Our 4 best tools for being life AND business partners
We always get the question: “You’re married and own a business together? Are you crazy?” That’s quickly followed by, “My partner and I could never do that.”
For us and our relationship, everything runs better this way. We’re better off when we work together. We operate the same way. We are a team. We’ve designed our ideal life, and we work together, every day, to create that life. Our actions and our days are very intentional, and we’re constantly shifting and adjusting to align with that vision.
We didn’t always have that clarity, though. For a few years, we were on different pages. As a good friend recently put it: we were in different books. We had a different path. We wanted different futures. Not until we came back from our honeymoon in Thailand did we start to understand just how aligned we could be. From then on, we started mapping out the future.
Our first project in building our ideal lifestyle was a smaller project — selling our existing home and buying a multi-family so that we could live in one side and rent out the other. This project doubled as an investment and a downsizing activity. We were giving up square-footage and “stuff,” but we were gaining a property that we could hold onto for 20 years as an investment.
Again, people thought we were crazy. And they certainly didn’t think it would be possible. We questioned it, too. Looking at our budget, there really was no way that we should have ever been able to do what we did.
But here’s the thing — when we set our minds to something, we just go. We just start. And we figure it out along the way.
Any project of any significance is going to take time. That time allows for a lot of unknowns to fall perfectly into place. On the flip-side, there’s also a lot of time for things to go terribly wrong, which happens, but that’s a story for another day.
With the house, we really had to start by understanding how to work well as a team. We needed to understand each other at our core. We had to build trust, learn how to communicate and rely on each other to do what we were each best at.
It wasn’t easy to get started.
In fact, we had one fateful Saturday that left us on the couch for five hours talking about the project and eventually diving into our personality types. We dug so deep. Finally, we understood that we were working against each other because we operate differently.
I was wanting to research, plan and avoid any pitfalls. Phil was wanting to move and act because he was already confident in our approach.
We both took a personality assessment called “Personalysis.” That tool helped us understand each other and why one wasn’t better than the other. More importantly, it helped us see how we can use (and honor) our strengths to get to where we want to go.
At the end of the house project, we moved into a beautiful multi-family in Merion Village. And we now rent the other side to two of our good friends.
More than a property, we gained understanding, respect and trust for each other. We began our journey of learning how to work together.
It’s a journey because I’d love to say that one project made us perfect at this business partner thing. But that’s far from the truth. This is a process…a constant evolution. We’re human, and we’re always changing. Working together becomes more difficult as the complexity of the project increases.
We’ve had many more projects since the purchase of our home. Each one has been an opportunity to learn more about each other and lean into love, respect and trust.
Here are a few tools and resources that have helped us immensely that we believe can help other partners (business and life):
Annual Strategic Planning
Every year, we take a long weekend in November or December to map out our intentions and goals for the future. We reflect on the past and discuss what’s working, what’s not working and make a vision for the year ahead. It’s a healthy exercise for our business, yes, but mostly for our partnership and our family. If you’re interested in learning more about the framework we created and use, go check it out on our site!
Personality Assessments
If you and your partner haven’t both taken the same personality assessment, we highly recommend investing in a good one. We both used Personalysis.
Communication & Vulnerability (Basically all Brené Brown content)
We’ve spent a lot of time working on our communication. Over time, we’ve been able to have more challenging and deeper conversations with more respect and peace. This does not come without learning from people like Brené and then doing what she recommends over and over again.
A Shared Language/Practice Through Meditation
Before we started our business and had our first son, we invested in Meditation Coaching with Juan Alvarez. We wanted to be more mindful of our experience as we took on such a grand adventure. Meditation coaching helped us to have a shared language that we could use to talk about our personal awareness and growth as well as hold each other accountable. Nearly three years later, and we’re still working with Juan.
As we travel down this road of growing a business and a family, our business and life partner skills were constantly being refined. We’ve had to dive in, have really long, hard conversations, get uncomfortable, be direct and work on changing ourselves to be a better partner to the other.
Many would say that sounds like pure torture and would rather not endure the discomfort. But the way we see it is that this is what life is all about. It’s about sharing the road with someone else. It’s about experiencing the good stuff along with the tough stuff. Life’s about growing and learning to work better with others. Why not do that with each other?
Sure, it’s a risk. We’re gambling with our romantic relationship by taking on this business adventure, but we’d rather try than look back and think to ourselves, “Man, we could have done some cool stuff if we would have just tried.”
We’re willing to take the risk on ourselves, on each other and for the future. We refuse to settle, and we choose to push our own boundaries. If we don’t try, we’ll never know. And we’re not willing to take that chance.
And so we work together. We talk, a lot. We are challenged, a lot. We are constantly pushing ourselves into uncomfortable situations. And yet, our love grows. Our respect broadens. Our trust expands. We support each other fully. We continue to commit to supporting and loving one another deeply.
And more than anything, we accept that this is a process. It is a journey. Change will happen, and we must be ready to take on whatever comes our way. This growing a family and a business thing is making us much more confident in our life skills. We feel eager and ready to manage whatever our future has in store for us. Hopefully some if not all of it is aligned with our ideal life. And if not, well then we’ll adjust, together.
