Leaving the Corporate World: How the Bennetts Found Their Path to Fulfillment and You Can Too!

“Your business (and every area of life) only grows as much as you do.” ~ Craig & Meredith Bennett

In this week’s episode of The Remarkable People Podcast, host David Pasqualone is joined by Craig and Meredith Bennett from Canada. They share their journey from the corporate workforce to starting their own business, and the ongoing quest for fulfillment. Faced with stress and unfulfillment despite their success, they eventually found their true calling through personal growth and helping others. The Bennetts offer valuable insights, actionable steps, and personal anecdotes geared towards entrepreneurs—particularly those working with their spouses. They delve into how strong relationships can propel business success, the importance of personal growth, and the power of taking the first step towards your dreams. Tune in for a compelling discussion filled with practical advice and inspiring stories. Also included is a commercial break featuring MyPillow bath towels and details on how to connect with Craig and Meredith through social media and their website.

• 00:00 Introduction to The Remarkable People Podcast
• 01:59 Meet Craig and Meredith Bennett
• 02:12 The Corporate Life and Unfulfillment
• 03:32 Taking the Leap: Leaving Corporate Jobs
• 04:06 The MyPillow Commercial Break
• 05:47 Starting Over: The Real Estate Venture
• 07:58 Finding Fulfillment: Personal Growth Journey
• 12:36 The Catalyst: Speaking Engagement
• 19:43 Building a Coaching Business
• 22:53 Iterative Process: Continuous Improvement
• 26:10 Realizing Misalignment in Business Ventures
• 27:26 The Importance of Personal Growth
• 28:23 Finding Your True Calling
• 29:26 Balancing Risk and Stability
• 33:32 The Role of Community in Entrepreneurship
• 36:47 Navigating Marriage and Business
• 40:57 Finding Fulfillment and Happiness
• 45:41 Special Offers and Final Thoughts

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For more Remarkable Episodes, Inspiration, and Motivation, please visit https://davidpasqualone.com/

Transcript

Leaving the Corporate World: How the Bennetts Found Their Path to Fulfillment and You Can Too! 

David Pasqualone: Hello friend. Welcome to this week's episode of The Remarkable People Podcast. Today we have with us our friends from Canada, Craig and Meredith Bennett. We are going to talk about how they were in the corporate workforce, but completely unfulfilled, even though they were successful. They're going to talk about how they left.

The corporate world started their own business, were successful again, but were still unfulfilled. And then as they were on their personal growth journey, they found their sweet spot, but they first had to take that initial step. And so they're going to talk about what they achieved and how they did it.

So hopefully you can too. This is all about finding clarity and moving forward in your life. It's really meant for entrepreneurs, especially those. With their spouse who are doing it together. [00:01:00] But we also talk about how if some people are an entrepreneur and their spouse is not involved or they're involved in a separate business, how they can still work together and help one another.

So it's packed with a bunch of great quotes. It's packed with great clips, and it's packed with a bunch of applicable knowledge that you can take. Apply to your life and see even more success. So I'm David Pasqualone and welcome to The Remarkable People Podcast. 

Thanks for Watching!: The Remarkable People Podcast, check it out,

the Remarkable People Podcast. Listen, do Repeat for Life,

the Remarkable People Podcast.

David Pasqualone: Hey, Craig and [00:02:00] Meredith, how are you today? 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Great. How are you? Excited to be here. 

David Pasqualone: Oh, we're excited to have you and today's a special show. Ladies and gentlemen, as we said in the intro, we have two Remarkable guests today. So Craig and Meredith, before we get started, we might have listeners that they've been with us for all six years.

We might have listeners that just started coming to the show, and maybe it's someone's first time, but if they commit to spending the next few minutes with us, what's one thing that you guarantee they're going to not only hear. Be able to walk away with and apply to their life to be even better. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: We're going to give them the cheat code to level up their life and their business through their relationship and show them how it's supposed to be fun.

All right.

David Pasqualone: That is important, right? We want to enjoy what we're doing, not just go through the motions. So ladies and gentlemen, we are going to be back with Craig and Meredith right after this, and I'm [00:03:00] sure Craig, we haven't talked to you yet. There's a lot more to your story than just this, but that's dynamically important, right?

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Absolutely. We're going to, we're definitely going to talk to me as well. I'm going to, I'm going to participate fully in this conversation, don't you worry? 

David Pasqualone: Exactly. Exactly. Two guests is the different way to moderate, and we're using one Zoom. So hopefully, ladies and gentlemen, we bring you great quality content as normal, but it's also an organized manner.

So check out this quick affiliate commercial and we'll be right back with Craig and Meredith. 

David Pasqualone: Ladies and gentlemen, I live in Pensacola, Florida, and while I love this area, we have some real issues with the water. And when you have issues with the water, you not only have to think about what you're drinking and intaking, but what you're also showering or bathing in, and what you're doing your laundry in.

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You can ask Mike Lindell and his team, they shower. They wash, they get folded and put on the same shelves, and yet they never have a foul odor. And they've been with me. Like I said, I think this pair's been with me three [00:05:00] years, this with me, two years, and they still look brand new. So go to mypillow.com, use promo code.

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So that's it. I'm David Pasqualone. I hope you love your MyPillow towels as much as I do now. Enjoy this great episode of the podcast.

David Pasqualone: Alright, Craig, Meredith, I don't know which one he wants to start first, but tell us about your story. We're talking about the cheat code, we're talking about having fun, we're having about talking about having great relationships.

[00:06:00] Something had to happen that was a catalyst where you found this to be so important and you unlock the code. So tell us about your relationship, your life, how it all started, and we'll bring us through chronologically through today. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: So we'll start maybe where we used to be corporate employees and we were, you know, we grew up believing that life was designed to be a certain way.

You go to school, you work hard, you get good grades, you graduate, climb, get a good job, climb the corporate ladder, all the bonuses and promotions and all the things that go along with the corporate existence. We were living that life, we were executing that plan, and we were doing a pretty bang up job, if I do say so myself.

We were, we were, we were ticking along pretty well, and then we were offered a gift, an opportunity where our company, we, we actually worked for the same company. That's how we met. And we can talk about that later, if, if, if that's where the story takes us. But at this point in time, we worked for the [00:07:00] same company.

The company says you know, we we're, we're relocating you guys. You're in this office, but we need you in another office across the country. And that was something for us that was like I don't know if we want that. Because we were already in a position where, especially me, I was super unfulfilled in this job I had picking this life path that.

Was kind of put in front of me and I didn't ask questions. I didn't question that. That was actually something, there was actually another op another path that I could have taken. So I was down this path and I was feeling unfulfilled. And when this gift was presented to us. We looked at it like an a, a flashing off, like a exit sign off the road, basically.

And, and that's how we see it. In hindsight. Yeah. In the moment it was incredibly stressful. Totally. We're going to make this move across the country further from our friends and family and all those things. It was a really stressful decision to, to contemplate walking away from anything we'd ever known and everything that we were actually quite good at.

Then at the same time, my [00:08:00] dad got cancer and we thought it was going to be his last Christmas. And so we drove 17 hours home to spend it with my family, and we ended up getting four more years with him. So incredibly blessed and grateful for that, but that was the perspective that we needed to actually.

Help us make that decision. The decision to walk away from our corporate jobs and walk into, we didn't really know what yet. We just knew that we weren't going to move and that we would figure out what the next step was. 

Speaker 5: Yeah. We had no clue how to build, like we were just like, we're in a plane. We're going to jump outta the plane and we're going to just figure out how to build a parachute on the way down.

Speaker 3: Forgive me, were you guys married at this point already or were you dating. 

Speaker 5: Yeah, married. We were married, then married at this point. 

Speaker 3: Okay, so you're married, the company knew you were married and there was no precursor or conversation or even probing, like, Hey, would you be willing to move across? They just told you one day?

Speaker 5: Yeah, and in fact, when it, when it first came, when they first presented the opportunity, it was the [00:09:00] weirdest thing. My job was going to actually stay. They needed a small team. My job was actually going to stay in the one place where we were, and her job was actually expected to move back across the country.

So that's how it was presented. At first, it was the, the weirdest thing. Anyway, we had a conversation and we were like, you guys know that, like we're, it's 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: a package deal, right? We're a package 

Speaker 5: deal here. So like we're one of us goes, the other goes. And so they were like, okay, well both of you can come across the country, but you both have to move.

But anyway, it was, yeah, it was a, it was a weird situation and jumped outta the plane, not having a clue how we were going to build a parachute. Had no clue how to do that. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: And we're both pretty type A, we love a good plan. We love a good to-do list. And so it was a weird decision making process for us at that time to say it feels like the right decision.

Even though we have no plan, so we of course, jumped onto Google as you do, and like we learned that 90% of millionaires make their money in real estate, so we jumped into that. 

Speaker 5: It's like, it's, it's interesting [00:10:00] when you, when you're both leaving everything you've ever known, the, the, the steady paycheck, the corporate job, it really, you get really motivated to figure out how you're going to make money so that you don't live out like a cardboard box or something.

That was the story we were telling ourselves, like, if we don't create this. Revenue generating something right now, we're going to be homeless. Obviously it was a huge story we were telling ourselves, but, but that, that scarcity was rising within us. So we started chasing money. We started chasing after like a little like a business here.

We jumped into real estate, we jumped into Amazon stores, we jumped into all these things that were literally chasing money, but had no, like, they weren't on our heart. They, they, there was nothing there for us. We did not care about it. And what we ended up doing was starting this real estate company that was making us miserable and to the point where.

We were starting to snipe at each other. We were starting to get short with each other. We were starting to really the, the foundation that we had built, the marriage that we had built, which we were [00:11:00] very, very intentional about, was starting to have chips in it and, and cracks in the foundation. And that's when we threw the challenge flag and said, we gotta, we gotta have a conversation like what are we doing here?

Craig and Meredith Bennett: And that's when we discovered we were actually both miserable trying to build this real estate business. And we decided it's us. Above everything else, even though we'd invested quite a bit of money in this real estate business, we put it away, put it on, like put a pin in it. We're done with that and realized we were chasing money and decided that.

What we came to realize was we didn't actually do the work when we, we knew what we didn't want when we left our corporate jobs, but we did not do any of the work to understand what actually we did want. Who do we wanna be? 'cause we were also facing a pretty significant identity crisis when we left our corporate jobs and all the things that we were good at and all the ways we were validated.

So we didn't know who we were. We didn't know who we wanted to be. We didn't know what gift we wanted to give the world. We hadn't done any of that work. So that's when we. Closed the business and decided we would focus on us and, and try to answer [00:12:00] those questions. And we ended up going to several personal growth events, reading all the books, listening to podcasts, doing all the things.

And at these events it was interesting 'cause people, strangers would come up to us and like, oh, hey, we're doing this together. That's really cool. I can't get my wife to come, I can't get my husband to come. And we would just chat with these strangers and give them advice and didn't really think much of it.

And then we were at one of these events and the, the guy leading the thing, leading the event came up to us and said, Hey, I've been watching you guys, like, you're, you're coaching. Do you realize you're coaching people at these events? Do you realize like you're helping people? And we said, no, we didn't, didn't really, didn't connect those dots at all.

And then he said, I, I'd like you guys to speak on stage at my next event about relationships. And we were like, who us? So that was, that was a terrifying moment that we said yes to because that's what we had been hearing, lean into the discomfort. And this was incredibly uncomfortable that we decided we would lean in.

And it is crazy because that talk became the catalyst for literally everything else we built. We [00:13:00] really had to sit down and codify what it is we do that makes our relationship so strong and. That was the seed from which everything else has grown. That that, that's when everything came into focus for us.

And it was interesting because we needed someone from the outside looking in to give us a different view of us, of what we were doing, of our lives and our potential. Like we needed someone to see that in us, see our greatness in us before we could see it in ourselves. So that was really cool. It's 

Speaker 5: hard to see the label from inside the jar.

Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. And and that's a great. It's excellent that you shared that because so many people, you know, we've all been there at times. Some people live there, you know, I'm 48, still wanna know what I wanna do when I grow up, right? But everybody's at a different place in life and a lot of times. We're searching.

Some people believe in God. Some people don't believe in God, but either way, they're searching. They're looking for the answer, so to speak, or what's my purpose? Like you were [00:14:00] discussing and you were in the middle of moving and taking action, and then it was kind of brought to you, right? 

Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting is that's one of the big lessons that we've taken from this whole thing is, is just start before you're ready.

Just take the step. You're never going to know where you're headed, but like to the path to how to get to where you want to go. But you can take the first step and then once you take the first step. The next step kind of reveals itself, and maybe it's on the path that you thought you were going to take, and maybe it's completely on a different trajectory completely.

But take the first step and then the next couple will reveal themselves. And that's how we've basically operated this entire journey. And to our point earlier where we're, you know, we're recovering perfectionists, type A personalities, taking a step before you know actually where your foot's going to land is incredibly scary.

But it's something that we've gotten used to doing over time. What we've learned is that by doing that [00:15:00] you, it builds a confidence that as you do that, the next step does reveal itself every time. 

Speaker 3: Yes. And then how do you identify what your first step is? Because the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

Mm-hmm. So how do you identify that first step if you're going to try to, you know, it might be different in each situation. Might be different for each person, but general, all houses are built on the same. Foundational concept, right? Yeah. So what is the way you'd recommend our listeners, Hey, this worked for us.

Try this to find that first step. 

Speaker 5: I could tell you, don't just jump in without any sort of, like any sort of idea of what you want. Like, so what we did when we left our corporate jobs is we did not do that work to understand what is it that we're building? What is it that we want our life to be? To mayor's point earlier, when we left our corporate jobs, we knew what we didn't want that unfulfillment, that same old, same old sitting in a cubicle doing the same work over and over again.

We knew we didn't want that, but we hadn't done the work to actually map it what it was that we did want. And [00:16:00] so when we jumped outta the plane, we were kind of flailing. We were kind of like, we hit 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: the ground for sure. Yeah. 

Speaker 5: We were a ship lost at sea bobbing along. Like, if you don't know where it is you want to go, chances of you getting there are super low.

So I would say the first step is really take stock of what it is that you want your life to be. And then once you have that destination, then we can plan the first step of, okay, well if that's the thing, who is the person that has that thing? How do I become that person? What's, what's, what's a skill or a trait that that person has?

And then go after that, that skill or trait. Go, go develop it. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: So we, so to build on that, like we had to do some work on what do we want our future to be like, what do we want our life to look like? We hadn't done that work, and it has changed a lot. It's a, it's not a, a set it and forget it kind of north star.

It's what do we want our life to look like? And when we did that exercise the first time. As clear as we could be it with the, the work part of it was we wanna help people. Like we didn't have a very [00:17:00] clear notion at all of, of how exactly we were going to do that, but we wanted to do something to help people more directly than we had been in our corporate job.

And so once you have at least as clear a vision as you can have in the moment of where you wanna go, and it may not be that clear, and that's okay. Trust your gut to take the first step. Like whatever, whatever comes to mind is what you think the first step is. Take it. You may have to shuffle to the side and take another one or shuffle to the other side and take another one.

You're going to course correct the entire way. There is no perfect step. It's have a notion of where you're going and take the first step you can think to take of that's in that general direction, and then continue to course correct as you go. And because I thought. We were going to learn from, you know, our mentors from books, from podcasts, and learn all the mistakes everyone else in the world has made so that we wouldn't make any, we're going to be so prepared when we start that we're never going to make a mistake and we haven't made so many mistakes and we've course corrected so many times.

It's mind [00:18:00] boggling. But you, there's no other way you're going to course correct. So just put it outta your mind that you're not going to make mistakes. 'cause you just. It's inevitable 

Speaker 5: and fail fast. Like I would say that not only is making mistakes like inevitable, it's actually a good thing because it, it allows you to know one, that what doesn't work quickly, so you can move on and get on with the what, finding what does work.

But it also just build your resilience. Like when you're, when you're building a big life, you're going to need to be resilient. You're it, you're going to fail more times than you're going to succeed. So fail fast and fail often, and, and then that's how you get to where you wanna go. 

Speaker 3: I think that's awesome. It's like climbing a mountain.

You might say, I'm going to climb this mountain, but you don't know what you're going to counter on the way. And even if you were with an expert Sherpa who's done it a thousand times, that doesn't mean stuff's not going to go sideways. So just be prepared to have obstacles and failure and challenges. Right. So I think that's great.

And I like how you guys said, you know, you put a lot of time and money in the real estate company, but you just decide that's not what we want. So you [00:19:00] shelved it. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Yep. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. So, okay, so now you're at this conference, a personal development speaker asks you to speak at his next event. Where does your lives go from there?

Craig and Meredith Bennett: So that, I would say our, our speech was excellent for first time speakers. Probably not so excellent for, for most people, but it's, it was such an inflection point in our life that I look back on it with so much pride, even though I know there was. SPS of room for improvement in the delivery of that talk and everything about it left, left loads of room for improvement.

But it, it was such an important part of our journey that I, I look back on it and I'm so proud of us for saying yes and for leaning into it. And from there we, like, we really put our head down after that. 

Speaker 5: It, it, up until that point, we had done a very good job of building our relationship foundation, but we hadn't really.

Codified it, or we [00:20:00] hadn't really ever documented what it was that we did. And so that talk forced us to do that. It it forced us to, what is it like, if you were going to share this with someone and help someone, how would you, like, how would you format it? How would you tell people what you do? And so that, that talk was the impetus for us to do that work.

And from there we built coaching programs and we've, you know, built a community and mastermind and we, we've helped, we help lots of people now, and it, and it's really. It's fulfilling. It's, it's a different life than we had previously with corporate. It just can't explain it with words other than, I just really love my life now, other than Yeah, 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: and, and continuing on the, continuing to make mistakes even after that, you know, that inflection point of the talk and the codifying and the, and the, that being the sort of, the lane change that got us here.

We still made an incredible amount of mistakes along the way. Oh, like we still, like U-turned so [00:21:00] many times. Like we built a program, we shoved the program, we built a new one. We, you know, it, there was a lot of stopping and starting. There was a lot of Facebook ads that didn't work. There was a lot of going to events that didn't like there.

There was a lot of trial and error even with coaches. Even with like, even with all the, like to your point. You're going to climb a mountain, you're going to have a Sherpa. And that's really helpful because he can at least tell you the path that's going to have the least amount of holes and obstacles in it. But he hasn't climbed it in the last, you know, five minutes he's there with you.

So he doesn't know if there's going to be a snake in the path that you're going to have to work around. He like. You've got someone beside you, a coach, a mentor who can guide you. You still have to do the work and take the steps and make the mistakes and, and, and regroup and, and be to your point, be resilient because it's, it's hard like building a business from nothing.

Probably is the easiest it's ever been with all the technology we have. It doesn't make it easy, like it's still a difficult process to learn all the skills you need to learn. [00:22:00] It's one thing to be good at relationships, it's something else to be good at business. So the relationship part comes easy and the helping people part comes easy.

But there certainly was a lot of mistakes and a lot of learning for the business side of things after that, after that talk. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that's great 'cause that's what this show's all about. We don't just talk about. What the guests like you were able to achieve or overcome, but we reverse engineered it and break it down to the practical steps of how you did it so our listeners can too.

And that's what you were saying. You're just living life and you had to stop and pause and say, what are we even doing? It's it's second nature to us. So you gotta stop, evaluate, reverse engineer, and then not just put it out there, but you had to keep getting those revisions until you could get in a way to communicate it to people.

What you're naturally doing or what you learn to do. Is that correct? 

Speaker 5: Yes, totally. Yeah. We're on iteration and in fact we're revamping everything again now, like we've, and it's been three years. So [00:23:00] like, it's, it's an iterative process. You put out, you put something out to market, you get feedback on it.

Some of it, some of it is like, okay, this is good. This lands, some of it's like, eh, this could be better. This needs to be changed. This needs to be turfed completely. Whatever it comes, you, you get that feedback and then you just, you keep making iterations and you keep. You know, making it better. And then you keep releasing it to the market.

You keep getting feedback, people are interested, they're not interested, whatever it is, but you just keep going because it's on your heart to help people and you want to do the best job you can, so you just iterate. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Yeah. And so e exactly how we got there was we did that talk and it was like considering how new we were to speaking, it was really well received from a content perspective.

And we had several people say, Hey, I wanna know more. So we started, we created an eight week program. Like one week ahead of the people who we had just presented to, they're like, Hey, we wanna learn more from you. What can we do? And we're like, okay, well we're going to make a pilot. Well, you could be our pilot group.

Yeah. We did it for free. We did it just, just for the practice, for the feedback. Yes. [00:24:00] To, to force our hand to get it done. So we gave ourselves a week to do week one and stay one week ahead of that pilot group the whole way through. So we finished our eight week program. Start to finish took nine weeks.

'cause we did a week first and then they came along behind us every week, every step of the way. And so that, that was really how we started. Yeah. Was. The content was well received. Okay, let's package it up in a way that we can actually scale it to help more people and take those people who enjoyed the content and put them through this and get their, you know, unfiltered feedback to make it better.

And like, to your point, we're on like iteration three or four at this point and on, on a three and a half year period because we continue to get feedback and we wanna make it better. 

Speaker 5: It's funny, as we were going through the pilot, we're one week ahead, so we're de so. People are going through week one.

We're creating week two, and as they finish week one and Hopp into week two, we're going back and, and fixing week one based on the feedback we're getting and also creating week three so that we're staying ahead so that they can keep kind of Yeah. Making their way through the [00:25:00] program. It was, it was it was incredibly busy and stressful in the moment where you're just like, oh no, we gotta get this done.

We gotta stay ahead of them. But it was really fun. Yeah. Yeah. 

Speaker 3: That's awesome. So if someone's listening to this, they're in corporate America or corporate Canada. Corporate, you know, Monterey, it could be anywhere in the world or corporate China, right? If there's such a thing, communist China. But they're in a job not really fulfilled, you know, it's not a passion.

What are, we talked about this, but if we were step 1, 2, 3. You're working with these clients, what do you recommend they do to help find that vision? That they're, before they jump into something, they, it doesn't matter if it's a profitable business, like there was actually, what's ironic is about two months ago, I've been thinking about a business for over three years and I went, traveled to a different state, got the training bought vehicle, got the equipment, did a whole bunch.

I was ready to launch and at the last minute I stopped. [00:26:00] Because I was like, this is changing what I actually want outta life. It's a local business that was going to tie me to this area geographically, and I wanna be able to travel. So I'm like, that's not the life I want. So like I'll do whatever God calls me to do, but I wasn't sure.

So I just put the brakes on it after three years of thinking and six months of real hardcore planning and buying, and then. Scrapped it. So when you're talking to people, that first step of knowing what you want, so you don't make these expensive mistakes like you do at the real estate company and meet with this other business, how do you recommend they avoid that to find their true purpose?

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Yeah, it's funny because that's exactly the reason we shelved the real estate. It was, it was tying us really locally and that's the one thing we knew we didn't want. We had that very, very much in common, dropped a bunch of money before we realized that it was completely misaligned with what we wanted our life to look like.

Yeah, 

Speaker 3: and that's, it's true because like my uncle, he's super close to me and he's in his, you know, late seventies. My dad's in his eighties. [00:27:00] My son's in the Air Force, my daughter's in California. And I'm like, if I start this company, like right now, I'm marketing and podcasting. As long as I have electricity on the internet, I can go anywhere in the world.

So it's like I can't just go visit them if I wanted to because it would tie me. And there's no shame in having a local based business. I just didn't feel like it was for me. And you didn't feel like it was for you. So how do you recommend you figure out a person listening, figure out what is right for them?

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Well, I think the first step is to dive into some personal growth so that you know yourself well because that, that's something we never did in our corporate jobs. It, it was interesting because we were both really successful in our corporate careers without doing virtually any personal growth. The minute you slide over into entrepreneurship and try to run your own business, your business goes as far as you do.

Your business grows as much as you do, and so that was a huge learning that. Underrated learning, I didn't expect. And so I think the first step, if you're unfulfilled in what you're [00:28:00] doing, is to do some work on you to understand who you are, who you wanna be, what lights you up. Work on your mindset, on your resilience.

'cause all those things are going to be super important. So I think personal growth is the first step. 

Speaker 5: It, it, it's massive. That's, that's one thing I do know is that personal growth has been instrumental in helping us to, to get here. Mm-hmm. The other thing I'll say is. F find your, find your calling by asking what, what have I gone through?

What problems have I survived and, and experienced that I can now turn around and help someone else get through? Because a lot of times. When we ask people, I just want like, and it was same for us, is like, what? What is it that's on your heart? Like what do you wanna do? Like, I'm not really sure, but I do know I wanna help people.

And that's kind of been a theme for a lot of folks that we talked to is like, I, I don't know, but I really wanna help people. And so I would say is ask yourself the question of what have you been through? What problems have you solved that you could now turn around and help someone else work through?

Craig and Meredith Bennett: And then [00:29:00] I think the third thing would be to start doing that. Like, don't. I think it depends actually. 'cause I think for us, we needed to be all in like needing to survive, like needing to figure this out to survive. If we were trying to side hustle this off the side of our desk, I'm not sure we would've gone all in and figured it out.

I think we needed that pressure and that push. I don't know that everyone does. I think there's lots of people who could build. Something as a side hustle that will then eventually take over and they can step out of their, out of their corporate, into their side hustle and make it their full-time, you know, their own business and, and run with that without the added stress of the financial component of like, I don't know how I'm going to pick for groceries this month if we don't figure this out.

So at least start it as a side hustle for a little bit to see if you even like it. Like start doing the thing that you say you wanna do to see if you, even if it is what you expect it to be. 'cause we thought we were going to love the real estate. We picked a real estate [00:30:00] investment strategy that had a real altruistic component to it.

We thought we were going to love it and you know, we were not very far into it and we were miserable. And so I think trying the thing you think you're going to. You're going to enjoy, try it first before you jump with both feet into it and leave it all behind. 

Speaker 5: Yeah. And then ask yourself very specific questions of what you want your, your life to be like, and, and literally write out the perfect day in your life.

Like write out like where you are, what you're doing. Even if you don't really know all the answers, just write, because a lot of times your subconscious, your, your soul does know deep down inside you what you want. And so just write like stream of conscious, write a bunch of stuff, and it'll probably come out through the pen of what it is that you really are called to be doing in your dream life.

And then, you know. Listen to that. Listen to your intuition. Listen to that subconscious. When you write down those notes, take those seriously. Like look at that. And it is like, oh, it really [00:31:00] is telling me that I want to be your mountains and I wanna be helping people, you know, through divorce or whatever it is that you, you know, that comes outta that.

Take that seriously and listen to that. And, and then to her point, just go after it. Try, try some things. Side hustles. If you want a lower risk approach, start it while you're still in your job instead of jumping right out of the plane right away. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's, we were talking about that a few episodes ago with another guest.

And you know, there's people who just rip off the bandaid and go for it. There's people who have, you know, six, nine months of income set up, so they have a safety net. There's some people who transition, and I, for most people think the transition approach is best, especially if you have married with children.

'cause you know you can experiment on your own, you can be married, experiment with a spouse, you're in it together. But as soon as you bring kids in the equation, they don't deserve. To be jerked around, so have a little more stability, right? I mean, that's [00:32:00] just not just for 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: your wrist, dial down a little bit.

The more people that depend on you, the lower the risk. 

Speaker 5: Yeah. Quotient a hundred percent. We all have a risk dial, and if you're a single young person and it's just, you turn it all the way up, like just let her go all in, all the time. Go, go all in. But if, yeah, if you're married, you've got kids, kids, a couple dogs, like turn it down mortgage.

You got a couple house plans like, like your risk style has to go down as you, as you accumulate other responsibilities for sure. 

Speaker 3: Now I didn't ask you, did you guys have children or no children? 

Speaker 5: No children. 

Speaker 3: Okay. So when you were doing this, there was no, now there's no good or bad, I just wanna know your situation.

'cause now we're talking about that. I'm like, I don't wanna make anybody feel bad about themselves 'cause they have kids. That's a beautiful thing. But you do have a lot more flexibility without kids upfront. Right? A 

Speaker 5: hundred percent. Our risk dial definitely going to be higher than someone who has a couple kids that they have to, they have to think about for sure.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And their hours are different. There's a lot of variables. So, okay, so now you're working with people. Tell me where, or basically between the beginning of the story and [00:33:00] today, is there anything we missed that you want to share with our listeners before we transition to where you are today and where you're headed next and how our listeners can get ahold of you.

Craig and Meredith Bennett: I mean be, besides the fact that it always takes longer is harder, you know, you want it all to happen. You think it's all going to happen faster, everything takes longer than you think. That was a hard lesson for sure. 

Speaker 5: It's, yeah, it, it's true. It's going to be, it's going to take more resources than you think.

It's going to take longer than you think, and it's going to be harder than you think. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker 5: Yeah. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: And I think that what has made all of those things more tolerable and a little bit easier is community. I didn't really realize, again, coming from corporate, you kind of have that baked in like. You've got a team that you're working on.

There's like social connections at work that you can kind of talk to people about work stuff when you jump into your own business. I really underestimated how lonely, even though we're doing it together, like how lonely we would feel doing entrepreneurship because both of our families. [00:34:00] Most of our friends don't really understand it, so they don't, they think we were crazy to walk away from our corporate jobs.

Still do. I think for sure. Most of them do. Still think we're nuts. A hundred percent. Yeah. So it, it is a bit isolating because sometimes you feel like you're standing out and shouting out into the abyss and you're not really sure anyone's out there. So finding communities of other entrepreneurs, people involved in personal growth, something too.

So that you don't feel like you're completely on an island. They don't have to be doing the same thing as you. They just, it helps to have people who understand what you're going through and can share a Facebook post or, you know, comment on an Instagram reel, like something so it doesn't feel like you're completely all alone, especially in the beginning.

That would, yeah, and 

Speaker 3: I would say, I think. We're all told what we should want and how we should think, but that doesn't make it right. You know, only God's will is what's right for us. And you know, for us it's between, you know me and God. It's between you guys and God. And at the end of the day, if we peel our [00:35:00] heads, you know, we can be right with God.

That's all it matters. But not everybody's called to be an entrepreneur. Not everybody's called to be a corporate employee. Not everybody's called to anything. So if someone's telling you like, man, you gotta own your own business, you gotta run it. I, I know some business owners are miserable. Mm-hmm. And they were super happy and ended up, they were making more money in corporate America.

Yep. You know, it was just like, I, I recently was speaking with someone. I could be careful, but they made. You know, mid six figures working for someone else. They showed up in the morning. They left at night, and they were just told, you need to be an entrepreneur to be happy. You need to be an entrepreneur to be happy.

You need to run your own business to be happy, and now they're in it. A year and a half and they're struggling and miserable and stressed, and the money's not there, the time's not there. So, like you were saying, it's, it's harder than you think, so you need to be fully committed. Yeah. And [00:36:00] trying it out, like you said, is a beautiful, beautiful approach.

So if someone wanted to get ahold of you, what's the best way to reach you? 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: The best way to reach us is probably we, we have the most fun on Instagram, I would say, but you can. We have our reaches at our website too, at road of life coaching.com or Instagram. We're at Meredith and Craig, or on LinkedIn?

We're at Meredith and Craig. Yep. I think we're also at Meredith and Craig on Facebook. All the usual places. I guess you could send us a DM pretty much anywhere and you'll, and you'll reach us at Meredith. Meredith and Craig. 

Speaker 3: Yep. And who do you think are the perfect people listening to our podcast? That you can help best.

Not that you can't help a lot of people, but really if you were to describe, Hey, if this is you, we're super confident, we can help you. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Yeah, we love working with married entrepreneurs. That's our, like, we love, we love working with everybody, but to your point, our very favorite people to work with are married entrepreneurs, especially if they're in the same business together, because, you [00:37:00] know, we live that, so we understand.

We work with entrepreneurs who are in different businesses that are both entrepreneurs too. We work with people who are in corporate America, but our fact, our very favorite people to work with are married entrepreneurs because the ROI for your business on improving your marriage, it's mind boggling.

Your marriage is going to be the engine that drives your business forward, or it's going to be the brakes that keep you stuck. And you get to decide what that is and the minute you can get your relationship dialed in. 'cause when you think about it, we alluded to this at the beginning actually, when you think about it, when your marriage.

Isn't working. When your primary relationship is not working. You spend a lot of time and energy and attention walking on eggshells, trying to avoid the next fight in the next fight, repairing after the next. It takes up a lot of your mental capacity when things aren't going well at home, and then you don't have that available for anything else.

When things are dialed in and you are in sync at home, you have all of that time, attention, energy, and focus to dedicate to your business or to the other big goals you have for this big life you [00:38:00] envision. And the cool part is. Not just you has all those extra resources. Your partner also has all that time, attention, energy, and focus to dedicate to the business and to your big life goals.

So it becomes this like exponential energy force that propels you forward, propels your business, propels you into the big life goals that you've set your, your north star that you've got for yourself. So when you can dial your, especially as entrepreneurs, when you can dial your marriage in, the business takes off.

And that's. That's the beautiful part that we just love to see happen when those things work together. 

Speaker 3: And what about for the entrepreneurs whose spokes isn't involved and they're, they just like, Hey, you handle the business, make the money. Mm-hmm. I'll take care of this. 

Speaker 5: Different set of problems, different set of issues.

As entrepreneurs, we feel like we're problem solvers, not problem creators. So a lot of times when there's a business and, and problems are happening and things are coming up, what we find with entrepreneurs who are in the business and the sp the other spouse is [00:39:00] not, is that we're trying to protect the other person from, you know, the craziness that entrepreneurship can bring.

And so. We insulate them from that. We, you know, we're, we're not saying everything that's going on, so we don't wanna stress them out over here. The other human being as a meaning making machine is making up stories, and a lot of times they're making up stories that are way worse than the truth. That if we had actually told them what was going on, they'd be like, oh, why didn't you tell me?

I could help you with that. Like, like, let's join forces and do this. So one of the things that we really impart on entrepreneurs who are solopreneurs still married is to let them in, have the conversations, don't, don't feel like you have to be the knight and shining armor, protecting them from everything.

Bring them in, let them know what's happening so that they can be an extra set of ears, a shoulder or something. Some sort of support for you as you're going through this journey. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Because they sense when something, when you're not sharing. Humans have an innate ability to sense energy and they know when something's off with you and when you don't share that thing that's off, that's when they start [00:40:00] making up stories.

The other big thing that comes up, especially when there's in a couple, when one's an entrepreneur and one is not, is because, like we talked about earlier, entrepreneurship is really closely tied to personal growth. 'cause your business go grows the way as much as you grow. And so sometimes you'll get an entrepreneur who's really working on themselves to be the best version of themselves because of the business.

Their spouse is not so into personal growth. And when you have two people and one is growing and one is not, you're actively growing apart. So that's another one of the issues that comes up between a couple. And one is an entrepreneur and one is either still in a corporate job or stays home or something else that we gotta work on that growing apart piece because that's a real, a real concern in that situation.

Speaker 3: Yes. And I think sadly too many of us have seen that. Our personal lives and our friends lives and our coworkers lives. So that's great to that you address that 'cause that's such a core issue. Let's talk about fulfillment. [00:41:00] So there's some people, they've tried so many things. They've been successful at it.

Like you guys were successful at the real estate company, but you weren't fulfilled, and they're almost like ready to give up. It's like, man, I'm, you know, you have a great baseball player and they can also play football and they can also play golf. They're like, eh, I don't like any of it. Know what I mean?

And there's people like, oh yeah, I did great in sales and I did great in marketing and I did great at laying sod. I did great at everything. What do you say to those people to encourage 'em not to give up and to help them find that passion? 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: I think there's kind of two things at play. One is if you are actually pretty good at a lot of things and you don't.

Find fulfillment for many of them. I would take that a step deeper and, and lean into gratitude because you may just not be fulfilled by those things, or you may be more apathetic, not fulfilled by anything because you're not [00:42:00] looking for your fulfillment. We look, what we look for, we we find more of.

So when we can lean into gratitude and appreciation and be grateful for all the things, we're more likely to be fulfilled by the life we currently have because we're grateful for the things that we have.

Speaker 5: The other thing I'll say, oh, go ahead. The other thing I'll say is that just go inward and understand, are you looking for something else to. Fills fill a need that's within you. Like we have to be okay. We have to love ourselves. We have to be okay with ourselves first. If we're always looking for something external to us to make us happy, then we're never going to find it.

We have to be happy first and then go do the things that, that, you know, help us become the best version of ourselves or, or, you know, keep us fulfilled and feel like we're accomplishing something or giving back to the world in some way. If [00:43:00] you're looking for that thing outside of you to just make you happy, you will, you will be looking for a long time.

You want to find happiness. Happiness is a choice. Like it's something that you can do every day. It's four simple things, really. It's to your point, gratitude 15 minute walk breathing. Appreciation and just letting someone know that you appreciate them. Those four simple things are known to create happiness within someone.

So if it's happiness versus fulfillment, just do do a double check to make sure that you're not unhappy no matter what you do. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: And it's interesting because I would say especially in corporate, both of those things applied like unfulfilled and unhappy. Yeah, unfulfilled, but also searching for something. I hadn't done the work on ourselves for sure.

First, like 

Speaker 5: for sure, 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: we, we both discovered in this, you know, in when we put a pin and we shelved the real estate business, it went in, went all in on ourselves. We both discovered we had some version of a [00:44:00] limiting belief around not being worthy, not being good enough. We talked like we used different words about it.

The core of the root of it for both of us was the same. And so it, we, we, we kind of had both of those things happening for us at the same time was the, the unfulfillment in the day-to-day job itself mm-hmm. But also hadn't addressed the root of feeling worthy and feeling good enough and not seeking fulfillment outside of ourselves.

And so we had to do both of those things. And I think the work on ourselves and, and working on our own self-worth and feeling good enough. Makes it easier to be fulfilled by smaller things and be fulfilled in the things that you, the things that you can do day to day. We've, we've got a lot of fulfillment in our life now because we're doing something that we love to do and we have worked on ourselves to feel whole and enough and worthy of the big, beautiful life that we wanna live.

So I think it, it, it, it gotta come at it from both sides that like [00:45:00] what the work we did earlier, like that we talked about earlier in terms of. What's the gift I wanna give the world? Who do I wanna be? You know that, that deeper look inside. And then also, am I seeking validation externally and therefore will only find fulfillment with things outside of me.

Speaker 3: Yes, and I think that is so important. Again, you need to be able to have peace within yourself. Just you and God are good. Everything else is icing on the cake, right? It's like if you don't have that peace within yourself, you're disappointed in yourself. You're, you know, you're cheating, lying, stealing, you're ashamed of yourself in private, what good is it?

Right? 

Speaker 5: Yeah, a hundred percent. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. So let's do this. If someone wants to get ahold of you, what's you, we talked about social media, but what is the best way to reach out? Or do you have any special offers on the website they can try out? 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Yeah, actually we've got we've got two things that, that are people really seem to enjoy.

One, we have a quiz. Everyone loves a quiz, right? Like, we like to know [00:46:00] where we are and how, how everything stacks up. So we, we we're writing a book right now called The 200% Marriage. So the quiz is called the 200% Marriage Quiz, and it's got a bunch of, you know, a whole bunch of questions that give you a sense of how you stack up in the different elements of our framework that the five commitments that we have in our framework, and then the, so that, that kind of gives you a snapshot of where you are in time.

And then if you wanna take some action and actually start to make some change in your relationship, 

Speaker 5: we've got something really cool called the, 33 day relationship, infinite love relationship challenge. It's an email, it's a daily email. They, they get into, you can get into your inbox every day, and it's based on the concept of small hinges swing big doors.

It's meant for busy people, entrepreneurs, people who, you know, we don't have hours and hours of time to dedicate to something because we're so focused on, you know, we've got so many responsibilities, family, business, relationships, all the things. So the, the task you get a daily email. It's, it's a [00:47:00] funny kind of little anecdote.

A little story, and then one action that you can do. Full disclosure in a couple minutes. Full disclosure, one of them takes 33 minutes. That's the most time time it'll take the rest. Usually they're about five minutes. One even takes six seconds. So the, it's a 33 day challenge right into your inbox, and then you can just take the action every day.

It's really fun. 

Speaker 3: Awesome. Well, I appreciate you being here. I know our listeners did too. Before we wrap this up, Craig Meredith, both, do you have any final thoughts that you wanna share with our community? 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Yeah, I wanna say that. Life, but especially your relationships are meant to be fun. It's some, for some reason, when we become grownups, we, we feel like fun becomes less important.

Like kids. Fun is the main driver. But as we grow up, fun does not become our main driver. All of our responsibilities seem to override our desire for fun. And fun might make it on the to-do list if it's at the very bottom. [00:48:00] And when things stopped being fun, we stopped wanting to participate and engage with them.

And I'm betting the last time you and your partner had were having fun, your communication felt good, your intimacy felt close. You know, there was no conflict. The com, like everything, everything flowed when you were having fun together. And so prioritizing fun. Your relationship is a sneaky, fun, and easy way to keep yourselves connected and keep the communication flowing.

So put fun back up like at the top of the list so that you're finding some way to have fun together every single day. Whether it's like playing a game, doing something dedicated fun, or just making the mundane stuff in your life more fun. Find a way to inject more fun into your relationship because it will transform your relationship when you start having fun again.

Speaker 5: And the other thing I will say is that, and I didn't always recognize this, that on this journey, it was something that I had to really learn is that the [00:49:00] universe is always working in your favor. So all, no matter where you are, you're, you are where you are meant to be. So if you are in a place right now where you're currently unfulfilled or unhappy, or you know, not feeling like it's where you're meant to be long term.

It's a season, it's, it's, for now, it's to learn a lesson. It's to, to get an experience so that, that you can carry it into the next season, the next opportunity, the next thing that you're meant to be doing. I, I never gave enough credit to the fact that all the problems and all the things that you go through are meant for you, so that you can play that hand and win at it and go into the next, and so you can go into the next hand.

Speaker 3: Excellent. Yeah, I think both of what you're saying, how we need to, you know, life's not always fun. There's times we gotta dig in, but I know what you're saying. Make that a priority. Try to make everything fun. 'cause a good attitude changes everything, even in the worst [00:50:00] circumstances. And then with having our relationships.

Having that unified vision, that's so important. So thank you guys for being here today and sharing with us your life story and your experiences and kinda what you're doing to help people across the world. I really appreciate it. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Oh, thanks for having us. Thank you 

Speaker 3: for having us. Yeah, that was a blast.

That's, yeah, man. Definitely. So, ladies and gentle. If you have any questions, whether you listen to the podcast player, you're watching it through our website or on Rumble, you can click the link and check out all of Craig and Meredith this information and then reach out to them, continue the conversation, take that free quiz.

I'll try to also put a link in our show notes for that. And then if you need anything else, as always, let me know. We'll do our best to help you share this episode with your friends and family. And hopefully we can help as many people as we can around the globe grow and become even [00:51:00] better humans.

Right. So, Craig Meredith, thank you so much for being here today. 

Craig and Meredith Bennett: Our pleasure. Thanks for having us. Thank 

Speaker 3: you for having us. Oh, you're welcome. And ladies and gentlemen, we love you and we'll see you in the next episode. Ciao. 

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