Scaling Your Business Won't Work Until You Scale Yourself

You can go on and chase money. You can go make a whole bunch of it. If you're one-dimensional and you do not bring your family along with you and you are not where your feet are, then you're not going to make it. We made money and lost money along the way so many different times because we were just chasing money. I told Andy one thing. I told him, hey, please be where your feet are. What that means is we went, we pulled out his phone. We started looking at pictures on his phone, and I started telling him, "Hey, do you remember when Sophia, our daughter, did this? Do you remember when our son Ian, you know, graduated from his little kindergarten class? Do you remember when we went to the park and we did this and it really made our day? Do you remember our child's footsteps, first footsteps? Do you remember that?" And he looked at me with this blank look in his face. He did not remember. Half of those pictures we talked about. Now you might be chasing money, you might be doing all of this stuff, but you're living a separate life from your family. You need to be where your feet are. You need to understand that you don't have to be one-dimensional. You need to bring your family along with you along the journey. They're gonna be your biggest cheerleaders if you do that. So when we started our company, we had to basically start over with everything. We went and we gave everything up but we brought our family along with us along the journey. We decided, hey, we're going to be with our feet— where, where our feet are, and we're going to fight together as a team. But you have to understand that you can have it all, and you can't be one-dimensional and chase money. You can bring your family along with you, and we're going to go over that right now. Why doesn't my family believe me? Why is it that when I'm ready to change, they fight me every single time? Us women, we're great at testing our men. We're so good at it, right? But why do we do that? Because we really want to see if they really want to do something. Have you made promises to yourself? How many times has it been January 1st and you set a goal, or you said, I'm going to start going to the gym and this is it, this is, this is what's going to make the difference, and by January 10th you give up? How many times have you set a revenue goal and you're like, oh wait, halfway through the month and you're like, oh my gosh, there's no way I'm gonna make it, you lower your standard? How many times have you said, hey, you know what, I'm gonna go to my son's soccer game and I'm not gonna be late, and you've missed it again? How many times have you let yourself down and made promises to yourself that you can't keep? Your family is going to question you because you keep breaking promises. You're going to have to decide right now, I'm going to quit making promises. You can make promises to your family. You say, hey babe, you know what, I want you to trust me blindly. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna kick some ass and I need you to give me 3 years. And Peter, our son, he's 3 years old, and by the time he's 6 years old, I'm gonna change our life. But I need you to trust me. I need you to support me. And she has in the past. And 3 years later, Peter's 6 years old. There's no more money in the bank. You've invested everything. 3 years have gone by. You don't even remember any of that. Why? Why should she trust you again? What's different? You set your goals, you break them. Your family keeps relying on you and you keep breaking those promises. Don't do that to yourself. Hold yourself accountable and include your family in that. So Andy and I believe in fighting, okay? And a lot of people like, why would you say that? They said, we know a lot of couples out there that never fight. I have aunts and uncles that have gone through their whole entire life and they're like, oh my gosh, All of a sudden their kids are older and then they get a divorce and you're like, "Fuck, you were the perfect family. Why the heck are you getting a divorce? Why did this even happen? Like, I don't get it. You were my role model." So all of those times that they just held it all in and they try to avoid that, they didn't know. It's like death by a thousand paper cuts over and over and over. Unresolved issues that they never ever surfaced. And then they resent each other. They can't even look at each other. Because they never ever showed their true colors, or they never even got to know each other. So we believe in fighting, but we had to make some rules to fighting. Andy said that I was an alpha. Yes, massively, I was an alpha. I was used to taking care of myself. It was really hard to get in a relationship because I was a problem and I didn't want to ever lose. I'm like, hey, it's my way or the highway, and that was it. And he was the same exact way. So we could either explode or we could grow together. So we made up some rules to fighting. Healthy couples fight for resolution. Unhealthy couples fight for personal victory. We came up with one rule, and that rule is: if someone wins, no one wins. So if you're in a relationship and you fight with your spouse and you win that fight, that celebration lasts about 15 seconds, and after that you feel like shit. Why? Because it shouldn't happen that way. You should grow together. So if someone wins, no one wins. We do not avoid a fight. Do not get historical about what was done. And you're going to learn to grow and not talk about it again, but you're going to let it all out. Do not walk on eggshells ever. That's one of the things that we did and one of the things that we grew to do with everybody. We do it with our kids, we do it with our team, and so we have such a strong team, and we do it with each other. We treat our relationship, our marriage, our parenting, and everything by the same rules. We believe in being our true selves, but there's a way to do it. See, the reason why I can push my husband, or the reason I could tell him where he's wrong, is because I do it in a certain way. If you're a leader in your company, or manager, or even a parent, you have to earn the right to be direct. I can tell you what I see that you're doing wrong, but if my heart is not in it, if my best— your best interest is not within it, then you just turn into the bitch or the asshole. You have to earn the right to be direct. I talk to my kids a certain way. I tell my son— my son's 13 years old— ever since he was little, since he was 7 years old, I thought, hey Ian, you're 7 years old, listen, I can treat you like the rest of the 7-year-olds around, and I can give you everything you want. You can have video games, you can have an easy life, I can tell you yes to everything that you want, it could be cool. Or I can treat you like the badass that I foresee you, the leader The one that will change people. The one that actually has his heart in here. The one that's going to make a difference in this world. That's what I foresee you. But guess what? To be this man that I foresee, sometimes you're going to hate me. Sometimes you're going to disagree with me. Sometimes you're going to want to give up. Sometimes you're going to say, why the hell is she so mean to me? But you're going to be great. You're going to be so good. And then sometimes you'll get weak. Sometimes he has like, Mom, my friend did this and that. But why? Do you want me to treat you like that? Do you want me to treat you like the 7-year-old? Do you want me to treat you like the badass that I foresee? He's like, no, Mom, treat me like the badass. And that's what we do. Same way for Andy. Certain things that I see that he could do better, we're very direct, but our heart is in it. We foresee— I foresee him being a certain way. So before you go and you criticize your team, understand what really moves them and motivates them and earn that right to be direct. Show your heart, wear your heart on your sleeve, because they will work harder for you if they do that way. So the number one question that I get all the time, say, Jacqueline Elliott Elliott Elliott, how do I get my spouse to support me the way you support Andy? Now, Just think about it. When you get home, what is it that you show your spouse when you get home? Do you bring home leftovers? Does she look up to you? Does she still see you with admiration? Are you giving your clients or your coworkers better treatment than you are the one at home? You can't do that. Talk about what you do. Talk about people's lives that you change. Talk about why you love the opportunity that you have. Where you work. You know, I talk to so many people and they meet— they might meet Chad or they might meet Valentino and they're like, hey, you know, hey, and then, oh, he made me stay late and all this stuff. How are they— how are they greeting? Oh, this is asshole, they kept you late, man. Okay, work, right? It's— let's pass by that. But how are you speaking about them? That's how they're going to support you. You did that to yourself. I had a rule in the very beginning when I met Andy and we got into a relationship. I told him, hey, you know what, I'm never gonna speak badly about my husband or my boyfriend or anything to my family. There's so many people out there, they're like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe that my parents don't accept my husband. Well, you did that to them. You said the time that he called you the name. You said what he did to you in the very beginning. Your family loves you. They do not— they will never forget. If my daughter comes up to me and said, hey, this guy called me a bad name, we're never gonna forget that. He's always gonna be that asshole that told your little girl something bad. And they're never going to forget it. You're talking about your problems too soon. Now I know I skipped a slide there because there's 3 things that actually change our life. And one of the things that we had to do is we had to cut ties with so many different people that weren't like us in the very beginning. So many different people, and we had to go dark. And you hear a lot of people talking about going dark. Well, what the hell does going dark mean? What does it mean? I'm going to tell you what it meant to me and Andy. We made a lot of sacrifices to start our business. We had a very beautiful million-dollar house in Oklahoma, which is a lot of money for Oklahoma, okay? And when we decided to start a company, we decided to just go and sell everything. And basically, we went and we rented a house and we slept on mattresses. And we decided to make that decision together, but we didn't go and we didn't tell our family the sacrifice that we needed to make in order to do that. Because we knew that we worked so hard to get that million-dollar house before we sold it. And they were going to be like, why would you do that? Why would you go and sell your beautiful home that you poured in so much work into to go and sleep on mattresses? Why would you go and sell your car to buy leads? If you— why would you give up your 9-to-5 job to have this life? Why would you do that? Sometimes we complain about things to the wrong people too soon. They do not understand what you're shooting for. They do not understand what your goals are. They do not understand the sacrifices that you're willing to make, and they're gonna talk you out of it. You complain too soon enough to find sympathy, and when things get a little bit tough, you give up. Quit talking to those people. That's what going dark is. And only bring your family along with you. Bring your kids that are going to go through the sacrifices, and also tell your kids certain things. Don't isolate them. When we sold our house and just left our mattresses, guess what we did? We told our kids, hey, you know what, we're gonna go, we're gonna sell our house, we're all gonna live in one room, we're gonna sleep on mattresses on the ground, and guess what, we're gonna make forts all day long. This will be so awesome. We're gonna be able to jump on the beds and all this cool stuff that we've never been able to do, and you're gonna love it. Mom, like camping? Heck yeah, like camping! We're gonna be camping every day. But they were in that journey with us. If they expected it, if they knew what the sacrifice was going to look like. When you're dreaming big, you're gonna have to tell your kids, hey, you know what, we're gonna go and we're gonna build this and we're gonna do something really cool. And guess what? Your dad and your mom are complete badasses and we're gonna be your freaking heroes. We're gonna make the sacrifice together. Sometimes we're trying to shelter our kids. How do you get your spouse to support you? Quit trying to freaking set her up as a queen of the castle and don't freaking include her in your success. Your wife does not want to be the queen of the castle. I didn't. I wanted to be that battle mate. I wanted to be the one that held them accountable. I wanted to be included in that success, in that win with them. Sometimes we're not including our spouses in that. We're just bringing our home leftovers. Talk about why you love what you do, and she will want to be included in that.