The Adam Feuerstein Podcast
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The Adam Feuerstein Podcast
How Founders in Love Navigate Conflict and Leadership Without Losing Alignment
What’s it really like to build a company with your partner?
In this episode, we get honest about the emotional tension that shows up when your co-founder is also your spouse. From Monday morning clashes to big-picture alignment, we talk about the practical side of emotional leadership and the inner work it takes to do both love and legacy well.
It’s raw, real, and packed with insight for any couple building something together.
Start building your business with soul at www.totalsumgame.com
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You have strategic alignments. You have people in your life that are your partners, whether they're direct partners, your love partners, your life partners, your business partners, whatever they are. They come into your life and you've got to navigate this stuff together and I don't have it figured out, michelle doesn't have it figured out. We still butt heads and we've done it so long. We actually know when it's going to happen. You see it coming. The rest of the week usually peaches and cream.
Speaker 1:Monday morning is the tough part, and that's what we want to convey. There's highs, there's lows. This is normal for everybody. Don't be afraid of that, embrace it, lead into it. In fact, there's a few things you can do to come along.
Speaker 1:You mentioned trying to communicate that people aren't alone. Now, that's an understanding we have to have. So we realize it's not only us in that situation, or maybe made a mistake or did something that perhaps merited a result we weren't looking for. But there's something else too, and that's partnerships, right, and there's partners like Michelle and I. We're partners in our business, we're partners in our holdings company, we're partners in our life right, but there's all kinds of different partnerships and, again, there's an emotional attachment to partnership. Why would you partner with somebody, what is it about them that you regard? What is it about you that they regard to the degree that they want to partner with you? Whether that's a vendor, a consultant, a lawyer, whatever, there's an emotional drive behind a lot of those decisions too. It helps, especially when you're new and you're thinking I'm the only person who's ever been through this no-transcript and I think soul soul between ourselves and souls of others plays into that idea. The emotional drive behind partnerships.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to bring people together that you're in alignment with, whether you're seeking out a life partner, a business partner or some kind of strategic partner, or even a community that you're part of. You need to look at the alignment and are your values and belief systems in line? If they're not, it's probably not a good place to go. Not everybody is going to mesh well, but you need to align yourself with strategic partnerships that really are going to be an integral part of your life and they'll help you to achieve your vision and your goals even faster.
Speaker 1:So we should give them a human example, like a real example, which is you and I, right, we go from the bedroom to our desk in the house, to coffee, to the gym. Everything we do is in partnership. We have six kids. There's a lot going on, as everybody with children knows. They don't always make the right decisions, so there's constantly things coming up. They're wonderful kids. I call them children, heck, half of them are in their 20s now. But there's always an element of that and we constantly have to balance our life, our relationship, our marriage, our being parents in a blended family, with also figuring out how to run this business and serve the people that we want to serve.
Speaker 2:I think that, again, because I think our values and our vision and that we're aligned on, I think, the moving in and out of neighborhoods as far as whether it's working or taking care of family or whatever else that may we do, because we're so in alignment on how we think our life should go, that part's pretty easy, I think. Where it gets hard for us, the only time that it gets hard is-.
Speaker 1:Guys, let her get to the rest of the point. Trust me, because easy does not mean it's without struggles.
Speaker 2:No, it's definitely not easy, but it's easier than I think. Where we butt heads a lot is around work stuff. I think it's because we both have been on our own and in control of our own businesses and now we're trying to do this together. I have my ideas about how I want things done, you have your ideas on how you want things done, and the part that's hard sometimes is figuring out how to work together on those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you want an example, if you just call us at 915 on any given Monday morning, it's like clockwork. It's probably not going very well. We have staff meeting at 930, preparing for that.
Speaker 1:It seems to be routinely a disaster, without placing any blame on anybody other than the two of us. It's like we have probably some crazy awesome weekend, get some crazy adventurous shit, and then here I am, right back in front of this computer. These people are going to be on that. I love our employees. They're literally family to us, but then we've got to get our shit together. We don't drink, we don't do anything crazy, so it's not like we're hung over fighting a headache. It's just a matter of we went from Michelle and I venturing through. We call them neighborhoods, right the neighborhood of adventure, of having fun with kids playing volleyball in the park, riding our motorcycle together, doing whatever, and then having to get serious, and that transition is a bitch. Monday mornings suck. So it's not all fun and games and great, but it's always emotionally driven. I'm just going to keep coming back to that throughout this podcast and I wonder what that's like for you and I want you to be honest. What is it about Monday mornings?
Speaker 2:No, I think it's just because we go from this wonderful, fun weekend where again we're so aligned in our life and how we want our life to go in most areas of life and really in everything, so that part's easy. And then when we come into the office and we have decisions to make about how things need to go, we have very different ideas on how things should be. It's hard sometimes to go from everything's wonderful and we agree on everything and it's this free, easy life to okay, now we have to get serious, make some serious decisions. I think it should be this way, you think it should be that way. Now how can we decide together the best path to take?
Speaker 1:what people want to know is what I do.
Speaker 2:That pisses you off I don't even know what it's just, I don't have. No, I don't know if there's anything specific. It's usually just like a tone of voice or something that happens and it just makes me angry. So I just want.
Speaker 1:I can't think of anything like off the top when michelle's angry, like pulling that shit back around. It takes a while. So when we're pissed at nine, you might be cool by lunch, but it's likely probably afternoon coffee or whatever. If we decide to. It takes a while to curb that shit. No, I don't know, it is. It's a shift and you come back and you're like God man, 12 hours ago Well, not 12 hours ago, 16 hours ago I was out on my bike on a rip and you were on the back of it in a skirt, which I just love, and we're having fun and having this adventure and running into people that we know in our little community here, and then you're back here, and it isn't because work is miserable.
Speaker 1:I love this work that we're doing. I absolutely love it. I love the way we do it, I love all of that, and yet we are very much in alignment, but yet there's still conflict, right? So what we're trying to do here, guys, is there's an example, right, you have strategic alignments. You have people in your life that are your partners, whether they're direct partners, your love partners, your life partners, your business partners, whatever they are that come into your life and you've got to navigate this stuff together and I don't have it figured out, michelle doesn't have it figured out. We still butt heads.
Speaker 1:The difference is we've done it so long we actually know when it's going to happen. You see it coming the rest of the week, usually peaches and cream Monday morning. It's a tough part, but that's part of it. If you're suffering that, if you're experiencing some version of what we're describing, you're not indifferent, you're not doing anything. The rest of us don't always do, essentially all the time, for one reason or another and I just want we just want so desperately to broadcast these kinds of messages because we didn't have somebody to tell us this when we were doing it. We didn't have anybody, we had our own, and I think a lot of people were that way. It's one of the things in the information age that has changed that. It was not available in those days. But seriously, like there's a human element here and it's amazing how consistent the human element is when we introduce it, especially into entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2:And I think if you're a couple that's working together in business and there's usually a lot of things that do go right, but the one thing that doesn't go right, it just drives you crazy sometimes. I think understanding like we all have things that we don't deal with the right way, and so it's understanding what those things are and then learning the tools to be able to work through it together I think the other part of it all have fear yeah, it's always driven by fear.
Speaker 2:That's the thing that underneath every problem, if you really go deep enough, it's always a fear. It's a conflict over decisions to make. It's the fear of if I let you do what you want to do, then it's going to cause things to go a direction that I'm afraid of and vice versa. It's just. Everything's always driven by fear. So it's just normal. It's normal part of life to have places that things don't go well, and it's not always going to be perfect.
Speaker 1:It makes me wonder how many more entrepreneurs we'd have in the world. And let's not even go that big In our community here in the vacancy of fear, meaning if people weren't afraid, if there wasn't a fear of the risk, the risk is real, period, end of story. It happens, the grind is real, the struggle is real. All of that is real. It's the fear that inhibits our actions. That is real. It's the fear of it that inhibits our actions. It's the fear of having to go through that, or the doubt that we have the wherewithal to make it through those struggles, that limits it. And I just wonder how often you talk to somebody, at least in their 30s or older, who doesn't have an idea for a business somewhere? Some people don't. It's just not their jam and I get that. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But who doesn't? Yeah, and if?
Speaker 2:you don't take the time and take the risk to really go try it, then you're really missing out. Being an entrepreneur is it's freedom being able to create your own path and go your own direction and allow your soul to drive the work that you do.