Episode 19: Happy Wife, Happy Life … But Not How You Think

You’ve probably heard the phrase “happy wife, happy life” a thousand times. But what if we’ve been missing the point?

In this episode of The Navigating Leaders Podcast, host Gabriel Griess shares a simple moment with his wife, Kristie, and son, Preston, that completely reframed what it means to truly love, serve, and honor the people closest to us.

At a time when the world feels filled with conflict, uncertainty, stress, and even headlines of war, it’s easy to overlook the quiet battles happening inside our homes, relationships, and hearts. In a culture searching for stronger marriages, deeper connection, emotional health, and less overwhelm, we often assume love looks like expensive vacations, jewelry, or grand gestures. While those things can be meaningful, Gabriel shares a different perspective: sometimes love looks much simpler and much more powerful.

Through one ordinary Saturday afternoon spent scanning receipts, Gabriel uncovers an unexpected lesson about marriage, service, emotional support, and what people truly need most when life feels heavy.

Sometimes the greatest gift you can give someone isn’t more; it’s relief.

Whether you’re married, single, dating, or somewhere in between, this episode will challenge you to see the people in your life differently and ask: what burden can I help someone lay down today?

====================

RESOURCES

🌎 Website: navigatingleaders.com

👀 Vision Engine: navigatingleaders.com/vision-engine

📖 The Results Tree—A Proven Path to the Life You Really Want: TheResultsTree.com 

====================

CONNECT WITH GABRIEL

🎥 YouTube: @navigatingleaders
📸 Instagram: @navigatingleaders

👍 Facebook: @navigatingleaders

🎵 TikTok: @navigatingleaders

🗣️ LinkedIn: @navigatingleaders

====================

ABOUT GABRIEL

Gabriel Griess is a retired US Air Force officer, the CEO of Excel Medical Staffing and MedForceX, and the founder of Navigating Leaders. A graduate of the elite Air Force Weapons School, he has spent decades leading teams in high-pressure environments and equipping others to reach their full potential. As a combat veteran and an entrepreneur, Gabriel helps individuals cultivate self-awareness, resilience, and the ability to create lasting impact.

An internationally sought-after keynote speaker, he addresses audiences on personal transformation, strategic leadership, and veteran empowerment. The Results Tree is the framework he lives by, and when applied, it will unearth your destiny.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right. Finish this statement. A happy wife. That's right. A happy wife, a happy life. Now, some people might be like, yeah, duh, absolutely, of course. And and I think there's a real truth to that statement. However, I think that the way we're sold that statement, or it's marketed to us, or the way we experience it in life, it's not true. It just doesn't align. And we're going to get further into that. Awaken your vision, live boldly. So today we're going to explore that very topic: a happy wife, a happy life. And I'm sure it could be a happy spouse, a happy life, a happy partner, a happy life. In some ways, too, we could even apply this to the self, and we'll do that at the end. But in this case, I married, uh, just went past 16 years a couple of weeks ago, and uh three kids, thrilled with just my bride is is phenomenal. Way, way out of my league, right? And so I've always adored her and cherished her and looked to honor and to do amazing things for her or gifts for her. And uh in many times that looked like a tropical vacation or a trip to the spa or a shopping thing or a piece of jewelry or uh maybe some clothes, like whatever it is, right? The things that that were told uh pamper people or uh make them make them feel honored or special. And all of those things are great. And by all means, uh don't take this podcast as a reason not to buy an anniversary present or something, because I don't want to, I don't want to be the burden of that cause, right? But uh the the the real point is is that there's something deeper. There's something more important, and and that's what I want to get into. And so uh Christy and I got married in uh 2009, and uh and and her dad and her family were were really great at managing things and and accounting, and and so she was taught, and she's a business school graduate, so she was taught some really strong business principles. And so when it came to filing papers and I and accounting and uh doing the checkbook and and all those things, Christy was a real eye daughter and T-crosser, which I adore her for, and she's amazing at. And I was more of a that looks about right kind of guy, which is some skills I picked up as a navigator. And so our lives, we just approached it a little bit differently. And so for the first at least decade, she primarily kept all the receipts and organized everything. And when tax season came around, it was it was a stressful thing as she prepared to send the stuff off to the accountant. And and it always sort of sat with me a little bit like, you know, why is she working so hard? Why I didn't I didn't understand it, I didn't get it. And and she was doing what she was trained or grew up or learned to do. And it was it was her her family's way and her way, and it was different than mine. And so as we as we began to to merge this family and these things, uh, we would every year around tax time, I'm like, why don't we just box this stuff up and send it off to the accountant? That's what we're paying them for, is to put all this together. And she's like, Well, I want to make sure it's right. So we inventoried it and we built spreadsheets and did all this stuff. And I always felt like we were doing uh doing more of their work, right? Like this is what we pay them for. And so as the years passed, right, I became more involved, we became more aligned, we got a good rhythm of how we handled this and it made sense, and we always got stuff, got stuff done and did it properly. And and then as our kids began to mature, we started to have uh Preston, our son, was doing some scanning and and and tracking of receipts and and inventorying stuff that we would then send off to the accountant kind of as a job, and so he could learn this process. And we had we had a pile of receipts and things piling up on the desk in the office, and and Christy would nicely ask, she's like, Hey, you know, are you impressing and be able to get to that? Can we get it scanned? And it was, you know, she would nudge or she would ask, and uh, I could tell it was important, but I never really got how important, even after all these years. And so it's one Saturday, and Preston and I finally made our way into the office, and we're doing things and we're scanning, and we're also handling some other household kind of kind of things that that we want to get done, and and we're in our groove and we're just jamming along and we're getting it done. And and Christy walks into the office and she sees Preston and she sees me and she sees what's happening, and like there was this exhale, there was this like, oh it's happening. And in that moment, I witnessed her lay down this burden, she just let it go. And like we went from like an anxiety level of of say eight to like three or zero, right? There was so much relief and such a change in energy, and it was palpable, like I could see it, I could smell it, I could touch it, I could feel it, like all of my senses said that that boom, something changed. And it was in that moment that I that that happy wife, happy life took a whole new perspective, right? And this was the takeaway for me, is that I don't have to understand it. Right, it doesn't have to make sense to me in the same way that it's meaningful or purposeful for her. But if I have the ability to relieve an anxiety or I have the ability to pick up a burden or help her lay down a burden or help anybody do that, then I get to do that, even if it doesn't um have the same impact on me, right? And in fact, the task was relatively easy and and had little emotional attachment to it for me, which is why we put it off, which is why it was delayed. Um, but it was something that was always on her list, always in the back of her mind, like I've let this go, but it's not done, right? And so, so that's the invitation, right? Is that we get to love and honor the people around us, and we get to, you know, give gifts and give time and and take vacations and do all those things. But probably one of the most meaningful things I've done for my bride, for my spouse, for the health of my family and our in our in our household was learning and realizing that that my effort to take those things off her plate, massive ripple into the family, into the community, just into our everyday lives. So just to unburden and take that away. So it helps to remove layers of stress, it helps to remove anxiety, and it helps to ensure that there's that safety and that security, that feeling that, hey, I'm okay, I'm safe here, everything's gonna work out. Um, for those of us or those of you, those of the folks listening that don't have that significant other, that spouse, right? The same can hold true for how we treat ourselves, right? How we celebrate or how we reward or how we spend our quality time of investment, right? And so when I take an activity or a vacation or I spend or I do something in this happy space, right, trying to be happy or create happiness, um, I can look back on it and go, hey, did this fill me up? Did this create joy? Did this create energy or did it leave me drained? Did it perpetuate a story of the past? Did it create something that was shameful? Um, does it drain me? Right. And so then the same way I can look at my own activities with myself and decide, hey, is this creating that happy life? Right? Or am I not? So uh we started this with the phrase finish, finish this this sentence, right? Or this statement, happy wife, happy life. And so the invitation is to go into the world and to pick up those burdens you can, transfer that weight, help people lay stuff down, pick up responsibilities that are potentially very easy or even in your wheelhouse that are going to have this amazing relational impact for you. Um, it has changed our family, it has changed our home. Uh, and it has also created a lot of empathy because just because I don't see it somehow or I don't experience it the same way doesn't mean that it's not hugely impactful for the other person. And so that's the invitation, right? Go create happiness to help people in this space. And uh the help I'd ask for in this space would be share this podcast. Get it out there, let people join our community, let them hear this navigating leaders information, let them have an opportunity to choose differently today in the same way you've shown up here. So thank you for your time. Thank you for uh for your comments in the community out there. We're gonna continue to grow this thing, and we look forward to having you on the next Navigating Leaders podcast. Thank you.