Being successful can often come at a price. And all too often that price is paid by those who are closest to us. It’s easy to get tunnel vision when running a network marketing business: checking your phone at all hours, missing family time to run a meeting, or simply forgetting to check-in with your spouse over who’s turn it is to wash the dishes.
Instead of assuming they’ll always have your back, we need to be mindful and gracious of those who support us along our journeys as business owners.
This week Kristen shares the ins and outs of what it looks like to have a thriving business and the challenges of maintaining a healthy marriage.
Here are a few other tid-bits from today’s episode:
- Why there is no such thing as overcommunicating
- The importance of creating and managing each others expectations
- Kristen’s story of how she and her husband learned to prioritize their relationship in ‘the thick of things’
- How being in a hustle mindset can harm your marriage
- Why your spouse may not want to quit his day job (and why that’s ok!)
Part of the joy and fulfillment of being successful is having someone to share it with. When we lose sight of what’s important, we run the risk of alienating the very people we hoped to help. But when we work towards enriching and protecting our relationships, it allows us to share the celebration of our success with those we hold dear.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https://kristenboss.com/question
Here’s how to connect with Kristen:
Do you have a business full of customers and almost no builders? You’re in need of a reboot! Learn the three skills you can learn that will completely change your recruitment game. Check it out here.
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
Interested in Kristen’s exclusive mastermind for six-figure earners in the network marketing industry? Get all the details and join the waitlist here.
Transcript of Episode #64: Marriage and Business:
Kristen Boss (00:05):
Welcome to Purposeful Social Selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industry. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling and authentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business. In today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way. Hey friends, welcome back to another week of the podcast.
Kristen Boss (00:52):
We’re going to kind of continue our conversation from last week only. It’s going to be kind of a different component. Last episode, I talked about motherhood business and this episode, I’m actually
Kristen Boss (01:03):
Going to really lean in to talking about marriage and business and all actually see if I can get my husband on an episode with me. Just so you can hear from his side and just hearing us together and you can also get to know him a little bit, the other, the other, my other half. But kind of to take you back a minute. And I’ll kind of recap a little bit from last week, but you know, my husband and I, we married in July of 2012. It’s been nine years and it’s been amazing. And my husband worked in nonprofit. I was a hairstylist and we actually moved from California to Colorado. And as a hairstylist, when you move, you have to start your business all over from scratch. And so he was working at the local church. He worked with youth for many, many years, and I was building my business from scratch all over again in Colorado.
Kristen Boss (02:04):
And that was actually a really tough time because when you are a hairstylist starting out and this was before Instagram really took off, like it has now, like hairstylist can be discovered relatively easy on, on Instagram and it’s changed. But back then is you would have to sit in a salon and wait for hours and hours in hopes that a walk in would come in. So, but you’d have to be there all day. And you were not paid to sit in the chair while you were waiting for someone to come in. So there could be days where you would sit there for hours and you would make zero money, eight hours sitting in a salon and $0 comes to you. And I remember that really took a toll on me mentally. So that was actually when I first got into network marketing, I was trying to close the gap in my income and I remember, you know, joining a certain company and all I wanted to make was $300 a month.
Kristen Boss (02:59):
That’s all we needed to make. And I think it’s really important for you guys to hear this. Like I was one of those people that you think didn’t need didn’t need it, or it was fine, or you don’t think $300 is flashy enough for someone to want to join, but that’s really all I needed because what I did was I decided to take up a job at a coffee shop. And I literally went from, you know, charging a lot of money in Hollywood as a stylist to making $0 sitting on a chair and then making minimum wage and a coffee shop and being paid an hourly rate. It was like super humbling to suddenly be in a place where I was, you know, cleaning bathrooms and sweeping floors and steaming milk. And I was like, oh my gosh, how have I gone backwards in my life?
Kristen Boss (03:49):
That’s really how I felt. And, but that’s what we needed to do at the time. And so you know, it’s, and what’s interesting is actually when my husband met me, I actually did hair freelance in Los Angeles. I would like do hair in people’s homes. And I also had a wedding business where I would travel and do hair and makeup for weddings. And I have probably done well over 500 weddings in my hairstyling career. Like I, there was a time when I probably did, you know, more than a hundred weddings a year. It was nuts. I think that’s actually where I learned to hold space as a coach and really manage stressful situations. And so I’ve crazy stories from, from the weddings I used to work, but, you know, so my husband was used to me almost always working two jobs, like doing hair in LA with a wedding business on the side.
Kristen Boss (04:45):
And then we moved to Colorado and rebuilding my hair business and working at a coffee shop. And we knew that I was always potentially going to be the breadwinner just with the line of work that he was in. And that was okay because I loved, I loved my job. But I will say we became keenly aware of a need for change. And I think he saw a stirring in me and a desire for more oh gosh. I think actually it was when we, we had our son and that was in 2016. And that was when I realized, you know, I think there’s more for me at that point. I had fully built up a, a client, a hair clientele I was doing really well, but not well enough. I had to give more hours and be away from my children more.
Kristen Boss (05:36):
And that’s when I really understood the desire for women to want to be with their kids more. And I was gone a lot. I was working late, my husband and I, we didn’t have the same schedule. And I said this in the last episode, we, you know, there was about seven years where we didn’t even have the same day off together. So, and I will say like, finances was a real stressor for us at that time. Like if he wanted to talk budget, I would like collapse on the ground, not want to talk about budget. I would hide. I would have so much anxiety. My husband would have to like give me a week’s notice before a budget meeting, because it would cause so much anxiety for me. I would have the worst attitude of a bad, like, man, I’ve come so far, but you know, that’s, that’s where we were.
Kristen Boss (06:27):
It’s like, things were tight, but we were doing okay. But we also, like, we wanted more for our family and ourselves. And I remember that when I decided to build an online business on the side, I remember really having to communicate early on with my husband. We had to actually create a game plan together of how I would make time for this business and how I would need his help. And so if you are also navigating, like either working with your husband or you both being home together, or, you know, his opinions of your business, you cannot go wrong in over communicating with your spouse and having strategic conversations of how this will look. Most of the time your men will be supportive. But you, again, you have to get clear with him about what his family values are and what’s important for him and the family rhythms.
Kristen Boss (07:32):
He would like to see, because if you’re like, Hey, you know, can you handle bath, bath and bedtime every night while I go do these team calls. And he actually has a value that he hasn’t shared with you, like, Hey, I actually really value, you know, from five to seven o’clock every night that we have sweet family time and we do bedtime stories together. So you just saying, Hey, can you do this? And going off, he might be left thinking what’s going on. I didn’t, I didn’t sign up for this. So you do need to have a conversation with your spouse about how you’re going to make it work. And we had to communicate a lot. It had to be, Hey, you know, I’m going to go and work for three hours. And then when I come back, you can go and work for three hours.
Kristen Boss (08:19):
And there was a time where it was like we were switched, hitting. It was like, okay, I’m going to leave in the morning. I’m going to go work for three hours. And when I come back, we’ll switch places and you can go to a coffee shop and work three to four hours. And that’s what we had to do for a time. And I will say you know, you really want to prioritize your friendship with your partner and prioritizing date night and prioritizing them being known and feeling known and understand their love language. Like I know for my husband has, is, you know quality time and physical touch. And so for him, he would just be delighted for me to be fully present with him on the couch, scratching his head. We watch our favorite TV show like that is when he feels loved and seen.
Kristen Boss (09:13):
And so I had to learn that I had to learn that when I disappear on my phone at night, he feels like I’ve left him. And so we had to talk about phone time and hate, and we had to communicate, Hey, I’m going to be on my phone from this time, did this time. And then let’s do this together at this time, or what are you thinking about this? But you have to involve your spouse, especially if you have kids and you need help in the kid department, or you want to hire help. You guys are going to have to make some decisions together. And I think some women and I hear this a lot is they assume their spouses are unsupportive or Dell, the spouses aren’t a fan of their business. And I actually would encourage you to go back and listen to the how to have a supportive spouse episode, because I dive a little more deeply on why that is, but what’s so important is you want to prioritize, I can’t say this enough friendship, connection and intimacy and intimacy can be a variety of things.
Kristen Boss (10:16):
It could, it could be date night. And there was a time where we couldn’t afford to go out and eat for date night. We literally would get like we would order in, or I think we would just, I know what we did now that I remember we would purchase like steak from the grocery store and we would make our own fancy dinner and, and, you know, watch Netflix after our meal. And that was like our dates for a long time. Or we would have to find, you know, free dates or cheap dates, we’d go to the park. And like, there was a time where we actually couldn’t even afford a babysitter, but we still prioritized our time for us. And when you are in business and here’s, what’s interesting is early on, I was, I was the breadwinner and my husband was all always very supportive of all of my business decisions.
Kristen Boss (11:12):
Even when we were broken, I made my first investment, which you can listen to in, I think episode five resistance and resilience, personal my personal story. You know, it was a little, it was a little sketchy and scary there when I started out and I was investing big money into this dream. And we had to communicate about how that would look, how I would show up how I would use my time, how I was going to be present with my family during meals. And thankfully my husband is great at communication, but we had to communicate so much in the early days of like, what are your expectations? What’s important to you? And I remember there are times I would tell him like, Hey, you know, this will only take me an hour and you know, I’d come back two hours later, but he’s like that didn’t take an hour.
Kristen Boss (12:04):
And you know, I can understand why he would feel frustrated if I’m saying like, Hey, plan for only this it’s only gonna take me this. And then the time is double. And so in the beginning, we really were, we had to tag team a lot with parenthood and with business. And man, there was even a season when he worked a lot of nights. He was a soccer coach and I was dealing with the kids by myself and we literally were switching off. I think every other night we were taking turns, putting the kids to bed. And this is with toddlers. It’s just so bedtime is so much work with toddlers. Can I get an amen? But now down the road, now my husband actually works with me. He left his job and he now is he works for my company and one of the best things.
Kristen Boss (13:02):
And if you’re in that season in your business where your husband has quit his job to help you in your business. One of the best things that my husband said was, I want you to write a job description for me before I say yes to this before I quit my job. I want you to tell me what your expectation is of how you expect me to help you while you grow this business. And so what I needed at the time was, Hey, I need you to do drop off and pick up taking the kids to, and from school handling all the doctor’s appointments, handling all, any like household appointments. Like I needed him to step into kind of like being the domestic engineer, like running the house, because I said in the last episode, running the household is a full-time job and I needed him to take on way more.
Kristen Boss (13:51):
And he, thankfully, when he saw the job description, he’s like, yeah, I can totally do this. But I also asked him like, what’s important for you? What do you want to experience in you being home? And he knew he wanted to, you know, have time in the yard. He wanted to have time to do house projects. And he wanted to be able to work out in the garage. And we bought fitness stuff for the garage that he really enjoys. And I knew like those were important for him. And so I would make it important for me as well. So he wrote his job description and I have had to let go of things that were not in the job description or change my expectations. So he also decided to take on, you know, laundry duty handling all the meal delivery services doing like the tidying up around the house.
Kristen Boss (14:43):
And I remember when, when we were first transitioning into this, there was like, you know, three or four in a row where I just saw laundry on the couch. And I had to like, is it something I enjoy seeing? No, but I had to like zip my lip. And I was like, you know what? He said, he would do it. He’s helping me so much around that. The house I can handle looking at laundry. And if it’s, and if I’m bugged by looking at the laundry and he’s not doing it fast enough on my timeline, that’s not his problem. It’s my problem. So if I want to change it, I’m going to be the one to fold the laundry. And so I had to take that ownership. Like I had to be okay with like, Hey, he’s going to do these things. And I’m going to communicate.
Kristen Boss (15:28):
If I feel it’s urgent, I’ll tell him, Hey, you know, can you, what time do you plan to have that done by? And then he’ll tell me, and my job, what I make it, my business to not bring it up again until it is past the time he’s told me that he’s going to have it done. And that took quite a few years in marriage and, and learning from not being like, Hey, why didn’t you do that? Are you going to do that yet? Are you going to do that yet? Are you going to do that yet? And just, and instead, like having communication on the front end, like, Hey, would you do this? And can you do it by this time? And if he says, no, okay. You know, so I had to learn in our shifting of roles, like I had to be okay with how he did things.
Kristen Boss (16:13):
If it wasn’t to my standard, that’s not his problem. It’s mine. So once he kind of shifted in coming home, it’s actually been so fun. Like it literally went from, you know, six to seven years of never having the same day off together to us. Now, like every Friday morning we go and have a breakfast date together. We go on walks during the day. I see him every day and I enjoy his presence. I enjoy that. I see them all the time, but this is the fruit of friendship with your spouse. This is the fruit of communication. This is the fruit of appreciating your spouse as much as possible. And I, I really do try and tell them like, thank you so much for doing that. I so appreciate you do that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate this. And just, we can’t assume our spouses know that we appreciate them.
Kristen Boss (17:04):
We have to go out of our way to tell them. And I don’t say have to in like a begrudging way, but like I desire to tell them he’s doing a great job. I desire to tell him I’m so thankful he’s here. I think the other day I was asking him, I was like, Hey, are you still happy? Is your boss being a pain in the butt? And he’s like, no, I’m super happy. This is great. And he’s probably gonna end up doing, you know, actually in the middle of our remodel and listing our house and buying a house. He’s actually managing that whole process and talking to contractors and arranging appointments. And I’m so thankful. And it really did get to that place. I will say it did get to that place in my business where we did realize that my husband having all of his mental energy with job was actually I needed him more mentally available or growing my company.
Kristen Boss (17:58):
And we start, and we both saw that. We both saw that the job he was at was mentally draining him. And we knew I would rather have as mental energy in our home and with our family and focused on helping me grow the business. And that’s when we knew that it was a wise move to have him leave this job and come and support me. Was it totally scary? And we, you know, his job had like 401k and medical benefits and all those things. Yeah, of course it was scary, but it felt like it was the next best step. And what’s fun is now my company pays his 401k. I mean, we do, you know, by our own medical insurance and that’s a real fun thing, but you know, the exchange has just been so worthwhile. So when you are dealing with working with your spouse and, or building a business while your spouse also has his work, it can be very easy to slip into my job’s more important than yours or his is more important than mine.
Kristen Boss (19:03):
And a battle of like whose work is more important. And I want to encourage you to not engage in that battle and honor that his work is important too. And you know what some of your spouses might not ever want to leave their nine to five and that’s oh, K like I think times we have, and this is happening. This is in the coaching world as well. There’s this almost like this expectation that we’re going to bring the husbands home, but some don’t want to do that. Some are super happy and fulfilled in their jobs. And honestly, that’s what I want for my man. I want my husband to feel happy and fulfilled in whatever he does. And what’s fun is right now, he is happy and fulfilled helping me grow our company and our business. And actually what’s funny is he’s actually an amazing coach and he holds a lot of mental space for me.
Kristen Boss (19:55):
He is there emotionally for me. He, he actually is like, he’s another coach for me. And he’s an amazing sound sounding board. And I know eventually he’ll probably start his own coaching or consulting business is something we’ve talked about as well, or we’ve even talked about, you know marriage retreats for entrepreneur couples, just because we’ve walked through so much, so much transition in entrepreneurship and literally going from like being one paycheck away from completely utterly broke to being in a very different financial season and having to, you know, we’ve evolved, our marriage has evolved. Our family has changed and that’s a lot of variables to navigate. And we feel, we both actually feel very passionate about, you know, helping couples in the entrepreneurial world navigate those changes. So I just felt like it would, it would be beneficial for you to hear my story and a little, just a few tips on what you can do to enriching your marriage and also protect your marriage.
Kristen Boss (21:03):
I think it’s so important to say that. And it’s why I’m, I’m against the hustle. This idea of like giving up your life, putting your life and your family on hold, assuming that they will still be there when you are center stage with that big fancy paycheck and your husband like took all the hits in order for you to get there. Like some men can take it, but I can’t tell you how many stories I hear of marriages that totally fell apart because the wife disappeared in her work. And it took her away from the family and the husband felt less important. And, and I’m not talking about a man that’s like dealing with insecurity. I’m just genuinely talking about like, he felt that his wife no longer wanted to spend time with the family unit. And he was now raising a family on his own.
Kristen Boss (22:01):
And, and this is why I can’t coach the way I do and why actually marriage does come up in the mastermind is because I deeply care. What is the point of being successful with your business? If your personal life is falling apart. And it, by my definition, that’s not successful. That’s just reaching a financial, you know, goal. But successful to me is not what’s in your bank account. It is the purpose and fulfillment you were experiencing in all areas of your life. It is the richness of relationships and your quality of them and your family. It is all aspects, you know, John Maxwell talks about success to significance. And I really believe our success is more measured, is measured by significance. Like when we, when we aim for significance, everything changes, our priorities change, our values, change how we work changes. And I really believe that I want, I would love to see more vibrant and healthier marriages and the entrepreneurs entrepreneur space.
Kristen Boss (23:14):
Cause I will tell you, there are too many that are hurting. There are too many that are hurting in the name of like will visit us later. I’ll table this now. And we’ll just get through the next couple of years and then we’ll just make up for it later. But you, that might not be available well for you. You know? And I just want you to want you to cherish these years. I want you to cherish your family and cherish your marriage and cherish your partner and build a friendship with your partner. Look for commonalities. Look for things that you appreciate about your partner. It’s very easy to find things that annoy us, that bug us, that we wish was different. But when we condition ourselves to constantly look for the things we value in who we are with and things that we, we cherish about them and we love about them.
Kristen Boss (24:12):
And when we see that we, we have a lot more love to give and we treat them differently. And I just believe that we need to look, be, be purposeful for the things and the values we see in our space, in our spouses and in our partners. And it really does make a world of difference. So I’ll probably have my husband back for another, like maybe a longer conversation here, but I hope that served you today. As you are thinking about your marriage, your relationships and the relationships that matter most to you. Because again, you can have all the financial success, but if your personal
Kristen Boss (24:55):
Life is falling apart, that’s not success. And I truly want extraordinary success in your life, in all areas, through fulfillment and meaningful relationships and quality of life, it is not
Kristen Boss (25:10):
What’s in your bank account. It was only one small, small aspect, okay? Friends, we will catch you. That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you love today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with the review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done at different way. And if you’re ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the Social Selling Academy, where I give you all the tools, training, and support to help you realize your goals
Kristen Boss (25:48):
in the Academy, you get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are new in the business or been in the industry straight for awhile. This is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
