How Do You Work With Your Spouse Without Sacrificing Your Relationship?

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1:10And I thought to myself, there is no way I can answer this question alone. I had to bring on Nicole, who is my co-founder, the executive producer of this podcast, and my wife. Welcome, Nicole. Hey, everyone. Hey, everyone. Hey, it's good to have you. Happy to be here. Yeah. So when we got this question, we thought, how do we answer this question honestly? So Nicole's been running the show from behind the scenes for over 12 years as the executive producer of the show. We've run multiple businesses together. And one of the things that we get asked constantly when we go to conferences or on podcast interviews together, even just personal relationships, how do you work with your wife?

1:45How do you work with your husband? I would kill them if I had to work with them. What are your thoughts when people say that? Yeah, it's always asked in that way. And sometimes it makes me a little bit sad, but I do get where it's coming from. I know that they don't really mean that they want to kill their partner. I know it's a figure of speech, but I do want to say that we're going to talk about the frustrations, the moments of tension, the kinks that we had to work out, because there are kinks that you have to work out. I think when people ask that question, they just think it's easy or it's natural.

2:14Some people can do it and other people can't. But I think we're going to be we're going to be honest. We're going to share, you know, those moments where we had to really work out certain things and how we've made it work. Yeah, I think what a lot of people want to know is like, how do you spend so much time together? How do you disagree without fighting? How do you work together when you have different working styles or even different ambitions? We're going to cover the good, the bad, the ugly. And I think we're going to share some things that we haven't shared publicly before. So excited for that.

2:46welcome back to the hundred dollar mba show i'm your host omar zenholm where i deliver practical business lessons three times a week monday wednesday and friday to help you start grow and scale your business i got a quick favor to ask if this show has helped you in any way leave me a quick review you could do so wherever you listen to podcasts this helps me and my team reach even more people who need the same no-fluff practical business advice that you're getting from the show. It only takes a few seconds, but it makes a huge difference. Thanks for being a part of our journey to help others on their journey.

3:23So just for context, we've been working together for over 14 years as co-founders in multiple businesses, and we spend roughly 90 % of our time together. We'll talk about how we do that. We work together, we spend a life together at home, we travel together. Yes, we have our own interests and hobbies and we have our time with our own friends, but we also had to manage what does it look like to share so much together. And I'm also glad that you're on the show because I think you're going to be able to ask some questions that the viewers are thinking about. Right. I'm hoping that I get to join you and ask the questions that people would ask if they were sitting right across from you.

4:03Yeah. And by the way, if you have a question you want to ask, you can always submit your question over at 100mba.net slash Q and we'll consider it and add it to our Q of Q &A Wednesday episodes. So the first thing I want to share with everybody who's watching and listening is I think Nicole and I got really lucky because we were colleagues before we were romantic partners. Nicole and I both worked at the same higher education institution, the college we're working at in Dubai. She was a teacher in my department. So I saw her as a professional before I saw her as my wife or my significant other.

4:37And I think that really helped a lot because I didn't have to adapt to a new idea or adapt to your identity as a co-worker, right, as a colleague. So when we decided to join forces and work together and build businesses together, it wasn't a foreign concept. That is true. So we knew each other in that context. But I have to say that we had the rules and the structure of the organization around us. And so, yes, while I knew you as a colleague, we had to then establish our own rules, our own working styles. And that's different. It's a different situation to have to navigate. A hundred percent. And you alluded to what I think we want to get into first, is that Nicole and I are absolute opposites.

5:23And I think that's a good thing because, and I've talked about this on the show before, if you're looking for a co-founder, looking to team up with somebody, don't find somebody that's like you because you are already you. The business doesn't need two of you. Right. So it's better for you to cover more ground by finding somebody that compliments you, somebody that is everything that you're not. And I feel that's what we are for each other. But we had to learn a lot of hard lessons about how we like to work, how we like to think. Tell me a little bit about some of the things you've learned over the years.

5:53Yeah, I think you were clearly a few steps ahead. Like when we started our businesses, for me, entrepreneurship was completely new. You'd been building businesses on the side. So I felt like you were a few steps ahead, but that still meant that I had to learn how to be a co-founder and in business with you and operate together in a way that didn't cause us frustration. So I think some of the things that were really apparent from the very beginning is how we think. You like to think solo. You like to think on your own, whereas I like to talk out ideas. I'm that's you know that's just the way I'm wired I don't know if you've you've had this situation I know a lot of my friends have had this situation have a question in my head I think I don't know the answer I come to you know ask you the question and then as soon as I ask the question the answer just comes all the time to me so that's just the way I think and that's just the way I operate and that's okay and I think we had to learn to understand those nuances and those differences Yeah, I think the biggest learning for me was you talk so that you can think.

6:59I like to think so I can talk. And it's a big difference when you're trying to make decisions. Like, say, for example, we're trying to make a decision if we're going to take on a new project or throw on a new event. And I have already thought about this. And it's probably been days since I've been thinking about this. And then I approach you and I talk about this. And then you start voicing your thoughts about it by speaking about it. And the words that come in your mouth, I actually take as if like, this is what you think. This is what you want. Right. And no, you're just actually getting to the answer.

7:27You're processing your thoughts verbally. Yeah. And I love the brainstorming process, but you've come already with the brainstorm that's already happened. Yeah. I like things to bake in. I mentioned this to you before, but if you hear an idea from me, especially if it's a significant idea to help grow the business, it's not something I thought of five minutes ago. I probably thought about it for a few days. And I do this on purpose because I like to let ideas simmer. I like to sleep on them. If I wake up and I still think about them, maybe there's something there. But if I kind of forget about it, like, oh, you know, that was just kind of a momentary thought, a fleeting thought.

8:01I don't think it's worth sharing. Well, yeah, and that's a good point. So we learned early on to set meetings and come together for things with very clear purposes. Like when it was going to be a brainstorming session, it was very clearly, I realized early on that it really helped to designate, okay, the outcome of this session, this meeting, this time we're coming together is for brainstorming. What's this meeting about? Nothing has been decided. We're talking it out. And then we became very clear like about, okay, this meeting is going to be a decision making. At the end, we need to conclude and come up with whatever idea we've, you know, we need to come up with a plan, for example.

8:37And I think just even establishing those outcomes and being so clear really helped you and I communicate better and work together better. once we figured that out. Yeah. So I think if you're going to work with your significant other, you have to learn a little bit about how they like to communicate, how they like to share ideas. And you have to compromise. You can't just say, no, I don't like that. You got to do what I do. I've learned to understand how Nicole likes to operate. And I work in her world because it's much easier for me to kind of do that than to ask her to change. And I don't expect her to make me change.

9:12But at the same time, we got to meet somewhere in the middle. We got to work together. Yeah. And that's when, like you said before, you realize that being opposites and bringing different skills and different ways of working to the table is actually something that is a positive. So I think that's good. I think that coming into it, knowing that, like going back to those people that say, I would kill my partner, being different is okay. It's actually a positive thing. I agree. And I think that the difference, you have to celebrate that, you have to embrace that, and you have to utilize that. You can't just be like, okay, this is too hard.

9:44I'm not going to deal with it. And it took some time. People don't realize that we were colleagues for years, for over like four or five years, and then we worked together as business partners for now 14 years. So we've ironed out a lot, and we're still working through it. And one of the things that as co-founders we prioritize is a chance for us to meet without the team so that we can make sure we're on the same page. This was really important in the early days because I wanted to make sure that you knew what I wanted to get out of this. Like, what do you want to get out of this whole journey as entrepreneurs?

10:16And what are you trying to get out of it? Because there's nothing worse than somebody working hard and then you don't get the outcome you're looking for. So let's get into some of the things that we want to share publicly we haven't shared before. We're going to start a little bit soft here, but one of the things that a lot of people don't know about us is that the first six years or so, first five, six years of us working together as co-founders from, I would say, 2012 on, we spent, I would say, 99 % of our time together working on the business. Like we really focused on growing the business, building the business, hiring, making a better product, make a better podcast.

10:52And we didn't really spend a lot of time on the relationship. Like we really that was our relationship. I think, you know, we will still love each other. Romance was there, everything. But I would say the vast majority of our conversations was about how we can win in business. It was all consuming. I mean, we changed our life, right? We'd gone from working a nine to five to starting these businesses and having to make it work. So I didn't, I mean, you make it sound a little unromantic. No, it was. But I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. It was all consuming. And I think in the early years it is.

11:28I think it's the different phases that you go through, right? It was a season for us. It was a season of just, and for me, it was fine because it's fun. It's like, this is what we're doing. every I mean, it was new for me to do all these different things in businesses, figure out blogging, figure out, you know, email marketing and figure out hiring customer service, all the different functions. Everything was new. And so that creative process of discovery and figuring things out with you, I didn't see it as like, what else were we going to do? I mean, this is what this was our life. Yeah. And we had a few restrictions because I think every dollar we made, we threw back into the business, reinvested.

12:06So we didn't really have a lot of money to spend to kind of like go on lavish vacations or anything like that. We did go on our first like holiday in six years. We had one failed one, which was like a three day cruise on Carnival, which was a nightmare. I didn't think you would mention them. Yeah, that was a nightmare cruise where basically we were in the room the whole time. And then we had a positive one. Wait, wait, wait, that sounds, we didn't love the cruise. No, we didn't love the cruise. We didn't want to go out there. We didn't want to get out there and mingle with the rest. I mean, it was just, you know.

12:39It wasn't our vibe. It wasn't our vibe. And the reason why is because Nicole and I are a little bit OCD when it comes to cleanliness. And it wasn't a very clean cruise. And that was kind of. This would be a whole other topic. Yeah. But we did have a good holiday where we went to Costa Rica. This was like about five years in. And it was like a five-day holiday. It was the first time we actually shut off from work. and we delegated to the team and we only checked in like an hour a day and we were like really nervous about that. Remember that? Yeah, that was, I felt like that was our first proper trip.

13:11And it was the first time that we exercised that. Okay, let's just let go. Let's trust. Yeah. Cindy. Thank you, Cindy. Thank you, Cindy. Nothing. And it was the first time that we proved that to ourselves that, yeah, if you hire good people, if you have a good team, you don't have to be on everyone all the time. Yeah, 100%. And it was a fun holiday that one. It was really fun because I really was hungry for experiences outside of business with you. And the moment we checked into the hotel, I asked the receptionist, do you guys do excursions? And she's like, yeah, we do excursions. Here's all excursions.

13:45And like, we signed up for an excursion today. Like we're like, we're going to do, you know, ATVing this day. We're going to do jet skiing this day. We're going to do ziplining this day. And we literally booked all these excursions back to back. And we had a lot of fun. It was a lot of memories. That was fun. I never went ziplining ever again after that, but it was fun. It was like the longest zipline. In the world. Yes, in Costa Rica. That was fun. Self-directed investing, trading, full service wealth management, automated investing, financial planning, thematic investing, retirement planning.

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14:53With Quo, all your calls, texts, and voicemails live in one place so anyone on your team can pick up a conversation, see the full history, and respond fast. Set up in minutes on any device, keep your existing number, and add teammates as you grow. No IT, no hassle. And Quo's built-in AI agent handles after-hours calls, answers questions, and even books appointments so you never miss a lead, even when your team is offline. Money is on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash MBA. That's Quo.com slash MBA. What we learned along the journey that I want to share with everybody and kind of bring up is, you know, you can always build another business, but it's very hard to create another solid relationship with your significant other.

15:49You know, businesses come and go and you got to really prioritize your personal relationship if you're working with your spouse. Yes, of course. The relationship has to come first. And it's not just a nice idea. It's really how we operate. And I think the more years you have in business, the more problems you experience, the more wins you experience as well. But then you get used to saying, OK, it's another problem we can solve. Like, that's fine. We'll get past that. You know, this too shall pass. And the more reps you have in that regard, the more, you know, it's not such a big deal when it comes to like, yeah, okay, there's a problem that we can't solve.

16:23No, we can solve it. We will solve. We've solved similar problems in the past. And that's the thing. We've solved those problems in the past together. And I think coming back to that is fundamental. Speaking of problems, sometimes you have to solve some big problems together. Sometimes when you have huge disagreements, especially when that disagreement or that decision is going to impact your business life and your personal life. I think we want to share a story we haven't shared before about a decision that you wanted to make and how we decided to move forward. Yes. I mean, I'm a little nervous because we haven't shared this publicly, but the decision that we debated on a lot was shutting down this podcast.

17:05Okay. What year was this around? This was 2019. Yeah. It was when we were working with Dan, SaaS Academy. And I was wrong and we're still here. So let's fill in the gaps. So tell me a little bit about why. Let's go back. Why did you want to shut down the podcast? I thought we couldn't run the two businesses to the level I wanted at the same time, the$100 MBA and Webinar Ninja. I felt like we, to really see them succeed, one of them had to go. And I thought, okay, it's going to have to be the podcast. Okay. Why did you think the podcast and not Webinar Ninja? Well, I mean, they're two very different business models.

17:43And, you know, you learn that, you know, a media company, a podcast is completely different to a SaaS, a software as a service. And I thought at the time that, you know, I'd seen all the unicorns out there. I thought there was more potential for Webinar Ninja. But it didn't really, it wasn't like having to choose which one was better than the other, I literally felt that you can't do both. But I know why I was thinking that way, like in hindsight. Yeah. Well, I mean, you and I have talked about it. We haven't talked about it publicly, but for me, it was a fundamental shift in my mindset, in my journey, in my growth as an entrepreneur.

18:20I was still thinking very much like an operator. I thought we had to do everything. Even though we had a team, I felt like if we don't do everything, then nothing can be done to the level that we want to do it. And that's not, I mean, that's maybe a more of an operator mindset versus say an owner mindset or an investor in the business. That was just the way I was thinking. And I realized, oh, it's not about who can do it. It's not about like, oh, what I need to do. It's who can do it. Who can we get help from? Who can we bring in to help us do all the things that we needed to do? Yeah. I mean, I'm going to share a couple of perspectives that maybe we could add a little bit context.

18:59So when we had this discussion, I was like, what? Like, you know how hard it is to have a successful podcast? Like we got lightning in a bottle and we won best of iTunes. Like, you know, it's literally like winning an Oscar and podcasting and then saying like, okay, I won my Oscar. I'm going to quit acting and start fishing. You know, it's like, no, we got to, we got to keep doing this. And obviously that reaction doesn't communicate well, you know? And I started to think about, okay, how am I going to be able to communicate my vision, and communicate my perspective to Nicole in a way that actually she can receive?

19:32So two things. One thing I realized is that we were around a lot of lifestyle business type of entrepreneurs where they did everything, right? And they kind of worked around their schedule and they prioritized freedom and not business growth. And that's not the game in SaaS and software where you are growing so that you can be acquired. so it's like pedal to the metal because you don't have unlimited time right so we were in a different world there and and the our podcasting friends were more lifestyle businessy right and podcasting has changed over the years now podcasts are media companies like ours and they're not lifestyle businesses so i had to consider the fact that okay these are the inputs you're getting right the second thing i realized is that i i had to ask myself what does nicole value you know nicole really values authority and people that have experience and even though we've worked with each other for a very long time and respect each other.

20:21It was going to be helpful if we got another person's opinion on this. And like you mentioned, we were working with Dan Martell as our coach in SAS Academy, who was coaching us through Webinar Neutral's growth. But we asked him this question and we had a Zoom call with him and tell us what Dan said. Yeah, it was like a business therapy session, wasn't it? Yeah. And when Dan, when the words came out of his mouth, which literally were something to the effect of don't kill something that's making you money. It was like instant. Oh my God, what did I say? Of course I get it. I get it. I mean, there was more to the conversation than that.

20:58And, you know, we worked, we worked through it. And I, you know, we shared this a bit, I shared it a bit flippantly, but I mean, it was our first business, a hundred dollar MBA. And so it wasn't the willy nilliness of just like, oh, let's just, you know, get rid of it. I mean, it was literally, you know, the desire to, okay, we just, we can't do everything. And then I realized, no, I was thinking I was approaching it the wrong way. And through that conversation with Dan, we're still here. And to be honest with you, like, you know, this is a discussion that went on for months. And it took a long time for us to both see each other's side of the story and opinion and perspective.

21:39And then how are we going to make sure that we both don't feel like we're forced into a decision? Right. We had to remain on the same page, which is something I think we haven't talked about. That idea of like the relationship comes first. We're on the same page. We always come back to why are we doing this? Yeah. And I think what we realized that the same page for us meant you just wanted to win. Like you're like, I think we need to sacrifice the show so that we can win in business. And, you know, what Dan was kind of teaching us is like, hey, don't worry. You know, like you put a couple more years into Webinar Ninja, you'll be able to get acquired at some point, which happened in 2024.

22:13you can then continue and then focus on the show full time. Yeah. And it also helped us establish more systems that we didn't have. Like, I mean, working through that problem, that tension really made us get clear on, OK, what is it that's maybe not working or what are the gaps that we need to fill? And I think we really then leaned on the team more, gave more responsibility to team members who are ready to step into those roles. and then it was like oh okay this isn't a problem anymore what seemed like such a huge yeah a huge insurmountable problem just needed you know a bit more massaging and some outside help as well in that regard you know with dan and and yeah we got through it yeah aren't you glad we did oh yeah i was so glad to be wrong it's rare but yeah it was i'm glad that that uh it's rare that i'm wrong yes it's rare that you're wrong yes okay good um so hoping that's what you meant.

23:11Yeah, 100%. Hey, guys, I hope that this episode is valuable. If it is, do us a favor and hit subscribe. We work so hard to create these episodes for you. So the biggest thank you you can give us is hit that subscribe button on whatever app you're using. But I also want you to hit subscribe because we have an upcoming episode I don't want you to miss. And it's all about, is social media a waste of time for your business? Okay. I was a big hater of social media for nearly a decade. I thought this was like just not a good return on investment. The amount of time and effort you have to put in, you know, you're not going to see it in your business.

23:45Well, I changed my tune about two years ago and it made all the difference. And I want to share with you why I changed my tune and what are some of the things that I did that actually has helped grow our business strategies, techniques, because it's very easy to get this wrong. It's very easy to just kind of like think you just post randomly and everything's going to be all right. That's how social media works. So make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. One of the things that I want to touch on is it's each other's responsibility in a relationship, whether you have a business relationship or a personal relationship, to make sure that each person is encouraging the other person to be their best and not try to change the other person, like really try to utilize their strengths.

24:24So one of the things I want to talk about is something that took me a while to fully appreciate is, you know, Nicole is very good at the things I'm very bad at, you know, so Nicole is very good at attention to detail. I'm an action taker and I don't really worry so much about the details, but that's okay when you're getting started because you're not really disappointing anybody, right? You're not breaking anything that's really valuable. But as you grow your business, as you grow your show, your podcast, whatever it might be, you know, the details matter because it's what's going to differentiate you from the competition.