EP 117: Working With Your Spouse in a Family Business: How Married Co-Founders Stay Healthy & Happy Together

Summary

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The Conscious Entrepreneur

EP 117: Working With Your Spouse in a Family Business: How Married Co-Founders Stay Healthy & Happy Together

Host: Sarah Lockwood
Guest: Kayleigh Warner Klemp (co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, The 80/80 Marriage)
Date: December 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deeply into the unique joys and challenges facing married couples who co-found or work together in a family business. Host Sarah Lockwood interviews Kayleigh Warner Klemp, an expert on conscious leadership and relational health, for practical insights on building a collaborative, fulfilling business and marriage. Together, they unpack the emotional realities, communication pitfalls, and leadership lessons relevant to both couples and their teams. Listeners receive concrete tools for cultivating radical generosity, navigating power dynamics, and repairing conflicts skillfully—at work and at home.

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Main Themes and Insights

1. Intersections of Marriage and Business (00:00–06:34)

• Blending Personal & Professional Lives
  • Business success can often feel tied to relationship health: “When things are going well in the business, the marriage can feel steady. But when the company hits a tough stretch, it’s easy for that stress to spill into home life.” (Sarah, 00:18)
• Origins of Spousal Partnerships
  • Couples intentionally co-found businesses or are drawn in accidentally through necessity, with dynamics shifting accordingly.
  • “There’s a shared creative passion…and that’s a huge liability in working with your partner, because it’s so easy to let the conversation go back to the business.” (Kayleigh, 06:34)

2. Conscious Leadership & The 15 Commitments (02:13–04:02)

• Overview of the 15 Commitments
  • A framework for conscious leadership, distinguishing between “above the line” (curiosity, candor) and “below the line” (defensiveness, drama) ways of operating.
  • “What is so powerful about the 15 Commitments…is that then it means the same thing to every person involved. When I say, ‘Hey, are you above the line?’... that means something totally different if you’re engaged in conscious leadership.” (Kayleigh, 03:06)

3. The 80/80 Marriage Paradigm (04:02–06:34)

• From Scorekeeping to Radical Generosity
  • Modern couples pursue fairness (50/50 split of duties), but this easily leads to resentment and scorekeeping.
  • “The idea of 80/80 is about a mindset of radical generosity…so that you’re doing more than your fair share.” (Kayleigh, 05:05)
  • “As soon as you’re like, ‘wait a second, that’s not fair,’ you’re like, good. You’re doing it right.” (Kayleigh, 05:09)

4. Patterns and Pitfalls for Married Co-Founders (06:34–09:22)

• Shared Creative Passion—Gift and Risk

  • Couples working together enjoy ongoing creative dialogue, but risk letting business topics dominate their relationship.
  • “It’s important to remember both that you have interests in addition to the business, and that you’re people outside of just the working relationship.” (Kayleigh, 07:24)

• Emotional Spillover

  • Business performance often feels indicative of relationship health, creating “head trash” and unnecessary drama.
  • “The performance of the business can feel indicative somehow of the ‘performance’ of the relationship.” (Kayleigh, 08:10)

5. Employee Experience in Family-Run Businesses (09:22–13:33)

• Alignment vs. Triangulation
  • Employees may perceive co-founders (married or not) as an inseparable unit, heightening discomfort when visible disagreements arise.
  • “People just assume that the couple is going to be a unit…conflict feels more fraught sometimes even for the people around the couple than for the couple themselves.” (Kayleigh, 12:19)

6. Communication, Candor, and Transparency (13:33–20:17)

• Reveal and Request Practice
  • Tools like “reveal and request” facilitate preemptive alignment and transparency both privately and with teams.
    • “The reveal and request allows you and your partner to get aligned.” (Kayleigh, 14:39; 16:38)
• Radical Candor Defined
  • Candor is honesty + completeness + self-awareness.
  • “In conscious leadership, we want to add, ‘is it complete’…and that of self-awareness. Am I sharing this slice of the numbers because I want to encourage you to do something? …And so it’s those three together that give you above the line, conscious leader, radical candor.” (Kayleigh, 17:59)

7. Avoiding Scorekeeping and Cultivating Generosity (20:17–25:55)

• Radical Generosity & Appreciation

  • A mindset shift from “tit-for-tat” to appreciation underlies healthy relationships at work and home.
  • Availability Bias: We’re more aware of our own contributions and often oblivious to our partner’s unseen labor.
    • “I am aware of 100% of the things that I do, and I am aware of only the very tiny subset of things that I witness you doing.” (Kayleigh, 21:07)

• Contribution Lists

  • Tool for surfacing invisible labor and redistributing roles intentionally.
  • “It isn’t about credit. It’s about awareness, because then you can take a step back from those lists and say, ‘Wow, these are wildly uneven. I wonder if we should take a fresh look.’” (Kayleigh, 24:22)

8. Home Habits Mirroring Workplace Best Practices (25:55–29:50)

• Org Charts & Values at Home
  • Running a family like an organization: defining values, making roles explicit, and designing structure.
  • “Most of our families have the level of complexity of certainly a small business and maybe even a medium-sized business. The quantity of logistics that we’re figuring out…And yet somehow in our personal lives, we don’t make our values explicit.” (Kayleigh, 28:37)

9. Navigating Power Dynamics (30:15–34:33)

• Invisible Power and Structural Solutions
  • Power, like wifi, is only noticed when it doesn’t work. It’s often invisible to those holding it.
  • “Typically, power is invisible to the person who is exerting more of it.” (Kayleigh, 31:08)
  • Structures such as explicit budgets, decision rights, and role clarity minimize imbalance, in both personal and professional spheres.

10. Naming and Clearing Power Imbalances (34:33–39:08)

• From Confrontation to Collaborative Issue Clearing
  • Structure difficult conversations factually (what a video camera would record), then express the story you told yourself, and then name the feeling.
    • “So, for instance, hey, it feels like your flexing power is a story. What we would want to say is…‘Here’s what the video camera records…’.” (Kayleigh, 34:54)
  • Always finish with a clear request to reduce guessing and miscommunication.
    • “Make a request…so that the partner can respond thoughtfully and in a way that’s aligned with what the person really wants.” (Kayleigh, 39:08)

11. Repairing Conflict—Modeling Healthy Resolution (40:45–46:34)

• Reconciliation in Public and Private
  • If visible conflict occurs, repair publicly: explain what happened, what’s been learned, and how you’re moving forward.
    • “If you are co-founders and you have a visible conflict in front of your team…looping them back in…‘here’s how we resolved it, and here’s how we’re aligned on those next steps’.” (Kayleigh, 40:45)
• Sound Bites for Repair
  • “You saw both of us…get emotional. You just witnessed a conflict go below the line. And we want to bring our conflicts back above the line…” (Kayleigh, 43:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The 80/80 is about a mindset of radical generosity…As soon as you’re like, ‘Wait—that’s not fair’—good. You’re doing it right.”
  —Kayleigh (05:05–05:14)

• “The performance of the business can feel indicative somehow of the ‘performance’ of the relationship…that can create a lot of head trash.”
  —Kayleigh (08:10)

• “People just assume that the couple is going to be a unit because outside of the business, the couple is a unit. And so conflict feels more fraught sometimes even for the people around the couple than for the couple themselves.”
  —Kayleigh (12:19)

• “I am aware of 100% of the things that I do, and I am aware of only the very tiny subset of things that I witness you doing…when it feels like I’m overserving, that’s where it actually is quite balanced.”
  —Kayleigh (21:07)

• “Candor is honesty plus completeness plus self-awareness.”
  —Kayleigh (17:59)

• “Power is like wifi…when it’s working, no one pays attention to it…”
  —Kayleigh (31:08)

• “If you are co-founders and you have a visible conflict…looping them back in…‘here’s how we resolved it, and here’s how we’re aligned on those next steps’.”
  —Kayleigh (40:45)

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Key Timestamps

00:00–02:31 — Introduction, the unique challenge of married co-founders
02:31–04:02 — 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership explained
04:02–06:34 — 80/80 Marriage: beyond fairness, toward generosity
06:34–09:22 — Patterns of creative passion and risk for couples in business
09:22–13:33 — Employee experience, alignment vs. triangulation
14:39–20:17 — Communication and the power of radical candor; reveal & request tools
20:17–25:55 — Scorekeeping, radical generosity, “contribution lists”
25:55–29:50 — Home as an organization: explicit values and roles
30:15–34:33 — Power dynamics and practical structures for balance
34:33–39:08 — Clearing issues with fact, story, and feeling; making actionable requests
40:45–46:34 — Conflict repair, modeling resolution publicly and privately

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Practical Takeaways

• Explicit Communication: Use “reveal and request” and “issue clearing” structures for sensitive business and personal matters.
• Generosity Over Scorekeeping: Proactively recognize and appreciate each other’s contributions at home and work.
• Clarity in Roles: Make expectations and responsibilities visible, in both the org chart and household contribution lists.
• Transparency with Teams: If conflict happens publicly, repair it and narrate the process to your people.
• Attend to Power Dynamics: Routinely check for and rebalance power, using contracts, budgets, and explicit decision rights.
• Normalize Disagreement: Healthy conflict (above the line) leads to better decisions; model disagreement and repair for your team.

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Further Reading:

• The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership (Klemp et al.)
• The 80/80 Marriage (Klemp & spouse)
• Upcoming: Busy Love: A Sexy Relationship System for the Overwhelmed (2027)

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Transcript

[A]

Today we're talking about what happens when married people work together and the dynamics that that creates for their relationship, the company and the employees who sit inside that environment. When things are going well in the business, the marriage can feel steady. But when the company hits a tough stretch, it's easy for that stress to spill into home life. And the way that the couple handles both sides of that equation have a real impact on everyone around them. Kayleigh Warner Klimp, my guest today, is especially well suited for this conversation. She's the co Author of the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership and the co author with her spouse of the 8080 marriage, which gives her a uniquely informed point of view on both sides of this dynamic. She understands what helps couples stay grounded and what employees notice when they're part of a company led by a married pair. In this conversation, we look at the patterns that tend to show up in and the habits that make these partnerships healthier and more constructive for everyone involved. Let's get into it. You're listening to the Conscious Entrepreneur and I'm Sarah Lockwood. This is the only podcast completely dedicated to the well being of entrepreneurs. It's where we do the inner work to become the leaders our businesses truly need. A thriving business starts with a thriving you. Let's get into it. So what a treat we have today to talk to Kayleigh Klemp, who is a expert who's at the intersection of our topic today, which is the dynamics that happen between married couples in businesses as well as the employees who are a participant in this interesting relationship that moves from home to work. It's an interesting place. And Kayleigh, with your expertise in writing, being a co writer, I guess, of the 15 disciplines of conscious Leadership as well as the book the 80 80. Is that how you say it? The 80 80.

[B]

Yeah, the 8080 marriage. It always makes me laugh when people do the 8080 marriage because if there's a transcription for the podcast, it often comes out the ADHD Marriage.

[A]

Okay, let me, let me start that one over again. So, Kaylee, give us just the elevator pitch, if you could, about the 15 commitments of conscious Leadership. And let's start there. That's a big one.

[B]

The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership takes 15 different dimensions and overlays them on the idea of a line where above the line is practicing conscious leadership and below the line is not. I sometimes think about the 15 commitments of conscious Leadership as being like parenthood and apple pie. That there's not that much to disagree with. It's things like curiosity versus defensiveness, 100% responsibility versus living on the drama triangle, candor versus gossip. And yet what is so powerful about the 15 commitments and also about having it as a shared vocabulary is that then it means the same thing to every person involved in the conversation. That when I say, hey, are you above the line? That means something totally different if you're engaged in conscious leadership versus if you're not.

[A]

This is a book that probably many people in our listening audience are familiar with, but it's. I think it's really relevant today because we're talking about adding maybe an extra layer of challenge because we're bringing in the marriage relationship to the workplace, both as a participant in a marriage or being subjected to it or around it as an employee. So then that's where I think your 50 or 8080 marriage book sort of comes into play as well, because you kind of reflect some of the ideas in the 15 commitments book within the 8080 marriage. And could you talk a little bit about that for us?

[B]

The 8080 marriage and the 15 commitments of conscious leadership are absolutely compatible. So the big idea with the 8080 marriage is that the foil is 50 50. And the backdrop here is that when my husband and I were doing our research for this book, we interviewed over a hundred couples, many of whom were entrepreneurs, many of whom were business leaders, many of whom were executives, just based on the demographic of where each of us work and live. And the idea was people were trying their very hardest to be equals and in love. And the paradigm they had for that was, well, let's make things 50, 50 fair. And then it completely fell apart because then they were scorekeeping, then they were resentful. And so the idea of 8080 is about a mindset of radical generosity. And then the structure, which I know we're going to get into around roles and around agreements to help that mindset get implemented in real life.

[A]

I love that it's everybody doing more than their fair share.

[B]

Exactly. As soon as you're like, wait a second, that's not fair. You're like, good. You're doing it Right. Right.

[A]

I love that there are kind of many circumstances that lead to people being in business together. Maybe in the most clear relationship, you've intentionally founded a business together. And you've gone into this with eyes wide open and probably excitement. And you've probably talked about it and maybe made some commitments to one another. There's another use case that happens where one spouse sort of is brought into the business when there's a gap. So there's something that needs to be done and there's no one to do it. And they say, well, I can do that, I'll help. Or they're asked to come in and help, and then that can snowball into, well, now you're a part of this. Now you are an employee. Even so, maybe you have one person who's a founder. Now you have another spouse who's playing a different role. That's not equal. There can be some really interesting dynamics, and those dynamics extend then to the people in the company. But I'm curious to find out what you see about people who intentionally choose to work with their spouses and you know, what kind of patterns you see in those couples that are successful or unsuccessful.

[B]

I am one of those people who has chosen to work with my spouse from the perspective that he and I co author books together, and we each have our own businesses separately. So I feel like I blend both of these worlds. A pattern that I think shows up with couples who choose to work together is there is a shared creative passion. And so one of the huge gifts about working with your partner is, is that there is a shared creative project and there's reliably something interesting to be talking about. And that's a huge liability in working with your partner because it's so easy to let the conversation go back to the business or go back to a challenge that you're jointly trying to solve. And it's important to remember both that you have interests in addition to the business and that your people outside of just the working relationship. And so there's something wonderful about the creative passion that shows up in choosing to work with your partner. And there's something risky about letting it be the entirety of your relationship.

[A]

I've played both of these roles, the the intentional co founder and the accidental co founder. And I can relate to the pattern that you're talking about where it can become an overwhelming, unreasonable part of your relationship. That is the biggest piece of your relationship if you let it get that way, which is a huge danger to the health of the relationship, in my opinion.

[B]

Agreed. And I think one of the other things that gets risky is that the performance of the business can feel indicative somehow of the quote, unquote, performance of the relationship, that when the business is going well, it feels like the relationship is really fun. And when the business is in a difficult or challenging place, it gets reflected in the relationship. And that I think can create a lot of, what do you call it? Head trash. That I think can create quite a bit of drama inside A relationship?

[A]

Absolutely. Absolutely. And then in terms of how those patterns that you see with people who choose to work with their spouse relate to employees, I'm curious about the relationship where you have those kind of co founders that are super passionate and they're kind of the idea people. They're very passionate about a creative endeavor that they, you know, dreamed up together. They envision together they're almost like co visionaries. And then maybe someone who's like an implementer or some other people on the leadership team that are a part of that dynamic, do you see patterns that emerge that impact those employees?

[B]

I think it's interesting that sometimes it's just about the distinction between co founders and everyone else brought into the business. And it isn't even necessarily that those co founders are married to each other, that co founders have. This might sound kind of funny. Co founders have an intimate relationship regardless of whether or not they're partnered outside of the business. That I often say to co founders who are not married to each other that in some ways the best coaching that they can get is marriage counseling. Because there are so many things that they are co creating and so many things that they need to define. And so that distinction between we're building something and it's part of our identity that can show up as a distinction with everyone else who works in the organization, even if those co founders aren't married to each other. And what I think that you're describing that's really important is to remember how does that translation happen and how do those handoffs happen? I think that you're referencing Gene Wickman's book Traction with the visionaries and the implementers that I don't know any visionaries who intend to be disrespectful in the way that they convey work to the implementer that they're never like. But I figured it out and I did all the hard work by dreaming it. So now just make it happen by tomorrow. They are not coming in with a thought of I'm going to be disrespectful to the person who's going to make this a reality. And yet very often their timelines or their expectations or their understanding of how much is involved in that translation are misplaced.

[A]

I have been a part of working with many married people and even people who are related to one another who are leaders in the business. So the same brother, sister kind of dynamics. Yeah, it goes even beyond just married couples, but the married couple relationship is unique to itself and this might be even more dangerous. I think that you have one scenario where the couple is very aligned and then everyone else is sort of interacting with a very aligned team. It gets even more complicated when they aren't aligned. Right. So then you end up having one married partner who kind of is coming at a situation in one way and the other who may be more effective or less effective or not in alignment with their spouse. And now you have this weird triangulation that's happening between the employees, trying to interpret what. How to handle this and how to navigate this dynamic that is often becomes emotional.

[B]

All of the above I agree with. And I think that one of the places where it's particularly complicated for married couples is that there is an assumption of alignment, whereas with co founders, they might also be misaligned or have different preferences or. And it can create a dynamic of separation or teams. You know, who is with co founder 1 versus who is with co founder 2. Those dynamics can happen irrespective of the relationship between the co founders outside of the office. I think the place where it gets really, really tricky that you're naming is people just assume that the couple is going to be a unit because outside of the business, the couple is a unit. And so conflict feels more fraught sometimes even for the people around the couple than for the couple themselves, that they are willing to say, we disagree. And they are very effective tools for being able to disagree skillfully. And yet the people around them are projecting that level of disagreement or conflict. If that were happening in my own relationship, I would be freaking out. And so they freak out even more.

[A]

What a great point. Wow. This is. These are. These are. There's a lot to unpack in these different relationships. And this is just such an interesting conversation about how to. How do we avoid, you know, maybe talking about the communication and expectations because that. It's interesting. It's like you need to, as a married couple, be in alignment. And as an example, around what we were just speaking about, you might say, I want to make sure that it's completely okay for us to disagree about something that we're doing in the business and still feel fully aligned outside of the business, you know, And I want to talk about what we should do if it stops feeling that way. But then it almost feels like you need to be able to address that with your team and your employees. If your company is small enough, I guess, to be able to say like, hey, guys, this might feel weird for you, but it doesn't feel weird for us. I don't know if you have a tip.

[B]

Yeah, well, sister I think that what you're naming is the value of candor and the value of transparency. So I think step one is within the couple. One of the tools that we talk about a lot in the 8080 marriage is that of reveal and request. And so to be able to say, this is what's going on inside of me and here's my request around it. So it could be as simple as, hey, I was sitting in our executive team meeting today and I was watching the non verbals of everyone around the table and I felt myself feel uncomfortable that perhaps you and I should get pre aligned before the executive team meeting. But actually that feels bad to me because then we're not getting the value of the of the team. That's the reveal. It feels uncomfortable. That feels bad to me. I made up a story. All of these things that are occurring on the inside that you can't know just by watching me from the outside. And to then make a request to be able to say, I want to have that conversation with you, or to say, hey, my request is next team meeting. Will you watch all the nonverbals and let me know if you're perceiving something similar or if that was all just in my head. But the reveal and request allows you and your partner to get aligned. And then you could say, all right, now we want to make this reveal to our executive team. Hey, executive team, we feel really comfortable with conflict and our request is that you engage with us as though we were any two members of an executive team. We've realized that that requires you to do a little bit of denial of reality and we're asking you to do it anyway.

[A]

Yeah, that's a great tip. And you do recommend that people would just have that conversation and have it privately as a couple first and then have it as business partners and then an executive team.

[B]

That is my recommendation. In some ways, we're talking about these two relationships and it's helpful to think about them separately before we recognize that they also overlap. And so the relationship that I would have with my co founder in front of our executive team, that's a conversation that I would also take offline with my co founder to say, our dynamics are influencing this team. Let's talk about that together and then bring it back to the team. In the same way that in a married couple I would want to reveal and request, hey, I'm finding myself bringing work home and it's interfering with my ability to relax and enjoy the weekend together. That's a conversation that I would have even if I weren't co founders with the person who I'm sleeping with or who I'm building a life with, that they're the same requires a higher degree of communication and a higher degree of candor and transparency because you've just increased the level of complexity.

[A]

100%. And I love. Maybe you could share a little bit more about like radical candor and maybe even let's start there. Maybe you could explain the, the that concept so that listeners who might not be as familiar with the the 15 commitments could understand that more.

[B]

When we think about candor in the 15 commitments, we're really talking about three overlapping circles. And circle number one is about honesty. Is what I am saying true? And I think that most people stop with honesty and they make candor and honesty one in the same. But in conscious leadership we want to add and is it complete rather than what I'm saying is true, but it's only part of the story. And then the third piece that we like to add is that of self awareness. And so one of the examples that I love is somebody was telling me about building a financial model and they were saying, kayleigh, the numbers are the numbers. Those are honest. The completeness of the numbers is interesting though because I can give you one view of the numbers. If you're a board member and we want to tell you a story about how the quarter is going versus another way to look at the numbers. If you're inside and you're on the sales team and we've got a number to meet. And so the. It's still honest but the slice is more or less complete based on the story that you want to tell and that's the self awareness. Am I sharing this slice of the numbers because I want to encourage you to do something. We won't use the word manipulate versus am I telling you this version of the numbers because I want to protect myself. And so it's really those three together that give you above the line, conscious leader, radical candor. And that's where you can see candor easily breaks down when one of those goes missing or certainly when all three are missing.

[A]

Yeah. And so inside of a. I mean that's not one of the 80, 80 core concepts, but it really, it sort of doesn't matter because it all overlaps here in this, in this world a.

[B]

Hundred percent that that reveal is even more powerful when it's honest, complete and self aware.

[A]

So what other habits do you recommend that a married couple at work cultivate particularly to avoid feelings of scorekeeping and resentment that can build up at the crossover, the intersection. Not I'm. I don't mean just the things that happen at work where you feel like, you know, this happened at work, but more that conversations of scorekeeping between home and work.

[B]

It's such an intricate question because the tool that's coming to mind right now for me is the overlap between one, a mindset of radical generosity, and two, clarity around roles.

[A]

Love it.

[B]

Each of those can live in their own separate paradigm. So in just a married couple that doesn't work together, a mindset of radical generosity, I think, is the foundation. This is the idea of I see you through glasses of appreciation, rather than I see you through glasses of tit for tat that I'm looking for. How can I acknowledge and appreciate the contributions that you've made? And when I feel like I'm over serving or like I'm over contributing, can I find the joy in that? Not to the point where I'm a doormat, but also to say when I am doing what feels like more very likely it actually is balanced. That also works in a company that we've done some work with organizations, it was really neat. Intuit translated the 8080 marriage to work between a couple of their teams and said, hey, when we're looking at each other through glasses of fairness and tit for tat, we don't collaborate very well. But when we look through glasses of appreciation and radical generosity, then all of a sudden the ways that we can help each other work better. And so that mindset, I think, can overlap in both places. There's this amazing study that talks about availability bias, which is basically just a super fancy psychological way to say I am aware of 100% of the things that I do, and I'm aware of only the very tiny subset of things that I witness you doing. And so every time I fold laundry, every time I make a meal, every time I sweep the floor, every time I drive carpool, every time I do the mental load of which store is going to have the freshest green beans for Thanksgiving. I know that I did that. But any emotional labor that you're doing is invisible to me. I have no idea how many cycles you have done around. I know that Uncle Peter and Aunt Suzanne don't actually love, you know, Cousin Ben. Let me make sure that the seating arrangements are such that everyone has somebody to sit next to and something to talk about and should I plant a table topic. I have no idea that you've done any of that. And I also miss all of the loads of laundry that you did while I was on my business trip. And so in our scorekeeping, I get a hundred percent of the credit for what I do, and you get very little of the credit for what you do. And so when it feels like I'm overserving, that's where it actually is quite balanced.

[A]

That's so interesting. And I think that in the 8080 marriage, you have a contribution list tool that basically suggests an opportunity for couples to have a conversation about not getting credit. I guess that's not the way you would say it, but just, hey, I want to bring this to the surface and tell you about the things that I do. Is that how you would describe it?

[B]

That is exactly right. And it feeds into this idea of clarity around roles that very often. And this is such an interesting place, especially for couples who work together.

[A]

Yes, because now we're getting into that org chart.

[B]

Exactly. And that we all can fall into. Hey, in the early years when it was everyone was a Jack and Jill of all trades, and we all did everything, it just. I happened to be the one who did payroll because I happened to be the one who created the account on Gusto. Who knows? In the same way that in our personal lives, I happen to be the one who, you know, plans the family trips, because I planned the very first one, and for whatever reason, it got stuck sticky. And we don't take a step back to ask the question, what am I actually good at? And what do I enjoy doing? And this is where we can see in 8080 marriage that we forget our zone of genius tool from 15 commitments, and we just do the things we do because we've always been doing them. And the idea of what you were saying, Sarah, where you just sit down with a sheet of paper and you write out all the things that you're up to, all the ways that you contribute to your family, to your life. You might do this at work, too, depending on the size of your organization. And it isn't about credit. It's about awareness, because then you can take it back. Exactly. Transparency, visibility. Then you can both take a step back from those lists and say, wow, these are wildly uneven. I wonder if we should take a fresh look. Or you can say, oh, my gosh, I had no idea that you were still doing these 14 things. I thought that we had outsourced those. Let's do that now and just thank you.

[A]

Right. Yes.

[B]

So the. The easiest tool that I think crosses over both personal and professional life is appreciation. And it sounds silly, but I was at a conference just last week, Gosh. And I was facilitating a breakout session where several couples work together. And I made them do an exercise. I made them do an exercise where I said, write down three specific appreciations that you haven't given your partner recently. You would have thought I had asked them to do calculus. And so it was interesting because there was initially a level of discomfort, like, well, but you're telling me to, like, doesn't it lose its efficacy if you're told to? And I was like, nope, I told you to do it anyway. And yet there was a way that they also felt like, well, gosh, if I. If I appreciate something that's sort of pedestrian, does that feel less important?

[A]

I was like, nope.

[B]

All appreciation feels good. And if you want to do the next step to be really, really vulnerable, let your partner know something that you want to be appreciated for is vulnerable. Because it does feel like, oh, gosh, you miss this, and I feel sad about it. And there isn't, like, you have to make up for it, but then they'll go looking for it next time.

[A]

I love that. And really, what we're talking about here, in this context of habits and tools, it's the home recommendations sort of mirror what we're recommending in the professional world. So what I'm hearing you say is, you know, an organization chart at work, you know, align to more of this sort of contribution list at home. These are similar tools that can be applied in both places. Being able to say, this is my zone of genius at work and this is where I should be spending most of my time, also relates to at home. Hey, this is all this unseen mental load that's not getting any credit and that I would really rather not do. But I want you to know that it's happening, and I want you to say thank you for it, and let's find a way together to either reallocate this amongst us as a team or find a different way to have this be done. Maybe you hire someone, right. Even at home. So I think that these are really just like, healthy habits for relationships and organizations. Right. Because in some ways, your. Your household is an organization.

[B]

It absolutely is. So the 8080 marriage is out. Our new book, which is called Busy A Sexy Relationship System for the Overwhelmed. It doesn't come out until February 2027, so we'll have to get back together and talk about it when it comes out. But one of the things that we wrote about in Busy Love is this idea of a family, Inc. Because to your Point, Sarah. Most of our families have the level of complexity of certainly a small business and maybe even a medium sized business. The quantity of logistics that we're figuring out, the number of roles and responsibilities. And what I think is so interesting is that as a founder, as an entrepreneur, it is unfathomable that I would start my organization and not articulate what are our values, that I would run a business for an extended period of time and not never have a conversation about roles. And yet somehow in our personal lives, we don't make our values explicit. And it's so powerful. We are cheesy, I will acknowledge that. But in our kitchen, we have a chalkboard and our four values live on our chalkboard. And so we see them all the time.

[A]

I don't think that's cheesy.

[B]

Okay, excellent. We don't either. We love them. And then we can run our decisions through our values, not only at work, but at home. We're like, okay, we have a choice to make. Does this align with freedom, love, creativity, gratitude? Okay, it does. Great, let's do it. We're like, ah, only. Only one of the four does it pass. Mustard.

[A]

It's a great. It's a great pressure test. I wonder if we could shift the conversation just a little bit to power dynamics, because we have talked a little bit about communication, we've talked a little bit about habits, about resentment and scorekeeping. But I would like to talk about the power dynamics that are not always visible that happen between a couple, and how the power dynamics that exist at work may be very different from those at home. And how do we, how do we kind of figure out how to manage those in a way that's healthy between us and also with our teams?

[B]

Great question. I sometimes think about power as being like WI fi, that when it's working, no one pays attention to it at all. And yet when it's not working, it is the central focus. Why are we not online? Why is our WI fi so slow? Is the same as how come decisions are getting made without any input, or why are you doing that solo? And what we notice is that with power, it will show up exactly as you said, differently in different realms. And so it's helpful to recognize where the specific instances are of power. So for instance, money often shows up as power in relationships, especially if you have a higher earning and a lower earning partner. If one partner works for the other partner, there can be decisions that are a flex. Typically, power is invisible to the person who is exerting more of it. Hey, I just Figured because I make more money, I would decide which hotel we stay at on vacation. And then there's sort of a dig that shows up and they're like, because I'm, you know, I'm paying for it anyway. And so balancing power is one about noticing where it shows up and then creating structure as a way to balance it. Because it's very, very challenging to balance structure just by like, hey, we see it cool. So power can get balanced by structures like a budget. Power can get balanced by structures like decision rights where you say, hey, up to a certain threshold, both of us make decisions where around money where we don't need each other's permission. And across any threshold, we want to check in with each other. In the same way that you would have a budget conversation in your organization. Hey, travel allocations are up to a certain number, we don't have to talk to anybody. And after a certain point you go, oh my goodness, hey, Dreamforce. Hotel prices are bonkers. Let's have a conversation before I try to submit that to be covered under our travel policy.

[A]

Where are other places that power dynamics show up besides money?

[B]

Besides money. It will show up around like domestic choices that people will make. Like I just ordered furniture or I just decided what the meals will be. The people will flex in a different domain. Particularly, we'll see that if one person is sitting in a seat of authority at work that the other person will claim a seat of authority at home. Sometimes it will show up around parenting while I'm closer to the kids and so I decide which activities they do. And it also will show up around sex that the higher drive partner will often feel like they have less power in intimacy because the other person is a bit of the gatekeeper. Again, structure will help in terms of can you have a. Like, if you're going to say no, okay, you get to say no. Can you offer a backup or can you offer an alternative? Just again, trying to balance so that things don't become super one sided.

[A]

So I love that you've kind of talked a little bit about tools for how to balance the power dynamic. How do you start a conversation where you're actually bringing some of those power dynamics to light, where you're actually saying, hey, I feel this way or I see this thing happening. Do you have suggestions for that structure?

[B]

Seems like it's going to be my answer every time we talk about power. That the structure of a conversation around something tricky this way, I think leaves reveal and request and moves more into the candor chapter of 15 commitments of conscious leadership, which is around clearing an issue. And the distinction. I know the distinction is we want to get really grounded in facts. What would the video camera record before we tell the story around what we want to have change? So, for instance, hey, it feels like your flexing power is a story. What we would want to say is, here's the. For instance, here's what the video camera records. The video camera records you unilaterally canceling a meeting that we're both attending, or the video camera records you talking for 80% of the airtime in that meeting. What happened? So that the person receiving the issue clearing can at least perceive the same thing that the person clearing the issue raised. Then you can say, hey, when you unilaterally canceled the meeting, and then when we finally did have it, you spoke for 80% of the time. I experienced that. My story is that was you exerting power and dominance rather than us playing on equal footing. And I felt afraid or I felt less than, but it's clear with emotion. It's I feel. And then name the thing.

[A]

Ooh, okay. Repeat that little tip. So there's almost like a circumstance that is neutral that you described. So that's what the video camera would see. There's no judgment on what it saw. This is what happened. And we. We would both agree that what happened is a fact.

[B]

Yes, exactly. Then it's what did I make that mean? That's the story. This all happens between my ears. This does not occur out in the world. This is the meaning that I imbue whatever happened.

[A]

Yeah. What I thought and what I felt.

[B]

Exactly. And then there's a feeling that goes with it. The example that I love a lot, especially for folks who are engaging in a virtual world, is when we're on a video call and someone goes off video. That's a fact. Where you go, oh, you went off video. And different people tell totally different stories about that. Person number one says, I told myself a story that you went to get water. I told myself a story that you hadn't been to the bathroom yet today. I told myself a story that your Internet that hiccuped. And I told myself a story that you were multitasking and you didn't think that what we were doing is important. Those stories are really different based on the person went off video. And so to your point, that's something happens, it's neutral. There's a story or meaning about it, and then there's an emotion. When I believed my story that you needed water, I felt compassion. When I believed my story that you had something better to do and this wasn't important to you, I felt angry.

[A]

Yeah. Great example. That is an excellent illustration. I love that.

[B]

Draw to a close then. For issue clearing, you want to make sure that you make a request. Because sometimes if you just do, here's what happened, here's a story I told myself, and here's my emotion. The other person tries to guess what you want from them, and often we guess wrong, and that makes the conflict worse instead of better. And so to make a request, my request is, next time, just write in the chat why you're going off video. My request is, next time we're in a meeting together, leave 50% of the airtime for me and everyone else. Or next time you're going to cancel a meeting, text me before to make sure that I wasn't waiting to present something important in that meeting, whatever the request is, so that the partner can respond thoughtfully and in a way that's aligned with what the person really wants.

[A]

When you want to have one of these clearing sessions that you're describing, is this something that you say, like, we need to have a 20 minutes on the calendar together because I want to talk about the meeting that got canceled.

[B]

Yes. So I like the phrasing of, hey, there's an issue I want to clear with you. Is now a good time? I try to look at the other person's schedule, especially if I have visibility into it so that there could be time allocated. Right. Then sometimes I am incorrect in the way that I read it, and I'm like, hey, is now a good time? And they're like, no, but I could do it tonight at 5. Great. The reason I say that is because I have found that the gap between I have something I want to talk about or I have an issue I want to clear with you, and the time to actually clearing the issue. For many people, that's a space of anxiety and rumination, and I like to minimize that, especially in couples that really care about each other.

[A]

Yeah. And I think it, the longer that you wait, particularly if you are needing to have a conversation like that with someone who is prone to anxiety, the less effective that conversation can actually have because a lot of detrimental head trash may be going on in that space. Right. Yeah. So that leads us right into the kind of last topic that I wanted to talk about in our conversation today, which is really about, you know, how. How you get through conflict when it does happen between partners at work.

[B]

I love the recommendation that for everyone who witnesses the Conflict, tell them about the resolution. I think I learned that from someone who was doing a parenting session where they were like, it is okay if you fight in front of the kids, so long as you also reconcile in front of the kids. Not to be paternalistic. And I just did that. If you're co founders and you have a visible conflict in front of your team or in front of the organization, looping them back into conflict is okay. We learned a lot about ourselves and about each other, and here's how we resolved it, and here's how we're moving forward, and here's how we're aligned on those next steps. I think that's incredible. It's personally incredibly powerful for co founders, I think, for anyone who is in any leadership position. So if you are an entrepreneur or just a senior leader in an organization, being able to normalize disagreement and normalize conflict, I would argue enhances the quality of your decision making, because then you get those counter perspectives and to be able to disagree and commit. We had our disagreement, we understood where the other person was coming from, and we were able to align on a course forward so that we are marching in the same direction. There isn't a chance that people are going to pry us apart.

[A]

Yeah, I used to work with somebody who said, you can have. He used to talk about the distinction between front of house and back of house. And you know, where it's okay to have conflict. And his idea was that you should always have conflict, debate, healthy debate in the back of the house. Which in my world means, you know, that can happen to differing degrees in front of the entire leadership team. It may happen in front of the leadership team. It may happen not in front of the leadership team. But where it can never happen is like in the broader picture, you know, because it's so unhealthy when it happens. And it really erodes trust and it erodes confidence the team has. The broader team has when that conflict occurs, because I don't think people are very good at acknowledging it and then, like you said, repairing it publicly. So I guess the question I have for you is when those unfortunate circumstances happen, where it's very front of the house, what does that actually sound like? What does a sound bite to a broader team of like, wow, you saw something kind of go off the rails between us.

[B]

I like where you're starting.

[A]

Okay, great. You fill in the blank then.

[B]

Well, so you saw this conversation go off the rails. You saw both of us, and then whatever it is that happened, you saw each of us get definitional you saw each of us get emotional. You saw each of us stop listening to each other. And what happened there, especially if you're speaking conscious leadership, is you just witnessed a conflict go below the line. And we want to bring our conflicts back above the line where we are listening, where we are more committed to learning than we are to being right, and where we can move forward with clarity and alignment. Which doesn't mean that we have total consensus nor that we sang Kumbaya before we got back up on stage. What it means is we are now listening and we are committed to taking each of our 100% responsibility and moving forward together. And what that looks like is next step, next step, next step.

[A]

That's great. I love giving people who are listening sound bites so they can hear what that might sound like when these things happen. Because I personally find that really useful to model and to come back to as a touch point of like, okay, let me. Let me practice saying that. Because a lot of times there's so much emotion caught up in when we do go below the line. And when these things happen publicly, it's can be very embarrassing. It can be. There's just a lot of conflict between you and your spouse or you and your partner. And then there's. You add shame and embarrassment and I should be a better leader, and you're adding all of this junk to it. So I love kind of the modeling of what that can sound like.

[B]

I also think it's really powerful. And you just articulated this so beautifully that there's the thing that happens. So there's the public conflict and then there's the secondary internal dialogue around what occurs. And I think having a place to unpack that internal dialogue so that doesn't leak is really, really valuable. So whether that's with a coach, whether that's with a best friend, a therapist, a pastor, a rabbi, I feel agnostic in terms of who that person is and having a place that you can do it, ideally a place to unpack it if it's with your spouse that is not your spouse, so that you can come back together from that more centered MA were grounded above the line place to have the redo of the conversation and then move forward.

[A]

Great advice. Wow. There was just. This was so incredibly valuable. Well, the books are the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership and then the 8080 Marriage and Kayleigh, thank you for sharing so much with us today. It was a great conversation. And maybe we'll talk again about busy love.

[B]

I would love to talk about busy love. Sarah. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Lucky listeners.

[A]

Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Conscious Entrepreneur. Every episode here is meant to sharpen how you lead and how you live. If something landed for you, please share it. Founder to founder. I'll meet you here next week.