141: Family, Fitness, and More: Marriage Talk with Bonnie + David

Hi, everyone. Welcome to this episode of the Professional Creative. I have a very special guest with me today, one that's really cute. Hi, David.

Hi, everyone.

David and I just celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. We've been together 21 years. And so I opened this conversation up to you all over on Instagram. I said, what do you want to know? Ask us anything. Ask David anything. Ask me anything about marriage and relationships. And so we're going to try to get through 16 questions that were submitted by you today. Are you ready? Let's go.

I'm Bonnie. Christine. And this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right, right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and

experience the same success.

I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

Okay, question number one. Did you know I was the one when you first met me and vice versa?

No, sorry, I was dumb and in high school.

Yeah, well, I was too. I would say also no, just because I remember feeling like, you know, there were other priorities. You were busy at the time. You were a professional cyclist at the time, and it took a little bit of time for us to just grow up, prioritize each other. And so we dated for five years. I would say I knew with certainty at like around three years.

Sure, I was generally undeserving until possibly right at the end.

What would we have A couple of questions, like tips for building a strong marriage, a strong relationship, advice on making a marriage work.

Sure, the easy answer is communication, but communication can be a challenge if you're both operating in different spheres. You have a very demanding job and I'm not necessarily in that day to day, but we do a good job of debriefing each other when we've had long days and we have a great working relationship, of sharing the things that we need to discuss with one another and, you know, making sure that we both are involved in each other's lives, no matter how separate Our actual work

days are our kids are right outside the door jumping on a trampoline. If you hear squeals, this is, this is marriage. Right? So I would say when I think about advice on making a marriage work is absolutely communication. I would also say respect. Respect for each other, knowing that we love each other. And if we love each other, we always have each other's best interest at heart and at the forefront of our minds. And so with respect, we can tackle anything. We can have difficult conversations, we can disagree respectfully, we can grow. And so I think that that is a big part of it as well.

Yeah, respect is huge. We don't bash each other to our friends. We don't assume the worst.

Question number three. Do you pray together?

Yes, daily, probably several times a day, but for sure, every morning we pray as a family and a lot of times at night, especially if there's any area of concern or shoot, any, any happy occasion. We, we definitely thank God for all the things in our life and then we ask him for support and guidance in all our decisions.

You know, I think that we just pray non stop, really. We like to keep prayer, try to. We try to keep prayer casual, meaning I don't think that God cares about how formal we are about prayer. So we are in constant communication with the Lord, but also we build it into our family culture. So every morning we pray before school as a family, and every evening we pray before our meal. And then every night we pray before bed. We're just, we. We're just always praying.

Right. The goal is to pray unceasingly. So we try to operate in constant communication.

And when we have something that we're grateful for, something amazing that has happened, then we're always just in thanks. Like, we're always in great gratitude. And because this is just our family culture, our children do it by nature as well. It's been a really, really sweet thing to see. Okay, so a couple of questions about you and my business.

Right. So my role definitely has changed. For the first five years of our relationship, I was the sole provider. And after Bonnie's business started taking off, which at the same time we were starting our family with young kids, my role definitely had to adapt. And yeah, there were a lot of changes that took place and I became more of the stay at home dad for a while. But now I do have a career of my own. And I am in investment real estate. I have a few residential rentals as well as commercial rentals. And yeah, we work well now as a team, working with the Kids and making sure that we get. Get good time with both kids in their activities after school. But certainly there had to, had to be a role reversal as her business took off and we started a family.

I actually think this topic is one that doesn't get discussed a lot because maybe it's difficult to talk about, but I think that it's one that's really worth having this discussion. And it is. You know, David and I came into our marriage in a very traditional sense. And so what does it look like when things just kind of flip flop? Because at some point we looked at the data, it was a data driven decision. The only thing that made sense was for us to kind of flip flop so that I would be the primary income bringer enter and David would be the, the primary kind of caretaker of the kids while they were home and, you know, not in school yet. And then when they started going to school, you opened up. And so David does a lot of philanthropy work, a lot of work with non profits. And he really is in charge of making sure that we're setting ourselves up for success long term. And so that has been something that's taken off my plate. He also is the one who takes care of all of the details of our life, all of the arrangements and the documents and the taxes and the mail, like all of those things. And so I'm really freed up to focus on the things that I do best. But I do think that there's this a little bit of an awkward dance when things kind of flip flop and you look at each other and you're like, well, wait, who's gonna do this now? It's like, I think it's you or I think it's you. And so it's not like a, a bad time. It is a challenging time. It's a re defining what roles look like and what leadership in the home looks like. And, you know, how, how does this play out still? And so, for instance, one thing that was really important for us is that it wasn't my money. Just in the same way that when David was the primary provider, it wasn't his money, it was our money. And so we come to everything with an us, a we to it. But the next question is related, David, and it's for you. And it says, was it easy to make that switch in the decision? And what advice would you give another husband who is facing the same kind of thing?

Yeah, I think initially it was not easy or didn't come natural to me. I do believe that the husband's role is to lead his family. He has a duty of sacrificial responsibility to his family. It gives me an extra burden of stewarding that money well. Ensuring that our family as a unit operates well, is in touch with each other both spiritually and, you know, typical relationally, like having fun together and making sure that we're making all the kids events and sports and things like that. But yeah, it was a little bit difficult at first because I was used to going to my 9 to 5 and kind of doing what I needed to or what I wanted to. And that changed very much so. And I think that I'm a better man for it personally, because I do think responsibility is a sacrificial duty so much more than people think it is. Just making money, it's being there and doing whatever the family needs to have done.

Okay, this next question is a little bit lighter. Do we train together? And if so, do you think that this has helped strengthen our bond? And so there was another question similar to this. Basically, do you work out together?

Yeah, I think this is the best thing that probably ever happened to us. We started CrossFit, or at least CrossFit style workouts, which neither of us thought we would ever be into. In fact, we both made fun of it, just like most of you probably do. But yeah, we're super into it. It has been a common bond that we share now with common complaint. We can complain about the workout, we can talk about how sore we are after the workout. And yeah, it's been.

Did you see the workout for tomorrow?

No, I did not.

One of the things that we prioritized was going to the same class. And this wasn't necessarily super easy. We go to an 8:30am class, which means that we have to get the kids settled ahead of time. And also, like, I'm not diving into work until a little bit later, but we did some rearranging of things because we were very much prioritizing being able to go to the same class. And I think, yeah, what a gift it is as a couple to be able to have that as common grounds and not feel isolated in our goals and not having to tell each other what we did that day. Because we were there, we saw it, and we. I think it's one of the most fun things we do together.

Every single day is kind of our daily date. So I used to go to the early 6am class and then Bonnie would go to a later class. And so we would sort of switch shifts with the kids or whatever was going on. But now it does make our day start a little bit later, but it's been worth it, and it's been a huge, I think, common.

Common bond. Okay, question on how we met. So I'll take this one. David and I, we went to high school together. We didn't really know each other super well until David was a senior. He's one year older than me, and we had a mutual friend, and we just kind of started hanging out together. So we. We officially started dating one week before David graduated, which means that we can declare that we were high school sweethearts.

Yes. But the joke on me was that I was a senior and Bonnie was a junior in high school, so I was the cool freshman in college with a high school girlfriend, which definitely saved me.

Okay, so what's your favorite fabric collection of mine and why?

I think definitely. Well, I don't know if it is it. Yeah, I guess it is a pattern. The stag head or the.

The buck? Well, that one. That one's from hello Bear. Yeah.

So hello Bear. Right. That's. Isn't that the first one you did?

No.

Really? Okay.

Yeah, but it was early on, and hello Bear was named after our son Bear, for sure. Okay. What has been the whole family's favorite vacation ever so far? I think this one is great timing.

Ooh, that's a tough one. Favorite family vacation, probably Belize, because we keep going back. Has to be.

Yeah. So every single year, we have this same place in Belize that we go same week of every year. It's actually coming up. We're starting to pack for it tonight.

Yeah.

Is that what I'm doing?

I already packed the kids stuff.

And so we take David's entire family, so his mom, his dad, his sister, her husband. My sister and her husband went last year, but they have a newborn this year, so they're not joining us this year. Rightfully so. And so we're going to be there next week in Belize, soaking up some sunshine. And it's one of our favorite places on earth. Okay, this next question is, what is the current most magical place for the kids to spend time in?

Yeah, I think. I think the garden for sure. Has been for a while, but now it's a little extra since we added 16 chickens and eight ducks, something like that. So, yeah, it's got a new life now, and definitely a place that we all get together and hang out and watch the ducks.

We.

The beds.

Yeah. It's the most magical place I get to be, too. This is a business question. It says, how much do you pay yourself a year out of your proceeds, a percentage or a set amount. So this has me thinking about profit margins. And it's something that, you know, an entrepreneur like, might not think about right off the bat. And also, as your business grows, your profit margin will go down, naturally, because you're outsourcing more, you're hiring more, you have more expenses. One of, I think the most beautiful things about being a creative entrepreneur is that typically your profit margins are really, really solid, especially if you're doing any kind of online or digital downloads or courses or anything like that. So what I do is go by a percentage. So I try to keep all of our salaries, including my own. So I have a team of 12 that includes me at no more than 25 to 30% of our gross annual revenue. So if that's helpful, take your gross annual revenue and your. Your wages for yourself. Your salary and employees should be 20 to 20. Sorry, 25 to 30% of your gross annual revenue. Okay, next question. Your marriage seems perfect. What would be. What would we be surprised to know that's hard for you? Okay, well, I actually think this is an entire episode of its own. You'll have to let us know if you want to know more, but David and I are Enneagram nerds. We. For the record, we love this book called the road back to you by Anne Cron. And we read it probably about five years ago. And to our core, I'm an Enneagram 3, Wing 4, and David is a solid Enneagram 7. And so this kind of study just showed us so much about each other and why there were certain things that were difficult. So I'll say one. So, for instance, as an enneagram7, David is there for the adventure. He's there for the fun. He's fun loving. Everybody wants to be around him. He wants to travel. He wants to experience things. And as an enneagram3, I love to be kind of in my alone zone. I love to be quiet. I love to be focused. I love to be really just kind of like home. I'm also a homebody. I don't know if that makes a big difference with my Enneagram number, but I love home. And so I always feel like I would just stay home all the time if I wasn't married to an enneagram7. And if you weren't married to me, you would probably be free to travel all the time. So we meet in the happy middle, but what does that mean for you?

Yeah, we definitely complement each other quite well. I have a tendency to stack Trips on top of trips on top of adventures with.

Plan the next trip while we're.

While we're on a trip. Yes, yes, yes, that's. It is a true fault of mine, or at least fact. And yeah, Bonnie has to travel for work sometimes. And so I'm usually, you know, planning how we can tag along some other extra trip or adventure on top of that. And sometimes she just needs to recharge the batteries. So I have to be aware of that and I have to be understanding of that.

Sometimes you travel alone. Sometimes I do as well. Sometimes when we've been traveling a lot, you super respect that. I need just like a couple of hours. Like, you'll wake up early, take the kids to breakfast, and I'll kind of make my first appearance around 10 or 11, and I'll have just had my. So the other thing to this is that I'm an introvert. David's an extrovert. So that means that I recharge in my silent time, and David tends to recharge in the being with other people. So I think just knowing, like knowledge is power, knowing it means that we respect it and we understand the needs and so we just. We just make sure that we're both getting what we need to feel energized and happy about it.

Yeah, if I. If I drag you halfway around the world, I might give you till noon that day to recharge and maybe get some work done before we go adventuring.

So frankly, I have no idea how many questions we've answered. Did you count?

No clue.

I don't. I didn't count. But here's one last one that I think is really great for couples building a dream together. What is your biggest piece of advice?

I think expectations are important and communication in that. So if you plan on your spouse fulfilling a role, you need to make sure that that spouse knows about that role. So a lot of people are shocked that I don't work in Bonnie's business. And we talked about it, and I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but I do think that we work better with me outside of her business. And so that would have been an important part if Bonnie had been disappointed or expected me to work directly in the business, that would have been a big area of contention, I think, between us. So I'm happy that she's okay with me outside of it, and I think it works better that way.

I would say, though, that as much as you are outside of it, I bring you in all the time. So one of my favorite gifts that David has is just discernment. Like, he can cut through fog for me almost instantly. So I bring the business and the decisions to you all the time. We're talking about it constantly. So you do kind of act as my. Almost like my mentor, my sounding board, that kind of thing. But you're not in. In it on the daily.

Yeah, I've heard you say that you're too close to it to see it. So.

Yeah. And you get to see it really clearly because you're just a little bit further away from it. So I would say, to your point, I think that one thing that marriages get tripped up, tripped up over sometimes is that we have thoughts, feelings, preferences, and we assume the other person knows them, and then we're frustrated when they don't. And so communicating really clearly about your thoughts, feelings, and preferences. So, like, if somebody really needs something, let's say that you need an hour to yourself to work on your biggest dream and. And you're feeling frustrated that you're not getting it. My kind of question is, like, how seriously have you talked about that being a need? Because I think that when you respect and you love each other, then hands down, you're going to set each other for. Up for success as much as you possibly can. So both ways, what do we need? What do we need to communicate clearly, to understand our thoughts and our feelings and our preferences?

Yeah. Just because you both want to open a bakery doesn't mean that the other person is going to automatically be the one mixing the flour everywhere.

Right. And so you don't want to make assumptions. You want to just have really clear communication. Always, my friends, create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world. And remember, there's room for you,

Sam.