EP152: How Inner Alignment Can Redefine Success

Interview with Erin Coupe / Author of "I Can Fit That In"

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

When Erin Coupe’s husband decided to leave a thriving real estate career to support her growing business, their family dynamic - and their definition of success - changed forever. Erin, a global speaker and author of the book I Can Fit That In, helps high performers move from self-sabotage to self-leadership through neuroscience, mindset mastery, and authentic living. She explains how rewriting the stories we tell ourselves, designing daily rituals that fuel purpose, and creating lives rooted in conscious choice can lead to a deeper, more sustainable kind of success - one that starts from within and radiates through your work, your family, and your leadership.

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Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;18;07
Erin Coupe
This phrase I can fit that in is a mindset shift. It's literally a way of being. I can fit in the things that matter to me. I can't cram more into an already busy schedule, but what I can do is get real about the stuff that is in my life that no longer belongs. The stuff I don't have time for, that I don't want to fit in.

00;00;18;12 - 00;00;37;29
Erin Coupe
The things that drain me, the people that drain me. The activities that are just distractions like Netflix every night or scrolling on Facebook for an hour and a half before bed. That's the stuff that is draining that no longer deserves my attention.

00;00;38;01 - 00;01;02;16
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company Dads podcast. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. We're focused on lead dads, working moms, and how small changes at home or work can have a big impact on their lives. Each episode promises to deliver actionable advice on some area of concern at home or at work. Short. Direct. Again. Actionable. Five questions. Five answers. Today we're talking to Erin Coupe, a global speaker, executive partner, personal guide, and creator of.

00;01;02;18 - 00;01;25;26
Paul Sullivan
I can fit that in a platform and mythology that empowers high performers to redefine success through inner alignment, approach neuroscience, mindset, mastery, and modern leadership principles. Her book came out of personal experience too, as she says, shift from self-sabotage to self leadership. She found it authenticity easy to help others do the same. Erin and I got connected through her husband, Craig.

00;01;25;26 - 00;01;43;18
Paul Sullivan
He and I happened to go to the same small college many years apart. But what prompted him to reach out was his own decision to become a lead dad, leaving his real estate career behind. To be there for the kids and to help Aaron build out her business. We have lots of points of connection here. Welcome Erin to the company podcast.

00;01;43;21 - 00;01;45;06
Erin Coupe
Yeah, it's great to be here, Paul.

00;01;45;08 - 00;02;02;07
Paul Sullivan
All right. So as promised, five questions. Five answers. Okay. No tricks in here. Question one, which will appear to all of our lead D&D listeners and many of our working mom listeners. How did you and your husband make what you call the big pivot, and how did he become the lead dad?

00;02;02;09 - 00;02;19;04
Erin Coupe
Yes. Well, so two years ago, you know, he's been in the business one year. So two years ago, he came to me and he said, you know, I see what you're doing every day. And first of all, it's work that you love. And secondly, you're really good at it. And you know, people need it. And he's he noticed that from afar.

00;02;19;04 - 00;02;32;23
Erin Coupe
But also, you know, obviously we live together. We talk about it. He sees, you know, some of the revenue numbers, things like that. And he could tell that I was really on to something. And then he looked at his own career, his own life, and he thought, gosh, you know, I'm actually not that fulfilled in what I'm doing.

00;02;32;24 - 00;02;49;22
Erin Coupe
You know, it's very transactional. I've been very good at it for a long time. It's been good to me. But eventually it started to feel sale to him. And I think the pandemic also is a big part of that. You know, he was in office leasing and, you know, the world changed from an office perspective. So it wasn't as sexy as it used to be either.

00;02;49;24 - 00;02;59;27
Erin Coupe
And when he said, I think I want to join your business, I mean, I was floored. I never saw that coming. I was like, wait a minute. What? And meanwhile, for about six months we had been to.

00;02;59;27 - 00;03;06;07
Paul Sullivan
But did you ask him to like, oh, well, could you send me your resume or do you have any references here?

00;03;06;10 - 00;03;26;14
Erin Coupe
No, but I didn't say, wait a minute. We would have to really talk about what that looks like. Right. And and I had been saying for a while that as I was getting busier in my business, that was year three. I was feeling more pressure in our home because I was managing everything, you know, the kids schedules, you know, how it is.

00;03;26;17 - 00;03;47;19
Erin Coupe
The kids schedules, the house projects, all those things. And I was writing out a list of all the things that have to be done and putting a name next to who's responsible for them. And it was very clear that it was all on my plate for the most, for the most part. He was a very present dad, but not in the ways that he really could be or actually even wanted to be.

00;03;47;21 - 00;04;09;17
Erin Coupe
So when we talked about what does it look like for us as a couple, what does it look like for our family? What does it look like for the business if we actually make this move? And it took about six months of also talking about those things. It wasn't, you know, cut and dry or even once it actually happened, it wasn't overnight that it was like, we've got this figured out right.

00;04;09;19 - 00;04;13;28
Erin Coupe
But that choice, that pivot is the best thing that we could have ever done.

00;04;14;00 - 00;04;30;10
Paul Sullivan
No. It's so fascinating that you wrote everything down on a piece of paper, because one of the things that we do at the Company of Dads is we help couples by doing this. They call the paper test very simple. But it's essentially that in a nutshell, like you write down everything you do and then you write down everything you think your husband does, and then vice versa.

00;04;30;11 - 00;04;52;04
Paul Sullivan
The thing we always guarantee is that those lists will never, ever match. But what happens so often in a relationship? It's like you didn't set out to do 35 things, and carry the mental load, and he didn't set out to do three. It just sort of happens like that. And it's so great that you guys had this moment, because that's where too often, like, resentment builds up.

00;04;52;04 - 00;05;10;29
Paul Sullivan
You're like, Holy shit, look at all the stuff that I'm doing. I have the mental load and you don't even know. So it's remarkable. And then the follow up questionnaire though, like, and it's probably pretty obvious for our listeners, but what is it meant for you? Like what did like how did you make that transition where those 35 things, 30 of them would go to his side of the ledger.

00;05;11;02 - 00;05;22;01
Paul Sullivan
And then what did it mean for you being able to let go of some of that mental load or most of that mental load so you could focus more on your business? And then, of course, the fun part of being a mom and a and a and a spouse.

00;05;22;03 - 00;05;42;06
Erin Coupe
Yeah. Well, I mean, for one, it meant that I could actually have the energy and the capacity to focus on writing my book, which I knew I wanted to do for some time. But in our old ways of, living, there was no way that I could have done that project. So that's that's a big, I would say, tangible aspect of what happened.

00;05;42;13 - 00;05;59;09
Erin Coupe
Yeah. You know, making that transition overnight to, okay, now all of a sudden there's way more on his plate that has to do with the family in the home that that wasn't quick. It wasn't just like I woke up one day and I'm like, oh, like breakfast for the kids is no longer my responsibility. Like and it wasn't that seamless.

00;05;59;12 - 00;06;19;21
Erin Coupe
And in fact, you know what? I did say to him? He left corporate mid-May of last year. And I said, you know, throughout the summer, just focus on deconditioning. You know, you've you've been in it for a long time. I know what it's like because I left after 17.5 years. Right. So I've made that transition already. But he really needed time to do that.

00;06;19;21 - 00;06;35;22
Erin Coupe
So I didn't want him to all of a sudden feel like he had to jump in and be some hero, either in the business or in the family. I was like, let's just ease into this. And so it was, it was gradual. And now I would say I sold manage a lot of things because it's just in my it's just in my personality.

00;06;35;22 - 00;06;52;02
Erin Coupe
It's who I am. I'm very, very organized. But he has taken on I mean, he's gotten very good with calendar invites, which I love. I live and die for my calendar. But I, you know, little things. I've had to just, like, teach and just say, hey, let's do it this way, because this is going to be better for all of us.

00;06;52;02 - 00;06;56;04
Erin Coupe
If it's organized, you know? So it's been it has been a journey.

00;06;56;07 - 00;07;13;07
Paul Sullivan
I love it. It's I also live and die by, our calendar. And at one point my oldest daughter, who's 16, showed one of her friends at school the family calendar. And the girl was like, mind blown and like, but I become like, if you remember the movie Ron Burgundy, you know, this is the one. Oh yeah, he would read anything put in front of him.

00;07;13;07 - 00;07;19;25
Paul Sullivan
And there's a funny line cinema. That is how we are with our calendar, like anything on the calendar. And it's like, if it's not there, it doesn't exist.

00;07;19;25 - 00;07;22;19
Erin Coupe
Exactly. That's how we are.

00;07;22;21 - 00;07;43;14
Paul Sullivan
So question two here, and this is kind of going into city, your career and also giving you a chance to explain how you're working with individuals and companies. When you think about the shift that you've made in your your family life, how has it changed, perhaps, or, modified the way that you're working with companies. And, you know, what?

00;07;43;14 - 00;07;49;25
Paul Sullivan
Do you incorporate any of the advice that you have from your own situation into helping these other high performance that you work with?

00;07;49;27 - 00;08;26;23
Erin Coupe
Well, you know, you one of the things you touched on a little bit ago is, is resentment. And I am very, very, very vulnerable and open when I am doing a talk for a company, when I am, on stage delivering a keynote for a conference, when I'm doing workshops for corporate whatever setting I'm in, I do a lot of storytelling, and I love telling stories because that is how people relate to the emotional, the emotional well-being or the the thought process, the mentality of what it's like to be in a certain situation and to come out of that, or to come out on the other side or to learn and grow through it.

00;08;26;25 - 00;08;45;15
Erin Coupe
So a lot of the work that I'm doing has to do with human skills development, right? Like, how are we going to be more human and how we lead ourselves and therefore lead others? And I talk a lot about the resentment that I used to hold in my life towards Craig. Now, in reality, it was actually towards a lot of people and a lot of things.

00;08;45;18 - 00;09;10;12
Erin Coupe
And in business and corporate, what I noticed is that I was the person who could easily blame anyone or anything for how I felt. I didn't want to take responsibility for the fact that I felt fairly unfulfilled, or didn't want to take responsibility for the fact that I felt like I wasn't good enough, or whatever it was, whatever script was playing out in my mind, that was just some false narrative that my inner critic created.

00;09;10;14 - 00;09;32;15
Erin Coupe
I was very attached to those stories, and I was resentful about them. And then it made me point to the people and the things. Craig, I'm resentful towards you because you don't do anything. I'm a martyr. I'm the one who has to manage at all. So those stories absolutely come out, and now I have a different layer to apply to that, which is oh, and my husband ended up joining my business.

00;09;32;15 - 00;09;41;22
Erin Coupe
So if that doesn't tell you that the inner work that I've done on myself has completely transformed my life from the inside out, then I don't know what does.

00;09;41;25 - 00;09;56;08
Paul Sullivan
Tell me about how it resonates with with the people in the audience. Do you think you're speaking to companies but you're not. You're speaking to the people who work for those companies in the audience. How is it resonating with them, and what do you think they're taking away? What are they telling you that they're taking away from?

00;09;56;10 - 00;10;17;25
Erin Coupe
So a couple of things there. I mean, for one, I have sat through so many speeches or workshops in corporate where I didn't learn anything. And so I just I don't tolerate that. I don't think that it's wise to put someone in front of a corporate audience that's not going to teach while they're on that stage, or they're in that realm.

00;10;17;25 - 00;10;24;27
Paul Sullivan
So even if you have cookies at the back of the room, it still doesn't count you, even if you have to learn. Okay. All right. This is good. Yeah.

00;10;24;29 - 00;10;28;03
Erin Coupe
Yeah. I mean, I also don't love sweets, so maybe that's why.

00;10;28;06 - 00;10;35;06
Paul Sullivan
It's not even like red velvet cookies. You don't even like everyone likes red velvet. Like if you. Oh. All right, keep going, keep going. We gotta learn something here.

00;10;35;06 - 00;10;59;02
Erin Coupe
But yeah. Like you've got to learn something. And so. So I'm always big on. Okay, let's just say for, you know, for intent and purpose, I'm doing a 45 minute talk. There's got to be at least three tools that I'm teaching. And every single audience. There is one tool that it will apply to everybody. So everyone's going to be able to take one of those things and just go, I applied it and this is this is how I felt, or I applied it and this is what it did for me.

00;10;59;04 - 00;11;18;19
Erin Coupe
And that could be as simple as like a new breathing technique. Or it could be as simple as starting to, you know, question some of the thoughts that they're having, just little things. Then the other two tools are going to be those that are like the next layer up, maybe a little bit more complex, but not difficult, but more people would say, geez, that one or those two really resonated.

00;11;18;19 - 00;11;33;09
Erin Coupe
I'm going to practice two of these, and then there's going to be a subset of people that will practice three of them. Yeah, I get messages constantly on my website, on social media, on LinkedIn, people sending me emails saying, wow, like, I practice that one tool that you taught us. And here's what's happened for me the last few months.

00;11;33;15 - 00;11;49;16
Erin Coupe
And so it's for me, it's the gift that keeps on giving, because not only am I hired to do this work that I love doing, but then I get to receive all of these messages from people who are actually applying what they learned and notice in the chat the changes or the, you know, the shifts because they're actually doing it.

00;11;49;19 - 00;12;05;03
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I like that. Question three, which is going to pick right up from there. You know, we want people to buy a book. It's coming out in November, but can you give us a few of those tips and tools that you share in your book or in the talks that help people become more deliberate in their decision making?

00;12;05;05 - 00;12;22;09
Erin Coupe
Yeah. You know, so the first part of my book, you know, it's a three part book. The first part is all about self-awareness and really activating self-awareness. You know, my belief is that it's not that we're not self-aware or we are, it's that we have these parts of us that already know, but we're just not in tune with that.

00;12;22;09 - 00;12;38;13
Erin Coupe
And so what I say is we have to activate that. There are various tools in the book on how to do that. But one of the things that I love to teach, and I teach this on stages or in workshops, is to be able to notice the voice in your mind, right? Like the voice in your mind is not necessarily who you are.

00;12;38;15 - 00;12;58;14
Erin Coupe
It's an identity that you have, embraced and given a lot of attention to over time. And you can call it your ego, you can call it whatever you want, but it's the voice of your mind. Now, you also have a voice in your heart, and I call that the authentic self. It's also, you know, you can call it the spirit or the soul or your essence or your core.

00;12;58;17 - 00;13;21;12
Erin Coupe
People can pick whatever word really resonates with them, but it's that voice that we often don't listen to. It's a quieter voice. It's one that is a little bit, I would say, tougher to give attention to because it doesn't really speak that loudly. It doesn't, you know, vie for attention. If you will. But being able to decipher those two voices has to do with when you listen to the one in your head.

00;13;21;12 - 00;13;42;02
Erin Coupe
How is it talking to you? Most of the time it is putting you down. It's it's criticizing, it's sabotaging. It's creating doubt or fear. And that is what leads people to inaction. Now, you could also say it leads people to action. And maybe those actions are not great, but I'm more so about what does it what how is it holding you back?

00;13;42;04 - 00;14;00;24
Erin Coupe
What is it keeping you from pursuing or keeping you from doing that you know you want, right? On some level, you know? So the real tool there is not only to notice that voice, but then to start to ask it questions. And when you start asking something like, is this fact or is this 100% true, you're going to find the answer is no, right?

00;14;00;24 - 00;14;17;05
Erin Coupe
So being able to fine tune what you're listening to and when and let go, let the stuff that doesn't serve you, that's a really, really big thing that people just don't. They don't choose to do that on a daily basis. You might do it once a month, or they might just somehow read a book and go, oh, I'm going to actually do this.

00;14;17;05 - 00;14;21;01
Erin Coupe
But no, you have to practice it until it becomes a natural.

00;14;21;03 - 00;14;28;20
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. It's like you go on vacation, you come back, you you feel your head is cleared. You've had this time to think, but if you're not careful, you go right back into it.

00;14;28;20 - 00;14;31;10
Erin Coupe
Slip into the old ways. Yeah, exactly.

00;14;31;11 - 00;14;33;15
Paul Sullivan
So that's the first action. What are the other two sections to tell?

00;14;33;16 - 00;14;55;03
Erin Coupe
Yeah. So the next section is all about designing rituals. So I mean that and that entire part of the book is case in point, a tool. It is the biggest tool that you're going to take away from the book design rituals, unique to you and to your life that actually fulfills you. So if you think about it, this phrase I can fit that in is a mindset shift.

00;14;55;03 - 00;15;19;29
Erin Coupe
It's literally a way of being. I can fit in the things that matter to me. I can't cram more into an already busy schedule, but what I can do is get real about the stuff that is in my life that no longer belongs. The stuff I don't have time for, that I don't want to fit in the things that drain me, the people that drain me, the activities that are just distractions like Netflix every night or scrolling on Facebook for an hour and a half before bed.

00;15;20;01 - 00;15;38;23
Erin Coupe
Yeah, that's the stuff that is draining that no longer deserves my attention. Now, this is not about perfection. So it's not like, okay, let's just cut out all those things that are mindless, but it is about being aware of what those are, so that we're also making other choices to put in the things that fuel us. So designing your own rituals, rituals are things with other people.

00;15;38;23 - 00;16;06;01
Erin Coupe
So for example, Craig and I cooking a meal together. We love doing that. We both love cooking. Once a week we want to do something that's gourmet, right? Like something that really took a lot of thought and a lot of ideating. And it's got special ingredients and it's like, it's fun. We both enjoy that. So that's a ritual that we have together, taking a long walk together, you know, a couple days a week where we're not we don't bring our phones, we're not engaged in anything, but just each other's company and nature.

00;16;06;01 - 00;16;22;02
Erin Coupe
Like, that's a really that's a really great ritual that we both have that grounds us, but also keeps us connected. So it fuels us. My personal rituals, my mornings. I love my mornings. With no one awake, I like to make my own coffee. I've got a certain, you know, it's an elixir that I make it.

00;16;22;04 - 00;16;27;14
Paul Sullivan
And I don't believe you for a second. You've got two boys, I know this. What do you get up at, like 4 a.m.? How do you avoid them?

00;16;27;17 - 00;16;29;20
Erin Coupe
Darn it, I started getting up at 515.

00;16;29;20 - 00;16;30;23
Paul Sullivan
Okay, there you go.

00;16;30;25 - 00;16;49;28
Erin Coupe
Yeah. Now, as they've gotten older, they sleep a little bit longer, so I too can sleep a little bit longer. But yes, I like to have just at least 30 minutes of just my own time before the world turns on and starts demanding from me. So also during that time, I might meditate, I might journal, I might read a few chapters of a book.

00;16;50;00 - 00;17;08;15
Erin Coupe
It's not the same routine I am big on. Let's not make things a routine, because then we're checking a box, and on Mondays we don't check the box. We feel like we failed. That is an emotional trap. So I'm big on. Let's not make it routine. Let's just keep it a ritual. Therefore you're choosing it. When it serves you right.

00;17;08;15 - 00;17;11;16
Erin Coupe
You're choosing it because it fuels you.

00;17;11;18 - 00;17;13;25
Paul Sullivan
Okay. And the last section.

00;17;13;27 - 00;17;33;14
Erin Coupe
So the last section is all about actually taking what you learned in the book and parts one and part two through self-awareness and designing your own rituals, and then allowing that to then fuel your purpose, your initiative, your meaning in life. So that's where it translates into how are you showing up at home? How are you showing up as a as a dad or a mom or as a spouse?

00;17;33;14 - 00;17;49;20
Erin Coupe
How are you showing up as a leader? How are you showing up when you go to Starbucks and buy a coffee and how you treat the barista, right. So it's really allowing all of that to become more of your beacon of light as your spirit kind of, you know, shines through and how you're leading yourself.

00;17;49;23 - 00;18;13;12
Paul Sullivan
I love this question for is going to kind of drill down on one part of that and that's, you know, you describe your work is helping people create lives rooted in choice. You've touched on some of that here, but you know, we were having a discussion, last night when one of our daughters saying, like, you're at an age where you can choose what you want to do and choose wisely, you don't have to get railroaded into doing something you don't want to do.

00;18;13;12 - 00;18;38;06
Paul Sullivan
You know, most adults will say, well, I wish I had all the choices in the world, but I need to, pay my mortgage. I need to get my, child to a doctor's appointment. I need to do all these other things. So what does it really mean when you say helping people create lives rooted in choice? And how can it be applied practically when there's so many demands on our time at home, at work, etc.?

00;18;38;08 - 00;18;56;11
Erin Coupe
Yeah. Well, I mean, so for one, you choose your mindset, right? So you can either look at life like, oh, there's so many demands and I have no time. Or you can look at life and you can say, yes, there's a lot of demands that's never going to change. I also can't change time. What I change is my relationship to it.

00;18;56;11 - 00;19;16;02
Erin Coupe
And so I am huge on, the victimhood mindset just doesn't work. It will not ever get you where you want to go. It will not ever help you feel better in your own skin. It will not change the way that you look. It's not going to change anything about your life. So if you actually want to change anything about your life, you've got to change the way that you're thinking about your life.

00;19;16;04 - 00;19;38;26
Erin Coupe
Right? And I am case in point, because I went from that person who literally was raised with nothing and, you know, was very, very poor and then changed my own life trajectory just by making choices to start to put myself out there more, put myself into school, you know, and then moved to New York City, where I know nobody like all of these things were just choices, even as big as some of those ones I just described.

00;19;39;02 - 00;19;56;18
Erin Coupe
Yeah, down to tiny ones on a daily basis. When I get up in the morning, do I? When I say it's another day, like, here we go again, it's the rat race. Or do I want to get up and say, it's another day I'm lucky to be alive. I'm going to actually have excitement or enthusiasm for my day, regardless of how much I have going on.

00;19;56;18 - 00;20;18;01
Erin Coupe
Right? I can't change my external circumstances just like that, but I can change the way that I navigate it. That is a choice. That is a choice that everyone can make. Now, within context, of course, there are people on this planet that are extremely disadvantaged and their choices are going to look different than the choices that you and I are necessarily describing right here.

00;20;18;03 - 00;20;52;04
Erin Coupe
I still believe emotionally and mentally you can choose your thoughts, and you can choose to ruminate in a really dark place or not. Right? Like I took a I took a course in neuroscience at MIT years ago, and one of the things that I learned was that, there was a study that we had had to read and do a report on, and 80% of people that are experienced mental, experiencing mental health, you know, issues or, you know, things that they're concerned about for 80% of those, it's actually just mental and emotional thoughts and feelings that they're dealing with.

00;20;52;04 - 00;21;15;23
Erin Coupe
It's not actually clinical. So 20% of the time there may be a clinical alcohol imbalance where someone can't necessarily choose a thought or what their what to think about, but 80%, that's the people that I'm talking about and talking to. And that's the people that I mainly serving. We can actually have the awareness of what is playing out in our minds and what do we want to follow and what do we want to let go.

00;21;15;25 - 00;21;21;22
Paul Sullivan
I love this. Tomorrow I'm going to choose to yell at my colleagues before they yell at me. Is that you guys? The positive one? I love it.

00;21;21;24 - 00;21;32;14
Erin Coupe
Yeah. I mean, just be ready to to actually fix that energy because you're going to have to get yourself back up from that. Yeah. You always have to write your wrongs. Don't forget about that. Because energy never stops.

00;21;32;16 - 00;21;50;18
Paul Sullivan
I love it. All right. Question five. And this is, you know, you know, a personal one. But it but I think, you know, our family sound similar in some ways because the choices we make. And I'll say this you I've got three daughters. You have two sons. You live in the Chicago suburbs. I live in the New York suburbs.

00;21;50;20 - 00;22;14;24
Paul Sullivan
These are generally places and these middle, upper middle class places where gender roles are trapped in the past. And so how do you see the decisions that that you and Craig made affecting your children, but also perhaps, empowering some of the people that you speak to to make similar choices if they're there. Right. For them.

00;22;14;27 - 00;22;36;29
Erin Coupe
Yeah. You know, it's interesting that you ask that because I feel like a lot of times people look at, you know, the business that I have and the success I've had with this business and they think, oh, if I could maybe just leave my job and run my own business, then that would actually be the answer to whatever their marriage or their relationship with their kids or any of those things.

00;22;37;01 - 00;23;07;02
Erin Coupe
And I always say it's not, but it's not about that. Right? Because first of all, and you know this, but running your own business is not for everybody. The corporate world is not a bad place. It's just the people in it make it a bad place sometimes. And so if you, if you understand that working on yourself, you know, doing some of this inner work, using some of these tools to better your own way of thinking, to better your own way of feeling and then behaving in the world will actually start to shift some of the ways that people react to you.

00;23;07;03 - 00;23;32;19
Erin Coupe
And when that happens energetically, you are showing up from a different place, and it does teach others through osmosis. So I think in our own family that has happened. I mean, the fact that Craig even decided to join my business is because I was showing up so differently over time that he was experiencing me differently. He was responding to me differently because I was no longer reacting the way that I used to react to him, right?

00;23;32;19 - 00;23;56;23
Erin Coupe
Or to our lives. I wasn't bringing that level of negativity or resentment or, just constant lack of fulfillment into our, our relationship or our family anymore. You know, I was navigating that within myself and processing what I needed to process rather than just project it out there and make it someone else's problem. So when I consider, you know, Craig joining and what it's what it's done for our family.

00;23;56;26 - 00;24;03;00
Erin Coupe
For one, he's more present. You know, he definitely didn't he he was present before as far as he was here. And he did a lot. But he.

00;24;03;00 - 00;24;04;18
Paul Sullivan
Was commuting into the city community.

00;24;04;22 - 00;24;28;08
Erin Coupe
Commuting. He was here in the evenings, you know. Yeah, he was he was taking off early in the morning. So I had the mornings covered and the evenings, you know, most time I was cooking and I was doing all the cleanup and all that stuff, but he was physically here, but mentally and emotionally he was not right. So now he gets to be mentally and emotionally available to all of us, which is a huge change and a really, really good change.

00;24;28;08 - 00;24;41;21
Erin Coupe
And I believe my boys are learning a lot about what a heart centered man and a great father actually is, because he gets to be those things with them now, you know, he didn't get to do that before.

00;24;41;24 - 00;25;02;13
Paul Sullivan
It's fascinating because we talked so much about, you know, boys and masculinity and how they learn these examples for people don't know. I mean, your husband is quite a good, college basketball player in the day. Unlike the rest of us, he's he's not 511 because I zoom, I think everybody's 511. He's way taller than that. And so he's coming at this from, you know, boys playing sports, boys being athletic.

00;25;02;13 - 00;25;24;03
Paul Sullivan
Dad was athletic. Dad had success. And he's showing them a different way to be both masculine and and caring. And I you know, this is anybody's is a podcast about the stuff we do. The company dads know that this is so important to me because I want to help create a world where when my three daughters grow up, the assumption is not that they are going to fit into these outdated gender gender roles.

00;25;24;05 - 00;25;48;01
Erin Coupe
Exactly. I mean, you just you hit the nail on the head there. And our society is shifting, you know, and it's been shifting right before our eyes for the last several years. And, you know, the future doesn't. We're not in a world where people just stay at the same company for 35 years and just grind it out and then think that they're going to find happiness or fulfillment or live their best life at 65, like we're no longer those people.

00;25;48;01 - 00;26;07;12
Erin Coupe
So how are we, shifting our daily lives to where they feel more fulfilling every day? And we're making the choices that are good for our families and good for our relationships and really serve the whole unit rather than just egotistically. Maybe one person's lifestyle.

00;26;07;15 - 00;26;17;12
Paul Sullivan
All right, I, I can't leave without asking you guys what, a year in the business, right? Is that. Yeah. I mean, how are his performance reviews is is he hitting his targets, his metrics? Is he all right?

00;26;17;15 - 00;26;31;28
Erin Coupe
You know, for the first six months we didn't do anything because, you know, I'm like, hey, it's like I mean, literally it's it's starting a whole new career, you know, because he's like, this is all so new to him. Every every bit of it is so new to him. But, you know, his role is chief growth and ops.

00;26;31;28 - 00;26;50;20
Erin Coupe
And so he's he's had a steep learning curve. But I think the beauty is that he's had me to learn from. And you know, I was running things soup to nuts. So being able to offload a lot of things to him once I taught him the ropes. Yeah. Was just it's just been so incredibly helpful. And we've built a big team.

00;26;50;20 - 00;27;06;00
Erin Coupe
I mean, we've built a team of 12 people now, so we've got, you know, quite a bit of people, on the marketing side. And obviously we have like our publishing team and all of them, we've got our creative director. So it's been it's been a lot of fun also having him engage, you know, he talks to so many great people like you.

00;27;06;00 - 00;27;21;03
Erin Coupe
You know, he's intuitively finding all these really cool people that we are just expanding our, you know, our energetic footprint through getting to know so many like minded, like hearted, wonderful people. And he's he's been a huge help with that.

00;27;21;06 - 00;27;28;13
Paul Sullivan
Aaron Cube I can fit that in. Thank you for being my guest in the company dad's podcast today. Tell people where they can find you.

00;27;28;15 - 00;27;40;27
Erin Coupe
Yes. Erin Khou.com. So that's Erin, Erin, Capcom, I am also on LinkedIn, Erin Koop and on Instagram at Authentically Easy.

00;27;40;29 - 00;27;42;11
Paul Sullivan
Thank you so much, Erin.

00;27;42;13 - 00;27;44;00
Erin Coupe
Thank you. Paul.

00;27;44;03 - 00;28;04;12
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Company of Dads podcast. Really appreciate you tuning in week after week to only use this moment here to thank the people who make it possible. Number one, of course, held a mirror who is our podcast editor. We also have Skip Terry, home to many of you know from Lead Diaries he's taken over our social media.

00;28;04;12 - 00;28;27;26
Paul Sullivan
Terry Brennan is helping us with our audience development. And Emily Servant is there, each and every day helping with the web development and can't do any of this without, an amazing board, of advisors. So I just want to say thank you to all of you who help. And I want to say thank you to everyone who listens and, hopefully you'll tune in again next week.

00;28;27;26 - 00;28;28;16
Paul Sullivan
Thanks so much.