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,

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?

This was the discussion.

It was, Daryl,

I don't get why we're together because we are so good.

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 Daryl.

Nope.

It is sweet, sweet Joanna.

Joanna, thank you for joining us.

And for those who don't know, this is my wife.

Yes.

Hello.

Daryl's looking a little nervous.

How long have you guys been married?

19 years.

19 years.

Dang.

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 the episode guys

Jenna 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.

Nearly a third of my life I've spent with you guys.

Oh, that's great.

And 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's.

The way you guys raise your kids, the way 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 misconstruate what that is.

People might view it as perfect.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I'm sure it's anything but perfect.

Yeah.

What are you guys still struggling with now while Daryl is still in an entrepreneurial phase?

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 Daryl might be struggling with or has struggled with as an entrepreneur from your perspective?

What you think Daryl 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,

he

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, you know, 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, it's like, go, go, go, go, go.

Right.

So I think there's, 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,

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

explain to me like because it's probably happened multiple times throughout your relationship as yeah

you know Daryl'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 maybe there's like a lack of recognition or communication and you're left there to pick up everything.

How 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 some times 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 to take a kid somewhere for sports or something.

But

yeah, I think

I think something too to that you should talk about is how raising young kids

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, one's

two and one's six and one's eight, one's 10.

And I'm like, oh, she must hate life because

when you have young kids like that, life is just I think what I, what, 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, that's a little bit highs and lows.

Hey guys, it's Chris.

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Now let's dive back in the show.

Did you always know being with Daryl, even when you guys were just dating, that Daryl 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 Daryl for a while and she goes, I just, I really want to find someone, someone like him that

maybe Daryl doesn't know this, but 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, 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, um,

I, I think I recognized 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 summer sales door-to-door.

That was how he got me to hang out with him that summer.

When now

you guys have gone through this journey for a very long time now,

you experienced early on you knew Daryl'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, is much different than like a traditional like career.

True, true.

And that requires a lot.

Yeah, the first year I did sales for him and worked in his office.

And then the second summer, I was his office assistant.

Ooh.

Yeah.

Well, in the office action, huh?

Yeah.

And then he proposed after that.

Okay.

Let's go.

Because you're just, that was your promotion?

Or I don't know.

I know he, 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 Daryl.

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 set?

I'll actually jump in here because when I graduated college, right, I was kind of like fed this

graduate college, you can 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 what I'm talking about.

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?

Like, there's, 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've, you're seeing this probably early on into your relationship.

Are you scared?

Like, what take me back to, as you're starting to see this start to unfold?

Because this, Daryl didn't go through a traditional way.

As Daryl 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, 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, I feel like those were the things that were, were pushed.

And so this did feel a little bit more of an adventure.

Um, but I,

I loved it.

We had young children.

We were able to try things and we moved a lot.

We probably moved at, you know, three or four times

within

a few years.

Yeah, five or six years.

Uh, but I, I liked it.

Were you signed up?

I really did like it.

Or did you always

signed up?

Yeah, I've always been, I've always trusted Daryl'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 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.

And and what i think is so cool about you guys's 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

um yeah every child we were either moving for a new venture yeah pretty much we're moving for a new venture right because we had evelyn in 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 Daryl 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.

You were 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 Daryl should go get a job or whatever it might be.

No, I haven't felt that way.

There's times where he's been like offered

like

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.

Just 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, and, and I think California was a great experience for us overall.

You know, it was one of my favorite experiences.

But, you know, financially, that market would have been better.

I could have listened to Daryl 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.

Has there ever been a time at all that you've been scared to embark in like this new chapter, new journey?

I would say the

question is not the better question because she really,

I don't think 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 where, 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 don't, I, I, I'm working on my garden.

I used to, I used to have a,

I used to be really big into gardening.

And anyways, now I, I do have a place where I could have something come back every year.

So I I actually think that is a really interesting conversation about how like the things you dream of wanting 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 a 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, I 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, like, what does that mean or how does that look?

Oh, I just think

what you find joy in changes, especially, I mean, the phases of life have changed for us too.

You know,

we're an older family now.

We have a daughter in college.

And

yeah, how you find joy through

all the driving and the soccer practices and the,

you know, the three to 10 schedule is when the day really begins.

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.

I sometimes hear from significant others that are there to raise the kids while the other is out working or building a business or whatever it might be that a lot of times they feel like they lose themselves a little bit.

The feet like

yeah.

Yeah.

Have you ever experienced that?

Yeah.

Walk me through that.

What that looks like.

Yeah.

What is that and where does that come from?

I think it 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, and 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 any 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.

Like 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 Daryl 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 is that the individual is that is it hobbies you know

What are you doing?

What are the tools or like the conversations you're having with yourself or with others to like,

for lack of of a better term rediscover yourself find your purpose again and find who Joanna is

I think one thing I've I've noticed is it's really easy to say no to

to things that seem scary or new you know like I kind of resisted the whole pickleball thing for a while like it seemed kind of like a cult like everyone was doing it and you weren't cool unless you played you know or part of some league and finally i i did join a thursday afternoon pickleball league and it's super 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 too, you know, nothing's going to really

improve for yourself individually if you're not taking care of yourself.

So Daryl and I started lifting weights weights like a year ago or a year and a half ago.

And yeah, and because of that, not that

it, 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 learn something else about yourself because you started lifting weights, you know, it's like

those type of 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 Daryl to other people or to like the children.

Yeah.

Has that always been like a rule for yourself?

Has 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 Daryl'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 you know but as uh I've I've seen things like research

and and things people have talked about lately that you know kind of backs up what I've done over the years because I've heard people say that before like I've never like what bugs you tell me what bugs you you know they want want me to like give the dirt on Daryl 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 Daryl,

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

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 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 i like you just 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 um

I think that's, I think that's also just part of like your character.

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,

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 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'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 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 is a talent or not.

I think it's a talent is you have this innate ability to visualize a space and to make it feel like a home.

Like I call it feng shui.

You've got the feng shui.

Oh.

Is that a talent that you've had just innately, like internally, or is that developed because you guys have moved so many times?

So you just have this ability to kind of make the sanctuary that Evelyn talks so highly about, where like it being home feels like sanctuary.

What is your ideology on like turning that house into into a home?

So I think you're right.

I, when we moved a lot in those earlier years, I got a lot of practice because when we, 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, you know, where, where am I 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, 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 were some like really bad choices in there, like orange carpets.

And, you know, I, I look back and and I thought that was so cool at the time but I I see how my style has like developed in time but I love I love looking at a room I today I was at a dentist office this morning and immediately I knew if the pictures were hung you know just 18 inches lower it would make the whole room feel better you know like 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 Daryl is at work 10 hours in the day or whatever and to come home to a house that's the energy's off.

There's no feng shui.

And for you too, when you've got kids running around, especially at a young age, where 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 ruin anyway but i feel 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 feng shui is probably not what you think it is it's like a it's like a really old method um where it actually it actually has i don't know if you really want me to talk about this on your podcast interior design,

but there actually is like an energetic meaning to every section of your house.

And that's what feng shui 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 love and 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 feng shui is that that would help you in that part of your life.

So, yeah, it helps me when I'm cleaning up to have

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' moves or life changes was the most difficult?

Oh,

well,

uh

probably

moving from utah to washington back for soldien yeah when soldjan began uh 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

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

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 is 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 paying attention to my health and what I was eating kind of as far as like whole foods versus

yeah just trying to this was definitely an interesting change in our marriage because if I would have if you would have looked 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.

It went away.

And 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, 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 a spouse that knows that they're like their Daryl 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 Daryl.

Daryl 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 the unknown?

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 supporting you.

But yeah, in your mind, how would you see, like, how did you, how would you deal with that if you had to start over?

Like, how do you create trust in chaos, right?

Yeah.

I think,

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 when we were doing um

like start trying different businesses was uh 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.

Uh, 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, that was a, that was uh, one of those things people would say to you.

Uh, so, 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

uh i think

daryl used to tease like the worst thing that could happen was is that we would live in your mom's home and my mom has like a 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 healthcare and it made me 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 this 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 when we were 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,

how do you feel good about yourself when you have to face that kind of rejection?

I mean, it stung for a while because to clarify, he actually told me what I was doing was 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 teary-eyed.

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, the pendulum swing.

When something doesn't work out, it's like, okay, you went into this, 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 the other side and that 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 they're 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, five minutes.

I've always heard this story from Daryl all the time, and I've tried to implement it in my own life as well.

Where

you guys 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

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 going to drive from Salt Lake, go down to Vegas for the weekend.

I was pretty excited.

I'd 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

great plan.

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's 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 an early November, maybe.

So it wasn't too hot.

You know, I was wearing like jeans and things.

But

so then

we decided you know years later we were gonna go to vegas again this time we had like three kids and daryl 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 um

We would get a penthouse suite, you know, at the nicest hotel or casino.

We would, what were some of our other ideas?

we would change penthouse suites and then we'd fly take a helicopter from one one hotel to the other okay we talked about going to shows dinners yeah the best shows you know best dinners anyways so from that list we ended up like jumping off the stratosphere um 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 i 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.

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 it just like allowed 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 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 wouldn't 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 can come up with.

Yeah,

I also love to,

speaking 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, Daryl 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 like, I mean, there's times when you're out on the river here and it's beautiful.

And

I feel like Daryl 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.

Daryl'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, as like a teaching

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, our slogan, I should say.

And then from that, we put in together um

like a mission statement with uh yeah like a set of

like lifestyle goals we follow what's the mission statement uplift our lives and lives of others and then uplift is like our values so uplift you have um unconditional love

you have physical well-being

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, there's symbols.

So she memorized like all the symbols of what each of those

uplift meant.

And

you guys are building 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 and i'm like mom dad core values what are we talking about but your kids embody this now and 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 i guess it's not like they were like sitting around like listening to us you I mean, I'm sure they were running around the table or, but yeah, they were bought into it.

Well, we asked, too, I was like, what's what's missing here?

Does this, do 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 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 Evelyn going to college.

She's really embraced way more of

our family culture.

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 and the way she does things and and takes care of herself in ways that the conversations she has with roommates about how to handle certain situations which if you rewind you know a few months ago when she's living in her house she's like absentee you know she doesn't even want to be there so it's funny seeing that transition from absentee to to yeah dude this is how we do it i'm like yeah you go girl this is how we do it it's fun yeah in entrepreneurship i think a lot of people always want to talk about dollars.

And Darry, 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 we're 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

that was just something I enjoyed doing with my friends and their families.

And to me, that has always been something I want wanted to do with our family was boating.

And that's something every single person in our family loves, including me.

So

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, Daryl's not afraid to

tip 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 do you know how to make that 45 or one hour wait turn to zero

just a nice little honey

you talk to the lady say hey for a hundred bucks can you get me a seed right now and you know what they usually say not usually you know what they say every time?

Right 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 an exchange of value right there.

So basically, when you tip the hostess 100 bucks, you're basically just cutting in line.

And I learned,

I remember at college reading some book I can't remember what 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 a short line but if there's a super long line the the whole premise of this book was like there's there's a gatekeeper there's someone Like the people are the weakest link.

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 joanna 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 but then i get i get to go first to cut you know it's making the line longer by me cutting too

uh

i also think sometimes like i was i I was at Silverwood 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 Daryl loves.

And so

but yeah, even

but if Daryl, if Daryl does the dirty work and I get a phone call to come to the front of line, I'll go, but there's a little bit of shame involved.

You'll reap what he sows, huh?

I will show up, but I'm always like that little like nervous.

Sorry.

My girls are actually pretty good at it, too.

They understand the I have a couple who are on my side, a couple who are on Daryl's side.

So it just depends who feels the shame or not in that.

Yeah.

Because you say, you say you're going to make them wait.

They're already waiting.

You haven't changed their reality at all.

Now.

Whose reality?

People waiting.

And 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

your mom

kindergarten first grade first grade it's true school school system taught us that I understand the value of lines and structure to me it's 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 like 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 want to 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 literally like hot springs, outdoor hot springs.

Lots of, it's an adult-only hot springs.

We showed up 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, ooh, this is a good line to cut.

So then I figure 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?

He said, sure.

So I go inside.

Then I take off my clothes.

So I have my swimsuit on.

Then I go over to the

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.

Go into like the guest, 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 the line.

They come all in.

There we go.

Save us.

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'll have to wait another hour.

I don't know.

It's cool.

So anyways, fun stuff like that.

Or dole whips at Disneyland.

Oh, Disneyland.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Who wants to wait for a Dole Whip?

Nobody.

So all you do is you go to the very front of the line and 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 or 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 renegotiate your relationship.

It's not the same.

It wasn't the same when we first started.

It changes so much.

It changes so much.

And I think people lack the 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 have that conversation, it 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 before 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, you know, to clean up from an event.

So things like that.

Like it wasn't really an argument, but it's like, hey, this didn't work, you know, and like we could, it's really easy to fix.

It's not a big deal.

It's just making sure you have systems in place like that.

Like, okay, next time we're going to do this.

Yeah, I think it's just getting better 1% 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 it what you guys are bringing up, like anger is, you could spin it and say like, hey, this is a great catalyst for the real conversation that we need to have because i find myself will argue my wife and i will argue about uh the dishes

but the argument is not about the dishes and we're angry as a reaction to something else

and 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 hey i'm angry but i'm not angry because i want to be angry i'm angry because of of whatever else is happening, I think, can be

powerful.

I'd 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 understanding...

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 so that we because we know like if things go uncheck like we will have a ton of conflict um because we're opposites she's gonna think very different than the way i think and so we oftentimes now that we're aware of that we know like hey let's let's make sure we're in sync because if we're in sync there's 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.

What would you say to 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, Daryl,

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.

Anyways, 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 than me?

And I think there's a lot of different answers to that question.

But,

but yeah, I think that started us kind of just self-discovering self-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, are we supposed to be together?

Was this a sign that we were meant to be, not to be together?

And then

we realized, and we did some,

there's some books we've read.

on this relationship 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.

I 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 of 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's sanity uh like a explain more like a list of tools conversations questions selective system i can start this off okay uh

one thing that's really helpful is if if your partner is an entrepreneur for for them to say every once in a while

what can i what can i help you with today

because i think uh

for me, that's really helpful.

Just because I already know Daryl 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 a list, though.

Anything.

I think communication is 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'd rather talk to you than 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 day's over, then we'll see each other and talk about the day, you know, now we do, we talk a lot throughout the day um

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

um

some other things we do do you think in our relationship that are helpful

um i guess i have like date nights that you like intentionally we 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, 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

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

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 usually the quiet treatment followed by, okay, let's talk.

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,

I'm sure Joanna's had a lot of things she's wanted to say that she didn't say that she then rephrased later, I'm sure.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of

like from

an entrepreneur like partnership is what you're asking, right?

I think it's okay to let your partner, I don't know, maybe Daryl, 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 doesn't really help.

No, if it's something that I haven't thought of, then it's helpful.

Yeah.

Usually thinking about it, though.

I think 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 because all she heard was the negative stuff.

So from my perspective, I'm always

trying to share like something that's, she'll ask like something funny happening 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 something so that she sees the business in that light.

Yeah.

And Daryl's really good at that.

Like, 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 into, 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.

I'm like, really?

Feels really bad but he always has like a uh

you know everything feels like more of 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 at next level 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 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 Daryl did with his daughter, with Evelyn, where you get the unique perspective of the insight 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 Level Pros podcast.