How to Work with Your Spouse

Audio Transcription

Chuck, did you know that only 17% of couples are content with their partner according to psychology today? That’s sad. Did you know that 78% of men surveyed in a Washington Post article admit to having cheated on their spouse? That’s awful. And my friend, are you aware that according to psychology today, well over 50% of marriages end in a divorce or separation? That is terrible. Well, we have good news chupp. I’ve been married for 18 years. How many years have you been married? 11 years. I’ve been happily married for 18 of those years. And how many years have you been happily my 11 years. All right. You want to have a great marriage. You wouldn’t have a great business if you want to have success with your faith, family, finances, fitness, friendship, and fun. Today’s show is for you. My name is Clay Clark. I built six multimillion dollar companies. But more importantly, I’m a happy father of five incredible kids and I’ve been married to an incredible life for 18 years and a successful business coach. So here we go.

yes, yes and yes. My baseball. The back to the exciting edition of the thrive time show on your radio and podcast download. Chupp, on today’s business coaching show. What are we talking about? We’re going to be talking about working with your spouse. You grew up in a home where your mom, Yup. This is Justin. How can I show Eric Chop business coach grew up in our home on tomorrow night’s show up. The weather. No chump. I want to ask you, you didn’t grow up in a home where your mom and dad ran a business. He ran a business and not asking you to throw your parents under the bus. Nobody’s perfect. I just wanted to ask you, what kinds of conflicts can happen when a husband and wife work together that you, maybe you’ll remember or maybe you’ve, you’ve seen what kind of conflicts can’t happen whenever he had his is right.

It’s everything. Planning, the vision of the business coach company. What has to happen today? Uh, did you get this done for me? Oh, it was all out on the job site. I didn’t see it. I mean, it’s everything that can happen and it just comes back down to communication. They ran a business for 34 years, I believe it’s are still happily married to this day. So what I want to do is I’m going to give the listener some homework, right? I’m gonna give you some homework and I want you to get out a sheet of paper and I want you to write down your goals this year for the following six areas. I’m driving my car. Well, you got to pull over maybe or you just got to write it. I don’t want to write it down. Give it a ketchup packet square. You go in there. I don’t know what you got to get an edge of sketch, you know, do it.

You got to do, get out of I receipt, pull on over. Getting that, getting that, getting the shoulder, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wouldn’t a chisel. Whenever you have to do right now, I want you to write down, write down these. The flip, the following six F’s right down faith, write down family, write down finances, right down fitness, right down the word friendship and fun. It’s faith, family, finances, fitness, friendship, fun. And uh, we’re going to refer to these multiple times. Have you missed it? But you can come back to it. But this what we’re going to do, I want you to write down your goals for your faith this year and it’s so important. You have goals for your faith. And I would say goals also that relate to specific times in your schedule because John Maxwell, the Christian leadership author and a bestselling author of the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership and other books, the renowned speaker, former pastor, he says, what gets scheduled?

What, what, what gets scheduled gets done. What gets scheduled gets done. Lee Cockerell, the former executive vice president of Walt Disney world resorts who, who’s not a former pastor. He also points out that what gets scheduled gets done on behalf of captain obvious. I will tell you what gets scheduled gets done weird. But if you don’t schedule time for what matters, it won’t get done. So if it has, I’m going to start with you and the goals for faith. Could you kind of share as a mother of five kids, what’s your goals are for your faith or the faith of the kids and what that looks like? Yeah.

My number one goal is to lead by example and our family so that the kids can see what it looks like to have your faith lived out. So when they have trying circumstances, they know who to turn to, who they can trust. And that’s God. It can’t be, um, a coach, a friend, even a parent. We all try to do our best, but because we’re human, we’re all going to fail them. So I want them to know that God is the one you can trust. I want when we’re driving by the homeless man, and you know, if I give him $10, I want them to understand, hey, I’m doing this because it’s $10 is from God. And I don’t know what this man is going to do with it. He could go buy drugs. I’m believing he won’t, but God is looking at the heart.

Or, Hey, you have a concern when you’re at practice today and you have a worry. You know, my daughter came back to me the other day and I was so proud of her. She said, I was worried at practice, mom, I was afraid this thing was going to happen. Um, and, and I really didn’t want it to. She goes, so I prayed to Jesus and, and, and the thing she was worried about didn’t come to pass. And I said, do you know what I’m proud of you for? Yes, you did a great job, but I am proud that you pray to Jesus when you were concerned. And so that’s my biggest goal in faith with our family is to lead by example. So that when the kids are thrown out on their own, when they have adversity, they know who to turn to and who they can trust.

And I’m not saying that, uh, um, my wife is wrong on this. I just will tell you what I would, the reality of the situation is Vanessa’s very much that the spiritual leader of our house. Because, um, I, when I see homeless people, I if offered them jobs I have done before. But I, I,

that’s not wrong that there is nothing wrong. I just think that what I’m saying to yourself and what you believe that God wants you to do and so you’re just wrong for you. If you felt like God did not want you to give money, it’d be wrong for you to do it off. Basically

what I’m saying to you, until the Lord wants you to do an acting on it, what I’m saying to you is it, you do what you’re, you definitely follow biblical principles and live them on a daily basis to a much higher standard that I, I’m only good at growing businesses and being funny when the yard good. That is my super power. I can be flooded with. No, no, but seriously, I think, I think that’s one thing that you do a very good job of and I think you’re just as an example of, of giving money to homeless people. Now what I do on a daily basis is, um, I listened to TD Jakes every single morning on the way to work. And I do that because I need to reset every morning. I just listened to TD Jakes messages every single morning. Otherwise I need the, I need to reset and then I never screw people over in business. I don’t do that. Well

that’s what I did. I have a good example because I was really convicted about this. Um, I just realized, you know, I can be having all kinds of different, you know, I’m, if I’m praying and I’m talking to God, like that is wonderful, but like my kids don’t know about that. Right. That’s a relationship that I have with the Lord, whether I’m praying for them or whatever. So I just thought if I am going to, if I see a homeless man and I’m going to pray for him, like I need to pray aloud with the kids in the car and explain what we’re doing. If I have a friend who has a problem and I called them and I want my kids to hear me on the phone, praying for that person and then as hop off and say, yeah, we’re praying for this person. And that is why does that make sense? I want them to be, it’d be a part of their lives. So it’s natural to them and, and they see it lived out and they don’t have to go and learn and develop that later. It’s already part of their existence

and to pile on shelf every time we fire someone. I have my son do it. I just bring him in the 11-year-old. Come on. Auburn needs to speak to you. Oh No. Okay. No. So we were talking about your goals for your faith. We’re thinking about faith that I like to like liken this to um, we talk about with our business coaching clients, learn from mentors, not mistakes, right? So use your faith as that guiding principle and to help you actually live your faith and use it to make those decisions. Yes. You want to make goals for your faith. One of my goals for your family for second time. I just want to Kinda go through these mixed, we have time to hit on all these family you got have a goals for your family. And my goal is to be the best dad ever and to be the best husband ever.

So we’ll go to research, you know we’re going to reach, it’s a vocal grocery store. They haven’t Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ll go in there and a, I’ll say, you know we guys, we got to get Mama a candy bar. And you’re like, why? Cause it’s gotta be organic, gluten-free, handmade by some guys getting well paid. We got to find the most expensive one. They have what’s fight $6 something and let’s get some flowers. And they always say, they used to always say, why? Why are we doing? Is it her birthday dad? Is it her birthday? He’s always dad, why do you always do this going on? And recently they started saying, good job dad, you’re tricking her cause they know I got nothing. I got nothing. I got to, I got. And I think it’s important that you model the behavior that you want your kids to to see.

So again, for my family, those are my goals. Now we move on to this next area for finances, for finances, you’ve got to have goals for your finances and I would just caution you that the acquisition of money to acquire things that you don’t need to impress people that you don’t know should not be a goal. The the, the acquisition of you shouldn’t have a goal to acquire as much crap as you don’t need to ins to wow people that you vaguely know. If you do want to buy luxury cars for you, I’m not hating on you, it’s fine. But I see so many entrepreneurs that are up working seven days a week running all over the country, going to every conference possible scaling their business to the next level for what to buy another car. I, I just, I don’t jump. I don’t understand that idea.

Maybe you do. I don’t know. Maybe you can understand it but I don’t get it. I don’t get like, cause I see people that don’t even, I seem to go by lake houses, they don’t even get to visit because they have a scheduled so crazy. Well, one thing that I’ll always think about when I think about finances as if you don’t set financial goals, you don’t know where your money goes. You’re like, you sit around at the end of the week or the month and you’re like, what? How do I not have any money? And it’s because you’re not intentional about your finances. Now Vanessa does a very good job doing all of our family’s financial planning and uh, it’s, it’s so important in your family. You decide who’s going to do that. You know what lanes I play office, I do the marketing and the sales and the vision also do special teams.

I make sure that whatever service we’re delivering, whether it be haircuts or, uh, you know, business coaching or marketing or whatever, I handle it. I make sure the product is good. But Vanessa is like our defense of mastermind. She focuses on the accounting, the legal aspects, the culture development, making sure we don’t hire any Weirdos shop. I used to love to hire Weirdos. It’s, it’s a, it’s a weird thing, isn’t it? And it would create a truce. I would hire some really weird people and then it would become a weird atmosphere. I used to do that too. It was because I didn’t know how to recruit. But now Vanessa chimes in and says, we don’t need to hire that person. There’s, there’s, there’s no need. But as I’d like for you to chime in about finances and some rules of thumb or tips that you have for our listeners today.

Basically just like, um, the chapter said that you, you, you want to know where all your money is going. So I really think that it’s so simple as go ahead and plan your finances out and then work that plan is, they’re going to be shifts and adjustments along the way. Yes, 100%. But if you don’t start with a plan, you don’t know which direction you’re, you’re, you’re headed in. You want to be proactive and say, okay, um, it looks like we’re going to be bringing in approximately this much money this quarter, so this much should go to taxes, this much, we can invest this much when you put back in the business this much we’re going to live off of. And, and then as you go and, and earring that quarter and you’re the first month and make adjustments as you need to. But, but you have to have a plan.

I’m also going, you go ahead and use a bible verse here. Proverbs 22, seven says the rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. Um, not so much focusing on the rich ruling over, but it really speaks to me. The borrower is a slave to the lender. Uh, you know, debt can work for us. You, you can, you can use loans and it can be very, very helpful. But I think you need to be careful and um, and make sure that the goal is to have things paid off. I truly believe that. I don’t like having to, to answer to anyone because you truly are a slave to whatever loans that you have out. So I think as best you can, um, to, to use it when necessary, it is a tool, but to remember that the Bible does say the borrower is slave to the lender.

And just because you’re talking about facts does it mean we can escape the more shallow business coach principle that you want to be a slave to the group chat. You didn’t have to pay as a Dj and find that beat. I found I be getting that beat and I couldn’t get out of the group gets stuck. There was a slate. Yeah, there you go. I didn’t want to get out. I liked it there.

One thing that we talk about a lot and we’ve talked about in our coaches meetings that we have every morning before we go work with our business coach clients is how terrible consumer debt is. You know, live within your means right now. Don’t go over, extend yourself because that really is where you feel like a slave. You’re in this cycle of debt and you, Oh, and you have to work, work, work, and you never get it

anyway. Yeah. And you know what, when it comes to finances, I always think hope for the best, but plan for the worst because things happen. I mean, did they happen so that, just keep that in mind when you make your plan and you work your plan. Hope for the best, but make that plan with the worst than mine in that tattooed on my arm. That’s good

for the worst. But why would he just said I got to listen to whatever she just said. It’s nice that if math, I’m going to be whatever, then put down it was good. Okay. Now we’re moving onto the fitness goals that fit fitness goals. It’s, you know, it’s so important that you have goals and uh, I’m not ripping on any fitness businesses that are listening, nor am I ripping on anybody out there who’s not in the best shape or anybody. I just want to give you clarity on this idea we have. Uh, if you die, it’s hard to do anything else. You know, and I’ve pretty much, yeah, that’s deep. That’s like six feet under GI. It’s harder to get things done. Tomorrow’s news. The web. No, but the thing is, it’s so important that we think about this, but there are fitness organizations that will try to convince you that you got to go six days a week, man.

Got to man eight days a week bro. Bro, you got to go all in. You have to ah, become almost like that. So your number one focus and then the fitness team where you work out in the morning or in the afternoon or the evening. Now they have like a meetup where you get together with all the people you work out with in the morning at night. And then pretty soon it’s like this big fitness army and now you’ve got to compete in this fitness triathlon together where this fitness challenge together. Yup. And now it’s like every weekend on your schedule you have this obligation of fitness and you say, I’m doing it for my family, for my health. But really if you think about the time that you would extend your life by being healthy and the time that you spent by doing all these obligations, you’d actually not be getting ahead. Right. So I want you to think about your goals and Vanessa, can you talk about your fitness regimen and your, your goals and really just are you

eating it, you know? Okay. So I think there’s different seasons. There were times when I probably, I did work out, you know, like four, five days a week. Yeah. I don’t now I work out two to two times a week and that sounds terrible. Behind. Okay with it. Like huge. That’s great because I just, this is my philosophy on it, Bruh. I counted. But I think that you needed, do whatever you, it’s sustainable for your life. Yeah. So at this season of my life, we are a fricking busy with the, like, I love the five kids. I love their activities. And I know this season isn’t going to be long. I mean, I keep quite knows. I tell him all the time, I’m like, we have four more years of having enough, four more years and it’s it. Yeah, the twins, 10 years and we are done.

I mean, it’s moving so fast and so, um, you know, I, uh, I’m like a huge moderation person, so you’re going to have, see me definitely having chocolate, but I also taught, can’t even handle that. I know. And uh, but two days a week was what works for me. I want to instill healthy habits in our kids. So, um, you know, the, the little ones are in a physical activity on a business coach team, so that’s easy. The older too, right now I’m just like, they run and they do a workout to get it outside and start running. If you’re not in a sport, like they’re going to need to know something to develop their bodies and it’s something they can carry with them their whole lives. Uh, so I mean definitely there’s always room for improvement, but just something that’s going to be sustainable that you can stick to. That’s what I’d recommend. You don’t need to go seven days a week and I feel terrible when you

now I want to, I want to move on now to the friendship goals. Setting goals for your friendships. Um, I have thought long and hard about this. I really do obsess on ideas. And then I, I don’t know why I just get hung up on an idea. Uh, this week the word was iridescent couldn’t get off. That word got stuck on the word for about a week. Vanessa told me she’s thinking of putting in iridescent tiles into our pool in the backyard. And I was going, what does that mean? I got stuck on that. But the, about five years ago, and he’s about five years ago. That’s what knows what the time that you started taking over accounting. Okay. I remember somebody said to me, um, and it wasn’t really our company, but it was, somebody said, I thought we were friends. And I remember going, I wonder what, what?

And they said, I thought we were friends. And I said, can I, I’d like to ask you what do you mean by that? And they’re like, because they were mad. They’re like, I thought we were business coach friends. And what happened was I had to, I had to fire somebody who’s been in my life for a long time and I said, can I would like to get your definition of friends? And the guy says, well, we’d been together a long time. We’ve been, we’ve known each other for years. And I said, well, I, you know, I’ve known of, um, you know, the whereabouts of like a Kanye West for years. I would just, kids I went to school with, they didn’t like if I knew of them for years. I think you have to share and time with someone to be their friends. And I haven’t shared values with you.

I haven’t agreed with your values and how you live for probably five in the last seven years, you know, that’s so I don’t, um, I used to, I think you and I used to have shared values. We used to have things in common, but then it was like, I remember one day you came to work and you, you, you did something that previously you’d never would have done and you had no problem with it. It, it’s like your moral boundary had changed. And then you had another one and another one and another one. And I don’t have any shared values with you next [inaudible] being around you as antagonistic to how I live. And I, and I, I’ve never argued with you, but you argue with me about what I do. And you’ve told me just because clay, just because you believe x, Y, z doesn’t mean I have to.

And I, and I never, I never told you that you had to live that way. Right? But you came to me and started attacking me for my values. And then I remember talking to this person and they were like, why are you so obsessed with everyone getting up early? You don’t have to get up early to be successful. And I remember saying this person, um, I’ve yet to interview anybody on our podcast with the exception of maybe two guests that didn’t get up early in route to their business coach success or does not. So I don’t want to be around me. I don’t want to change my life schedule to accommodate you because you can’t make it on time to an 8:00 AM meeting. Doesn’t mean that I need to just my life to now stay at work until six. Because you want to stay up at night and you’re not having success in your life.

So I don’t want to do that. And, and we were on it. We were on a roll here, I said, and being late, I believe it was an insult to the person that you had waiting on you. Absolutely. And you are, we all make mistakes and we’re late occasionally, but you’re late every time. You don’t do that to friends. You’re right. Every single time. No seriousness, sell. Got To with this guy. I said a rule. I said, well, one of the businesses, I said, if you are late again, this is where it, this is what, this is how this conversation happened. I said, if you are late again for the meeting, I’m going to shut the door when the meeting starts and lock it because whether you’re involved in the business or not, it’s disrespectful and I’m so tired of eight or nine people waiting on you, you’re wasting our time.

Absolutely. And that dude came in late to the next meeting and the door was shut and he’s shaking on and he’s like yelling at the door, pulling at it like this. This is like a guy in his 30 like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? So I open the door and I was like, okay, now that you’re late. And then he goes, our thought we were friends and that’s when it happened. Air. It is. That was the breaking point. And I remember going out there into the lobby and talk to this guy and say, we don’t share values and we certainly don’t share time together. So we are not friends, we are acquaintances. People who are acquainted with each other, but we are not friends. And I think job it is not, if you’re not careful, you’re going to spend your life morally corrupted, politically confused and not ever sincere with anybody.

Yeah. If you hang out with acquaintances as opposed to surrounding yourself with people who share the same values and goals that you have. Am I, am I, am I off there? No, and I’ve learned a, a saying that I’ve heard you say it stuck with me a lot and, and, and when it comes to friendships and in general, I’m an only child in a bit of a social butterfly, so it’s not hard for me to make quote unquote friends or acquaintances. My wife’s name means butterfly back to their exam. And so I’ve heard you say build a deeper circle of friends instead of a shallow, big circle and smaller circle that goes deeper instead of a large, shallow circle of friends. True. And I think that’s kind of what you’re getting at. There is yet those people that really are on the same lane as you, like traveling in the same lane as life and get built deep relationships with those people instead of all of the people out there because they don’t have anything to offer you and they’re only going to take from you.

Now the next area you need to be intentional about in your life because you only have one of them that we know about. I mean, I think a lot of our listeners believe in eternal life. Maybe some of you don’t, but the, the life on the planet earth we have one of them is you want to schedule time for fun and I will define for you what I believe to be fun, but I would like for you to listen to it. Write down what you think is fun. I like to grill every day. Uh, uh, Vanessa knows this. I get irritated if I’m not grilling everyday. I know I like to make my own food.

It’s a ta. You’re task oriented too.

I really don’t like when someone else makes me. I made some awesome steaks last night. You’d have loved him? No. It’s like, I’m very much like, I just like to grill food every single day. I’m very much into repetition. I don’t understand moderation. So, um, watching the Patriot’s games, I love the Patriots Games. I look going to Atwoods Guitar Center, Hobby Lobby and research. That’s the quad. Yup. Yup. Good at Atwoods. Uh, you got a guitar center, Hobby Lobby Research. I love that, that vibe. Vanessa, what do you think is fun? What do you like to do for fun?

Ah, I love anything involving your whole thing. I’m like, I mean, so anytime I’m feeling like we’re getting to do something with the kids or for the kids, um, I, I love that. That’s going to feel like my love bank or whatever, so soon to be swimming together. Oh yeah. Yeah. Maybe it’s in the house. Get, I love playing games together. I love it if they’re even just like wrestling with their dad or he’s, um, kind of rough housing with them. I love operate and clay specifically working on projects together. Yeah. Because I know it’s uh, they have very similar most hirings and they’re in a similar talents. So just seeing clay help develop arbery’s client, uh, uh, talents, any of those things. I love

my number one client. Okay. Now step number one, you want to define your f six goals. Your goals for your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, and your fun. Now step two, you want to know your roles. You want to stay in your lane. I think it’s so important that you stay in your lane. I talked about it. Vanessa handles the accounting, the legal aspects, the strategy. I handled the marketing, the sales. It’s so important. You know your lane, you stay in your lane, you respect your lane. You do not cause conflict. But hopping in the other lane if your, if your, if your wife is great at sales, don’t give her sales advice. If your husband’s getting accounting, don’t give them accounting advice or vice versa. Work together towards a common business coach goal. Stay in each other’s lanes. You would do it at any other place in life, don’t you?

You went to the office and you weren’t married to the CEO, you wouldn’t just tell them, hey, I don’t think you’re doing things right unless your opinion was being asked for. So, um, but also the role as a husband, I believe Ephesians five 25 states, husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. I think it’s very, very important that you do love your spouse who’s in your house. Now step number three, our final step I want to give you is once you commit, don’t forget, regardless of how you feel. And recently we interviewed the founder of Horst Schulze, who’s also a Christian and this is what he has to say about why he’s been able to stay married all these years and how he built Ritz Carlton and to America’s Premier Hotel luxury brand

unreasonable to even allow that to happen. You’re waiting for feeling. I rather make a decision what my feeling is a feeling. Make my decisions. You’ll make a decision on them. The community kept to have to find the decision. You have to fight against the feelings that tried to interfere with your decision

after you, after you decided today what your goals are for your proof, your f six life after you’ve taken the time to write down your goals. If you’re x, F six life with your spouse, you have to commit to them after you and your spouse discuss your goals for your f six life. You have to commit to them. And a Jerry West Nba Hall of Fame Basketball Player, the 14 time all star, the guy who won multiple championships as a general manager and as a player rights. You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good. That’s what you gotta do today is you’ve got to make your goals for your family, your faith, your finances, your fitness, your friendship and your fun. You got to figure it out, your goals, and then you got to figure out your roles, figure out your goals, then your roles, and then you’ve got to commit and don’t forget. My name is Clay Clark. I’m a business coach, a father of five. That’s my incredible wife. She’s a mother of five and incredible wife, and that is Eric Chop who were not married to it all. We have no kids with three big shout out to Chris cooled with Salem radio.