We married for business…this is what happened.

Summary

• I built a $100 million business with my husband, Alex, by combining our personal and professional relationships from the start, rather than having one precede the other.
• Our relationship flourished because we both had really big goals, and our business, Gym Launch, was founded on our mutual strengths in sales and marketing.
• We consciously chose each other as life partners based on logical decisions about compatibility, shared values, and mutual goals, not just emotional love – I believe love can grow from this foundation.
• Transparency and open communication are critical in both marriage and business; hiding nothing has allowed us to focus on growth rather than getting bogged down by unresolved issues.
• We promised to always grow together, sharing our learnings and inspiring each other, which ensures that we are aligned and advancing as a couple.
• Understanding the dichotomy of desire, which requires balancing closeness and space, is key to maintaining both a passionate marriage and a successful business partnership.
• Maintaining mutual respect and recognizing each other's autonomy within our business and personal lives allows us to function effectively in our respective roles without undermining each other.
• Our domains of decision-making are clear: Alex focuses on acquisition like sales and marketing, while I handle operations, HR, IT, finance, and customer success.
• These principles may not apply to all couples, especially those who entered into marriage before embarking on a shared business venture, but they have been the foundation of our success.
• To have a successful partnership, both in business and marriage, you must have a partner who is intrinsically motivated and independently driven towards similar goals and ambitions.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest implementing transparency in your business and personal life by communicating openly about your thoughts and goals. This helps to avoid misunderstandings and keep focused on growth.

It's also beneficial to establish clear roles based on strengths. For example, if you're good at customer service, then take charge of that area. Your partner can handle areas they excel in, like marketing or sales. This clarity prevents stepping on each other's toes.

I'd encourage you both to continually learn and grow. Share what you learn with each other to inspire and challenge one another. This can be as simple as discussing a book over dinner or taking a course together.

Remember to maintain a balance of closeness and space. Working together all the time can be too much, so have separate hobbies or solo time to keep the desire and respect alive.

Lastly, always treat each other with respect, even when disagreeing. This sets a strong foundation for both your relationship and business dealings.

Follow these steps:

1. Communicate everything, big or small, to avoid issues building up.
2. Divide responsibilities based on who is best at what to streamline your business.
3. Share knowledge and inspirations to keep both of you growing.
4. Balance time together with time apart to keep the relationship fresh.
5. Always show respect, in public and private, to maintain trust and professionalism.

These low-cost strategies can help you grow both your business and personal relationships. Remember, it's not about spending money, but about being intentional with your actions and communications.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"Love is a verb and then if you do the actions you spend enough time with someone you do enough things together that you will feel loved towards that person"

– Leila Hormozi

"Hiding nothing from each other…is the one thing that will stop you two"

– Leila Hormozi

"We promise to always grow together"

– Leila Hormozi

"Understanding the dichotomy of desire in terms of having space and having closeness"

– Leila Hormozi

"Always maintain mutual respect and autonomy"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

in this video today what i want to share with you is how my husband and i worked together and were able to build a 100 million business this came from the question um how do you balance working together uh you know you and alex with your relationship and so i feel like um i've avoided answering any questions about our marriage and our relationship working or otherwise until now because it just feels like it's so different than honestly most people's scenarios and so i'm just like whatever i just don't feel like it's relevant but here we go because a lot of people asked about it so i feel like there needs to be context which is just the background of our relationship so you can understand how we were able to build this giant business together alex and i met on bumble okay but as soon as we met it was very obvious that one there was not a giant like chemistry reaction actually when we first met we were both just super interested in each other we were like you're super smart you're super smart we both are really good at sales we both understand marketing we both see the world the same way and we both had really really big goals and we were both like heads down career oriented at the time not that we still aren't just saying like this was five years ago and so when we met i think it was like two weeks in you know we're dating we're hanging out but alex says he's like listen even if this romantically doesn't work between us like we should make this work business-wise and i was like yeah i agree he's like like i want to do this thing called gym launch i feel like you should do it with me like i'll make sure that like you're taken care of et cetera et cetera he's like even if we don't work out like i feel like you should do this and so i was like okay and a lot of people like can't really comprehend that but our relationship was built off of the business it was not that we had a relationship first and then went into business together it was that we literally went into business together and built our relationship along the way it actually has turned out to be fantastic for us and we love our marriage and love each other um and i think that's because it was built really intentionally and so i actually wanted to share some of the principles that we put into place that helped us and have helped us you know be able to have a really good working relationship but also build that you know personal relationship at the same time and i want to actually say that the business relationship came really natural to us and the romantic side didn't because like honestly i don't think that even we even were like good at having friends like if i'm being really frank like i wasn't even gonna having friends let alone a boyfriend like i was so heads down just trying to like invest in myself in my career and i took everything really seriously and so i think learning to have a good relationship was what we did together so here's the principles um that we base our relationship on the first one is that when we decided to get married we said love is logical right uh in the sense of uh when people say love logically i believe and alex believes and we agree on this that you could love anybody and that love is a verb and then if you do the actions you spend enough time with someone you do enough things together that you will feel loved towards that person the question is is that the person you want to be your life partner and so the question really that we start out with was do we want to be life partners and if the answer is yes then okay we should fully love one another and i know that sounds completely ass backwards most people out there get it wrong and they say i love this person and now they're gonna be my life partner too and then they [ __ ] each other up all the time because like neither of them are emotionally healthy they have horrible habits they're not actually compatible they don't want the same things they don't have the same values we have the same values we want the same things we logically on paper make absolute sense for each other and because of that we made the decision to get married and then we fell in love with each other we actually weren't even in love until after we got married i know it's crazy love is a verb it's for real the second thing that we based our marriage on our relationship on is um and that we're able to have both a really great marriage and a really great working relationship is that we hide nothing from each other and when i say hi nothing we had a coach he said do you know what the one thing that will stop you two is he's like because you're so lucky you found each other i was like no what and he was like whatever sits between you two on the couch and i was like um and he was like and the thing that sits between you on the couch is not a person or a thing it's the thoughts in your heads it's the unresolved issues it's the things that you don't tell each other that's what sits between you two on a couch and that really hit me hard because you know both of us come from parents of divorce and so we're like that's the last thing we would ever want right and so i think almost out of fear in the beginning it was out of fear we just tried so hard to just anything we were thinking anything that we were feeling we just tried to be transparent with one another and that has played out extremely well because if you're not able to do that in your relationship then you're not gonna be able to do it in the business and in the business if the two people at the top cannot share everything with one another then the thing crumbles like 100 of the time it will crumble and so that's why that's a skill that if you can put into place whether in the business or in your marriage and then translate it to the other is incredibly helpful and that has allowed us to put all of our focus on other things rather than the relationship and i think that a lot of people what they do is the relationship takes so much energy and effort and relationships take energy and effort but they shouldn't take all of your energy and effort and the the analogy i like to think of is this which is if you are walking towards something if you are staring at the person you are walking with the entire time then you are going to be distracted and you will never get to the destination but if you are both staring ahead holding hands going towards that thing then you will get to the destination together and so when i think of hiding nothing i think of you cannot walk together and hold hands without hiding nothing if you hide things from each other then you'll be staring at each other the entire time and distracting each other from the end goal and you'll never make it so that's the second is hiding nothing the third is that we promise to always grow together and the reason for that is because i believe that most people that i know that end up not staying together and we do want a long relationship we would like to just be married to each other if you don't want to that's fine totally this is just what works for us we say that we need to grow together meaning that like maybe we're not tactically studying the same things but we're both growing and at the end of the day at dinner at lunch we share what we've learned and we recommend books to each other and we get to educate one another and we get to transfer our knowledge to one another and i think that that is one of the cornerstones of a great relationship i've witnessed this in so many other people and that's why we apply it it's like i see the great relationships and they do this like they teach each other they inspire each other and i think in order to do that you have to be constantly growing and if you're not then it kind of goes stale because you're stale right and your relationship is just going to be a reflection of the investment that you each put in yourselves and so that's the third is you always grow together and it's you know if one person grows and they don't bring the other one up then there's a gap right and like everyone's been in some relationship where they feel like dude we're just like not on the same page like we don't have the same perception of reality and i think a lot of entrepreneurs specifically feel that and it's because the person that they're with either doesn't want to learn or it's because they don't invite them to learn and so i think that that is um a principle that i would apply if i were in that situation the fourth is the dichotomy of desire and so it's funny because i for those of you have read alex's book um he talks about desire and this actually came from a relationship book that i read and it was talking about the dichotomy of desire and how in order to have desire there must be lack and so when you are running a company with your spouse and you are married to your spouse and you are living with your spouse and you're doing all the other things in life with your spouse there is not much space and where most people go wrong is they feel insecure about their relationship they feel like there's things to improve and so they think we need to spend more time together we need to talk to each other more we need to have more of each other and the reality is it's the exact opposite it's the thing that you fear and are nervous about which is putting more space between the two of you space creates desire space also creates autonomy and so there's two things that you get from that right one is making sure that and i'll do a completely different video on this is understanding the dichotomy of desire in terms of having space and having closeness closeness brings security but too much of it they feel like it's your brother or sister distance uh brings curiosity but too much of it and they feel insecure and they can't um they don't feel like they can talk to you or trust you or confide in you and so it's finding that space in between and it's especially something that has to be found when you're in business with one another because if you don't seek this out if you don't try to master if you don't pay attention to it or tune into it then you will go really far on one end of the spectrum and neither is a great place to be and so we always um stay on the same page and we're transparent we're like hey i think we're like feeling super close right now or we'll be like hey i miss you like i'd like to spend dinner together and so you know i think being able to verbalize that to your spouse is something that's insanely important if you are in business together because if you are in business together and you want a good business and that person is your partner then your communication with them is the foundation of the business and so it has to be rock solid the last one that i put on there in terms of um it's really simple but it's just mutual respect and autonomy and what i mean by that is when you are in a business relationship with somebody just as some people put down their business partners i see people put down their spouses or just say little things about them or a little like jabs at them and that is not something that you can do when you're in business together and have a relationship together if you have an issue with your partner you have to be able to address it with them in private and i think that what i've seen a lot of the times particularly with women is that they'll complain about their husbands they'll make little jabs at them in public et cetera et cetera and that's just not acceptable if you're trying to have a business together and have a marriage your team won't take you seriously they won't feel like they can rely on the two of you if they see that or feel that underlying tone um and then you know outside of work it's not going to be a happy place to be and so for both of us it's been having mutual respect for each other always making sure like even if maybe we don't feel it in the moment maybe you don't feel like it maybe your partner does something that's just like you just can't believe it you don't understand it you want to talk to them about it but you're really upset don't act on it never act disrespectful and so that is one of the hallmarks i think of a great relationship is always respecting each other and with that comes autonomy because if you respect your spouse and you work with your spouse then that means you also respect them enough to allow them to make decisions without you and that is probably one of the biggest places where people lose themselves in relationships or in business is that they enmesh themselves so much with each other that they don't even allow them to make any autonomous decisions about anything in the business and i do think that that is something that we have done very well which is we have our domains right like we know where we each make decisions and so if you're curious you know like alex will make decisions about primarily anything acquisition based right marketing sales that's primarily what he handles what do i make decisions about i make decisions about typically the operations hr it finance customer success like all the other backend and so that is what we consider our domains the overall business we do work on those things together because the more people working on something uh on a large decision i think the better the outcome typically is but nonetheless mutual respect and autonomy um it's very productive for your business and for your marriage and so if we go over that the principles that we base our relationship on and this is me just sharing like this is what works for us um it is not a typical relationship and like if you got into a relationship and you're trying to yeah this is a really interesting okay this is a good point if you got into your marriage and now you're trying to build a business relationship i don't know if these apply or not this is just for what we did and this is what i know worked for us so context is very important and what i do see a lot of the times is a lot of men will come to me and they'll say how do i get my wife to be like you and i'm like you don't get your wife to be like me i would have been this way no matter what i would have had a business and just been married to somebody else and so that is the biggest thing i would like to get across to people who ask us that question because that is a large question and it happens typically the husband starts doing something then wants to bring the wife in she had to have been someone who would have done it anyways otherwise you are probably not doing her or yourself a favor that being said the principles one love logically two hide nothing three grow together four remember the dichotomy of desire and then five always maintain mutual respect and autonomy i hope that you found that useful um whether you're married whether you're in a business even just a business partnership crap these things would work for that besides the love logically that would be a little awkward um but i hope you find it useful and maybe you picked one or two things out in terms of insight and if you like this video go ahead hit subscribe i will follow up with some more on how to run a business with your spouse