10 Years: The Highs and Lows of Building Our Business PART 2 (ft. Valerie Welch)

Brandon Welch 0:00
I think you should just get a little bit pissed off anytime yourself or your own mindset, or your mom or your friends or some stupid person at work or even somebody at church says you can’t do that, and it’s like, I’m gonna make sure that’s true before I ever even start to believe that. And I think when you start looking for the reasons that it can be true, you find them.

Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I’m your host, Brandon Welch, and I am rejoined by my one and only the one and only. Valerie Welch, we’re back for part two of the highs and lows of building our business. This is the place where we answer your real life marketing questions so we can grow your business, eliminate waste and advertising and achieve the big dream. And we’re talking all about our big dream, and it’s been, it’s been good. Last week’s episode was so good that we recorded five minutes ago, but it was, I’m so, so happy with what we’ve already talked about. We have like 10 more questions from everybody that we’re going to try to get through in the next half hour. So thank you for tuning back in. And last we talked a lot about starting the business and all the things we learned just managing risk. And now it’s kind of like, okay, what is a day to day like now? And the first question is, I’m sure you guys have bad days like everyone. What do those look like? And how do you overcome them without them getting you down? What does the bad day look like for you? Surely you don’t ever have bad days.

Valerie Welch 1:34
Oh yeah, never.

Brandon Welch 1:38
I will say they probably look like I have forgotten to make the space to give her a summary of my day or what’s going on. Actually, I’m better than that. Now it’s usually a couple of high intensity few days that end up it’s like, okay, you’ve given me grace. And it’s like, now it’s time to check in.

Valerie Welch 1:59
Right, right, right. Um, yeah, just really long days, usually. Or, you know, when you have four kids and six people in your in your household, 18 animals, somebody’s going to be having a bad day or a bad moment. Um, so just trying to get through those and just keep going. But it can just be long days at times. And then if you haven’t connected or had if I haven’t had an adult conversation, or I feel like I can’t get everything done that I want to get done, that’s usually what my bad days look like. I don’t

Brandon Welch 2:38
know if you guys realize this, you’re about to find out all about this with the next question. But Valerie homeschools our four kids. She runs the billing end of our business, which is increasingly difficult and complex, because we just do so many things in so many different areas. She shows up for me. She goes to the gym most days. She cooks cleans my I’ve never done my own laundry, which I’m I’m only not embarrassed to say because I’m so grateful. I’m more grateful for you than I am embarrassed to say that so but she does it all, man, so bad. I think bad days for us are just, I mean, all of them are long days, but I think they’re just exceptionally long days without a breather. And this happens a lot around holidays. This happens a lot around I mean, this time of year is pretty bonkers because the kids are all doing two things a piece. Yeah, yep. And so how do we, how do we overcome them? Sunday would be my biggest secret to that. We started embracing the Sabbath like crazy a few years ago. Yeah, we

Valerie Welch 3:40
read, um, the ruthless elimination of hurry, yeah. And he really talks about slowing down get that book, yeah. And I think I listened to it. Maybe it was really good, um, whether you read or listen to it, but I think, yeah, having that day that you

Brandon Welch 3:56
you can count on reset batteries charge, yeah, and then we’d have a lot more bad days if it weren’t for that. Yeah? And we just don’t do, like, read his definition of the Sabbath in that book. It’s incredible. Yeah? So we might, the only thing we might have is an agenda on Sunday, like, literally, the only thing outside of church is cooking a meal together. Yeah? And we, we don’t do family stuff, we don’t do birthday parties. We don’t do this or that for some networking thing. I would not, even though it would be a good thing to add in our life. I would not add church, small groups or anything on a Sunday. I just wouldn’t

Valerie Welch 4:33
do it. We usually watch the Chiefs if they’re on, yep. Make a good meal, fancy meal, homemade pasta or something fun.

Brandon Welch 4:41
Get the kids ready for the week of success. Yeah,

Valerie Welch 4:45
we prepare for that. Yeah. And if I’m having a really bad day, usually, you know, or if you’re having a bad day, I usually can figure it out, and it’s picking up that like helping your your partner, yeah, give. Them space. Sometimes, saying, I’ve got dinner. You go, chill. You go, Yeah, take a minute of quiet. That’s usually how I pick up my bad days. Or sometimes it’s like, man, it’s, I’m it’s bedtime. Everybody go to bed, and I go to bed too. You know, sometimes it’s just just good

Brandon Welch 5:17
old fashioned sleep. Yeah, we read an incredible book a few years ago called the 80 80 marriage. And what I took away from that there’s so many, I think, modern things that people try to teach about marriage, and there’s so many old fashioned things. And this is just a very middle of the road common sense book, but it’s talking about you can’t always be sacrificing for your partner, because that that doesn’t lead anywhere sustainable. But you also can’t be the one you know, not putting in any any input. So instead of being the 50 50, or the 100, 100 model, it’s the 8080, that’s where they get the rule. But just fine tuning, when you wake up every day, or at least, you always come back to the the goal of, how can I fill her tank? And I know she does that for me. Um, man, that it’s, it’s kind of that simple, yeah, and we are empathy.

Valerie Welch 6:12
We we always encourage each other to do like, if he wants to have a guy’s night, I try to make that happen for him. And I don’t think I’ve ever said I want to go do something where you’ve said, Oh, no, you know, yeah, it’s, of course, we’ve because we want each other. We’re happy. We want, yeah, and most of the time we just want to be home, but, but

Brandon Welch 6:33
it’s not a score keeping thing. I think I’ve seen a lot of people get in trouble with this score, like, Well, you got to do this, so I get to do this, and, oh, you spend that money. So I get to spend that money. And it’s not like, I think if you’re just in tune to the same goals, and I think first and foremost for us, it’s to build a strong bond with each other. You just want that for your person and so bad. I mean, I don’t say we don’t have bad days, but it’s like, man, they don’t, they don’t stick. And it’s usually like, oh, yeah, crap. I did that. I should have known this was coming, because I, you know, I got home late and we didn’t make time for this conversation. Like, even a 6am 15 minute having coffee together changes everything for us. Yeah, yep. I don’t know why I threw this in here, but, uh, Rylee’s grandma came in a few months ago, and she was just the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Ever seen. And they’ve been through some really tough they’ve been married for a ridiculous amount of years, like maybe even, like, 60 years, or something like that. I said, What’s your secret? And she said, easy. The secret is never given up at the same time. I thought that was great. That’s pretty true. I

Valerie Welch 7:37
mean, yeah, when I’m having a tough moment, you’re usually picking me up, I would just

Brandon Welch 7:42
say When, when, when your person is stressed, hurting, insecure, tired, sick, anything like that. They’re not going to be their best selves, and they’re going to throw things at you that aren’t necessarily the best the of them, of their best selves, words and looks and size and things like that, and you just gotta learn to take that signal instead of an insult and a jab and say, she needs a fuller tank. Have to or he needs a fuller tank, right? Yep. Would you agree with that? I

Valerie Welch 8:15
agree. Yeah.

Brandon Welch 8:17
Valerie, four young kids, homeschooling, working in the business, how do you manage such a crazy world? What can we offer our friends on this one?

Valerie Welch 8:28
Well, I mean, I don’t feel like this is that crazy of a world, but maybe I’m that is true the crazy one, um,

Brandon Welch 8:36
I slowly boil the frog in a pot of water.

Valerie Welch 8:40
Um, I kind of had a pissed off moment, I guess, with with school, and so that’s why we kind of pulled them out. It’s always a family decision. But I just feel like what I’m doing is my like, I’m I homeschooling my kids is part of my vision right now, so I I’m going with that. It’s doesn’t it’s hard every day, but it’s good. Hard Doesn’t mean bad. And I think I read that in a book as well. And so it just, it’s really good, even though it’s really hard. The kids are getting older, and so they’re really helping, and I love to see their bond and their friendship, and so it I think what was really crazy was when they were little, when they were newborn, one to four years old, but you’re just in it. You’re in that moment. And so it doesn’t feel or for me,

Brandon Welch 9:35
I think that’s so powerful, because I’m not sure I’m not casting judgment on anybody, but I’m not sure that everybody has that reality of that mindset, and so it is a, it’s a mindset of gratitude, I think. And I’ve seen that and like, people look at me like, we have three heads when I say, like, oh yeah, we’re we got 18 animals. That’s true. We have, yeah, six chickens and some frogs and dogs and cats and all that stuff. I don’t know how that happened, but, but. Then, oh yeah, we’re gonna go on vacation. Oh yeah, we’re gonna go to the lake. We just do all these things. I think they’ve come naturally to us, but your mindset is never, oh, that’s gonna be so hard. I think the moment you say, oh, that’s impossible is the moment it becomes impossible because you look for clues and reasons that’s impossible instead of going, huh, well, I’m grateful that I can do that, and there’s nothing really stopping us. I mean, we have to mine financial goals and stuff like that. But one thing that you said earlier that I think was really key for us is we have learned to embrace adventure.

Valerie Welch 10:32
Yeah, and

Brandon Welch 10:36
something we have in common is that when somebody says you can’t do that, or when somebody says that’s hard or that’s impossible, it’s like, sit down and watch. We almost, it’s almost like,

Valerie Welch 10:49
kind of like, yeah, yeah. Um, I don’t love when someone tells me I can’t do something, but I love to do it anyway. Um, I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s like that competitive side of me, or I just, I do love adventure. And anytime I’m feeling stuck or in a rut, I usually can looking back thinking, oh, I need adventure. Like, oh, I just need to do something a little bit crazy. And then

Brandon Welch 11:19
I mean, yeah, we were, we were taking our kids to foreign countries when they were six weeks old. I mean, just, just crazy. I mean stuff that people go, you actually probably was a little crazy. Now. Now hold on, we should have gave the disclaimer, our team, our parents, our friends, our neighbors, we have an incredible, incredible, incredible support system. So we’re not saying like, I think that’s what’s allowed us to tap into that mindset of like, Oh, it is figure out able. And I think anybody can have any combination of those. You know, we have some friends that aren’t their parents aren’t still living and but they have really good church friends, or they have really good, you know, babysitters, or they have really good, you know, moms groups and stuff like that. Our homeschool community is really, really good at that. And so I think you can find a community, you know, ours, ours has been very natural and a huge blessing for us, but,

Valerie Welch 12:23
but like our neighbors have been. We lived in a really fun neighborhood, yeah, a while ago, and we do now, we do now, but that we had a ton. We had like 30 kids on the street or something. So we just, we all did life together, and that was really fun,

Brandon Welch 12:39
yes, and now we’re doing that to a smaller degree, but our next door neighbors are some of our best friends, and they, they we have shared values, and we do all these amazing things together, just in the driveway. So just yeah, you have your support system, yeah. And I think that can look different no matter who you are, but with that, I would say if you have a support system. It’s not that you’re gonna be a mooch and always be asking somebody for something, but help your people have that experience of like having adventures and then embrace it, like embrace the things you can go do. You can take all four kids out to a dinner and then not be chaos. You can put them all in a car and drive to the beach.

Valerie Welch 13:20
And I think how we started that was we did that when they were newborn. Oh, that’s huge. We didn’t, we didn’t, like, keep them at home and then all of a sudden try to take them out when they were a year old. We took them out when they were newborn. And, I mean, I remember I would go, like, do an activity or something, and Archer was a newborn, and jovi and anna were in the double stroller, and Jude was holding on to the stroller because we wouldn’t get rid of a right car. And that was just like, I prepped them, I set them up for that. I told them, This is what’s gonna happen. And, yeah, we had moments where you would have a baby cry or an accident or, yeah, um, you know, just an off day or something. But when, when I would I knew what it was gonna look like. I told them what it was gonna look like like, and we had some things in place like that. Then it really wasn’t that that big of a deal. Yeah, it was. It was an adventure. And when we would get back in the car to go home, I’d be like, we did it, you know, like, and that felt good. And

Brandon Welch 14:20
they, they’ve never know any different, which I think is huge. They, they don’t. They don’t view going out in public as, like, this big context switch. And I’m not, I’m not, I’m not trying to say our way was the way, or something like that, but I am saying that what I did learn from that is, and learn, have learned from you is, like, be up for the adventure, man. Like, don’t believe the lie that somebody tells you. For us, it’s been a lot of things. It’s been for whatever reason, I had this stupid idea to fly helicopters and airplanes, and how many millions of people will tell you it’s too expensive and it’s not possible. It’s like, you can find a way, and I found a way, and it wasn’t because I just wrote some big check for it. It was because we found a way to build our. That in our lifestyle and our business, and I put in the work and I studied and I met people, and, you know, just all the things get together, we’ve taken our kids to some really cool places, all four of them, and some people. And we don’t even play it like our last vacation. We got there and we hadn’t we just made it up as we went along. And it was phenomenal. We didn’t have airplane tickets home. We figured out as we went along. And I think just having that, I think some some people cling to, I’m not going to do it until I have all the steps figured out, and you won’t get to do a lot of things that way, right?

Valerie Welch 15:32
I think that’s also why we had four kids in five years, five years. That was on purpose, by the way. It was always, that’s honor, yeah, always a big dream, um, and the best dream, I mean,

Brandon Welch 15:45
Marley furlough wrote that book called Everything is figure out. Able,

Valerie Welch 15:49
Mary, Mary,

Brandon Welch 15:51
I think it’s Marie furlow, Marie, I think

it’s Marley. Marla. Marley, we should have looked that up if you’re listening. Marla. Let us know how to say it. Marie furlough, whatever it is, anyway you can find the book. It’s everything’s figure edible, and I figureoutable. And I got to, we actually got a chance to hear her speak a few years ago, and she was phenomenal, right? And it’s just she came from like this single mom family, and they lived in a big city, and her mom was just all. They never knew that they were struggling. Because it’s a mindset thing. It’s like Dad gum, and if I want to do it, it’s not that I can just flippantly do it, but I can figure out a way to do it and make it happen. I think of Megan here. She has a lot going on. I mean, arguably her life is one of the most difficult from a day to day I’ve seen, and she has managed to invest in real estate. She’s managed to buy a beautiful home. She does all things she wants to do, and she’s figuring it out, right, right? So, yeah, and I’m, you know, not taking anything away from everybody else seriously, and being

Valerie Welch 16:51
a partner, like, whenever I have the idea to go to take the kids to Florida, or we drive, you know, I was driving we and you were like, Okay, let’s do it like

Brandon Welch 17:02
four kids across state lines, like, Who are you going to visit down there? But then

Valerie Welch 17:06
the same, whenever you decided to write a book that took a lot of time, I was like, Okay. And sometimes it was like, okay, but we still need to have dinner together, so we need to figure this out, you know, other like, I still want to have our evenings, but yeah, let’s do it. And so he would get up at five in the morning and work, or work at 10 o’clock at night. Yes, um, so I think sometimes you have to look outside of that box. Like, yeah, if you only have eight to five, and you try to fit everything in there. And yes, it might, it might not look

Brandon Welch 17:39
like, you know, I think you should just get a little bit pissed off anytime yourself, or your own mindset, or your mom or your friends or some stupid person at work or even somebody at church says you can’t do that, and it’s like, I want to make sure that’s true before I ever even start to believe that, right? And I think when you start looking for the reasons that it can be true, you find them, right?

Valerie Welch 18:02
And I mean that that trickles into lifestyle, like, how do you want to feel? How do you want to you’re close to fit, you know, stuff like that. Like, we’ve or I’ve got a health issue, and I want to figure it out like he you can figure it out. I’ve had friends that have gotten really into health, and why, why their bodies aren’t responding the way that they want them to, or so it can be more than just like, oh, I want to do a hobby or something, not taking any

Brandon Welch 18:31
not saying any of this stuff isn’t hard. I’m not trying to say who we’re doing because, I mean, there’s dude cancer could just kick you, knock you on your butt. We don’t ever have tomorrow, guaranteed we don’t have any of this. Any of the blessings that we have today could be taken away in a second and but until they are, until you’re in that reality, as long as I think you’re leveled and you’re anchored, and you’re going, Man, I’m alive like honor, that right, honor that realize what you have available. Honor the people in your life. Honor God in that way, like live a joyful life. And that is for what, whatever that is for you, if you want to go to the moon, I don’t care. Maybe you don’t want to go to the moon. Maybe you want to stay at home and pet cats and read books. And I think that’s awesome too. You can do that. Yeah.

Both of those sound equally fun to me,

but so I’m just saying this, this sense of adventure. Wake that up and don’t, don’t let any stupid boss or anybody like take that away from you. And

Valerie Welch 19:34
we go. We do adventures, um, not all the time. I mean, we have moments where our day to day is just the day to day. It’s not, it’s not like you have to be on an adventure every week. Sometimes the

Brandon Welch 19:47
adventure is talking to Archer and just or watching them in the backyard,

Valerie Welch 19:51
right? Yeah. So, I mean, some of these big things, like, yeah, that was like, what, once a year or something here, right? Not even that, but, um, so some of these things we’re talking. Big, big things. But some of them are like, I had a goal last year to read 40 books, and I I read 50, and that was like, Oh, I, I did that. It was not an adventure, adventure, but it was challenging, qualified like, I felt like, whenever I did that, I it made it got me excited and and wanted me, and I did more like, I It’s, it snowballs and you want to keep going, yeah. So that’s what I call an adventure. It doesn’t have to be an actual and some of them are going

Brandon Welch 20:29
to take you a while. That’s a good example of a year one flying took me four or five years to get my first rating, and then, like 20, arguably, like close to 20 to get my right since I started dreaming about it for the helicopter thing. So, yeah, so sometimes it’s

Valerie Welch 20:45
just that consistency too, like, I’m not going to give up, I’m going to keep going. Yeah, yeah. The Bush took you longer than you thought it would. But then once you got going and had the right things in place, the right coach, Hi, Ashley, right coach. Yeah, it took off so and sometimes it’s those kind of tools that you need to someone, a friend, to push you along, or a coach. Yeah, practically,

Brandon Welch 21:09
I’m going to speak up for Val. I think the things that allow her get to get so much done, because that is one of the main questions I get asked by, you know, peers that are either moms or just other people admiring how you hold our family together. There was four or five years ago, maybe, maybe a little longer, and I remember there was just this shift. I can’t remember what you were reading or doing, but you were like, I’m gonna do one thing at a time. And you Val has built just this snowball of just incredible routines, and she’s an absolute machine that doesn’t stop. It’s not that she doesn’t have ebb and flow or something like that, but like those snow, those habits snowball. I remember the first one was, you were like, the dishes are going to be done every night. And

Valerie Welch 21:54
I think that was the pissed off moment. I was like, I’m tired of the dishes being piled up or something, you know, like, so it doesn’t have to be like, this big, giant, yeah, start a business over it, but sometimes it’s just a habit. Yes,

Brandon Welch 22:06
I also learned to support her in that, and I learned what would happen if I did not support her in that pissed off moment. Now, the kids do it, and that’s really wonderful, but it was like, I’m gonna make sure my dish. I bet she had 365, days of dishes done before we went to bed, and then it was making the bed, and then it was laundry. Like I said earlier, I’ve had clean laundry my entire life, and I’m so grateful for my mom and Valerie, but I think I get questions like this, and I don’t know what that’s like. I’m just gonna say I’m not mansplaining nothing, but I have observed you and your excellence, and I see you just schedule the structure, and you just have your list, and you just, you’ve committed that to yourself, and you don’t let that go away. Yeah, that’s an atomic habits thing. Yeah,

Valerie Welch 22:55
I just read atomic habits, but that’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s, well, I think I first started the dishes when, I think Jovi was a newborn. Yeah, it was

Brandon Welch 23:06
some time around that, and I remember where I was standing, for sure. Oh,

Valerie Welch 23:12
and it was, I think of Rachel Hollis. I think, I think that’s when she was going live every morning, yeah, and I don’t know how I found her, but she, she really inspired me. And she always said, You do one thing at a time, and then once you get that one thing going, then you can add to it. And then I’ve kind of related that to atomic habits. Once you get that one habit going, you have IT stack and, you know, you you add to that. So my morning routine used to be like one, like write your gratitudes, and now it’s like five things, because I just stack them, and I don’t, I, that’s the first thing I do in the morning, and that’s, that’s what I do. And if it’s a Sunday,

Brandon Welch 23:47
no, you’re on a peloton streak, yeah, yeah. So all those things. I also

Valerie Welch 23:51
love to compete with myself, like any kind of 30 day challenge. If I am really into it, I that’s how I that motivates me right there, like, I’m like, Okay, I’ve, I’ve gone for 29 days, I think, on the peloton, and how many more can I go? Or, Yes, um, Rachel did a last 90 day challenge. This was years ago, um, where the last 90 days of the year you did these five things? And I mean, I just compete with myself because it’s not it’s but it only helps me do better.

Brandon Welch 24:23
Yes, so amazing. So practically, it’s just picking one thing added at a time to your schedule. I have not learned that art yet. Maybe I have you know what? Maybe I have you there are five or six things I do every day, without fail, morning, routine, morning, and I’ve learned that from you, like make breakfast in like, make breakfast and leave

practically for me, I thanks to my Buddy Rich, we My Buddy Rich. He’s a drummer. He’s also my Buddy Rich.

We work out pretty much every day at five o’clock. Um. Um, with that we we are reading something every morning or talking about some topic right now. It’s the Bible. We’re gonna try to get through the Bible this year. Are you doing

Valerie Welch 25:10
the Bible recap? I

Brandon Welch 25:11
am. Yeah,

Valerie Welch 25:12
that’s pretty good. Yeah.

Brandon Welch 25:15
I meditate. I have a 15 minute meditation thing I do, and prayer, I call it meditation. Prayer, same, same kind of thing for me. But prayer is meditation plus, right? You should do it. And then, yeah, so I do, I have that morning routine, and I think that’s so key. So, alright, atomic habits. Read the real expert on all that stuff, but compete with yourself, add things and realize, I think the biggest thing, big thing here is when you think you’re full, you’re not, you just need to add one more thing, and five years later you realize, oh my gosh, I’m a machine like most people. Look at Valerie and go, How did you do that? It was just one thing at a time. And I

Valerie Welch 25:54
have times where I take breaks and I need just to reset. But yeah, for the most part, um, these core ones have been there. So

Brandon Welch 26:02
time is getting a little tight. Unless you have a ton to say about this one, I’m just gonna say this next question, Valerie, how do you manage when Brandon travels for work four kids all by yourself? Yikes? I would say, yikes. I would just say all those things were just said, the routine makes it possible, and

Valerie Welch 26:18
I challenge myself. I’m like, okay, he’s gone. Let’s do this five days. We’ve got this problem, and that’s how we go. Yeah, and when he gets back, we’ve made it. We did it. It’s

Brandon Welch 26:28
good. Okay. Question Brandon and Valerie, you have such a strong marriage, or at least it appears so they’ve got unfold. How do you keep a strong relationship with each other when there’s so much going on? I’m going to run through these because there’s so much to say here. You jump in if you need anything. A lot of this is a recap from what we’ve talked about. Right guard your time, like your marriage depends on it, because it does. You’ve got to, guys, if it’s 30 minutes in the middle of the day, like, that’s a great time actually, to stop and connect. If the night’s going to be crazy and we’ll be doing stuff till nine o’clock, or I’ve got to leave for an early meeting on the same day and be somewhere at six. Like, you’ve got to find that time to connect. Sometimes

Valerie Welch 27:05
it’s sitting by each other. Last night, we sat by each other on the bench of basketball practice, and I, oh yeah, I had the kids scoot down and I sat by him, and we just we caught up. Perfect. Yep,

Brandon Welch 27:15
protect family night at home. So, like, Val’s done that so well over the years, two or three nights where it’s just the family eat dinner at the table together. That’s probably obvious to all of you wonderful people listening. It wasn’t always obvious to me. Sundays are for rest. We do not do anything. Don’t advise to a birthday party. We probably won’t go to your Super Bowl party even. We’ll probably, we’ll probably do, sorry, we’ll probably do our own little we’ll do our own little we’ll do our own little thing, but that’s, that’s a little selfish. We’ll go to that sort of thing. But very, very, very, very few things ever just pull us out of a Sunday together. My role over the years, moving on has been leave it in the car. A hack for all people who are busy working and work. I wrote a thing called drive around the block. Was a frankly, Friday a few, maybe months ago. It’s called drive around the block. And just like, give yourself space to disconnect from your work world to your home world, and make sure you’re greeting your people with the greeting they deserve. Like, I’m not going to say I’m wonderful in doing that, but like, for me, it requires me to do that sometimes, and I want to show up to my people the way that they deserve for me to show up.

I have a laptop in my backpack. Rule like, I don’t just bring my bag in, I leave it in my car. And so that’s a very conscious thing that takes a lot of effort for me to get into work mode. I never let those things parlay. I learned that maybe eight years ago. Yeah, just leave it. Leave it at the office. And if you have to work at home, make a conscious switch from one mode to the other. Yeah.

Valerie Welch 28:51
When we do, yeah, go ahead. When we do talk about work, we usually it’s usually like, you’re high or you’re low in the evening time. Yes, and then if it’s, like, a work question, like, because we do work together, and I do need to talk to Brandon, but we usually,

Brandon Welch 29:09
I call Rylee and schedule a time with her. That’s actually not far fetched. No, no, it’s, but it’s usually, shouldn’t tell your wife to call your assistant. But that’s, yeah.

Valerie Welch 29:17
I mean, it’s, sometimes that’s what we have to do, but usually it’s, I look at the calendar and I try to find 30 minutes, or I send them a text and say, Hey, I need do you have 10 minutes that I can ask a question? And he usually makes, makes that time available. What’s next?

What on the list? We don’t stop pursuing each other? Yeah, that one. Yeah, yours.

Brandon Welch 29:39
I think it’s true. No, you don’t stop pursuing me. No,

Valerie Welch 29:42
you’re really good about gift giving or flowers, especially if I’m having a rough moment or day, because

Brandon Welch 29:51
just text of appreciation, just texting, I appreciate you for this. I saw you do this yesterday. Like that, gratitude in your marriage is so so so important. Don’t ever stop dating. I know that. Cliche to say, but, man,

Valerie Welch 30:01
yeah, you compliment me a lot too. You’re always like, Gee, thank you for doing all the laundry. I know that took a lot of time, and just that makes me feel like, Oh, wow. Like, I, I’m glad I got that done. Or, you know, just he, he noticed. He noticed that I did that. Do you all notice

Brandon Welch 30:20
my clothes are clean. Okay? This is a good hack you’ve had over the years. Would you talk to your best friend that way? That goes with how you talk to your kids, your spouse, maybe your dog? I don’t know, but

Valerie Welch 30:32
that trips me up. Sometimes I’m like, wow, I need to, I need to walk away and come back and apologize and start over, because these are your people. Yes,

Brandon Welch 30:43
yeah. Big hack for us is always be doing something together. I don’t care if it’s a puzzle. I don’t care if it’s some thing you’re thinking about with your kids. Kids kind of make you do something together, I think, hopefully in your marriage. But or if it’s a show we’re watching, we pick some rerun of something, we sit down and watch that. If it’s a vacation we’re planning, if we’re making dinner together, we’re always planning a date night. Yeah? Always have something you’re doing together. Yeah, yes, yeah. The lake has been that for us, for sure. Um, guys just, just put in the effort. Like, once you’re married and once you’re doing all these things, the effort equation doesn’t get easier. It gets harder. You have to, have to have to show up. And if you wake up with your goal to fill that person’s tank, it’s gonna, it’s gonna, don’t do it because it reciprocates but it’s going to create an energy in your marriage that makes bad days fewer and farther in between.

Valerie Welch 31:35
And when you’re connected, it’s not that far. I mean, you can fall in and out of it, but

Brandon Welch 31:41
yeah, you can. You just have to notice and then just make subtle moves. Nope, no big moves.

Valerie Welch 31:46
We’re constantly learning also, like, we love to go to a conference, or, you said, read a book together, or podcast a podcast, and we’re doing the Bible recap kind of right now. You’re kind of doing it with rich and I’m doing it with a group of ladies, but we’re always, we’re sharing that experience, sharing that or like, and we’ll, what did you think about that? Or Yes, and we’re always trying to push ourselves. I feel like, yes together and yeah, yes, okay,

Brandon Welch 32:15
next question. Reverse, three, five and 10 years ago, what would you tell yourself, I’m just going to go through these. Okay, 10 years ago, I would have said you’re going to get, you’re going to need, I would tell myself, you’re going to need. God stay close. And it’s not like we were ever far away, or that was ever totally that’s not like we had this big, you know, outside of God journey, it’s just, I think what I’ve learned is surrounding myself with people who are constantly bringing that type of spiritual influence to my life is exponentially different than when I just didn’t necessarily purposely do that. And I’m not saying, like, I went on some weird like, you know, I didn’t, never done anything crazy or anything like that. Neither of us have. But I’m just saying, like, making an intention to put godly, spiritual people in your life. And when I was starting out 10 years ago, everything felt good and everything felt Affirmative, and everything felt exciting. I think if you’re not doing that on purpose, it just you wake up and you go, Oh, I need more of that. And that’s, that’s what’s happened. So 10 years ago, it has said you don’t have to say yes, you don’t have to say yes, you don’t have to say yes. Make sure it’s on mission for you. I would have said, Dude, it’s only marketing. It ain’t that serious. Just let go of it. Oh yeah. You

Valerie Welch 33:28
would tell yourself that, yeah. I

Brandon Welch 33:29
would tell myself that, yeah. Okay. I would say you’re not going to lose it all. You’re going to think you’re about to and then the next big thing is going to show up for you. Doors are going to open as you keep convicted about a mission. Watch out for shiny objects. That’s been people over the years, that’s been certain investment opportunities and things like that. And there’s nothing more important than the thing you already have to invest in. You’re so much better. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care if it’s a side business or whatever. You’re so much better to work on the thing you already have than to try to convince yourself that there’s a next better thing. Five years ago, I would have said, Never stop commanding the vision. I had the illusion I talked about this in the last episode, that my team could build that with me. And I always, always, always want them to collaborate on how to get it done. But there’s a certain part of the vision and the pissed off moment and the conviction, and this is where we’re going, that you as a leader have to own. Or, yeah, that’s just plain and simple, whether that’s for your company or for your marriage or anything else you’re trying to build. I would have still this showed up again five years ago to said, Say no more often you can say no, it’s okay. So no, I would love to, but I can’t. Those are magic words. I would have told myself five years ago, embrace ages one through three with your kids. And yes, I’m saying it. You heard it here? It’s not that I wasn’t there or anything like that. I probably didn’t ever miss anything, but I was not always present, or I didn’t realize how special those moments were. You heard it here? One to three those, those go by so fast, I would have said higher. Fire, slow fire, fast.

Hire, slower fire, faster and fire doesn’t mean I hate you get out of my life, but it’s honesty like, Hey, I don’t think we should work together. It means you’re not on the right seat on the bus. You’re on the right seat of the bus, or you’re not. We’re not, we’re not of the same value system. And instead of being afraid to say that, just say, I’m doing you a favor by being clear with that and compassionate by be doing you a favor with that, and I’m gonna let you free to go do your next thing, right? Three years ago, I would have just said, Dude, it’s okay. There’s a lot, there’s a lot behind that one, but it’s okay. It’s okay. You’re supposed to be here. Um, sometimes we go through things that feel like hell, but they’re preparing us for something so much greater, and it’s just okay, yeah, and as long as you don’t give up or just do something rash and impulsive and stupid, you’re going to have wonderful people show up, and you’re going to be

exactly where you should be. Interject anywhere here? Okay, I would have said, Let them go.

That had to do with a lot of opportunities, or things I thought I was supposed to be doing had to do with people, that had to do with this fear of letting a bunch of people down, and it’s like No dude, let them go. Let them free. If you love them, let them go. Right, right? I would have said, Power down your phone more often. Still learning that do not disturb. Disturb. That’s been a blessing for us. Yeah, I would have said, go to church, even if you think you’re getting that stuff filled other places. And I was, I was getting, I was listening to podcasts and all these things, but there’s magic and getting up and going to church. I would have said, three years ago, I would say, have a morning routine, lean into your prayer, lean into your meditation, clear your mind before your day, plan it out. Three years ago, I would have been nicer to myself, and I would have said, You’re doing the right thing by loving your team. I was sometimes at odds with have I done enough? And it’s like, yeah, dude, you were doing good, good job. Yeah,

Valerie Welch 37:07
you take care of your people.

Brandon Welch 37:10
I love them so much. Anything you would add to three, five and 10 years ago,

Valerie Welch 37:16
I don’t know. I don’t think you covered it.

Brandon Welch 37:18
We’re circling trying to land this plane to save you from another 45 minute episode. My team, my team, my team. This question is easy. When did you have burnout? How did you overcome it? I couldn’t have overcome it. Without the team, I would have lost all direction. I’m talking to Caleb. I’m talking to Megan and Carter and just all the people that have shown up that are even new on our team, I had burnout pretty severely two years ago, yeah, and what it really resulted from was a kind of a disappointment and a guilt, maybe, that I had not stayed truer to my mission. And I had a I had this reality I woke up, and the team was so productive at that point, and we, frankly, had a bigger team, and the work was coming in and out of the organization without me touching it. And I they were like, I could show up. And they’d kind of be like, shoo, we don’t need you. And but I realized the work was what I missed, but also that that was kind of a breaking, you know, our team split up. Anybody who knows us or knows our story. We had a we had a sort of a parting ways with a big chunk of our team over a period of about a year. And that’s

Valerie Welch 38:27
really hard, really, really hard on me. Brandon really takes care of his people and loves his people. So when he feels like his people are leaving, that was really, really, really tough. I’ve never seen I’ve never seen him that low. Maybe it was, yeah,

Brandon Welch 38:44
it was hard. So it was the it was the team that possibly brought me there emotionally, but also the team that pulled me out of it. And so, yeah, Caleb Agee gets a big crown

Valerie Welch 38:56
and and the people, the Nates and the Audrey’s that

Brandon Welch 39:01
have shown up in the wake of that. It’s like, Riley, yeah, I had to part ways with those so that we could have the names and the Audrey’s and the Rileys and and then Daniels, you

Valerie Welch 39:10
have to go through the heart to get to the you’re just really good, yeah.

Caleb Agee 39:13
So, yeah. So we’re so blessed. All of this is to be said, like, where I would land this entire question of, like, if there’s any, you know, shiny things to be observed from our last 10 years, like there, I would say, if you look at anybody, don’t settle for the lie that that’s just this perfect world, like what they’re showing you on social media, ain’t all it is to be. And none of us are just going to go show our dirty laundry. That’s not going to happen. But the thing for us, the secret, if you’re wondering what the secret is, it’s our support team, right? And I think we do a lot to love on our support team. It’s our moms. It’s our dads. This

Valerie Welch 39:56
is our 10 year anniversary, so. This, all of this has happened in 10 years, not in one year, or, Yes, two like they that’s cliche to say, but you don’t see all the background unless you’ve been here for it, and then all of a sudden you see all these things that we’ve done in 10 years. And that’s just not reality.

Brandon Welch 40:19
We’ve it’s not, yeah, it’s been

Valerie Welch 40:22
year after year of it’s not

Brandon Welch 40:24
easy. It’s not any easier than it ever has been, learning and growing, right? We’re just a little bit more wise to maybe when we get into down situations, how to not stay there? Yeah, I would say God plays friendships, Keith Taylor, Tyler, our clients, Dee and Randy, Dr rice, there’s been Laurie, there’s been so many people who’ve shown up for us on a client level. We started as a business partnership, and they become dear, dear friends, and I’m so sorry if I left anybody off that list. So that’s

Valerie Welch 40:55
kind of like our clients are our friends, and that’s really maybe a big part of the secret is, when we’re working, we’re having fun, and we’re doing things for people that we love. And yes, Julie, it’s a passion. It’s not just a oh, we’re just doing this and we’re done. It’s a friendship, a relationship, our neighbors. We get to see these people a lot too, like, yeah, we may put effort into that Tim

Brandon Welch 41:20
and Nancy Kristen and Marcus, Brandon and Kendall Taylor and Kelsey. I shouldn’t do this because I’m leaving people out, yeah, so, so so many. My point is, lean into your support system. If you don’t have one, I would encourage you can make it. You can you can find it, yeah, and it might be smaller, like, we’ve built that up to a large number just because of clients and business the nature of that over the years, and

Valerie Welch 41:46
I’ve made so many friends by just walking up to people and and just talking to them, just like you did with with Bill. I mean, yeah, people are people, and you can, I mean, I can pretty much talk to a wall, but, um, yeah, I think that’s I think that’s okay if somebody

Brandon Welch 42:03
is doing something that you admire, go out of your way to take them to coffee, be surprised at how nice they are. Yeah, don’t settle for the lies that it’s hard or too it’s too hard, it is hard. Believe that it’s not too hard, and there’s nothing that you can’t do that. So sounds so cliche, but Dad gum, it get pissed off when somebody says you can’t do that, because you can, and you just gotta just take inventory of what’s in the way of that thing, right, and remove it. Lean into your people. Love your people. Yep, anything you would add to any of that before we land the plane? No. I mean, I want you to give this a like and a subscribe if you want to hear more from Valerie. I’m going to show her proof that she needs to be back here more often. Guys, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you this podcast and this book and what’s next, or sorry, this podcast and our book and all of our stuff that we’ve been doing is a big, big part of what’s next. We want to empower entrepreneurs. We want 10s and 10s of 1000s of 1000s of entrepreneurs to say, I got a little more confident, I grew a little more fast. My dream became a little more real, and we want to be a part of that. You do the hard work. But if we can be any inspiration to you whatsoever, I hope that, I

hope that you’ll allow us to do that. And so thank you for being part of the podcast. We’re up to 4000 subscribers now. Smokes.Maybe by the time this goes live, it’s like five or 6000 it’s taken off. So it’s been a wonderful 10 years. We’re not even close to being done. Nope.

Valerie Welch 43:34
I love you. Love it. You’re proud of you.

Brandon Welch 43:36
Thank you guys for listening. Have a great week.