I hope you’re amazingly well.
In today’s blog post entry, I want to answer a question that a bunch of my clients asks, and then at times, I’ve asked too.
And the question is, can you, should you work with your spouse?
Your husband, your wife, your significant other.
That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Should you work with your spouse?
Can you work with your spouse?
If you already are, how do you make it great?
Good topics, good questions.
Let’s jump straight in.
In our world, I’m the public face of Million Dollar Coach, our biz.
Yes, Kiri-Maree and I run this business together.
I’m the public face and she pretty much runs the company.
What that means is that we’re a bit of a dynamic duo. We do work together really, really well when we do a few key things right.
I had a real big breakthrough around this.
Like, I resisted it for years and years and years. Kiri-Maree offering to help and me resisting it. And I was resisting it for a couple of reasons.
Number one, I was resisting it because I’m a control freak and I love it when things go my way. And if they don’t, I get a little bit skittish.
And so, to be super frank, I was worried that if somebody else —Kiri-Maree or anyone else, frankly, was involved at that level, that they would do it their way, not my way and I was clearly the smartest guy in the world in my own head. Right?
And so, I resisted for a couple of years and did it my way.
And my way, basically, meant that we realized pretty early on in our marriage that I make the friends, Kiri-Maree keeps the friends, I make the money, Kiri-Maree made sure there was money left over.
We’re just —like, really different dynamics.
Both of which you need more than you could possibly imagine. Right?
And so, at the end of a few years of me doing it my way, we’d done really, really well, we’d helped a bunch of clients, we’d grown really big, we had made lots of money, and spent lots of money.
And —okay, answer the need for Kiri-Maree to kind of takeover things.
And I didn’t really know how to do it well.
We decided to work together and frankly, things got better pretty much straight away but they weren’t easy.
And then two years ago, I was at a workshop in Toronto with Strategic Coach and that was pretty good.
But about halfway through, a woman entered the room —from the side door— she was wise-looking, she was tall, she was thin, she was elegant.
And she sort of —she didn’t really walk, felt like she glided into whatever the word is into the room.
She was all scarves and presents.
She glides in, and I like meeting new people, I’m like, “Hi, we haven’t met. My name is Taki.”
And she goes, “Hi, Taki. I’m Babs.”
I’m like, “Oh my goodness, you’re Babs —the Babs.”
Dan Sullivan’s wife —business partner, life partner.
I was like, “Babs, I’m so stoked that you’re here. There’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask. How do you and Dan work out who does what?”
And she said, “It’s really, really easy. We’ve got a simple metaphor that helps us know who does what.”
And she shared with me one sentence that I want to share with you today.
And frankly, I heard this and it changed my perspective on how to work with Kiri-Maree and me.
Just to be super clear, Kiri-Maree is not a back office person who couldn’t be frontstage.
I’m really lucky to have her. She’s a badass in her own right.
And for the purposes of our business, she’s doing this role, but she does her own thing and she’s completely frontstage.
Let me kind of share with you what Babs told me.
She said, “We think about our business as a theater —with a stage. And obviously, behind every stage, there’s a backstage where all the stuff happens. Dan runs the stage and I run the theater.”
And as simple as that is, that just radically changed my perspective on how Kiri-Maree and I could work together.
And so, I was like, “Oh my goodness.”
I can run the theater which is the bit I love —front stage— and she can run the theater, which means that the whole thing will run smoothly and will look after clients even better.
We’ll have left over at the end of the year instead of great memories of money frivolously wasted on toys and fun things. And that’s kind of what we did.
I ran home from Toronto which is a 27-hour flight —so, it’s a slow run— and said, “Babe, I’ve been chatting with Babs. This is the thing. I’d love to run the stage. How would you feel about running the theater?” And she has.
It doesn’t mean she just runs backstage, she runs the whole operation.
We’ve got daily meetings and weekly meetings, and a monthly meeting, and a quarterly meeting, and an annual meeting. And I show up on the monthlies, and the yearlies, and the quarterlies.
But I don’t do the dailies or the weeklies usually. They kind of just wear me out. But I run the stage, Kiri-Maree runs the theater.
And so, if you’re thinking about how to work well with your husband, or your wife, or your significant other, that might be a useful metaphor for you guys.
It has certainly been really life-changing and useful for us.
It’s time for us head out.
I’ll talk to you soon. Taki Moore, out.
P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you grow your coaching business:
1. Grab a free copy of my book
It’s the roadmap to attracting prospects, signing clients, and scaling your coaching business. — Click Here
2. Join the Coach Dojo and connect with coaches who are scaling too
It’s our new Facebook community where smart coaches learn to get more income, impact, and independence. — Click Here
3. Join our Implementation Program and be a Case Study
I’m putting together a new coaching case study group at Black Belt this month… stay tuned for details. If you’d like to work with me on your client-getting and scale plans… just send me a message with the words “Case Study”. — Click Here
4. Work with me and my team privately
If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take you from 6 to 7 figures… just send me a message and with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! — Click Here
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