reallyirritating or, you know, becomes
a very challenging situation todeal with.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
All right.
Next question what are somepractical steps to delegate
tasks without losing controlover our business quality?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
So, again, I think that would be covered by a lot
of the regular feedback loops.
So, again, I think that wouldbe covered by a lot of the
regular feedback loops.
So, again, we use sharedcalendars, we use shared
delegation lists, we use voicetexting.
We have a weekly meeting withour assistant to go over things
and usually once you get into agood rhythm and there's high
trust, that need for consistentconversation and clarification
(09:51):
goes down.
But at the beginning it's toover-communicate expectations
and even just to check, like,okay, will you please do this
project and then send it to usso we can take a look.
And then down the road it's nolonger needing to be sent back.
We can just say you do it, youtake it, we trust you.
And that's where we are with alot of the things in our
business nowadays, which createsjust such a streamlined
(10:12):
approach and a lot easier andmore fun to work in those
situations.
But at the beginning, highquality conversations, regular
feedback loops.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah and this is something that we said in the
military all the time, but Iknow it's not unique to the
military and that is to inspectwhat you expect.
So if you're delegatingsomething to an assistant or
anyone else, it's important thatyou do the follow-up and check
how did they do?
Because we have learned thatcommunication is the results you
get, and you see this inparenting, you see it in
(10:43):
marriage, right, hey, I want youto do X, y or Z, and someone
does X, y or Z, but that is notthe way that you intended for it
to be done, and so it's soimportant to number communicate
clearly, as clearly as you canon the front end, and then do
the inspection on the back endto make sure that it was done
properly, and then to have thatfollow up conversation to say,
(11:04):
hey, thank you so much for doingX, y or Z.
There's some things I wouldlove to have you adjust, and
here's the bottom line If you'rewriting the paycheck, for the
most part you get to determinehow things were done.
There's going to be some thingsthat you're going to want to be
very specific about.
Other things you're going to bemore flexible on, but don't
feel bad about expecting thingsto be done a certain way if
(11:26):
you're writing the check.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Right Now, if we're talking to couplepreneurs and
you write checks to each otherin other words, you work
together this is where you'regoing to have to get your
marriage to a place of hightrust, so that there's not a
constant conflict every timethere's a request to do
something differently or acritique, and so it's having
that open-mindedness, definitelywith employees.
What we've found is, even onthe front end, when we prepare
(11:48):
to hire them, or we startworking with them, or we're
doing the regular feedback loops, the evaluations, it's hey,
we're pretty particular aboutcertain things, and so we're
going to ask you to do things acertain way or course correct.
And please understand thatwe're not meant to be critical.
It's not meant to be critical,we just want to communicate as
effectively as possible and so,going into it that way, they
(12:09):
also expect feedback, and that'sa lot healthier, I think, than
surprising someone with feedback.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Absolutely.
How do?
Last question how do weidentify which tasks to delete
from our daily businessoperations to improve efficiency
?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Wow.
So delete, meaning like we'llnever do them again, or delete
them like we're going todelegate them to someone else.
I think this goes into twocategories.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Well, I guess the one delegate.
There's going to be some things.
We delegate Right and well, sodelegate.
How do we decide what todelegate?
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Right To delegate.
I would say again which thingsdo not give us a high ROI.
They don't need our personaltouch, our talent, our
personality.
We don't enjoy them.
That can be a long list, fromeverything from household tasks
to running errands to creatinggraphics, things like that.
The other thing is, even ifyou're a creative and you enjoy
making graphics, but your timecan be used elsewhere, it's
(12:58):
being willing to say is thisworth my time right now?
If I could do this, or I couldgo play a game with one of my
kids, which one would be abetter legacy, long-term choice.
So that's what I would say forthat.
And then, as far as deleting, Imean I think it's doing an
audit of your time, yourcommitments and your ROI on a
regular basis to figure outwhich things are we spending
(13:18):
time on that, honestly, are notgiving us a good return on our
investment.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
That's so good.
All right, let's recap.
So, master, and then, oh, realquick, we mentioned the
double-double draft.
I know we didn't get to yes.
Do you want to touch on draftreal quick?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Sure.
So I mean part of this comesfrom Rory Vaden's, the focus
funnel and really learning tomultiply time.
So it's knowing that whenthings come across our to-do
lists which we all have weeither need to do them because
they're ours to do, we need todelegate them to someone else,
or we need to just delete them.
Because many of us rewritethings on our list like three,
(13:55):
four, five, eight times, and weonce heard a personal organizer
say if you have to rewritesomething or reschedule
something more than three times,at that point the decision is
now do it, delegate it or deleteit.
Just be done.
But drafting is when you cancome behind someone else who's
sharing an experience with youwhether it's a training or
carpooling or something andbasically utilize the same
amount of energy by partneringwith someone instead of always
(14:18):
doing everything on your own.
Do you have some examples ofthat?
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Well, just as an example, like a home-based
business model, what we see isfrequently people team leaders
want to do their own type oftraining, and it can feed their
ego.
Sometimes they might be reallygood at something, so it makes
sense for them to do it, butit's what we have seen over 13
(14:45):
years is it's not a businessbuilding activity.
It doesn't have to be you, andfor sometimes it should be you.
Many times, though, there'ssomeone in your mentorship team
that is also doing somethingthat checks the box, and it's
just our ego that is causing usto work harder than really makes
sense and focus on things thataren't growing our business, and
(15:06):
what we're also teaching ourteam members is oh, I got to be
a hero as well, so that's asimple example.
When it comes to household typethings, carpooling is actually
a great example, instead of andthere's the double-edged sword
(15:27):
here, because there's timeswhere I've had some great
conversations and we've sharedsome of them with our kids,
especially when they wereyounger in the car.
So I don't want to give up allof those travel opportunities,
but especially as they becometeenagers, the conversation
quality goes down and you don'tnecessarily have to take your
kids to everything and home fromeverything.
So a great way to draft is tocarpool with another family
(15:50):
Could save you easily 20, 40, 60minutes per day, or at least
per week.
So that's a very rudimentaryexample of drafting.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yep, and if you have any other examples, send them to
us, throw them in our socialmedia posts underneath this
episode and let us know what youthink of, because we don't know
all the different kinds ofbusinesses represented here, but
we're just saying if you canfind a way to batch or draft
parts of your life, that you'regoing to create efficiency and
it's going to make things awhole lot easier.
(16:19):
So other part of our recap isto balance your business growth
with investing in your marriageand family.
Again, we don't want all of ourenergy going one direction or
the other.
We want to learn how tocounterbalance and then to
communicate clearly, to manageall of our dual roles that we
play within a work-life balancewhich is never really balanced
we hate to use that word butbasically an integrated life
(16:40):
where you have family and youwork from home or you work
together.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, and don't forget to capitalize on the
unique strengths of beingcouplepreneurs.
Yeah, and don't forget tocapitalize on the unique
strengths of beingcouplepreneurs, as well, as
don't forget to access tools andresources to work more
efficiently as a couple.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So, as couplepreneurs , we have incredible potential
to build thriving businesses andfamilies.
That's really what we'repassionate about.
The key is being intentionalabout how we invest our time and
our energy.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
So start putting the do, delegate, delete and draft
approach into action and, ifthis episode resonated with you,
share it with a couple you knowwho could use these principles
in their life, business andfamily.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Until next time, keep designing that life of uncommon
freedom together.
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