What To Do When Your Spouse Doesn’t Support Your Side Hustle – Episode 7

Your spouse or significant other doesn’t support your new business idea! Your Dream! Your Baby! Now what do you do? In this episode of The Boss Life Podcast Miguel and Erin give you key strategies to make sure your spouse gets on your side.

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Resources From Today’s The Boss Life Podcast

The Boss Life Find Your Business Quiz

Three Key Boss Points From Today’s Podcast

• Make sure you have explained to them what your side hustle is all about.
• Schedule a time to talk to them about the side hustle, and what exactly you are going to try and achieve and by when.
• Involve them in your new business so they can feel a part of this new exciting time in your life.

What To Do When Your Spouse Doesn’t Support Your Side Hustle – Episode 7 Transcription

In today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about what to do when your spouse doesn’t support your side hustle.

All right, this is an interesting topic because you live with this person.

And we have personal experience with this topic, and I will out myself. When Miguel first started one of his businesses, I was just so not interested in him starting yet another business, and I was just not into the business itself.

You weren’t into my business idea?

No.

That I was so fired up and excited about?

You were so fired up, and I was just not having it. I’m like, “You already work so many hours, and you’re gonna do yet another thing? Who knows if it’ll work?”

So we really wanna give you five tips around this, because if this is you right now, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, “Yeah, that’s me,” there’s no way I can change this. There are actually five things you can do to really improve the situation, and we’ve worked with thousands of people over the last few years, and we know that this works. So listen up, hopefully this is gonna be a great episode for you.

So the first thing that we wanna dive into, maybe I’ll let Erin start this topic because, as she outed herself, she was the first one to try and say that my idea was not a great thing, and …

I was like, “You should quit doing this.”

… maybe I should quit. She told me I should quit.

I did, and I’m glad he didn’t listen to me. But we’re gonna talk about kinda the journey I think that your partner goes on when you start another business, or you start a side hustle. And I think sometimes it’s not that your spouse doesn’t necessarily want you to do it. It’s that they don’t necessarily understand why you’re doing another business.

You didn’t get it?

Yeah, I didn’t get it. Because I was like, “Dude, you’re already working 60 hours a week, when are you gonna have time for the family and for me? If you start this thing …” And this kinda moves into … Let’s move into the second point, which is sometimes spouses feel like when you’re doing something, or your partner feels, when you’re doing something that doesn’t involve them, you are creating a life that doesn’t include them. So they feel outside of what you’re doing.

That’s true, they feel disconnected. A big thing I will say, because I don’t wanna brush over it, the first thing is that it’s not that they just don’t understand it, the big thing … You really need to explain to them why it is that you’re doing this business.

I think a lot of times when we get excited, you’re listening to a podcast and you get really fired up and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I gotta do that thing they were just talking about,” and then you just go home and you start doing it. Especially if you’re an entrepreneur, if you’re like me, you’ve got a million ideas floating around in your head all the time, and you just gotta execute on them.

So if that’s you, you really gotta stop for a minute and just understand that they may not understand what it is that you’re doing, so you should really try and maybe bring them in on it. As an example, let’s say you get excited about something specific, let’s just say you get excited about a network marketing company or something like that, you get excited with real estate, pick your thing, you get excited about it.

Maybe the first thing that you could do is you could invite your spouse to go to an event, or experience it with you, and kinda get to see what it is. And they may say no, and that’s totally fine, but for example, in the business that I was doing, I was writing these things called Fit Club, I’d do these workouts basically every Sunday for free.

And again, Erin would be like, “Wait a minute, so now not only are you taking time away from the family, and trying to build this side business, now you’re gonna do workout classes for free?” And I was like, “Yeah, it’s gonna help with the community, it’s gonna create goodwill, and it’s gonna-”

And I had to drag all three kids to this free thing every Sunday night.

And even though she didn’t necessarily support it, she started to understand it more. Because by her being there, and seeing people showing up and shaking my hand and being excited that we were running these free things for the community, she started to understand where this was starting to head.

And the impact that you were having, I think, on other people is one thing that … When your partner sees that there’s joy in the other person, and what they’re doing is bringing them joy, their position kind of changes.

Yeah, and that’s, going back to the second point, why these two kinda tie together, is if you can include your spouse in the things that you’re doing … And again, the reason I wanted to give that example, it doesn’t mean that I told Erin, “Hey, you gotta join my business and become a partner with me.” It was more like, “Hey, I’m heading out to Fit Club, do you wanna come? I’m gonna bring the kids.”

I wouldn’t say, “Hey, you bring the kids, and I can run Fit Club and you can watch.” It was like, “Hey, I’m bringing the kids anyway, do you wanna come get out of the house and do a workout?” There’s things that you gotta look for opportunities to bring your spouse into it, and anywhere that you can engage them …

Maybe as it goes, and we’ll get into this in a second, maybe you start having some success with your business. Depending on your business, maybe you earned a trip somewhere, or there’s something coming up. If you can bring them along with that, then again they’re gonna be able to experience what it is that you’re doing.

Yeah, and I think that one of the things you kinda touched upon is don’t drag them, don’t force them, don’t say, “You have to do this, and I’m excited for this so you have to do this.” Because the moment you say that to your partner, “You gotta do this,” they’re gonna be like, “No I don’t.”

I don’t have to do anything. And that goes to my next point, the third point is it’s your dream. It’s not their dream. We talked about this before on a few lives that we’ve done on Facebook and stuff, if you watched those. But really, understand that when you come up with an incredible business idea, or you get really excited about something, understand that the first person you wanna tell is your spouse, right?

And they’re not gonna be fired up. I mean, they may be, maybe you’re got a perfect scenario there going on. But most times they will not be fired up by you coming home and saying, “Hey, I’m so excited. I’m about to start this thing, it’s gonna take time away from the fam, it’s gonna be so cool, here’s my vision, here’s my dream.” Because it’s not meant to be their dream, and many times it may never become their dream. It may never be their dream, the dream that you have.

If you talk about the iPhone, Steve Jobs changed the world with the iPhone, but what came first? The iPhone or the idea of the iPhone? The idea of the iPhone, and it had to be Steve Jobs that made it a reality because everyone else thought it was ridiculous.

Now, everyone has a smartphone that is a web browser and a phone device and a music player. But when the iPhone first came out, everybody thought that was ridiculous. Not only that, but to spend $1,000 on a cell phone back then was insane. So he had to bring it to reality with nobody believing in him. He was mocked by the business community.

That’s just what’s gonna happen as you come forward, especially if your idea is good. If you have a great idea, then that means it’s a game-changing idea, and chances are literally no one will believe in it. So don’t look and don’t wait for that, because if you wait for someone to come back to you and say, “That is such a great idea, you should absolutely do it,” then you’re gonna be very disappointed.

And the last tip is if you are someone that just needs that reassurance, then at least make sure you’re talking to someone that has done the business that you’re going to try and do. If you get excited about a franchise, or you get excited about joining a marketing company, whatever it may be, don’t ask someone that has had no success in it if they think it’s a great idea.

Yeah, the biggest mistake we see is that I think they wanna involve their partner or their family, and then they go to their family who’s never done what they’re about to do, and they take all their advice. So you have to look at is that person qualified to give you advice on what you’re about to do? And that’s not to say that your family’s opinion’s not important, but you have to judge its weight.

It’s kinda like fitness and [inaudible] kind of stuff. I wouldn’t go to my accountant necessarily, it might be, but I wouldn’t go to my accountant that I have to say, “Hey, could you give me some tips on how to lose 40 pounds?” It doesn’t mean he’s not smart, he’s a super-genius at what he does, but I’m not gonna ask him for fitness advice.

Exactly. And I think one thing that I just wanna touch upon here is that when you are trying to involve your partner, I think sometimes the way that our partners can support us, or even do a business with us, is gonna be very different than the way we do the business. If I look at even our marriage, we have completely different strengths. If I was expecting Miguel to be another me in my business, I’m missing all of his gifts. So I think that if you are wanting to bring your partner into your business, you can’t expect them to be you. You’re not cloning yourself.

Exactly. Let’s go on to the fourth point. The fourth one I think is really important because when I started one of our other businesses that did very, very well, and it’s still doing incredibly well, again, there wasn’t a lot of support there. I was bringing Erin to some of the events and things like that, so her belief was growing, but really I knew that what it was gonna take was for some financial success, some wins for all this time I was investing into this business.

So at that point I started telling her my vision of potentially, if I was able to build this to a certain number, potentially I could leave my full-time job and just do this business, work from home, spend more time with the kids and support around the home so that she wouldn’t have to do it all on her own with our three kids.

See, now I’m talking to her. When I started speaking that language, Erin started listening at that point. She starts listening now because she’s like, “Wait a minute, okay, this could work. And if this does work, then I’ll get my husband back and I won’t have to have him travelling all the time,” as I was doing. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my other job, I loved my other job, but it was just that I wanted to spend more time with my family. So when you start speaking like that to your spouse, that results-driven, it’s very hard to ignore that.

But even then, Erin’s famous words when I would tell her, “Hey look, next week we’re gonna make X, Y, Z,” and she’d say …

Show me, don’t tell me.

Show me, don’t tell me. Show me, don’t tell me. I’d be like, “Hey, look, we’re gonna …” So you have to work your way through this process, it’s always gonna be a process. But the more financial wins that you can get, and show results, even if its not financial, if you can just show that you’re personally growing yourself, or you’re getting a physical result, or an emotional result, mindset result, as long as your spouse sees some results there, they’re gonna start supporting you more and more.

Right, and I think this kinda moves into our next point, which is really the keystone of all of this. It’s really managing your expectations with your partner, and making sure that … We’ve talked a little bit about this, but making sure you have that conversation with them about why is this bringing you joy, and why is this igniting your soul, and what does it mean for your relationship with them.

And if they are already supporting you, are you celebrating their support? Are you thanking them? Can you do a public post that says, “Wow, my partner’s been so supportive of this, I wouldn’t be able to do this without them.” Because then, even if they’re not in your business at this point, they feel supported, they feel acknowledged, they feel part of it. And I think that’s half the battle, is just getting them to feel part of something, even if they’re not doing it.

Yeah, that’s huge. And I think the more you can make it crystal clear what the outcomes will be … Just to give you an example, let’s say you were gonna start a health and fitness business

Maybe the expectations are like, “Hey, listen, I’m gonna spend 10 hours a week, or 15 hours a week, on myself. Some of that’s gonna be working out, some of that’s gonna be personal development, some of that’s gonna be trying to build a little bit of a business framework here on social media. Are you okay with that, Erin, if I do that for myself? Because I feel like I really need to do that. And that’s gonna be my year one focus.

“If I can do that and I can get results, I can lose 80 pounds, in a year or two my goal’s gonna be maybe to start helping other people and teach them what I’m doing and start to build a business that way, and my goal would be in year two maybe to earn, let’s pick a number here, $20,000 a year.”

But if I have that conversation, and I sit down with Erin, versus me not having that conversation and just starting to do stuff and going on social media and posting what I’m doing and going to classes, and I’m just doing it without even talking to my spouse … And this is almost relationship advice I guess at this point … You have to communicate.

Because when you don’t communicate, that’s typically where arguments come from, where disagreements come from, and a lot of times, if you think back at our biggest disagreements, it’s not necessarily because anyone was doing something to hurt the other person. A lot of times it’s just because someone was doing something and the other one had no clue why.

Yeah, because you can’t read someone else’s mind, right?

I’m a mind reader, I know everything.

I don’t know about that.

I could order at Starbucks with my eyes closed.

Yeah, no. I think that’s the other thing too, right? No one is a mind reader, you have to share what the support from your partner looks like, and really managing the expectation of, “How long is this really gonna take?” And if you look at any business, it doesn’t matter what business, you’re not just gonna walk in and be like, “Ooh, I’m super successful.” It’s gonna take a lot of work, and there’s gonna be a lot of ups and downs.

And I wanna say this to you right now, if you’re in that position where your spouse or your partner does not support you and you’re really struggling with that, I want you to understand that it can ebb and flow, it can go up and down. You might have had that conversation six months ago, but maybe you need to have that conversation again. Maybe their support, what you need from them now, has changed.

And I always use this analogy that, when you’re trying to get a business off the ground, imagine when you’re taking off in an airplane. When do you spend the most gas? At the very beginning when you’re trying to take off. If you have that conversation with them, saying, “Look, it’s not always gonna be like this. It’s not always gonna be like I’m spending all of this time.”

And I think the other thing too is that for most people, how do you build your business? Build it on your phone, right? And I think sometimes people can misunderstand that as they’re playing a game on their phone. That was my biggest thing.

When Miguel first started building one of our other businesses and I was expecting our third child … And I was exhausted, for those of you who are parents, you’re moms and you’ve been pregnant before, the first trimester you’re just sleeping all the time. So I was going to bed early, and he was staying up until 3 AM.

It actually worked out perfectly. I was like, “Sweet, good night,” and I would work my business and try and make it happen.

Yeah, but most of our clients, they were women looking to get into shape. So we had to have those conversations, and just be really clear and upfront about everything.

Yeah. And then the last one, before we go into the challenge, that I really wanna be really clear on is if your spouse isn’t supporting your business, I need you understand this, it’s really important, it’s not that they don’t love you. It’s that they really love you. What do I mean by that?

When people care about you, they wanna protect you. That’s the number one instinct, the number one show of affection, really. There’s intimacy and all these things, but really when someone truly loves you, they wanna protect you, they wanna keep you safe.

And the way that our brains have developed over time is that safe means consistent. Safe means no change. So a lot of times, no matter what, your spouse, your family, your friends, your mom, your dad, they’re gonna wanna keep you safe, so that means they’re gonna wanna keep you not changing. And they don’t mean that necessarily in a bad way, it’s that they love you.

When they come into something, if you don’t follow the tips that we just gave you, and you’re not telling them anything so they don’t understand what you’re doing, you’re not spending time to involve them in your business, you’re not sitting down with them and talking to them about what you’re doing, when you don’t do those things, then you’re almost forcing them to try and protect you and to tell you that whatever you’re doing is a bad idea.

So I really wanted to make that clear, especially if your spouse is sitting with you listening in the car, they’re doing that because they love you. So that’s a great thing, that’s an awesome thing.

And I think that sometimes that can come across that they don’t want you to fail. They don’t want you to feel hurt if something doesn’t work out, or if what you are trying to build fails. I look at the example of my kids. What do I always tell them to do? Be careful, you might fall, you might hurt yourself. That’s kind of what happens when someone starts something new, especially in your relationship. You don’t want them hurting.

Yeah, you don’t want them hurting. So we’ve given you guys a lot of things to think about, talk about, maybe listen to this podcast again if you want. As always, I really recommend … We cover a lot of these topics as well in our private Facebook group, if you wanna join that. What’s that group called again, Erin?

The Science of Building an Online Empire.

So if you wanna join that group, you can.

Let’s end this with a challenge as well for everybody. You ready for the challenge, Erin?

I am ready for the challenge.

Give them the challenge.

All right. So I hope you know where we’re going with this, and what everything has come together like in the last little bit that we’ve been chatting. I would love if you could sit down with the partner in your life, the spouse in your life, maybe it’s a family member, and I want you to have an open dialogue with them and ask them for support.

I think a lot of the times our miscommunication comes from us not telling people the support we need. You might say, “I need you to be supportive.” Well that’s not good enough, you have to tell them what that support looks like and why you need it.

Once you do that, manage your expectations. Tell them, “This is what evening is gonna look like,” and make sure you include them and say, “Hey, I’m gonna work really hard on this, but maybe once a week we do this, or maybe once every two weeks we do this,” so that you are still making time for them while you’re trying to build this amazing opportunity you’re trying to get off the ground.

I love that challenge. And a couple tips for that, I would say one, make sure, if you can, if you have kids, that they’re sleeping, maybe wait till they’re in bed. Wait till you have one-on-one time with your spouse, where you can sit down maybe by the dinner table, and maybe let them know when they come home from work, say, “Hey, listen, I have something exciting I wanna talk to you about-”

Yeah, don’t say like, “We need to talk.”

Don’t do that, because they’ll freak out, you’ve already set the tone badly. Just tell them, “I have something really exciting I wanna talk to you about when the kids are in bed, I think you’re gonna love it. I’m really excited about it.”

Yeah, make sure it’s the right time.

Yeah, “I just don’t wanna get into it right now, but I just want you to maybe set some time aside if you can today, 20 minutes once they’re in bed. If today doesn’t work, let’s do it tomorrow, no big deal.” And then once you have that time, you can sit down, and whatever you guys do, if you usually play cards or pour a glass of wine, or whatever it may be, maybe over dinner, however you-

Maybe go for a walk or something.

Yeah, go for a walk, whatever, leave the kids at home and go for a walk. I’m just kidding. Depending on their age-

Well, make sure that it’s legal to do so.

Yeah. And just be honest and real, be like, “Hey listen, I’m really excited about X, Y, Z, I’m so fired up about it. I know you probably don’t get it, and maybe you do, but I’m really excited about this,” and then let them speak. Maybe they are excited for you too, maybe not, doesn’t matter.

And then just be like, “So here’s the deal, I actually really want to make this a part of my life, I’m really excited about it. I’m gonna be actually committing a lot of stuff, I’m gonna be giving up these five things.” As an example, I’m not gonna watch … For me, it’d be, “I’m not gonna watch hockey anymore, I’m not gonna be playing video games anymore, I’m not gonna be spending time doing all these extracurricular things that I was doing, and I’ll put a lot of time back into this business because I really think it’s gonna work out really well for me.

“At the same time, it’s probably gonna mean that I’m not gonna be able to come home and watch TV or Netflix for two hours a day anymore, because I’m gonna be working on this business. But it’s really because I wanna grow something special for our family, and I think it’s gonna really pay off. We live in a unique time, I listened to this great podcast, The Boss Life, and I’m getting a lot of great tips from that, I’m engaging in their group. And I really wanna make this stuff happen.

“So I just wanted to let you know instead of just doing all this stuff and then you wondering what I’m doing. I really wanted to tell you that and I wanted to know what you thought about that, and where you’re at with that.”

And I think this is not your opportunity to sell them on your opportunity. This is the time to have a conversation, and once you put that out there, let them talk.

And don’t go, “And you’re gonna be my first customer.”

Yeah, no. But let them talk, and let them kind of digest what you said. And there might be some fear, apprehension, uncertainty with it, try not to get your back up. Because they’re trying to process what you just told them.

What you’ve been thinking about for years maybe.

Right, and that you just basically sprung it on them. Even though you didn’t. You just gotta give them some grace a little bit, and just have an open dialogue.

It’s like when Erin showed up one day with brown hair. She’s always had blonde hair, she shows up-

And he’s like, “What did you do?”

Cuts her long hair and it’s brown.

I was like, “What? What do you mean what did I do? I can’t change it now.” That was a great moment in our relationship.

If you want marriage advice …

Don’t listen to him.

This is why this is not The Marriage Podcast.

Anyways guys, that is our five big tips for you if your spouse doesn’t support your side hustle. We hope you take us up on the challenge today, because I think it will help you continue to build your business or get it off the ground.

Yeah, so with that we wanna make sure that you ditch the employee mindset.

And start living the boss life.

We’ll see you in the next episode.

Bye, guys.

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