MBA1000 Q&A Wednesday: How Do You Work & Live With Your Significant Other?
2 Feb 2026 · 12 min
Omar Zenhom and Nicole Baldinu answer a listener question about working and living together. They offer six tips: keep personal space, share account access, believe in each other, maintain outside interests, focus on the advantages, and make sure both partners are equally committed.
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Heyo. Welcome to the $100 MBA show where you master the art of business with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar MBA, a business training and community online over at 100mba.net and today's episode is episode 1000. This is a very special milestone for a podcast and I'm joined here with my producer, my co founder and partner in life, Nicole Baldinu.
Hey, hey, hey. Yes. I'm so happy to be joining you today, Omar. This is epic. 1000 is a big number. You know, when we started the show, I don't think I imagined this day, but here we are and as usual, we're not here to mess about today we still have a great lesson in store for you. What are we going to do today, Omar?
Yes, that's right. Today is Q and A Wednesday where we answer a question from our listeners. And today we're tackling a question we get asked a lot.
Like a lot a lot. We get it all the time. But it's a totally valid question.
Yes, that's right. So today we'll be answering the question, how do you live and work with your significant other? A lot of people wonder, you know, how do you work with the person that you live with and see every single minute of the day? Don't you guys want to kill each other by the end of the day? This is a question we get asked a ton of times and we want to address it. We want to talk about some of the things that we keep in mind and we want to share with you some great tips when it comes to working with your significant other. So what we're going to do is Nicole's going to share her three top tips, and I'll share my three top tips when it comes to working with your partner in life. We've got a lot to cover in today's very special episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. All right? Working and living with your partner in life. We're going to be sharing the top tips, the top things that have worked for us over the years. We're going to get started with Nicole, her three top tips. So I'm going to pass it on to her. Go ahead, Nicole.
All right, tip number one, Be like a pot plant. What do I mean by this? Well, think about it. Like a plant. You have a pot, right? Your space, your roots that grow as you grow. And you need the sun to grow, so you face the sun. Therefore, you and your partner should be facing the same direction. That sun helps you and your business grow, but you have to have your own little space. You don't want to cramp each other's personal space because that can get stifling. So each of you should have individual pots. You're growing together, but separately, if you know what I mean. Well, let's take an example. So Omar and I, we work in the same physical location, but we can each go to our own corners, so to speak. We wire in with our headphones, we focus on our own tasks whenever we want. And then whenever we need to, like, regroup, meet, make decisions, we set those meeting times in the calendar just like we would with any other meeting with a colleague. We also make decisions individually so we don't have to meet to discuss every single matter. And if a mistake is made, well, that's okay. That person owns it, they learn from it, and then together, you move on. Okay, let's move on to tip number two. Tip number two is be in the know of everything. You have to know what the other person does or all their to dos, all their responsibilities. And you have to have access to all the accounts you need to run your business. So Omar and I, with our team, we use LastPass so we can share logins to different accounts that we use. And this way, if one of us falls ill, has an emergency, or needs to take care of something on both our behalves, because after all, you do share a life together, so then the other person is able to step in really quickly and take care of business. If you tuned into last week's show, you would have noticed that I stepped in for two episodes because Omar was out sick. So I'm close enough to all the elements of the show that I could just keep it going so that the show doesn't skip a beat. All right, now for my tip number three, you have to believe in the other person with all your heart. Now, that might sound a little bit woo woo, but kind of like number one, you have to be on the same page and you have to be moving forward in the same direction for your business to grow and be nurtured. But this can only happen if you believe in the other person. So there might be decisions made that you yourself may not be 100% in agreeance with, but you have to trust and believe that your partner has your back, has the business's back, and that they have your support unconditionally.
We said six tips, so here are my three top tips when it comes to working with your significant other. So tip number four. Have personal interests outside of work. This reminds you and your partner that you're an individual and you need to cultivate your own interests and goals. So for Nicole and I, Nicole loves flamenco dancing. She's been doing it for years, and it's kind of her escape, it's kind of what she does so she can do something on her own that's all about her. And for me, I really enjoy playing basketball on the weekends with my friends or going to the gym. So that's my space, my place where I like to go, where I get to be only me, just myself. And by having these, this reinforces the idea that, yes, you're a couple, yes, you work together, you're business partners, your partners in life, but you're still individuals in this world. Tip number five, focus on the advantages of working and living together. At times, I think it's weird that you don't work with your significant other. When you work with your significant other, you have empathy for each other. You understand what they're going through. They completely get why you're having a tough day. There's a sense of synergy, of energy between each other because you know what's going on in your daily life. And work is a big part of your life. You get to have time off together. That's a huge advantage, as well as the fact that you get to support and trust each other. I can't think of anybody else who'd want what's best for me other than Nicole.
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All right, our final tip. Tip number six on working with your life partner and this one's a biggie. This will only work when there's no compulsion in being a part of the business. You both must want to be in the business together. You both must be committed to the work. If this is not the case, this is going to cause a lot of resentment between each other. One person is working more than the other, so they feel a sense of resentment. Or one person just doesn't care as much as the other person when it comes to the business as a whole. You both have to want it bad. You both have to want it equally and in the same breath. You both must share the same vision for the business. You both must have the same definition of success because you're working towards something and you both have to have the same goal in mind. Otherwise this is just not going to work. You're going to have some hard times in your business, some struggles, and you're not going to be able to get through them if you're not both solidly committed. All right, so those are six tips when it comes to working with your significant other. Let's recap real quick.
Tip number one was be like a pot plant. So you're in your individual pots, you're growing in your individual pot, but you're facing the same direction. Tip number two, you have to be in the know of everything. That means you have to know each other's tasks and responsibilities so that if need be, you can step in and take care of those while the other person's out. Tip number three was believe in the other person with all your heart. I think that one's pretty self explanatory.
Tip number four, have personal interests outside of work so you could feel like an individual. Tip number five, focus on the advantages of working and living together. And tip number six, this only works when you're both on board, you both have the same goals, and both want to be in the business together. All right, that wraps up today's lesson. Today's epic episode 1000. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. Even though we're on episode 1000, we're still just getting started. More episodes to come every single day. Let us know what you love about the show in an itunes rating and review. And don't forget, every Friday we have free Ride Friday where we do a weekly random draw with anybody who's left us an itunes rating and review to see who won a free ride to one of our programs. This month we're giving away easy course, which is a $500 course on how to build an online course in 30 days. All you got to do is leave us an itunes rating interview to enter the draw. All right, before we go, we want to leave you with this. We want to share with you the one thing that each of us has learned over the course of publishing a thousand podcast episodes. So I'll let Nicole go first with her takeaway.
Oh, thanks, Omar. That's a hard one. I feel like I've learned so much over a thousand episodes. But I think the one thing that really stands out for me is that if you want something bad enough, you'll figure out a way to get it. If I think back to episode one, I didn't have any broadcasting experience. You know, we weren't podcasters. We were fairly new to the space, and I had to teach myself how to edit before we brought on Carl, our full time sound engineer. So there's so much that we've learned to do along the way just in doing and producing the show. So what I've learned is that if you really want something bad, you'll figure out a way and how to do it.
My takeaway is that it takes a long time to get good at something to really refine your craft. So I look back at, you know, the first hundred, 200, 300 episodes. Sometimes when I listen back, I cringe because I feel like, man, was I such a rookie. But it just takes a lot of repetition to get good at something. And so that just reminds me, you just have to have patience. I think right now where the show is with our audience, they're awesome. The listenership that we have, the quality of the episodes, I feel it's just a direct result of just staying at it and all those episodes that we've published in the past. So if you want to be great at something, have patience. All right, so that's today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. So make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss Tomorrow's episode. Episode 1001. Thank you so much for listening.
Thanks, Omar and thanks everyone for listening to today's episode And a big, big.
Thank you to our entire team that make this show happen. This is a team effort and together we're able to produce every single episode for the podcast. All right, I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. Until then, take care.
Sam.
