How to be a POWER COUPLE...7 Tips to have a Strong BUSINESS and MARRIAGE.

What is up? In this video, what I want to share with you are 7 tips for being a power couple in your marriage. Again, this is not a video that I typically make things on, but I made our video on how we married for business, and from that came a lot of questions. Um, you know, what do you guys do? How do you— what are your habits? What are the things you do on a daily basis, etc., etc.? And so I want to just say disclaimer because I am not a marriage expert. I don't claim to be, and this is not a topic that I like present on or talk on a ton. I decided that I was just going to look at our marriage and kind of dissect it for what has caused it to have such success so that we have success not only in our personal lives with our contentness of our relationship, but also within the business and the results that we're able to drive together. And so we just honestly have a really fantastic partnership, and I know a lot of you have been asking about it. And so I'm going to share with you the principles and just the, the pieces that have led to that success. So, and just so you know, I ran this list past Alex actually as well, and I wanted to see what he thought of it. And so we kind of came to this together because I wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything I was missing or that there was something that he's like, yeah, that's not really it. And so we both agreed on this list. The first piece and the number one principle that I would say is friendship has to come before romance in business. And what I mean by that is friendship is honestly the foundation of any relationship. And so if you're looking at having a life partner, then when you— if you need to be able to work with that person, if you have to be able to open up to that person, if you want to be intimate with that person, then you have to trust that person. You have to like that person. You have to have fun with that person.. And so that all comes from friendship. And that is why I think Alex and I have had a lot of success is that in the beginning, like the one thing I kept saying was like, I'm just so interested in talking to him. Like, I don't want to stop talking to him. And that was because I felt like immediately I had found a best friend and he felt the same way. We didn't stop talking. It wasn't like we were like making out all over the place. And it wasn't like we were drawing up business plans immediately. It was just that we didn't want to stop talking to each other. We didn't want to stop spending time with each other. And so that's the first principle is putting your friendship ahead of everything else, because that is going to give you the security to embrace all the other pieces. Like, yes, there's relationships in which they're built on just romance or just business, but that's not a lifelong partnership. A lifelong partnership, you want the foundation of the friendship. It gives you security, it gives you trust, it gives you likability, it gives you mutual things to build the rest upon. And especially for intimacy on the romance side, if you're not feeling like you can open up or trust somebody or have fun with them and laugh with them, then like, how are you gonna have an amazing sex life? Like, I'm really asking that because I just don't know. And same with the business side. It's like, how are you supposed to show up every day, fight the risks, and show up to all the chaos that the business brings if you don't feel like you have a strong foundation with that person? If you don't feel like you're friends, if you feel like you're enemies and butting heads, this shit isn't going to work. And so that's the first one, is you have to be friends. The second one is that you have to be able to be transparent with your partner without emotionally dumping on your partner. And listen, Ladies are notoriously fucking terrible at this because you know how women bond most of the time. If you go to a group of women, you bond by complaining with each other. That's what they do. They're like, oh, my husband, my kids, my job, blah blah blah. Um, not anyone I hang out with, but a lot of women, that's how they bond with each other. And so what a lot of women do is they want to bond with their husband. They're like, let me just fucking emotionally dump on you all day, every day. And I do not think that works. That is why I suggest a lot of people, like, find groups of friends, get a therapist. Um, find a mentor. Like, there are other people that you can talk to about your problems. Now, I think that you want to be transparent with your partner. You have to let them know, like, hey, I'm struggling with this stuff right now. Like, I'm not going to complain, I'm not going to dump it on you, but like, I'm struggling with some stuff. That doesn't mean that you need to vent to them. And in actuality, I think that venting to your partner just perpetuates you feeling like shit, because what happens is you already feel like shit, and then you tell your partner that you feel like shit, and so then they treat you like you're feeling like shit, which then you continue to feel like shit, shit, shit, shit. And so I actually am not really a fan of venting, taking out anger, anything like that. I think it perpetuates the cycle of feeling bad. If I feel bad, I will tell people I feel bad, and then I will take care of myself. I will learn to self-soothe. And so I think that's a really important skill to have, is not relying on your partner to make you feel better by taking the brunt of your venting or by, you know, relying on them to soothe you when you don't feel well. You have to be able to do it for yourself. And that's the second thing. The third thing is physical affection. And I think that this section that I think I struggled with in the beginning of my relationship with Alex, because we started working together from the beginning, and so I really tried to keep it professional in front of a lot of other people because I didn't want to seem like, oh, we're like making out all over each other, this is weird, I don't want to be like part of their company, they're just like this married couple, like I don't take them seriously. I had all these defeating thoughts. Alex was always really good about this and really good about little gestures. And so I have come to learn and trained myself— I want to say like 3 years ago I really made an intentional effort to train myself like when is it appropriate? And when it is appropriate, allow yourself to express your love with physical gestures. And so, you know, for Alex, it might be tapping my ass when nobody's around. For me, it might be, you know, scratching his shoulders, rubbing his hair, giving him a kiss on the cheek. And I think that a lot of the times, especially when you're working together and you're showing up as like a power couple, that soft side gets missed. And it's taken a ton of intentional effort from us to be able to create that soft side for each other. And that is the part that I love so much because it doesn't come naturally when you're both like go-getters, career-driven, oriented, ambitious people. Like, you're always in that masculine energy. And I think that it actually behooves you not to embrace that soft side and just being really sweet and loving and caring to each other. And so even in, you know, meetings now and when we're doing things, like, I'll make sure to try and just show him, like, when we're passing by each other, just like scratch his back, grab his hand, give him a kiss on the cheek, like, when I know it's appropriate and there's nobody like staring at us, we're not on, you know, on guard with the rest of our team. And that really contributes to, I think, a great relationship because it just says, hey, I know that we're not in the best setting right now to do this, but I just want you to know that I love you. And it's expressing it with physical affection. The fourth thing, um, which is incredibly important for anyone that wants to be a— I don't even know how to say this— like, wants to aspire to be a power couple is showing up united and keeping the friction in the background. And this means that That's for, uh, your company, that's for your kids, that's for your friends. And so Alex and I, in the very beginning of our relationship, talked about this in the sense of we will never fight, uh, talk ill of each other, or put each other down in front of anyone else. If we ever have anything we need to address with each other, we're always going to do it behind the scenes. We're always going to take care of it in private first, and then we will show up as a united front. And so there have been far and few times that we have showed up to the company and been on different pages. And when we have, I can remember 2 times in the history, which has been, you know, 5 and a half years that we've been working together and married, there's been 2 times. And I know that we shoot, we showed up and we were not united. And I felt terrible because this is what happens is that whether it's your team or your kids, it's the exact same shit, which is they think I have to take sides. Who am I listening to? Whose side am I taking? And so it doesn't just divide you with your partner, it divides your company. It It divides your family. It divides anybody who's watching. And so it's very unfair to show up that way. And so just as we have to be able to compromise in relationships— Alex and I always say if we don't agree, we're not going to move forward. We always figure out those agreements in the background so that when we show up to the team, we show up to our friends, we show up to whoever it is, like we're on the same page. And here's the fucking thing: if you're not on the same page, or they say something in front of, say, your team or your kids, and you were not on board with it, do not tell them that in front of those fucking people. I see this so often. It's like spouses will just call each other out in front of their team. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, do not do that. Say something on the back end. So you might be like, oh wait, can you explain that further? And they might say something, you might be like, fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck? Like, we didn't agree on that. Don't talk about it then. Don't say it in front of the team. Don't disrespect your spouse. Don't be mean in front of them. Don't get resentful or, you know, built up. Just think, I will address this later. Like, it's not going to like go into action all of a sudden because I haven't addressed it in front of the entire fucking team. And so I think that that goes hand in hand, which is you cannot address things like that. You have to address things in the background, keep the friction in the background, show up united to your team and to your kids. The fifth piece is— it goes along with communication, but this saying is something that always resonates with me. It's something that we've always applied to our marriage, which is you always want to— you never want to sacrifice short-term discomfort for long-term dysfunction. And so what I mean by that is most marriages end up ending because they continuously say, I do not want to be uncomfortable in this moment, today, this week, etc., so I will not tell my spouse something. And it just continues to build up and build up and build up, and you have this trash can full of shit. And then one day you're like, I gotta take the trash can out, and it's really fucking heavy and you can't even get it off the driveway. And so that's how I view most marriages, is they just have these trash cans full of shit that they've never told each other, they've never said, and it's because they don't want to be uncomfortable in the moment. Alex and I do not do that. One thing is like, people are like, oh, do you guys ever fight? It's like, we never have big fights because we are okay having little tiffs. And I'm okay even having little tiffs when other people are around. I'm okay with other people seeing, etc., because it's natural friction. And so when I say natural friction, Don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean it's big friction, we're disagreeing on something. It just might be like, oh, I prefer this, you prefer that, like, eh, and we have a little tiff and then it goes away. And so it's not something that I'm afraid to talk about or share or do with him because I know that if we don't talk about things, we don't have little rubs in the moment, then in the backend, we're going to have dysfunction in our marriage because what happens with most marriages, they just build up resentment, resentment, resentment. That's why I'm pretty sure like 90% of women I meet, within the first 2 hours of meeting them, all they do to me is complain about their husbands. And I'm like, have you told him any of this? And it's like, well, no, he's not changing. I'm like, maybe you should fucking change. Like, this is ridiculous. And I'm not to say that men don't do that too, because men do do that as well. But I think that women tend to confide in me more because I am a woman. You always have to make sure that you're going to never sacrifice the short-term discomfort because you're just going to end up with long-term dysfunction. That's how divorces happen. Right? And I am— let me tell you, me and Alex talked about the other day, we're like, we're both so terrified of getting divorced that we're like, I will always tell you if something's wrong. I will tell you if something's bugging me. I will tell you if I'm annoyed with something. I will tell you in the moment. And so we don't have a tolerance for building things up like that. So that's the fifth piece. Now the sixth piece is something that I told myself I would do in our marriage, and it's something that I have stuck to, always trying my hardest to do, which is always taking the blame first. I do not see a situation in which I will benefit from saying that Alex needs to take the blame and that I should, you know, be the one that's the victim of the situation. I always think to myself, there's 3 questions I ask, okay? Whenever there's something that I'm annoyed with, when it's something that I'm mad about, when something— anything, right? I need to self-reflect before I could talk to Alex about it. And most of the time it's: 1, how did I contribute to this situation? 2, how do I need to adapt or grow for this situation to resolve itself? Or 3, what would my mindset need to be for this not to be a problem? And so I think a lot of the times we create problems in our minds with our spouse, in our relationships, in the, you know, things that we're embracing on a day-to-day, and they're not problems for one. It's just that we have maybe a fixed mindset about something. Maybe something makes us uncomfortable and so we take it out on our spouse. Maybe something they do makes us uncomfortable and so we get You know, scared and insecure. And so we take it out on them. And so I think that we have to say, I need to take the blame first. Otherwise we're going to default to blaming them. And that does not lead to a happy marriage and least of all to a power couple dynamic, right? Power couple dynamic is when two people build each other up. You have two positives. You don't have a passive and a dominant. You have two dominant people who feed each other, who pour into each other and build each other up so you can both grow.. And you do not get that by blaming the other person. Now, the last thing, this is something that we said right when we got married, which we said, what are the, what is the principle that we can apply to our marriage to ensure a lifetime of happiness together? And it was 4 words, which is high commitment, low expectations. Okay. We have incredibly high commitment to each other. We're like, we don't talk about divorce. We don't say it like it's an option. We don't say, we're like, we both want a long-term relationship. We want to be partners for life, et cetera, et cetera. So we don't talk about anything like that. We're like, our commitment is extremely high, we are monogamous, we're together, etc. We're very loyal. However, our expectations are low. Instead, we put the expectations on ourselves. And so here's the thing, is that I can put my— the expectations on only myself because I cannot control Alex, and I will never try to control Alex. And Alex cannot control me, and he will never try to control me. But we can control ourselves. And if you can trust that your partner has very high expectations of themselves as spouse, as partner, as a person in business, as a human in general, then you can do the same for yourself and you don't need to worry about them. They're doing the best that they can. And so you are committed to each other and you have loyalty for each other, but you do not have unrealistic expectations of each other because you cannot control another person. You should only have expectations about things that you can control. You cannot control your spouse. You should not try to control your spouse. If you want to control your spouse, if you want to change your spouse, Go marry somebody else. That's what I would say. And so those are honestly the 7 things that we have found, what have led to the success of our relationship. Okay, so the first one is that you have to put friendship first above all else, because friendship is the foundation. The second one is that you need transparency without emotionally dumping on your partner. They can't be your diary. Make a diary, right? Find a therapist, have friends, talk to other people about things, right? The third, physical affection, making sure that you're always showing your love for somebody. The fourth is keeping friction behind the scenes, not in front of people. So when you have a disagreement, don't do it in front of your kids or your company. It's the biggest thing. Kids, company, do it in the background. The fifth is not sacrificing short-term discomfort for long-term dysfunction. So that's saying you can't be afraid though to disagree with your spouse. You have to be able to address things in the moment so that you don't end up resentment and all this garbage that you can't even haul off the driveway. And then the sixth is how to take blame first. You have to be able to take blame first. You have to be able to self-reflect before you've talked to your spouse about something or before you allow yourself to indulge in a negative emotion around your spouse. And then lastly, you want to make sure that you have high commitment, low expectations, because the only thing that you can actually control is yourself. And so it makes sense to only have expectations of yourself. So I hope that video was useful. Um, obviously we're not perfect. We've only been married for 5 and a half, uh, almost 6 years, but these things have worked for us and they've worked really well. And we both really love our relationship. And a lot of you have asked the questions. So go ahead, drop some more questions that you have about our relationship down there, or maybe things that you want to know, uh, how we do or how we mitigate or how we navigate through our relationship that maybe you're looking to do in your own if you work with your spouse, or even if you just consider yourself to be a power couple. And so that is all I have for you today. Hopefully I will see you on the next one. Have a great Thursday, Tuesday, Monday, Wednesday, whatever day it is.