1: Can You Have a Successful Marriage and a Successful Business At The Same Time?

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Welcome to Episode One of Make More Love, the show for you, the entrepreneurial man who's dedicated to keeping a hot and healthy marriage while also growing a successful business and a secure future. I'm your host Ellen Dorian, and if you are a married man who owns a business and your relationship is not everything you want it to be, welcome to my tribe. This show explores relationship challenges that are specific to business owners along with tools for personal growth that resonate with who you are. My aim is to ensure that you are winning at marriage, excelling in business, and standing strong in every aspect of life. Before we jump in. Here's a reminder that the Make More Love show is for information and entertainment purposes only. It is not a substitute for the guidance of a qualified healthcare professional. Today's episode is an introduction and a welcome to my listeners. Some of you may know me as a business and leadership coach for construction business owners, and you might be wondering how I ended up with a relationship podcast. So here's a little bit about how I got here. I started out 17 years ago, helping construction business owners with strategic planning and leadership skills to grow their business and make it easier to run. What I quickly learned is that the biggest things that hold people back from business success aren't usually business issues. They're personal problems--and relationship problems are at the top of that list. I saw guys caught in a vicious cycle. They were consumed with their business and their relationships were breaking down. OR They were consumed by their relationship problems to the point where they couldn't fully focus on their business when they needed to. I could see that these guys knew they needed help but they weren't finding avenues that worked for them. They were trying a lot of things, but nothing was really working, so I offered a holistic approach. My mantra was, If it's keeping you up at night, then let's tackle it in session. No topic is off limits and no judgment." And it's the same with this make More Love show. It's a safe place to talk about real relationships--no topic off limits and no judgment. So let's do this together. I'm going to be sharing all the secrets I know about what makes for a rock solid relationship, and also what gets in the way of that. We'll dive deep into how you can create and sustain a strong, resilient relationship with your wife that doesn't take a back seat to the demands of entrepreneurship. And, we'll make sure your wife stays connected and deeply passionate toward you and excited about the future you're growing together. So, let me start out with a general statement about what I think entrepreneurial men want for their life. Most business owners start out with a vision that someday they'll be living the good life. And typically that includes three things: They want to build a successful business they can be proud of, of course. And, they want to be able to do and have the things they want--so--nice things. And, they want a hot and healthy relationship with their wife as a romantic partner who believes in them desires them and wants to live the good life with them. And most of us business owners are natural optimists. We know there are going to be some sacrifices, but we're confident that if we can just make our business successful then everything else will fall into place and life will be great. But it seriously hard to grow a successful business and have a successful marriage at the same time, and thinking that business success will lead to a happy relationship is a flawed assumption. Next up, I want to share with you three obstacles that get in the way of having the relationship we want. And then, I'll get into how we begin breaking through those. The first obstacle is that we become disengaged with the outcome we're trying to achieve, and we lose sight of our purpose. That's true of both partners. You can get so focused on building for the future that you starve the relationship of your presence in the here and now. And, your wife can get so focused on handling everything else, especially if you're consumed by the demands of the business, that she loses sight of the future that you're building for both of you. So, you both forget why you're doing all of this and the resentments set in. And those resentments lead to Obstacle #2, which is... you lose your connection to each other, and this shows up in a few ways. Here are two of them: 1 #1 is you start to confuse coexisting with relating. For example, you go through the same routine night after night, kids, dinner, chores... whatever. And then you plunk down in front of the TV, but maybe you're not even watching. You're both on your phones or doing other things at the same time. You may be in the same room, but you are not truly present. And #2--another common one is you end up opting out of a lot of things. You're distracted. Preoccupied. You forget things. Or, you just say no a lot. And this is seriously detrimental because it leads to doubt about whether you can really count on each other, especially when the going gets tough. And that disconnection also leads directly to the third problem. #3 You lose the spark of passion. Now, this one is not unique to entrepreneurial folks. It's true of most marriages. Over time, life gets in the way of passion. We get older, we get more familiar. We get bored. And, if we're already not connecting outside the bedroom, which we just talked about, there's almost no chance we're going to be able to connect inside it. The hardest thing about all of this is it might not even register for a while when things are going downhill, and sometimes it's easier to ignore things we don't feel ready to deal with. On some level though, you can probably feel that something is off. The disengagement, disconnection, and dissatisfaction get into your head and they break you down, drain your energy, and rob you of the pleasures that being in a relationship are supposed to bring. So fixing them as both vital and urgent, but how do you even start? So, now let's go over the three shifts that will overcome these obstacles and take your relationship from Rocky to Rock Solid. First, if the problem. Is a lack of common purpose, then focusing on your shared values, making explicit agreements and designing a future you both want are the key to getting back into alignment with each other. You might find you need to open up to topics you thought were settled long ago. People change. Circumstances change. And it makes sense that sometimes you need to revisit those desired outcomes. Second, if you've lost the connection then re-engaging on purpose--

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Bringing your head to the place where your feet are planted, making sure you have each other's backs and being attentive will get you back in sync.

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Honestly, everything I do to help men remake their relationships comes from just one action applied consistently. And that is to master your attention. Being able to master your attention, will do more for your relationship than any marriage counseling, any therapy, self-help books, gurus, retreats, ever will. If you're looking for a reason to tune into this show, this is it. Some of the highest value solutions my clients get when they work with me are strategies, skills, and tools that make it easy to consistently master their attention. Alright. And the third obstacle is about. Losing passion. If your sex life has gone cold and you've lost the passion, then we've got to look at the factors that led to that starting with the state of your connection outside the bedroom. Remember we talked about that, which by the way, is directly related to mastering your attention also by way of review. Then we need to take an honest look at the state of your health--physical, mental, and emotional--to find ways to revitalize yourself and bring more primal energy to the forefront. Then once you've got connection and vitality locked in, you'll be able to attack the boredom factor. If there's one thing that's true about your sex life my friends, it's that routine will kill it. Whether you eat the same foods all the time, do the same activities all the time, or do the same old bedroom stuff all the time, routine is not a recipe for intimate intensity. I know I'm saying this, like you've never thought about it. I know you have. So let's kill the routine and seek out new forms of pleasure to refuel the fire. So just to sum up: First we talked about what entrepreneurial men want for their life. Then I shared three obstacles that get in the way of that. And after that I walked you through the three shifts that will help you break through those obstacles and get your dream life. Now I would love it if you would share your experience and your perspectives with me too. I know podcasts aren't exactly the most interactive mode of communication, but there's email direct messages and there's even a private Facebook community you can join that will help us--you and me--connect so you can share your thoughts and questions with me. Check out the show notes to get all those coordinates. No matter what your relationship status is right now, if you would like it to be more supportive, hotter, more passionate, and more connected, then you are exactly where you need to be. So be sure to Like and Subscribe so you don't miss anything. This is Ellen. That's what I've got for you today. Until next time, remember what I want most in the world is for you to MAKE MORE LOVE in your Life and with your Wife.