How To Survive & Thrive Living & Working With Your Spouse

Foreign.

To our brothers in conversation podcast powered by Jesse and Shondell.

Shondell, you are from Bed Stuy do or Die Brooklyn. That little town.

That's a little town that's nothing like Hawthorne, Nevada. Population 5,000 cats and dogs. Okay. April 10, 2020, episode number 24. And this one is how to survive and thrive living and working with your spouse. And this is our one year anniversary.

Is it really one year?

Woo hoo. So how to do that? You know, before we start about how to give people all these great tips on how to do this, what are the challenges do you think most spouses have in working together and from home? Yeah.

Right. Well, first of all, they probably don't have a friendship. Okay. People get married but for many other reasons. And they, you know, they don't have that friendship. They don't have the relationship that, you know, that starts all that. Because you got to have that first.

When you say some people get married for many other reasons, just give us a couple of reasons why people do get married if they do it without having friendship first.

Well, you know, sometimes people get married, like the first time I got married, I got married. Cause you know, I got somebody knocked up, right?

Okay, so they get married because of some physical attraction.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I didn't say that, Jaz. I said they got knocked up. All right, let's get it, let's get it.

Arlene, I think he's already out of control. Just so you know. Arlene's like, I ain't saying nothing. She's like, I'll join in when it gets clean here.

Yeah, when it get clean, get together. But some people get married for the wrong reason. As some of them get married and have a big party, they make it as a party. And when you don't get married for the right reason and you don't get married for the reason of love, it's not gonna last anyway.

That's actually a good point, Arnie. But check this out. I agree with you 100%. Let me switch back to Shondell, then you join in with me. And I want Lisa as well. We're oftentimes first off, disclaimer. No disrespect against any parents out there, whether you're a new parent, a middle aged parent or a long term parent. Most of the times we are not taught what Shondell just made. Very simple. Yeah, we're really not taught that. We're typically mimicking what we've seen. For the most part, our parents weren't taught it. And then Their parents weren't taught it. And the difference. So a lot of times this is handed down ignorance, and we don't even realize it until someone has made a choice to get married, do their best to try to make it work. In the first five years, it's horrible. In the next five years, it's worse. And then you're with someone for 10, 15, 20 years, depending on who it is and what the circumstances are, and not realizing, to Shondell's point, you never, ever created a foundation of friendship.

Right.

You know what's funny is I'm glad you said that, because the 100 black men used to have a saying, what they see is what they'll be.

Right.

What they see is what they'll be. And that's what happened. Like, you know, my parents had kids and then they got married. We. I kind of did the exact same thing as their oldest child. And I never really established a friendship with my ex wife.

We.

We were together because we had kids, and then we kept having kids, and that's how my parents were. My parents got married after the 1, 2, 3, 4, 4th child.

And quite frankly, I'd be willing to bet that they saw that somewhere. Your parents saw that somewhere in their parents or somewhere in the family somehow, and they just almost natively, naturally sort of lived into what they knew.

Yes. That's what you know. Hey, I have this saying. My dysfunction is my reality.

Well said.

Yeah, that's what it is, right? I don't know I'm dysfunctional. I just know that I know what I know. And it's what we do is what we do.

Well, what Lisa and I learned from Dr. Your personality becomes your personal reality. Joe Dispenza. Dr. Joe Dispenza. Your personality becomes. Becomes your personal reality. So a lot of times, your character, Arlene becomes your character oftentimes sets the tone and stage for the kind of life you live. And even how you connect with your husband or wife, that has a lot to do or how you don't connect with them.

Right, Right.

So you, Arlene, you are an exquisite listener.

And you're.

And your mate is.

Don't believe the hype, Jess. Don't believe the hype when the cameras go off. I'm getting this man.

No, no, no, no.

I don't believe it.

I don't believe it.

Don't believe the hype.

I don't believe it.

No.

And your. And your mate thinks he's a comedian. Right. So that's what you have to deal.

With all the time. But that's okay. Cause I love him no matter what.

Right, Right. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Hey, you know, I was singing Al Green to her a little while ago. Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad.

And she wouldn't put on Clint Eastwood. The Good, the Bad, the Ugly. She's there watching them. She's like, I'm watching Clint.

Right, Right.

But really, you're right. And so oftentimes it hasn't been. Those relationships have not been established with a solid friendship, as you say. And many people don't even realize that is the missing piece.

Yeah.

So you agree, too, Arlene?

I agree. Yeah.

She always says that thing about a party. She's like, are people just wanting to have a wedding? To have a party and have a bunch of friends and share photos and videos?

So. Yeah. But don't last more than five years. Yeah, it don't last more than five years. If you think about it. And then you go back and you think about a person that had a real big wedding and they had all this lavisher stuff. They wedded their marriage. Don't last five years. And you.

And you think because it got launched for the wrong reasons. Is that what you think? Correct or not enough. Solid foundational components.

Substance.

Yeah.

Yeah. Liz, your thought.

Well.

Or it feels new and it feels good and it feels fresh. And your chemistry's, you know, doing what it does. The love is a drug. And then when all that wears off, you're like, I really don't feel that for you anymore. And then if you don't work on it, then it's destroyed.

I think when it comes to. I think Lisa's on to a good point, along with Arlene. I think that when we're involved in intimate relationships, oftentimes, especially when they start out at a distance, where you're at your place, they're at their place. Sometimes they're not even in the same city. Sometimes they're not in the same country. Especially now. And then when you come together in one space where you're living in the same space, that intimacy can sometime be challenged, because I think you get a chance to really know who people are when you're living in the same space.

Yeah.

And I think the key to us coming together is we became friends first because somebody asked me. I think we were. We were pretty much friends for at least six months. Six months to almost a year before we actually were considered dating.

Right, Nice. So you were establishing that solid foundation of getting to know who each other are and also just being yourself. Too, right?

Yeah, that's true.

So by the time you got married, you knew who you were marrying. You didn't. You didn't get surprised? Well, with Shondale, you can always get a surprise. So I was gonna say you didn't get. I was gonna say you didn't get surprises, Arlene. But that's. That's wrong with Shondale, he can always sneak in a surprise here and there.

I think I did the surprise on our wedding date.

On him?

Yeah. Cause we got married, and the minister asked me about, will I take him for everything that he wants to be. I started laughing. I never answered. He was looking at me like, are you gonna answer? I never answered in, like, five minutes.

This is one of the fun.

This is one of the few times I wasn't trying to be funny. And it started out, you know, what happened, Jess, is it started out with truth, right? It was like the first time we talked about. It was all about truth. It was, hey, I got four kids, and here's the situation. And, you know, I. We were just totally transparent. And in fact, I would say our relationship started out with kind of talking about our past. Our past relationships and open the. Open the Pandora's box. And the one thing that she always says is, you know, tell me the truth, even if it hurts.

Mm.

That's big. That's good.

Yeah, that's good.

She don't like. She don't like, you know, just say, hey, you know what? Here's the truth. Here's what happened. Here's what went down. Here's, you know, just tell the truth.

And, you know, with Arlene doing that, what she did, she established. I'm going to call it two things. She. She established an agreement. She established a rule. Whichever way you want to say it, she needs to have it this way.

Right.

She didn't say this, but it really is non negotiable. She needs to, because if you get into the lie game, she's not gonna be around long.

And she did it like that, too, Jeff. I need to have it this way.

So in other words, she did it instead of a drum roll, it was a neck roll.

That's right, A neck roll. You get me? Understand me?

Right, right, right. Well, so with that being said, let's give the people some solutions then.

About.

Do you want to share with them house rules and. Or how you either call them house rules or house agreements? We call them house.

Okay, so before we. When we talk about moving in together, he's like, you know, I know that you're used to having things a certain way as I am. And I said, okay. So one absolute for me would be in the morning for the first hour. I like to take a bath. I do my prayers, my meditation, and that's just me time. I really need to come around just. And not have a lot of dialogue. And so that's one absolute for me. So I asked him, what's one absolute for you?

Well, first off, they change. We look at them, we live into them and look at them every 90 days to see how they're working. Am I abiding by your house rules? Are you abiding by my house rules? Am I violating them? Am I in check myself? You also get an opportunity to switch out. We like to have no more than three. You can have one to three. You got to have at least one and not more than three. Well, we changed them out. The one I'm going to share with is one of my favorites. It's called switch. Super long story made very short is Lisa had been asking me for many years to ask people for business, ask for speaking engagements, ask for coaching clients. And I told her I got a finesse game and it's a timing thing. I don't really need to ask. Like, I don't know where I got that stupid idea. But we realized that it cost us a lot of money for me not to be asking. Well, so once I came to that realization, I said, here's my new house rule. I want to switch out. I want it to be switched. Whenever you see me behaving in a fashion or doing something that you don't believe is healthy for us, I need you just to say one word. Say switch. And when she says switch, my response, the only response I can give is, got it. I've switched.

Right.

If I have no clue what she's talking about, then I get. I get to say, I don't know what you're talking about. Then she needs to explain what I'm missing. Once I hear the explanation, I get one response. Okay, I switched. It's not negotiable. Yeah, because we sometimes when we're close to one another, we can see things that could serve one another that the other one cannot see.

Right.

So that rule has been an amazing rule, that switch rule to have a trusted advisor catch you doing something that can be largely improved by one word. What do you think of that?

Well, I think that's great. And I think that that's great that you set rules. And you know what? That's a key point. I think A lot of people don't know how to set rules and set boundaries. Especially in this day and age when everybody's kind of gone away from rules. You know, we try to, you know, obviously, you guys know our daughter Tiara. We try to tell her that. It's like, oh, well, this new. This is the new age, dad. I'm like, well, you know what? Rules work for us. Like, we gotta have some boundaries. One of the things that was very important because we, you know, we came in it with kids, and we came in it with eight children. So one of the first rules that Arlene said was, the only steps in this house are the ones going down to your bedroom. So we had to establish some ground rules as to how we're going to behave as a family. She and I had some things that we talked about, especially when it came to. We were very open about our previous relationships, but moving together, we wanted to make sure that we were very open on how we felt. Right. So if one of our exes was violating something, you got to talk to the other person. Don't, don't. Don't hold back.

And.

Or if somebody was talking to one of the kids, and you know how that goes. You know, if you. If you've ever dealt with relationships and you've had exes come in and they go, I'm gonna tell this kid this. So they could plant this seed in that house. The first thing, Arlene, you know, her nickname was Sarge by the kids, she was like, she's the drill sergeant. So she just said, here. Here's how we're going to do things. If nobody's going to bring anything into this house to be disruptive, it is the 10 of us in this house that make the rules. And every Sunday, we reviewed how things were going in our family meeting after church, we had a family meeting. Nobody could walk out of there with frustration on their mind.

Right.

And what Arlene established with all that was that we are one family. We are one family, not two. Not two, one. We you can call what you want, but at the end of the day, we're one. And you also establish. Arlene, we all, with the eight children, we're all in this together.

That's correct.

And when you start using terminology like steps and halves and all that kind of stuff, you start divisions.

Yeah.

And so you guys start out, like, majorly awesome. And a lot of people that have what we're going to call a blended family, where they bring it together, where there was a family over here that had pre. Started and same over. And then you guys came together as a blended family. A lot of people never have that conversation. And they go, this is my half brother. This is my stepbrother. Forget about all that we're being. We're all under one household. Being raised by two towers.

Yeah. Yes.

And what was important is her mom. Her mom was really, like, she said, that's the only way it's gonna work. And the other thing is, we don't allow others, our siblings, our friends to treat the situation any different. We made sure. Because it's very important in a household. You have harmony, you have those rules, you have things set that way. And a lot of people are concerned about us not being friends because of that. Because they thought that all of that would pull us apart.

No.

And we just made. We made it a. First and foremost, it's us against the eight.

Right, Right, right, right, right.

But. But people.

People make that mistake, too. They put the priorities. I'm not going to say what they are, but they mix up their priorities. And quite frankly, when you do that, that's when the dysfunction starts right there. And you don't even know that's where the problem is. So you guys are the twin towers that's managing the eight.

Right.

Right.

Oh, because if you two aren't healthy, they're not gonna be healthy.

That's a fact.

Yes.

And you talked about harmony. No better time for harmony than right now. Because right now, we're being frozen into our spaces. And even if you go out, you can feel this sort of odd, eerie feel at places that used to be lively and thriving, and it's just still, and it's a weird stillness. Our homes have got to be our sanctuary.

Yeah.

So that harmony is very, very important. It doesn't mean it's going to be a perfect world, but when you have a foundation of harmony, that's where you always want to keep coming back to.

Yeah. So I agree the other day about people staying in the house together for the first time.

A lot of people can't. A lot of people are taking it to the point that they got. You hear them say, I got to get out. I got to get away from them. Because they never took it into reality. Now it's being forced. So they can't take it.

Right.

We cannot take it.

So imagine. So imagine the. So imagine the working and living in the same space 247 like we do. It's created some challenges. So in our coaching sessions, no disrespect to any of our clients that may be watching this, because they can't. They have to manage the best way they know how. But let's say yesterday I had six coaching sessions yesterday on the phone, over the phone. And five of them I was joined with anything from a six month old to a two year old. And I could hear that while I was in the session with the client. And the client was doing their best because now they don't have that separation between church and state. And the kids don't know the difference. They see their parents, hey, they're live. The kid don't know that he or she is on a coaching session. The kid doesn't know that he or she is in a work environment. They just see their parent. So working and living in the same space and managing the boundaries and all that stuff is very, very difficult. Now, I've never had a coaching session with the 2 year old or 6 month old joining us at the same time.

Yeah, you know what? It's the new. Well, it's the reality for this right now. Right. Because everybody understands. Hey, everybody is working from home. I watched the newscaster last night and the other guy said, hey, show me what's in your fridge.

Right.

And they did that live during a news broadcast. Those things would never happen, you know, in, you know, the courtesy of journalism and the seriousness, you know, and so those things would never happen. But, you know, my wife and I, you know, we got the kids and they call and they ask us questions and you know, one of our sons was having a little bit of friction and he was like. She was like, well, hey, you ain't got a choice. You got to work it out. Look, she giving that smile right now, but you gotta hear her talk to these kids.

You can't always run away from your situation.

No, you gotta run to them head on.

Right?

Don't face it head on. It's gonna stay, you're gonna be there. It's not gonna go nowhere.

Yeah, it's not funny.

If you don't run to them like you say, Arlene, they're gonna come. Those situations are gonna run to you.

Yep.

And at some point it's gonna have an impact. And typically that impact is gonna bring you to your knees. And yeah, rather than being brought to your knees, catch it while you're stumbling, you know what I mean? Catch your fall. That's really what you're doing. Address it.

Gotta address it. If you don't address it, it's gonna be there.

If you don't address it, it's gonna undress you.

Yeah. Oh, it's gonna get you.

It's gonna get you for sure.

And until. Until you fix it, it's gonna just stay right there. You've got to deal with it, through it.

Yes. And fix it doesn't mean instant fix. No, it means work through the matter. It means share your thoughts. It means come to an agreement, you know, on and on and on.

Right, Exactly.

It's not always an instant fix. So let's say this. So we also have business rules, which we call biz rules. So we also get three biz rules. Just one of the business rules we have is our hours are 6am to 6pm but we also have clients where I take high sense of urgency calls from, meaning they don't have a dedicated session for that call that's coming in or 91 1A. Just talk 911 is. My rule is they have to call me, text me and email me because you don't know what platform I'm on. The moment I see it. The moment I see it, I respond within an hour, typically immediately. But if it comes after 6pm, I can't take it in here. I've got to take it by walking around the park, walking around the city, anywhere but inside the house. Why do you think we did. Why do you think we did that, Arlene?

I guess it's the respect thing that you already set rules for the household. So it's not. You don't want to be disrespectful because you already set the rules in your house with her.

Yes.

And respect.

And what would we. What would I be disrespecting if I did? If I took that call in here after 6pm what would I be disrespecting?

The rule you already set.

Yeah, the rule and the harmony that Chandelle was talking about. The harmony is different because when I'm in a session, my vibration and energy is very different, very much. Because I'm tuned into that person, that client, that circumstances, situation. My volumes are probably higher. My energy level is definitely very, very different.

Right.

Yeah. What I took a. I took a years ago. I had this. I don't know how this. Well, I do know how I've got. We all have it. But I'm tapped into my intuition. I was sitting at the dining room table and I don't know why. Typically Lisa likes bedtime around nine. They're smarter to do what Lisa says around nine. But I like to get more day in so I can tend to leak into 10, sometimes 11, which. Anyway, that's a whole nother Matter. Well, this time it was midnight. And something said to me, my intuition says something's up. So I walked over to my phone that was across the way and I picked it up. And I had just received a call from a client after midnight. I picked up the phone and I. And I. And I dialed it back. I didn't even check the voice message because this client does not call at midnight. What had happened was her husband had passed away in her arms. I took the phone. Lisa was asleep, but I shot her a text. I'm on a 91 1. I'm walking around the city. I left out this door behind us here. I walked around the city. I covered all of West Las Vegas in three hours.

Wow.

Talking her into a better place from having a husband pass away in her arms. When you hear that, Shonda, what are your thoughts as it relates to the biz rule, How I manage that?

Well, I think the way you managed it was first and foremost, you have this client who, you know your assistance, right. Needs your help. But at the same time, you have your wife who you have to communicate with. Because I say communication is probably the biggest key in the relationship. Good or bad, you have to relay information. If you would have just walked out the door. Now she's concerned and she's freaking out and she's wondering what's going on. It's like the State Farm commercial even, right? Like, hey, who are you talking to? Jake from State Farm, you know, but you have to have that. And even Arlene knows the people who may have those 911 calls, right? Because, you know, I participate. As you guys know, I'm the chair of the Urban Chamber. And at this point in time, every call is critical, right? You get calls from the media, you get calls from Ken. And yesterday, you know, Ken and I were having this dialogue, and Arlene knows he called like three times yesterday because.

Ken Evans, the president.

The president.

You know, I also have to be as the chair of the board and him being the president and taking on all the weight, I have to be there for him. So Arlene is like, okay, that's Ken. So she'll either I'll either go in my office or she'll turn down. She'll give me the signal when she turns down the TV that she. I don't have to move. So there's a lot of non verbals that she'll give in order for us to have that situation, right?

But the non verbals that she gives, if you didn't have the foundation that you have, you would Know. You would know what. You would know what the nonverbals meant.

Exactly. And then she has a lot of calls with her sisters. Right. So her and her sisters are extremely close. There's three of them. That was four of them total with her and her three sisters. And they have these conversations all the time. And when they get on their group call, you know, that's time for me to kind of like, okay, let's. Let's let her have her moment, and she gets to talk to them, and they can go on for two or three hours. And I think that's important, too. You have to understand what your spouse needs. Right. She needs that moment with her siblings. I'm close to my siblings, too, so she knows which sibling needs what. So again, it goes back to that foundation.

I agree with you. And I even like to say you have to understand what the spouse wants and needs, because sometimes it's a separation between wants and needs.

Right.

Needs is definitely more urgent. And a want is a desire, for the most part at least. You can talk to. Tell them about when we're having dialogue and. Because you tend to say less.

Yeah.

And how do I manage that, saying less when I know there's more?

Please expound on that and tell me more about how you feel or more about the situation. Because like you said, I'm short on words, and I like to bottom line everything. And I. I'm not the storyteller or.

I know one of those.

Arlene is sitting across from her sister right now. And you know what? And I don't. I let her do it the way she needs to do it.

But I.

A lot of times I'll respond to. You just said, I'll respond to her with no words because I know what's going on inside of her brain.

Right.

She's thinking.

And so I have a. I think I have a pretty good litmus test of understanding what her wants and needs are even with.

Yeah, I mean, I use totally verbals. I'm just like, she knows. I woke up last week and I said, man, I'm smelling these bacon and eggs and this coffee just smells great. She's like, I know what that means.

I'll be with you in 20 minutes.

And it took me about 10 minutes because I already knew. I already knew.

And to you. And to you, that wasn't something new.

No, no, no.

I am a spoiled young man. You know? You know what's funny is my grandmother spoiled me crazy. Like, she. I didn't live with my grandma. My grandmother spoiled me to A point where. Jess. It's like that. That's how I identify. Right. And some people, in the same token, I do everything I can to spoil Arlene. Right. I know she loves plants, right? So the. The other day when I went to. She made me a little mask, and I went to Smith's to get some groceries, and when I came back, I brought. I bought her a lily, and I brought her a lily. And it's not because it's like Valentine's Day. In fact, I told you guys before, we don't really celebrate Valentine's Day. We just say, hey, you know what? I love you. And I love you.

I love you.

I just love you, period. So it's like, I'll buy a plant on a day when, you know, I wasn't even thinking about it. But that. That, to me means more than you paying 10 times the amount on February 14th.

Well, not only that, it's 10 times the effect. Because you're not celebrating with the crowd.

Right.

You're celebrating with the moment or the notion of the concept. The idea at that moment is gonna be more powerful, Arlene. To get it on April 7th, than February 14th.

Yeah.

With everybody else. Right?

Yeah.

So very good. Well, Lisa wrote up a few points I'm going to show. I'm going to pop these at you. You and Arlene respond. Maybe the audience would like this. Talking about how people can work better. Husbands and wives, or even relatives work better together in this. Where we stand in our homes. She said, number one, respect the workday.

Yes.

And number two, respect each other's space. So. And then I'm going to back up, and then we'll come back, we'll speak to some of these. Number three, your spouse is not. Your spouse is. See, that should not have been a.

Not at work is not.

Lisa was trying to say, at work, your spouse is. Don't play the role of your spouse. Being your best friend at work. Play the work. Play the role of colleagues, basically, is what she was saying there. But if you read it, it didn't read proper. So number four.

Sorry.

Yeah, it's in, like, I am not your friend.

But.

Number four, get out of the house together. And number five, celebrate together. So when you hear those, these are added value pieces that we thought people. I mean, some people may have already thought of these, but if you haven't, which one of those resonate with you? Shaundell first. And then I'll do. Arlene, can you share?

You know, at work, we make sure that we have specific boundaries.

Right.

We don't try to bring. Like, even people wouldn't even know if we had an argument or a different discussion when we get to the office, because we never bring that to the office because we understand that. And also, you know, we worked together before Station Casino. So when we worked there, there was a woman who tried to hook me up with Arlene because she didn't know we were married.

Right.

She had no idea that we were actually married. Because we don't act that way in that setting. We have a very professional way that we behave in that setting. So at the office with employees, we're very careful not to have these, you know. You know how people do. They're having these attitudes around each other and that kind of thing. So we're very, very careful in having those boundaries.

And so at home, are you doing the same thing? Respecting that she's a professional colleague while you're working, even in the home, like you did out there? Yeah.

Yeah. You know, because at the end of the day, like, in most of the day, so our lean handles are HR and finance and working on, you know, doing payroll and all that stuff. So I really don't dab in that that much at all, really. And so when I'm in my office doing my thing and she's at the kitchen table doing her thing, we're kind of. And she'll ask me some questions about the office. And, you know, we don't. We don't go back and forth much. We kind of, like, keep that same attitude as if we're at the office.

Right.

You're respecting that. That kitchen space is her working space, and up in your office is your working space. And you collaborate when needed, but you don't just overly invade those spaces, is your point.

Right.

Nice. Very good. Lisa, do you want to weigh in.

On that at all?

No, I have nothing to add to that.

Okay.

What about you, Arlene? What are your thoughts about what either Shondell said or any of these others? And I can repeat these for you if you like, too.

Well, we do. When I say we do spend time together, me and Shondell take walks. Even though we take walks together in the morning, in the afternoon, like, he'll say, I gotta get away from my computer. We'll take a walk together. We'll consider that as our time. Then we'll come back to our office. We gonna call it the kitchen table in his office. We come back to work as that. Me and Shondell has a nickname. We call each other personal. But when we hear at work, in Our home. We don't call each other that.

Nice.

You wait till after 5 or 6 o'. Clock. Our names are nicknames. What he called me and what I call him Nice. But during the daytime where Shondell and Arlene.

Well, that's perfect. What you've set up, Arlene is what I call a pillar. A pillar structure. Your marriage pillar, your intimate pillar, your professional pillar, your office pillar. Are not to cross.

Right.

That you can manage different pillars and they can be at different levels of height of execution. But the pillars do not cross.

Sorry.

Right.

Yep.

So I think what happens when people cross over into pillars, that's where confusion and muddle happens.

Yes, yes, I agree.

So.

So that's huge. Least you ever thought on that too.

Third lines.

Yeah, for sure.

And do we get to hear any of the nicknames or are those like private?

No, no. Well, he calls me Bookie Blackie. But it's only time that he's not. Is just when our personal time. We don't even do it at the office or anything.

And it's. And that's what you do. What you. It's yours in explicit. Is it sort of over the top that you. Can you say what you call him or is it too out of bounds?

It's Blackie.

Oh, that's what you call. Okay.

Yeah.

You know, and I'm gonna tell you what's funny is that was the nickname my mother had for my father. And they never even talked.

I didn't never know. Wow.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Cause, you know, and it's interesting because my mother said. I said, why did you call. Cause my father. So here's the thing. My father's not even dark skinned. It's not even your complexion. What it is is that as you guys know, I'm really, really, really, really strong in black history.

So that's his name. That's why I call him that. Yeah. But it's not. It's because Shondell's so into black history. So that's what I call him. That's cool.

That's cool. I like that. You know what I call my brothers and sisters? Whatever I make up at the time.

I know. Lawrence told us, man.

I don't know.

Where it comes from.

I get these unique names and I'll have my sister Pam on the floor. On the floor. I'll have her on the floor. And it's. And they keep coming. I don't know where they come from. I think if you heard them, they probably are not very flattering. But They're a lot of fun.

And it's funny because our kids know that, right? Our kids. Our grandkids know that too. Our grandkids even like little Riley. So Riley's the two year old, Tierra's two year old, and she'll slip up sometimes and she'll go.

Well, Arlene, what do you like best about working with Shondell?

Oh, so many things. So many things. But, you know.

I know that one for sure. That's the yellow in him. He can't help it.

But some of the things that Shonda do that, you know, me and Chandelle work together. Great. Some things I don't know, some things he don't know. But I can come to Sunday and ask him anything. He gonna find out. If he don't know it for me, he's going to find out for me. He'll come back to me and give me the answer. And I'm like, oh, I love it. Because most people won't do that, right? Okay. You got to find out. You know, I don't got time.

Right.

I'm doing something else. You do it yourself. But I can come to him and anytime in business, and he does. He does it. He find out for me.

Yes. He either knows the answer or he goes to get it.

Yes.

So he becomes a powerful resource. That's good. What about you, Shonda? What do you like best about working with Arlene?

So.

I say this affectionately. I do love her nagging. Only because I am a person who moves so fast that I don't slow down for the little details, the little reminders that Lisa gives me of, hey, we get on the podcast that works for Shondell because I will be. I go from here to here to here to here to here. And I'm just not. I'm just not that person. So what she does, is she like, did you take your medicine? Did you eat? Did you do this? Did you do this? Did you do this? Make sure you call this. Did you do that? Those things, you know, it is like it. It used to agitate me, but I had to realize that that's actually what I need from her, you know? Otherwise you drop the ball all over the place.

Right? Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Well, I think that's good that people hear that. I want people to hear what works for you guys, because that may be something that they can step into.

And the secret in that, Jess, is this. I just want people to understand that does annoy me. I'm gonna tell you. Because it does annoy Me. But at the same time, I gotta realize that it's going to annoy me. Right. I can't. I can't get all frustrated because that's what I need. But I don't like it because I got. I can't even explain how my brain works. It's like I'm thinking about this idea and that idea and this and that. And then she comes in and go. And she comes in. In a meeting and slip some food in, right? And I'll go, dang, what's she doing? But then at that moment, I'm going, oh, I do have to eat, right?

Well, yeah. What you're saying is initially by your character, that would be annoying.

Yes.

But you've come to realize not to allow the annoying to happen. Even that might be your instant reflection or your instant moment. But then you get over it super quickly because you know she's doing it, because if she doesn't, something else is going to fall off. There's going to be a deficit somewhere else because she knows you're going to be bobbing all over the place, and she knows it's something that you need to keep yourself healthy.

Yes.

And I can relate to that because Jesse will be up there, and when he starts creating and getting in a flow, he'll be up there for eight hours. You haven't gone to the bathroom. You need to get up right now and come downstairs because he'll. Oh, I've been up here for eight hours.

Yeah.

That's called focus.

And flow.

And flow. Focus and flow can also come with challenges, like Lisa says, like Arlene's doing what Arlene's doing with you, Shaundell. And what Lisa's doing with me, we call those pattern interrupts.

Yes.

You need that pattern interrupt to interrupt that pattern that you're in because it's time for you to take your meds. It's time for you to stretch. It's time for you to go to the rest. It's time for you to get a quick nibble. It's time for you to separate from that and then bring a stronger you back.

Jess, I want to talk to the men for a minute because you and I, I think we figured this out. But a lot of men don't, Right? They think they're being bossy. They're being, you know, challenging. They're. They're, you know, and especially I tell my sons that all the time. I said, so you want somebody that's gonna do what you want all the time, and no disruptions, no friction, none of that. Right, right. And I always tell them, I said, you know, you want somebody that's gonna look out for your best interest, but when they're looking out for your best interest, are you gonna get frustrated and upset over them looking out for you? That's what happens sometimes is that sometimes that's what people do.

They get.

I know, I know. My sons get frustrated. They're like, she's trying to be bossy. I'm like, so what does she ask you to do? Oh, she told me to go. She told me to take the trash out. Okay, well, you know, that's. That's gonna ruin your relationship because you have to take the trash out. So it's things like that that are really, you know, really disturbing sometimes.

No, it's huge. So that's a mindset shift that needs to happen to your point.

Right.

So that's good. I really like that. Well, I tell you, I hoping people are getting some value from this. This is the whole point of that. And we want to do a quick commercial break for the Breakthrough Success Plan. Just quick. Do you have anything you want to share about the Breakthrough success plan? That April 15 thing that's coming up too.

Just save the date April 15 from 9 to 10am Jesse and I will be doing a short demo of what the Breakthrough Success Plan is. And it's to help entrepreneurs that are at home right now. And it's a very small, special, once in a lifetime offer.

Right.

And it's how do they register?

At least they register.

Where do they register?

On the Urban Chamber website or go to my social media and there's a link with an advertisement with Jesse and I standing there. And they can go register through that link.

And this is gonna be very, very powerful because what we want them to do is we want them to while they're at home now. And there's a lot more time. They don't have drive time anymore. They don't have commute time. They don't have people in their faces taking up time. The only people that are in front of them are the people that they place in front of them now. So this is an excellent time for them to grow the power of their emotional intelligence, to learn what their leadership development is to figure out how to create opportunities. And all that is going to be offered at an absolutely phenomenal rate based on yourself and Ken Evans as the two of you are the reason for that, or we wouldn't be making such. Such sacrifices for that.

You know what's great? What's great about it? Is that this. Here's what I want people to understand, is that before Arlene and I came together, we both had to understand our individual selves. Right. And so. And then you can be better together.

Right.

And I think what's important is everybody who's out there right now who is struggling with either knowing yourself or. Or knowing your partner or collectively, you should watch it. You should. You should be a part of this with your partner even. Because once you start understanding a lot more about yourself, like, and just. Just to give you an idea, like, we are. We are. We have been. We have done many different profiles. And I'm gonna have Arlene do the profile that you guys deal with me. And we've always been direct opposites. Right?

Right.

So I'm the. I'm the big vision, big thinker, all of those things. She's kind of the detail, Stay in the pocket, do this kind of thing. So naturally, we should have some friction. We should have something that is a challenge. But I think what the key is is respecting each other's personality, respecting your characteristics, understanding why you fell in love with that person in the first place.

Right.

That's huge.

Going back. So that's going back to getting. Understanding your character and understanding the characters of the people that you are close to. A lot of times we're close to one another, and we don't even get them. We don't really fully get them. So the color code says, when you get self, you get others. So those four distinctions of the colors that we all either have, we might even have some absence of a particular color. If you're absence of a particular color, that means that's part of your character that's not going to be showing up.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Let me do the commercial. Let me do the commercial. Listen, if you want a breakthrough, you have to do this. April 15th. Don't think about taxes. Don't think about anything else. You want a breakthrough? You're coming. You're going to be a part of it. UrbanChamber.org find us on Brothers in Conversation, Lisa Farrell's Facebook page. Any which way you can make that marriage better, if you want to be happy like us, this is where you get the breakthrough.

I think this broadcast is over. Well done. Well played. Well played. I like that.

Well played.

Round of applause.

Round of applause. Well played.

Well played.

Well, what would you. So that's good, Shauna. Thank you. So, enough about that. So as we start to bring this to a close, what would you share with people out there right now that are Sequestered at home, working and living at home 24 7. What would you share with them that. That could be some sort of a recommendation to make that a better.

Communicate. They need to communicate.

Communicate with each other.

Communicate. Love it and communicate and it will change your life.

And leave the emotion over here and just have a conversation when you communicate.

Right.

In other words, create effective communication, not just making sound.

Right? Yes.

That's huge. That's pretty universal right there, Arlene. That really is. You know what I believe that is the number one breakdown that most relationships have is the lack of effective communication.

Right.

And acceptance. I mean, you got it, and I think you just got to have it. You know, you have acceptance. See, she, she, she loves beating me in phase 10. So she, she gotta have that moment where she's like, you know, let's play phase 10, honey.

Right.

That's kind of like. That's kind of like the assassin holding the gun behind their back. Like, how are you?

She's like, you going down? That's what it is.

Right. Right. Fair enough.

Well, listen, do we want to say a quick hello to a few people and then we close this out?

Sure, sure. Who we got?

We don't have to do all of them. Just a few.

We have my mother.

Hello. Mitch Porter.

Hey.

Dirk Hansen.

Hello, Dirk.

Mary Gallimore.

Okay.

Sandra Diaz. Patricia Newell Shondell Newsom. Okay, let's see.

Of course.

Tony Donato. Donna Del Porto.

Hey, Tony. Nice to meet you. Donna del Porto.

Raven McSwain.

I see Raven on there. Brandon Ward. I see Brandon Ward on there.

Okay.

Oh, is it you guys? Anniversary. Somebody said happy anniversary.

That's for the show.

The show.

Oh, that's for the show.

Okay.

That's our one year anniversary.

Oh, it's our one year anniversary.

That's right.

Me and Jess.

Right. Push them out the picture, she gives.

You one of those.

Rosemary Carroll is out there, too. Hello to Rosemary Carroll. She's in Rochester, New York.

Let's see.

I think that's all I can see on my. Oh, Paula Jackson. Paula's out there, too.

Hey, Paula.

Yay.

So, well, so this is good. We will close this now. And with any fortune, people can find some nuggets of value from this.

Sam.