Navigating Entrepreneurship as a Couple: Lessons from Kyle and Ariel Tresch | #158

What happens when a couple's love story finds itself at the crossroads of marriage and entrepreneurship? Join me as I sit down with Kyle and Ariel Tresch, the inspiring duo behind a thriving digital marketing business, who share their fascinating journey from being newlyweds to feeling like mere roommates. They faced the daunting task of reigniting their relationship while scaling their business, ultimately creating Couplepreneurs—a mentorship company dedicated to helping entrepreneurial couples achieve harmony in their personal and professional lives.

Ever wondered about the true essence of leadership and masculinity within marriage, especially through the lens of Christian culture? Kyle and Ariel challenge traditional notions and delve into nurturing leadership styles that emphasize collaboration and mutual support in relationships. By drawing on biblical teachings and personal experiences, they unpack the complexities of gender roles and cultural expectations, setting the stage for a fresh understanding that empowers both partners to thrive as equals.

In this enlightening episode, we also navigate the intricate landscape of religious interpretations and their impact on marital support. Discover the transformative power of genuine connection as Kyle and Ariel recount their journey through high-control religious environments and the pivotal decisions that strengthened their bond. Celebrate the synergy of marriage and business as we explore how respecting and appreciating each other's strengths can propel couples to unprecedented success, both at home and in their ventures.

Connect with Kyle and Ariel:
https://www.instagram.com/couplepreneurs/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/couplepreneurscommunity

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Transcript

Couplepreneurs

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Hey friend, welcome to Milk and Honey with Lemon. The Bible says in Numbers 14, 8, and if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. On this podcast, we talk about stepping into that overflow that God has for us by becoming those ultimate Proverbs 31 women. Hey, I'm Lemon. I am just like you, sister friend. I knew God had something more in store for me, but I couldn't see a way out of the laundry piles. And frankly, I resented that Proverbs 31 Woman. How am I going to live up to the hype? That is until I found out how to really step into becoming this Proverbs 31 woman through leadership development. In this podcast, you're going to find financial freedom, leadership growth, and motivation, so you'll be able to do all the things God has called you to do with ease and really step into that land of milk and honey. Welcome back to the Milk and Honey Podcast. I'm your host, Lemon Price, and today I'm actually really excited because I have my friends, Kyle and Ariel, with me. They are this super cute husband and wife digital marketing team. They have this thriving business. They've built a lot of them over the last 11 years. They help companies scale their help teams do increase their revenue by millions of dollars, which is amazing. But then working together, they found themselves like this really dark, sad place. And nobody wants to be there in your relationship. The stress of business took a toll in their relationship. And so obviously they're still here, they're still married. And so now they're the founders of a mentorship company called Couplepreneurs, where they help other entrepreneurial couples with some proven strategies to grow your business without growing apart in the process. So thank you for being here, friend.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Awesome. So good to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Thank you so much. It's it's an honor to be here. And we're excited for this conversation. I think we're going to be talking about some things that maybe other people haven't heard before.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Oh my gosh. So, guys, we were talking before we recorded and just found out we had so much in common and our thought process is the same. And I know where their weird little town is, which nobody ever knows. So like we're meant to be friends. And so I would love to hear, I know where that's it. We're instant besties and I love it. I would love to hear like a little bit more of like your story. Did you guys always want to be entrepreneurs as a unit? How did that come about?

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Yeah. Yeah. So it all started for us with what we call the anti-honeymoon stage. When a couple gets married, they go through what they call the honeymoon phase, right? We had the complete opposite. We've been together now for over 12 years. Prior to getting married, we both came from pretty humble beginnings. We grew up in a small town in Ohio. Both of us were business owners while we were together. Kyle had a digital marketing consulting business and I owned a dog grooming salon. But then I went on to have an organic marketing coaching business. And by the blessing of both of our businesses, we were able to actually self-fund our dream wedding in the Bahamas. We moved to sunny South Florida. And because we were both very entrepreneurial, we thought this is great. We get along so well. We have a shared language. Things are only going to get better from here. But what happened is after getting married, we actually jumped back into running our businesses, both back dove back into working. And we really spent most of our time in our separate offices. And we went from feeling like this very romantic, newlywed couple to now feeling more like roommates and business partners. And it was interesting because we started experiencing some issues that nobody else was talking about and that we hadn't experienced up until that point. Like, how do you stop talking about work when you're both working all the time? How do you and your partner align on where you want to go and what your future looks like? How do you give feedback to your partner when you're working together and you're both entrepreneurial without one person feeling criticized? How do you actually keep growing the business where it doesn't feel like it's coming at the expense of your relationship or your health or your lifestyle and all the other things that you want in life? And honestly, for us, as our busyness increased, we started to see our intimacy decrease.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

And our income actually flatlined at this point.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah. And a lot of entrepreneur couples, they run into this too, where all of a sudden their business is capped, but their schedule is also capped. Yep. And their intimacy is capped too. And like Ariel said, there was really nowhere else we could turn to. There weren't podcasts about this at the time or YouTube videos. And we just had to figure it out on our own. And I remember it actually created a power struggle between us, if I could be very honest, because at the time we felt so divided in where we wanted to go and we felt a lot of competition between us. And I thought the solution, as the quote unquote man of the house, was to just have Ariel become my assistant. So instead of her running her own business, I was like, Ariel, why don't you just come work with me? We're growing businesses and we're helping companies make tens of millions of dollars. And every time we would have that conversation, things would only get worse. And there was a lot more resistance. And I remember I was like, okay, so now what? We don't want to sacrifice our business for our marriage. We don't want to sacrifice our marriage for our business, but what other option is there? So the day that changed everything for us was really a day where honestly, I got in a guest room of our house, got on my hands and knees, and I prayed out to God. And I was just asking God, please show us the path forward because what we're currently doing clearly is not working to get us to the next level. And I remember I got out of that room and right when I was done praying, I looked on social media. I got my phone out. I looked on social media, which is usually the last place you want to look when you're looking for solutions to life problems. But in this particular case, I saw a live video that Ariel was doing for her organic marketing coaching business. And all of the comments underneath her live video were from women all over the world telling her, thank you for showing up and sharing what you know. And for whatever reason, in that moment, something changed in my mind, something clicked. And I ran out of the room after Ariel was done with her live video and I found her. And I'm like, Ariel, I get it now. I do not want to take the light that God gave you, the wisdom that God gave you, and put that under the bushel, so to speak, of you just being my assistant. So in that moment, we made a brand new commitment to change the way that we operated in our life. And we asked ourselves, how can we both get what we want and take our individual passions and point them towards a unified purpose? And for that reason, once we had this new sense of aliveness of what it could potentially look like to have the things that we both want and to both be entrepreneurial but still be aligned as a couple, that's where things started to change. We started putting in some new techniques, some new strategies, some new approaches to life and business. And what was so crazy is after months and months of trial and error, we started to see things shift. We went from feeling like disjointed in our schedule to feeling like in control of our schedule and actually having time for both our relationship and our business. We went from feeling not very clear on where we were going to feeling so aligned and so unified that every decision we made as a couple allowed us to see a path forward to where we wanted to go without us having to sacrifice what we individually care about in the process. And on top of that, we actually enjoyed more intimacy with each other because we were going on date nights, we were having a lot of fun, and we did some things that nobody else was talking about in order to actually increase the spark and the fire in our relationship that was burned out at that point. And what was so crazy is as we were working on these things, not only did our intimacy increase, but our revenue and our businesses went through the roof. My business 3X in revenue, Ariel went from having a few clients to having 25 new clients in the span of a couple months. And all of a sudden, we're like, wait a second, yeah. I think we found out something pretty cool here, which is if you can unify your visions, your goals, and your strategy and your roles with your partner, you could start to see not just more intimacy, but also more income in the process. So since then, Lemon, you know how when you go on a date night and you don't post about it, it didn't really happen. And that's kind of how we felt too. So what would happen was is when we were figuring this out for ourselves in the early stages of our marriage, we would post date night videos and photos of us just having fun going to dinner. And we would have people that would reach out to us and they would ask us, how in the world do you guys do this? Like, how do you make this work where you actually like each other and you both are successful in business and it's working? Like, how do you not want to kill each other all the time? Like people would ask us these questions and we were like, you know what? Maybe the next phase of our life that God is leading us to is to equip other entrepreneur couples with the same skills and strategies that we learned. So that's what we started doing. We started a mentorship company called Couplepreneurs, and just within a span of a couple months, it absolutely exploded. And today we have the opportunity to coach entrepreneur couples literally from all over the world who are making anywhere from$50,000 a month to$100,000 a month to$300,000 a month in our programs, but are doing so without having to sacrifice their relationship in the process. Yeah. Thinking back to our anti-honeymoon phase, we didn't see it clearly then what God's plan was for us, but now we see very clearly like this was his purpose all along.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

Oh my gosh. Okay. I'm obsessed with you two, and there's so many things that I want to talk about just from what the two of you said. First of all, since you guys cannot see them, the way they look at each other when they're talking about each other is the most like sweetest thing I've ever seen. And it makes me like a little emotional. And I hope you I know you two. You just you celebrate it, right? Like you guys are celebrating each other. And that's something, Kyle, I really loved and appreciated about you. Because my husband just had this realization too about me and business, the way you did about Ariel. Oh wow, I don't want to hide this light that you've been given. Yes. I started something new two and a half years ago. And my husband was like, he's the one who encouraged me to do it, but then he was like, I also don't get it. But I know this is where God wants you, but also I'm very confused. And he took a biblical leadership class in like week one, he was like, I don't think I belong here. Week two, he was like, Oh, I'm starting to get it. By week six, he was like, No, now I really understand what you've been doing. And then I found out I just spoke at a conference, and the owners of the company actually texted my husband a Zoom link so he could watch me speak at the conference. And I didn't know. They like told me afterwards it was like a very intimate thing because they may I said something about my husband and they're like Glenn's watching on Zoom, and I was like, Oh no. But I came off of stage and I had a million texts from him, and he was like, I really get it. Like, I get I see the way people respond. And he's like, I could never take that from you because that is God given. So yes, I would love to know Kyle specifically, like how because I hear this a lot from people that they're like stressed about working with their spouse. But like when I talk to men, they're like worried that having this very strong, like entrepreneurial wife emasculates them.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

I would love your perspective on that.

Deconstructing Christian Culture and Labels

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Thank you so much for asking this. This is we we're very passionate about this. That seems a subject that is very near and dear to our hearts, especially because it did cause a lot of pain in that early stage. Cause I thought that as the quote unquote man, especially in a lot of Christian circles out there, it is to basically assume that my wife, as my helper, so to speak, is supposed to only help in these predefined roles that maybe society has created. It's actually more societal than it is biblical to just say like they that a woman must fulfill the role of only being staying at the house, only being taking care of the kids, only being like this nurturer and not allowing to be stepping into what honestly God gave her to shine. From a biblical perspective, we all know the story of the Proverbs 31 woman who is, of course, taking care of the home, but she's also taking care of business. There's no way anybody can refute that. No theologian, even though if they want to try to, they can't refute the reality of it. So, as somebody who wants to live as much of a biblically accurate life as I could, as a man, I actually discovered that feeling like I need to be how do I say this? As a man, if I feel like I need to prove to Ariel that I'm the leader by subduing her gifts, that is actually not true masculinity to me at all. It's not even leadership. If you think about the best leaders of our time, like leader A is the type of person that might try to lord their authority over other people and subdue their gifts in order to make sure that everyone knows that they're a leader. Example B of a leader is a person who looks at their team, recognizes the giftedness of each individual, and creates an environment that fosters those talents and uplifts those talents to the highest level and maximizes their individual potential. Which leader do you think is a better quote unquote leader A or leader B? Most likely we're gonna say leader B, right? So even as a leader that I feel like I'm called to be, my job as a leader is to look for everybody in my life. What did God give them? What gifts do they have? What talents do they have? And how can I use my strength not to subdue them, but to actually lift them up? So I can go on and on about this. If you want, we can continue down that. But that's the philosophy that I took. And even in the Bible, you look at some of the most incredible men of God, they had amazing, powerful women beside them. If you look at the story of Adam and Eve, it was when God looked at Adam, it was the first time he said, This is not good, right? Everything else is good, but Adam being by himself, he said, No, this is not good. I need to bring a helper suitable. And what happened was they tended the garden together. They worked together, they co-ruled together. And I actually believe that the a true biblical approach to leadership and working with your spouse, it's not a situation where one person is like this authoritarian dictator and the other person is subservient. It's a situation where you are both co-ruling together in your area of giftedness. That's the way that I look at it. And for me, I have encountered with Ariel when I try to compete with her strength in order to show her that I'm a leader. I've come to learn that is actually my own insecurity, my own weakness that I'm trying to posture over her. The reality is that true strength and true masculinity recognizes the gift in your partner and does what they can to lift up those gifts to more people.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Oh my gosh, okay, I'm obsessed with you two. I need to introduce you too because I'm obsessed with you two. I love this because I didn't grow up in the church, and so then I joined like a very high control church when I first joined where women have no role outside of children. And so they were like, I actually remember one time they prayed over me that my business would be a failure, so that a good worthy husband would actually marry me. It's very weird. Like that we could do a whole episode on that. But I'm so curious because you're like, I had to like look at break. Sorry, Ariel, I feel like I'm like cutting you out. This is no, I love this conversation. So I just hearing you say initially, I wanted to subdue initially as a man. This is what I want to do. Do you feel like you both had that little not like deconstruction? Cause I hate that word, but did you like challenge your theology to where you are now? What was that process?

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Absolutely. I can start with this.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

I'll share my perspective first, and then I want you to bring in yours. From my perspective, this was a little challenging for me because, like you said, I didn't grow up in the church either. Like I went to church, but it was like twice a year on Christmas and Easter. So that was my initial perspective. And I remember when uh Kyle and I first got together, he always had a pretty strong Christian faith. And so, from my perspective, I was a business owner when we were together and I always was leading in a lot of regard of my life. And so when I was with him, I remember thinking, like, I don't know if he wants to actually be with me because I don't think he wants like a woman like me. And so that was like the very beginning as our relationship grew. Obviously, we were together, we got married. But I also hit a point too where I think he was questioning his own theology in this regard. And I started to also question like, am I wrong for making him want to support me? And so there was that interesting divide there where we both had to grow in different arenas. So that was my side, but what were you going through at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 15:39

But yeah, to just tag on to that. If you go to a lot of Christian or church-oriented leadership conferences, not all of them, but some of them will just basically paint a picture that like exactly lemon what you shared, which is like the man should lead, but lead in these predefined ways that we as a culture and society have labeled it to be appropriate. And I think that's where the problem becomes. I I so when I was exploring this, I was trying to hold two tensions, which is number one, I want to live a biblically accurate life. And number two, the the Christian church and culture sometimes paints a picture that I think is actually opposed to the biblically accurate life. So if if we're searching for a source of truth objectively to hold our lives to, what I've personally found is that I deconstructed my view of Christian culture. The Christian culture assumes all of these extra biblical labels that they will just put onto people and say, if you want to be a Christian, this is how you are to be, this is how you are to dress, this is how you are to act, this is how you are to interact with each other as husband and wife. And some of those things are just, I think, not only not in scripture, but like they're antithetical and they can be taken to the level of abuse. So obviously I'm speaking in the abstract, but to be very literal, we've seen so many Christian, whether they were marriage counselors or events, say things, a good woman will submit to you and everything. And this is what you need to do, and this is what a godly woman needs to look like. When I read scripture, that's not what I see at all. You see so many examples of amazing, powerful women who have stepped up in times of crisis. Obviously, there's the story of Deborah, but if you look at even Esther, or if you look at Abigail, King David is a hero of the faith, but Abigail kind of stopped him from doing some stupid stuff and wiping out uh an entire town. And I even look at Ariel sometimes like she's my Abigail because when I'm about to do something stupid, she'll stop me. And if you look at Barack, if you look at gosh, even in the New Testament, you have examples like Lydia, you have examples of just these amazing women, or even uh what is what is the name of the couple that you would the anyway, there's a couple too. I forgot their name that rhymes. I forgot the name of it right now. But anyway, all that is to say, I don't I I think the short answer is I I had to deconstruct the Christian culture, not the Bible, because in the Bible itself, women are powerful, they are used by God to express their gifts in amazing ways. And even as a man, as the leader, it is my job to lift that up, not to put it down.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

Okay, I love you guys because the I'm so glad actually for anybody like listening. And I love that you said you didn't deconstruct the Bible, but deconstructed the culture.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

That's what I think I'm seeing like a bigger shift on is the deconstruction of Christian culture and labels that don't actually exist, and this legalistic viewpoint that we have of men and women and those predefined roles. And I know this is not the conversation that we necessarily plan to have, guys, but obviously this is where God wanted us to go. And I just love that you guys are so bold about it too. I think we need more bold couples. I think especially like we need more bold men in this arena. Because I think that like for Ariel and I, like we can say like we have gifts and we are called to do these things, and you get labels on like real nasty things for doing that. Ariel, has that been your experience?

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Yeah, I'll even say we put out some content around this topic and it it did very well, meaning I think it's a very polarizing topic that people are interested in. And of course, we got some support, but we also got a lot of hate. And I will say a lot of it was actually more geared towards Kyle.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

I would get hate too, but it was more in regards to how Kyle could be with somebody like me. It was how he is weak for that and he is this. So actually, a lot of the hatred was towards him. Right. And so it's very interesting. That is how we judge the standard of a good man is by like the type of woman that they are with and whether that falls into a um preconceived box that a lot of people have in their own mind. So it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah. Did you feel any pressure though?

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Yeah, I did in the beginning. Like I said, in the early stages, I felt like maybe I'm not the woman for Kyle. Maybe I'm not the person that he wants. When I would go to church and would experience sometimes those boxes that I felt like I had to fit in, it just made me question, again, it made me question my faith, but it also made me question whether I should be with Kyle and if I was wrong in that regard. I think as time went on, I think you and I were growing in this on two different sides of the equation around the same time. And so by the time Kyle was like in your own words, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but recognizing that me being a strong woman didn't um negate his own strength or his own masculinity. I started to also step into, no, I think I can be this way as long as I'm not tearing Kyle down, which is never the point, again, is never the point of strength.

Religious Misinterpretation and Marital Support

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yeah. And I think that's really the crux of this, is how people define strength. Yes. Does strength have to mean that my wife is weak? No. Strength can mean that we're both strong. And does strength necessarily just mean masculine? Also, no. Yes, you can be strong and masculine, but you can also be strong and feminine. So this is just an example of how the culture defines the word strong and then mass labels it to a gender. And that is an example of like it's not inside of the Bible at all, because by the definition of strength, if you look at it as strength of character or strength of virtue, strength of honesty, strength of talent, there are so many examples of amazing women in the Bible who embody that strength. So if people say that Ariel needs to be more feminine and less strong, those are people that are using the world's definitions, not the Bible's.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

Okay, I love this. As you're saying this, I'm like, that is literally what the Pharisees did. They missed the point. They have their own definition of who the Messiah is and how he's supposed to show up and what these prophecies mean, and they missed the point completely. And so you miss out on the greatest blessing ever to come to the earth because you missed the point because of ego.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Yep. Oh, this is so good. We love this topic.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

So let's, yeah, we're down for it.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

I love it because it's super interesting. Like, I know my husband and I, we went through something like really similar, right? So I was in a very high control group. They like, I remember the group that I was in, like when I miscarried, they were like, It's because God doesn't want you to have babies because you run a business. And I was like, That's really gross. But we left there, we're in the Bible belt, and I'm in rural Georgia. So the church that we went to after that was similar. I went to school to get my master's in apologetics and theology because I was like, I don't know enough, like I'm Such a nerd. I'm like, I want to learn. That community is also very high control and legalistic. Yes. I love all of my apologists, friends, but if you don't interpret scripture the way you do, like you're a heretic and you're out of the castle, which is also really interesting. I'm like, I think I just left one for the other. And so I was having a conversation with our pastor, and he because they wanted me to take over women's ministry. Cause they were like, This is like you're the only female in church who has an advanced degree in this space. Like, I think you should do it. And my pastor looked at me. The women asked me to do it. My pastor looked at me and he was like, I hate when women want to go deeper with their their theology. They don't know what it means. He's, they don't need community like this, they don't need leadership like this. And he's like, There's nothing my congregation can learn from you because you're a woman. And like my husband immediately, and it was interesting because he was in this legalistic space too, where he was like, I have to exude masculinity in this capacity. The minute I called him, he was like, Absolutely not. He was like, We're out. He's like, You can't, he's like, How can you look at my wife and discredit her? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

You got a good one there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:03

Big fan. He's a keeper.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Yeah, I would say so.

SPEAKER_03 23:07

I like him. And it's funny because I tell him this all the time too. Like, I feel like it's not enough to just be like, I love you. Like, I tell him all the time, I like you. Like you, yeah. I genuinely like you. And then you guys said this in the beginning, you guys have date nights. And I think it's important. Like, we both belly laugh with each other on a regular basis. Like, I think it's important that we actually enjoy each other. Can you guys talk about working together and date night and like actually enjoying each other? Because I've talked to, and I know you guys have said this too. I've talked to a lot of people who are like, I can't imagine spending that much time with my spouse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah.

Marriage and Business Synergy

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Yeah, I agree. One thing I'll say too. I love that you said you don't just love your husband, you you like him too. We say that all the time. It's there's a difference, right? You can love out of just like commitment, but you also have to like the person that you're with. And I would agree. I think Kyle is my best friend and we have a great time together, both in work and outside of work.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Yeah. And it's anybody listening, if you if you don't just love but actually like your spouse, it also allows you to stand heads and shoulders above other marriages these days. Cause when we all ask ourselves, how many marriages in our life can we think of where the husband and wife are happy? Sometimes it's hard to find an example of one. And I think that for us, it really comes down to one thing. And we talked about this together, which is we have such a respect and admiration for each other that as individuals, that it just pours into everything that we do. So when we think about balancing work life and romance life, for example, when we are working in business, I recognize that there are gifts that Ariel brings to the table that I do not bring at all. Like business requires us to be creative, it requires us to be logical, it requires us to be aesthetic, but it also requires us to be efficient. It requires us to be accurate, it also requires us to move quickly. And all of these different dichotomies exist. They all help us grow businesses. But usually in a couplepreneur relationship where husbands and wives are growing businesses together, God didn't give the same exact set of skills and gifts in each person. He actually gives complementary gifts in each person. So in the business world, the reason why we're able to like each other is because I tell Ariel this all the time. When we're meeting and we're strategizing about where we're going to take our marketing next or who we're going to hire next, when we have discussions, I love that we approach almost every single topic from a completely different lens.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Because it allows us to make the most objective business decision possible. And when you make objective business decisions, that is what impacts the growth of your business and also your revenue and your profits. On the relationship side, so like when we are switching from working all day into maybe going on a date night, I love the fact that my wife looks as beautiful as she does. I love the fact that she is when she looks at me, she looks at me not just as a business partner. She looks at me as like a romantic partner that she's interested in. And we purposely put certain triggers and certain transitions and routines in our life to maintain both of that, both of those different dynamics and our respect for each other in the work life as well as the romance life. So I would just say that's what we've done. You can look at your partner as almost like a Christmas gift. And what I mean by that is when you receive a gift in Christmas, you could do one of two things. You could either, if someone hands you a present and it's wrapped in a bow, you could choose to just take that gift and put it aside and forget about it, or you could choose to unwrap that gift and see what's inside. When you have a partner that has a different perspective and complimentary skill set of you and you ignore it, it's like receiving a gift at Christmas and just putting it in the room and forgetting about it. But if you hang it out of the room, you don't belong here.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

But if you receive that gift and you open it up and the amazing blessing that's on the inside of it, that essentially represents your partner's different perspective, their different working style, their different approach, and of course, the different ways in which they complement your vision of what you want to accomplish in life.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Yeah, when you bring those things together, it creates like one superhuman, essentially.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

That's what the Bible says, right? When you get married, you're one flesh. So you can go. And I love that you said they're complimentary. I talk to my husband about this all the time. I'm like, if Eve was made from the rib, then like she brings complimentary skills. And it's so funny, my husband and I we found that all of our skills are complementary. He is a blue-collar guy. He like he worked with me for a little bit and he's like, I want to get out and touch things again. So he's like a two-finger typer, but he's so smart in all these other areas. And there's things even in our marriage. He's I hate, he doesn't want to manage the finances where I'm actually obsessed with math. Or like when we have to get when we moved, he was like, I cannot handle the packing. Like that gives me anxiety. And I was like, perfect, because I don't want to pick things up and put them down. And he's I can do that job. And so we're everything we do is so complementary to each other. And I think it makes it easier when you can look at your partner and have so much respect for them and the way that God created them. I think it brings a different dynamic to your relationship.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Oh, thank you. And what's really cool too is what we found is that it's also a superpower in business.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Like they, there's actually studies that have been done that says that couples who are running businesses together have a higher likelihood of keeping the business open and thriving after multiple years. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And what's so cool is we've seen it in our own life, and it's also proved by physics. There's this study that happened where they showed that one draft horse can pull about 8,000 pounds of weight on their own. And you would think that if you have two draft horses, that they would pull double the weight, right? So instead of 8,000 pounds, it'd be 16,000 pounds. But what they found is that when you have two draft horses that are pulling in the same direction, they can actually pull three times the weight of just one. So we could see this compounding nature in physics in the world that God created. And what Ariel and I have discovered, not just with ourselves, but with the tons of clients that we've helped, is that there is a compounding advantage that you have working together with your spouse, where you can actually accomplish three times, if not more, than just the average solopreneur out there. So that's what we found. And it's pretty remarkable to see, even in the Bible, when it says two are better than one, there's a reason why it says that. We are meant to be complementary to each other, and the things that we accomplish together are exponentially higher than what we can accomplish apart.

SPEAKER_03 29:14

I love that. And I love when things in the natural just prove the spiritual. It gets me so excited. I would love if anybody's like listening, some final advice you would have for people who are like trying to work with their spouse or resources you want to point them to or anything like that, feel free to put them all in.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Yeah. I'll start and then I'll pass it to you. So I think the most important, kind of actually piggybacking off of what Kyle just said is having a unified vision. Yeah. Because as a couple, you're whether you're in business together or not or separately, you are creating a vision for your life, for your family and together. A lot of the times what we see is one of two people couples fall into one of two camps. The first camp is either they have no vision, meaning they're just like going through the motions every day, getting through life, and that's really it, or they have division. And we say division because the etymology of the word die means two, and then vision is two. So two visions. And when you have two visions, what you find is that's when people actually do grow apart.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Yeah, because two visions equals division.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Exactly. So when you have two visions, people actually grow apart. Whereas if you guys can look at here are individual visions, where is the overlap and how can we bring those two things together into something that's unified? So we're pulling and heading in the same direction. That's where we see a lot of the success. So one of the things that we do with couples that we work with is we help them define like what are the values that they both have individually? And then where do those values overlap? So when you can look at that, means that you're defining what are the values that you want your life to stand for versus just starting with what house do you want to live in? What type of car do you want to drive? So we start with the values, and then we go into okay, what is the lifestyle that not only demonstrates those values to the world, what's the lifestyle that you want to live? What's the lifestyle that you feel called to live? Where do you want to live? What does your house look like? Um, how much free time do you have? How much are you working? What size is your team if you have a business? All of these different things. And then the last kind of piece of this is we ask couples to then go, okay, what is actually required to fund that vision, to fund that dream, especially when we're working with business owners, it's okay. What is the revenue amount that gives you the take home that you need to fund the vision? And so we break it down that way because it allows people to create a unified vision versus trying to pull in two different directions. That would be the first thing that I would say.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yeah. And the easiest way to apply that for anyone listening is to just pick a time throughout the week to go on what we call a vision date. A vision date is a time where you just get together and you ask those questions. What are our individual and shared values? What lifestyle do we want to live? And what's the monetary amount that is required to make that lifestyle a reality? Once you figure out whatever the monetary amount is, you just take that number, you multiply it by three, and that gives you your revenue goal. And then once you have that revenue goal, that dictates everything else you do in business. So that's why Ariel started with that, is because everything starts with the vision and then you work backwards because you want to create a business that gives you the lifestyle that you want, not the other way around. So what we do with couples is we help them define their vision, number one, their goals, number two, which is the measurable milestones to accomplish that vision. And then number three, strategy to make that a reality. Because there are so many different marketing strategies and business growth strategies out there. But the superpower that entrepreneur couples have is when they combine how they specifically work as a couple with what works objectively in the marketplace. And when you can find that intersection between your shared gifts and talents, the lifestyle that you want, and you pair a strategy that's customized for that specific growth, that is when you're able to see rapid expansion. This is why this is really our secret weapon when we work with entrepreneur couples, they're breaking revenue records every single month without feeling stressed that the business is straining their relationship. Because while they're having more money in their business and more money in their bank account than ever before, they're simultaneously growing together and prioritizing the relationship in the process.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

I love this and I love you too. There are so many people I want to connect you with because I just think that you two are doing something really special. And I just I deeply appreciate it. So, guys, please go connect with them. I will link to all of their socials too in the show notes for you, but please go connect with them. I just thank you guys for being here and just being so honest too about where you guys have been and just things you've walked through and this deconstruction process and all of this. I just really appreciate the candor because I just threw that on you. So just love it. Thank you. Thank you both so much for being here.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Thank you so much for having us.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

And asking great questions.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

And if anyone wants to connect with us, they could just follow us at Couplepreneurs on Instagram, shoot us a message, let us know that Lemon sent you, and we'll hook you up with a free resource that you can use as well.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

You guys are the best. So until next time, friend. Hey friend, what a joy it has been to share today's journey with you. If you found a spark of inspiration or a nugget of wisdom that resonated, would you bless someone else by sharing this episode with them? It could be the encouragement they need to step into their purpose and calling. Also, if you could spare a moment to leave a review, it would mean the world to me. I really appreciate your feedback and it really helps our community grow. Remember, the road to discovering God's call for you isn't when you have to walk alone. So join me again next Monday for another episode where we'll continue to explore the depths of leadership and the heights of our heavenly calling. Until then, keep speaking, keep growing, and keep tracking in its plans. God bless you, and I'll catch you on the flip side. Bye, friend.