The Strain Every Entrepreneur’s Spouse Feels

I really thought, like, as a kid, once you got married, like, you don't have problems anymore. There's moments where everything's great, and you're like, wow, we have the greatest life ever. And I think there's moments where you're like, this, I, I, I, I'm, we're taking on too much. Two years ago, we were in completely different roles at the time. He was at Harvard, having the time of his life. And you know, I'm at home with kids going through some pretty intense, high school struggles. I just thought, how could we be in the same relationship and having completely different experiences? What was the discussion? It was, Darrell. I don't get why we're together because we are so together. Entrepreneurship doesn't pause at the front door. The people you love carry it with you. Today, I'm going to sit down with my wife, Joanna. If you run a small business, you know the grind follows you home. Watch this and you'll learn how to strengthen your marriage and stay connected to your kids while you scale. But not from my perspective, from the perspective of my wife. Let's jump in. We've got an extremely special guest with us today on the next level pros podcast. And it's not Darrell. Nope. It is sweet, sweet Joanna. Right, now, guys. Thank you guys. Joanna, thank you for joining us. And for those who don't know, this is my wife. Yes, hello. Darrell's looking a little nervous. How long have you guys been married? Nineteen years. Nineteen years. Yes. Yeah. Long time. And you guys have four beautiful children. Thank you. Yes, four girls. And each one of them is in a different school. We have one in college, one in high school, one in middle school, and one in elementary school. And you guys are still happily married. Yes. Okay, good. And that was that episode. No, I'm just kidding. Joanna, we brought you in for a specific reason. We wanted to talk about all things that you've had to experience being married to a chronic entrepreneur. We often talk about what it's like being an entrepreneur and the identity that comes with us as entrepreneurs, but we often forget to share and talk about how being an entrepreneurship or being in entrepreneurship can impact those around us. And especially it can impact our loved ones. Right now when I look at you guys, I've seen you guys, I've known you guys for eight years almost, which is crazy to think about. It's been nearly a third of my life. I've spent with you guys. Oh, that's great. But when I see you guys what I love is my wife and I, we talk about how much that we aspire to have a relationship similar to your guys is the way you guys raise your kids, where you guys treat others in the community. What you guys have created is very special. And I think a lot of people that have come to our events have also noticed that. But I think often people can kind of like misconstituate what that is. People might view it as perfect. Yeah. Yeah. And that's for me to answer. What we struggle through now in our relationship. Correct. Or let me give you a better question. Okay. What do you think Darryl might be struggling with or has struggled with as an entrepreneur? From your perspective, what you think Darryl has? I think if you're busy raising a family, I think just struggling with connection when things get really busy for him. And I'm tackling the other half of whatever's going on at home. We're not connecting, which is pretty normal, I think, for most marriages. But I think sometimes with work for him, whether he's out of town or he is here, but there's a lot going on, I have to cover the rest. So then when we meet together, we're not as connected, because maybe we haven't really discussed what happened in the other half of our family here at home versus what's happening with him at work with his day. So have you ever felt like, because entrepreneurs is like go, go, go, go, go. Right. So I think there's moments where everything's great. And you're like, wow, we have the greatest life ever. And I think there's moments where you're like, this, I, I, I, we're taking on too much, you know? Do you ever feel like you're left to pick up pieces? Yeah. Yeah, just this last weekend, for sure. Explains me like, because it's probably happened multiple times throughout your relationship. Yeah. You know, Darryl's built several large businesses. And you guys have built businesses together over the years. And he comes home and you're like, Hey, I've been doing all of this all day. And there's like a lack of recognition or communication in your life there to pick up everything. Yeah. Or are you feeling in those moments? Like what are you experiencing? Yeah. I think like as a, for me as a female, like it also depends, you know, what week it is for me and how I'm going to respond to what's happening. But because there's sometimes where I'm so happy to support him, but then there's times where I'm like, all right, I'm tapping out like you're it. Like I can't do another drive by myself. You know, take a kid somewhere for, for sports or something. But yeah, I think, I think something to that you should talk about is how raising young kids, how it is crazy. Yeah. It really is. I know like, you know, I talk to people and they're like, yeah, my wife, she's got, we got kids, ones, two, ones, six and ones, eight, ones, ten. And I'm like, oh, she must hate life because when you have young kids like that, life is just just... Well, I think what I want to relate to that is, is I think I saw like a happiness chart for adults. And the happiness for adults without children, I think was pretty like steadily going up like a good trajectory like high. But then adults that have children, their highs were higher and their lows were way lower. So it was like very high and low. And so I think if you can remember that, that's what I was saying like, earlier, you know, there's moments where everything's really, really great. And then there's times where you feel like you kind of hit bottom with like, how we're handling things, you know, it's a little bit highs and lows. Hey guys, it's Chris. If you're finding value in what you're hearing, go ahead and like and subscribe. That way people just like you can find this content for free here on YouTube. Now let's dive back into shit. Did you always know being with Darryl, even when you guys were just dating, that Darryl had this entrepreneurship journey destined for him? You know, I did, but I had a friend in college who pointed it out to me. She, I was, had been dating Darryl for a while and she goes, I just, I really want to find someone, someone like him that maybe Darryl doesn't know this. She had mentioned to me, she had said, you know, he just, he's going to do something. Like she just, you know, kind of just reminded me like he's, he's focused. He's got, you know, drive to just, you know, he didn't have a lot of fear, right? He was just willing to try anything. And so I think that, I think I recognize that when we were dating. So you recognize that early on dating? Well, yeah. The first time we met, he was recruiting me to go sell some or sell sort of door. That was how he got me to hang out with him that summer. When now you guys have gone through this journey for very long time now, you experienced early on you knew Darryl's destined for something or you at least you heard that he was destined for something. Well, yeah, when we started dating, his family would always speak really highly of him too. And so before I even met him, I had heard, heard about him and they had just put him high on a pedestal. And so I was excited to meet him the first time I met him because I had met his family before him. Even signing up for summer sales, right? It's much different than like a traditional, like, career mask. True. And that requires a lot of support. Yeah, the first year I did sales for him and worked in his office. And in the second summer, I was his office assistant. Oh, yeah. Well, in the office action, huh? Yeah, and then he proposed after that. Oh, okay. Let's go because you're just, that was your promotion or I know I think I was his favorite, but office assistant. I think he thought I did a good job. Did you? Yes. Did you guys ever have conversations early on about, hey, like, I'm Darryl, I'm about to experience. I'm going to build this business on my own. Like what are those early foundational expectations if any were said? I actually, I'll actually jump in here because when I graduated college, right, I was kind of like fed this graduate college. You get more opportunity. I graduated college in 2008, which was when the market crashed. So now I'm trying to apply for jobs where there's 20 other people way more experienced than me. I have no clue I'm talking about them. I'm green as they can come. And I just like, man, I have to work four times as much as I've been working. And I have to make a third of what I've been making. It just didn't make sense to me. And so when I graduated, I just realized that's when I was like, you know what? I can't get a job. Like I have to go figure out how to do this a better way because I can't go backwards. You hear this now, Joanna. And you're seeing this probably early on into your as a relationship. Are you scared? Like what, take me back to as you're starting to see this start to unfold because this Darrell didn't have to introduce. As Darrell was talking, I was thinking being an entrepreneur back then wasn't as cool as it is now. I don't know if maybe I feel like that. Maybe just because I've experienced the journey of how cool entrepreneurship is now that I can say that. But back then, it didn't feel cool when things weren't that great as far as, you know, financially bringing in, you know, what you wanted to or hoping to. So, yeah, now that I think about that, whether it's because of that or if really 10 years, you know, when I'm 15, 20 years ago, maybe it really wasn't as I feel like back then, it was like go be a doctor, you know, go to graduate school. Like I feel like those were the things that were pushed. And so this did feel a little bit more of an adventure. But I loved it. We had young children. We were able to try things and we moved a lot. We probably moved, you know, three or four times within... Three years. Yeah, five or six years. But I liked it. I really did like it. Where did you always... I've always been trusted Darrell's. And even as we've grown together, I trust him more now too. But I think I've always trusted that he was going to put the work into whatever he was trying. I, you know, I feel like he definitely had my trust in that. What's interesting is you guys had kids. You just mentioned it. Kids very young and you guys had them in what I think is so cool about your guys' story is, it seems like every new chapter of your life, a new business venture, a new move, started with having a child. That is true. Yeah, so what that looked like was... Yeah, every child, we were either moving for a new adventure. Yeah, pretty much we're moving for a new venture, right? Because we had Evelyn and Salt Lake and then we moved to... Washington, Jane was born in Washington. Yeah, Washington, Jane was born in Washington. Liv was born a month before we moved to California. And then Mary was born in Utah a month before we moved back to Washington. And I remember that. Yes, I remember because you guys were still in Utah and I was calling Darryl for proposal work and you're like, oh yeah, I just had a baby. Yeah, I was like, go home, maybe? I don't know. Yeah. Was there a time where you were feeling like, okay, you just had a baby or about to have a baby? And now you guys are about to embark on a crazy journey. Whether it be moving or starting a new career or a new company. But you're like, maybe we should go back to normal life. Like Darryl should go to a job or whatever it might be. No, I haven't felt that way. There's times where he's been like offered like certain areas he could have gone to that I regret a little bit where I'm like, oh, if I had known that that area would have turned out to be a good area, I wish I would have let him choose more. There's times where I've kind of like, do you want me to explain that? Yeah, sure. Like a physical area like a physical area. Yeah, like we were we were supposed to sell solar, I think in Vegas, the market had opened up and we had already set our mind to go to California. And I was set on that and then he said, hey, it looks like we could go to Vegas and I was like, no, no, and that ended up being a really great market. And that's where I think over time I've learned to trust him more instead of, and I think California was a great experience for us overall, you know, as one of my favorite experiences. But, you know, financially that market would have been better. I could have listened to Darryl when he had said, hey, I kind of feel good about this. I know we talked about moving here, but this could be a better option. But, you know, I've learned that in time. So, ever been a time at all that you've been scared to embark and like this new chapter, new journey? I'd say that the question is not the better question because she really, only she's ever scared or worried about what I'm doing. It's more of how is that helping her through what she's doing, right? Raising four girls, having a new babies or young babies, like that's, I think the challenge has been we're like, I'm not there to support her or whatnot. So, it's not so much of she's concerned with what I'm doing as much as it's, she doesn't feel supportive or she's feeling like there's a lack of presence or whatnot. And moving around was fun when our kids were younger, but it did get to a point where we needed to stay in one spot. And we have, you know, the request was, I want to plant flowers, and I want to see them next year. Yes, that was so big to me. And the funny thing is, is now I have that and I'm working on my garden. I used to have, I used to be really big into gardening and anyways, now I do have a place where I could have something come back every year. So, I think I actually think that is a really interesting conversation about how like the things you dream of one team and then having some of those things or all those things. And then what you experience versus what you thought they'd bring. Yeah. And I think, you know, we have, we've been blessed, we have a lot of, you know, we have great kids, we have great home, we have great business, we have great partners, like we have on paper, I'd be like, dude, everything we've, I've ever wanted to have. Yeah. I have other things now I want, but that's like looking back 15 years, like I'd say, yeah, this is everything I want it to be. But what's interesting is you still, you still have to find struggle, like you still have to find happiness. Like those things come at you, they just change on where they come from, if that makes sense. Would you agree? Yeah. So, what, what does that mean or how does that look? Oh, I just think what you find joy, joy in changes, especially, I mean, the phases of life have changed for us too, you know, we're, we're an older family now, we have a daughter in college. And yeah, how you find joy through all the, the driving and the soccer practices and the, you know, the three to 10 schedule has been the day really begins. And, and yeah, I, yeah, you still, you, the simple things really are what's going to bring the most like real joy to your life. Sometimes here from significant others that are there to raise the kids while the other is out working or building a business, whatever might be that a lot of times they feel like they lose themselves a little bit. The feet like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever experienced that? Yeah. Walk me through that. What that looks like. Yeah, what, what is that? Where does that come from? I think I just, I think you get so wrapped up with wanting to support your children in a way you weren't supported as a kid that it is so important to you to like be there for them. And so I think you get in a, you really want to control things. You really think no one else can do it as good as you, whether it's true or not, I don't know, you know, whether I pay someone to go drive my kids to soccer, they're not going to have, and I don't think it's wrong to do that. I've done that. We've paid kids, we've paid teenagers to take our kids to soccer or things when we can't make it. And it works sometimes. But yeah, the control part of you as a female is like, oh, but I would have had a better conversation with them. You know, you kind of get in your head a little bit. And so you lose yourself in this quest of wanting to make your children's life the best it can be, you know, and within that, I think you lose yourself because you stop maybe doing things you're interested in or forgetting what you might be interested in because I love my middle schooler. I love when she tells me about what's happening at school. That's like the best TV show I could watch. It is more entertaining than anything I've seen on TV. So I love that, you know, but with that, I get lost in my children's lives, you know, and it's awesome. But I think my relationship with Darryl is really what's going to last when this chapter kind of moves forward. They find their lives and, you know, because for me, my relationship with my parents isn't as valuable anymore. And I recognize my kids that will happen to them too as they start their own families. So yeah, I think I'm learning how to have hobbies and pay attention to what I'm interested in on my own just as individual. Is that is that hobbies, you know, what are you doing? What are the tools or like the conversations you have with yourself or with others to like, for lack of a term, rediscover yourself, find your purpose again and find who Joanna is. I think one thing I've noticed is it's really easy to say no to things that seem scary or new, you know, like I kind of resisted the whole pickleball thing for a while, like seemed kind of like a cult. Like everyone was doing it and you weren't cool unless you played, you know, a part of some league. And finally, I did join a Thursday afternoon pickleball league and it's super fun. And I like being with other females that are like different ages, you know, different generations. I mean, you've got Gen X. You've probably even have baby boomers in there. I mean, it's a wide range of females playing pickleball on Thursday afternoons. And it's really fun. So yeah, I think paying attention to your health to, you know, nothing's going to really improve for yourself individually if you're not taking care of yourself. So Darryl, and I started lifting weights like a year ago or a year and a half ago. And yeah, and because of that, not that when you start paying attention, you start noticing other things and fine-tuning certain things in your health as well, you know, through that. It's not like the answer is lifting weights. But then nine months later, you learned something else about yourself because you started lifting weights, you know, it's like those type things. One of the cool things that Evelyn said on our last episode, which I don't know if you've realized or if you've verbally said this out loud, but she's never heard you speak poorly about Darryl to other people or to like the children. Yeah. Is that always been like a rule for yourself? Is that been like a framework or like something you guys have discussed prior? Is that just like something that's come within? So I think honestly, well, I think Darryl's awesome. And he's a great dad and a great husband. And so why would I ever want to break him down when I know those are facts? But as I've seen things like research and things people have talked about lately that kind of backs up what I've done over the years because I've heard people say that before. Like, what bugs you? Tell me what bugs you. They want me to give the dirt on Darryl or something. But yeah, I really don't have dirt. But one thing I've heard though, like obviously we still have arguments and we still fight. And I've heard someone say that if I go tell someone else about my fight with Darryl, they don't ever hear the resolution. They just hear that I'm angry. And then, you know, a couple months later, they're hanging out with us. They're still they're still mad at him because we they never heard the resolution. I've moved on. I've, you know, I've had a conclusion to our fight and we've moved on on from that. But they haven't. And so it doesn't really do any good to like, I guess, talk to other people about what you're struggling with if they're not ever going to hear the resolution from it. I don't think it helps their relationship with him either, you know? I think too. Like you in general, I like you don't speak bad about anybody. And so I think that's like a characteristic. I don't know why you you have that. Levi doesn't. But I think that's I think that's also just part of like your character. Thank you. And I think it's a powerful one too because it's hard. I mean, life's hard whether you're a mom or entrepreneur or dad or whatever. So I mean, having people that are talking negative about you just makes it even harder. So I definitely appreciate that about you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm talking about this subject. I've been thinking a lot with my own children that I need to be careful when I'm talking to to them individually not to talk about their siblings. If I'm frustrated with their siblings, not to share that with them either. I don't think when I when I'm with that child, we should just be talking about what that child's doing. I don't need to talk about what the other kids are doing. And I've been thinking about trying to to implement that more because I find myself doing that sometimes. And I just don't think it's helpful for that. I think about it when you're with your parent or your mom or your dad, like you just want that parent to be with you and talk about you. And it's fine if they mention and you have conversations about other siblings. But I've been thinking about that lately as well. One talent that I think that you have that maybe you don't think of talent or not, I think of is you have this innate ability to visualize a space and to make it feel like home. Like I call it Feng Shui. You've got the Feng Shui. Is that a talent that you've had just innately, like internally or is that developed because you guys have moved so many times. You just have this ability to kind of make the sanctuary that Evelyn talks so highly about. We're like it being home feels like sanctuary. What is your ideology on like turning that house into a home? So I think you're right. When we moved a lot in those earlier years, I got a lot of practice because when we moved to another house, I had to figure out where the couch had to fit in this new house. And where's the where we're going to take what I have and make work in the next house. You know, and so I had a lot of practice. And I don't think it was, I think it's something I practiced. It wasn't just a gift that I've always had because I look back at pictures and there was some really bad choices and like orange carpets. And I look back and I thought that was so cool at the time. But I see how my style is like developed in time. But I love looking at a room. Today I was at a dentist office this morning. And immediately I knew if the pictures were hung just 18 inches lower, it would make the whole room feel better. I can feel how things would just feel better. Not because someone has to buy new things just because of the size and the placement of what they're putting in the room. And so yeah, I'm very passionate about making a space feel better because I think when, like energetically, you feel better too when things are placed a certain way. How important is that energy to protect that energy too, right? Like to like I'm sure Darryl is at work 10 hours in the day or whatever and to come home to a house that's the energies off. There's no funcish way. And for you too, when you've got kids, when you're going to especially at a young age or it's like it's probably really easy to kind of hermit up and let the house be a mess or let things, you know, whatever it doesn't matter, the kids are going to root anyway. But I felt like you've protected that energy for like quite some time. Like how important is that energy? You feel like my house is always clean, is that what you're saying? No, but I feel like there's there's like a, I don't want to say system, but there's intention behind everything. Yeah, there is. So funcish way is probably not what you think it is. It's like a, it's like a really old method where it actually, it actually has, I don't know if you really want me to talk about this. I don't really have a career design, but, but there actually is like an energetic meaning to every section of your house. And that's what funcish way is. There's actually a grid, like a nine rectangular grid and you can place over the blueprint of your home and every section, there's a Leaven Relationship section. There's a fame and reputation section. There's a prosperity section, your health, your family and relationships. So there are sections of your home where if you were to declutter that section, the method in funcish way is that that would help you in that part of your life. So yeah, it helps me when I'm cleaning up to have like a higher vision to why I'm cleaning up a certain section instead of being like, oh, I can't believe this part of the house got, you know, destroyed again. It's more like, oh, well, if I put it back together, it'll help this part of my life, you know, if you believe that. What of your guys's moves or life changes was the most difficult? Oh, well, probably moving from Utah to Washington. Back for Solgion? Yeah, when Solgion began. Because I had my fourth baby and for some reason I had really, really terrible postpartum depression and I didn't have that deep of depression with my other three kids. So it was, that was new. Like that was a whole... You didn't have any depression. Yeah, I mean, maybe baby blues, but that was like way more serious, you know, when we moved to Washington. So it wasn't because of, it was just because of that, really. What was the overcoming moment or maybe not moment, but what are you doing as you're experiencing this in real time? How are you overcoming this? I mean, I went and got my blood work done after like a couple years. I started thinking when I, when I couldn't lose the baby weight, I'm like, what's going on? So I got my blood work done, started to see I had some kind of thyroid things that needed to be addressed. Yeah, I just started paying attention to my health and what I was eating kind of as far as like cold foods versus... Yeah, just trying to... This was definitely an interesting change in our marriage because if I would have, if you would look at Joanna before that, like Joanna was always joyful, always happy. Yeah, joy was easy for me to obtain. Always energetic. Yeah. And then this point that just changed in a way. It sounds scary. Like if someone were to tell me that, like it sounds kind of scary. Like, you're really a different person. Like sometimes I have really good friends in California. And sometimes I think they don't even... I almost have to be that old person they remember me when I, when they see me because I've like changed that much. And they wouldn't, they wouldn't say that. They'd say, no, you're the same, you know, but there is kind of this, it really was a big shift. And now I have to like work a little bit harder. I think to like really feel... like I did back then. Strange, really is. If now, where you guys are fast-forwarding to now. But looking at everything in hindsight, what are some important questions or conversations that espouse that knows that they're like a, their derl. It wants to start a business or is pretty deep into a business. What are some questions that they should be asking to their spouse? You to derl. Derl comes to you and is like, hey, I want to start a business. And maybe this is the first business. There's no history of building $200 million solar companies. But they're like, hey, I want to build this home service business. I want to build this medical practice. I want to do this entrepreneurship journey. Are there questions that you should be asking? I'd say like, how do you find trust in the journey? How do you find trust in a known, I think that was something that you've always offered me, which has been powerful. And I think we've always had communication about how to like support me. Right? Obviously we have communication around it, supporting you. But yeah, in your mind, how would you see, like, how would you deal with that if you had to start over? Like, how do you create trust in chaos? Right? Yeah. I think there's not much, especially if you're in the beginning stages of starting a business, like the worst thing that could happen isn't really that bad. You know, if it doesn't work out, not really a big deal. You can go back to what you were doing. I just don't really feel like there's that much of, like, I remember the biggest thing when we were doing, like, start trying different businesses was people couldn't believe like we didn't have health insurance, right? We had to, that was huge for me. I remember, that was one thing I would hammer. Like, yeah, but we don't, we don't have health insurance. I mean, now it seems so silly because things have changed so much over the last 15 years. But there's so many different options now when you don't have to work for an employer to have health insurance. There's health insurance options out there for you. A lot of times, it's a lot more affordable to pay cash anyways. But that was one of those things people would say to you. So, yeah, I just don't really think there's, I think there's more to lose not trying. Let's go. I really do. You know, I know that's easy for me to say, but I think it darely used to tease like the worst thing that could happen is that we would live in your mom's home. And my mom has like an amazing daylight basement and a pool. And that would actually be great. And so it's, you know, the worst case scenario really isn't that bad if things don't work out. And you can always go back to what you were doing. So just talking about your character, because I still, this drives me nuts. I actually didn't realize this till like a couple months ago. But you brought up health care and I mean, you think of the situation. So, Joanna's got her, she's 20 years old. Not right now. I was. Oh, yeah. She's 20 years old. Has his brand new baby. She goes to the doctor and we had decided that we were going to do a delayed vaccine schedule. Very similar like what we did in their kids. Yeah. And she walks in the doctor's office and she said, yeah, we're going to do this. And the doctor said, all right, well, then I'm not going to meet with you. You can't be my patient and walked out. What does that do as far as like, how do you, like, how do you, how do you feel good about yourself when you have to face that kind of rejection? Exactly. It's done for a while because to clarify, he actually told me what I was doing, what's child abuse. And that's why he couldn't keep me as a patient. I cried. The nurse came back in and she could tell I was tearied and I just kind of grabbed my stuff and left. And sometimes when you have like experiences like that, I just tell myself like, that really hurt. And that was, that's someone's opinion. But because I felt that low in that experience, I'm going to feel a high from that experience. And shortly after I found an amazing doctor and he was so gentle and kind and listened to me on what I wanted to do with the vaccine schedule and was very supportive. And that was amazing. So I think sometimes when you experience something really, really low, you know, the hope is that in that experience, you'll feel a high eventually. I think that's also something we talk about a lot, right? The pendulum swing. Yeah, pendulum swing. When something doesn't work out, it's like, okay, you went into this negative side, which means there's something positive from it. And it's like just getting through that so that you can experience the other side. And that saves me a lot when with having kids, you know, when your kids argue and it's really hard at home, you know, it almost seems like, you know, it can feel really, really challenging. And then, you know, six hours later, they're all laughing and teasing each other and their best friends. And you're like, whoa, that was such a shift. So that, that helps a lot. Sometimes it's an hour later. Yeah, or yeah, five minutes. Yeah. I've always heard this story from Darryl all the time. And I've tried to implement in my own life as well, where you guys had tried to design out the best vacation possible. And the story that it comes from is this supposed Vegas trip that ended up being awful. Yeah. I would love to hear your perspective on this Vegas trip. Okay. And what really happened? I had never been to Vegas. I think we had one child at the time. Yeah, we had Evelyn. And we were, we were going to drive from Salt Lake, go down to Vegas for the weekend. I was pretty excited. Never seen it before. I've always heard, you know, the strip, all this, you know, I just didn't know what it meant, you know. So we didn't do much planning except what was the cheapest hotel we could find. And what could we do to not spend any money? And yeah, if I remember, I'm trying to remember it through pictures that we still have from that trip. But I think I had a baby carrier and we walked everywhere. I mean, my feet killed. I mean, we went to every site you could think of. And and it just wasn't that great. And yeah, it was exhausting. It was exhausting. And I don't know. What time of year was this? I think it was like a really November maybe. So it was a little too hot. You know, I was wearing like jeans and things. But so then we decided, you know, years later, we were going to go to Vegas again. This time we had like three kids. And Darryl just for fun was like, let's make a list. If money was no object, let's make a list of everything we would do. And so we were like, oh, we would take a helicopter ride over Hoover Dam. We would, we would get a penthouse suite, you know, at the nicest hotel or casino. We would, well, we're some of our other ideas. We would change penthouse suites. And then we'd flat take a helicopter from one hotel to the other. Okay. We talked about going to shows, dinners. Yeah, best shows, you know, best dinners. Anyways, so from that list, we ended up like jumping off the stratosphere, which was so fun. If anyone's ever done that, that's actually a really fun. It's like a free fall. And so we jumped off the stratosphere that trip. I think we did go to a show. I think we went to Lake Mead. I went boating. I ended up being such a fun trip for us. And just the difference, it's not like we did what was on that list, but because we just let our minds have like that green light of what could we do made us more creative to come up with other ideas. And so just like, allow your mind to create more options than trying just the only option not to spend any money, you know, kind of suffocates creativity. So then how does that look today? How does that still happen? With us. Yeah. Like vacations. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I think there's times where we talk about, okay, if we could do anything, you know, and other ideas get brought up, that one at have been brought up, I think if we don't allow that. So now we do it with the girls. So the girls are chipping in saying whatever. No one's criticizing it. No one's picking it apart, asking how much it costs. It's like purely just come up with the craziest ideas. And let's see what cool things we come up with. Yeah. I also love to speak in of you guys with your girls. We just had our culture workshop. Yep. And one of the things that we drilled into the business owners attending the workshop is how important it is to create this massive vision, but to have a mission statement and some core values. Yes. And this is something you guys have done with your family. Yes. Please share. Yeah. Darryl years ago started. We, well, we started saying this phrase when we were out together, like out on the boat, like out on the river. It's just like a great night and I mean, there's times when you're out on the river here and it's beautiful. And I feel like Darryl would say, like, how can it get better than this? And we started saying that. And then it started turning into this idea, like, this is our slogan. And I like to take the slogan two different ways. Darryl's Mr. Optimistic. So he only takes it like when you're having a really great moment, like, how can it get better than this, meaning like, it can get even better, you know? You can have the best moment and it can get even better. I look at it too. And as like a teaching, like moment with my kids where like if they're not liking the situation they're in, they're with a group of friends and they don't think it's fun. It's like, how can it get better than this? And what can you do about it? You know, how can you make the situation more fun instead of instead of just not doing anything? You know? But yeah, so that turned it into our mission or slogan, I should say. And then from that, we put it together, like a mission statement with, yeah, like a set of like lifestyle goals for you, for a mission statement. Uplift our lives and lives of others. And then uplift is like our values. So uplift you have unconditional love, you have physical wellbeing, you have love of learning inspired by Christ, financial financial mastery and then trust in the unknown. Gosh. So we have those core values. Each of them have like really specific definitions that mean something to us. And our youngest daughter at the time when we created it couldn't read. So there's just she has a paper and it has like pictures on it and she thought it was really cool. She could color. Yeah, they're simple. So she memorized like all the symbols of what each of those the upliftment and you guys are you guys are building this as a family together. Yeah. How important was it to get buy in with your kids on something like as a kid, I'm thinking if I was a teenager, I'm sitting in a living room with my siblings, I'm like mom, dad core values, what are we talking about? But your kids embody this now. I don't know why that is. I've had people say like, oh, if I were to bring that home to my kids, they wouldn't like it. And I don't know our kids just do. I think it's it's not like they were like sitting around like listening to us. You know, I mean, I'm sure they were running around the table or but yeah, they were bought into it. Well, we asked to us like, what's what's missing here? Does this you guys feel like this is aligned? It was their recommendation to have symbols for each of the values. And so then we talked about what those should be. So we created those together as well. I think you're I think just because they're not listening doesn't mean they don't hear what's going on. And so I think we've always talked in a way that our kids are listening or that they're hearing what we're what we're doing, even though they might not be paying attention. And I think you do that long enough and you start to realize they are paying attention. It's even funny with like everyone going to college. She's really embraced way more of our family culture that I can tell she appreciates and wants to keep using. Yeah. And so it's cool to see her take like the culture that we've built in our home. And now she's applying that or pushing that in college in the way she does things and and takes care of herself. In ways that the conversation she has with roommates about how to handle certain situations. Which if you rewind, you know, few months ago when she's living in her house, she's like absolutely. She doesn't want to be there. So it's funny seeing that transition from absentee to yeah, this is how we do it. Yeah, you don't know how we do it. It's fun. Yeah. In entrepreneurship, I think a lot of people always want to talk about dollars. And they're you've always had a very interesting framework around money. And it's that dollars enhance your life. Both good and bad. They can enhance the bad things in your life. And they can also enhance the good things in your life. Joanna, how has money enhanced your life? I think it gives us ways to use our time better. You know, if we can like we're going to pay more money to have a better experience with our time. And so you know, when it comes to vacations or time or spending as a family, that can definitely enhance the family trip, you know, depending on where we're staying or what we choose to do. I always wanted to have a boat. I grew up in tri cities. And I that was just something I enjoyed doing with my friends and their families. And to me, that has always been something I wanted to do with our family was was voting. And that's something every single person our family loves, including me. So that's that's a definitely something that's enhanced our lives in the summertime. But yeah, I think more of like what can we do to just enjoy this experience? And if it costs a little bit more money, you know, Darrell's not afraid to to tip the the hostess. If there's a really long wait, if it gets us sitting down with whoever we're with faster, happens quite a bit. You guys want to hear the hack? Give the hack. This is the hack. You show up at a restaurant. There's a line. You got a 45 minute wait, one hour wait. You know, to make that 45 or one hour wait, turn to zero. Wow. Just a nice little honey. You talked to the lady, say, hey, for a 100 bucks, can you get me seed right now? And you know what they usually say? Not usually. Do you know what they say every time? You can write this way. And so, yeah, so once again, time really, because that's about time. So you can sit there for an hour or you can just give some kid in need a nice big tip and they'll take care of you. So you pay for their service, they pay for yours. It's just a exchange of value right there. So, so basically when you tip the hostess, 100 bucks, you're basically just cutting in line. And I learned, I remember college reading some book I can't remember the book was, but it talked about all the social structures that we inherently and invisibly just follow. Lines are one of them. And so, I don't cut in the short line, but if there's a super long line, the whole premise of this book was like, there's a gatekeeper, there's someone, like the people are the weakest, like there's always someone who can like get you in, right? And so for me, it's like a game. It's like, okay, how do I just long lines, not short lines. I need a challenge, but I've cut in some really long lines. And I love it. China hates it. Yeah, I think there's just like a moral compass in me that it feels wrong to let someone else wait. And then I get to go first to cut, you know, it's making the line longer by me cutting too. I also think sometimes, like I was at silver with the other day with my girls, and we waited in a really long line, and we got to know the people in line and had a really fun conversation, small chat, which Darryl loves. And so, yeah. But if Darryl does the dirty work, and I get a phone call to come to the front of the line, I'll go, but there's a little bit of shame involved. I will show up, but I'm always like that little like nervous. My girls are actually pretty good at it too. They understand. I have a couple who are on my side, a couple who are on Darryl's side. So, just depends who feels the shame or not. Because you say you're going to make them wait, they're already waiting. You haven't changed their reality at all. Now, who's reality? People waiting in a long line like that. And once again, it's a social construct that's like, who told us we had to do it that way? The park. The park? Mm-hmm. Give it all. Kindergarten? First grade. It's great. It's true. School system taught us that. I understand the value of lines and structure. To me, I just understanding that there's always a game involved. That's what makes it fun. So, I obviously don't want to do things that hurt people or put people out, but if I can make something fun out of it and it doesn't hurt anybody, why not? There's been a couple times I've been grateful. When it's yeah, there's been a couple times. Do you hear some of my best ones? Sure. I was going to tell you anyways. You're talking about the outdoor spa, right? That's a good one. That's a good one. So, we showed up at this outdoor spa and the line was lit. Like hot springs, outdoor hot springs. It's an adult only hot springs. We showed with my dad and my sister, mom dad, sister husband, and the line's like 45 minutes long to get in. And I'm like, oh, this is a good line cut. So, then I figured out how can I cut it? So, what I do is I go to the front. There's a security guard there. I said, can I use the bathroom? You said sure. So, I go inside. Then I take off my clothes. So, I have my swimsuit on. Then I go over to the ticket line. Well, it was more like the indoor ticket line. It wasn't even the actual ticket line we were waiting for. I'm going to like the guests, whatever. I said, hey, I need to pay for six people. There's six of us. So, I pay for everybody. Then I go back to the same security guard. I said, hey, I got tickets for people. Can I call them up? He's like, sure. Call up everyone from the back of line. They come all in. There we go. Say this. I was grateful for that one because no one wants to wait in line for a spa. So, I was pretty excited about that one when he said, he was like in his swim shorts. All excited. I'm like, oh, this is great. I'm going to wait another hour. That's cool. So, anyways, fun stuff like that. Or, dole whips at Disneyland. Yeah. Yeah. He wants to wait for a dole whip. Nobody. So, all you do is you go to the very front line. Say, hey, I'm buying your order. Can you add this to it? You buy their order and you add your order to it. Everyone's happy. And you get your dole whip. Genius. You guys have never fought, right? With gloves, no. Has there ever been an argument that you guys have had where it ended up turning into like a system where a framework for you guys later in your relationship? I think arguments bring up something that's not working. And a lot of times you do make changes after arguments. Even if it's like a relationship, you know, an argument about your personal relationship with each other. Obviously, you have to like reevaluate where things are at with the changes going on in your life. And then from that, usually you renegotiate what's going on in your relationship and make changes. I think that's actually a good word renegotiate. I think you got to realize like throughout your marriage, you have to like renegotiate your relationship. It's not the same. Wasn't the same. No, I changed so much. It changes so much. And I think people lack the then negotiation part because what she needs is different. And I might not be aware of it. What I need is different and she might not be aware of it. And so if we never had that conversation, and actually we feel like we're just falling apart. Yeah, so like for example, if there's an event at our house, like we had a discussion recently, where there's an event at our house, instead of having someone come two days later to clean up, they actually like someone actually needs to like stay and help put things away like the minute after, right? Because it's at our home. And otherwise, I can't wait two days because I have to live there to clean up from an event. So things like that, it wasn't really an argument, but it's like, hey, this didn't work. It's really easy to fix. It's not a big deal. It's just making sure you have systems in place like that. Okay, next time we're going to do this. Yeah, I think it's just getting better, one percent at a time. Like just having the communication, acknowledging it, getting better. And then you just start to like stack wins as you do that more. Yeah. I've also learned anger is never a primary reaction or a primary emotion. Like anger is often used as a defense mechanism or security measure behind what's really happening. Like a deeper feeling or meaning of sadness or loneliness or whatever it is. So I think what you guys bring up, like anger is you could spin it and say, okay, this is a great catalyst for the real conversation that we need to have. So I find myself will argue, my wife and I will argue about the dishes. But the argument is not about the dishes. And we're angry as a reaction to something else. Yeah. The reaction to something else is, hey, I feel unseen because you didn't do what you said you were going to do or whatever the situation might be. So I think it's powerful to realize the moment you can identify that, I'm angry, but I'm not angry because I want to be angry. I'm angry because of whatever else is happening. I think it can be powerful. Yeah. Let's say something too. We've recently, not recently, but over the last few years, we've gotten more into astrology and numerology and human design and stuff. And it's interesting because these are just different frameworks that we use to help understand each other. For example, like astrology wise, like we're complete opposites. And so understand. We're born like exactly six months apart, which is opposites. Yeah. And so understanding that opposites attract, but they also create a lot of tension. So we just have to be careful because we know like if things come on check, like we will have a ton of conflict. Because we're opposites, she's going to think very different in the way I think. And so we oftentimes, now we're aware of that. We know like, hey, let's make sure we're in sync. Because if we're in sync, there's a strong attraction. And if we're not, there's strong conflict. And so, you know, there's a lot of different things we've used to just try to help understand each other better. Right? Who would you say that? For sure. I think it's easy to become even more opposites after you've been married to someone for so long because you are covering more ground as far as what you're trying to like successfully get done as like a family unit. You know, he's going to cover what I'm not covering. I'm going to cover what he's not covering. And then through that, you even become more opposites. But if you look at it as more of like the value you're bringing to your family because you're able to cover different roles, then it's helpful. It's, you know, you're getting a lot done. This was the discussion. It was Darrell. I don't get why we're together because we are so different. And that was probably like two years ago. And we were in completely different roles at the time. He was at Harvard having the time of his life. I mean, going back to be like a boy at college, like he's loving it. And, you know, I'm at home with, you know, kids going through some pretty intense high school struggles and then, you know, driving everywhere. I just thought, how could we be in the same relationship and having completely different experiences? It almost felt like how are we, how are we a couple when you can have such a complete different experience in me? And I think there's a lot of different answers to that question. But yeah, I think that started us kind of disself-discovering ourselves and looking more at what it brings to the relationship, our differences, how they're actually good. Yeah, it kind of went from, we have all these differences and it was very aware and it was like, okay, we're supposed to be together. There was this aside that we were meant to be, not to be together. And then, and then we realized then we did some, there's some books we've read on this, Related Book stuff, but realizing that our differences actually make us stronger together. And so the idea is being married can give you an unfair advantage in life because you have someone you share your strengths, weaknesses, your story with, but as you get really integrated with each other, you become more opposite, which allows you to cover more or do more together as a couple. And so what we found was initially it was like, man, we thought it was a weakness and then we realized that that weakness could actually be our strength. And so then that's how we were able to really thought, like as a kid, once you got married, like you don't have problems anymore, you know? And it's just crazy how much character development happens from marriage, like a lot of developing, you know, who you are. It's pretty, it's cool. Like I think it's a positive thing, but it's, you know, you learn as you go. If you could just give a cliff notes, one pager, a best practices, as a spouse or a significant other to an entrepreneur. Oh, okay. Like a list. Yeah, for your own sanity and maybe the entrepreneur sanity. Like a explain more, like a list of tools, conversations, questions, I like to start this off. Okay. One thing that's really helpful is if your partners and entrepreneur for them to say every once in a while, what can I help you with today? Because I think for me, that's really helpful just because I already know Darryl has a thousand things to do today. I already know he does. But when he just takes the time to just say, what's one thing I can help you get done today? A lot of times, and I could be better at communicating, but sometimes when he asks, I'm like, oh yeah, there actually is this really, and it could be a simple thing. But that helps a lot. You want to list though. Anything. I think communication is good, important too, like when to communicate. I remember when I was knocking doors, right? The conversation we had was like, don't call me when I'm knocking doors. Yeah. Because it distracts me and I rather talk to you the knock doors. So to keep me focused, don't call me during this time. If you do call me, I'm going to answer because that means you need to talk to me. And so we early on had that communication. I thought that was awesome. Yeah. Knocking doors is so emotional when you're out there. And so that worked for knocking doors for sure was, was don't call till the days over, then we'll see each other and talk about the day. Now we talk a lot throughout the day. I mean, we talk a couple times throughout the day just to check in. And because he can, he's not knocking doors door to door. I think that's different. But yeah. Some other things we do, do you think in our relationship that are helpful? I guess I have like date nights that you can intentionally work out in the mornings together. That's really helpful. If we can hop in a car together to like take someone somewhere, we'll hop in the car together just to like talk. Yeah. We're not like a strict Friday night date night people. We're not like that. But we just like to try to find time together. I think so. I'd also say we don't we don't argue the same way I think other people argue. So Joanna and I have like more of a if we get frustrated with each other, we're more likely not to say something than to say something. And so then to resolve it's okay, let's talk. So it's usually like when one gets mad at the other or fired up, it's it's usually the quiet treatment followed by a list dog. And so then we can talk through it without saying things that maybe we regret or don't want to didn't want to say in the moment. So I think that's been helpful too. Just because yeah. Sure, Joanna's had a lot of things. She's want to say that she didn't say that she then rephrase later. I'm sure. Yeah. I'm trying to think of like from an entrepreneur like partnership is what you're asking. I think it's I think it's okay to let your partner. I don't know. Maybe Darrell. I don't know if this is helpful or not. And if there's been times where I've told you like, Hey, I've been worrying about this through certain businesses. Does that help you or not help you when I share that? I mean, I'm always worrying about things in the business. That never goes away. So it doesn't really. No, if it's something that I haven't thought of, then it's helpful. Yeah. Usually thinking about it though. I think one for me, I think the biggest thing is when you show trust in what I'm doing, right? Just because you don't see all the pieces. Yeah. And that's the other thing is a lot of times it's easy to talk about the negative things that happened during the day. And I realized I started making her worry more about what was going on because all she heard was the negative stuff. So from my perspective, I'm always trying to share like something that she'll ask like something funny happened at work or something good versus, you know, what's on my mind in the moment, which is usually something that I got to fix or take care of, which is not positive. So that's been important for me to always stay positive and share with her or something so that she sees the business in that light. Yeah. And Darrell's really good at that. Like I, I'm definitely the more pessimist in the relationship, you know, you got those opposites attract. And like he can always reframe a situation that I think is bad and to could be the best thing that's ever happened to us. So he is so good mentally that like I should be taking notes. There's times where I'm like, how would, like if I have a problem, I'm like, how would he reframe this? Because right now this feels like the worst, you know, but he always has like a creative way to be like, no, this is like the best thing that's ever happened. Like really? Feels really bad, but he always has like a, you know, everything feels like more like a game to him. He doesn't get so attached to like problems. I think that most people get attached to. That's awesome. Yeah. Who's your favorite child? I don't have one. Oh dang it almost got her guys. And next up a pros, we're here to design lives that impact the world. And that includes more than just your business. It means in your relationships, it means in your community. And that's why we're so thankful for having Joanna as a guest on our podcast because we love talking about the whole human and not just your business. If you liked this episode, watch the episode that Darryl did with his daughter with Evelyn, where you get a unique perspective on the inside of a young child of what it's like growing up in the household of an entrepreneur. Until next time, thanks for watching the next episode of a pros podcast.