Should I Work with My Spouse or Not? – Ask Clay Anything

Audio Transcription

I’m often asked by people with business coach clients should I or should I not work with my spouse, should I or should I not work with my brother, should I or should I not work with family? We’re really whether they’re family or not. The question we really shouldn’t be asking is, should I work with diligent for negligent people because nothing works unless you do and your people do grabbed the duck tape and mentally prepare yourself for yet another mind-expanding knowledge bomb from America’s number one business coach, Clay Clark.

Hello and welcome back to another exciting business coach edition of the thrive time show on your radio and podcast download. I’m your host with the most captain clay, Tiberius Clark, and on today’s show I’m. I’m walking on the river here that runs in front of our behind our thrive time show world headquarters. If you look it up online, the address is 1100 riverwalk terrorists, one, one zero, zero riverwalk terrorists, and I’m going to attempt to help somebody out there because I got an email from somebody that said, what do I need to do if I constantly feel overwhelmed and my wife will not call the sales leads again, it’s what do I need to do if I feel overwhelmed and my wife will not call my sales leads? Well, let me start by saying this. I have a very functional, healthy win-win, mutually agreeable relationship with my wife and working with my wife because we started our first business together, Dj connection.

I started Dj connection when I was in my dorm room at oral Roberts University. While I was dating her. I’m recording today’s business coach podcast well wearing basketball shorts and a below freezing weather as we’re experiencing this polar vortex thing. I went through. I got up at three in the morning, but when I started DJ connection, I get up at three in the morning every day to get the work done. Before class I got up at 3:00 AM every day and then I went to class and I got up at 3:00 AM every day. Worked out with my friend Eugene Willis. I called him black thunder. He called me white lightning. I am the palest male you’ll ever know. He is super dark skin. Picture it the pale male white lightning. Working out with black thunder every morning, working out every single morning, working out at 5:00 AM every morning. I got up at 3:00 AM every morning.

Did I want to know? Did I want the results? Yes. Which is why I was in great physical shape because I worked out every single day that I want to get up. No. Did I get up? Yes. Did I want the result of being fit? Yes. Did I get up every day? Yes. Did I want to get up? No. Let’s review. I woke up at what time? Three. I am. What time did I go to bed? Nine. Nine. I was a college student going to bed at 9:00 at night. Why? Because that’s the only time that I could work out and work on my business because I had another job. I’m working at target, applebee’s direct TV. I’m going to oral Roberts University. I’m waking up at three in the morning every day, every day and working out every day. I’m doing this podcast with you right now while wearing shorts outside in the polar vortex weather outside the of our building here at 1100 riverwalk.

Terrorists in jinx. Do I want to be outside right now? Wearing shorts, walking outside and the polar vortex? No, but why am I. Why am I out here recording this? Because somebody has asked this question and apparently they want this answer and I have committed to answer their question and the studio is currently being used. So I’m using my phone to record this podcast because I give a crap about helping this person. But do I want to be outside recording right now while I’m freezing? No. Do I enjoy freezing? No. Why am I doing it? Because this is the only quiet place I can get to right now, and I promised this person that I would send them this particular podcast today. So what time did I wake up in college? Three. What time did I work out at five tonight? I want to do it.

No. So my wife and I have a great relationship together working together because my wife has no problems with delaying gratification and doing something that she doesn’t want to do to get the results that she wants. So Vanessa is somebody who does our accounting faithfully every month, every month. She makes that payroll every month. She balances a business coach budget every month. She looks at those tax strategies every month. She looks after the legal aspects of the business. Our company, just like every company has offense and defense, offense being, marketing, sales, branding, that kind of thing. The service itself, the product design, and then we have defense. Whereas which is accounting. That’d be the legal aspects of the business, the administrative aspects of the company. And my wife does a freaking awesome job at that, but the only reason I have her do that job is because she’s awesome at it and she is willing to, she is willing to delay gratification.

So as you hear my voice shivering and quivering because I’m freaking cold out here, um, it’s me delaying gratification or experiencing something that I don’t want to do to get the result that I want. I want to give this person this podcast as I promised I’m, but I don’t have time to do it in the studio right now because the studio is currently being used and so I’m outside doing something that I don’t want to do, but the person that seeks pleasure and all costs has no money. The person who seeks pain avoidance at all costs has no money. The person who could not delay gratification, she began to get out of these conversations. If your spouse and your house cannot call the leads or won’t call the leads or doesn’t care about calling, the leads don’t have gotten leads. Furthermore, I don’t understand why so many people want to work with their spouse.

If your spouse wants to work with you and they’re willing to delay gratification than you should work with your spouse, but if your spouse doesn’t want to, they shouldn’t have to. Another example, I love football. I love the Patriots. I love watching football. We’ll imagine that I played for the Patriots and I was a running back and I wanted my wife to play with me. That doesn’t make any sense like my wife shouldn’t have to be on the team just because I’m on the team and my wife shouldn’t have to work in the front office for the Patriots just because I liked the team or play on the team. It doesn’t make any sense. If I worked at chick filet, I got a job at chick fil a chick fil a. If I worked there, my spouse doesn’t have to work there as well. Furthermore, I’d probably be weird in most scenarios if you brought your spouse to work every day, he just don’t need that kind of drama, that kind of your life.

So if you’re out there today and you’re saying, what do I need to do? How can I get my spouse who lives in my house to do their job? I hate to break it to you, but people change. Seldom and diligent people always win, and so if you’re married to somebody who’s not diligent, the worst thing you could possibly do is to have them call your sales leads because if you have somebody who’s not dilligent calling your sales leads, you’re going to go broke. Andrew probably going to break up. You’re going gonna, go broke and you’re gonna break up. You’re going to have a constant frustration in every conversation because there’ll be this constant irritant that your spouse who lives in your house is not calling their leads. So again, I would ask yourself, today is the spouse that lives in my house, the person that I need to work with, they might be a great husband, a great mom, a great dad.

He might be great at making food great at putting the kids to bed. They might be great in a lot of things, but it doesn’t mean they’re going to be great at calling your sales leads and apparently from what I’m getting here, it sounds like that this person in this particular situation is married to someone who does not want to call the leads, so whether that’s your spouse or your best friend or your brother or any relative at all, if they are not willing to do whatever it takes and to delay gratification, don’t work with them and don’t compare yourself to my wife and I because our dynamic is very different. We started the businesses and we’ve grown them together, so if I married my wife, if I married somebody 10 years after I had built my success, they probably wouldn’t have as much of an appreciation for the things I have built in. I probably wouldn’t work with my spouse, so I would say an 85 percent of the cases with clients that I’ve coached with. The worst thing they could do for their marriage is to work with their spouse. My name is Clay Clark. I’m freezing. I’m shivering when I got it. Three, two, one, boom.