Ep 115: Teamwork

Welcome to Revitalize Your Relationship

You are listening to episode 115: Teamwork.

Hello there lovers. My name is Erin Aquin. Today we're talking about teamwork, because teamwork makes the dream work.

I know that's super cheesy but that really is the motto for my relationship, and it is something that I talk about with my clients constantly. 

So what I want to do on this episode is teach you some concepts and some tangible things that you can do to help you develop a stronger team dynamic with your partner. 

And I mean you could apply this to anyone in your life really. You could apply this to your co-workers but I'm going to talk about this specifically in partnership.

You will just need to modify some of these tools to use. These are things that I have worked with my clients on for years because really, at the end of the day, if you think about it, you did not get together with this other human to keep score against each other; to point out all of their mistakes; to micromanage them; or to be micromanaged.

Why do any of us get into relationships?

Because we find something lovely about that other person. Because we want to build a life and have an adventure with that other person.

So just to start out, this can be some work creating a team dynamic, especially if that has been absent in your relationship for some time. 

I'm not going to lie to you, it can be a challenge. This is why my coaching practice exists, because I like to help people learn how to do that. 

And here's the other thing: it's also not as difficult as most people think it will be. If at the end of the day you are trying to create a relationship so that you can get to a place where you truly enjoy that other person and their company and you're building a life and then having an adventure together, that's also a hell of a lot of fun.

So this is going to take some work but I think it's so worthy. I think more people deserve to give themselves this type of experience. And I will tell you, when you have a relationship that feels like an elite team—I feel like I do have this. 

My husband and I are on the same team, truly, even when we don't agree, we are on the same team.

Ultimately that is the most important thing. It makes so much possible. 

If you are spending all of your time right now fighting with your partner, feeling left out, feeling cold, checking on them, micromanaging them, being micromanaged, all those things i was talking about at the beginning, if that is what you are spending your time in your relationship doing, you are wasting time. 

You are wasting your energy. You are not contributing something of value and meaning and purpose to the world in the ways that you could be.

It's so hard I think to do big bold amazing work in the world when we are feeling disgruntled at home.

So my sneaky mission is to help more people experience the amazing thriving relationships that every single one of us deserve and could have so that we're available to live a life of purpose and meaning and do incredible things in this world.

If you haven't noticed lately, the world needs more of us to be engaged, to have energy to do the things that support one another, to bring humanity forward, to bring our environment forward.

There is so much need right now for more awake, passionate people and if you are stuck at home fighting with your partner all day, you are less available for that.

So if you're serious about putting more of yourself and more of your insights and your experience out into the world, let's clean up this relationship stuff so that you can actually go out and do that. Okay? Deal.

You can find out about how to work with me at the end of the episode or in the show notes if you want that one-on-one support.

Let's talk teamwork.

So I'm going to share a little bit of a kind of a personal update because this will really illustrate a lot of the concepts and points that I'm going to teach you today.

My husband and I have, over the last few years in our relationship, been operating sort of like this.

He has been working full-time at an amazing company. I have been sort of working with my clients and building my coaching practice in the pockets of our life.

So when my children would have part-time daycare or my oldest started school, I was really building up a lot of momentum in my business. I was seeing clients—I'm almost totally sold out for one-on-one and couples coaching yet again—and when covid happened we had been on a beautiful vacation.

We came home and pretty much immediately everything went into lockdown we started to what feels like juggle our kids.

I would spend one hour coaching and then the next hour playing with them or doing some kind of school work or something like that. He would be hopping in and out of meetings, hanging out with them, having an eye on them. Again, he worked for an amazing company that was very understanding very family oriented, so he had a ton of support but one of the things that we did not see eye to eye on was the amount of tv our very young children were watching.

He felt like them sitting in front of TV for a few hours a day was not the way he wanted to raise our kids. I agreed but I didn't really see another way, because I'm coaching clients, I'm talking to them about their very sensitive things, there's a lot of privacy. I wasn't going to do that with a two-year-old on my lap.

I don't think that's the most professional thing in the world. So especially while we're in the strict restrictions of of the COVID-19 situation for us, it was not an option for me to be with them as much as I had been. 

It was not an option for me to cut my clients. I moved some into evenings and things like that, but truly we were just juggling and we didn't love the situation but didn't really see a way forward.

Now this definitely could have become endless arguments if we had been two other people. If we did not focus so much on a team dynamic this could have been a huge issue between us.

There were times when it felt like it almost was, but essentially what we started to do was really think about what our personal and our priorities as a family really are, and after some time thinking about that, considering that, it became really clear that one of us needed to just take a break from work in order to give our kids the kind of attention, education, and love that we wanted to give them.

We needed one of us to not be working full-time. And let me tell you it wasn't going to be

Me. I have spent the last couple of years really building up my business and actually kind of the back story here is when Steve and I got married, I moved to Boston to be with him.

I gave up my acupuncture business, my yoga business, the things I had spent over a decade creating to move with him. So his career had taken a feature role in our lives and it's totally fine; I don't have any resentment about that. 

But this time it was not my ideal and he agreed actually. This was his suggestion. He suggested that he would take three months leave off, then we would reassess the situation after that.

So as of just this week he is now on a three-month parental leave, he is the lead parent, he is doing all of the daytime child care, while I come and record content for you, and work with my clients all day.

So we did not just get there overnight. This was not something that just randomly happened, this was something we had a lot of conversations about.

But because we were doing that from a place of being a team it felt very much in sync. It felt very much in line with our family's priorities. And what I want to give you are some of those core tools today, and ironically I think the first piece of our situation came from me not asking him to support me. 

Here's what I mean by that: when I shifted my career and I went to coach training and started a coaching business I was my main cheerleader. I was the person that believed in myself. I was the person that was going to make this work even if I was still teaching yoga. We had very young children. I was the one that was taking ownership of my dream and I talk about this with you all a lot.

But I recognize that I did not need him to change his whole life or have him act out in a way that would show me that he supported me.

I was committed to my dream. I decided it would happen, and the world followed.

So the reason we are able—Steve and I have talked about this before—the reason we are able to operate like a team is because we are both fully owning our own strengths and weaknesses, what we want to do, our passions.

A lot of times people get confused because they think that being on a team with someone, creating a team dynamic means that you both have to be equally invested in everything that the other person wants to do. And if you aren't showing support at all times then you're not a good team player. 

But that's actually not true. If you think about an incredible athletic team, the reason that they're so good is because everybody knows their job. You don't have everybody trying to do everything.

So for instance when I decided to become a coach, there's no way Steve would have known how much success I would have seen in my first couple of years.

One day I came to him with this idea that I would like to do coach training. It was a lot of money for us at the time and the only thing I was really checking in with him about was is that money we can make available immediately; will you be at home with the kids while I travel and do my training (it was in Texas at the time); can we get child care or can you take the time off? 

So of course there were some logistical things that I needed from him or needed to figure out if he wasn't prepared to support me on that, but otherwise it was a decision I made for myself.

So basically I less asked him for his support and more just informed him about what I wanted to do, and asked how involved he would like to be.

Which is such an empowered place to be, by the way. If you tend to feel like you're always trying to cajole your partner into your stuff, make a plan for how you can do it independent of them and then invite them to join you in the plan if they want to. If they'd like to be involved you can offer them some ways. 

But it really started with, for this dream, I was completely supporting myself. And instead of asking him I invited him. He of course loved the idea, so it was not that there were no issues. We figured all of the stuff out, but even so he will be the first to tell you that he had no idea that this would turn into an actual business.

He didn't know me well enough, I don't think, yet to know that when I have my mind set on something I do it.

Okay and as a side note here, for those of you who have big ideas but you feel like your partner maybe wouldn't be on board for them or has expressed doubt, all of that, I will say that one of my superpowers is resilience. And that does not come from people ushering you along and telling you, “Oh you're so good at this. You can totally do it.”

No, it comes from people not believing in you. It comes from failure. It comes from having to be the one that has your own back, over and over and over again, long before you have the result that you hope that you can create. 

The first concept is: in order to be part of an elite team you have to be doing your work. Don't expect more from your partner. Don't expect more belief or more support from your partner, if you haven't already done that work for you. 

I think expectations are a relationship killer for so many reasons; we're not going to get into that today, but truly you have to do your work. You have to become the elite athlete in order to be on the elite team.

And that starts long before you ever bring your partner into it.

The second piece is when you're becoming a team, when you're asking someone to team up with you in life, you also have to let them do their job.

I mentioned micromanaging a few times and this is something that I am being very careful about right now. I’ve been the lead parent in my relationship for years I mean, I was home with my daughter for a year and a half with just working part-time.

I was home with my son for about the same amount of time, coaching on the side. I know their habits, I know their routines.

I think of all the little things for my kids and some of those things may not occur to my husband simply because he has not spent eight hours a day with them five days a week for a very long time.

But now he is stepping into a role where that is going to be his life and there's going to be a learning curve. If he doesn't feed my son before noon lord help him like he's going to get a cranky two and a half year old screaming and fussing and there's going to be some feedback that he's going to get.

Now as his teammate I can let him know that. I can say, “Hey lunch is best served for our son by 11:30. It's when he's used to eating. He'll be in a much better mood. You'll get him down for a nap.”

But I cannot step out of a session with a client, run downstairs and say, “It's 11:30. Why haven't you fed him? Why is this not happening?” 

I can't go micromanage him. I can offer the information to try to help him out, but if he doesn't do it and he gets a cranky two-year-old, that's how he's going to figure it out.

That's how he's going to learn. He's going to deal with it. He's a grown man, I think he'll be okay.

But I see so many people in relationships try to micromanage their partner. They

ask for support, they ask them to do something, some small job or some task but then they judge how that task is being done. They set a standard that the other person hasn't agreed to. 

This is something that you have to be aware of, because you are either asking your partner to take over a role, take over a job, or you're asking them to do a list of specific things. And your partner is an adult. They might do it the way you want them to, but I think it does create a lot of disruption and really can hack a team dynamic to pieces if you are always looking for the ways that they are doing something wrong.

If you've been on the other side of this you understand. You say, “Sure fine I'll clean the bathroom.” And then your partner comes in and says, “Oh did you clean it with that solution? Oh no that's not for the bathroom.”

They don't give you the information but then they judge you about it after.

So be really careful with that, if you want to be specific and help them out, do that. Avoid micromanaging, that's all I will say.

And then the final piece that I think is so important to creating an amazing team dynamic is that you and your partner get very clear on what your relationship priorities are. 

It's crazy that we don't do this. If we thought about our relationships like a business, can you imagine any successful business running without a really clear understanding of why they exist, what their purpose is, what they are here to do, and what they use to measure success?

No. No business runs like that. No successful business runs without knowing those things inside and out. But in relationships I think a lot of times people feel like they just kind of fell in with this person.

They had a couple good dates and then they just kind of never left each other, and they get to a place where they don't really know what the point of the relationship is, why it exists and what their priorities are as a couple.

Now my husband and I did this work. We went through and we thought like if our relationship was high performing team or a very successful business.

What is the point of us being together? What is our magic that we can create as a couple, as a team, that we could not do without the other person?

And I would ask your partner these questions. I would actually sit down and think about this first question: what is our magic as a couple? What is the thing that we—when we get together and we're both really in line—what is it that we love that we create together?

The next question: what is the purpose of our relationship?

Are we here to raise amazing children together? Are we here to have companionship

and travel the world together? Are we here to enjoy each other's company?

Feel loved together?

What is the real purpose of you and your partner as a couple? As a team?

Then this one's very important: what are our priorities as a couple? What are the things we value together?

So we can use this list of priorities to compare anything that comes in against this list. 

Now this was so pivotal to making the decision that Steve would be with the kids during the day and I would continue to grow my business and finish my book.

For us this looked like we prioritized the most important thing is our time; quality of time, time spent together as a family.

We prioritize our lifestyle. We're not a family that likes a lot of stuff but we do really appreciate traveling when that's possible. We like to have life experiences. We'd much rather spend our money on experiences over things.

Financially, being financially stable is important to us and as we sort of went through the list and we looked at what our priorities are: our children, obviously, their education, their understanding, them being compassionate wonderful people, we put all of these things out in order of importance to us.

And I will tell you that when everybody's on the same page, making decisions is so much easier.

When we found out that school was going to be canceled for the rest of the year, there was going to be no daycare for our son for probably a long time, and I know I want to keep building my business and using our time as a family in ways that feel important, him proposing to take three months off to look after our kids was actually not a very hard decision.

We talked about it and we looked at—you know we make around the same amount of money, so it was financially not a huge issue at least for the time being. But knowing your priorities will make your life so much easier.

So knowing that as a family what that looks like, I highly recommend you take a little bit of time to do that.

And I would do it every couple months, because things do change and sometimes you need to re-think your priorities compared to what is coming at you.

And then the final thing that I think really contributes to the team dynamic of your relationship is that you are constantly cleaning up your own mental mess. 

As humans we didn't get here to this place by sitting idly back and hoping nothing bad would happen. Most of us are hyper vigilant when it comes to sniffing out any time there may be a problem or perceived injustice within our relationship.

I can share my own work from even today, Steve posted this beautiful Facebook post about his time off and why he was taking off the time and he got so much reaction from people, and people were commenting about what an amazing father and husband he is and how wonderful a person he is to like take off time to be with his kids.

And you know it's amazing and yes he is a wonderful husband and person, but of course the gremlins in my brain were like, “Oh it's nice to see that he's being congratulated for doing the job that I have done for years. Nobody threw a parade for me when I was pregnant and having babies and staying home with them three years collectively.”

So it's just really funny. My little gremlin popped up and was like, “Well it's nice that he's getting all of this recognition.”

And this is what I mean, you have to clean up your own mental mess, because if you let that stuff fester it will wreak havoc on the team dynamic of your relationship.

I'll tell you what I did. I did some thought work on it. I noticed it, I really laughed at it. It was something I just kind of picked up on, but I told him I was like, “Oh my little gremlin was like, ‘Well that's great for Steve. No one ever congratulated me.’”

And we had a really good laugh about it. But that cleaned it up, letting him into what my brain was thinking in the moment just cleaned it up for me in about three seconds. It didn't put anything on him. It didn't start me down a cycle of finding all the ways where he was getting special treatment for being a dad who stays home but I was not recognized for being a mother who stayed home.

it takes two seconds to clean that stuff up for the most part.

One of the big tools that I teach my clients is thought work, daily thought work, and a really specific process for how to make sure that you are owning your thoughts and your feelings. And you are not making other people responsible or more powerful than you when it comes to your brain and your life. 

So really creating an amazing team dynamic starts and ends with you. You have to be willing to support yourself on the things you really believe in before you ask anyone else to get on board, you have to be able to do your job on the team very well and not micromanage your teammate, and then as a couple really understand what the purpose and the priorities are for you.

This does not have to look like the rest of the world. You don't have to prioritize things the way society does, but you do need to do it in a way that works for you.

The prize is not working out every single little issue and miscommunication between you, it's creating the kind of life that you both have always dreamed of. 

So remember what that is; keep coming back to that. Stay focused on that purpose and then show up for each other. Show up for you. show up for your family.

Have fun and I will talk to you again next week. Take care.

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If you look forward to this podcast every week I want to help you take the work you're doing on your relationship and your life even further. Head over to www.revitalizeyourrelationship.com/consultation and book yourself a free 30-minute one-on-one consultation with me to learn about how exactly I can apply my skill set to whatever it is you are working on. 

Head over and book yourself a free consultation right now. I will talk to you again next week.