Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: All right, back on our Tuesday schedule.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Yes, thank goodness. I like Tuesdays. Fridays can be a little difficult. I'm capable of just about anything on Friday after some of these weeks. So yes, good to be back on our Tuesday schedule.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. So today we, we've done a lot and I think we've done a pretty good job of mixing and matching business with the personal relationship side. But I definitely think in the last few episodes we have focused more on business and only business. So I thought today it would be a good change up to get more into the relationship side of things, the personal side between you and I. And I was thinking to know we had the group from the port of Baltimore come in today and they thought it was really fascinating that we are separated by sliding door our offices. And he said, you aren't kidding when you're together at 24/7 he was like, that was actually the downfall of my marriage when I started spending too much time with my wife and I was laughing to myself. But that's the response we get most of the time. It's like super unique. We literally are together 24/7 literally work, play, everything. And both of us, I'll speak for myself coming from some long term relationships, but none that were particularly successful to going to one that was with the, I'm with the person 24 hours a day and it is wildly successful. So just the polar opposite of anything I've experienced in the past. And I think we've both talked about the point in time where we met. Both you and I were okay with the thought of being single the rest of our lives. You had been in a former marriage and of course had the beautiful girls and that didn't work out. And then for me, I was just okay with not getting married when we had met. I was just so business oriented. And I think a lot of women could probably relate to this, that are entrepreneurs, are very business focused. It's like you almost feel like you have to choose. And maybe not just females, but that's what I did.
I'm in my twenty s or early thirty s and to be the career woman I want to be, it's like this is it, it's work. And I don't have time for a relationship. And I could never even imagine how the two would be not only synergistic but help one another. And that's exactly what we found. So that was a lot to say. I would love to get into that a little bit of how we went from neither of us having particularly successful relationships to all of a sudden finding one that worked when we weren't looking for it. And what are the few things that inside a relationship that you can really contribute to what we would call it being a success?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's interesting because back to your point you just made about being in your twenty s and this is business time, right? It's this or that. And we've talked about the sacrifices, right. One of the questions was what do you need to be aware of? Or what do you have to be more sensitive to? And it's sacrifices. Like you have to be aware of the sacrifices and you were just of the mindset, well, relationships will get sacrificed in this particular moment and even to the point where your aspirations around a relationship was just put aside as well. And having gone through a similar experience and just being at a particular point with daughters that were still quite young and I wanted to be able to give them as much attention as humanly possible while still working. Right. I mean, these are two very large bandwidth items and it was just the same thought as well, there just won't be enough time for that. And because the few dates or whatever I even had along the way, it was clear that I was not going to be available, that I was going to go back to the girls and the business and there just wasn't going to be room for someone that wasn't in the exact space that you ultimately found your way into. Or we found each other's, into that space of each other's.
But yeah, I was just like, okay, this is just going to be the way it is for a while and that's okay. You go through there's these evolutionary periods of your life where you just get into a groove. And that was something that I was just okay. I was having a great time and making sure the girls were in a good spot after some really rough transitional years. And I would loved what I was doing work wise. And if that was 98% of the bandwidth, then that was okay. I was really happy with those. And if the relationship piece was going to get sacrificed, that was okay. I was just fine. I didn't have any issues with that.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Yeah, me too. And at that time, and I've told you this before, I know there are a lot of females that grow up thinking about their wedding and what they want in partners and I never did. So it wasn't this fairy tale I had in my head that I would be super bummed if it didn't come to fruition. Like, we all have these things we want, whether it's marriage or kids growing up, and neither of them, they would have been great, but I was almost indifferent. So I didn't have that ever, like, that being a real ambition or desire of mine. And then, like I said, I was so into business and getting my business off the ground, and I was happy and I was excited. And when it's early on, you're inspired, I was like, this is great. And then I was always super independent, so it wasn't anything abnormal for me. Like, I was used to doing things alone. I was traveling to country, playing soccer alone. I was doing that. So it was very familiar and I didn't feel the need to change. But now, as we've talked about, looking back, I was happy.
But in retrospect, to how I feel now with you and going through life with you was I. That's all I knew.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: But comparing the two now, I'm like, when you're experiencing life with somebody else that you're in love with, it's just ten times what that was. But in that spot, at that time, I really did genuinely feel happy. But maybe it's one of those things you don't know what you don't know.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. And as did I, the same thing. And I just think we do talk about the word alignment here a lot, but it's legitimate, right? I mean, it works so well because the alignment is so strong and it's just as natural as anything. And we can do everything together, which is great. So some of the issues that I was experiencing with a date or two or three along the way, that wasn't possible, right. That other person or whoever that would be had another job, so on and so forth, and then I would just be absent because that's what my daughters and the job demanded at that particular time. So therefore, it was never going to work where that's not we had. Right. I mean, we sit across from each other. We're generally working at the same time. You're my companion on Southwest Airlines, like, literally my companion. So it's so much easier that way.
And then it's nice that we're so deep into each other's day and lives all the time, right. Because other relationships, you end up scratching the surface, right. When you see someone for the time or you handle the current events part. Right. And then there may not be enough time to get into anything of depth where we're so deep all the time that there's no catching up. I mean, I can pick up on a conversation that you're having or I know about a work event, whether it's a customer challenge or a new customer, some good, some not as good. And I already know the backstory. It's not like there's this whole explanation that has to take place to get me up to speed, if you will. I'm right in. And then you're exactly in the same spot when I need help or I need a sounding board, or it can even interject and say, hey, I'm not sure if you thought of this, or I'm not sure if you knew this, and it's about as good as it gets. I mean, it's like just having someone there that has your blind spot all the time. As leaned in as we are, it's nice to have somebody, and you're keeping an eye on your blind spot constantly.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the difference with a lot of people is this is a unique partnership, and it wouldn't work for a lot of people, and it wouldn't be desirable for a lot of people under our circumstances, it's the only thing that actually would work. So in my other relationships, the difference was so I knew when I didn't want to be with that person all the time. Well, that's probably a telltale, but when I felt like my personal and work life had to be separate, that's just not a feasible thing. So then if you're putting your time in the work bucket, the personal bucket is being sacrificed, and ultimately, that doesn't work. So for us, because we spend so many hours in our businesses and building our businesses, that another arrangement really wouldn't work in my eyes, I think this is the only thing that would be feasible.
If we weren't in each other's lives all the time, we probably wouldn't see each other, because if we had to separate the two.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And we tried that. I mean, early on in our relationship, you lived on the other side of the harbor in Baltimore, which is a mile and a half a mile. But it was hard. I mean, we were terrible apart. And it was because when we would separate for whatever we had dinner or whatever we were doing, we would go back into our head down lives, and either of us would be unavailable to a different mate. Right. Completely unavailable. And therefore, I don't know that there's any way in the world it could ever work.
I think what ends up happening in some of those other relationships where you could end up with a double life, if you will, and I don't mean post office box double life. I mean, you end up doing 100% of half, and your mate ends up doing 100% of half. And that's an experience I'd had with kids and having daughters and my former wife being very locked down in that piece as a mom and so on and so forth, which she was fantastic at, but I was doing 100% of the other half, which was running the business, providing so on and so forth, versus doing half of the whole. Right. Our relationship now is we're both doing half of the whole, which has a very different look than someone doing 100% of half. And that's one of the things that I noticed quickly and early, was that it took me a while to get my brain around that 100% of the half piece, which probably contributed to the relationship not working out. This is a different feeling when you're doing half of the whole.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I think one of my strategies in relationships was I could escape into work, so I wanted to get away, or I didn't want to face something, whatever it was, or maybe I just wasn't happy. It was like a nice way to just escape into work. And so it was a really different feeling. And you were good in the beginning of almost forcing me to be like, hey, we don't have to separate the two. You can come over and we can work on our computers together. Remember? That was, like, foreign to me. I did like, what?
[00:11:50] Speaker B: I followed you to the coffee shop one day, remember?
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Oh, I remember. You're like, I'll just come and do work. And I was like, no, I really have to get this done. I'm going to be distracted. You're like, no, I'm going to sit there and do work, too. And I know this sounds so stupid saying it out loud, but I'm like, we can't do work together, and we're just going to be talking the whole time, and I'm not going to get anything done. And you were very good at being forcing, almost like, no, we can sit in the same space and we can work and we can be productive, and then we can go to dinner after. Like, we can both do both. And that was what I needed. And then all of a sudden, I was like, well, I'm not escaping into work. We're working together and next to each other, and, wow, I'm still being productive.
And that's where I started to figure out this is a person this could potentially work with. I just never saw those two separate parts of my life being able to just be interwoven.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: Yeah, well, look, and you did a great job, too, as it relates to setting up a business that could be remote. I mean, the demands of our automation business in the last few years would travel. I think I was on, I don't know, 88 airplanes last year or something like that, being in the field, turning wrenches. And it's nice for you to have a business where you do have the flexibility to be super productive in the air, on the ground, and to be able to not have me go away for five days or something like that, or three days or whatever it is. And you have the ability, because you built your business that way and you've got great people and great support to be able to take that time, which has been huge and awesome as well, which just contributes to us being together around. Even when one travels for business, the other one is there, too, which is really cool.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Actually in the beginning, and we had talked about them the first few years, you were traveling so much and we wouldn't have seen each other a lot. And that was out of. When you start a business, you have all these ideas in your head of what it's going to look like. And I always say the one non negotiable that I actually stuck to was being able to run my business from anywhere at all times. And that is what allowed us to travel together, which is awesome, because when you travel together, even though you're working, just being in a different place and different culture with different people, it keeps the relationship vibrant and refreshed. And that was such a great part. Like those first two or three years, we were just traveling the country together, working.
And again, that was just such a different experience. Who does this? Who gets to travel the country with their wife or their husband and work and be super productive, but experience all these new things? That was just a cool part of our life when we were still getting to know each other.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And still, if you were to drop in on our house on any given weekend, right. You'd usually find us knocking out some work in the morning. Right. I mean, that's part of our typical thing.
We're on the couch across from each other, but sounding boards, prepping our week, checking in on what the week is going to look like and what this particular week. We have lots, any number of events that we're in together and you with some female events and some things that you have to take care of that.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: We'Re going to together that we're going to.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: Exactly. Right. Exactly. That I'm going to touch down and work for a minute.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: You aren't allowed in the one event, which is so unusual because I think on the other podcast we were talking about how other episode that we always ask if I have an event or a speaking event.
My ask is always, can Mick come? Not a demand, but like, hey, Mick's coming, is that okay? And hey, Brit's coming, is that okay? And it's always, yeah, of course. This one was. No, this is all female business leaders.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's all right.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: So we just meet up out. We got the spot. We meet up afterwards.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: That's right, yeah. And then I'll be excited to hear what happens. I'd much prefer to experience it myself. Any number of times. I'm the only male and in a 200 group full of 200 females. Or at least it's me. Or two or three or four for doing something with Vicky from I 95. One of our favorites, by the way.
And, yeah, so I'll miss it, but we just have to spend the first hour debriefing on what I missed.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. And I think one thing that this isn't necessarily, I want these episodes when people are listening to be relatable because that's what this is all about. Like us learning from the audience, potentially learning from us, and vice versa, and having the input and conversation. And this isn't necessarily, and I realize that relatable for a lot of people. I mean, this is unusual again, but I do think there are certain characteristics of our relationship which have really made this work. And I have to say I feel like we really just have such a strong relationship.
We're just super connected and as aligned as the word you always use.
I've never ever had that kind of alignment with anyone. And I think we have a ton of people all the time. Tell us. Even my parents, who've been together since they've been twelve, tell us, like, wow, we've just never met two people so aligned.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: So if you're going to pick, say, three things of our relationship that you think have made it particularly strong, because I do think it feels like just this unbreakable bond. Like nobody could break that bond. What would you pinpoint as those qualities?
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Well, one thing without question is you do not hold grudges. Like, even if we have a minute where we're just not gelling for whatever could just be tired, or I'll do something stupid or say something stupid.
I was going to say, let's assume I did, and it flares. For whatever reason, it's over. Right? I mean, any number of people that could just linger on and on and on and on, and it's truly over. I mean, whatever it was, it's just it.
We don't waste any particular time or energy in that mode, which is great. It makes it easy. It makes it refreshing. My dad was the type. My mom was a little bit of a grudge holder, and when her nose got out of joint, she wasn't particularly quick to come back around. And I used to joke when they would have. If they'd have a run in, my mother would have to get out of the house, and she would go buy milk. So if they had a challenging week, there'd be 17 gallons of milk in the refrigerator on that particular week. But that was just her mo. Like, she had to separate herself. My dad, on the other hand, I would blow something or screw something up. He would usually knock me upside the head, and it was over.
It literally stung. But ten minutes later, he'd be like, you want to go hit some balls? You want to go over? And that was how I grew up with him. Whatever was out of line got corrected. But then we absolutely moved on. I mean, we'd be playing catch in the backyard not two minutes later. So that component of it is really familiar.
And it took me a while to get used to that. It's almost like, all right, there's going to be static for a little bit of time because we're both very strong personality wise.
So when you get cracked upside the head by your mate and your best friend, it doesn't feel all that great. And early on, I would remember thinking, how long is this going to go on? But it never did. So that's one of the pieces, is how we just. No one holds a grudge. If we're off or out of step or at a cadence for a second, we're right back in cadence. And there's never any grudges or hard feelings or anything that would. Or even be brought up later, nothing like that. Which takes a lot of stress and allows you to put energy towards the stuff that you really want to put it towards.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I never really thought about that as my part of my childhood, because grudges were not even a thing in my house.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: Oh, hell no.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Knowing your parents the way I do, hell no.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: And I barely ever really got punished. And if I did, my dad couldn't be serious. I mean, he just started laughing, like, five minutes later. Not, they didn't let me run and do whatever the heck I wanted. But, yeah, grudges weren't even thing. So I'm sure it has somewhat to do with your childhood and what you're used to. But I had a bunch of thoughts running through my head when you were talking. I think one of the things in the beginning, I don't know if you recall this, in the very beginning, before we lived together, which for anyone, we lived together after five or six months. Like, we moved in immediately together, which we can tell that story.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Yeah, thank goodness we wouldn't be sitting, but again, we were so bad apart, we would not be sitting here.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. We'll tell that story next.
So this was probably two, three, four months in, but at that point, we were still pretty much inseparable very early on. But when we would have, and it wasn't disagreements, we just didn't know each other, and we were trying to figure each other out, I would say, I just need some time to think about it, and I would go for hours, and we didn't live together, so you couldn't force me to think, and I would just go for hours, and you couldn't stand it. You're like, no, let's just talk about it now. And I'm like, no, I like to think on things before I speak. But really, it was, again, me doing what I knew, which was like, I can just escape from this and go and do my own thing, like I've always done in the very beginning. Now it's the exact opposite.
We were always talked about everything real time. Could you imagine? I was like, babe, I need an hour to think about. That just doesn't happen anymore.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And where would you go? Yeah, we do have a couple of floors. You could certainly seek out another floor, but that would be really counter. Really counterproductive. The other thing that we struggled too early is you had a tenant to be very late.
And I have such an addiction to time, and that was talking about your childhood. We can go into that.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: I was never late for professional work stuff. It was if we had social things. One thing I think that's important, because a lot of people say not keeping. Of course, everybody knows not keeping grudges is something that's going to be good for your relationship.
But I think one thing that's really important is not holding grudges and you sort of hit on it, but never holding something over your partner's head. Right.
And that is what a lot of partners do. They hold on to this one thing, and then when something pops up, they hold it over your head. That is the quickest way to dismantle a relationship.
I told you so. That you cannot do. And that's a lot of you got to fight your ego sometimes, because in your head you might be like, yeah, I told you that 50 times, but it's just not bringing that up. Not that I told you so. It's not that I'm hanging this overhead. Know the grudges. That whole piece of it is really important because that resentment will build up.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: And you could also say the same thing. I spoke at a family business panel a couple of years ago, and I remember one of the questions was, what would be your advice for family business? And this is the same thing because you know each other so well, and it would be fight fair. Right? Because as family members, just like a relationship, you know, have such intimate details that you can really get after someone at a very deep level. And that was my suggestion to them. Similar to what we're talking about now is fight Fair. Be careful because you can really do some harm, even though that's your brother or your sister, and you probably get a little leeway. You've heard the term fight like family man. If you go in there in certain spots because you know that person so well, whether it's a relative or someone like us in a relationship, you can do some really irreparable damage if you're not careful because you know each other so well. So that's the other piece of that, too. Yeah.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Or just don't fight at all.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: But I remember early on, and you've said this to me before, you were like, I can tell when you're talking to your sister versus your other employees, you're just more brutal and you're more blunt. I'm like, yeah, I got to catch myself.
Hopefully. In the beginning, I think it was just too much, but now she knows me, but, yeah, just because she was my sister, I shouldn't do that. But I do have a tendency to.
What else was I thinking about on this one?
And then the other thing, too.
We have so limited time, so much pressure, so much stress, that we simply holding grudges seems too hard, like, too much.
We don't even have the time or energy for it, so that helps. I think if you've got a lot of free time, potentially, like, the drama or need a little bit more chaos in your life or something, perhaps that's attractive, but I can't even imagine, like, a chaotic relationship. We spoke about this on the last one.
We need that solid, steady ground to go back into our oasis, our safe haven, just with what we're dealing with every day, with work.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: Yeah, that would be a lot, and it would certainly hasten the failure of a relationship like that, I guess. I don't know. And I imagine there's any number of people where they do have the ability to get away from work, right. That's not something that we really do. Where you go home to, let's say, your wife works in another profession or doesn't at all, either way, or your husband, and that can be an escape or a sanctuary where you actually get a break from work because that person doesn't work. That's not something that really have. I mean, work is in and around what we do, the vast majority, if not all of the time, and either doing it directly or we're working on things outside that are of interest, or we're trying to widen our lane. So it also takes a different makeup in that you're okay with not unbolting from work, as am I, where if you had someone who's like, man, are you ever going to stop working? Are you ever going to unbolt from work the way we both operate, the answer would be, yeah, no, I'm probably not. And that works here. Like, we're both okay with that.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: It's interesting because I've talked to a lot of business owners that they specifically sought that out. They wanted somebody that wasn't in the same line of work that could get away. It's like, I work every day, all day. I want to go home and get out of it and have an outlet. And so there are some people that this just wouldn't work for at all. They want the ying and the yang feel, which we're the yang and yang, or ying yang. We always say, we are literally so similar. We have very few ying and yang. Any part of our relationship.
[00:26:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the other thing that works is there's a very high level of discipline, too, which things like drive me crazy.
If you're very neat and your mate is sloppy, let's say, or something along those lines, or one of you sleeps in and one of you don't and not say, that's discipline or not discipline. But we had this cadence where, let's say it's unspoken, that in general, I wash the clothes or fold the clothes. Right. In general, you handle the dishes or something like that. It'd be in the morning and I'll be getting ready and I hear dishes clanking around, like, oh, there she goes. I know the dishes are going to be clean when I come down. So we've also had this ability to just seek out particular jobs. I mean, when we started, the mass business was pretty funny. Because we never had a conversation about division of responsibilities, if you will. But I just happened towards the ops piece automatically, and I was the one that placed the orders for the masks. You were running the social media side and sales and clearing credit cards. But I don't know that we ever had one conversation about the vision of responsibility. We just dropped into our thing and it all got done and there was never any questions. Did you do this? Did you do that? You had your piece, and I had my piece, and it just went back and forth as a continuous handoff until we got the customer the product that they wanted and never actually had to sit down and sort it out. Just like you and I rarely have to sit down and sort out much.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: No, because we're talking real time all the time.
And the one thing is, obviously, we know communication is the biggest part of any relationship, and we're doing that real time. We never sit on anything. I mean, we couldn't. Again, that grudge piece, it couldn't even happen because we're talking real time. We're figuring things out. One thing I remember you teaching me, really, in the beginning, was you would position things like, listen, it's my made up story that instead of saying, this is what it is, it's my made up story that you did this or that you're thinking this and just wording it that way. Like you're saying, I'm not saying it's right. This is just how I'm feeling. And it may be a made up story in my head would disarm me and allow me to be like, well, yeah, I'm feeling this way.
It just opened the conversation. And like I said, all of a sudden I had no guard. There was no guard up. We could have a conversation about what I was really feeling, what you were feeling, and get to the reality, which is somewhere in the middle.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: So it's also the way you approach relationships. And you were very good at that and allowed me, because, I don't know. I wouldn't have said I was particularly great at communicating relationships prior, but you certainly made it easier to be able to do that.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I think if there's something that I learned along the way, that was the hard thing. It took me forever to mature, though.
I have a few years on you, so I wasn't always good at that. Actually, I was rather terrible at times. When I started to get a little bit better or mature in those particular parts was when the girls started to come along and they were young girls. And when you run a business you're a fixer, right? And you get called on a lot to fix. So you get in this habit of when someone asks you a question or someone's talking to you that they're looking for a fix. Because generally, if you're running a business and someone's in your doorway, they're coming by because they have a problem, they need support, they want to collaborate through something, whatever it might be. Well, it took me a long time to figure out that sometimes people just want you to listen.
Especially my daughters were that way where I'm listening for cues on how I'm going to solve when they just wanted me to listen. And that took me forever to figure out. So if you're listening and you have daughters or females in your lives, you don't always have to solve. Sometimes you're just asked to listen. And that was something that helped a lot, or I think allowed us to have better, more productive conversations faster because you didn't have to deal with my dumb ass when I was figuring all of that out when I was younger and much less mature, perhaps.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the truth.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: I'm accurate with what I'm telling you, I promise.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: And I do think by virtue of just running a business, you get better.
To be successful, you have to have hard conversations all the time, so you organically get better at having harder conversations. And when we first met, I was just building my business. So now I've had seven years of a lot of really hard conversations also in my business, which has made me become an exponentially better communicator. A lot of room for improvement. But when I first met you, I didn't have that either.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: Well, also, too, I think when you're younger, you don't always get exposed to lots of different types of people.
You're generally around like minded, your soccer.
[00:31:42] Speaker A: Teammates, very diverse, though. I actually was. Because of soccer.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Because of soccer, yeah. And then once you start to expand, especially again, we have 40 hourly employees, right? So we have pretty heavy ops teams. We're not general motors by any stretch. But as you start to call on people, you're in the sales world and you start to experience different personality types and you see them over and over, you start to have a better understanding. At some point, I'll tell the story about Hudson and the dog whisperer, but just the idea that you start to see different types of people, and not that you would prejudge or anything that looks like that, but you start to recognize a little bit faster or more accurately, even importantly, what those people are like, or their breed, if you will. And then you learn to have more effective conversations faster than you did when you didn't have that experience or you hadn't had a wider vantage point or perspective for all the different types of people that are out there. And that was helpful, too. And something, again, that I learned in a very painstaking way over a long period of time.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: I do think we have to double back on the story of when we moved in with each other, since it's something that I mentioned, and we've got to tell the story.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So that particular day, we'd gone to a.
At that point, you were packing bags. You were actually packing a suitcase when you'd come over.
And then we're going to get ready the next day. This was a Sunday. We had gone to the Ravens game, and we were at dinner. We had a couple of cocktails, because it was Ravens Sunday, of course, and it was September 9. I remember that. And it was the buffalo game, and we were sitting at dinner after, and you said, man, I am so sick of living out in an. I think you might have said, effing suit. I'm certain I did, because you were really frustrated. And I think we had a couple of vodkas that day. And I said, don't move in. And you said, okay. And that was it.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: And then we just kept talking.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah, and we kept talking. So the next day you wake and you said, do you remember our conversation last night? Again? Because I had had ten vodkas throughout the course of the day. You said, do you remember a conversation last night? I said, the one about you moving in. You said, yeah. I said, yeah, of course I do. Of course I did. How would I ever not remember that? But that was Monday. It wasn't that night that we got your stuff, but we got it Tuesday, and that was it.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Do you remember? Yeah, of course. All right. And just grabbed all my shit and I was in.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: And that was that. And that is just so typical. If that isn't our relationship in a nutshell.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Absolutely spontaneous.
And if we haven't said that yet, we both have impulse control issues. And it took us a while to figure out that neither of us were actually controlling the other, where I thought, oh, you know what? This must be okay, because if this is stupid or impulsive, Britt's going to pull me back. And you were over there doing the same thing. So actually, nobody was watching the store at all. As it relates to impulse control, we.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Just get stronger in our dumbass conviction.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Absolutely. We were just feeding off of each other. No one was governing the situation.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: It's worked out.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Yeah, so far.
Hopefully it continues.
But that about sums it up. I'm all about a bag move in.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Okay, so that we covered one large topic, the other one that I think has been so important and will continue to be, and I believe it is for everybody, is having someone. Well, I always say to you, I knew you were the person for me when I genuinely felt like a better person. Not just saying that I felt like I was becoming such a better person when we were together. I think that's a really easy way to figure out if you're with the person you're supposed to be with. Like, are you getting better? Are you a better person when you're with them, period. And it's a pretty easy answer for most people. And if the answer is no, you might have to think about it a second.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: But along with that, and these play off of each other. But is having someone that is genuinely excited and supportive of you and your goals? Because this is really foreign to us in our relationship, and we hit on this before, but if there's any jealousy that exists, which I really did experience in other relationships, that's really tough. And I'm not sure if that will ultimately ever work.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: Right. Or competition. Right.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Or competition to competition. I'm not saying because we love to compete and have fun, but it's stupid competition. That doesn't really matter. I mean, at the end of the day, I know, as you always say, I'm your biggest fan. I'm yours. We are on each other's team, and my win for you feels like your win and vice versa. And it's been like that from day one. And together we are a very powerful team because we support each other so much and we never have to question that.
A lot of times we don't even talk about it. I know you're going through a particularly hard challenge or your milestone, and it's like 80% of the focus and the support and the energy going into you, and then that will shift. And it's this fluid shift, and we almost know it's not 50 50. At times. A lot of us, one of us needs a little bit more and that shifts. But overall, it always really works out to how it's never 50 50 at one time, but overall, if you broke it up, it would equate to that.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: Right. And the idea, too. If we awaken tomorrow and Tegler construction was 17 times larger than Arnold packaging, I'd be the happiest guy in the world. In no place competitive. As hyper competitive as we both are, that would never cross my mind. I mean, every contract you get that you win or something, that you literally yell across the room between our offices, hey, I just got a.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: Like, today?
[00:37:56] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
I'm genuinely excited about that. And as hell, if we folded Arnold tomorrow and I work for you, I'd be okay with that. We're not.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: No. Vice versa.
I always joke about it when I get frustrated.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: I know some days you just want to be responsible for you, but that's very few. And I'll say for me personally, that's very few and far between. There were some years along the way in my late 20s when we were going through some crazy turmoil where, man, it pushed me right to the brink. I don't even know that I have any of those days. In today's world, that's also human.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: I mean, that's just being a human. But it's a lot easier when you have really good people. You're always going to have those days where, like, I don't want to deal with any of it. A lot of times it's when I'm tired.
But if you have good people, it's rarely that. But, yeah, those wins. And I think, as you put it really succinctly in one of our other episodes, it's also probably easier because we are a part of the entire build up, as you put it. So it's not like I'm coming in like, hey, babe, I got this contract. You saw me working through the quotes and negotiating it. Like, you saw this one to two month build up going through, like, how I was going to negotiate it, what the market was. So you've been a part of that journey. So the win feels extra. It's not me just being like, hey, here it is.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: Right?
[00:39:21] Speaker A: So being a part of the full experience, I think, also makes it maybe a little bit easier to be excited.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
Because I do like talking about business so much.
A relationship where, let's just say your spouse did something else. I mean, at some point, you could be at risk of not wanting to tell that whole build up story, right? And before you know it, you're not really sharing anything about your work world, which is still a lot of your life. Right? I mean, people spend 40 hours a week at work or 1000 if it's you and me.
It would be difficult if you love what you did, to not go home to your significant other and share some of that stuff. Right. Because after a while, the build up is a little bit tiring, or it takes too long to backtrack on the contract. Started with negotiations and so on. Right.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Your partner is like, I don't really give a shit.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: Yeah, ask.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: Just took an hour of my life of this story. Right.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: Or you just skipped to the win, got a contract today. Great. Or something along those lines.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: I also think everybody wants work to be exciting, and if you have a partner that is genuinely excited for you, it's going to make work a little bit more exciting for you. Like, wow, they're pumped up. I'm pumped up. And, like, that shared energy.
But a perfect example, tomorrow I'm having a conversation that could be moving forward. One of our big growth strategies. And you're the first person I'm asking to be in that meeting you don't work for with. I mean, you're not Taylor construction supply. But I value your input and you know more about our business just as much as anybody. So you being a part of that conversation is so important, like that. I value that input so much.
I don't know, I just think that's so huge. And a lot of people, I'm sure, are thinking there's got to be a little bit, like a little bit of jealousy or something, but there's no, it's truly not at all.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: And it's. It's wonderful.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: I would be honest here, too. Like, I really would.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Totally.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: One thing of our viewership, I mean, if you haven't noticed so far, if you're new, we lay it out there. I mean, we're rather transparent, made up stories, unspoken truths, not fans of those. When we blow one, we'll spend a lot of time on these episodes telling you guys how we. The ones we blew.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: We're not perfect by any means, but we're focusing on the three things that really work, or the three or four things. And I think, too, one thing in the beginning that I realized, because there was none of that competition, even in the very, very beginning. And one of the things you really helped me, I was always very ambitious and thought big, but you always pushed me to think bigger, like, always, well, yeah, you can do that, or you can do, like, you can do it in the US, or you could do it globally, like those kind of thoughts. And when somebody is making you think bigger, what you were always doing in every aspect of my life, I think right away I was like, oh, he really wants me to do well, he's here for it. So that was probably one of the earliest recognitions where I was like, yeah, he's on my team for sure.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: Well, it's cool. It's almost as if you have, like you're talking about the growth thing we're going to work on tomorrow. It's nice to have an in house consultant with that level of trust where just the fact.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: Totally objective.
[00:42:41] Speaker B: Yeah, objective. And just the fact that your perspective is different makes it incredibly valuable just because you are you and you see things the way you see them, which is just simply different than the way I see them. And we can both be guilty of being incredibly lind. And the old story about not being able to see the forest for the trees.
When you have a baby, that is your business. This is my 30th year.
I think I took over from 20 eigth year since my father's been dead for 28 years. So since I took over the business, man, when you're that leaned in and there are some parts of your child called your business that could be pretty ugly. And it's nice to have someone in there to keep you grounded and say, especially on the personnel side, right, where maybe I'm not giving someone the credit that they deserve or I'm not approaching the relationship the way I should. It's nice to have you, for example, over my shoulder saying, have you considered, or did you think about or whatever? And then I back up and go, oh, gosh, yeah.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: Wow, I didn't see that the other day.
I won't get into it. But you said, into detail, you said, is it just me or blah, blah? And I said, yeah, it's just you. Do you remember what I'm talking about?
[00:43:59] Speaker B: I don't.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't. Yeah. And it was about that not internal personality, just somebody like a consultant you're working with and frustrated with.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: Understand?
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Yeah, understand. It is you in this situation, if I'm being honest.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that was good. But that was incredibly productive, right? Because I'd have gone down some dumb ass path on my own. And that's what I did for a really long time. Right. When I was doing most of it by myself, I'd have gone some dumb ass path and you just knocked me right back over where I should have been. That resolved in a very big hurry, or there was nothing to resolve at all because I got in the right headspace and progressed accordingly because of it.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: And I think it's really important to say that I'll speak for myself, probably speak for you, too. I would drive most people insane, my family will tell you.
No offense, we didn't think that you.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: Because every time when you say, no offense, to start something off means I'm.
[00:44:57] Speaker A: Going to prepare to be wildly offended. They tell you all the time, we just didn't think anybody would be able to put up her. They're just so OCD, hard driving. I mean, some of your friends, someone said to you, I'm glad you have a great relationship, but I couldn't handle that. Or something like that. I'm sure you get that a lot.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: So I do think we probably drive a lot of people insane. But that OCD, and how would you describe it?
[00:45:29] Speaker B: It's just a demanding, incredibly high expectations.
[00:45:34] Speaker A: But I didn't think about it because that's how I am. So that just war, it wasn't something that would. Most people will find super annoying. Like, for us, that's just we. We expected the same of ourselves.
[00:45:47] Speaker B: Yeah, when you both show up that way, it's much easier to do. But, yeah, I would drive somebody insane. Like I said, you started the podcast by saying we were both pretty convinced that we would just be alone for a while. And I absolutely was, because I knew I was going to be incredibly, incredibly difficult.
[00:46:02] Speaker A: Because you said that to me in the beginning, you're like, I'm really difficult. And I had no idea what you were talking about. I was like, you're the easiest person I've ever had because you're me. And living with you was all, oh, that's the other thing. When we moved in together, a lot of people, I'm sure, experience, it's hard when you transition and move your whole life into each, into the same house, and then you don't have personal space anymore. For us, it was the easiest thing I've ever done in my life.
And so I was thinking to myself, you are not difficult at all.
[00:46:33] Speaker B: Well, I think. But we were so bad at being apart. I mean, it was bad because we'd go back to our stuff, right back to our head down. That was way more the fact that we were starting the day in the same place. And when we came home, because we were very social, I mean, we were out a lot. And that's a big part of how our relationship grew the way it did, because we were out experiencing things together, and it was just nice to start the day together. And then when we did come back, at that point, we weren't in the same building. You were over on Erdman Avenue. So we did separate to go to work during the day. But when we came back, we got ready at the same time. I would always check on the color you were wearing and have them on something similar.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: Yep, you heard it.
[00:47:18] Speaker B: But that was nice. That was just a total flip, know, waiting for you to come around from the canton side, which could be brutal on certain.
That was. I think that was part of just becoming immediately easier was the fact that you were physically there.
[00:47:33] Speaker A: Yes.
And one of the reasons I did point out the fact that everything we do is just so disciplined and annoying to a lot of other people.
I think one of the reasons, another reason other than we're just both that way it works is because we do interject so much fun into our lives. As hard as we work together and are working all the time on the other side of the spectrum. We literally have that much fun together.
We party, we go hard at both parts of our life. And I'm not really sure either of us know how to turn it on and off on different parts of our life. So it's just always on, no matter what we're doing. But we like to have a lot of fun. And that is what keeps us sane a lot of times because we can do it together.
I think we both need that outlet and then we just do it together and just have the best time. So that really helps, I think. Because if we were just, which we are working most of the time, but if we were just doing that at some point, I think the tension would be. I mean, it would have to be. Right? So high.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: Right. Well, imagine if one of us is a homebody, for example. That wouldn't work, right? I mean, we're both rearing to go and after a hard day and finally shutting down the laptop and on our way. Or knocking out the last couple of emails in Uber on the way to ever it is.
[00:49:00] Speaker A: And a lot of times it's work related. We're meeting suppliers or customers or we're going like tomorrow, we'll all go to my event, then we'll meet up for dinner afterwards. Everything's related around something.
[00:49:11] Speaker B: Work.
[00:49:11] Speaker A: But we love it and we blow it out. And everybody that knows us knows this about we're going to have fun, right?
[00:49:17] Speaker B: Or just a comment about that. I was talking to someone today and they're watching, or they're starting to catch up on the podcast. And the comment was, do you guys ever stop? Do you ever stop? And the short answer is no, not really. Not on stuff we love.
[00:49:31] Speaker A: My aura ring would tell you no, we need some more sleep.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: Yeah, 3 hours. Yeah. Mine's a little angry at me too, but that's great. It's great to catch up on some of this stuff. I mean, I love reliving the early parts of our relationship. The story of how did we actually get here again, how does this work? The way it is and everything we talked about is exactly why.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And I just think it's so important to have that social and that fun and adventurous part of our life that it's work and it's play and it's just all intertwined into this one.
That was the biggest thing for me. Just like, not having to separate these silos of your life and just living them all fully with you.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And that somehow all of that mixed together equates to a balance that we.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: Both love and are attracted to, or lack thereof. Balance that we really like. Because there's like, the balance in our life is so not there.
[00:50:41] Speaker B: Just running back. It's very off balance from one side of the seesaw to the other.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: Is that what it looks like? That is a perfect way to put it.
[00:50:48] Speaker B: You're making me tired.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, the seesaw analogy is perfect. It's always on one side of the ground and the other one's up here. It's just never sitting teetering nicely.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: But Netnet, like our relationship, it must ends up being somehow in that 50% mode.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: All figured. So enjoyable. Thank you.
[00:51:11] Speaker A: All right, any lasting thoughts?
[00:51:16] Speaker B: No, I just can't wait to see what the next 20 years looks like. It's going to be a hell of a lot of fun.
[00:51:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
I really did want to just have one episode just talking about our relationship, because it has been very business oriented. And the one thing, even though our situation is not relatable to a lot of people, relationship dynamics are.
[00:51:39] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:51:39] Speaker A: And everybody has them and they're all a little unique. But I think when you can hold on to and share, this is why our relationship works and it's going to be different for everybody. But that's hopefully helpful and something that people want to learn or listen to or provide their own experience with us.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
Another good talk.
[00:52:02] Speaker A: Cheers.
[00:52:03] Speaker B: Cheers, Tommy. Thanks as always. Thank best producer and the best, Tommy Whitman.
[00:52:07] Speaker A: Until next time.
[00:52:07] Speaker B: Yep, see you soon.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: See?
[00:52:10] Speaker B: 30 seconds now.
