Episode 102 – The Entrepreneur’s Time-Starved Marriage with Les Parrott
We spend a lot of time on this show talking about entrepreneurs. Duh, right? That’s the name of the show. But today, we want to veer off our normal business strategy conversation and talk about life outside of work—primarily, time with our family. Today’s guest is Les Parrott. He works alongside his wife Leslie who shares the same passion for helping others build healthy relationships.
The Parrotts have been featured in USA Today and the New York Times, and they have also appeared on CNN, The Today Show and Oprah. As #1 New York Times best-selling authors, their books have sold over two million copies in more than two dozen languages.
In addition to all of that, Les is a professor of psychology at Northwest University, and together they are founders of the Center for Healthy Relationships. Today we had Les on to talk about one of their new releases—a video project with RightNow Media, called “The Time Starved Marriage.”
It’s a fitting topic for entrepreneurs. Listen to Les shared with us some of their relationship wisdom, talked about the importance of time management, and gave us insight into what makes a great marriage tick. Let’s listen in…
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Episode Transcript
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Henry: [00:03:42] Welcome back to the program. It’s absolutley awesome to have Les Parrott on the podcast with us today. When I look back at Les’s background and the things that he’s been involved in, I don’t know that there’s been more adventurous guy. And what we’re going to be talking about, how to love your spouse and invest in your marriage. And yet, if I don’t go ahead and just jump into some of things that I think are really, really unique about Les, then I’ll deny you of what I think will be some great stories. [00:04:07][25.7]
[00:04:08] Les, in addition to being really, really intentional about working on marriages and teaching about them, has been a part of the immediate response team in Chernobyl. And my family and I just finished watching the Chernobyl series on TV saw all kinds of geeked out about that. He was there in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks. He’s been on the council of Marines returning from Iraq. He does lots of very interesting things in interesting places. And we want to get into your background. We want to hear about your story. But I just. With Chernobyl on top of mind. What in the world was that like? What were you doing there? [00:04:42][33.4]
Les: [00:04:42] Well, I got to tell you, Chernobyl was almost like, yeah, I guess I did do that. You kind of reminded me that was a long time ago of course. I went over there on a mission with World Vision to establish a mental health clinic, particularly for the firefighters. And then also for the children that were left without parents. And it was life changing for sure. You know, you carried a Geiger counter around everywhere you went and brought a jar of peanut butter, which is what I survived on for over a week and even some of our own water. So it was a kind of a wild experience. And like you, I just watched that series on Chernobyl as well. [00:05:24][41.5]
[00:05:24] And it just like brought back this rush of memories that we’re like, man, I’m glad I don’t need to do that again. That was really incredible. But my heart just continues to ache for the people that have suffered through that and especially the kids. I was in a psychiatric hospital for one of my first days there. And of course, I’m a psychologist. And so I walked into this ward and it was all these kids on mattresses, really seeing mattresses on the floor, like side by side. You know, not in the bed, just a room that had 50 kids in it. And, you know, your heart just breaks and kind of treatment. Lack of medication, everything else. It was just like, wow, where do we even begin? So that was an experience that I’ve carried with me for a long time. And like I said, I’m kind of glad you reminded me about it because that was a while ago. But yeah, that was that was a wild one. [00:06:20][55.4]
Henry: [00:06:21] So let’s get into who you are in your background. You obviously have been in some very difficult situations and some of those have been in helping to counsel marriages. We want to be very intentional on this show about encouraging the entrepreneurs in our midst. To do an outstanding job of knowing and loving God. And then annoying and loving their spouses. Super well. And we probably don’t spend enough time talking about it. But you’re an expert on it. And I’d love for you to talk about how you’ve been doing that and how long you’ve been doing it. What’s that look like? How to get started? And then we’ve all got a bunch of questions when we ask you about that. Let’s start at the beginning. Tell us how you got involved in and are committed to helping people work on their marriages. [00:07:02][40.9]
Les: [00:07:03] I’ll do that. But let me begin with what it is, our BHAG. Probably everybody listening to us right now. As an entrepreneur knows what a BHAG is, a big, hairy, audacious goal. And every entrepreneur I’ve ever encountered has one. And ours is to see the divorce rate reduced by a third in our lifetime. And that has been our behavior for a long time. For 25 years ago, we started in this process and I got to say, I’m more optimistic about that than I ever have been before. [00:07:33][30.0]
[00:07:34] We see the divorce rate leveling off right now, primarily because of cohabitation. That’s not the best indicator of our success for sure. But the professional community knows more today about what it takes to build lifelong love. But it never has been before. And so our job really is, as my friend John Maxwell says, put the cookies on the bottom shelf. And that’s really what our ministry is all about, taking the latest and greatest the most proven research when it comes to marriage and relationships and being able to make it accessible so people can use it. So that’s kind of what we do. And when I say we, I’m talking about my wife, Leslie and me together. Leslie is a marriage and family therapist. I’m a psychologist. And we’ve been married for thirty three years. [00:08:22][47.9]
[00:08:22] I think close to that. And yes, we have the same name. So it’s a little confusing, but that’s just the way it is. So I’m Leslie and she’s Leslie. And it’s even more complex because I’m the third. My dad’s name is Leslie. My grandfather’s name is Leslie. And that’s why we named our first son, John. But we have this passion, this shared passion beyond just shared names to really make a dent in the divorce rate and help couples enjoy lifelong love the way God intended. And particularly in the church, because historically the church has done no better than anybody else when it comes to marriage or divorce, rates were just as high and so forth. So that’s kind of what drives us. That’s the mission. [00:09:02][39.0]
[00:09:02] And by the way, I should just mention this also, for every single percentage point that we dropped the divorce rate, the lives of more than a million children are positively impacted. So think about that and think about the ripple effect for generations and think about what would happen even if we reduced the divorce rate. Distant double digits, just 10 percent. What would happen in the life of our churches would be transformed, be one of the greatest social revolutions that we’ve ever seen in the church or beyond. Everything would be impacted from missions to children’s ministries. So that’s a hard driving passion. That’s what gets me and our team out of bed each morning is the big picture on that mission. But you asked how did we get started? So Leslie and I. We have one of those stories. We dated through high school. We dated off to college and we got married in Chicago after college and we moved to Los Angeles to go to graduate school. And I went through a six year graduate degree program in psychology and theology. [00:10:04][62.2]
[00:10:05] So I earned a bachelor’s degree in theology. At the same time, I was getting a degree in psychology. And so to integrate those two, I always felt like even early on as a college student, that theology kind of operates in a vacuum unless it’s applied to human behavior. In fact, you might know at least the name John Ortberg. John and I were classmates at the same place, shared that same vision. And obviously he’s had an incredible preaching ministry. And I remember preaching at his church when we were both young bucks just getting started and trying to figure this whole thing out about how to integrate psychology and theology and meaningful and God honoring way. But that’s really what got us going. Leslie was earning her degree, a doctorate in marriage and family therapy and education. And when we finished that, I was at USC. I was in the cycle hospitals down there, which is really, you know, it’s like the snake pit of psychiatric care in America really is just the worst of the worst. My very first patient came in on a court order at the psych hospital because he was driving on a Hollywood freeway in his convertible standing up, which is not easy to do. Totally naked and shouting at the top of his lungs, make way for the Lord. And so that was my very first patient. And so anyway, that was a really crazy time as well. And when we graduated, that was all, you know, internships and stuff like that. And then we moved up to Seattle, where I took a position of postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington School of Medicine and also began teaching at a Christian university undergrad. And Leslie was also working in the counseling center and teaching as well. And I think it was in January or February. Our first year there, some students and I looked like the same age as the students at that point. You know, just barely out of graduate school and then working in the head injury unit, in the burn unit and during the day and then coming over teaching in the afternoon at Seattle Pacific University at this Christian university. And some of the students said, hey, I need you to come over and speak at a residence hall civilly at the mine. [00:12:44][158.9]
[00:12:44] They said, well, we’d like to really speak on how to fall in love without losing their mind. And I said, I like the title. I thought you guys are thinking about. And I said, how many students would be there? They said if the whole floor shows up, we might have 25 students or so. I said, yeah, OK. What time? 10:00 was 10:00 on a Thursday. And so we go over Leslie and I go to this residence hall and there’s this huge learning coming out the front door. And we’re thinking, man, what’s happening here? This is interesting. I wonder what does. We’re not going to have anybody. They’re all going to this sort of thing, whatever it is. Well, it turns out they’re all lined up for this talk on how to fall in love without losing your mind. That came from other residence halls on campus, hundreds of students. And at that point, we realized, whoa, there is a palpable need for this generation when it comes to information on healthy relationships, on dating and otherwise. And that was a catalytic moment for us. It was really a pivot point, because that’s when we said, all right, well, let’s do something more than a late night talk in a residence hall. And so that spring, we decided to launch an event. We raised a little bit of money and we launched an event that we called Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts. And it was just really a dating couples, anybody that want to come and learn about the practical side of what it takes to build lifelong love. Now, at this point, less than I had been married less than 10 years. And anyway, you know, we did what we could bringing this information together. And again, we had this incredible turnout. And so we did it the next year and doubled in size. And it just kept growing like that. And I think in the third year we said, well, we should probably write a book on this. And so we wrote a book called Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts. Little did we know what that would do to our lives because Oprah Winfrey got a hold of it and had us on her program and Barbara Walters on The View and Tom Brokaw and on down the list. We were on every talk show that you can imagine talking about marriage. And it really heightened this platform. And that’s when we began to formulate this BHAG. that I mentioned. We thought we can really move the needle here and help couples get started on the right foot. [00:14:51][126.2]
[00:14:51] And it came from a place of real passion because we felt like we didn’t have much in the way of marriage preparation ourselves. And Leslie’s dad is a pastor. My dad’s a pastor. And yet we didn’t have any pre-marriage counseling. In fact, the very first sentence of that book says we never had pre-marriage counseling, but we spent the first year of our marriage in therapy. And that’s the truth. So we really struggled that first year. And so it comes from a place of passion and obviously a lot of research that we’ve done on this topic by now. That book has been used by more than 2 million couples at this stage in its third edition, and it’s in 25 different languages around the world. [00:15:29][38.0]
[00:15:30] And now we have a team of tens of thousands of people that are certified and using an assessment that goes with it as well. So anyway, when you say what got it started and it’s probably more information than you wanted, it was great. [00:15:42][12.0]
[00:15:42] That’s how it all began. It was just a couple of students who said, hey, come over here and talk to us. I’ll add onto it real quickly. The other thing that we did about the same time that next fall is start a course on this undergrad campus. And we just called it relationships, one or one. And that course, again, had just an incredible following. It’s not easy to get a course approved on a campus through the deans and the committees and the pro boast and all the rest. And so it was kind of a challenge to just give it up and running. But when we did, they said that we could teach the course if we wanted to, but we do it on our own schedule and without compensation and be pass fail and all these other things. And anyway, we got a classroom late at night, had 12 chairs in it, and we just thought even if we can sign up, six students at least will be on our way. And after the first three or four hours of registration. Had more than 300 students sign up for that class, believe it, and there was a waiting list for 20 years to get into that class. As long as we taught that class, we’re no longer at the university because of some entrepreneurial things that we can talk about here in a minute. But doesn’t it speak to the hunger and thirst? This generation and really all of us have healthy relationships. [00:16:58][75.4]
Henry: [00:16:59] Yeah, I know. It very clearly does. And I think maybe no more so than with our audience. We had a guess on not too long ago that shared some really interesting research that entrepreneurs are two to 10 times more likely to suffer from different mental illnesses and two to three times more likely to experience divorce. So obviously, you’ve got lots of advice. You’ve been thinking about this longtime, but you’re in this unique spot in that not only your marriage counselor with lots and lots of years of doing this, been married yourself, but you’re also an itinerary. And to boot, you’re an entrepreneur with your wife. So you are well acquainted with the stresses of launching something, although maybe not so much with others. I don’t think there are many people listen to this that have that type of initial thought of like maybe I’ll go out and get six customers and you get 300. Right. You’ve had some incredible, extraordinary success in customer acquisition. But nonetheless, you’re well acquainted with the stresses of running this business and what it looks like for your marriage. And you’ve undoubtedly counseled lots of business owners and entrepreneurs. What’s the sense that you have of what they’re struggling with and what would you encourage our listening audience with about how to focus on their marriages? [00:18:11][71.9]
Les: [00:18:12] Well, I love your question. And yeah, I can certainly identify with it. Even as recently as the last few weeks and months of life in a business acquisition that I’ve been through, that was just one of the most stressful thing I’ve done. But let me back up from that and just tell you a quick story. My friend Neil Warren, Neil Clark Warren and his wife Marilyn, living in Los Angeles, beautiful home up over the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, had us over for dinner less than me. And we’d gone out to have some fun and kind of a later dinner that Marilyn made and were sitting around their dining room table and just enjoying each other’s company. And this was more than 20 years ago, you know, said, hey, you know, this new thing called the Internet. And we’re like, yeah, he said, I wonder if we could use that to reduce the divorce rate because we share the same BHAG, you know? And I said, what do you mean? He said, I wondered if we could match people online, like for a better match so that they could have more success in their relationship and say that again. [00:19:16][63.8]
Henry: [00:19:17] I said it’ll never work. [00:19:21][4.0]
Les: [00:19:21] That’s what I said basically that night. I said, you know, I think you’ve lost your marbles. Now, you have to remember that 20 years ago, the Internet was the Wild West. It was nutty. It was just weird stuff going on and not trustworthy in any fashion. Yeah, we had all this knowledge. We had all this research on how people tend to meet and where they tend to meet and so forth. And Neil had written a book called Finding the Love of Your Life. Obviously, we’d written Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts. And anyway, that conversation at night turned into a really late night discussion that turned into several years of work. And we launched eHarmony together, really the first of its kind. And the first thing on the Internet has help couples make a serious match. [00:20:03][41.3]
[00:20:04] And it was an uphill battle. I got to tell you, we in watching a company and trade, lots of our listeners are gone. Okay. What happened next? Well, we will look to the city. Where is the most right? Where is the driest tinder? You know that we can go testis. And it turned out to be Dallas. And so we moved to Dallas for several months and we tried our best to get churches, pastors on board, singles, pastors, you know, have all these singles ministries. And we’d offer them a free lunch and free books. And we just couldn’t even get them to come meet with us. And it was so discouraging. And we just thought, what in the world? And it was suspect because first of all, it was a for profit company. You know, it wasn’t in, quote, a ministry. And secondly, it was on the Internet, which was just the weirdest place of all to find the love of your life. At that time. And so that was really discouraging effect. I remember being in a hotel room, you know, and Merrill at less than ever there, remembering Neal literally putting his hands on his face with his elbows on his knees and weeping because it’s never going to work. And we’ve just been through a big round of funding. We had Sequoyah. It was just like, oh, my goodness, we have failed after all of this. It’s just not happened. And we learned an important lesson. And that is that sometimes the church isn’t ready for something that’s as innovative as you might guess. And so with the resources that we had, we sparked some interest beyond the boundaries of the church. And we set off, too. This was gonna be specifically for churches, for. [00:21:35][91.0]
[00:21:35] And because of our BHAG and I won’t bore you with the rest of the story, but as you probably know, that company went on to have unimaginable success financially and is still alive and well. But that process there was so difficult on our marriage. Here we are trying to help married couples. It was so stressful for us because as every entrepreneur knows you get obsessed. [00:21:59][23.3]
[00:21:59] You get completely obsessed with your dream and your vision of what you want to do with this company that you’re starting. And it becomes like your mistress. Right. And that can’t help but to drive a wedge. So when you give me that information about the divorce rate is higher and so forth. I have no problem believing that it’s not the first time I’ve heard that either. And so you have to really be intentional. And if there’s any message I have to everybody that’s listening to us today, that’s an entrepreneur out there. It’s that word intention. If you want to succeed as an entrepreneur and succeed as a husband or a spouse, you’ve got to be intentional. And that can be a challenge because, you know, back in those days, 20 years ago, we didn’t have cell phones to be distracted by even when we were on a date night, you know. And so even today, it’s all the more important to be intentional. So I guess that’s my first word of wisdom up there. [00:22:53][53.4]
Rusty: [00:22:54] It’s a good word. I love that E-Harmony story. I think any of us who have tried to work in a business that’s creating a category, because really at the time I remember eHarmony, you were creating the category, you know, you wasn’t like you were just creating a service. And, you know, pioneers take arrows. And I think your story is an encouraging one to those that are trying to create a category. And to this day, I mean, for what it’s worth, if you talk to anybody who’s in the dating or matching business, they still talk about the E-Harmony algorithm being best of class, you know. So that legacy is still there. [00:23:31][36.3]
Les: [00:23:31] Well, I appreciate that. And even today, it’s it’s the place to go to find the true love of your life. There’s other things that are free and, you know, bubble and all the rest. Super convenient. But we really make you pay the price, not just with your dollars, but with your time. We go through a pretty extensive profile on who you are, your personality and everything else. It takes a lot of time just to get ready for us to put you onto the site. And so, again, it’s just an anomaly. It’s not like anything else. It’s out there. And I’m sure people are wanting. So did it work? Did it matter? Did you change the divorce rate? It was therapy, sort of e-harmony. And I have some pretty incredible news on that front. And here’s what we know from an independent study that was done at the University of Chicago just a few years ago as a longitudinal study, meaning that it was over the course of several years, seven meters in this case, looking at couples that matched on that site versus, as we say, couples in the wild that match in other ways. And what we found is the divorce rate for those that were matched to our system in comparison to a 50 percent divorce rate, which is kind of the average that people like the quote out there. You can quibble about it, but it’s up there. But instead of a 50 percent divorce rate, it’s 2.3 percent. And just to make sure you’re hearing me quickly, that’s two point three percent divorce rate. So, yeah, our algorithm worked it and we’re pretty proud of it. And a lot of blood, sweat and tears, as you can imagine through the years that like I said, 20 years ago, that was going on. [00:25:05][94.3]
Rusty: [00:25:06] Wow. Wow. Thank you for setting that BHAG. Twenty years ago. Yes, sir. That’s amazing. I want to keep on the vein of the marriage thing, because you have a very interesting phrase that you use when you say a marriage can be slipping into the future. And I immediately thought, you know, Steve Miller band and Fly Like an eagle. Right. Time keeps on slipping into the future. But you say a marriage can slip into the future. What do you mean by that? [00:25:32][25.5]
Les: [00:25:33] Well, you’re referencing our book, your time starved marriage. And in addition to doing entrepreneurial things less than I write and speak around the country together. And this book, as is true with most of our books, came out of our own need. We just felt like men. We cannot seem to capture quality time together. And I mentioned my friend John Maxwell. John and I wrote a book called 25 Ways to Win with People. And one of the things I learned in that project with John. And he’s been a longtime mentor of mine. And he said less. You can’t give leftovers to Leslie. And I said, what are you talking about? He said, if you’re like most guys, you go through your day and all these cool things happen who are meeting and get this great phone call. And this went over you and you share it with everybody in the office or whatever. And by the time you get home, you just kind of depleted and exhausted. And, hey, what’s for dinner and where’s the mail? And she says, how’s your day? Fine. And you just kind of give her the leftovers of your energy. And so when he said that, it was just like a wake up call, and I realized I am I’m giving my best time to other people, not to my spouse, [00:26:39][66.3]
[00:26:42] Leslie, of course, know was like go John, right. She was like, yes, great message there, John. And out of that little kind of word of wisdom came this idea for this book. Your time starved marriage. And it set us on a course to really recover the moments we’ve been missing together, the time that was slipping into the future. And yes, I’m glad you’re of a generation that identifies Steve Miller band with that. I appreciate that reference. But we thought, how do we do this? How do we get practical? And so we went to the bookstore. You know, it’s on a book on managing time marriage. Well, there’s tons of time management books and some classics out there on time management. And you go to the marriage section, you can’t find anything on time. You know, you find stuff on in-laws and sex and conflict and communication and on down the list, nothing on time. And one of the things that we first discovered in our own research is it’s the second biggest complaint that couples have in their marriage, whether they’re entrepreneurial or not. It’s the second biggest complaint. The first is communication. We don’t communicate the way we want to. But second is we don’t have the time that we’d like to with each other. And so that was a compelling reason for us to dig down even deeper into the research and write this book. Your time out of marriage, because we wanted to recover the moments that we’re slipping into the future. And that’s exactly what we did. And for us personally, it may be one of the most important book projects that we’ve ever done because it really changed the way we interact. [00:28:10][88.6]
Rusty: [00:28:13] Are there a few tenants of that book that you would want to share with our listeners? [00:28:17][4.3]
Les: [00:28:19] Well, let me give you one real quick practical thing that everybody can do starting today out there, and then I’ll give you one that goes a little bit more in-depth. But you know what? The single most important minute of your marriage is? You tend to kind of just sideswipe it every day. But this single minute can make or break your evening tonight with your spouse. It’s that single minute that you have, that 60 seconds that you have when you come home at the end of the day and greet each other. [00:28:46][27.1]
[00:28:46] And like I said, if you were like me working hard, you’re coming home late and you’re on the phone probably even as you’re walking in the door, you just kind of come in and where’s the mail? And, hey, you know, give me the report. How are the kids? Any homework tonight that I got to be concerned with? What’s for dinner? [00:29:00][13.7]
[00:29:01] All that kind of stuff is just a jumble of messy communication. Right. And what the research says, if you’ll take 60 seconds to totally focus first thing on your spouse, have a tender touch. Have a hug and a kiss. And meet eye to eye and say, how is your day? Now, everybody listening to us can do that. That’s so easy. And what that research shows is if you do that for 60 seconds, it sets the tone, the tenor for your entire evening together. And you will begin to notice just an attitudinal change in your home because of that little 60 second investment. And so this book is chock full of stuff like that, really practical things that you can do. So that’s the simple one. The other thing that really changed for us in kind of recouping the moments that we’ve been missing together as a couple was to understand our time styles. And this was the result of a lot of research on our side because we haven’t seen this anywhere else. But God made each one of us was a unique way of processing time. And the simple way, just to kind of visualize this for our listeners out there, is to think of a continuum that’s that’s scheduled and unscheduled. And one is not better than the other. Is it just kind of how God made us and the DNA of our personality? And so just think about just self-diagnose how you scheduled or unscheduled. Which of those would you say you are? [00:30:26][85.8]
Rusty: [00:30:27] Oh, I’m definitely scheduled. Henry, William, what are you guys? [00:30:30][2.9]
Henry: [00:30:30] I’m definitely I’m a constant conflict between the two. I want to be on schedule. I want to be on schedule. [00:30:38][7.6]
Les: [00:30:41] So if I ask you, hey, can we have lunch next Thursday? But it has to be at 1:30 for me. Can you make that happen? There’s some place you would go to look at a schedule at a calendar, right. To figure that out. [00:30:52][11.2]
Rusty: [00:30:53] Correct. Totally. It’s in my hand all the time. Yeah. It’s in my hand. I’d look right here on my calendar, on my phone. [00:30:58][4.7]
Les: [00:30:58] So an unscheduled person would kind of look up to the right a little bit with their eyes and go 1:30. Next Thursday. Yeah, that goes good. Let’s do that. Right. They wouldn’t consult anything necessarily. All right. So that’s the difference. So as you’re listening to me self-diagnose schedule or unschedules and then think of are you. This is the second continuum and are you present oriented or future oriented? In other words, do you get energy out of the here and now and what’s happening in this moment? [00:31:28][29.7]
[00:31:29] Or do you get energized by what’s around the corner and what you have planned and what’s coming up? Which one gives you more energy? The president of the future. [00:31:36][7.6]
Henry: [00:31:37] I’m embarrassed to tell you this. The future. I don’t think that’s a way to live, but that’s been my my course. [00:31:42][5.0]
William: [00:31:43] Me too. [00:31:43][0.1]
Rusty: [00:31:44] Yeah, me. I live in the future. Miss the present. [00:31:46][2.4]
Les: [00:31:47] Many times, though, nearly every entrepreneur is OK. And by the way, I don’t know which one of you said. I know it’s not the right way to live. If I was in front of you, I would give you what I call a guilt free drop. Quit saying that to yourself. It’s not the right way to live. That’s how God made you. God hardwired you for the future. That’s a gift that you bring into your marriage and into every other relationship. Is not right or wrong. It’s just how things are. All right. So most of you said I’m scheduled and I’m future oriented. So that puts you into a category that is also my category. No big surprise here. We entrepreneurs, we stick together. Right. And we’re planners. We love a plan. Let’s dream about the future. But let’s get concrete and let’s get scheduled and let’s implement plan that’s going to succeed. Now, if you’re just the opposite of that, you’re married to somebody who is more subjective. They’re unscheduled like my wife Leslie and their pregnant oriented like my wife Leslie. Well, they’re what we call in their time. So an accommodate or not a planner, but an accommodated in other words, they accommodate time. They might have something that they’re supposed to do. But, hey, it’s a really sunny day in Seattle. Let’s forget that and go to the park. It’s a great deal park. Right now, if you’re a planner, you go. No, no. We stick with schedule. Right. And Leslie, I’ll say sometimes we joke about this because she’s drink so much coffee at Starbucks and she’ll go, hey, we’ll get a few minutes. Just go down to Starbucks. And I’ll say we don’t have time to say it’s just five minutes from here. I’ll say, well, if it’s not five minutes, it’s 20 minutes. She said it feels like five minutes. Well, OK, you know what it feels like it’s 20 minute walk down there. And so that’s the difference between a commentator and a planner. If you’re present oriented and still scheduled, know what we call a processor. And a processor is a person that I often liken it to like a help lying or something. The more we used to have those four computers and stuff and they’d call in, hey, I can’t get this thing to happen. OK. And it’s just they’re so invested, they’re so fully present. And then the clock reaches a certain point. It’s like having lunch with a friend and they’re like, oh, hey, it’s one o’clock. Boom. It’s like they don’t know you anymore. They’re onto the next thing they’re processor. And then the last quadrant is the person that’s unscheduled and future orient and they’re dreamers. And so it’s entrepeneurs. If you’re not a planner, you will tend to be a dreamer and unfortunate. Those are the entrepreneurs that typically are not as productive as the planner because they’re always casting a vision. And so they really need people on their team that can make those visions come true, that can get concrete in that. But that was that little skated over that pretty quickly here to give you insight into these four time styles. But that was the game changer for us. And so we have a full chapter built on that in this book. Your time starved marriage. And by the way, people can go to lesandleslie.com to find this book in his her workbook set as well. But that little insight of your time style was such a gift to our own relationship. There’s a school of thought and psychology that says awareness is curative. In other words, once you’re aware of something, then you can do something about it. And that’s what this did for us. It was just like looking in the mirror, like, oh, I never saw it that way before. And I always used to get frustrated with Leslie because she wasn’t more scheduled. Well, she’s a gift to this relationship of our marriage because she’s not scheduled. Right. She has something as iron sharpens iron problems, says we help each other become more whole and healthy. And so anyway, does that make sense? [00:35:29][222.6]
Rusty: [00:35:31] Totally makes a lot of sense. And, you know, we’ll link something to the book on our site so our listeners can go back and get that. I think knowing where you are. Many years ago, someone said to me that especially in our marriages and our relationships, it’s the commonalities, the common that brings us together. It’s the differences that keep it interesting. And I think what you’ve given there in those four quadrants is we need to know where we are. We need to know where our spouses so that we can see the differences and the commonalities. And I’m going to make sure that I start to practice a better one minute. I’ll have to tell my wife that you recommended it because I just come in tomorrow and do that. She’s gonna go, okay, what have you done? [00:36:11][39.6]
Les: [00:36:18] It’s got to become a habit. Write a routine. You often talk about carving a new groove into a relationship. We tell newlyweds, you know, choose your ruts carefully because you’re gonna be in them for a long time. Right. But this is a way to carve a new groove into a relationship no matter how long you’ve been married. But I love that little quip that you say, because it is those commonalities that bring us together. The differences that make it interesting. But it’s also those differences that can drive us apart, of course. And that’s why it comes back to intention once you are aware. Then you get intentional by doing things like practicing the single minute that matters most in your marriage and those kinds of things less. [00:36:56][37.9]
William: [00:36:57] William here, thanks so much for joining us. I feel like we’re just getting started and we might have to beg you for some more of your time later. But as we do come to the close of our episode, one of the things we love to just ask all of our listeners, if you wouldn’t mind just letting us in a little bit to where God has you right now, what he might be teaching you simply in the scriptures, there are a verse or lesson or a, you know, part of the word of God that may be coming alive to you in a new wave in today or in the season, a life that you would mind share with our listeners. [00:37:26][29.3]
Les: [00:37:28] Yeah. There’s so many different places I can go with that. I mentioned that one of them is it just keeps coming back to me. It comes out of Ephesians where Paul talks again and again about experiencing the breadth and depth of God’s love and the extravagant dimensions of Christ. Love says in the message. And that really is the starting point for all of us. Entrepreneurs are not that struggle with having healthy relationships. And I got to tell you, there’s some entrepreneurs. They’re just incredible salespeople. Right. And they’re so smooth with other people, but they can still have rocky relationships because they’re in sales mode. There’s other the. We all have different ways of being entrepreneurs, and they’re all have risks of kind of faltering on the relationship front. And so I mentioned that to say, when you come back to wanting to build healthy relationships, it comes back to really understanding not just with your head, but with your heart, feeling that deep in your bones and your spirit that God loves you. If you’re the only person on the planet to love and that’s not a new insight for me, it’s one that I can to come back to because it’s new every day to keep saying that. And even in this conversation, one of you said, well, I know that’s not the best way to do it. I feel guilty about that. God loves you as if you’re the only person on the planet to love. And our next book is called Healthy Me, Healthy US. And remember, I told you we had a course on our campus for a while. For 20 years or so. Relationships, one to one. Yeah. And on the very first night of that course, we tell these students there’s no pop quiz, there’s no midterm, there’s no final. Because the pass fail course. But we tell them on the very first night, we want you to write down at least one single sentence. What do you take any notes the rest of the semester? At least write down this single sentence. And we tell them that will revolutionize the relationships and their sentences. This if you try to build intimacy or a connection with another person before you’ve done the difficult work of getting healthy, getting whole on your own. All your fishing ships become an attempt to complete yourself and it easily requires three or four times. Well, yeah, at least that’s a good example of that compulsion for a completion that you complete me is such a misnomer. It’s great. It’s a romantic thing to say, but if you really buy into that, this person can complete you. You’re setting yourself up for serious heartache. Nobody can do that because ultimately your compulsion for completion is in that relationship. Father, not with this other person that. Sure, they may help you on the path to wholeness, but it’s not their job. And so many of us get so frustrated in a marriage relationship because we think this person is supposed to do that for us. This goes to make up for all and lacking at least an unconscious level. And so we lean on each other and it looks romantic at the beginning, but then we start to pound down on each other. And hey, I thought you were so if you were good husband through that wife, you do this for me. And so I’m passionate about that these days is helping people really get healthy themselves because this is a big aha for me. At least your relationships can only be as healthy. As you are, therefore, the most important thing you’ll ever do for your relationships, whether it’s your marriage or your colleagues at work or the people in the church board that you serve with or even a stranger. The most important thing you will ever do in your relationships is work on who you are in the context of them. [00:40:57][208.3]
[00:40:57] And like I said, for me, that begins with standing firm on how incredible God’s love is to us.
