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Trust us, you guys.It's worth it.Head over to Amazon to learn more.What's up, everyone?Welcome back to Couple Things.
Podcast all about couples.
And the things they go through.
This one's a little bit different.So we're going to piece this together because Andrew and I got to do this cool keynote moderated speech at Owen Business School.
That's right.My alma mater, which, by the way, did you know that alma mater is actually a person that went to Columbia University in New York City?
I don't understand why it's called Alma Mater then.
Me neither.Me neither.Fact check me on that, but I believe that's right.My cousin went to Columbia.Anyway, I went to Vanderbilt.
Because he went to Columbia?
No, they had a statue there.Her name was Alma.Was it Alma Mater?You know what?We're off topic.Okay.I went to Vanderbilt for undergrad and graduate school, so I went to business school there.
And they invited me back for what they called a distinguished speaker series.
Yeah, you are distinguished.
Well, I talk about that because I got a good giggle out of that about that because I don't even know how I ended up getting accepted into that.
But we were sitting there with the dean.OK, it was a big deal.It was an honor to stop trying to degrade yourself in.
We wanted to share this with you though, because we thought it was a, I don't know, kind of a peek into our history.And I thought we shared some things that we haven't normally just kind of about our business from a high level.
So we wanted to share it.We thought you may enjoy it.This is definitely a different episode.It's us getting interviewed. But maybe there's some good stuff in there.
I actually thought I was really cool Most of the people who are there who had questions who like wanted us to speak Were there because they wanted to be able to be business people and family People as well.Yeah, they wanted to know how to do both and
and keep their priorities straight, but actually still pursue their dreams, and I thought that was really cool.The dean actually had a conversation with me.
He's like, there's this misconception, and I totally agree, I could go on a total rant about it, of needing to give up everything in your life in order to do business. And he said, that's just wrong.You can do both.You just have to find the balance.
Yeah.I'm really thankful for our setup.Sean and I work together 24 seven.We're together 24 seven.
And it's really fun, but I actually, my dissertation topic that I'm working on now and chugging along, kind of chipping away at is all about this idea that I think when you have these self-imposed boundaries of, prioritizing certain things.
So I think for most people, they have family as a stated priority.Not everybody lives that out, but when you have that, it kind of aligns everything and focuses you in a really powerful way that I think has positive business outcomes too.
So anyway, more on that later, but the next couple of weeks are gonna be fun.We're doing an interview with Drew and we're doing marriage myths and yeah.So if you wanna stay tuned for all that,
subscribe, give the show a rating, and we hope you enjoy this, us being interviewed.
It's great to be up here and it's interesting, right?You talked about it earlier in our lunch about how you're in this space and we don't often talk about the intersection of family, business, sports, right?
And then social media on top of that, right?That intersects.So I think for me, we're gonna get right to it. Right?You guys have three kids.
I have two.It's a constant balance.And like, you've been in a limelight for the better part of your life.Like, how are you balancing family, sports?
business, working together every single day, every hour of the day, and you're business partners, and you're still married.And she still likes me, right?
A lot.I do.Can I just start by saying, it's an honor to be here.It's hilarious to me.The company is called Distinguished Speaker Series.If y'all knew how I got into the school.
I mean, so I 2015 graduate of Owen squeaked by, I think, I think my application slid into the back door.Don't know how they let me in.I don't know how I graduated, but now here we are.And you know, things have changed.You got nice new upgrades.
The paper stock is just high quality paper.Didn't have it here.I think professor pace is here too.Maybe they're grading me on my presentation skills.Oh no.
Anyway, and Mario, actually, I interviewed to be his intern when I was here, and he declined my invitation.So it's good to be here, Mario.So good.So good.Back to the question.
Yeah.You want me to answer it?How does it all intersect?How do we balance it all?I have no idea. But I would say it's just been a long journey of trying to figure it out and figure it out in a very, very messy way.
We have figured out everything that doesn't work, like straight up.We have failed a million times.We have gone months and years and turned around and said, yeah, that didn't work at all.
And we've just kind of found our lanes and figured out what our priorities are.We overanalyze our life in a very, very detailed way very often.
We have a lot of planned meetings between each other and we'll bring in consultants and we'll bring in family counselors and we'll bring in mentors where we truly dissect our life and try to figure out how can we do this better to not only protect our marriage, but to protect our children and protect our family, optimize our business, optimize our life to where we can do all of that in a seamless way and we do that
Probably on a monthly basis, quarterly basis, annually basis.And it just never stops.We're just constantly trying to do it better.But it's asking ourself every single night, are we good?Is the business good?Did we work too much today?
We could have been with the kids more today.I felt like I need more of this tomorrow.But we do that every single day.
Yeah. the saying work smarter, not harder.We don't do that.That's not us.We, uh, we have tried and failed.And I think if there's anything that we've done well, it is making room for reflection and then adjusting future course based off of that.
Um, and I'm super thankful. for Sean's role in that.I think as we've done this longer and been married longer, I've, I've really appreciated, uh, our difference in perspectives, which I think once caused a lot of frustration.
Now it's like, Oh my gosh, this is so needed.Cause I come from one side of the fence.She comes from the other and it's actually the compromise that that makes the best.Um, and yeah, and, and I think it, it ebbs and flows.So
I feel like in my 20s, I had this ravenous ambition, almost out of like desperation to prove myself or something.I was graduated from Owen and then tried to play football in the NFL, got signed and cut, was with nine different teams.
And it was like, I don't know, I gotta prove to myself and to other people that I'm worth something.And then, you know, I guess time goes on and you settle into doing something.And I think now in my 30s,
Our priorities are less of the career side of things and more on like, oh man, we have three young kids and these first five years are precious and we'll never get them back.
And so I think we've, we've balanced by just constantly adjusting, reflecting, adjusting, and doing that time after time.
I love it, and it reminds me, for those of you that are in my entrepreneurship class, we keep going back to this, right, about the need to fail small, fail fast, and then the reflection component of it, of how critical it is to come back.
So it sounds like you guys are managing your life like you would a business because your life is your business.
And so when you look at the priority list, right, if you're saying it's a weekly sprint, it's a monthly, right, it's a quarterly meet, what goes first? What's the most important on the list when you sit down as business?
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This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
This month, we're focusing on gratitude.And I just want to say, Sean, thank you for simply being you and being the incredible wife and mom you are.It's been an amazing year.I feel like we've grown so much.
That's really sweet, babe.Thank you.I think you also need to remember to thank yourself, too, because you do so much for our family and business that many people don't realize.
Wow.I appreciate that, babe.It's sometimes hard to remind ourselves that we are all out here just trying our best.So consider this your reminder to send some thanks to the people in your life, including yourself.
Another thing I'm thankful for, frankly, is therapy that we've done this year.Sean and I are open about our journey with marriage counseling, and we would recommend it to anybody.
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And you say, here's our calendar and here are the events and things that are the most important to us.What's, what are the top first, second and third things on that list?
Um, our personal family, um, whenever we're breaking it down for like prioritizing time, It goes church, us, our kids, and then work.I think actually community and friends comes before work.
To give you like an overview of something we did, when's the first time we did the yearly thing?
In 2018, we were bouncing around the NFL and kind of like aimless, we were doing our job now, but we sat down around the beginning of the year,
We categorized our life into 12 different categories, like faith, family, friends, personal, work, all these different things.And basically, independently of each other, wrote down exactly what we wanted from our life, like crossing the finish line.
what we wanted to do for the rest of our lives and what we wanted it to look like in specific detail.And it was really interesting that year we shared it with each other and kind of came up with a married version.
It looked drastically different than our life at the time.Like the life we were living looked nothing like what we wanted. And it was really eye-opening for us because we were working really, really hard, but we were just headed the wrong direction.
And ever since then, we do that every single year, we go back to the drawing board.And we now, it's really cool every year, we will go back to it.And it's like, we're living the exact life that we want, and there's really not much to change or tweak.
but we kind of schedule out our entire year to reflect exactly where we want to be in a year, five years, 10 years.
And it's, let's prioritize our faith, let's prioritize our marriage, then our kids, then our community, and then work whatever time is left.
Yeah.And there's a lot of time for work. You're a workaholic.
He is a workaholic.A lot.He squeezes it in whenever he can.
I do.I love what we do.And that's been a challenge to try to check that.And we were talking a little bit at lunch, just like setting a cap or like defining what's enough and then making room for the other things in your life.
We do try to quantify everything much to Sean's chagrin.It's like, I'm, I'm wearing wearables.I got blood sugar.I'm like tracking how many times I meet with this person or that person.
Like when we go through those 12 things, we, I think we have 150 different data points that we'll pull, uh, of all different aspects of life, which is.
I think at the beginning was super helpful just to get visibility on those things and say, Holy smokes.I traveled 60 nights that year and I needed to do less.That's that that was too much.
So it's like identifying what the reality, historical reality was, and then adjusting up or down from there.
And to Sean's point, I think I've tracked the specific metrics less as time has gone on because we've gotten closer and closer to where we want to be.And it's like, yeah, this is it.But yeah, it's good.
Let's talk about FamilyMate.What was the inspiration?You've talked about it.It's interesting.People know, sorry, your story very well.And so I think you said you were like 12 when you signed your first contract. Right?
So you're a lawyer, you have a couple MBAs, you probably have a couple of doctorates given the life that you've led in the limelight.But you were the inspiration on kind of the YouTube and like videos.And so tell us like why FamilyMade?
How are you inspired to say this is what we want to do?And what is it?
What is it?That's a great question. Still don't know if we got the elevator pitch down.
You could still get your MBA.
Yeah, someday.Chasing three babies around.We fell into content creation.Literally overnight fell into it.And I don't know how and I don't know why. But we, by nature, document everything in our life.We do a lot of home videos.
If you were to have met Andrew's father, that was his passion in life, was just documenting family life and sitting around the fire and watching family videos.That's what we always did as a family.And it got passed on.
So Andrew documented everything in our life and we would always make family videos and we started posting them to YouTube in 2015.
And Andrew's mind saw a world of analytics and data points and profitability opportunities and optimizing views and building a community that is not my business.I don't do that.
But I also came from a sports entertainment world where I signed my first contract at 12 and I learned how to be the voice of companies.I learned marketing, I learned campaigns, commercializing. selling products.I knew how to do that.
That's what people assigned me to do.I represented Coca-Cola at the Olympics and McDonald's and I could get you to buy a Big Mac.And so I kind of learned the ins and outs of that world.And over a long process of kind of figuring content creation out,
We looked around after we had, we said, we're actually a full-time marketing, broadcasting, production company.That's what we do.And any company can come to us and say, I want to sell Bounty Paper Towels.
And I can tell you, we can tell you exactly how to film the commercial, market it, sell it, advertise it.We can build your community behind it.We can build your branding.And we got really, really good at that.And so we created FamilyMade.
which basically does that, but for families, for values-based, moral-based families, because there is a lot of content out there that is polarizing, vulgar, and kind of separates the worlds, but families bring the world together.
So now that we have three babies, we said, let's at least harness our capabilities and what we've learned to do some good. you know, by posting cringy videos.
What's the cringiest you've ever posted?One of the slime videos for sure.We got caught up in trying to do all the trend videos.So slime, it was, I don't know, what was in that?
Oh, we tried to do like a, yeah.
Remember the game master videos where we orchestrated this whole, yeah, you did not.Don't even, don't ever look.
But, but look, because like,
You, right, you have this brand as a football player, NFL, gymnast, Olympian, and so you have these personal brands, you brought them together through this marriage, and now you're leveraging them, and like, what you put out there never goes away.
And so, how do you, one, think about the path that you took, looking at your brands, bringing these two powerful brands together, into a family.
And then also the question after that, at any point that you want to answer is like, all of us now have a brand that's out there.Any of us that are on social media, it's been created.
And so what advice do you have for people that, how do they leverage their brand if they want to leverage their brand for the business side?And what did you do when you brought those together, when you think about your personal brand?
Uh, I think there's so much power in storytelling and I think you're constantly telling stories consciously, uh, or not explicitly or not.It's like, you know, what you wear, tell stories, how you, how you interact with somebody tells a story.
Uh, and then obviously your words do as well.I think social media has been phenomenal for those people who have told stories intentionally and thoughtfully, and it's done some damage and had some carnage as well.Uh,
we've, it's been so fun that Sean has 20 years, she's been in the public eye for 20 years.
She has 20 years of people, uh, having the ability to connect with her story through gymnastics, TV shows, um, you know, her education process now with the family and, and even dating and marriage when we were doing that.
Uh, and so I think just being aware that you are telling a story, uh, and then figuring it out. how your story is unique, what, what you want to accomplish with that.
Um, we reached a point back to the family made origination, uh, where I think it's a unique in our space.A lot of people in our niche are like 18 year old tick tockers.Right.And, uh, they don't have a team.
They don't feel like they can creatively, um, relax their controls to let an editor, you know, chop up their videos.And so I think we've. been able to do that in a way that we wanted to help other people do.
And so we created a media network and it helps people thoughtfully tell their story.We realized that, um, our story of, of dating marriage and raising kids is so unique.And, um, there's millions of other stories out there, stories of adoption and.
struggle and blend a family, whatever that looks like.And so how can we actually use our skills and the team that we've been able to build to help get the other message out there?Cause we've experienced so much, uh,
amazing benefits and feedback when we get emails and DMs of people saying like, Hey, uh, my marriage was in a tough spot.And then we listened to your podcast and it like changed the game for us.Or I felt so lonely as a mom.
And then we saw your goofy video and it like really brought back hope to me.And it's like, that's what we're trying to do.We want to speak to that mom who has five minutes between nap time and
they're too exhausted to make a call or go out and do anything else.And I don't have enough time to, to accomplish, you know, whatever task it was like, they're probably gonna open Instagram.
And if we can be the video that they see and it brings a smile to their face or brings a thought that they might not otherwise have, um, then it's mission accomplished, you know?
And so you're intentional about that, right?And like family made, you're also intentional about attracting all types of relationships, all types of families.And so when you think about that, Why is that important to you?
Because you could say that it could be niche, right, in what you're doing, but you really want to be able to be that source of hope for families across a whole spectrum.Yeah.Do you want me to answer that?
Yeah, you got it. We've kind of bounced all over the place in like markets when it came to social content.
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Rules and restrictions may apply.You know, Sean, when I was little, I remember looking at paper maps and having an interest in where every country was located.
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We did slime.We did game shows.We did everything.Because we went through a very long period of time where it started out for fun and for a passion, then it became a job.And when it became a job, We wanted it to do well.
We wanted to make a lot of money.And we would look at everything and say, what's making the most money?Slime videos.Literally, go home and make slime.That's it.
Does anybody know what we're talking about when we say, like, it's like a tutorial on how to make, like, oobleck slime?
You literally just make slime, which we failed to do on the video. And through that process, we failed at it.We didn't connect with people.It just didn't work.We did not make a lot of money doing it.
And then, not to get into a somber story, but we found out we were pregnant. We literally started documenting the storytelling of that for us.That was not content we would ever have shared with the world.That was way too vulnerable and raw.
Lost that pregnancy, which was very shocking, kind of rocked our world, and created this video for us to heal through.
I felt compelled to post that because I felt very lost and I didn't know how to even communicate with my husband, let alone anyone else.Posted that thinking, truly, nobody would watch it. And it took off.
And it was the very first time in our business that we had ever seen social media and the internet as a two-way street and not a one-way.Instead of serving content, we were actually communicating with people.
And I sat there for days crying, communicating with strangers from all over the world who had gone through the same thing.And so when we created FamilyMade, It was very simple for us.
It was like family is family and it binds you to people all over the world in so many different ways.And we could create it to be so much more niche than that.But it's, but why?It just seemed too important.So we wanted to keep it wide open.
I appreciate it.I remember watching those videos and you know, I think it's, it's unfortunate the reality, right?So many of us lose. And so my wife and I lost a child, and it's one of those that you don't talk about.
And so it's very much appreciate the fact that that was one place where we can all agree on, right, in that unfortunate grief.
So from the other side of it, we very much appreciated seeing that in such a public eye to be able to engage in it and at least try to get past it on our own.So thank you for that one.Thank you. What else are we gonna do?
I know you guys have a bunch of ideas, right?What are you gonna do?So what else do you wanna do with Family Made?What other ideas are up your sleeve?What's next?A lot.
We were dead set on building a media network like Barstool Sports or The Ramsey or Daily Wire.Let's build something that we can exit. you know, there is something gratifying, like satisfying when the market says this is a valuable thing.
And so, uh, that was our intention up until we had our third kid and we were just humming along, trying to hum along at the same RPMs. And then we hit a wall and we had to take a step back and start pruning things.
There's a book by Henry Cloud called necessary endings.And it was like really challenging.It essentially said, Hey, what are your priorities?Uh, and what do you need to prune to keep those priorities priorities?
And so I think we, uh, I am so much a starter.I love like tinkering and experimenting and I'll launch things like I am not a perfectionist as a Great quality I have.I remember.And it's also the worst quality I have.
You want to tell them a couple of them?
Yes, please.I remember.Gosh, I was like, we need monthly recurring revenue. Sweet.Okay.Uh, let's do a subscription box.Great.This is a good idea, Andrew.This is all happening like within a five second period.
I said, all right, I'm going to build a website.We're going to launch it.We're going to introduce it to our millions of people.I did.I did.I like built this whole thing.It's all we built the whole thing.I launched it that night.
And it was like, we got like 10,000 people that subscribed to the subscription box.
There was nothing to put in the subscription box.I didn't think through it that much.And then so I told Sean the next day, I said, babe, we did it.
And I was like, you're refunding every single one of these.
Oh, I've made so many mistakes.What was going to be in the box?
It's a great concept.I retroactively thought through it.
You didn't even tell me.I just found you going around the house trying to find things to put in boxes.
And I was like, this isn't going to work.All right, anyway.
So his claim to fame within our business and our company Which is, everyone knows when Andrew gets an idea, it's like, you better buckle up, because this thing is going to be launched in 24 hours.
And it's just a running thing, and it happens all the time.But we gave birth to our first kid, Drew, our daughter.And the next day, without telling me, he launched a podcast.
with no podcasts.Two more days go by and he starts panicking.And he comes to me and he's like, babe, I did a thing.We got to record a podcast.And I was like, what is this about?It's now like our favorite thing that we do.So it's held.
But you launch a lot of things.
Mistakes were made.Mistakes were made.Anyway, back to your what's next.
We have right-sized our ambition very much, and I do love starting things, and I realize that this might not be the phase for that, though, so we're gonna shelf that for a little bit, and just focus on the things that we know work, and that's enough for us.
We went through this whole like Pareto's principle, the 80-20.It's like, we're just spending so much of our time for so little reward.It's like, why are we doing that?
So just having the discipline to stay on the straight and narrow is what we're trying to focus on now.
Only one.All right, you can only choose one.When you think about your relationship, And not many people can do this because it's very unique, right?And so you're public figures, you have this business, you're working together, you have three kids.
What's kept, we're talking about the Olin Partners Association, right?Most of us here have partners and we're going through this phase in our life.When you think about your marriage, right?
Just the two of you, what's the one thing that's kept it going? Three, two, one, go.
I would say, one, I just love you to death, which is really fun.But we have a lot of fun.We, at the end of the day, laugh off these massive fails, even though they cause arguments.But we have a lot of fun.
Yeah.I think... I think embracing the concept of team in our marriage and family has kept it going.We're a pretty good team, and I'm thankful for that.And that goes for in the house, outside the house, all the things.So, yeah.
I'll leave it at that, because I think we have a bunch of questions that are going to come out of this.So unless you want to say something, go for it.All right, let's do it.Let's open it up to questions.
Thanks for the thoughtful questions, Mario.
I'm curious to hear a little bit more about how extended family plays into your lives and what's going on and how do you balance maybe accepting input from family and how do you balance appreciating that input with choosing your own path and being positive?
Wow.There's levels to that question.
We kind of paved our own way.I don't think our extended family maybe still doesn't understand what we do.
My mom was not pumped when we started publishing stuff online.She's very private, very quiet, and she was very reticent, still to this day, of what we do.I've said many apologies.
Sean's an only child, so it's, I feel like, mostly my family that gives input.But I've said many apologies for all the nonsense that our videos create as far as, like,
whatever people saying, Oh my gosh, you're Sean Johnson's brother, brother-in-law, whatever.Uh, but then I also, we definitely have our own, uh, nuclear family unit.And then.
I am super thankful and have really spent quite a lot of time over the past couple of months digging into the extended family.Tashawn's earlier comment about how my dad was huge on home videos.My grandfather also was.
So there's videos of my dad being born at the hospital.There's videos of me being born at the hospital.I have a lot of thoughts on how like, you know, I used to try to think I was some novel.
I was like, there's never been a major East and I like CrossFit and I like YouTube.And it's like, my, my grandpa used to wake up every day and do 15 minutes on the Schwinn bike.And that's pretty much what CrossFit is.
You know, it's like this old thing.I like to film and make videos.And that's what my dad did.That's what my grandpa.So it was like, you know, looking back actually does help.Um, but they've been, I think.
Every voice has merit and every voice is valuable.I think there's tiers to it though.So I value Sean's input more than, you know, my siblings out at this point, I think. I think that's the way it should be.But yeah, thanks for the question.
You guys were listing out your priorities.
Both pretty confidently put your marriage above children, which is not an insane concept like it's been spoken about before, but I was wondering if you guys have ever struggled with that concept or struggled with wrapping your mind around it.
And then also, how did you guys actually do that?How do you prioritize your marriage at that level to keep your relationship healthy for your children?
You struggle with them more, for sure.
I think moms have a hard time, after we have kids, of maintaining that priority.Because your identity changes massively when you have kids.And trying to allow enough space to remember that our priority list goes spouse first, then kids.
is sometimes difficult for a mom, but something Andrew and I agreed on before we had kids is we are only as good parents as we are as spouses.So if our marriage isn't good, we can't parent well.
And if I lose my best friend and teammate as my number one to my child, then the whole dynamic of our family is off.And I'll never forget like leaving the hospital with my daughter
and thinking, like, I was terrified that I might lose my best friend to her, if that makes sense.And so we have just really worked on keeping a pact of you are my number one, no matter what.And our kids come after that.
And they have to for our family and for our family dynamic. So just kind of reminding each other, and then how we do that.We were talking about this during the lunch.We started when we got pregnant with our daughter, our oldest.
Every single Thursday night is date night.Tonight?Tonight.Date night.Yeah.And no matter if we're in an argument, no matter what happens that week, we have date night on Thursdays.
We have gone to date nights where we barely speak, but we go on date nights.And it's just to show each other that we are still each other's number one priority.
It's a little things too, like we'll put the kids down and then usually it's around 7.30 that that process is done.And there was a solid period of time where one of us would come down and the other one was on the phone.
And it doesn't feel very welcoming or hospitable, you know, like this concept of, I was thinking of you before you arrived. And so we, we came up with this Bev time is what we call that, where we used to drink wine.We, we don't anymore.
Cause we go to about eight now, but, uh, it's like when the kids go down and the last person comes down the stairs, it's like, Hey, let's greet each other with eye contact, make each other feel welcomed and like warm.
And then we have anywhere from five to an hour, five minutes to an hour of like connecting debriefing.And so it's just like, we, we try to make room for connection. Don't always do it though.
We talked about that, right?That's all you get in like 30 minutes, an hour when you have kids, that's it.
And you gotta be intentional about that time or intentional to not spend it together and say like, I need this night off to go all day down in bed without you talking to me.So date night, Thursday night, right?
It's business school Friday, so closing night.
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I know, but we are having kegs, so kegs is back.I used to be, I used to pride myself on how spontaneous I was.If you knew Andrew, circa 2012, I was like, I literally had dreadlocks, wearing a poncho, like one shirt in my closet.
And then I met Sean, got to button it up.You ain't that dandy. Collared shirts and fairy shoes I think I would rather skew towards being structured and Regimented now with how our life looks with three kids and a marriage.I want to protect
Uh, then leaning on spontaneity, I, I used to love the fun, just like folks, fancy free, take a 12 hour road trip at the drop of a hat, whatever.Um, but I think I realized more often than not, I would tend to, when I had free time, use it poorly.
It's like, Hey, I'm just going to lay down on the couch for a little bit, or I'm going to open up Instagram.And so now we try to keep a pretty full schedule of things that mean a lot to us.
Try not to be like hectic busy, but we try to fill our schedule with.Intentional things that get us closer to like what we want our life to look like friends, business.We even structure in like Sunday's rest day.
And we have our list of things that we love doing on that day.Uh, so I like we we're pretty regimented and I think that's the way it's going to be for the next couple of years until the next chapter of life comes along.
Tom, our Dean, in our lunch, mentioned as he got further on in his career, like planning months in advance, right?Putting that dinner, putting that vacation on the calendar, booking it six months out, because it forces you to do it.
You don't have to think about it anymore.So I think that's one other piece is you get so busy, right?Stay on the kind of Outlook calendar,
craziness and just book your vacations with your partner far in advance and make sure that you commit to doing it because by the time you get there, there's no opportunity to change it and just do it.
I also think it makes it more enjoyable when you have the anticipation.Like people talk about vacations, it's like the weeks ahead of the actual vacation are just as enjoyable and exciting as the actual thing.
It's like, I don't know, there's a difference between, mindlessly, uh, just sitting down on the couch and turning on scrolling through Netflix to see what's watching or like what you can watch and buying a movie ticket weeks in advance.
Cause you're excited to see that.It's like the anticipation is a real thing and it means a lot.And that goes to all areas of life.
Yeah.That's a stupid, uh, big family business for y'all.How do y'all all navigate your disagreements with work, preventing that from, you know, creeping in and obviously there are some people that wants to
What's a disagreement?I don't even know what that is.
Oh, I don't know.We've never had an argument.We've actually brought in professionals to help with that.We've brought in consultants over our business and we've tried hiring CEOs to literally be our bosses. And none of it worked.
But I would say we've just kind of learned how, we spoke of this at lunch, to own our lanes.
And we did this three-day intensive with, it was called the Patterson House, where they really helped us discern what our roles are, and what we're good at, and what to own within our business, and what to own within our home, so that
As life gets busier with kids and you have less room to waste and time to waste, whenever he makes a decision or I make a decision within our own lanes, I'm like, okay, I respect that.That's on you, that's your thing.
I can present maybe a challenge to it if I want, but that is yours, so I'm just gonna hands off.But if we cross each other's lines and I try to get into his lane or vice versa,
then we usually say, okay, we need to speak as business partners right now and figure this out.Or we also try to have like very clear boundaries as far as work.We work in an office.If we're in an office, it's clearly business partners.
If we're at home, I will even ask each other like, are you working or is this my husband?Can I ask you a question now?Um, so we try to just respect boundaries that way.But,
Humility goes a long way.
What was in one of the boxes?
What was in one of the boxes?
I started immediately panicking reaching out to companies and it was a pretty good box.I think we had some snacks in there.Yeah, it's mostly food.
I guess my own personal interest of food.For some reason, I thought when you said he was running around the house, I thought he was like putting in like home items.I would have bought into that. I have this vase in the box.
So other than being completely blindsided with respect to the podcast, what's been the most challenging aspect?
With the podcast?Yeah. I'm interested to hear your answer.Every, like, I love what we do.It's still a job.You know, it's like, um, there's, I think I saw stats, there's 7 million podcasts.
And I think only, uh, 500,000 of those have published more than 10 episodes.And I think only 200,000 of those do video.And I think only 150,000 have over a hundred.
So it's like, part of the game is like just doing it over and over and over and over again.Um, And so there's like, there's the dread of like, Oh, we got to film our, another podcast.And we got to, we've published 23,000 videos in eight years.
Uh, and it's like, that's a lot, you know, it's like, what are we going to frigging film a video on?So I think part of it's a creative exhaustion that you get.
Yeah.I was going to say like content, you run out of ideas and you fail to be creative, but. I'd say that's the hardest part.
I think we've kind of figured out everything else, how to do it, how to shoot it, how to edit and market and put out, but the content is the hardest.
Random question.Do you ever feel like you're living the Truman Show?
Like we're just in a podcast, walking around the house and it's like, is this real?
Your life is super, your life is way weirder than mine.Sean will like sneeze and be like, Sean's a headline of People Magazine.People freaking love Sean.It's weird.It's crazy.I think it's been good.Not good.
Yeah.It's also interesting.We've also created so many boundaries around what we post that it all is authentic and all is real.
but we have figured out our system so much that it feels somehow so detached from our life that it doesn't really feel like our life anymore.I don't know.
It's all real, but it's not everything.
Yeah, that was a lot of that.Like, how do you, in boundaries, how do you make sure that what you post is not, like, susceptible to, like, cancel culture?Because that's such a big thing. Let's talk about that.
Sean's a system.Sean is a system.She's been doing it for so long.
Yeah.It sounds very weird, but I've worked with a publicist for so long and I've worked within that industry.
for so long before cancel culture started that I learned so inherently or like over time, like what you can and cannot say and what's too far and what's within the boundaries.
And so every once in a while, if there's like a line, I feel like it gets brought to my table and I'm like, ah, it's fine.Or absolutely we don't go there.
So Sean's the line of last defense. We would probably have 10 times the volume if it was up to me, but it was probably way more messy.
Uh, it's, there's things that are like, I think culturally no-goes and that's like when culture cancels somebody, there's things that are like ethically no-goes.And then I think like stylistically no-goes too.
It also depends on your brand.So like our brand has very clear things that we can't take part in ever.Um, like we, we don't touch politics because we're family. Family shouldn't be separated by that.You can't touch car seats.Don't touch car seats.
Don't show them.Don't talk about them.Don't even act like you know what they are.
Strong feelings on car seats.
It's just like you learn what you can and cannot talk about.But yeah, it's scary, but it's also kind of toxic for how easily people get canceled for mistakes, opinions, being human.
How do you deal with disagreements?So like, for example, a minor, a minor, my husband likes to amp up our kids before we go to bed.What's wrong with that?I like this guy.
It can be more exciting of a moment.It's like we're trying to get her to brush her teeth and all that.
It doesn't sound familiar.
I'm the one doing the amping.I'm curious what you have to say.
How do we handle parental disagreements about raising our kids?
I don't know.How do we work through this?
Well, I'm glad you brought this up because usually Shawn gets her way and I've been thinking about it for a long time.
I think there is a, I mean, this is kind of what we try to, we try to just make people feel like they're not the only ones going through that.
Uh, and it's like, that's a age old problem, you know, and mother-in-law and, and yeah, Sean and her mom are gonna argue and they're not the first ones ever do that.
And there's something like, uh, relieving when you realize, Hey, this is kind of just the way it is.And I, I don't know, you've been patient with me and you've told me not to amp up the kids, but I still do.And we have a blast and I've let go of it.
The only thing I would add there is advice that my mom gave me early on is to never fight in front of your kids and to never have that disagreement.And I think we, I do this all the time.Liz gets so upset.
I like, I play monster right before they go to bed.She's like, come on.They were just so calm.We're trying to read a nice bedtime story.And I'm like, rah.Um, We just try not to disagree in front of them.And then I get scolded.
And I'm like, I'm going to be better.I don't know how to do it.But we do it again.
Hi.Thank you all so much for being here.You guys kind of seem to have it all, the great marriage, the beautiful family, the successful career.And people say it takes a village.Can you speak to what role, if any, a village has played in your success?
We don't have it all, but I would say we have enough.And I think we have a lot of what we want to have.Uh, we spend a lot of time building the village.
We have a very, we have a very large village.We're very, very blessed.Um, within our business, we have a bunch of people who help give us freedom to be parents.Um, we have editors, producers, lawyers, managers, all of them.Um,
At home, my parents, I am an only child, moved to Nashville when we had our first kid.They live two minutes from us, and they are at our house every single day.
And we're also very lucky to have a nanny who is our family, and she is attached to us, and she helps with running the kids everywhere.But we truly have a village, and I don't take that for granted.I know we are...
a giant luxury for us to be able to have that much help around us.And then Andrew's family is four hours away and we see them a lot.And we have worked really, really hard to build a very close community of friends who all have kids the same age.
And we're having dinner at least once a week with them and their kids and We have our church community, and we've worked really hard to build an entire village of people around us to help make sure this is still going.
Counselors, therapists, marriage therapists.
This applies more to the business than the personal.There's a book called Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Ardy, which is fantastic.I think we naturally like to control things.
It's like, let's do it our way, let's edit this video our way, let's raise the kids our way. think, uh, part of the beautiful derivative of having a village is you get other perspectives and other talents introduced.
And so we've tried to the best of our ability to just like release that control a little bit.And, um,
And work specifically, if someone can do a task like 80% as well as we can, we'll try to like dish that off and just like, it's, it takes a lot of trust and, um, patience.
Usually like when we work with someone new, it takes like three months to get them onboarded.But, uh, yeah, it's, it's fun to have this many people around usually, usually content pressure.You said content pressure.
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Um, we, we use social media cautiously and we actually, uh, I was just saying, we walked into Instagram headquarters and the first thing they said was you should create on this platform more than you consume on this platform.
Uh, so I think there are, there are times when we feel at the bottom of the barrel creatively. Uh, this is where having other people that we have producers for podcasts who will come up with concepts and they'll help like us in that process.
And we can say, it's a great idea.This is not a good idea.We don't want to do this one.Um, but usually we, uh, we try to create things out of like fulfillment and excitement.Um, and then we.
I think a lot of the burnout happens when people feel like they're just handcuffed to the whole process.It's like you got to publish YouTube videos.Uh, and we've, we went through one chapter of that where we were like, we got nothing else.
And that was like three months of, of pause that we took.Uh, but between that and like when you read comments and like you get caught up in all that stuff, we'd, really don't read that many comments.
We have like a community manager who helps us do that stuff.And that's by design.It's like, we love to celebrate the wins and get the emails from people that said we've positively impacted them.And that gives us the creative juice to keep them going.
So we try to focus on that, like out of abundance rather than like, oh shoot, we're handcuffed to this thing, you know?
And then I would also add keeping up with that, the content pressure of like, creating content, enough of it to play into the algorithms and relevancy.
We have found a cadence that we agree with and we as a full team, we'll sit down and say in this phase of life, whether it's holidays or we're having a kid or we're getting busy because we're going to travel for a while, we'll kind of reset those cadences.
But whatever we agree on as a company. we then schedule out.So like on Tuesday we will shoot all Instagram content for the next two weeks.And then on Wednesday we'll shoot two or three podcasts.
And then on Thursday we'll shoot, so like we try to like bundle things up so that it doesn't feel like all you're doing every single day is like shoot a reel, shoot a TikTok, show YouTube, like all these things.
We try to like batch them so that by the time we come back around, to filming Instagram or podcasts, we have more creativity because it's been three weeks since we last filmed that, and we have all these ideas, and you don't get as burnout.
We're about six months planned out on each platform with ideas and concepts and all that stuff, which makes a lot of... We have not always been that way.
So we have worked really hard to do that. We each work out almost every day.Um, never together, which is funny.Um, we always have to work out independently.I would say coffee, uh, reading.
Uh, you usually will connect with a friend, whether it be part of your book club group or elsewhere.
Yeah.Hey, all the kids cook dinner.
Yeah.We, uh, we've, we've loosened more of like the, I need this mentality to be.And cause there's just some days where it's like, all right, our kid was up till 2am and I got two hours of sleep and I would love to work out, but I'm not going to.
And as opposed to like saying this is going to ruin my day, it's just like, all right, let's just roll with the punches.But I think the best day would be. something fitness just to clear a mind in that way.
We connect best when we have an idea or like something we've read that's fun to philosophize over, connecting with friends, and then trying to create something valuable through work.
All right, before we wrap up, I always have a final question.And since you're a couple, I'm gonna do two and you get to choose one. then you're going to respond to.
So when you think about yourself, right, your business, family made your life, uh, what keeps you up at night?And it could be in this crazy world and just, you know, living as a couple and working together.
Uh, and then the other question is if you had a limited funds, what would you do?Not the boxes.
What would you invest in?
Like, what would you launch?So you only get to choose one. each and it can't be the same question.
Uh, okay.Um, my first answer would be what keeps you up at night.And I would say as a mother of three, my kids and giving them every opportunity to succeed in life specific to them. Just am I doing enough for them?Am I around enough?
Am I fostering their interests individually enough?Am I being the best mother for each of my children as I can be?
Unlimited investment, Amara?Okay.What would I spend unlimited money on?
Donating to Vanderbilt. You know, we are opening up a campus in West Palm Beach.
In New York City?What is happening?
I don't know.No, you can stop.I actually... I don't know.I mean... Yeah.Our dang unlimited money.I don't think it'd be, I think it'd be honestly in like an entrepreneurship program.
That's not Vanderbilt specific, but like, I think when I look at the effect that businesses had on me, if I could inspire other people through that and like, it's a really, it's amazing, beautiful process of, Hey, you can create, which I think we're all made to create and you can do something of value and like add
change people's lives and then you can also take care of your family doing so, that's really exciting.So whatever that would look like.Yeah.Awesome.Thank you.
Thank you both.Thanks everyone for being here.
