Marriage Productivity Hacks for 8 Figure Entrepreneurs with Kids with Stephen & Chelsey Diaz

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Systems Saved Me. Today, we'll be breaking down marriage productivity hacks for eight-figure entrepreneurs with kids. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Steven and Chelsea Diaz into EO Fire Studios. The Rainmaker family is revolutionizing transformation for moms. Ranked as the 148th fastest growing company in America on the Inc. 5000, they help families create time freedom, generational abundance, and leave a thriving legacy.

0:40And today we'll talk about mom guilt, creating a dream week, the concept of switching costs, a weekly family meeting structure, and oh, so much more. And a big, big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Steven and our sponsors. DTC Pod hosted by Ramon Berrios and Blaine Bolas is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. DTC Pod is a podcast about all things direct to consumer. Ramon and Blaine cover everything from starting, growing, and optimizing e-commerce stores in DTC brands. If you're interested in the stories behind your favorite consumer brands, this podcast is for you.

1:19One recent episode on how the best brands are built is a must listen. Listen to DTC Pod wherever you get your podcasts. Stephen, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, Fire Nation? Guys, I believe sometimes the most productive thing you can do is rest. I feel like so many people are preaching this hustle gospel right now. And I've actually found sometimes the most productive thing I can do in my business is wrestling with my two-year-old. And I know that sounds crazy, but I have a big old neon sign in my office that says work from rest because I think we live in such a driven culture that sometimes you can just get lost in what really matters.

2:05And oftentimes the best business ideas don't come when you're in the thick of doing the business. It comes from the off times. And so that's what we're all about. We're gonna be talking about that today. It's gonna be a good one. I can't wait. It's gonna be a great conversation. And I've already just dropped some value bombs about both Stephen and Chelsea in the intro, because we're talking today about marriage productivity hacks for eight-figure entrepreneurs with kids. So again, as I mentioned in the intro, it's Stephen and Chelsea that are joining me here today. So I want to start with Chelsea, because let's just be honest, mom guilt is real, and Chelsea is a mom.

2:42And at this point, you guys have worked with thousands of moms. So how do you recommend entrepreneurial moms overcome this mom guilt and actually attempt and maybe even achieve work-life balance? Such a good one. And I'm so passionate about this. I think that the whole idea of this perfect work-life balance actually doesn't exist. And I think that's where so many moms get into mom guilt is because we have this beautiful picture of how being an entrepreneur and a mom, that they are just like in perfect harmony and perfect instinct all the time. And that's just like not reality. And how I've tried to really share with other moms is that in working in life, like my family is always going to come first.

3:31And so therefore like there's more weight. If you are essentially looking like at a scale, my family is always going to have more weight. It's always to have my attention first than my business. And I think, um, if you can have that first at the forefront, you don't feel guilty when you are like with your family. If you're, you know, if your baby is sick, if your kids need more of your attention, um, I think that's where that guilt is when you're trying to like wear both hats essentially all the time. And for me, I really try and focus on when I'm in the business, I'm in the business. I'm giving our clients, our team, like 100%.

4:05And then when I'm in mom mode, like I put my phone down and I'm fully present. And I also think just understanding what season are you in? Like if you are new entrepreneur mom, just know that like that startup face is going to be more time intensive. And you might spend a little like extra nights, like late, like you might lose a little sleep, like in the beginning when you're building that business. And that is totally okay. And then when you're growing your business, then you can kind of step back and just knowing like what season you're in. If you're in a launch season, you're going to probably spend more time away from your family.

4:39And I know like, or if you're heading into the holidays, like, are you going to be outside of your business a little more? So knowing the season and just knowing there is really no perfect work-life balance, you have to do what's best for you, for your business, for your why, like what do you want to achieve in life and in your business and what type of freedom and flexibility do you ultimately want. Fire Nation, are you keeping your finger on the pulse for what season it is for you, where you're at, focusing on business, focusing on family? Stephen, what do you want to add to this? I think that's so good.

5:11I think one term I heard, I think it was Dan Martell say, was counterbalance, right? If you think about this scale of your life and your family is of higher value, right? So it's hard to balance something that's of higher value with the business, but it's all about counterbalance. And I've seen this and it's not, I think the hard thing is like sometimes people just take a prescription from someone else and say, this is what it looks like for you. But it's like, everyone's different. And my week balancing that looks different because I can, I have more bandwidth. I have more, like, I love the business, but Chelsea, like she wants to be in the business only certain amounts.

5:45So our weeks look completely different. I know we're going to talk about kind of creating the dream week on this episode, because it's going to look different for me than it does for Chelsea. But for me, what really helps with our boys. We have a four-year-old and a two-year-old. And definitely if they're getting daddy deficient, like it shows like they just start acting up and getting crazy. And so I've really learned when it's a higher season of, I had to speak at something, I'm traveling, I'm going to intentionally schedule in counterbalance days where I was gone for a couple of days. I'm going to schedule a counterbalance day.

6:14And that really helps me know when I'm on that trip, I'm covering it on the backend, but two, I'm, I'm helping them too, by like making sure I'm filling their cup with enough daddy every week. Daddy deficient. I'm stealing that word. I'm actually going to give you credit the first two times I use it, but then it's mine forever. That's just how it works around here. Daddy deficient. I love that. So Chelsea, we're going to move back to you because you've created a magical system called Dream Week. Tell us the origin story of this. Yeah. So this magical Dream Week came out of a place of deep pain for me.

6:52I was postpartum. We had just had our second baby and our business was at a new level. And in that season, like I just remember I was coming out of maternity leave, like many moms experience and just really wanting to be super intentional with this new little baby that I had and my toddler. But I also am super driven and want to get things done in the business and play a part in that role as well and having impact like both inside and outside of our home. And so I just remember like coming out of that and having like this, like fog, like fog of like, what is this going to really look like? And so Steven and I, the week that I went back into like work and was like, all right, team, like Chelsea's back in action.

7:35We sat down together and created this dream week. And so it really came down to looking at the past weeks that I had had when I was in the business and what were the key pieces that I had in each week to make it a really amazing week versus the indicators that made it like a not so great week. And so for me personally, I'm always a big believer in starting with your personal life first, because we all know if you don't put in those personal things, those things that give you life, it can very easily be taken over with things that we just say yes to just because, or an extra work meeting, or just not having boundaries and structure.

8:13And so for me, I really looked at the patterns that were giving me life. So for me, I, every single week, I want to have like solo time with each of our boys. And that happens in the mornings before work. So I made sure to schedule that first. I also love working out and I get a lot of life and stress relief and endorphins and all those good things. So I plan that into my dream week first. And then from there, I'm planning in different things that I want to do in the business and really essentially like theming my days and really making sure I'm sticking to that. And I've found that there, I can create this amazing week where at the end of my day, when I'm shutting off work, when I'm tuning things out, like I feel like really good at the end of my day.

9:00And on those weeks that even if the dream week is implemented and I feel like off balance or start to feel like brain fog or like the overwhelming feeling that I think entrepreneurs can feel, I just look at my week and I just say, hey, what did I add in here? What did I not put in to give me life in the business, in my personal life, and in the business as well? So that dream week came from a place of pain, but also with intentionality. Moms in business, we have to be so intentional with what and when we're spending our time. And sometimes it takes zooming out and looking at the full picture and recognizing patterns to really get that dream week.

9:43Fire Nation, Chelsea suffered for you. Take advantage of this dream week. Now, Stephen, what do you want to add to dream week? And then talk to us about the concept of switching cost. Why is it so important for productivity? Man, yeah, those two go hand in hand. If you haven't heard about switching cost, stay tuned because it could change your life. The dream week, I remember doing this. We actually did it on a piece of paper, good old school piece of paper, and we actually color coded the stuff. Right. So if it was like a time with me, it was a certain color. If it was time with friends, it was a certain color time with the boys of a certain color work time is a certain color.

10:17And it was really easy to just zoom out, like step away from where you couldn't read the words on the counter and actually see, does this feel balanced? Right. Does it feel off in one area? Oh, it's really heavy here. It needs to lighten up there. And it's so funny that you can really look. I mean, even last week, like we moved to a new area, starting to make new friends. But like, even like on the life side of things, Chelsea had way too many play dates last week. Like it was like way too much extroversion. And like, we got to Friday night and I'm ready to go. Cause I've been cooped up all week, just working.

10:46I'm like, Hey, let's go do something fun. And she's like, I need to stay home. Right. So it was just like, okay, we, we just kind of know, like, it's almost like having KPIs for your life. And I know that sounds crazy to some of your creatives out there, but we come from the creative world and I've really seen with structure, there is actually freedom, right? Like if you have a garden and there's no structure to it, like it just grows overgrown and gets, you get overextended. But when you kind of set some of these rules for yourself where you're like, Hey, we don't travel away from the boys this many times a month.

11:18Like we don't, we do a date night this many times a month. Like we kind of create these rough rules. Again, it's okay to break the rules, but that structure has allowed us to build the eight figure business without burning ourselves out. So let's talk about switching costs for a second because you heard that word and you're wondering what this is. And they've actually done studies on this that it takes you time to transition your brain when you switch between activities. And so this is why this is especially important for parents, people running high-level businesses that have kids that could run in at any moment, right?

11:53Switching cost is the cost of switching between two different brain modalities. And it actually can take 15 to 45 minutes for your brain to kind of catch up. Like you get off this podcast, you immediately go into a tax planning meeting or something like that. That's a totally different way of brain thinking. And you might be in that tax meeting, but your brain is still catching up for 15 to 45 minutes. And what we've seen working with thousands of parents and running businesses now at this point, the feeling of feeling frazzled at the end of the day where you're like decision fatigue and you're just like, I just got to put on Netflix.

12:25I can't do anything else. It's not because you did a lot often, it's because you switched a lot. And so when you learn this, you heard Chelsea mention theming her days. This has been crucial for us. We look at one, let's plan the dream week. Let's plan in all the life giving things first, even outside of the business, put those in first. And then in the business, let's try to like have a theme to the day, right? So can Mondays be like admin Monday, right? Where you're doing all the admin stuff. Can you make one day of the week, a meeting day when you're doing meetings and you only do meetings on that day?

12:55Can you block in some deep work days where you're just like have open space to explore and to do deeper long-term projects. We've done this and I could tell you all the themes of my days and Chelsea has themes of her days, even for like personal appointments, Chelsea, if she's doing her hair, makeup, like all the stuff, it's going to happen on a certain day. And this gives you rules to live by. And it also is so helpful in marriage because I know if I'm trying to schedule a thing with a friend, I know Chelsea's free days with even at, uh, with it without even asking her, right? I know like this is the day we're going to do it on and it's going to fit within our system.

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14:33Visit hubspot.com slash marketers to learn more. Chelsea, we are back and I'd love to hear anything you want to add about switching costs. And also, I love real world examples. Fire Nation loves real world examples. walk us through your weekly family meeting structure. Yeah, absolutely. I just wanna say in regards to switching costs, what Steven just laid out, I think like on those days or even like the weekend where you're not in the business as much, I think this gave me language as a mom to just know and understand like, oh, I'm probably a little more frazzled or my brain might be a little more frazzled on the days that I'm in full mom mode or with my family because we know like when you have kids or even old kids, like older children, like you're, you are switching between like playing with them and then making dinner and then over here and then maybe checking your phone really fast.

15:28And so I think for me, just understanding that switching costs has allowed me to give me like grace if I'm feeling frazzled at the end of the day. But in regards to a weekly family meeting, um, Steven and I do this once a week and, And I have to credit, any successful family-run business, I feel like that Stephen and I have run into at least have some kind of a weekly family meeting. And we learned this from other entrepreneurs when we first had our son. And we're like, man, we need to implement this. So for Stephen and I, our weekly family meeting is on a Sunday afternoon. And why a Sunday? For us, that's when our boys still nap.

16:08And we like going into the week strong together. So that weekly family meeting will last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour sometimes if we have a lot of tasks, but it's really close to that 30 minutes. And Stephen and I sit down together and we plan and look at the next 10 days of our calendar. And for us, this weekly family meeting, again, came out of a place of really intense pain. I remember like several nights in a row, again, after we had our second baby, trying to get back into the system. We hadn't quite like nailed down exactly what I needed in my dream week, but we knew things need to shift.

16:45And I just remember running downstairs and like looking at Steven, it was late at night. I probably had been scrolling too much. And I just was like, I feel like you and I are on different pages and every single night I'm coming to you with a million different tasks. And we just agreed like we needed one weekly meeting where we could come together to talk about life, to talk about business, to see where there's overlap, how we could support each other. And so Sundays it was. So we do this meeting and we literally have like an agenda. We kind of follow the L10 like agenda that we run in our business.

17:17So we run that meeting similar to what we do with all of our teams. And we kind of go through an agenda. Steve and I both bring to the table things that we need to talk about. And then we'd look at the calendar and again, planning personal things first. So for instance, in a couple of weeks or actually next week, like we're going to have a date night. And so we're just going to communicate like, all right, when you get home, the babysitter is going to come and we're leaving at this time. Do you have the reservation booked? Like it sounds so simple, but it's so important to be on the same page.

17:49And then from there, if there's, you know, a podcast that we need to review together or something that came up during the week that is business related that we didn't get a chance to talk about, that's where we talk about it. And then from there, at the end of the meeting, we each have action items that we are both taking care of. And that could be anything from, hey, did you follow up with the family photographer about booking that session? Or, hey, did you actually pay the plumber? Or, you know, it can be as simple as that to making sure that there's business things in the works. Stephen, everybody talks and they also dream about passive income.

18:27I mean, that's the goal for so many reasons. But you've actually been known to talk about leveraged income because you believe it's better than passive income. These are two interesting topics. I'd love to hear your thoughts, number one, about the weekly family meeting, if you have anything to add. And then number two, leveraged income, better than passive income. Tell us more. One thing we love is leverage. And you can hear it even in just how we're structuring our weeks. And that family meeting, I mean, to the husbands out there, maybe the wives, when you have a frazzled mind at the end of the day, because you had so much switching cost, And then like you finally get the kids to bed and then it's just like brain dump of like all these other tasks and things like it.

19:11It's not being kind to your mind. So the family meeting for us has been so helpful. Of course, if there's something immediate that need that came up that needs attention right then bring it up. But if it's not immediate, like I got asked to speak at something. Right. And I was like, I wanted to check the dates with Chelsea instead of just throwing switching costs into her mind at the middle of the night going, Hey babe, this guy asked me to talk at this thing. What do you think about this date? Now she had to pull up her calendar, all these things. I just put it on a note and we're going to talk about it on Sunday.

19:37If it's not immediate, I'm being more kind to her by just putting it on a note and we'll talk about it Sunday. We just nail it in one hour, get it all done. And we get all those decisions made and all those things. So that's been so awesome for us because then at night we can actually just connect and be humans and like talk about other stuff. Now I'm not saying we're perfect. Okay. Like you definitely have some nights where we bring up business at 10 PM and it's a bad idea. Right. So we definitely have that happen still, but it's been good language for us to say, hey, can this wait for the family meeting?

20:07This is so important because Fire Nation, it's so key. Like when Steve was talking about asking Chelsea a question and her having to pull up her calendar, I mean, that is just such a mental drain. And then it can start your mind spinning and then you're not sleeping that night. I mean, something that Kate and I developed a long time ago is we actually use one platform to ask these questions. So what will happen is if I want to ask Kate a question regarding the business, I can only center that question via Skype because guess what? Nobody messages us on Skype. We just don't use that as a messaging platform for anything else.

20:43so we know that we can go in there at some point during the work day and there's going to be a list of questions that are waiting for her that are waiting for me wherever that might be that are only there because we have that question and we don't want to interrupt each other's flow train of thought etc and that's a key thing for us that we make sure that we uh stick to because we have a phrase as well called batching like a baller this kind of goes to what you're talking about, Steve, when you say leveraged, because man, we are so hyped up on, can we just make sure that if we have things to do that we're batching them like a baller?

21:20So there's no wasted time. I don't want like a meeting at 9.15 and then my next meeting at 3.20. I want like four back-to-back meetings. So it's on my calendar. It's on Kay's calendar. She knows, hey, I'm on bow duty then. And then I'm going to be off. And so that she can be scheduling something for her. So we kind of have these like trade-off blocks, so to speak. So we can get a lot of stuff done in a very focused amount of time. And then we can move on to the next thing. You know, we can hand off, we can do that. We can do this. So Chelsea, what do you want to add to all of this that Steven and I have been ranting about?

21:53I love what you guys are doing. You have a system that works for you. And I love that it is outside of where anyone else can message you because then you guys both know together that this is like where we communicate on. And then you have the opportunity to pull it up during the workday and you know that it'll get done. So whether it's like a system that we're talking about, somebody else brought up, it's really all about like finding the flow and rhythm that works for you. But I think especially with families, entrepreneur families, high level families, which is so many of your listeners, you just need a system and you need to follow through with it.

22:32And it's not about creating more boundaries, more rules. It's about setting that up so that you can have freedom. And I've just found, again, like I was so resistant of setting up structures and I felt like this is going to limit me. Like that's what I really felt. So if I can give anything away, it's just like set these up because it will give you more freedom. Stephen, I want to talk about the best opportunities that you are seeing work best for busy moms who want to succeed with online business right now. It doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be both. So what are those opportunities?

23:09100%, yeah. Coming back to that leverage word, I think that's the one thing you can look for. If you're a busy mom, you're a busy parent, you don't have time to waste. So you wanna look for leverage. And why we say don't look for passive income because there's a lot of like, I think passive income just gives the wrong expectation. Like, oh, I'm just gonna push a button and money will flow to me, you know? And leverage income is more like, let's set up a system that we can make more leveraged over time. You know, one of our first businesses was a videography business. And I remember when we were shooting everything, editing everything, it was so time consuming.

23:45But then I just found someone to like do little logo animations for me. Right. And now my business was, you know, 95 % me and 5 % leveraged. And over the years, as we built that business, it was like, okay, now I'm a higher full-time editor. Now it's 50 % leverage, right? And like, how can you make your life more leverage? That's what we're all about. So what opportunities are we seeing work really well for moms right now? You know, we have thousands of moms in our community. We teach how to create a remote business, how to launch a physical product brand. And in our community, we have someone crossing the six figures, a six figure mark every 14 days on average.