Speaker 1: My wife and I have built six multi-figure companies in the last five years. Our current portfolio does about $85 million a year. We run acquisition.com. And I was interviewed recently for a segment on a two-hour long podcast. And the segment that I want to show you is a really cool clip that we just talked about what it was like to literally build these companies together, being married and the balance between work, life and marriage. All right. So, like I said, enjoy. And I'll see you guys on the other side. I mean, a lot of people used to get on me about like, you need more work-life balance, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just like, I just like you have one life and they are your terms and no one else's terms. And we optimize typically for the things that we enjoy doing. And like, if you have more stimulus from working than you do from not working, then like work. And then if you feel like at some point you have traded off something that you don't want to trade off for, then you can adjust.

Speaker 2: That's how I've always felt. I enjoy working. Like, what was it? My mom. So we have like a wedding to go to on the day after my birthday. So we're talking about, you know, we have to fly up on my birthday. She's like, oh, we could do this on your birthday. And I was like, no, I just want to work. She's like, no, but it's your birthday. You shouldn't have to work. And I was like, I want to work. That's all I want to do. I just want to work. Even Santa Monica, my birthday. I was like, the only thing I want to do today is work. That was it. Just wanted to work.

Speaker 1: I mean, everybody wants to, they're like, man, do something. Just do, do something you love and you'll never work another day in your life. But like, it's just because everyone has this really poor definition of work. But like, if, if you have accomplished that, which obviously you have, you're just living and like what you do in life. So I'll, I'll, I'll rewind something really quickly, which is like 2021. I did nothing. I owned all the companies pounded out a lot of cashflow and I did nothing. And it was a very miserable year for me because I tried to spend the money that I was making and I couldn't, like, it was just not even really a possibility. And so like, I got into a place of like, why, why am I even doing this? Like, what's the point? Like, I'll never even be able to spend this money that I have. Like, why have I been doing all this stuff? And in starting acquisition.com or at least making that the sole focus now, again, and being able to build all the infrastructure, you know, hire the teams and all the stuff that we're doing on that side of the business. Like I have so much joy getting back into the game because I feel like I've been kind of like in a super high leverage position for like an extended period of time that I exited the business because I thought that that was what the next natural step was supposed to be, which is like, you go from CEO to owning it as a shareholder or board of directors, whatever. And that is very much what happened. But I realized that for me, at least it's like, I work to create options, not to not work. And so a lot of people like, they work really hard to not have to work later. It's like, no, it's like, I work to have the option to work. And so I can choose to work. And that choice is the freedom that I have. And so like, if I'm choosing with the optionality that I have to work, then that is exactly what I want to do. Just being on the other side of it, of like going to the, like, there's literally no way I can spend this money for the rest of my life mountaintop. Like the only thing that I wanted to do was the thing that got me here, which is like, I love working. And so it's the thing that I find meaningful. And I think that maybe you shift direction in terms of like, maybe some of the stuff that you create, like maybe there's some things that you create that are for YouTube versus like for Graham. And I just think that it just slowly optimizes to only doing things for Graham, which a lot of times still ends up being that, but like you get there backwards. It's like, if you made it purely for you, then you might be able to make a video after that. That's like, I walked 300 miles and I didn't film anything. And this is what I learned. Like, that would probably be a really valuable video because you probably would have some interesting insights. Like I didn't film either of the Grant Cardone videos and then just made videos about the calls of like my takeaways and they were still really great videos.

Speaker 3: Interesting. Okay. So my only thought to that is like you are in a very unique position because you run this business with your wife and stuff like that. And I think that marriage plays a big part in my life. And I think marriage is a compromise. And so my wife doesn't like it when I work as much. I guess her like love language is what quality time or whatever. And I think Graham's girlfriend, Macy, is similar. And I think that there's a compromise there where yes, Graham, if all he wants to do is work, that's great. And he can work and work and work. But I think that marriage, a successful marriage is truly a compromise. And if it turns out that, you know, like you... This is really good.

Speaker 1: I have like so many thoughts right now.

Speaker 3: Yeah. It's stimulating conversation. And I think everybody's in a unique position because, you know, definitely like there's... You could say, well, you know, I'm gonna grind away now so that, you know, I don't have to work in the future and we can spend time together. Or you can kind of balance and live in the now and live in the future. But I think everybody's kind of in a unique position. But I think that that part of your life is always going to be a compromise to some sort of extent.

Speaker 1: So I think it's a belief that you choose to define it that way. Yeah. I'm okay. Yeah, I'm okay with that. Compromise is a belief statement. Like that's not a statement of fact. That is a belief. And so like, I don't believe that marriage is a compromise.

Speaker 2: Tell us your experience with that, because I have a... Because I'm sure we all have different experiences. Mine in the beginning was that I did find that there was a compromise because Macy came from the mindset like, you know, 5 or 6 p.m. comes around. You're done with work. Yeah. And you're free. And my mind works 24-7. I tried that. And I woke up really early. I'd wake up at like 5 a.m. so I could be done by 5 p.m. and have the night. And that worked for actually quite a while, because I actually found I was so productive in those morning hours that I could be done by 5 and be like, oh, wow, this is great. But over a long time trying to figure out like a balance, I found myself, I wasn't myself. Like I was really, I felt anxious. I was just like uptight. I was... Why? About what part? Like because of work? Because I couldn't work during the hours that I wanted to work. Like sometimes you just have those days where it's just like, no, no, I'm so focused. And I got it. Like you have that concentration. You just have to continue. And so having that freedom for me, if I don't have that, I just wasn't myself and I was miserable.

Speaker 1: Yeah. What I'm going to say, and I have very strong views and they are not common. But I also think that I don't want to live a common life and so that I cannot have common views. So just like as a big disclaimer to that, like I've only seen two dynamics that work in relationships over like an extended period of time. One is kind of the like we're in it together. And the other is like the cheerleader and quarterback cheering you on. But the thing is, is like I can tell I can speak a lot to the, you know, we're in the game together. For me, I know personally, like I had two very long relationships that were cheerleader dynamics. And to me, I could not imagine living life that way. Having now lived what I live now, because like there's a certain amount of shared respect that you never get with somebody who does not know what it's like to be in the battlefield or in the arena. And if I'm like, I need to work for the next three days and like write five book chapters, like there's not a discussion. It's like, of course, do your thing. There's no like, I can't believe you're like. And to the flip side in the cheerleader dynamic, a cheerleader who's really rooting for the team doesn't ask the quarterback to come out when the game's on the line. And so I think that a lot of people are running in what they consider to be cheerleader dynamics, but they are inverted dynamics. They're actually sabotaging the game. I think that it's like in that dynamic, it's harder in my opinion to do the cheerleader quarterback because you have to have a very aligned mission and goals of like the relationship. It's easier to do that in the dynamic that you're working together because it's so clearly stated with the mission, the goals of like, this is where I want to go. And this is how I want to get there. And like, do you want to come with me? And then you're very much operating on this shared sense of reality. And it also becomes difficult for entrepreneurs, in my opinion. Now, like, I mean, I'm sure you've seen plenty of people get divorces as they get older and whatnot. Is that like, if you're like, all right, this will be interesting. So typically when people become attracted, so Esther Perel, if you've heard of her, she's really interesting, like relationship person. She's like one of the top TED talks on it. There's a thing it's called mating captivity is her book. But in the beginning you have kind of this mystery because you don't know each other. And that's what creates like the excitement, right? And as you get to know each other over time, you swing like from mystery to familiarity, right? You get a little bit more security, you get to know each other better, and it feels like more and more amazing. And so what you do is you just keep trying to do that, right? But what's happening is that you overcorrect and then you become siblings. And then it's like, ah, well, that's not good. And so it's not a problem to be solved, but a dichotomy to be managed, right? In terms of like, how much space do you create versus how much familiarity? What happens when people like entrepreneurs specifically, have their business and they have the wife, they spend more time in the beginning and all of a sudden they don't spend as much time together and then they grow apart because they're also exposed to different stimuli, right? And so you adapt to the stimuli that you have and you grow apart. On the flip side, if you're in my scenario where we're like doing the same thing together, the downside of this one, these couples make five times more money than any of the other versions that I just said. But you can become too familiar and then you just become siblings. So for us, we actually create more space. So it's like, we try to work on separate sides of the house. We don't attend the same meetings. So like at the end of the day, we can sit down at dinner and be like, how was your day? And she can tell me something rather than me saying like, oh, I was there, I know, right? And so the happiest couples are actually couples that have, both have careers that are not necessarily together. So on average, these couples are the ones that, because they have a shared goal in terms of, this is what we wanna do. They've shared values in terms of how they wanna get there and they respect one another and they respect each other's goals and then they walk kind of in parallel. So you've got the, like I'm working the entrepreneur and you've got the stay at home wife. There's many times everyone's seen that one go wrong. There's the like, we're both working together in it where, so these people have to correct for trying to create more familiarity. These ones have to create more space. So you have the space to be missed. And then these ones tend to be in the middle already. And so they just kind of like have to keep walking. And so for me, it was actually just interesting seeing the different dynamics and like how we had to correct in the beginning. Like we were wait, we spent all day, every day together and the business was small. So it was like, she was there and I was here and we worked out together and we ate together and we did that for like two years. And I was like, you know, maybe I'll sit on different meetings than you. But like seeing the level of like commitment and loyalty that you get from that. And I don't know. So I went on a little bit of a tangent there, but I have strong beliefs around that. And I think that you don't have to compromise anything if you don't want to.