Balancing Marriage And Business…

Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson and welcome to Marketing in Your Car.

Welcome to the Marketing in Your Car podcast where you can increase your traffic, conversions, and sales in just 10 minutes a day. And now, here's your host, Russell Brunson.

Hey everyone, hope you are having an amazing day. A lot of cool stuff happening over here. It's been keeping me busy all day and all night and haven't had a ton of chance to share stuff with you guys so I wanted to jump on here. I've been having a lot of fun on Periscope though lately which has been really It's really, really cool. If you guys aren't Periscoping yet, go do it. If you're not following my Periscope yet, now is the time. If you go to blog.dotcomsecrets.com, spelled out dotcomsecrets.com, you can get all the old episodes of all my Periscopes, all the Marketing Your Car podcasts. Everything good is there. Go check it out. For today, I had a really cool question that I wanted to kind of answer. Try to answer. It's not something that's like super easy to answer and maybe I'll do a follow-up podcast like this one time when my wife is in the car with me. Someone asked today on Facebook, they said, "Russell, how in the world do you do all the stuff you're doing and your wife still loves you?" Which is a good question. Again, it would definitely be good for her to chime in on this because maybe she doesn't or maybe who knows. But I want to kind of share from my perspective some stuff because it's hard. I want to preface it by saying there's a quote from a guy named David O. McKay and he said that no success can compensate for failure in the home. And I do believe that. So first and foremost, before anything else, always remember that. That should be something we all print out and hang on our wall at the office so that we remember what the goal is, right? I've seen people who have lost their marriages because of business, because they're trying to achieve this thing, and because of that they miss out on their family and their spouse and all these other things. So that would be kind of a big initial thing to really make sure you have your priorities, because that's the most important. I had a friend recently who was having some marital issues because of his business, and he said, "How in the world does Colette let you do all this stuff all the time?" And talked about how like and they were having real struggles, like to the point of like, this may not last forever. And I told him, I said, man, if I was you, I'd quit business then because like business is stupid. It doesn't really matter. It's just this thing that we do to keep us busy throughout the day. The only thing that really matters is our families and our wives and our spouses and things like that. I'm a big believer in that. So like, if there's ever time that business comes between your family, you gotta walk away from business. I'd rather go bankrupt than go through a divorce. That's how I feel about it. And so just know that that's the driving force. Now with that, now that we've got some ground rules, we know what the most important thing is. Now where are our boundaries and how do we create boundaries that everyone's gonna be okay with? So for me, this is a lot of learning, a lot of unhappy wife moments that have kind of brought me to the spot now where I feel like we're really in a good spot where where things are happening. So I'll kind of share some of the insights that I've got. Like I said, maybe I'll have Colette come on sometime and share some of her insights because they're probably the opposite of what mine are. But one of them is, you know, depending on where you are in your life right now, is picking the right spouse. You know, I'm a big believer in you can only be as successful as your spouse will allow you to be. I've had friends who are great entrepreneurs who flat out their spouses weren't okay with the time away. And because of that, they had to quit and not do what they wanted to do. And so a lot A lot of it is in selection of your spouse ahead of time. Now that's not everything, which is good, 'cause I don't think my wife by default right out of the gate was probably that way. In fact, we had early on a lot of issues where I think I drove her nuts. But she, you know, I did pick an amazing one. I told her, and I believe this deeply, that if I would've married any of the other girls that I dated in my past, I don't think that this company and what I do would've been possible. It just, it wouldn't have. She was the only one that I could've married that would've made it so so that I could, she was the only one that was like okay with me gambling and risking time and energy and money on crazy ideas and not tear me down because of it. And just be okay like, hey, if we're broke, I don't really care. Like I just wanna hang out with you. That was kinda her attitude. That was a big part. Another big thing for me is she has to be aware of my schedule. Like I used to be at a point where I'd be working and also be like 8 o'clock at night and I'd call her, oh sorry, I'm late. Like I'm gonna be pulling an all-nighter tonight. Which was really, really bad. But if I tell her in advance, far enough in advance, like if I say, hey, you know, later, you know, next week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Todd and Dylan are flying in town, we're gonna have a hackathon, you're not gonna see me those nights. As long as she knows that in advance, she can prepare for it, she's usually okay with that. I'm sure she doesn't love it, but she's okay with that. I also try to be very particular on those days when I am gone a lot, like, you know, all the guys are gonna go out to eat, I'm not gonna go out to eat with them, I'm gonna race home and try to spend an hour or two with her and the kids, just showing that I'm there and that I care. Because that's important, that's key. If everything is just focused on the business, like, you know, not a good thing for anyone. So that's a big part of it. Another big part for me, and I know this doesn't work in all relationships, and a lot of people, their spouses are intimately involved in the business, some aren't. With me, my wife is not intimately involved with it, and I think that Honestly, that's kind of served me, you know, as a good thing where she— it's separate, like there's a big separation from the two. And so I'm able to kind of run the business the way that I see fit and she runs the home the way she sees fit. And because of that, we kind of each like we have our roles in it. And as long as I don't do anything stupid that affects what she's doing, she's pretty much fine with most things. You know, even when our business had our ups and our downs, one thing that I tried to maintain consistent, I needed to have her, her to have certainty. And certainty is such an important thing for most people, especially women. And so like everything else, my entire world was collapsing around me. I was firing people left and right. I was doing whatever I could to save it. I was working all sorts of times, but I was very consistent to make sure that it didn't affect her, which isn't always possible. But you know, I made sure that she was making the same, you know, had the consistency. Like, I didn't want to lose that, and that was a big thing for her. And so she didn't feel the brunt of a lot of that, which made it okay. That's a big thing. I think, I think another big part for, for spouses is like having belief and faith that the sacrifice you're putting in is gonna be worth it. I think, you know, really making sure that it is something that they want as well. I mean, I think that's some of the issues my wife had earlier on in our marriage my marriage were about that, where I had these goals, I was trying to get stuff. And one day I came home and I was like stressed out, all these things, and she's just like, I don't, like those things don't matter to me. I just want you to come home and be with us and be with the kids. Like, do you understand? Like that's what I want, not all this other stuff. And I understood that, I was like, wow, like I'm doing these things, I feel like in my head I'm doing these things for you and for the family. The reality is you're doing them for the most part for yourself, like if you're completely honest. And so it's just, Just being very aware that making sure that you're doing things for the family, not just for yourself, is a big piece of that. So, anyway, those are a couple of different ideas that hopefully will help a little bit. Obviously, it's not everything. There's a lot more things, but hopefully that kind of gets you thinking in the right direction. And like I said, I'll do a follow-up on this next time I'm driving with my wife and get her feedback from her corner, see what she says as well. I'm at my daughter's soccer practice now and I'm watching her. She is amazing this year which has been really fun to see. So I'm going to watch her for a while and then I will get back home for dinner. So I appreciate you guys listening in. Hope you got something of value for today and we will talk to you guys all again soon. Thanks everybody!