September 14, 2021

How to Leverage Marriage or Partnership to Help Grow Wealth - Ep. 12

How To Use Marriage as an Asset and How to Leverage a Good Partnership Into Higher Household Income

Here's How We Made It Work

In this episode, we talk about:

  • Relying on one spouse for benefits
  • Freeing each other up to take moonshots
  • Leapfrogging to get better jobs

Ryan explains how teamwork is done in the Maruyama house and his role in work and entrepreneurship.

Hannah talks about how to support a partner that supports you, and how to find and get good opportunities so you can help increase your household income.

Enjoy the episode!

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Links and Notes from the Episode

Episode Transcript
Please enjoy this transcript or our episode!

Please note the transcript may have a few errors. We're human. It can be hard to catch all the errors from a full length conversation. Enjoy!

Ryan: Aloha guys, and welcome back to Degree Free. We are your hosts, Ryan and Hannah Maruyama. On this podcast, we share fundamentals we've discovered and the mistakes we've made while self-educating, getting work, building businesses and making money. We'll tell you how to make it happen. No degree needed.

Hannah: Welcome back to the podcast everybody please like and subscribe and write us a review if you haven't already just run to the reviews. Okay. If you liked what you heard on the last episode, or when we get to the end of this one, you want to know how to get a job without a college degree. Please check out our website, which is degreefreenetwork.com. Not only are all of our podcast episodes in video form on there, but so is our how to get a job without a college degree guide. It's 40 pages. It's a PDF. It has pretty much everything you need to know about getting a job without a college degree, and you can pick it up on the website.

Ryan: Yep, absolutely. Let's get into today's episode. Today, we are going to be talking about how to leverage marriage or a partnership to help grow wealth.

Hannah: This is a fun one.

Ryan: Yeah, this is definitely an interesting one. It's something that we get asked a lot about. We never really met. We're not like we're not like some gurus on this or anything like that.

Hannah: Hustle gurus.

Ryan: Well, or like relationship experts or anything like that. But we do get asked this question a lot from couples.

Hannah: Yeah. We have had quite a few, quite a few pairs come to us and ask us about this, which is kind of cool because it meant that they thought we were doing something right.

Ryan: Exactly. Right. Exactly. Like how do you guys do what you guys do? You know, I don't know that. I don't know.

Hannah: That's a good question.

Ryan: You know, we did put a lot of thought into it though.

Hannah: Over that time, you know, since this was probably years ago that people started asking us about this. Over that amount of time, we've talked about it a lot to try to figure out what is it, you know, how did we, how we figure out what works for us?

And then how to we explain to other people what that is.

Ryan: Yeah. And so, this is an episode for if you're in a relationship or you know somebody who's in a relationship or a marriage and you guys are trying to start a business or shoot for a higher paying job, trying to increase your income, your household income together.

There are some I guess the disclaimers and things that we have to say, like one.

Hannah: We're not a relationship coach.

Ryan: Yeah, and not only that though, but. This, isn't the only way to skin this cat. Like there's a hundred, there's hundreds of ways to do it.

Hannah: If you ask another, if you ask another pair of entrepreneurs, how they make it work, they have a different answer, right?

Ryan: Right, but this is generally speaking this is how we've done it, and this is how we live our life and there's no right or wrong here. It's just different. Every, every, everybody has a different take on it, and so take this episode for what it's worth. We get asked it a lot. So we just thought we'd make an episode about it.

One of the things that in order to attempt our style of the way that we live our life, it requires what I call a sturdy foundation, right? So what I mean by that is that you and I, we do a lot of work, right? Like we do a lot of work.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: We work a lot and I like to call that work lifting weights, you know, we push a lot of weight and I always tell people it is much easier to push heavy weight when you're on sturdy foundation, when you're on solid ground, and the way that I think about it is that our solid foundation, our sturdy foundation, our solid ground, that's our relationship. And our relationship if that's sturdy, then we can push a lot of weight.

Hannah: Yeah, now I can. Yeah.

Ryan: And, but, you know, if our relationship wasn't sturdy and we were on, you know, not solid ground we're on quicksand or something.

Hannah: Yeah. We've been there.

Ryan: If we, if we were on quicksand or something, then, you know, we allot more difficult to work this hard, to push this much weight, because you have to constantly try to fix your foundation while you're also trying to lift the weight or one person's trying to fix —trying to fix your relationship and the other person just trying to do work. So this all comes with the caveat that what we do requires a lot of trust. It requires open communication and open communication about anything, about the way that we feel or the way that we're handling things.

Anything. It's very difficult to be in a relationship and also be married or be in a long-term relationship. It's very difficult to run a business and also be in a relationship together.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: The lines between, we're talking about business, we're talking about our relationship. Get blurred very often.

Hannah: Or we get in a disagreement about the business that spills over into the relationship and vice versa.

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. Like you never listened to me. Let me go here like, what does that mean? You know what I mean?

Hannah: Well, when at work. I told you, blah, blah, blah.

Ryan: Yeah, but if it's like, if it's about the business, then it's about the business.

If it's about our relationship, it's about a relationship.

Do you guys have to figure out how to make that work between, between your, between your relationship?

Hannah: They don't necessarily have to be separate either. I think a lot of people say, oh, you got to separate those two things,but sometimes business, your business interactions and your marriage interactions but like, sometime you can't always do that.

Ryan: I would say for the most part though—

Hannah: It's not bad to strive for.

Ryan: Yeah. I would say for the most part, we're pretty good at it though.

Hannah: I think now. Yeah.

Ryan: I will say like, you know,you and I can speak about ,we're human, we make mistakes. And when I make a mistake, you can bring it up to me and I'm not going to get

Hannah: Yeah, business partner, business partner you takes criticism different because business partner means giving business partner you criticism, not business partner me is giving husband you criticism.

Ryan: You mess up? I'm going to get—I'm going to tell you, Hey, that's not acceptable.

Hannah: And you do a good job with that, too. You do a good job with that.

Ryan: And it's going to happen. People are going to—you're going to mess up even more because you guys are doing even more things together, right? You're not only trying to, you're not only trying to keep your marriage together, you're not only trying to raise your kids. You're not, you're not only trying to deal with family, you're also trying to build a business and build wealth, or have somebody work on working on their career, moving into a higher paying job, something like that.

Hannah: Also, frankly, a lot of, well, you know, one of the biggest things that couples fight about everybody knows is money.

When you layer another level of financial decisions on top of a marriage, which already has a lot of financial decisions in it, any miscommunication or different value sets that you folks have about finances are going to be magnified because now you're making twice as many—similar to what you said.

Ryan: Yeah, and I think so the way that this works for us is also that, there are two sets of roles to be played. One, first one is what works for us is that we have a leader.

Hannah: Somebody calls the shots.

Ryan: Somebody calls the shots and this will not work for everybody.

It was funny, we told this one couple, one time—so in this relationship.

Hannah: It's Ryan.

Ryan: Yeah, in this relationship, it's me.

I tried. I wasn't very

Hannah: good at it.

Ryan: Yeah. So there was a point where Hannah was the boss and, Yeah, it didn't work out well.

Hannah: We do not hold the view that it has to be gender specific just in our relationship. I do say that. I do say that because a lot of people, I think when we explain this, their knee-jerk reaction to our explanation is because you're male. And I'm like—

Ryan: it's literally always like, no, no, no, no. It's because we tried, because we it's, because we tried it. Because we tried and it was not good. The outcome was not good.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: So now, I'm the boss. Yeah. I make the decisions. Yes.

Hannah: And he makes the decisions so the caveat to here, I think this is important because I can just hear all of the feminists going uhhh.

Ryan: Which, which is what everybody does.

Hannah: Every time, and when I try to explain to them it's like—one it does not. So this is just, it just cracks me this whole thing is really funny. So one, in order for somebody to be the boss, there has to be somebody that's willingly there to listen to what they're saying. That is completely voluntary because that's how it works because we live in a free country and I can choose to be here or not be here, and secondly, It is it doesn't matter who is the boss. What does matter is that there is one person and I'm comfortable saying this, like saying this absolute, if there's two of you and you both have different goals, it's going to be very difficult for you folks to get on the same page.

If there's one person who has the ultimate say there is way more peace. Why? Because every decision that you make, if both people have equal say in the decision, or there's not one final say rather, you're always going to be contending with each other for the answer. Whereas now we make decisions much faster and we do stick to them and it's not like it's easy, it's hard.

It's still hard, but it's much easier than when we're both contending for things.

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely and then not only that, but like, and it's not like I'm some malicious dictator that doesn't take your opinion into account. Like it's my responsibility as we have different roles to play. Right? So you, if there's a big decision to be made, I mean, okay so like my under decisions, whatever, right? I mean, you're still a person you can do whatever you want, right?

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: But we're just talking about big decisions, whatever big , whether it's in your company, and whether or not it's in your household and if it is within your household and your company, those can be two different people, too. You can be like, you know, you can make the decisions for our company and I'll make the decisions for our household or vice versa. There's no, there's a one size fits all here.

Hannah: Right.

Ryan: But I think the effectiveness of having a leader, and then also having a follower is, vastly understated because and like I said, it's, it's what you said of making sure that we both have the end goal in mind, whatever that end goal is, and I was to talk about it later but-

Hannah: And this isn't something that's declared. It's something that we arrived at through how many hours of—how many hundreds of hours of discussion do you think?

Ryan: A lot.

Hannah: So many.

Ryan: And we still, and we constantly discuss it.

Hannah: It's everchanging.

Ryan: We constantly discuss it to this day. Literally, literally last week we were just talking about like, we were just talking about switching the roles. I said, okay, well, we're having a disagreement, we're having a disagreement about something, and then I said, I was just like, I don't care who's the boss. You know what I mean? Like the reason why I don't care is because I know that you have the same goal as me in mind.

Hannah: We're we're going to get to the goal.

Ryan: We're heading to the same direction. You and I just disagree on how to get there, right?

Hannah: Right.

Ryan: And so, as long as I have full trust in you, as long as I have full trust in you to get me there.

Hannah: To go to the goal.

Ryan: To go to the goal, I don't care how we get there. Not really, but as long as I'm the boss, like I think that we should do this, and you think that we should do this at the end of the day and we both, and I forget what it was about, but, and it doesn't really matter.

Hannah: But you said, okay, well, we're, you know, we're, we're having a longer than average, usually our disagreements get resolved fairly fast because of, because we've set up rules, right?

Those are rules. But in this one, in this case, we were disagreeing and he just said, well, you know, do you want to lead? I was just like, no, no, it's not that. You know, and at that point, that is, it is okay. All right. According to the rules of engagement that we have already determined since I don't want to be the boss and he said, this is what we're going to do,. Right, that's what we're going to do.

Ryan: Exactly.

Hannah: And I will say like, what could have been what probably for a lot of people is a blowout you know what I mean? It wasn't, it was not fun, but it wasn't blowout. It was what was it? Like 30 minutes of discussion, and then it's done. It's done. And then we're fine.

Ryan: Yeah. It's not an ultimatum, you know what I mean? I wasn't using it as a scare tactic with you. I was honestly, I was always honest, really. Like, I see why you want to turn left. I want to turn right. We're both heading in that direction.

I mean, I don't care how we get there. Would you like to, would you like to turn left? If you'd like to turn left, then you've got it. Then we've got to switch places. You have to jump in the driver's seat and I'll drop in the passenger seat and I'm okay with that. But anyway.

Hannah: It really works for us.

Ryan: Yeah. And so it's the leader's job to make sure that between you and your partner that you are on the same page and that you guys have the same goals, because without the same goals, you guys, this leader, I dunno what else to say, but follower thing is not going to work.

Hannah: You also forego some of the momentum that you can get when there's two of you working towards the same goal.

Ryan: Also with that, as well, You as a leader, you're, it's not like you're just doing whatever the hell you want. You know what I mean? Like it's my job to garner feedback from you, garner your opinions and then make a decision from there.

That's my job, my job is to make decisions.

Hannah: I would say a lot of times to you, after you hear what I have to say, you decide based on that.

Ryan: I would say almost always, I would say almost always.

Hannah: Yeah. You think it's 80/20?

Ryan: Maybe.

Hannah: That make sense?

Ryan: There are very few times where I'm just like, no, that doesn't make, that does not make sense.

Hannah: Well, a lot of it is because we've been working to in a team for—we've been practicing this for such a long time now. That you already usually have considered how I will react to something, you know? And not that not that people can read minds, right? But, but when you've been—in similar to a team, that's playing a sport, right?

Have you been practicing together long enough? You know, what the other person's going to do when a certain scenario like comes, comes to play, right? Comes to pass.

Ryan: So, the last thing that I wanted to say about this, which is interesting is that we've told this to a bunch of different couples before, and in order for us to work, you and me, this is absolutely foundational.

There needs to be a leader and there needs to be follower. I don't care who it is. It could be you, it could be me. I don't care.

Hannah: And it can change.

Ryan: Yeah, can change. Exactly. But it has to work. Other people might be different, but it was funny because everybody's like asking us how, how we do it and stuff like that, and we tell them that, and they're like, they look, they look at each other and like, oh, we can't do that.

Hannah: What's funny is usually if they're asking that question, it's because what they're doing right now is not currently working.

Ryan: Right. Exactly.

Hannah: So when we say one of you needs to be in charge, and they don't like it. I will say oftentimes too. I'm about to say another thing that the feminists aren't going to like a lot of times, a lot of times you usually that reaction comes from people where even though they say that there's not a shot caller. It's usually the woman.

Ryan: Yeah, that's true.

Hannah: I do see that, like you said that when they say, oh, that wouldn't work for us, it's usually because it's a male and female and the female is the one who actually calls the shots. They didn't agree on it.

Ryan: They didn't agree on it. And then now you have to, and then now you have to define those roles, right?

Hannah: And nobody wants to do that.

Ryan: Nobody wants to do that.

Hannah: They're going to have a fight, right?

Ryan: Exactly.

Hannah: Multiple fights probably. Yeah.

Ryan: Yeah.

In order to do this, it takes a lot of communication, and a lot of trust you have to trust. It's just like, literally just like driving a car. When I get into the car with anybody, I am trusting that you are going to get me from point A to point B safely, right? But we don't think about it when we're driving the car, right?

When we're riding in a car and stuff like that. But that's what you're doing. You have absolute trust and faith in the person driving, and that's exactly what we're asking for. Okay. So that's the first set of roles. The second set of roles is going to be, there needs to be a what we call—I've just called these, there needs to be a rock and there needs to be a moonshot and pretty much, it sounds exactly what they are.

The rock is somebody that's going to—

Hannah: The rock is Dwayne, Dwayne Johnson.

Ryan: Dwayne Johnson. Yeah. So the rock is going to be and this is what we do. The rock is going to be the person that is—holds down the fort. They hold on the fort in every sense possible or at least in job possible and financially.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: So, and then the moonshot they do exactly what that sounds like, and they shoot for the moon.

Hannah: Yeah. As high as you can.

I'll explain those roles a little bit more in depth in a second, but I did want to touch on one last time in order for this to work, you guys need, like, we need to be on the same page.

It took years for us to get there, by the way. I think that it's important to say that it takes a long time to build that and a lot of mistakes and a lot of miscommunication to get to the point there. I don't think there's hardly any people that just get to that with no rocky ground. It takes rocky ground to get to that.

Yeah, and you have to say like I'd like to think trial and error like I said, we've, we've literally tried it where you were the leader, right. And we did it for a good amount of time, and there was, I would think after that you weren't the leader.

There was a couple of time that I wasn't.

Ryan: Yeah, and I think that there was some time that nobody was leader cause we hadn't, we hadn't, we hadn't worked this out yet. We haven't worked this philosophy out yet.

Hannah: And I think about those times and they were tumultuous.

Ryan: Yeah. They're difficult. And so, like I said, what I was going to say is that you need to be on the same page of your goals. The goals are extremely important.

Hannah: Don't do this if you don't have the same goals.

Ryan: It can be, it could be, be as simple as a certain number that you have that the household wants to make, right? I want to, I want to make, I want this household to make $250,000 a year. It can be literally as simple as that, it can be it can be as complicated as like, I, you know, I want to pay for, you know, a house for every single one of the kids when they turn 18, right? And then it's like, okay, well that's pretty, well, that sounds super complicated. Like how do we get there? You know. And then, so it's like a multi-step process of how to get there, right? It can be simple. It can be, it can be easy, but do you guys just have to have the same goals. The rock, the moonshot, the leader, the follower gotta be on the same page. So kind of getting deeper into the roles that we're talking about, the rock it is exactly as it sounds, the rock is going to be in charge of benefits.

Hannah: Healthcare, mostly. That's the biggest concern for a lot of couples, especially if you're considering having a family, that is a huge thing that anchors people to jobs that they want to try. Out-of-the-box things.

Ryan: Yep, healthcare, benefits.

Hannah: Basic income.

Ryan: Yep.

Hannah: Which means your bills are covered.

Ryan: One of the things that's kind of interesting and I wasn't, it wasn't until I started to speak to other couples about this type of stuff. It's interesting to find out how many couples have never talked about this type of stuff. They have never spoken to each other about like–

Hannah: They talk about money.

Ryan: Money, or even like something as simple as benefits, like health benefits, like currently right now our health benefits in majority of places is tied to your employment, which I think is totally erroneous, but that's not,

Hannah: Yeah, but it's the way that it is.

Ryan: It is what it is. And so, I think like, oh yeah. Like my wife is on, my wife is on her own. I'm on my own. Like, did you guys price that out? Like, and the kids are under my wife. Like, did you guys price that out? Oh no. You know, but I just like to have my own insurance or something like that. And like, I don't know if people believe me or not right now, but I was honestly shocked.

When like a lot of people have never, I mean it's not a problem that they're separate, because if–

It's so much of a headache.

It's not a problem that they're separate, because if an employer pays for it fully, you know what I mean? So if my employer pays for my medical, And then you pay for yours and whatever, you know what I mean?

But like the fact that these conversations have never been had.

Hannah: Right. I think it's just because it's complicated. And they, like, when one of them onboards at that time, they onboard the kids and then later they, the other person gets a job and they're like, oh yeah, and again, it's boring and annoying to change health care plans.

So it makes sense.

Ryan: And then, so. Depends on the health care plan, generally speaking, it is cheaper to have everybody under one policy.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: A family plan.

Hannah: Definitely simpler.

Ryan: If they have, if they have it, it's definitely simpler.

Hannah: We tried to chase down medical, insurance payments, and things like that, two different companies. It's such a pain in the butt.

Ryan: So the rock is in charge of all that. Basics of putting a roof over your head.

Hannah: Food in the fridge.

Ryan: Food in the fridge, all of that stuff. You secure the base level of income just to cover the bills. So ideally you'd like to be able to in a perfect world, you'd like to be able to live off of the Rock's income.

Hannah: I would love to live with The Rock's income. That would be so much income. That would be fantastic.

The Rock, if you're listening.

We'd like to live off your income.

Ryan: We'd love if you're looking to adopt. But yeah.

Hannah: That was funny.

Ryan: Yeah. But yeah. But if you could live off of one person's income and that's not doable for every situation we understand, but if you can cut expenses to the point where you can live off of one person's income, and even possibly save a little bit, that is huge.

Hannah: If you can cover your basic bills, you're saving and investing through one person, that's unreal.

Ryan: And if that person knows that they're going to be— that's their job. Their job is to work hard.

Hannah: And keep their job.

Ryan: Day in, day out, keep their job or keep whatever it is they're doing right? Keep their employment whether or not work or whatever, if it's entrepreneurship, right? Whatever it is. But you have a steady flow of income that is rather predictable and you can depend on it, and that's your job. Your job is to work hard every day in and out. Day in day out.

Hannah: Be stable.

Be stable. Be the rock.

Ryan: And be willing to do that.

It's hard work. It's tough. It's difficult, but if possible, and if you can get the income, if you can get your expenses down to where you're living off of that person's income, you're off to the races.

Hannah: You have eliminated the pressure from the other person to try.

Ryan: Exactly. You've completely eliminated the pressure of the moonshot.

And so now the moonshot—

Hannah: Fly high little moonshot.

Ryan: Yup. The moonshot literally does as that role of sounds like you shoot for the moon. Whether or not that's starting a business, whether or not that's trying to move up higher in your current field.

Hannah: Or get a raise.

Ryan: Or get a raise. It is your job to negotiate hard. If you're going into, if you're going into a job.

Hannah: Learn what you need to learn.

Ryan: Yeah, exactly. Yep.

Hannah: Find opportunities.

Put in longer hours. Yep.

Ryan: It sounds like one is easier than the other.

Hannah: One may be easier for one person than the other.

Ryan: Might be easier for one person.

Hannah: I will say for us, Ryan is the, it has been historically has been the rock more than I have, the entire—pretty much the entire time. It's I'm not well suited to it. Not that people can't grow and not that they shouldn't. But usually, I would say one person's more well suited to one or the other roles at the beginning. I think you can grow into the other ones.

Ryan: I think so too because.

Hannah: Because I think at this point now, I think it's almost flipped. Because I think that now I've, I've had enough practice that I could hold down. I can hold down a steady foundation job. But I wasn't like that for a long time, and, and it's usually one person has more, what's the word? Audacity, maybe I'm not sure. More, more, I don't know what the word is really, but we usually, one person is more, more able to be steady and the other person's more able to be just—

Ryan: Go get it.

Hannah: Out of the box. Yeah.

Ryan: And then, so, going in with that in mind, like, or with, if you have your rock at home holding on the fort if you're just talking about growing your wealth if you're just talking about growing your income. Now, a lot more doors open up to you. A lot more doors open up to you. You no longer have to worry about if you're looking for jobs, you don't have to worry about just finding a W2 job.

You can find a contracting job.

Hannah: Which means that you have more leverage because you can make more money.

Ryan: You can make more money.

Hannah: And the thing is you can make more money because the other person has covered your healthcare and your essential benefits. You don't need them. You can make cash.

Ryan: Exactly. And as you can see, this whole thing requires a lot of trusts. Right, because you have to–

Hannah: You have to trust the other person not going to quit on you or fail.

Ryan: Or fail. I mean, but if it fails, it fails, then it's fine.

Hannah: I mean more fails and stop trying without telling you.

Ryan: Yes, I agree with that.

Hannah: Not fails and they shot and they missed their shot and they're like winding up to shoot again.

Ryan: When the rock is having a hard time then it is what it is, but you know what I mean, then it's fine, right? I mean, that's just their, that's their roles, but I mean, everybody we're human, right? And so we make mistakes. It happens. But yeah, I think I agree with what your assessment of failing is, it's just stopping when the other person is just keep going, which is no good.

That's, that's really crappy on that, and that's very difficult to do because the rock is very hard job. The moonshot is also a fairly hard job. This is all to say once you get something up and running. So if it's a business, if the moonshot is doing well at creating a business, creating income, if they're good at creating a higher income for themselves through a job or through a contracting work, and they have the necessary skills, you know, Hannah and I do something called leapfrogging as the way that we think about it. Whereas, you know, if Hannah is the moonshot and she shoots for the moon and she arrives on the moon, right? And she's there.

Hannah: One giant step for mankind.

Ryan: Yeah, and now, it's Hannah's turn. You can be the rock now, right? If you have the skills and ability, and maybe, maybe you're in a contracting role, right? And so, or you're running a business, and so maybe the benefits are not going to be there. Maybe it requires you transitioning out into a W2 job that pays, you know, well, whatever.

Hannah: And ahead of what you were doing before.

Ryan: Right? Exactly.

Hannah: Yeah. You're still, you're still ahead of where you were before, right?

Ryan: Or it requires the rock to just still keep the benefits, but just find a better paying job, right? And now it's the rock's turn to become the moonshot, and now that person tries to shoot for the next planet.

Hannah: As high as they can.

Ryan: Well, not that just planet, but the next object in the sky. And so, and then you just keep doing that. If that, if they arrive on Mars, And then you leap frog the other person. It requires a lot of work. It requires a lot of trust. But I think that with open communication and with shared goals, I think anybody can anybody can do this.

Hannah: I agree. I think too when you're talking about the goals earlier, I think for a lot of people for a lot of people they don't have to look so even so crazy for a lot of people. It's just like, I want to have a combined household income of six figures. Like I want to live in a certain place.

Like I want to have a, I want to have, like, I want to have a house or I want to like, I want to own an apartment and then a rental unit apartment, you know what I mean, small things. I want to be able to afford to send our kids to like tutoring or cute. Come on. You know, like I want to, I want to have tutors for our kids to get better at math.

Ryan: Or go on two vacations a year.

Hannah: Right? Like they're super achievable. But the thing is, as long as you both have the same— have the shared vision, you guys can make whatever that goal is happen. If you are working together and fulfilling the roles that the other person needs to help you guys achieve that goal.

Ryan: Yeah. All right, guys, I think that pretty much wraps it up for today.

I mean, this is something that Hannah and I go through every day, right? It's something that we think a lot about, and we know that it's not the only way to get this done. You know, there are a lot of very successful marriages, very successful partners, very successful couples that handle this completely differently, completely differently.

There's no right or wrong way to do it, but I do think core foundation of all of it is going to be trust and communication, right? I think it's really important to have that sturdy foundation in order to push all that weight, right?

Hannah: Really helps.

Ryan: Really helps. What helps us is also having a leader and a follower.

Hannah: So that there's peace in your home.

Ryan: Right? It doesn't necessarily have to be the same leader and follower for the business, but having a leader for the household, follower leader for the business, follower, whatever, and yes, you can be 50/50 partners too. It doesn't matter. But somebody has to make the decisions, but in order to make the decisions, making sure that that person is going in the right direction, you guys have to have combined goals. You got to sit down, write it down. Look, this is what I want in life. Like, I want to be able to go on vacation with the kids twice a year. I want to go to Disneyland. I want to be season ticket holders.

Hannah: I want to work 30 hours a week instead of 50.

Ryan: Yeah, exactly.

Hannah: It can be time too it doesn't always have to be money. Sometimes you need money to buy back time.

Ryan: Yeah. And that the leader can make those decisions with the follower’s input and then knowing the roles between the rock and the moonshots. Those roles are, can be fluid. So can leaders and followers at different points of your life.

Hannah: It's all keeping, that's where the open communication comes back in so that each party knows that at any point you can have a discussion and come out with a different resolution.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. And, I think this is a, just a quick episode about, about, about our life and about how we've tried to make it happen. Not saying that this is the right way. Not saying it is the only way, but it's what we do. It's one way it's one way. Yeah.

Hannah: And who doesn't want to be The Rock?

Ryan: Yeah. Who doesn't want to be The Rock??

Hannah: All right. With that, please like subscribe and do run to the reviews, don't walk and write us a review. If you're interested in learning a little bit more about this, then please check out our website where we have more episodes of degree free on there with the videos, and you can also grab our guide, which is how to get a job without a college degree that is on the website in PDF form for you to grab.

Ryan: Yep.

All right guys. That's all for today. We'll see you next time. Aloha!

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