Marriage, Business, and the 3 Cs | Building Family Together | Ep. 1

How do you work together, live together, raise nine kids together, run a company together, and still like each other at the end of the day?

Welcome to Building Family Together. In Episode 1, Reggie and Tanora Polk introduce themselves and the show they have been building for years. After 25 years of marriage and 15 years running Polk and Associates Construction in Nashville, they open up the real rhythm of couplepreneurship. How they got started. The tension of working side by side. The framework Tanora calls the three Cs. What they do when they hit gridlock. And why their marriage will always be the bigger build.

In this episode:
01:02  Welcome to the podcast
02:38  Why we named it Building Family Together
03:51  The most asked question we get
05:05  A logo sketched on a paper tablecloth
07:34  Five kids, custom homes, and stepping back
09:12  The transition from residential to commercial
11:06  How we still manage all of this
14:04  Mama Tea, structure, and running the office like the house
17:18  The morning Reggie had to start making his own coffee
18:30  Zoning out at the office and what it did to the marriage
19:30  The three Cs: communication, collaboration, consideration
21:08  The realities nobody likes to talk about
22:11  How many times Tanora has quit the company
23:27  What we do when we are gridlocked
25:28  Who does what, and why
27:43  If the business failed tomorrow, would the marriage hold
29:30  Legacy takeaway: when you find your people, you find your purpose

Building Family Together is hosted by Reggie and Tanora Polk, married 25 years, parents of nine, founders of Polk and Associates Construction in Nashville, Tennessee. New episodes every two weeks.

Subscribe so you never miss a conversation. Tap save and share with the couple in your corner.

Follow on Instagram: @buildingfamilytogether

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and wherever you get your podcasts.

#BuildingFamilyTogether #BFTpodcast #ChristianMarriage #Couplepreneurs #FamilyBusiness #MarriagePodcast #FaithLedFamily #NashvillePodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to the Building Family Together podcast, the show where family, marriage, business, and faith come together.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome to our podcast. Uh, Tenora and I are so excited to welcome you into our lives and to our podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Yes, so we are celebrating 25 years of marriage. We have nine children. We are grandparents. We started this company together 15 years ago, and we are still married.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

We are still married. So, why do we create this podcast? Like, you know, we've had a lot of people coming to us and just saying, hey, you guys are so interesting. We love your family, we love your lifestyle, we love watching your business grow. And we just want to learn more about it. So, how did this all come about?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Yeah, like through the years, we've been asked a lot of questions like, how do you manage your marriage and working together? How do you manage the business and children? Like, how do you manage it all? And we're not here to tell you that is perfect because it absolutely is not. We just want to be here to encourage you and tell you what works for us.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Yeah. So just really just want to give everybody a glimpse into our world and really our flow. Yeah. You know, how do we operate together? It's not always pretty, but we always get to where we need to get to together. Yeah. And so that's what we want to do is just continue to inspire, give hope, encouragement, um, wisdom, any advice that we have. And everything that we share is really what works for us. Yeah. Right. So there might be some things that we share. It just may not work for other people. And that's okay. But this is what worked for Reggie and Sonora and our family and our lifestyle. So that's what we want to give back, and that's what we want to share with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yes. And we named it building family because our business is we have a construction company. So we are literal builders. We are GCs. And of course, because we have a large family, I'm building my family. And it's so many other things that we're building, legacy and things that we want to pass on to our next generation and our children's children.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

But one of the most important things about all of this is we're doing it together.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

So that's the building family, and then us doing it together. I think that's the strongest. Yeah, Tenora, she's my anchor. She's my anchor, right? So everything that I do, I want to involve my wife. I want to involve Tenora with that, and vice versa. So you really complete me in a lot of different ways, and that really helps the foundation of what we're doing. So uh, Leah, let's keep doing it together and sharing our story. All right. Pretty much we've built our company from the ground up.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

While still raising children.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

And during the midst of that, we've survived disagreements.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

We've learned hard lessons.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

And really, we've learned what really works well for us and our family.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

So whether you're married, building a family, or chasing a dream, you are in the right place. So let's get started. So, what is one of our most asked questions? Wait, wait, wait. You didn't ask me how my day was.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Oh, I'm sorry about that. So, how was your day? How's your day going, Tenora? It's good. It's good.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I I am having a bad hair day.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Your hair is beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Oh, thank you. I mean, I attempted to do a braid out, sat under the dryer for an hour. Yeah, took my hair down this morning, and it was still wet.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

I wish I had that much hair. So okay, you know what?

SPEAKER_01 3:20

I need to learn to be Greek.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

You'll be, you need to think about that. I wish I had that much. Okay. I had some, I had some loss.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

You got it in the chin.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

All right. Well, yeah, but mine's real gray. Yours is.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

It's beautiful. All right.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

So, what is one of our most asked questions?

SPEAKER_02 3:36

So, one of our most asked questions, I think people are the most curious about how we manage to work together and live together and still like each other at the end of the day. Right. So we work together and we come home and we do life together and we're raising our family. So I think people want to hear more about that dynamic and and that rhythm of how we do that together.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Do you want to talk about maybe how it all started?

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Yeah, so how it all started.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Um, wow, they're a long, long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

Yeah, that's that's a lot of ground to cover. But how about when we first had the dream of starting our company?

SPEAKER_01 4:15

I mean, I believe, well, this was literally over 20 years ago. Um, when Reggie was working with a company, and one day I just looked at him and I could just feel it. I said, Reggie, I think we can have a company together. I can see you running a construction company together. I don't know why, but that's just what I felt. And from that conversation, it took another 10 years before we even started the company.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

You know, one thing I've always loved uh is you've always really dreamed for me. And I think that's really special to have someone there that can dream for you. So yeah, you you had that dream and that vision of me, us starting a construction company. And um, you know, I thought that was cool. So, you know, I'm an activator, right? So I wanted to pursue that. And I remember we were actually having dinner uh one night, and and they had this paper that they used as a tablecloth. And we just started to sketch out, okay, if we were to have a logo, what does that look like? Yeah. And we literally sketched our logo on that piece of paper. And um, we ate dinner, and then before we left for the night, we tore that piece of paper off and we took it to a designer, and they actually designed our logo, which is the one that we are currently using today.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Do we still have that piece of paper?

SPEAKER_02 5:33

No, that thing's long gone. We should have saved that.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

That would have been awesome.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

But, you know, we had a dream and a vision, and um, we just started to act on it. Yeah, and so that's kind of what started our construction company. And then also at the same time, we were building our family. So uh I don't know how many kids.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

We had five children at the time.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

We had five five children?

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

It's a lot of kids.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah, it's a lot. It's big arrows around the table.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Yeah, so we had five children at the time. So um, while we were still chasing our dreams, we were still chasing our children around and building our family, and we just all kind of did it together. I mean, it's uh, you know, you think about, you know, did we lay out these steps or or what we wanted? We just kept walking forward in faith. Yeah. And just kept building with that. And so uh we started our company.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

And um we took a lot of business classes and we learned about the business and some of the do's and the don'ts and the wills and the wonts. And we just continue to build upon that. Um, and we started to find different areas that piqued our interest in terms of construction.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yes, we started with doing custom homes first, and that was really good for us as a whole, especially having five children. I was able to still work and get outside of the house because I was a full-time stay-at-home mom at the time, homeschooling and still homeschool. But at the time, so it allowed me to be able to work in the field because I was with my husband. So nobody couldn't tell me nothing.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

So wait a minute, let me back up. So you were helping me build the business.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

You were a stay-at-home mom.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

And you were homeschooling.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

What else were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Sewing clothes.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Sewing clothes.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Baking from scratch.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Baking. I mean, you're doing a lot of different things. I mean, that's that's one thing I've always admired about you. But uh, thank you for the sacrifices that you've always made to help with building the business and raising our children and teaching our children and all those all those neat things. But yeah, I mean, you know, that's really where we started, just you know, having a dream and a vision and acting on it and starting to build some custom homes and things like that in the area. One thing I always enjoyed, I would build a home. Uh, we would design it and we give it to you, and you would just change everything up.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

I put the makeup on it.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Yeah, you would change everything up. Um, and we'd have to make it work.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

But I love how you always came from the perspective of a woman. The woman, yeah. I mean, you would say, hey, we're missing a linen closet, a pantry, a pantry, or the pantry's too small. Yeah. The closet's too small. And so you always came with those different aspects of, hey, what do we need to do to take a good home and make it really great?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Uh, which I'm glad because when we did that, they helped us sell every house a lot easier.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yes. Now I will say we finally moved out of the residential of um building, you know, we we would do spec homes, custom homes, or whatever, but there was a season where as a wife, I did have to step back. I think at the time we had our sixth child, you started moving over to the commercial sector. I said you, because I wasn't planning on doing that. I was comfortable with the houses and I didn't understand it all. So that was a season for like a few years where I actually had to step back. Like you would come home and say, hey, this is what we're doing, even though I could not physically be involved.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Yeah. But you know what? That was just a this space, right? I mean, you know, we were still raising our children and raising our family, and there was a greater need for you in the home. But that part of life, that position that you took on at the house was just as important as what I was doing in the business. Uh, you know, from taking care of our children and and teaching our children and giving them everything that they needed. That was just a phase of life that that you really transitioned to to help with that. So thank you for that sacrifice. Um, and I, you know, I when you step back, I just knew I had to step up and and represent and keep pushing forward. Um, but it was great when you were able to get through all of that and then get back into the office with me and and help tackle uh everything that we're doing together. So that was really fun. Uh, but yeah, so we transitioned from the residential side into the commercial world and really we just never looked back. I mean, that was a great, that was a great transition for us. And I love the team that we were able to build through the midst of that. You know, when I think about our team members and our managers and our superintendents and project managers and everybody that's involved in what we're doing, you know, I'm really proud of the team that we've built together.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

So, how to this day do we continue to make this work? Because we have nine children now. A surprise baby who is younger than my grandchildren. We have nine children now. So how are we still managing this? Well, I say by the grace of God, because half the time I don't even know how I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

That facts. I mean, uh, you know what? There's no secret sauce for us. I mean, we don't have it figured out, but we're committed to trying to figure it out. We're committed to excellence every day. We're committed to when we have a life learning lesson, because we don't have failures, right? Yeah. But we have learning lessons. Well, so when we have that lesson, uh, we talk about it, we talk it through, and we figure out all right, if we could press rewind, what would we do differently? Yeah. And I think it's for us, it's always coming back to continual learning, uh, continual uh reflecting and just conversation of what works, what doesn't, so that we can make those adjustments moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Now, I think the lady's gonna know how you actually manage it, Tenora, as the wife. Um, some of the things I would say, I would honestly say it really is by the grace of God, but some of the things that I would say is you do have to have structure. So I have a certain time that I know I need to be back home so I can put dinner on the table for the family, you know. Uh so there are certain days that I say that I will work and certain days where I say I won't work, unless we're going out of town for business or, you know, I have some meetings or things like that. Um so Reggie will carry a lot of that weight sometimes. And so those are those seasons where, you know, in marriage, you give 100 and 100. I don't believe in 50-50. You give a hundred and a hundred, but some days I might only be able to carry like 40%. And he's carrying that 60, and vice versa. Um, also, too, you know, for the past nine years, I've had to bring my baby to the office. You know, like my older ones as I homeschool, you know, they can stay home and then I can run back and teach them or do whatever. And then even just during the seasons, like I was mentioning seasons earlier, as a mother and as a wife, me working in the business, sometimes I do have to go off seasons. There are seasons where my children have to go to a tutorial because business and work is so busy, I need some help. Um, like even recently, about three years ago, we put our younger ones in private school because I felt like I could not give them all of that attention as far as their education that I did with, you know, all the other seven children. Yeah. Or six children, however many it is. And so for me, I have I've had to learn seasons and being okay with each season changing. So I've learned to put uh put things down, pick things up when they need to be, um, so that I could still stay on schedule and make sure that I'm maintaining my home first. Because for me, my children, my husband, and my home to me is my ministry. Work is gonna be his ministry, of course, home, but like God gave man work. That's in them to work. So I have to let Reggie be who he is. But we do have expectations. We do, and I I expect you to not be home 10 o'clock at night.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

For sure. Yeah, that's not a good look. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

It used to be like that, and that was hard for years, you know. Yeah. Because when we first started the business and I did have to pull away having more babies, you were the janitor, you were the estimator, you were the PM, you were the superintendent, you were the CEO, the accountant, like you were everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

And so And I will say I think one of your strongest components is that structure. Because the same structure that you need to be a stay-at-home mom and to teach the children and everything that you're doing at home, you actually bring that same structure into the business. So I think that's that's one thing that's really, really important because you know, when we get to the office and we get busy, yeah, it's so easy for us to say, hey, we'll do that, we'll do that later. Let's we're busy, let's let's knock that out. And you're always we number one, we call Tenora Mama T. So mama T. Everybody calls me a mama T. She does not let us get away from our policies and our procedures and everything that we have to do. Yeah. Um, and some days that's cool, and some days it's a little bit like, come on now, we're trying to get past this. But she's like, no, nobody's doing this. We have to stick to our policies and procedures. And so we have to slow down and we have to do that. But I gotta tell you, at the end of the day, I really appreciate that because it helps keep everything organized. Yeah. And, you know, we don't have to remember what we did and go back and fix it. Uh, somebody taught me one day, they said, if you don't have time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to go back and fix it? Yeah. You know who you are.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Thank you for telling him that.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Yeah. So um, you know, we like to try to do things right the first time, and that's the structure that you bring and making sure that we do it right. And everybody's always saying, Mama T gonna get you.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

I got I gotta run the office the way I run my house. Yeah. Like there has to be procedures and there has to be structure.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

You know.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

So that structure is really good. And that is another major component when we think about, you know, how do we have the rhythm of marriage and business and bringing that all together? It's the structure.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

It is the respect that we have for each other, realistic expectations, realistic expectations.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

And talking about that.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Now, one of the things that we've had to really work through is, you know, I know that I'm the president and CEO, right? But who am I to you? Right? So if I'm your husband. So if I'm not doing something right or if I'm getting on your nerves or not answering you correctly, you let me know.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

I will say, you know what's crazy? The first few years of us working together was crazy because yes, I'm his wife, but I don't feel like he was treating me like the vice president or his partner. We would be at the office and you'd be like, baby, go warm up my plate. You want me to you want me to warm up your plate? Can you go make me a cup of coffee? At the end of the day, you would say, Can you wash these dishes? I'm like, Are you serious? We are if I was not at this office, who would be washing your dishes?

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Yeah, I was I was a little left-field with that.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

But and you did make my plate sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

A lot of times.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

You know, okay, so you know what I just stopped making your coffee.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

I've been making your coffee for like eight years.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

What was really special is you could hear my conversations and and you could hear when I have some intense or stressful conversations or something. And one of the sweetest things that you would do is you would actually come bring me a cup of coffee when you knew I was a little bit elevated or I was a little bit stressed out. So thank you for all those times that you did that. That that little cup of drugs. I still do something. You still do it.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

A little whipped cream or a little talk, yeah, and a little syrup.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

You you uh jazz it up. But uh, you know, it's all of those things that we are doing and just that understanding and the respect. Uh, and then, you know, there was a lot of things I had to learn because I remember when I would just get into the office and I could easily get in my whole world. We could literally be in the office all day and not even talk to each other because I'm just so zoned in and focused on everything that I have to do. Yeah. And you would always pop in and try to have conversation. I'd be like, Yes, what you need? Okay, yep, check, blah, blah. All right, bye.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

And it affected the marriage a little bit because I remember feeling like we would get in the car together. And I remember feeling like, you haven't talked to me all day, and we've been here eight hours. Like, what if I was at home? Would you have text me? You know, so it was really weird, you know, having you zone out. And I'm like, well, I still want you to know that I'm here. Yeah, you know, and I still want to feel valued.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

And I was just so locked in and just focused on my day-to-day things I had to get done, whether it be reviewing estimates or reviewing a contract, uh, writing a contract, whatever I had to do, you know, just making sure I'm locked in. So that was one balance that I had to really work through was really communicating with you much better. Communication, gosh, that was so key. I love the the three Cs that you came up with.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

So I have three C's. I don't even know if I made it up. But one day I was just at home and I was like, what can I tell Reggie that I really need from him that I think would help us with our home life and our work life? And I sat there and I was like, communication, collaboration, and consideration. Like, I need us to communicate well. I need us to collaborate on things when it comes to us working together. And I need you to be considerate. Like something as simple as when you email me, don't just send me an email with a copy of like some documents, and you don't even tell me what you want me to do with you. You just want me to you just want me to read your mind.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Yeah, you gotta read my mind. We are one. So when I send you something, you're supposed to know what I'm sending you.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

No, you need to be considerate. And then we need to collaborate. And the reason we couldn't collaborate is because you weren't communicating. Right. So we don't even argue about money. We argue about communication. So, like, if we do argue, it's it's communicating. And a lot of times it's just working together. We just all of a sudden think we're supposed to read each other's minds.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Yeah, so that actually really helped me out more than you know, because as I'm interacting with you, I think about am I communicating what I'm the message that I'm trying to get through, and am I being considerate of what I'm asking for you to do? And at the end of the day, are we collaborating together as we are doing marriage or business together? So thank you for the three C's. We need to, we actually need to get that on our wall somewhere in the office.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Communicate, collaborate. Consider it, consideration? No, considerate No, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's ghetto. We can't do that. We can't, I don't know. But consider it. It is a word. You're just saying it wrong.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Yeah, I know. I just added a little trying to make it on there. Yeah, trying to make it rhyme. Tenora, what are some of the realities of us working together uh that nobody really likes to talk about?

SPEAKER_01 20:20

The tension.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Okay, the tension. Okay. Tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Oh, so you digging, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:26

I'm digging I'm digging a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

I have quit the company like four times, but not not long, not long. Like if I felt like I was being ignored or I was trying to ask you something so I can make sure I don't mess up the accounting and you was very short with me or acted like you didn't have time for me. That kind of really rubbed me the wrong way because I see how everybody else has the time. You know, everybody else gets time. But I think with me, we're so complacent that you'd be like, What do you want? I'm busy, I'm on the phone. I'm like, you don't do that with nobody else.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Wait now, how many times did you quit?

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Only like four or five.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Only four or five.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

But I didn't stay gone long. Maybe one, maybe one time a few days. Then all the other times was just a few hours.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Pretty, yeah. Uh one thing I appreciate. When you quit, you would come back a couple hours later. After you would go out for lunch, you'd go take your little walk, and you'd be a brand new woman when you come back. But yeah, I mean, those tension moments are real, you know, and uh those are the times where I actually had to really step back and say, if this were another team member, another employee, would I have responded the way that I did, or would I have asked you to do what I did, or would I have said it that way? And almost every time I would say, you know what? No, I would not have said it that way. I would have said it differently to make sure that I'm being more respectful or more courteous, more considerate. I would have collaborated differently. You would communicate it differently. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

And we do communicate differently. I will say that's one of the things as far as us working together, we communicate differently. Differently and we like have to learn each other in that way.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Yeah. So uh that leadership difference, you know, how I lead and how you lead. Um, but you know, those are just some of the things that we we had to work through. But at the end of the day, we we did work through them and we got through them and we did it together.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Yeah. So it doesn't mean that we don't still have those issues, but I think we've done a complete 180. Like over the years, we've just learned to respect each other and appreciate one another for who we are as far as our positions and where we are.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

So let me ask you this, right? So all of this is great. What do we do? Because this is real life, this is real talk. What do we do when we are at a complete disagreement on a topic or issue and you feel passionately about it one way and I feel passionately about it another way. What do we do when we are gridlocked?

SPEAKER_01 22:54

We don't do anything until we can somehow come into some type of agreement, whether it's somebody else has to sacrifice a little bit more or compromise, but we don't move. You're not loop when I move, you move. Just like yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of like that.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

I think really that's actually been really helpful for us. So if we ever get gridlocked on an issue, we literally sit on it.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Or you'll pray about it. Yeah. I'll leave it up to you. I'll be like, you pray about it. That's on you. I don't want that way out there. See, that's a trick.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

We all else every man, you the man. No, you don't see that. That's a trick. Every husband knows that when you say, okay, you you figured out, we know that's a trick. Yeah. So, but we literally will sit on it and until we can gain agreement on that thing. And sometimes it's you compromising and saying, you know what, I thought about it. If you feel like that's best, okay, we're gonna do that. And then there's times where I'll come back and I'll say, you know what, I thought about what you said, and I think we should go that route. But we literally will sit on it and not do anything. And these this could even be something really small or minute. Um, but we try to discuss those things and have agreement. Uh, and then there's a times where I really want to do something, and I don't even ask you, I just go do it. And then I just ask you for forgiveness later because I just want to do it. And I feel like it's the other thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

So and sometimes you've been wrong.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Who? You, me? Yeah. Can you name a time that I've been don't worry about that.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

So you you quote scripture. Yeah. Yeah. You and I do a lot together. Yeah. Right? There's a lot of different components of the business. How do we decide who does what?

SPEAKER_01 24:34

I guess it really depends on what it is. Like, here's the thing I understand and I respect your role. So I know you have a role to play, and you know I have a role to play. That's how I look at it.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Yeah. So I think there are so many different components to the business, a lot of different needs. Um, there are certain things where my talents are really strong in certain areas. And so I'm able to do certain things, and then your talents are really strong in other areas where I may be weak. And so we delegate that to you. Like you have a very strong administrative spirit. Your administrative style style is good, which, you know, makes sense because we talked about the structured earlier, but your administrative uh gifting is really strong. So you tend to handle a lot of the administrative things that are really good. And I tend to handle more of the operational things, yeah, a lot of the accounting things. Although you actually do a lot of the accounting.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

We both do the accounting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

I do the bulk of it, but we both do the accounting. I was gonna say you do all the spending, and I do all the no, I do not do all the spending.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

I'm joking. I make sure them bank accounts don't go negative.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

You do, you do, and I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

Yeah, so uh, but you know, those are some of the things that I think are really strong, and that helps us out as well as we're doing our marriage and business together.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Yes, and you are phenomenal at being a business developer speaking. Say that again. You are phenomenal. Okay, I uh that's I'll just at BD and being a speaker, like don't put me up there. I don't want to do that stuff. Yeah, yeah. That's that's not me.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

I do, yeah, I do speak a lot. Yeah. And I I get to that's a gift, do a lot of mentoring and and speaking at a lot of different things, and which that's an honor to do because people want to hear our story, my story, and what I have to share. But it's important for us to always try to give back and help the next business that's coming up behind us, or you know, there could be another husband and wife couple that are coming up and they want to know how did y'all do that together? So that's great for us to share our story.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah, but not all the time. You don't do all your speaking on that. A lot of times it's customer relations. Yeah. And so you're really good at that.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

It just depends.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Speaking for the company, yeah. So if our business failed tomorrow, would our marriage still be strong?

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Yeah, I mean, it would have to be because that, you know, that's a traumatic experience, right? So we sometimes we refer to our our business as our baby.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

So if we were to lose that business, you know, we would have to lean upon each other to comfort each other, uh, to console each other and to look at rebuilding what we had. Yeah. But yeah, I think about, you know, our business is is phenomenal, but we had us before we had our business. I mean, it started off with that dream of dreaming of the business. So yeah, I mean, I I think that um I know that it would still be strong. Uh, we don't ever want to experience that, yeah, but I know that, you know, this all started with you. Uh I jokingly, when we're talking to the children, I'm like, hey, your mom was here first before any of y'all. So, you know, you're still my number one. And so, and they're just the beauty that comes as a result of our our relationship and our family and our marriage. But yeah, I mean, you know, if the business was gone, I mean, we just have to focus on us and rebuilding and what that looks like. Yeah, but it would be tough, you know. I mean, those are those times where you have to support each other and learn how to adjust and what's that next chapter look like. But, you know, we hope that that never happens.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Yeah, well, our foundation is the Lord anyway. So I'm honestly not worried about anything because no matter whatever happens with the business, I truly believe that God will take care of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the marriage is definitely more important. It's to me, it's easier to build a new business than to build a new marriage.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

That's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Well, guys, we hope you enjoyed the conversation today, and we hope that we have many more conversations like this. We're gonna leave you with a legacy takeaway moment, something that we hope can inspire you.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Yeah, so that legacy takeaway moment is uh just a word that we just wanted to share and give back to you. That way you could take it and hopefully inspire you on your journey forward. So, what's something that you want to share uh about our story and our marriage and business together?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

I don't have one because you told me you were gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Oh, okay. Well, one thing that I want to share is that whenever you're building anything with somebody that you love, always remember the foundational things that got you there. Always remember what's most important. People, in my opinion, um are the most important. So it always starts with the people or the person that you're building with, and then you focus on your structure of what you're building. But everything, in my opinion, always needs to come back to the people.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Relational.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Relational, yeah. When you find your people, you find your purpose. And so one of the things that I always think about is we're building uh a legacy and we're building a business, we're building our family. But at the end of the day, if we don't have our family, if we don't have our relationships, none of this means anything. So um, although the the good Lord has blessed us in a lot of the things that we're doing, at the end of the day, if I don't have the people around me that I love to share this with, it doesn't mean anything. So I always focus back on you and um the family, our children, and our legacy and enjoying the fruits of our labor.