Meredith and Craig are life partners, business partners, and best friends. They left the corporate grind to become entrepreneurs.... with only a gut feeling and their solid relationship. They believe their relationship is a cheat code for life and now they help entrepreneurs have a that relationship too, so they can crush it in their business. Website: https://roadoflifecoaching.com/ Show notes: https://successgrid.net/sg273/ If you love this show, please leave a review. Go to https://ratethispodcast.com/successgrid Podcasting Secrets: https://successgrid.net/6c7a
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hallo, I welcome to the Success Great Podcast with also Stale.
I'm excited to introduce you to a series of conversations
with some of the most successful and sparing individuals from
various industries. My aim is to dive into their stories
behind their success and explore the knowledge, strategiest, habits, mindsets,
and wisdom that have propelled their success. Each hipishode of
(00:21):
the Success Great Podcast will feature a different guest who
will share their unique journey, the challenges they faced, and
the ressons they have learned along the way. I would
also be covering topics from entrepreneurship and innovation to leadership
and personal development. Whether you are inspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned
business profession, or just someone looking to improve your life,
(00:41):
the Success Great Podcast is for you. My goal is
to bring you valuable insights and inspiration that will help
you achieve your own success in business and life. So
get ready to learn and be inspired. The Success Great.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Podcast starts now in this ebishode of the Success Great Podcast,
speaking with Craig and Mere that McKay to talk about
our relationships is the cheat code delivering up your life
and your business. So Greg Bennett and Meredith McKay our
Live Partners, business partners. They left the corporate line to
become entrepreneurs with only a gut feeling and their solid relationship.
(01:16):
They believe their relationship is a cheat code for life,
and now they help entrepreneurs have that relationship too.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
So they can trust it in their business. So Craig
and Meredith will come.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
We're super excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
So first of all, because this is the Successici podcast,
and when we talk about relationship is a cheat code
for living up life and business and lacking super bower
for business success, which is a new aspect of things,
I would say, because not many of us look at
this type of thing and die for business in general
simply sometimes it gets ignored, I guess so, but this
(01:53):
is the success Great podcast. What is your definition of
success and how do you see other people between you
two and other people who work with is have certain
misconceptions around those successes.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
I sure, I think I'll speak for both of us.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
You jump in.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
I think you got diperent opinion.
Speaker 6 (02:08):
Absolutely, for us, success is doing what we want, when
we want, with the people we want, and so for
us we break that down to get them to do
cool things with cool people whatever we want to do it, and.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
What makes it special, what makes what makes.
Speaker 7 (02:24):
That easier is when you've got a life partner beside
you that has the same goals, that supports you in
your goals, and you get to row in the same direction,
on the same team, towards the same destination.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Couldn't say it better myself, but a lot of people
would say that this is hard to find the other
half with our as a business partner or a life partner,
or let's say both. So like it's very I don't
know a percentage, but it's kind of like sometimes I
hear a lot of people talk I don't want my
other half or my wife or my husband or vice
(02:59):
versa to.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Be in my business. So how do you see that
that makes so far? So I would say that that's fair. Like,
we're not proponents of that everyone should should be in
business together. It works for us. But what we are
proponents of is that when you're in a relationship, whether
you want them in your business or not to be
(03:20):
part of your business or not, when you have that
relationship as the foundation, when that's working for you, you
don't have to waste energy in this space and trying
to repair this or lose energy because you know you're
not getting along or you're not on the same page,
and then you have that energy to focus on your
business and building the success and the life that you
(03:43):
are that you went into entrepreneurship for. So what we're
saying is is that when you have that solid foundation,
that that's the foundation for everything else on which you
can build, that's when you can really start to get
that extra source of energy to put into your business
because you're not wasting that energy trying to you know,
(04:05):
half your mind is thinking about your family life and
how things aren't going well and that sort of thing.
So you can take that energy that's lost and put
it towards building your business. And when you're both on
the same page, even though maybe they're not both in
the business, when you both at least are aligned on
the goals for the business and the vision for the business,
and you understand what's going on in the business, then
(04:27):
there's there isn't a wall that's being built between you.
So at least if there's a communication of what's going
on so that both people are aware, even though one
may not be hands on involved in the business day
to day at least they're impacted, right, they're impacted from
a this isn't us. We've built this life together, so
it impacts me. So that communication of at least letting
(04:49):
the other person know what's going on, will it will
supercharge your results and give you that extra energy.
Speaker 7 (04:56):
Because to your point, the goals for the business, the
goal for the future of the business is one aspect
of your shared future together.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
So the business is one piece of that.
Speaker 7 (05:08):
So you have a full vision of what your future
is together when you have shared goals. And yeah, your
spouse may not be actively involved in the business, but
to your point, having an awareness of what's going on,
because the business is a big part of life right
as the entrepreneur, the business, it's a big part of
what you focus on on your energy.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
And if you cut your.
Speaker 7 (05:30):
Spouse out of that part of your life completely, then
you've put a brick or two or three or ten
or twenty in the wall between you because now all
of a sudden, you're not sharing something and so you're
starting to build that space between you and that disconnect.
And that's what we hear from so many entrepreneurs is
we're so disconnected like we just were not on the
same page. And that starts with every single time you
(05:54):
don't share something because for lots of reasons. I know,
I don't want to share the I don't I want to,
I want to take off on the burger.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
I don't want to.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
I don't want to put stress on them. I'm doing
it forward with them.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
There's all kinds of really business why you wouldn't share,
especially the tough stuff in the business. But every time
you do that, it's a little more space between you
that build that disc connection.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So going back a little bit, but so you when
you had your corporate jobs, you decided to get it
off to quit at the same time.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
And why did you decide to do that? Wasn't satisfactory
or job?
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Yeah, so it was during the pandemic. So it was
it was back during the COVID pandemic, and you know,
life was in flux. All these companies were deciding what
they wanted to do. They were cutting costs, moving people
around and all sorts of things. And that was the
same for us. Our company.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
We worked for the same company.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
We worked for the same company. That's how we met.
And the company said that we are going to relocate you.
If you want to keep your job, you can, but
we're going to move you across the country. And we
had just moved to a place where we wanted to be.
We were closer to family, and so it really gave us,
you know, an opportunity to really think about what we
wanted in life, and we decided that we did not
(07:10):
want to move back across the country, further away from
all the people that we wanted to be with and
be around, and so we really did some soul searching
and talked about what does that, what do we want
to do, and we realized that there's more on our
heart to give that we want to want to do
the cool things with cool people and have control of
our own time and that time freedom that so many
(07:31):
entrepreneurs are driven towards. And that was that was kind
of the impetus for that decision was, you know, the
company made a decision, and then we had a decision
to either go with it or govte on our own.
And we decided that even though we had no idea
what we were going to do or what entrepreneurship meant
and how crazy of a life that would be for us,
(07:51):
we decided that it was it was worth the effort
to figure it out.
Speaker 7 (07:57):
And we're both very planned full people like we love
a plan, make a plan, execute the plan, check all
the boxes. And when we made the decision to leave
the corporate life to be entrepreneurs we had zero plan.
It was the not how we normally do things, so
it was very It was a very stressful time to
(08:17):
make the decision, and then even once we made it,
trying to figure out what we were going to do.
It was like, to Craig's point, we just trusted our gut,
which is not what we usually do. Trust our gut
and trust that the plan will take shape eventually.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
And so that's that's what we did. We trusted our gut.
Speaker 7 (08:34):
We left our corporate jobs and we jumped into a
business that we hated, and we closed that down in
five weeks. And so there was a it was a
roller coaster of trying to figure out what entrepreneurship means
for us and and how.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
We wanted to make an impact on the world.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
It didn't happen for us quickly, but it happened for
us exactly the way the way it needed to.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
We had to go through some stuff first to figure
it out.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I was just gonna say, and we know, entrepreneurship is
like jumping out of a plane without a parachute, building
it on the way down. And we didn't know that
exactly in the moment. And because we were so planned,
we were such planners. Uh, the idea of not having
that plan, it really scared scared scared us a lot.
But also understanding now that to your like you know,
(09:23):
as an entrepreneur, that even if we had a plan,
the world or the universe was gonna tell us how
that's that's cute, But we have a different plan, and
so it really would have been a wasted effort anyway.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
You you love to do planning, but when you decided
to jump out of your jobs, you had basically no plan.
But at the same time things opened up slowly like
you mentioned it should be. But how do you feel
inside like if this is not going to work in
a year or two or three, Like, how did you
have some kind of fear that how would I like
(09:58):
provide for ourselves and that way that if it did
not work? Or did you have someone outside of you
both encourage you or did you yourself both encourage yourselves
or did you encourage each other?
Speaker 7 (10:12):
Yeah, I think all of those things. One, we were
super terrified about how we were going to make this work,
which is why we jumped into a business immediately to
replace our corporate incomes that we hated and were starting
to impact our relationship. And so we made the decision
quite quickly, in just over a month, to shut that
down and get.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Better aligned on what we actually wanted our life to
be like. And so we spent that time to figure
that out.
Speaker 7 (10:39):
And I would say when we were leaving our job,
what we said a lot was worst case scenario, this
doesn't work, we get another job, right Like, it's this
is not an irreversible decision. However, the further down the
entrepreneurship road we've gotten, we've become completely unemployable. Now the
idea of going back and getting a job is just
not on the radar at all anymore. So it's it's
(11:02):
almost like it's a little story. We told ourselves that
we're gonna give this a go, and it you know,
if it doesn't work, we can always get another job.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
And then the more you learn, the.
Speaker 7 (11:10):
More personal development you do, the more you trust yourself,
the less of an option just going back and getting
another job becomes because you have this feeling inside of
you that you have an impact you want to make
on the world, and you have a gift that you
want to give to other people, and going back and
getting another job just doesn't allow you to do that.
(11:31):
And so there are days, there are always will be
days that are stressful and that are you know, make
you worried and oh my gosh, what are we gonna do?
You know, things always come up. Luckily for us, they
don't usually come up. We don't feel that on the
same day most of the time. So when one of
us is having a stressful day or you know, worried
(11:51):
about something, the other one usually can pull them back
out of that all that worried place that they are
and hold them back up and get them kind of
vibrating on a higher energy level again. So that's usually
a pretty a pretty helpful approach for us because because
we do have both of us in here, and.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
I would say so, I would say, yes, we do
have each other to bounce ideas off of, and both
of us being on this personal growth journey, this entrepreneurial
journey together has been very beneficial for us and that
we now have the skills and the ability to you know,
pull each other out of those places where we're entrepreneurs.
Sometimes we go to dark places when and when fear
(12:31):
or something comes up. You know, you can't help. We're humans,
but we have that person that's there to hold us
accountable and to pull us out. And we've also invested
in mentorship and business coaches and those sorts of things,
like we we knew enough to know that we needed help,
Like we weren't we weren't experts in this. We needed
(12:53):
some support to help us down the path. So we've
we've leveraged resources and coaches and.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Each other and andes and communities.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Yeah, and to your point, yeah, there's a lot of
fear and there still is. There is like it's it's
it's entrepreneurship. And I think that if you are thinking
big enough, then you're always going to have those those
fears and those those moments where you're questioning, am I
really doing this? Like what am I doing right now?
(13:22):
And if I think if you don't have goals big enough,
then then you're not doing it right. Then you're not
going to have those The goals should scare you.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, Yeah, definitely I agree with you, because if we
are having goals that we usually kind of achieve, there
is no point like we have to have bigger goals
than us we are not used to achieving before. So
now in your journey, throughout your journey, and especially you
are being in the same journey together, what do you
think the most important skills that any entrepreneur in general
(13:52):
should have, or at least at the beginning should develop,
Like what did you see going out through when you
are from the corporate to being an entrepreneur that you
see that was so important that you must clear and
develop as first and as quickly as possible.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
I would say a resilience, Like I would say don't
ever give up. There's a difference between quitting and giving up.
Quitting is like you don't want you realize you don't
want the outcoming, and you stop doing something because you
don't want that outcome. But not giving up is you
know you want something and maybe this didn't work, but
(14:29):
something else will, and finding that within yourself to keep
going and never give up. You can quit things that
you don't that don't serve you, like that that aren't
going to get you to your goal, that you don't
want anymore, but never give up, I would say, knowing
the difference between quitting and giving up, and to have
that resilience of never give up, go for your dreams.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
Yeah, so I was gonna say commitment.
Speaker 7 (14:51):
I think you covered that, And so I think the
the other one is faith, having enough belief in yourself,
in what you're trying to acc pomplish, in your goals,
in buy in your ability to get there. Eventually, you're
not going to know the whole path when you start.
You're not going to know how to get exactly from
(15:12):
point A to point B when you start. You're going
to have to take the first step or two on
blind faith and trust that the path is going to appear.
And so we all seem to be able to worry
and fear, and those are faith based things too, right, Bee,
worry and we're afraid of things that we can't see.
We have a little bit harder time applying faith in
(15:33):
the positive sense of just having that innate trust in
yourself and the universe that it's all going to come together,
maybe not on your timeline, often not on your timeline,
but it will happen. And so I think faith and
then the commitment to not quit are the two most
important skills you can build as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Yeah, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
That's very important because, like you mentioned the new job,
you both specifically when you jump to this, you basically
usually plan, but when you jump to this, you do
not really plan. So the most important thing and for
us humans in general, is to actually like take action,
because if we don't, like we I say, we wouldn't
know the results. Like if this is something is going
(16:19):
to work or not, how long are we going to
tolerate for it to work or not? Like you just
something after four or five weeks, you quit that and
you move to something different. This way of making a
decision like this is this is this is self leadership.
That the most important thing is to take a decision
and go beyond that and stop like worrying about everything
(16:40):
and having this kind of fear about everything.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
What if? What if?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
This is not a good idea for a business owner
an entrepreneur as a mindset to have.
Speaker 7 (16:50):
Yeah, yeah, we say a lot, stop worrying about making
the right decision and just make your decision right, So
just make the decision and then spend that energy that
you would have wasted worrying about your decision before you
make it. Spend that energy making it the right decision
for you by taking action, Because by taking action, that's
(17:11):
how you get the data, that's how you know what's
working and what needs to be tweaked. Like, you can
spend a lot more time making a perfect plan and
then when it comes to executing you're going to have
to revise that plan.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Anyway, you might as well not spend all that time
on the front.
Speaker 7 (17:28):
End and just take the first step and course correct
as you go, because you'll get to where you want
to be way faster that way.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I'm sure that melvth has some kind of skills or
to certain things that you are good at and certain
things you're not, and Greg the same vite. So how
do you compliment each other and in a ligned way
that you have certain things that what's you're good at, no,
and you too as well, and you work together as
(17:56):
a team to do that and not go a stepway
the foot of the other.
Speaker 7 (18:00):
I would say, yeah, I mean I think it's you know,
we've figured it out as we like, we've had to
build these skills as we go, so we've sort of
figured it out by trial and error what skills we
each have. So, for example, we've discovered that Craig is
a really good writer. Craig is clever and funny and witty,
and he's really he can he can write things really well.
(18:24):
So when it comes to writing our website and you know,
anything that has to be written emails, copy all that
stuff over to him because he's way better at it.
But it's taken us a little trial and error to
kind of figure out where where we each play best, like,
because it's a waste of time for me to try
and do something that I'm not as good at when
(18:44):
he can do it much easier, faster, and better.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah, I agree, it is a lot of trial and error.
We didn't we weren't entrepreneurs coming into this, so we
had to figure out where what skills we had and
where they lent themselves the best. And you know, to
her point, I can write okay, and so that's kind
of where I fit in. And she's got some skills
around people and communicating and and so she's really good
(19:07):
at forward facing stuff of talking with clients and and
you know, enrolling people in in our programs and helping
them to get to the to the outcomes that they
they really want, and so she's really good at that part.
And so we've really it's been a bit of trial
and error, and so it's not always perfect when you start.
(19:29):
You're gonna you know, it's gonna be almost like an
animal when it's first born. It can't really walk yet,
it stumbles around and then then it finally gets its
legs and then it can run and do its things.
So I would say it's a lot like that, and
that we've we've grown into a bit of a system
that works for us and leveraged our our skills and
(19:50):
it and I think one of the really important things
when you go into a business together with your spouse
or or some sort of a partnership is communication. When
when you know something is going on in the business
and you don't necessarily agree with the approach, or you
see something that maybe the other person doesn't see, being
(20:13):
able to communicate that in a way that doesn't you know,
cause a wall to be built, or cause you know,
communicating an effective in an effective way that it lands
for the other person so that they don't take it
the wrong way. I would say, is another you know
skill that we've leveraged in building this.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
That's an amazing point.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
That much communication, because when you have a partner you're
working with, you find a way to have a better communication,
whether for the relationship itself well or the business communication right.
And also I might think this would help in communication
with your customers, your clients, which is very important.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
You want to you have the right.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Align the clients and you know how to communicate with them.
So this is kind of a maybe a snowball that
helps in different aspects of life and business at the
same time.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
By yeah, yeah, absolutely, There's.
Speaker 7 (21:09):
A lot of skills that you build I think as
an entrepreneur that you leverage for a successful marriage for example,
or for your health, like for other areas of your life,
for all areas of your life, you can apply all
the skills as an entrepreneur you build as an entrepreneur
in every other area of your life. If you're paying attention,
(21:30):
is that the skills are leverageable everywhere.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
So throughout your journal. Now, what is Duff's advice that
you have received so far?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Oh, I think the worst advice that I remember hearing
was added a personal growth event and we were at
a place where we had just we had just started
this business that didn't work for us, and we had
just stopped it. Five weeks in. We realized that this
was not for us and it was starting to build
a wall between us. So we said, nope, this is
not the business for us. And right on the heels
(22:01):
of that, we went to a personal growth event and
we were kind of explaining where we were and how
we were struggling a little bit with we want to
be entrepreneurs, but we're not sure exactly what that means
for us and where we fit in and what we
should be doing. And the guy that was giving us
advice said, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you do.
Just do something. It doesn't matter. Like I I And
this person was a windows person, like he installed windows
(22:23):
and homes, and he said, I'm a windows guy. I
install windows in houses. Do you think I have a
passion for it? I don't. I don't care. It's just
go out and make money. That's all you need to do.
Don't worry about what it is. Just go out find
a business that makes money and you'll be fine. And
to be honest with you, I feel like that was
the worst advice we had heard. Money's important, don't get
me wrong. It's a resource that allows us to do
(22:44):
the things that we want to do with who we
want to do it with, and build that life. But
it's not all about money, and entrepreneurship is not all
about money. It's about making and leaving an impact in
the world and following your passions. And we've learned that instant.
But yeah, I would say early days that advice was
the worst advice we heard.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
And to be honest, when we heard it, we were
both like, it didn't.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Sit well with us. It felt wrong. Actually when we
heard it, it didn't land for us. But I do
still remember that particular day quite quite well.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, we we sometimes don't agree a lot of things,
Like it's it could be a passion to solve problems.
So this is the issue that can be like you
have to have some kind of passion to solve problems.
Sometimes you do say things that we do we don't
even like but in order to get some money back.
But doing things that we are passionate about to solve
other people problems, this is the same thing that we
(23:40):
actually need to maybe strive to do more and more of.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Why do you agree with that.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
I totally agree agree with that.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So what would you recommend some tours,
resources or books for people to read or consume.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
We're talking about for anything broadly.
Speaker 7 (23:58):
Yeah, my favorite book to recommend for people the mountain
is You by Breonna Weist.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
It's a fantastic like personal growth, yeah book.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Yeah, I think that's a great book for personal growth
and looking within. A good business book I would say
is profit First. Profit First would be a good one.
And for relationships and marriage, I would say our podcast.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Oh.
Speaker 7 (24:29):
I also really like Be Your Future Self Now as
a book for for but yes, that applies to all.
I think the principles in that book you can apply
to your relationship, to your business, to everything.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
That is a great book. Your Futureself Now.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, absolutely, So we can people learn more about you,
get in touch with you.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
You can find us on Instagram.
Speaker 7 (24:48):
We're at Meredith and Craig on Instagram and from there
you can get anywhere to our website, to our Facebook group, everywhere.
So Instagram is probably the best place to start with us.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Yeah, I'm awesome.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
But thank you very much, manly, thank Greg for joining
me for this episode of the Success Greed podcast. Really
great and lovely to have people like you are working
to get out to build something that is great for
the now and the future, for yourself and for other
people that you would help. And it's very insightful and
a great story that you have jumping from corporate to
(25:19):
building your own with taking the leap that could be
scary a little bit at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
So thank you for joining me.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
Oh, thank you very much for having us.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
You say, thanks for seeing it was a pleasure.
Hallo, I welcome to the Success Great Podcast with also Stale.
I'm excited to introduce you to a series of conversations
with some of the most successful and sparing individuals from
various industries. My aim is to dive into their stories
behind their success and explore the knowledge, strategiest, habits, mindsets,
and wisdom that have propelled their success. Each hipishode of
(00:21):
the Success Great Podcast will feature a different guest who
will share their unique journey, the challenges they faced, and
the ressons they have learned along the way. I would
also be covering topics from entrepreneurship and innovation to leadership
and personal development. Whether you are inspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned
business profession, or just someone looking to improve your life,
(00:41):
the Success Great Podcast is for you. My goal is
to bring you valuable insights and inspiration that will help
you achieve your own success in business and life. So
get ready to learn and be inspired. The Success Great.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Podcast starts now in this ebishode of the Success Great Podcast,
speaking with Craig and Mere that McKay to talk about
our relationships is the cheat code delivering up your life
and your business. So Greg Bennett and Meredith McKay our
Live Partners, business partners. They left the corporate line to
become entrepreneurs with only a gut feeling and their solid relationship.
(01:16):
They believe their relationship is a cheat code for life,
and now they help entrepreneurs have that relationship too.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
So they can trust it in their business. So Craig
and Meredith will come.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (01:28):
We're super excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
So first of all, because this is the Successici podcast,
and when we talk about relationship is a cheat code
for living up life and business and lacking super bower
for business success, which is a new aspect of things,
I would say, because not many of us look at
this type of thing and die for business in general
simply sometimes it gets ignored, I guess so, but this
(01:53):
is the success Great podcast. What is your definition of
success and how do you see other people between you
two and other people who work with is have certain
misconceptions around those successes.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
I sure, I think I'll speak for both of us.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
You jump in.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
I think you got diperent opinion.
Speaker 6 (02:08):
Absolutely, for us, success is doing what we want, when
we want, with the people we want, and so for
us we break that down to get them to do
cool things with cool people whatever we want to do it, and.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
What makes it special, what makes what makes.
Speaker 7 (02:24):
That easier is when you've got a life partner beside
you that has the same goals, that supports you in
your goals, and you get to row in the same direction,
on the same team, towards the same destination.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Couldn't say it better myself, but a lot of people
would say that this is hard to find the other
half with our as a business partner or a life partner,
or let's say both. So like it's very I don't
know a percentage, but it's kind of like sometimes I
hear a lot of people talk I don't want my
other half or my wife or my husband or vice
(02:59):
versa to.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Be in my business. So how do you see that
that makes so far? So I would say that that's fair. Like,
we're not proponents of that everyone should should be in
business together. It works for us. But what we are
proponents of is that when you're in a relationship, whether
you want them in your business or not to be
(03:20):
part of your business or not, when you have that
relationship as the foundation, when that's working for you, you
don't have to waste energy in this space and trying
to repair this or lose energy because you know you're
not getting along or you're not on the same page,
and then you have that energy to focus on your
business and building the success and the life that you
(03:43):
are that you went into entrepreneurship for. So what we're
saying is is that when you have that solid foundation,
that that's the foundation for everything else on which you
can build, that's when you can really start to get
that extra source of energy to put into your business
because you're not wasting that energy trying to you know,
(04:05):
half your mind is thinking about your family life and
how things aren't going well and that sort of thing.
So you can take that energy that's lost and put
it towards building your business. And when you're both on
the same page, even though maybe they're not both in
the business, when you both at least are aligned on
the goals for the business and the vision for the business,
and you understand what's going on in the business, then
(04:27):
there's there isn't a wall that's being built between you.
So at least if there's a communication of what's going
on so that both people are aware, even though one
may not be hands on involved in the business day
to day at least they're impacted, right, they're impacted from
a this isn't us. We've built this life together, so
it impacts me. So that communication of at least letting
(04:49):
the other person know what's going on, will it will
supercharge your results and give you that extra energy.
Speaker 7 (04:56):
Because to your point, the goals for the business, the
goal for the future of the business is one aspect
of your shared future together.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
So the business is one piece of that.
Speaker 7 (05:08):
So you have a full vision of what your future
is together when you have shared goals. And yeah, your
spouse may not be actively involved in the business, but
to your point, having an awareness of what's going on,
because the business is a big part of life right
as the entrepreneur, the business, it's a big part of
what you focus on on your energy.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
And if you cut your.
Speaker 7 (05:30):
Spouse out of that part of your life completely, then
you've put a brick or two or three or ten
or twenty in the wall between you because now all
of a sudden, you're not sharing something and so you're
starting to build that space between you and that disconnect.
And that's what we hear from so many entrepreneurs is
we're so disconnected like we just were not on the
same page. And that starts with every single time you
(05:54):
don't share something because for lots of reasons. I know,
I don't want to share the I don't I want to,
I want to take off on the burger.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
I don't want to.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
I don't want to put stress on them. I'm doing
it forward with them.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
There's all kinds of really business why you wouldn't share,
especially the tough stuff in the business. But every time
you do that, it's a little more space between you
that build that disc connection.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So going back a little bit, but so you when
you had your corporate jobs, you decided to get it
off to quit at the same time.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
And why did you decide to do that? Wasn't satisfactory
or job?
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Yeah, so it was during the pandemic. So it was
it was back during the COVID pandemic, and you know,
life was in flux. All these companies were deciding what
they wanted to do. They were cutting costs, moving people
around and all sorts of things. And that was the
same for us. Our company.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
We worked for the same company.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
We worked for the same company. That's how we met.
And the company said that we are going to relocate you.
If you want to keep your job, you can, but
we're going to move you across the country. And we
had just moved to a place where we wanted to be.
We were closer to family, and so it really gave us,
you know, an opportunity to really think about what we
wanted in life, and we decided that we did not
(07:10):
want to move back across the country, further away from
all the people that we wanted to be with and
be around, and so we really did some soul searching
and talked about what does that, what do we want
to do, and we realized that there's more on our
heart to give that we want to want to do
the cool things with cool people and have control of
our own time and that time freedom that so many
(07:31):
entrepreneurs are driven towards. And that was that was kind
of the impetus for that decision was, you know, the
company made a decision, and then we had a decision
to either go with it or govte on our own.
And we decided that even though we had no idea
what we were going to do or what entrepreneurship meant
and how crazy of a life that would be for us,
(07:51):
we decided that it was it was worth the effort
to figure it out.
Speaker 7 (07:57):
And we're both very planned full people like we love
a plan, make a plan, execute the plan, check all
the boxes. And when we made the decision to leave
the corporate life to be entrepreneurs we had zero plan.
It was the not how we normally do things, so
it was very It was a very stressful time to
(08:17):
make the decision, and then even once we made it,
trying to figure out what we were going to do.
It was like, to Craig's point, we just trusted our gut,
which is not what we usually do. Trust our gut
and trust that the plan will take shape eventually.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
And so that's that's what we did. We trusted our gut.
Speaker 7 (08:34):
We left our corporate jobs and we jumped into a
business that we hated, and we closed that down in
five weeks. And so there was a it was a
roller coaster of trying to figure out what entrepreneurship means
for us and and how.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
We wanted to make an impact on the world.
Speaker 7 (08:50):
It didn't happen for us quickly, but it happened for
us exactly the way the way it needed to.
Speaker 5 (08:56):
We had to go through some stuff first to figure
it out.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
I was just gonna say, and we know, entrepreneurship is
like jumping out of a plane without a parachute, building
it on the way down. And we didn't know that
exactly in the moment. And because we were so planned,
we were such planners. Uh, the idea of not having
that plan, it really scared scared scared us a lot.
But also understanding now that to your like you know,
(09:23):
as an entrepreneur, that even if we had a plan,
the world or the universe was gonna tell us how
that's that's cute, But we have a different plan, and
so it really would have been a wasted effort anyway.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
You you love to do planning, but when you decided
to jump out of your jobs, you had basically no plan.
But at the same time things opened up slowly like
you mentioned it should be. But how do you feel
inside like if this is not going to work in
a year or two or three, Like, how did you
have some kind of fear that how would I like
(09:58):
provide for ourselves and that way that if it did
not work? Or did you have someone outside of you
both encourage you or did you yourself both encourage yourselves
or did you encourage each other?
Speaker 7 (10:12):
Yeah, I think all of those things. One, we were
super terrified about how we were going to make this work,
which is why we jumped into a business immediately to
replace our corporate incomes that we hated and were starting
to impact our relationship. And so we made the decision
quite quickly, in just over a month, to shut that
down and get.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
Better aligned on what we actually wanted our life to
be like. And so we spent that time to figure
that out.
Speaker 7 (10:39):
And I would say when we were leaving our job,
what we said a lot was worst case scenario, this
doesn't work, we get another job, right Like, it's this
is not an irreversible decision. However, the further down the
entrepreneurship road we've gotten, we've become completely unemployable. Now the
idea of going back and getting a job is just
not on the radar at all anymore. So it's it's
(11:02):
almost like it's a little story. We told ourselves that
we're gonna give this a go, and it you know,
if it doesn't work, we can always get another job.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
And then the more you learn, the.
Speaker 7 (11:10):
More personal development you do, the more you trust yourself,
the less of an option just going back and getting
another job becomes because you have this feeling inside of
you that you have an impact you want to make
on the world, and you have a gift that you
want to give to other people, and going back and
getting another job just doesn't allow you to do that.
(11:31):
And so there are days, there are always will be
days that are stressful and that are you know, make
you worried and oh my gosh, what are we gonna do?
You know, things always come up. Luckily for us, they
don't usually come up. We don't feel that on the
same day most of the time. So when one of
us is having a stressful day or you know, worried
(11:51):
about something, the other one usually can pull them back
out of that all that worried place that they are
and hold them back up and get them kind of
vibrating on a higher energy level again. So that's usually
a pretty a pretty helpful approach for us because because
we do have both of us in here, and.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
I would say so, I would say, yes, we do
have each other to bounce ideas off of, and both
of us being on this personal growth journey, this entrepreneurial
journey together has been very beneficial for us and that
we now have the skills and the ability to you know,
pull each other out of those places where we're entrepreneurs.
Sometimes we go to dark places when and when fear
(12:31):
or something comes up. You know, you can't help. We're humans,
but we have that person that's there to hold us
accountable and to pull us out. And we've also invested
in mentorship and business coaches and those sorts of things,
like we we knew enough to know that we needed help,
Like we weren't we weren't experts in this. We needed
(12:53):
some support to help us down the path. So we've
we've leveraged resources and coaches and.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Each other and andes and communities.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Yeah, and to your point, yeah, there's a lot of
fear and there still is. There is like it's it's
it's entrepreneurship. And I think that if you are thinking
big enough, then you're always going to have those those
fears and those those moments where you're questioning, am I
really doing this? Like what am I doing right now?
(13:22):
And if I think if you don't have goals big enough,
then then you're not doing it right. Then you're not
going to have those The goals should scare you.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, Yeah, definitely I agree with you, because if we
are having goals that we usually kind of achieve, there
is no point like we have to have bigger goals
than us we are not used to achieving before. So
now in your journey, throughout your journey, and especially you
are being in the same journey together, what do you
think the most important skills that any entrepreneur in general
(13:52):
should have, or at least at the beginning should develop,
Like what did you see going out through when you
are from the corporate to being an entrepreneur that you
see that was so important that you must clear and
develop as first and as quickly as possible.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
I would say a resilience, Like I would say don't
ever give up. There's a difference between quitting and giving up.
Quitting is like you don't want you realize you don't
want the outcoming, and you stop doing something because you
don't want that outcome. But not giving up is you
know you want something and maybe this didn't work, but
(14:29):
something else will, and finding that within yourself to keep
going and never give up. You can quit things that
you don't that don't serve you, like that that aren't
going to get you to your goal, that you don't
want anymore, but never give up, I would say, knowing
the difference between quitting and giving up, and to have
that resilience of never give up, go for your dreams.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
Yeah, so I was gonna say commitment.
Speaker 7 (14:51):
I think you covered that, And so I think the
the other one is faith, having enough belief in yourself,
in what you're trying to acc pomplish, in your goals,
in buy in your ability to get there. Eventually, you're
not going to know the whole path when you start.
You're not going to know how to get exactly from
(15:12):
point A to point B when you start. You're going
to have to take the first step or two on
blind faith and trust that the path is going to appear.
And so we all seem to be able to worry
and fear, and those are faith based things too, right, Bee,
worry and we're afraid of things that we can't see.
We have a little bit harder time applying faith in
(15:33):
the positive sense of just having that innate trust in
yourself and the universe that it's all going to come together,
maybe not on your timeline, often not on your timeline,
but it will happen. And so I think faith and
then the commitment to not quit are the two most
important skills you can build as an entrepreneur.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Yeah, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
That's very important because, like you mentioned the new job,
you both specifically when you jump to this, you basically
usually plan, but when you jump to this, you do
not really plan. So the most important thing and for
us humans in general, is to actually like take action,
because if we don't, like we I say, we wouldn't
know the results. Like if this is something is going
(16:19):
to work or not, how long are we going to
tolerate for it to work or not? Like you just
something after four or five weeks, you quit that and
you move to something different. This way of making a
decision like this is this is this is self leadership.
That the most important thing is to take a decision
and go beyond that and stop like worrying about everything
(16:40):
and having this kind of fear about everything.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
What if? What if?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
This is not a good idea for a business owner
an entrepreneur as a mindset to have.
Speaker 7 (16:50):
Yeah, yeah, we say a lot, stop worrying about making
the right decision and just make your decision right, So
just make the decision and then spend that energy that
you would have wasted worrying about your decision before you
make it. Spend that energy making it the right decision
for you by taking action, Because by taking action, that's
(17:11):
how you get the data, that's how you know what's
working and what needs to be tweaked. Like, you can
spend a lot more time making a perfect plan and
then when it comes to executing you're going to have
to revise that plan.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Anyway, you might as well not spend all that time
on the front.
Speaker 7 (17:28):
End and just take the first step and course correct
as you go, because you'll get to where you want
to be way faster that way.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I'm sure that melvth has some kind of skills or
to certain things that you are good at and certain
things you're not, and Greg the same vite. So how
do you compliment each other and in a ligned way
that you have certain things that what's you're good at, no,
and you too as well, and you work together as
(17:56):
a team to do that and not go a stepway
the foot of the other.
Speaker 7 (18:00):
I would say, yeah, I mean I think it's you know,
we've figured it out as we like, we've had to
build these skills as we go, so we've sort of
figured it out by trial and error what skills we
each have. So, for example, we've discovered that Craig is
a really good writer. Craig is clever and funny and witty,
and he's really he can he can write things really well.
(18:24):
So when it comes to writing our website and you know,
anything that has to be written emails, copy all that
stuff over to him because he's way better at it.
But it's taken us a little trial and error to
kind of figure out where where we each play best, like,
because it's a waste of time for me to try
and do something that I'm not as good at when
(18:44):
he can do it much easier, faster, and better.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Yeah, I agree, it is a lot of trial and error.
We didn't we weren't entrepreneurs coming into this, so we
had to figure out where what skills we had and
where they lent themselves the best. And you know, to
her point, I can write okay, and so that's kind
of where I fit in. And she's got some skills
around people and communicating and and so she's really good
(19:07):
at forward facing stuff of talking with clients and and
you know, enrolling people in in our programs and helping
them to get to the to the outcomes that they
they really want, and so she's really good at that part.
And so we've really it's been a bit of trial
and error, and so it's not always perfect when you start.
(19:29):
You're gonna you know, it's gonna be almost like an
animal when it's first born. It can't really walk yet,
it stumbles around and then then it finally gets its
legs and then it can run and do its things.
So I would say it's a lot like that, and
that we've we've grown into a bit of a system
that works for us and leveraged our our skills and
(19:50):
it and I think one of the really important things
when you go into a business together with your spouse
or or some sort of a partnership is communication. When
when you know something is going on in the business
and you don't necessarily agree with the approach, or you
see something that maybe the other person doesn't see, being
(20:13):
able to communicate that in a way that doesn't you know,
cause a wall to be built, or cause you know,
communicating an effective in an effective way that it lands
for the other person so that they don't take it
the wrong way. I would say, is another you know
skill that we've leveraged in building this.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
That's an amazing point.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
That much communication, because when you have a partner you're
working with, you find a way to have a better communication,
whether for the relationship itself well or the business communication right.
And also I might think this would help in communication
with your customers, your clients, which is very important.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
You want to you have the right.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Align the clients and you know how to communicate with them.
So this is kind of a maybe a snowball that
helps in different aspects of life and business at the
same time.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
By yeah, yeah, absolutely, There's.
Speaker 7 (21:09):
A lot of skills that you build I think as
an entrepreneur that you leverage for a successful marriage for example,
or for your health, like for other areas of your life,
for all areas of your life, you can apply all
the skills as an entrepreneur you build as an entrepreneur
in every other area of your life. If you're paying attention,
(21:30):
is that the skills are leverageable everywhere.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
So throughout your journal. Now, what is Duff's advice that
you have received so far?
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Oh, I think the worst advice that I remember hearing
was added a personal growth event and we were at
a place where we had just we had just started
this business that didn't work for us, and we had
just stopped it. Five weeks in. We realized that this
was not for us and it was starting to build
a wall between us. So we said, nope, this is
not the business for us. And right on the heels
(22:01):
of that, we went to a personal growth event and
we were kind of explaining where we were and how
we were struggling a little bit with we want to
be entrepreneurs, but we're not sure exactly what that means
for us and where we fit in and what we
should be doing. And the guy that was giving us
advice said, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you do.
Just do something. It doesn't matter. Like I I And
this person was a windows person, like he installed windows
(22:23):
and homes, and he said, I'm a windows guy. I
install windows in houses. Do you think I have a
passion for it? I don't. I don't care. It's just
go out and make money. That's all you need to do.
Don't worry about what it is. Just go out find
a business that makes money and you'll be fine. And
to be honest with you, I feel like that was
the worst advice we had heard. Money's important, don't get
me wrong. It's a resource that allows us to do
(22:44):
the things that we want to do with who we
want to do it with, and build that life. But
it's not all about money, and entrepreneurship is not all
about money. It's about making and leaving an impact in
the world and following your passions. And we've learned that instant.
But yeah, I would say early days that advice was
the worst advice we heard.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
And to be honest, when we heard it, we were
both like, it didn't.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Sit well with us. It felt wrong. Actually when we
heard it, it didn't land for us. But I do
still remember that particular day quite quite well.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, we we sometimes don't agree a lot of things,
Like it's it could be a passion to solve problems.
So this is the issue that can be like you
have to have some kind of passion to solve problems.
Sometimes you do say things that we do we don't
even like but in order to get some money back.
But doing things that we are passionate about to solve
other people problems, this is the same thing that we
(23:40):
actually need to maybe strive to do more and more of.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Why do you agree with that.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
I totally agree agree with that.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So what would you recommend some tours,
resources or books for people to read or consume.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
We're talking about for anything broadly.
Speaker 7 (23:58):
Yeah, my favorite book to recommend for people the mountain
is You by Breonna Weist.
Speaker 5 (24:05):
It's a fantastic like personal growth, yeah book.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Yeah, I think that's a great book for personal growth
and looking within. A good business book I would say
is profit First. Profit First would be a good one.
And for relationships and marriage, I would say our podcast.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Oh.
Speaker 7 (24:29):
I also really like Be Your Future Self Now as
a book for for but yes, that applies to all.
I think the principles in that book you can apply
to your relationship, to your business, to everything.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
That is a great book. Your Futureself Now.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, absolutely, So we can people learn more about you,
get in touch with you.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
You can find us on Instagram.
Speaker 7 (24:48):
We're at Meredith and Craig on Instagram and from there
you can get anywhere to our website, to our Facebook group, everywhere.
So Instagram is probably the best place to start with us.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Yeah, I'm awesome.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
But thank you very much, manly, thank Greg for joining
me for this episode of the Success Greed podcast. Really
great and lovely to have people like you are working
to get out to build something that is great for
the now and the future, for yourself and for other
people that you would help. And it's very insightful and
a great story that you have jumping from corporate to
(25:19):
building your own with taking the leap that could be
scary a little bit at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
So thank you for joining me.
Speaker 5 (25:26):
Oh, thank you very much for having us.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
You say, thanks for seeing it was a pleasure.
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Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.